Last night was a heavy night. I found myself in a place where I hadn’t been from a very long time. I was moving away from it because I have always believed that life is in movement. But even when I was always moving away from it, my past hadn’t moved much. It clung to me like a weed, sucking its life from my every breath. Paying attention to it was bad, even thinking about it was bad. My past appears to me like a hot oven, one touch and I draw my hand back from it. I have been hopelessly trying to protect myself from my past. Fear of getting face to face with it stopped my energy to move ahead. Fear is nothing but a shrinking. When I am happy, I expand and engulf everybody in my happiness. When I am afraid, I shrink, I hide in my own shell. I shrink in everyway – in love, in relationships, in every way. I am afraid to go out, I become a turtle.
The fear of my past shrinks me and stops all movement of energy. I stop flowing, I am not a river anymore, but a dirty, stinking pond. I feel more and more dead everyday. Life is in contact, life is in flow, life is in movement. Fear stops everything what life is. But this is good, a natural protection. Fear has a natural use. One should remain capable of shrinking because there are moments when one needs to stop the flow. But those moments should not become one’s habitual pattern. One should not start living in that way continuously. One should be flexible, expanding, shrinking, just like breathing.
After the fear comes anger. Anger is better than fear, at least it makes my energy move, it doesn’t stops me. If you ever have to choose between fear and anger, choose anger. It will make you more dynamic, more alive. You will have some sort of contact with somebody. You may have a good fight with somebody but at least it is some sort of contact with the outer world. You will not be frozen, you will have some warmth.
Two people fall in love and decide to live together. The decision to be together should be unconditional. It should not be only if you love me, if you are sweet to me, if you are this and that to me – no. It is to be together whatsoever – sometimes sweet and sometimes very salty; sometimes very beautiful and sometimes a monster. Once you understand that, you have come to a mature love, otherwise love is only baby love. Children fall in love. They think in poetry, write poems and beautiful letters, but that’s all childish. They don’t know what life is going to be. It is a hard struggle. Because love is one of the most precious jewels, the struggle is very very hard. Only very few people achieve it.
Because of the decision to be together, don’t avoid fights, otherwise you will start creating trouble for each other. Fights are there – be true. Sometimes bursting in anger is very very beautiful. It cleanses many days’ dirt and disperses many clouds. Don’t think that because we have decided to be together now, no more anger, no more conflict, no more fight. If you try that, your love relationship will be dead. You will be together but there will be no love. Then you will start feeling afraid of each other and you will avoid any situation. The commitment will not be very deep then.
Because you have decided to be together, fear is no more there. Now you can be true and authentic to each other. Always remember that when you are trying too hard for something to happen, it may not happen. In fact, your every effort creates a tension around you. The first thing is to face all your problems boldly. It is almost hell because the whole basement has to be opened and all the nightmares brought to your consciousness, but it is a great stress reliever. You will feel so relieved because once you have understood where your problem is, you have almost solved it in a way.
We have been taught to choose, always, to choose between the two, so our minds are completely poisoned. We go on choosing, while life is a choiceless thing. Life does not depend on any choice, it simply goes on happening. You do not choose to be with someone, it happens automatically. You stay close to someone for some time and you get far. Things happen on their own, distance lessens and widens on its own, accept it and move on. One should simply be ready to accept whatsoever comes, sometimes the enemy, sometimes the friend. Pain is there, suffering is there, but just accept it.
Most importantly, accept yourself. You are you. But, somewhere deep down, you want to be like somebody, you have an ideal and then you go round in a circle which will be non ending. Every thing will be so simple if you remain you and those who truly love you will never want you to change from what you are. They will love you unconditionally in your totality. If you can accept yourself, you have learned the greatest secret of life and then everything comes on its own. There is no need to be on a different height other than you are on already. There is no need to die as someone else. A man can remain absolutely young to the very moment of death if he remains flexible. That will give you a depth of life, a qualitative life.
Today, challenge yourself to be yourself. Challenge yourself to accept your totality. Challenge yourself to face your own problems. Challenge yourself to love someone unconditionally. Challenge yourself to accept the person you love in whatever way he or she is, because once you accept a challenge, you start becoming capable of encountering it.