You Do Not Have to Act Weird If You Have Had Realization
Coming back to the flight scenario — you know how a cabin crew behaves. They are polite. Gentle. Their responses are defined. Their mannerisms are defined. This applies to all professions for that matter — how lawyers behave in a court, how doctors behave in a hospital, how policemen behave.
Is that how they behave at home, with their family? What happens if they behave in the same manner at home?
Their behaviour at work has functional significance. Limited, appropriate functional significance. What if they start to believe that that is the way they should behave everywhere? That is the only way to behave? Then you are lost in Maya. Maya is that limited functional existence — and to know that there is more to life beyond it, there is more outside of it — is your first step towards realization.
You don’t need to act bizarre or strange or weird and say that this is all an illusion, there is no heat or cold, there are no friends, there is no mother, father. In the functional world, they all exist. They all need to exist. As long as you know it is a movie, there is no harm watching a movie. The problem is when you start believing that only the movie exists and nothing else. There is no world outside the movie hall.
You can still live very well in the functional world — laugh, cry, earn, save, spend, take care, be taken care of, love, hate (hate the evil). This is all acceptable. Have that seed inside you — that the world is far more than all this. Have that seed. It will grow on its own, by the mercy of Sri Hari.
एते भिन्नदृशां दैत्या विकल्पाः कथिता मया
कृत्वाभ्युपगमं तत्र संक्षेपः श्रूयतां मम
विस्तारः सर्वभूतस्य विष्णोः सर्वमिदं जगत्
द्रष्टव्यमात्मवत्तस्मादभेदेन विचक्षणैः
This entire universe is an expansion of Vishnu — you, me, everything. Your vision should be such that you should be seeing everything as yourself.
Your sense of identity is a very flexible thing, you know.
We can identify ourselves with almost anything depending on the situation. This is because you really don’t have one identity.
When you are sitting with your family in a restaurant, it is us, the four or five of us, and them, the rest of the world.
When you are sitting with a group of ladies, it is us ladies and them gents.
Or us gents and them ladies.
When you are sitting with the alumni of your college or school, even your spouse or son is an outsider.
When you are in Delhi with a person from Kerala, another from Karnataka, and another from Andhra, then you are all one group — us South Indians and them North Indians.
Back home in Chennai, they become those Keralites or those Andhrites and those Kannadigas.
Sitting in Calcutta, the Tamilian would reach out to his Kannadiga neighbour and share the special dish cooked.
Back in the South, they would criticize and hate each other over sharing river water.
That is our sense of identity — absolutely contextual. In a way, good. Good that it is not very rigid.
Not rigid — so it can change. But this flexibility is also a disadvantage. Flexibility leads to uncertainty, doubt.
You can’t decide for yourself what is your true identity.
Follow what our sages teach us:
द्रष्टव्यमात्मवत्तस्मादभेदेन विचक्षणैः
See everything as yourself. There is nothing other than you. Tat tvam asi. You are that Brahma. You are everything.
समुत्सृज्यासुरं भावं तस्माद्यूयं तथा वयम्
तथा यत्नं करिष्यामो यथा प्राप्स्याम निर्वृतिम्
Let us strive to attain Nirvriti — bliss.
How?
By discarding, throwing this Asura Bhava — this attitude of demons, of them and us. This differentiation into them and us belongs to demons. So let us throw it away and work towards bliss.
सर्वत्र दैत्याः समतामुपेताः
समत्वमाराधनमच्युतस्य
This is the advice to Daityas (demons) given in Vishnu Puranam:
See everything as equal. See equality everywhere. Nothing is more or less. Nothing is superior or inferior. No one is greater or lesser.
And this equanimity comes out of the worship of Maha Vishnu — Sri Hari.
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Vishnu Sahasranama
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