We have been looking at how we repackage things to suit our small selves, and seeing that it is so sad. If we do not restrain our small selves, we only repackage. Repackaging is just another word for twisted love. We are unwilling to love openly and honestly, so we twist and repackage and then present that to the world. Yes, it is sad.
We repackage ourselves and then give that empty charade to others. We lie to ourselves first, then feed that lie to others. We perpetuate our own ignorance.
Sadhana is the practice that brings about removal of that ignorance. If we are ignorant and do not know who we are but believe we do, then sadhana is going to be uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable for the small self because this shrunken understanding believes it is the Self, who we really are. The irony is, this ignorance is enlivened by who we really are. Our wrong understanding actually has our consciousness informing it. That is why we are deluded into thinking that what we have enlivened is actually what we are. Our consciousness enlivens that which is not real.
Are you who you think you are? If yes, then…. Once we convince ourselves that we are this shrunken self, we do not want to be restricted. We want to be free. We want to be free to be “me”. No one wants to restrain the small self. We believe that the restraint of sadhana stifles who we are.
The truth is: sadhana is unsafe for the small self. When we practice there is no place for the small self. The shrunken individual wants to do whatever it wants. When we “just” practice by going into the Heart the individual feels like it is being punished. In Truth, though, there is no small self. We enliven this thing and then identify with it, so we believe we are being punished. If we had right understanding, we would know we were in fact being freed by practice.
If we believe we already know who we are, then sadhana is definitely not for us. Sadhana on all levels will feel like prison if we think we are who we think we are. In the ashram in India, when I would walk around to make sure everyone was at the chant, there would be people hiding as if the chanting were the most horrible thing they could be made to do. We were punishing these people by making them participate in activities they originally thought they wanted to do.
People ran away from the daily program; they most certainly ran from the internal practice. People thought bliss was just going to come spontaneously. After the bliss of the beginning subsided, people did not know or understand what they were supposed to do internally. The outer schedule was all they knew, and when this was not blissful then they avoided the practice, they ran from what they saw as restriction and imprisonment. So many teachers have been characterized as tyrants because they do not have their students in bliss all the time. Remember, the teacher cannot change the student. The student changes himself by following the teacher’s instructions. The practicing student is working to let go of being identified with his individuality, and so does not see practice as prison.
Once we are no longer identified with our individuality, sadhana is no longer seen as a prison. The small self then embraces the practice and surrenders willingly to its own demise.
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