“The world is a mess. We are a mess. This is just the way it is. There is nothing we can do. It hurts, but there is nothing that can be done”. All of these are normal statements and concerns expressed everywhere, by all sorts of people. Yet for most of us, “concern” will be as far as we go.
You may argue that you have no power, no venue, no access to anyone, and when you have in fact put forth your voice in concern absolutely no one comes back and nothing is done.
It all appears hopeless, and from a worldly perspective it may be. So why am I writing about this? Why am I even bringing up the discomfort of the hurt, the powerlessness and the hopelessness?
Because there is something we can do. It may be too late to change the current tide, but if we all participate it can change the environment and prevent a future filled with living nightmares for so many of us.
If each of us stopped reacting and resonating, and instead began responding from the Heart, the world would appear to shift. In fact, we would be seeing for the first time the openings for Love. Different choices would begin to arise. These opportunities have always been there; we just were not aware of them.
In Dante’s Hell, no one moves. Each inhabitant of Hell stays in one place, either completely immobile or going in eternal circles. In his journey, Dante comes upon the damned, and from the place of their punishment they share their stories. Dante then moves on. In Purgatory, everyone is moving toward Paradise. Everyone will get to Paradise because they have admitted their sins. By admitting their sins, they acknowledge their accountability, which means they have agency. Not until we admit that we have agency can we move forward. So in Purgatory everyone reaps what is there for them and then they move on to Paradise, where all is pure and filled with the Bliss of God. All three places are here on the physical plane: Hell is tamasic (inert and dark), Purgatory is rajasic (active and painful), and Paradise is sattvic (still and bright).
As long as we identify as victims—victims of our environment, victims of any kind—we have no agency and therefore we are in Hell. As reactors and resonators, we forfeit our agency. Once we respond appropriately by being a conscious participant in the world drama, we get out of Hell and begin the long road of Purgatory through consciously reaping what we have sown and practicing right action. Finally, as pure agents of God, we reach Paradise. All this can happen right here on earth. But in order to live heaven on earth, we have to give up what keeps us in Hell, what keeps pulling us back down into Hell.
The Yoga Sūtras tell us the same thing. When, out of ignorance, we wrongly identify, we lose our Real subjectivity; then, based on this mistaken identity, we are either attracted to or repulsed by what we encounter. We then cling to this way of life. Our wrong identity is only an object, a collection of vibrations—not who we truly are. When we are attracted to something or someone, we resonate with their vibration; when we are repulsed, we react against their vibration.
Resonating is not empathizing, is not being kind or compassionate, is not connecting, is not fitting in, is not being appropriate. Reacting is not standing up for ourselves or sharing our true voice.
Resonating is all about vibrations and sharing them. As children, we internalize the vibrations around us, and we either resonate with them or react against them. We end up building a collection of tuning forks within us that vibrate automatically. When we resonate with another person, what we feel is really our own vibration, not the other person’s; there are two tuning forks humming the same note.
We resonate because we do not want to be ourselves. We unconsciously abandon ourselves to the frequency of the moment. This self-abandonment becomes our strategy for meeting and connecting with others. We decide that sensitive people are connecting with us and we with them, but in truth we have no core, nor do they. Who we “are” at a given moment is our vibration at that moment.
The opposite of resonating is being self-contained and inwardly clear. As I have said before, only in this state can we respond appropriately. People committed to resonating will regard this as being disconnected, when in fact no real connection is possible without it.
| Resonating | Self-contained |
| Connected | Disconnected |
The uncomfortable truth is that resonating is really love full of hate, not real Love or compassion. By resonating with others, we perpetuate our deep-seated self-loathing. In abandoning ourselves, we abandon everyone else—even the people we convince ourselves we are “connecting” with. Only when we are coming from our core and not lost in vibrations can we truly empathize. Agape comes from the stillness of the Heart, not from resonating.
Resonating can be a beginning in the Guru/disciple relationship, but it must not last. The Guru/disciple relationship is the disciple surrendering into the groundwater where the Guru dwells. Many people around Baba did not surrender to the Real; they wanted to be enlightened small selves. As a result, they only resonated with Baba’s shakti, so that when Baba was gone they were left with nothing but memories. They then moved on to resonate with others. As disciples, we should have agency; after all, the Guru’s job is to make the disciple the Guru. Baba always said, “You have to have a strong, healthy ego to be able to surrender it”.
Please let us all join as accountable agents in stilling evil, in illuminating the darkness that turns all Love into twisted, tortured love. Hate is abundant and thriving, disguised as righteousness, caring, knowing the way, without any questioning or reflecting or agency. So sure, so emotional and so empty.
As we approach the anniversary of Baba’s Mahāsamādhi, the world needs us to have agency. Using that power to choose and act, we must surrender consciously, with all our hearts, to God and Guru, so that we can all take our place in Paradise as the only true agent, the Self of All.
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