(Continued from Part 1, above.)
To get what I mean by balance, imagine a scale that you weigh yourself on. The scale is pointing five pounds to the left when no one is on it. You’re annoyed. That’s not accurate.
You adjust it so that the arrow goes to zero. This is a true reading now. You’re happy again.
Similarly, when we “lose our balance” – when we venture out into the extremes of passion – we set in motion a train of events that leads to suffering. Let me let Krishna explain from a much-higher-dimensional viewpoint:
“Be angry, and you confuse your mind;
Confuse your mind, you forget the lesson of experience;
Forget experience, you lose discrimination.” (1)
And he added: “Lose discrimination, and you miss life’s only purpose.” Discrimination is what in the end will allow us to discern the Real from the unreal, which is the purpose of life. Get angry, or hateful, or violent and we lose all that.
Is that not pretty much the exact sequence of events that happens when we get triggered and go out of balance? Our choices are no longer clear. We feel confused, confronted with several alternatives that our passion flushes up for us. We feel spurred on by a seeming necessity to be decisive and make a choice now.
That’s when all the trouble starts, does it not?
We now begin acting unwisely, saying things that aren’t true, saying things that come out of our resentment, our desire to hurt another, stalling for time, etc. Feelings are hurt. Separation grows as resentment and inauthenticity grows. The gulf seems unbridgeable and things fall apart. Is that not a common scenario these days?
I make a living from passionate writing as do many other artists, musicians, etc., through their chosen professions. I know how useful passion is to creative expression and deep sharing.
But even passionate followers of a creative path are aware of the value of coming to the center – the heart – and being still and silent in the presence of the One, the Motionless, the Infinite, before starting.
To say “come to balance” is to say to come to this point of inner stillness and silence and then leave it to come into action. I cannot say I can do that very well yet, but I have the great privilege of watching it be done every day by another.
When I come to balance, I know I’ve done everything possible to heal my apparent separation from God. I’ve tamed the wild stallion. I’ve cleaned house. I’m calm. I’m able to hold to that inner stillness and silence in all circumstances.
According to Bernadette Roberts, we come to a place eventually where we can do no more and the Divine steps in:
“At a certain point, when we have done all we can [to bring about an abiding union with the divine], the divine steps in and takes over.” (2)
I’d consider a balanced person ready for God to step in and take over; i.e., ready for Ascension or even higher dimensionality.
Footnotes
(1) Sri Krishna in Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood, trans., Bhagavad-Gita. The Song of God. New York and Scarborough: New American Library, 1972; c1944, 41.
Why is the development of discrimination the only purpose of physical life? Because at the end of our lives, when the Child of God approaches the Mother/Father One for reunion and the loss of individuality, we’ll be called upon to realize that all is that One and that we are that One, and that there is nothing else besides that One.
How will we do that unless we’ve developed the ability to discern between the Real and the unreal? We will not be able to. Discernment is vital.
The ultimate skill in individuated life is to develop the ability to discern between the unreal and the Real. Love is the way – to be sure – but the ultimate goal is Self-Knowledge. God meeting God in a moment of our enlightenment. Self-Realization is the sacred purpose of all life.
Therefore the loss of discrimination through being triggered by our vasanas (the unreal) is a terrific setback. That’s why, with all respect, for the past six years here we’ve been processing vasanas online. And there is a huge library related to that subject.
We know that this is the purification stage of enlightenment. The stages can be thought of as purification, concentration, release. Only from a position of consistent balance, I believe, will we be able to fully release.
(2) Bernadette Roberts, “The Path to No-Self” in Stephan Bodian, ed. Timeless Visions, Healing Voices. Freedom, CA: Crossing Press, 1991, 131.