Silence Day 2021

Another Silence Day. For the first time ever, I was aware of needing to maintain silence in my dreams and remember making at least a couple of slip ups in them. It's only mid-morning now in my waking life and so far so good. In the past, I've slipped up by speaking a word or two to my dog. Not so this morning. 

The current climate of fear makes it easier to keep silent due to the reduced opportunities for visiting people and the fewer people likely to visit. These are strange times and the need to maintain equanimity or poise is greater than ever. As Baba said:

What is spirituality? It is the undoing of what you have been doing since ages. You always thought of selfish motives for eating, preserving your life, and attending to every need with zeal. All these lives you have made a habit of looking [out for] yourself. If the slightest thing goes against your habit you are upset. Now, to undo all these selfish bindings, you have to do what you have not been doing, or not to do what you have been doing.

What you have been doing always is thinking of yourself; so now you must not think of yourself, but think of others. This is what is called love. But it needs character, poise, perseverance. Poise — what is it? That state of mind where nothing excites you, nothing upsets you. Only [if you have poise] can you help others, then only can you make others happy. That means love. Thinking not of yourself but of others.

If you are in the Sahara, and for four days you have no water to drink and all of a sudden one bottle of water appears — how do you react? If you have poise, you will let your companion drink and not mind dying and letting her live. But if you fight and grab for it, you lack poise and spirituality. It is this poise that makes you sacrifice and [make] others happy.

I just reread my post of December 25th 2020 titled Complete Detachment. In that post, I wrote:

As humanity heads into a dystopian future, it's not all bad news. If it lived in a utopia, the incentives for individuals to turn inward would be minimal. In a utopia, the lure of attachments draws the individual away from the inner life and makes detachment difficult. The growing dystopia that humanity is now entering poses the danger that individuals will actively shun the world and retreat into isolation, cynicism and misanthropy. 

In our pre-Covid world, we were attached to travel, socialisation and an illusion of freedom. Suddenly that was taken away and severe restrictions were placed on travel and socialisation. The illusion of freedom was cruelly shattered. For some, this was accepted as the necessary price for combating and controlling a dangerous pathogen. For others, like myself, who understand what is really going on, acceptance is not easy. 

It's tempting to be drawn into the great divide that is opening up within humanity between those who accept what is happening and those who do not accept it. Amongst the former is the belief that governments and the medical establishment are doing the best they can for us. If we just cooperate, we'll get through these trying times and, while things will never return to the way they were, things will at least get better.

For those who do not accept what is happening, reactions are mixed. Some want to resist. Others are resigned to the "sound of inevitability" as Agent Smith put it in the original Matrix movie. Whether an individual embraces opposition, withdrawal, resignation, acceptance or cooperation, there is in each case attachment. It's difficult not to take a side or choose a position. The powers-that-ought-not-to-be know this and exploit it, playing different sides off against one another.

It's not easy to remain detached. Retreating into "isolation, cynicism and misanthropy" is not detachment but instead it is a very powerful form of attachment. The fact that our former way of life has disappeared should remind us how illusory it really was to begin with. The freedoms that we thought were our God-given right were snatched away or willingly surrendered by the muzzled masses. These freedoms were not God-given after all but granted by our benign overlords.

Worldly-wise, things have gotten worse since I wrote those lines, making detachment even more difficult, and things are going to get far worse. The abnegation of basic human rights is chastening for the egos of those who realise the game plan of the cabal but seem powerless to oppose it. The spiritual aspirant must learn the learn the lesson that the ego is nothing but now even the non-spiritually inclined are learning that lesson as they are trampled underfoot by the fascist boot of the State.

What is the difference between squished under the fascist jackboot and being dust at the feet of the master? Someone who has been reduced to dust at the feet of the master has had their ego crushed by a spiritual master who has the enlightenment of the disciple as the goal. It is a very personal process between master and disciple. Someone who is being squished under the fascist jackboot is a victim of an impersonal process that is spiritually barren and that seeks to enslave and not liberate.

Humanity is currently being herded into a spiritually barren future and all we can do is to nourish our spiritual roots so that we do not wither and die. Baba of course saw where humanity was headed and it was not his intention to see a spiritual winter descend over the Earth only a few decades after he dropped his body. A spiritual flowering will occur but Baba, as Lord and Master of the Universe, works in mysterious ways and we can only hope and wait, and not lose faith in Him.

In these trying times, when the evil forces seeking to control the world have come out of the shadows, it's more important than ever to cling to Baba's daaman and not let go. It's easy to fall prey to despair and depression unless we constantly remember Him. Jai Baba!