The three levels of giving || Acharya Prashant, on Rumi (2016)
Video Information: Shabdyog session, 21.08.2016, Ramana Maharshi Kendra, New Delhi, India
Context:
~ What does Rumi want to say about the levels?
~ How to understand the Rumi rightly?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Context:
~ What does Rumi want to say about the levels?
~ How to understand the Rumi rightly?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Transcript
00:00 Here is something from Rumi.
00:11 Before death takes away what you are given, give away what there is to give.
00:22 The question says that statements like these are interpreted as being pleasure aversive
00:30 and we already are pain aversive.
00:37 So together it means being life aversive.
00:43 Is Rumi really talking about being life aversive?
00:50 Giving is the key word.
00:56 Let's go close to it and understand it.
01:07 Giving happens at three different levels.
01:20 All three are connected to each other, yet there is a dimensional difference between
01:28 the three.
01:33 The three appear to be progressively leading to each other, yet there is also a quantum
01:40 jump from the first to the second and the second to the third.
01:47 The first kind of the giving is the giving that we are all very familiar with.
02:00 You give somebody a hundred rupee note and then you expect in return a value of at least
02:16 hundred rupees.
02:20 And it is great if you give hundred rupees and are in return given a value of two hundred
02:30 rupees.
02:34 If you just look at the event partially, then giving is happening.
02:40 Is it not?
02:43 You are giving something.
02:46 Similarly, we give gifts to each other.
02:53 We give compliments to each other.
02:58 We give advices to each other.
03:02 We even give help to each other.
03:06 We see that happening all around us.
03:09 What is common between all these types of giving?
03:19 We are talking about the first level of giving.
03:21 What is common between all these types of giving?
03:31 Giving to someone else and expectations of a return.
03:40 Now what kind of return do you expect?
03:46 When you give something to somebody, what do you expect in return?
03:57 Something of value at least or do you expect something valueless?
04:05 Be with me.
04:06 Do you expect something valueless or something that you deem as worthy?
04:14 Who decides whether what you are getting in return is indeed valuable?
04:20 You decide.
04:21 So you are the one who decides that you are giving away something that has value.
04:27 Let's say a note or a compliment and you are also the one who decides that what you are
04:34 getting in return too is valuable.
04:37 Correct?
04:39 Who is this you?
04:41 Who is this me?
04:43 Who decides what to give and what to get and whether to give and whether to get and whether
04:51 the given and taken has value?
04:53 Who is this entity that decides all this?
05:01 That entity is called the ego.
05:05 The ego is interested in its own nourishment.
05:15 So whenever it enters into a transaction with the world, whenever it enters into a transaction
05:25 in a relationship, its objective is always to enhance itself, which means that if it
05:34 is giving 100, it wants 150 in return.
05:40 This is our normal day to day giving, which appears like giving, but is actually a business
05:48 transaction in which the ego wants to benefit and hence enhance itself.
05:55 Are you getting?
05:58 If you give something, but get something in return, which the ego does not like, then
06:08 you will say that this is not a fair transaction.
06:15 Take an extreme example.
06:21 Let's say you have become habituated to substance abuse, drugs.
06:33 You take 1000 rupees and you give it to a drug peddler and what you get from him instead
06:41 is some sane advice and a copy of the Upanishads, an entire set of the principal Upanishads.
06:55 That's what he gives you the moment you hand over your 1000 bucks to him.
07:00 Will you say that you have been given a fair deal?
07:10 Would you?
07:11 No, because the ego wants only that what the ego values, not which is absolutely valuable.
07:21 It has to be valuable in relation to the ego's configuration.
07:29 I want that which I think is good for me.
07:34 Even if what you are giving me is beautiful advice and a copy of the scriptures, yet I
07:42 reject it because I do not value it because this is not what I expected.
07:53 Give me that which I want.
07:59 As must be evident, this kind of giving is extremely harmful for the giver himself because
08:13 it is not giving at all.
08:20 The giver says I will decide what I want in return and that is a part of my freedom.
08:28 Who are you to advise the Upanishads to me?
08:33 I put the note on the table and I said that against this note, I want my share of drugs
08:46 and it's my freedom to want and get what I want to get.
08:56 That's what the ego calls its conditioning as.
09:01 What does the ego call its conditioning as?
09:04 Freedom.
09:05 Don't you see that it is my individual free will to decide what I want to get.
09:13 And if you do not give me what I have decided I must have, then I'll say that I am being
09:20 oppressed.
09:23 Then I will say that I am being exploited.
09:31 That my wish is not being honored.
09:34 Have you not heard that often?
09:37 Yes?
09:38 Why are you not honoring my wish?
09:43 The ego will not look back at itself and ask is your wish worthy of being honored?
09:55 That it will not say because if it says that, then it gets weakened.
10:03 The power of ego lies in its self-ignorance.
10:11 The more the ego is ignorant about itself, the more power it has.
10:18 The more it comes to know of itself, the weaker it becomes.
10:24 So it won't look at itself.
10:27 This is the first level of giving.
10:32 The second level of giving is when the ego gets tired of its own stupidity and says there
10:47 must be something missing in the way I consider the world.
11:01 There has to be something foolish about my own ways.
11:10 I'm tired of getting hurt again and again.
11:16 Getting tired of getting hurt is a rare happening.
11:23 Man is extremely resilient.
11:24 We keep on getting hurt again and again and again and again at the same place and yet
11:31 we are hardly ever tired of repeating the same processes, the same actions that bring
11:41 us to hurt.
11:44 So it is only by grace, only by some miraculous interference of the beyond that the ego sees
12:04 that its ways are inimical to its own good.
12:14 And when the ego sees that it is acting as its own enemy, then it gives up something.
12:23 This is the second level of giving.
12:25 What does it give up?
12:30 It gives up its confidence in itself.
12:34 In other words, you can say it gives up itself.
12:41 I no longer trust myself as the authority.
12:47 I no longer place my faith in myself.
12:57 I do not know what is beyond me.
13:02 But what is certain is that if I act as per myself, then I will get only that which I
13:12 have been getting so far and what I have been getting so far hurts so badly.
13:20 I do not want to continue anymore on this road.
13:24 I have been through it so many times with the same result.
13:31 I do not want that result any further.
13:37 I give up my ways.
13:40 I give up the energy that I invest into being myself.
13:47 I will no longer proudly declare I am what I am.
13:54 I will no longer proudly brandish a slogan that reads, "Be yourself."
14:05 I don't want to be myself.
14:08 The fellow at stage one not only wants to be himself, but is actually greatly proud
14:17 of being himself.
14:20 The fellow in stage two says, "What's so great about being myself?"
14:30 Now this is quite interesting because the one who didn't know what was happening, the
14:46 one who was his own enemy, was happy with being his own enemy, he would say, "I'm
14:55 alright as I am."
14:58 And the one who is now turning into his friend, into his well-wisher, the one who is saying,
15:07 "No more suffering, no more hurt, please."
15:12 He is now no more so proud of being himself.
15:17 Are you seeing this?
15:25 So at this level, there is negation.
15:30 At the second level, there is negation.
15:34 Negation of what one has conventionally stood for.
15:39 Negation of what one has thought the world to be.
15:47 You can call it a stage of demolition.
15:54 The old patterns are seen as worthless and hence given up.
16:03 The old ways of relating with the world, with institutions, with society, with people are
16:12 seen as unwise and hence given up.
16:18 Yes, Rumi says, "Give away what there is to give."
16:26 And we are going into the thing about giving.
16:33 Yes, so in the first level, the ego gives.
16:42 The ego gives and this giving is of a nature that strengthens the ego.
16:50 In the second level, the ego gives up its trust in itself and hence gets diminished.
17:03 The ego itself gets diminished.
17:04 In the first level, it was getting enhanced.
17:08 Now it is getting diminished.
17:12 But still, the ego remains.
17:19 Not only does the ego remain, but all that the ego can still know is that which is not
17:30 good for itself.
17:34 It knows that the ego itself is not good.
17:40 So the process is of dropping, giving up.
17:49 Then there comes a third stage.
17:54 In the third stage, giving up does not happen.
18:01 The third stage is of pure giving.
18:06 This giving is of the nature of radiation.
18:12 Just like the sun gives light.
18:17 The sun does not give up light.
18:23 Once you have let go of that which you have been unnecessarily holding, then something
18:37 else flows through you.
18:40 Then you become a center that gives a lot, gives a lot and yet is never tired of giving.
18:54 You become a well that is replenished by an infinite ocean.
19:10 So you can let the whole world draw from you and yet you do not reduce.
19:21 Rumi says before death takes away what you are given, give away what there is to give.
19:33 Therefore, this body is no more.
19:45 Come to that point which gives meaning to life and the ultimate meaning, the ultimate
19:59 purpose of life is to be able to express your essence, your heart.
20:11 That is what we indicated by the sun.
20:21 Life is not about struggling to gain as happens in the first stage.
20:33 Put in effort and demand returns.
20:38 That's not what life is about.
20:42 Life is about coming to the point where you do not need much and hence are in a position
20:53 to express that which you already have.
20:59 Self-expression is the highest kind of giving.
21:04 When you really express that which you are, not which you have been told to believe in,
21:14 when you really express that which you are, then you are of benefit to the entire world.
21:25 When you are at that point where the Upanishads say that even when the whole manifests the
21:40 whole, yet the whole remains the whole.
21:46 Anybody here who remembers it in Sanskrit?
21:55 Just the second line, not the first one.
22:01 Yes.
22:03 Pūrṇasya pūrṇamādāya pūrṇamevāvaśiṣyate |
22:13 Pūrṇasya from the total, pūrṇamādāya, when the total is expressed, pūrṇam eva avaśiṣyate
22:28 the total still remains as the residue.
22:37 This is the giving that Rumi is really referring to.
22:46 Express yourself totally and only the total in you can express itself totally.
22:57 Your conditioned parts will remain what they are, parts.
23:04 They will never be able to capture the totality that you are.
23:12 And those who have known have kept on telling us, unless you fully express yourself, you
23:19 will not come to peace.
23:22 Till the point you keep on playing safe and suppressing yourself, you will not come to
23:34 peace.
23:42 Rumi is imploring, before death comes to you, conquer the fear of death.
23:59 Before death comes to you, come to know of immortality.
24:08 Before you die, live into immortality.
24:17 Before you die, come to the third level of giving.
24:27 The first level is giving to gain.
24:32 The second level is giving up.
24:39 And the third level is giving as bliss.
24:45 Pure giving.
24:52 And it cannot be called giving because giving as we know always follows a certain arithmetic.
25:02 And that arithmetic is that when you give away two units, you are left deficient by
25:08 two units.
25:12 In the third level, you give away two units, yet you remain what you are.
25:23 You give away everything, yet you have what you are.
25:32 In fact, it is possible that giving helps you know that you have more than what you
25:45 could have ever thought.
25:49 Giving in that sense does not reduce what you have, instead reveals what you have.
26:01 The arithmetic of our world says, you give and you reduce.
26:12 The arithmetic of truth says, you give and the truth is revealed.
26:25 But remember, this kind of giving cannot be a motivated giving.
26:35 You cannot say I am giving in order to prove that I have a lot or in order to prove that
26:44 I am already at level three.
26:51 Because if you are trying to prove that, then you are just at level one.
26:57 You are trying still to swell up in pride.
27:04 You want to claim that I am spiritually accomplished.
27:15 Giving at level three is like the song of the little wild bird.
27:24 Everyone who comes to hear of that song feels fresh, feels great, comes to connect with
27:33 a certain mystical beauty.
27:37 But the bird is not deliberately trying to please anybody.
27:43 The bird is singing its own song for its own reasons.
27:49 The reasons are existential, not personal.
27:57 The song of the bird is related to the sun, the song of the bird is related to the winds.
28:07 The song of the bird is not really related to the person of the bird.
28:15 Such is the giving at the highest level.
28:18 You sing and your singing is not something particular.
28:27 Your breath is a song, your word is a song, your actions are your songs.
28:35 In whatever you do, you are radiating your song and your song is filling up the universe,
28:45 illuminating it in a thousand unplanned ways.
28:51 You don't even come to know how your giving is helping the universe.
28:57 But it indeed is.
29:00 If somebody asks the bird, how many people were benefited by your morning song, would
29:07 the bird be able to tell?
29:11 If somebody asks the cloud, so how many leaves were washed by your drops today, would the
29:20 clouds be able to tell?
29:24 Such is the giving at the highest level.
29:27 You give and you do not even bother to know who is benefiting and whether somebody is
29:34 benefiting.
29:35 All you know is that giving is your nature and is hence inevitable.
29:44 Strictly speaking, your giving is not for others.
29:52 It is not for others because you have lost trust in otherness.
29:59 What do you mean by others?
30:01 The cloud sees itself and the soil as one.
30:05 So when the cloud rains upon the soil, it is only giving something to itself, not to
30:15 others.
30:16 It is from the soil that the cloud rises.
30:19 So when the cloud rains on the soil, how can the cloud claim that it is raining on the
30:25 other or giving to the other?
30:34 It is not even for yourself because had it been for yourself, it would have been for
30:44 your own small personal petty reasons and the yourself is always aligned against the
30:56 world.
30:57 The relationship is always of conflict.
31:04 It is neither for others nor for yourself that you give.
31:09 You just give meaninglessly, purposelessly, reasonlessly.
31:16 You don't even give.
31:18 You are just being what you really are and that which you are is the light of the universe.
31:36 In the first stage, the light does not know itself and hence becomes an advocate of darkness.
31:47 In the second stage, the light gradually begins to dust off all the rubbish that has accumulated
32:00 over it.
32:03 In the third stage, there is just light.
32:15 The word giving starts becoming redundant.
32:21 Who is giving and whom to give?
32:27 Even to be a giver, I'll have to be somebody.
32:31 I have no interest in being somebody anymore.
32:34 To give to somebody else, I'll have to believe that the somebody else is different from me.
32:42 I do not know who I am.
32:44 How do I come to see the other as separate from the one that I am?
32:55 No interest is left in defining myself.
33:00 No interest is left in creating boundaries between me and the other.
33:11 I just give.
33:18 And when you just start giving, since you are giving to yourself, you start receiving
33:26 a lot.
33:33 But let not the greed of receiving become the motive of giving.
33:39 It happens with the businessman and it also happens with the religious man.
33:46 The businessman says put in 100 rupees as an investment and you will receive 200.
33:53 And the religious man says donate 100 rupees and you will receive 200 rupees worth of credit
34:06 of virtues.
34:10 Abstract it might be, but still I get it.
34:17 My account of moral virtues has been credited by 200 rupees.
34:28 There is no difference between these two.
34:30 None of them are really a giver in the real sense.
34:39 Alluring is the tale of the highest level of giving.
34:46 It has a great unknowable mystic beauty about it.
34:54 But more useful to most of us is the second stage of giving, not the third one.
35:04 Simply because most of us live at the first stage.
35:14 Give that up which is really not needed.
35:18 Give that up which is not useful to you.
35:29 When you find the mind carrying stuff, people, images, memories, thoughts, worries, plans,
35:44 ask yourself, are they really indispensable?
35:49 Can't I live without the mind stuff?
35:56 And if there is something that you can live without, then surely you must live without
36:02 it.
36:08 If there is something that you can do without, then carrying that thing is just a burden.
36:19 And who likes to carry burdens?
36:21 Do you?
36:23 I don't.
36:27 What you call as spiritual growth is nothing but a giving up of the unnecessary.
36:36 And whatever is unnecessary will always lead to suffering.
36:42 Nothing else is suffering.
36:45 Giving weightage, value, currency to that which is not needed, which is peripheral,
36:56 incidental, that is suffering.
37:02 That is stage two.
37:08 I welcome you, rather I accompany you to stage two.
37:15 Willing to walk with me?
37:22 The gates are always open.
37:30 Would help a lot of us drop some weight.
37:35 It's quite unnecessary.
37:36 And I'm with you.
37:47 The question had said, is Rumi being life ever?
37:52 I hope that has been answered.
37:58 Rumi is talking really neither about pleasure nor about pain.
38:11 He is talking about that which we think ourselves to be and that which we really are.
38:21 He is talking about the climax of life.
38:23 He is talking about that which brings liveliness to living.
38:31 What is the point in living like the dead?
38:37 Yes.
38:39 Wouldn't you want to come alive before this body dies?
38:47 Yes.
38:49 Or is even that boring?
39:00 So tremendously bored we are with everything that even an invitation to get rid of boredom
39:07 sounds boring.
39:08 The question is, why is Rumi talking this language?
39:34 The question is by saying before you die, is he not instilling the fear of death in
39:43 our minds?
39:44 No, he is not putting the fear of death in your mind.
39:52 Your mind is already afraid of death and Rumi is just exposing or at worst exploiting that
40:05 fear.
40:06 To whom are these words said?
40:11 When Rumi is saying this, to whom is he talking?
40:21 He is talking to people who are at level one, level two.
40:30 These are the levels of the ego.
40:33 At these levels, there obviously is fear.
40:39 We said at level one, the ego wants to accumulate and enhance itself.
40:44 Now why does the ego want this security?
40:49 Why?
40:50 Because it is always afraid.
40:54 Even at level two, the ego is giving something up.
41:00 Why?
41:01 Because it is seeing that life is being wasted and it does not like that.
41:08 So fear is anyway there in our minds.
41:13 Given the way we are, fear is our reality.
41:17 Wherever there is body identification, there would also parallelly be the fear of the loss
41:25 of the body and we all are beings that are body identified.
41:32 That is simple and Rumi is talking to us.
41:37 So he is saying before this body is lost, come to see that which this body is for.
41:54 We anyway deal in fears, right?
41:57 Where we stand, we need motives.
42:01 We say we will do something if it is beneficial for me.
42:09 So benefit and loss, that is the language that we deal in.
42:14 You look at your daily activities, you look at what you have done over the last one month
42:18 or one year and you find anything that has been done purposelessly.
42:27 Everything is done for a purpose, for a reason, with the expectation of gain and where there
42:33 is the expectation of gain, there is also the parallel fear of loss.
42:40 Because Rumi is talking to us, hence he must remind us that if you are so afraid of death,
42:48 then why don't you first taste immortality before you indulge in other actions arising
42:58 out of fear of death.
43:02 Because an action that arises from fear can never eliminate fear.
43:09 It is quite strange, our actions arise from fear and all actions are done to reduce the
43:22 fear but whatever arises from fear can never reduce fear.
43:28 So Rumi is saying before you do anything else, why don't you take care of that which you
43:36 are anyway desperate for.
43:43 Before you indulge in driving your car through the valleys, why don't you first take care
43:57 of the flat tyre?
44:00 Because with the flat tyre you will anyway not be able to enjoy the valleys.
44:09 Take care of the first in the first place.
44:15 Do not let the disease guide your actions.
44:22 Rather the first action should be to eliminate the disease and these are the only two ways
44:28 of living.
44:31 Some people maintain the disease and let the disease guide their actions.
44:40 The others say that only one action is needed and that action is to get rid of the disease.
44:48 The disease here is the fear, fear of death or otherwise.
44:52 Is that alright?
44:55 Sir, going back to the three stages of living, is it important to go through hard and suffering
45:09 to reach the same stage?
45:12 Is it not possible that all the three stages exist in the same person at different times
45:21 of day?
45:22 It's possible.
45:23 It's not only possible, it happens.
45:25 That's how it happens.
45:27 But you see, the one who is asking this question is a creature of time.
45:36 What will you do with one infrequent, rare flash of awareness that everybody gets?
45:50 Everybody is so unfortunate that he never gets to see the truth.
45:56 The truth is so inexorable that you cannot ever totally avoid it.
46:05 So two minutes in a day, you would definitely find yourself called.
46:13 But what will you do with those two minutes?
46:15 You are a creature of time.
46:19 What matters to you is time.
46:21 Two minutes are just too little.
46:25 Are you getting it?
46:29 Just by serendipity, fortunate chance, everybody gets these two minutes of peace, of realization.
46:39 But that doesn't help because you are not yet prepared to give that a permanent place
46:47 in your mind.
46:49 Or to put it more precisely, your mind is not yet prepared to take a permanent place
46:57 in the truth.
47:00 So all it gets is window shopping.
47:05 It comes to see, but it never comes to be owned.
47:13 Those two minutes are an invitation.
47:15 Of course, they exist parallelly with the other humdrum affairs of life.
47:21 Of course, they exist parallelly with the other 23 hours and 58 minutes.
47:27 But would you be contented with just two minutes?
47:34 Don't those two minutes of level three actually exacerbate your thirst?
47:42 Would they make you even more restless?
47:47 Had you known that nothing like level three exists, then probably life would have been
47:52 easier for you.
47:55 Had you known that nothing like contentment or peace exists, then life would have been
48:00 easier for you.
48:02 But peace has a way of barging in.
48:10 Contentment has its own mind to intrude into your life.
48:19 They are terrible trespassers, all of them.
48:22 Freedom, simplicity, truth, love.
48:26 They don't wait for your sanction.
48:31 They come to show their charm and they are infectious.
48:41 They are an affliction, almost like a disease.
48:48 Once you have tasted that, no hope is left for you.
48:54 You cannot be redeemed.
48:55 Have you not heard that one, "Mainu Ishq da lagaya rog"?
48:59 It's a disease.
49:01 You are infected now.
49:04 And the virus is very potent.
49:07 It breaches through all your defenses, your immunity.
49:13 And it gives you your two minutes of enlightenment daily.
49:21 But those two minutes do not suffice.
49:23 They leave you crazy for more.
49:26 Don't they?
49:31 So if you know level three, even if glimpses of it, then that's an invitation and an opportunity
49:44 to move into that level.
49:46 Kindly do not use that as an excuse.
49:50 Do not say that since all the three levels coexist, hence there is no need to get rid
50:00 of the first and the second.
50:03 The third coexists with the two only to show the needlessness of the two.
50:12 The third does not peacefully coexist with the first and the second.
50:19 The third coexists with the first and the second as their nemesis, as their solvent.
50:28 If the third has come, the first and the second must go.
50:36 And there is nobody here who has no taste of the third, the truth.
50:41 That's our chance. Yes?
50:58 [music]