You must agree to take a bitter medicine if you want to wake up. You must relinquish all of the narrow claims of small self and live in unconditional reciprocity with circumstances just the way they are. A podcast from Satsang with Shambhavi.
FIRST WORDS FROM THE PODCAST
We have to live claimlessly. That means with no blame. Claimlessly, blamelessly, shamelessly! When we have no claims on anyone or anything, we have no claims on any circumstance. This is a very bitter pill for us to swallow. Can you even imagine living that way? That you’re just going day-by-day, moment by moment, doing whatever it is that you do with absolutely no claims on the situation. Think about what that would feel like. Just try to imagine it. You give up the claim that you have to be treated in a certain way. You give up the claim to being angry when someone doesn’t treat you how you feel you must be treated. You give up your claim to be dissatisfied and disappointed in other people. You give up your claim to be dissatisfied with yourself. You give up our claim to explaining why you are the way you are.
When you give up all those claims, you realize, it’s just your life. You are responsible for your life. You’re responsible for where you put your foot next. You’re responsible for being around the kind of people that will be nourishing for you. Other people aren’t responsible for bending to your will, being the kind of people that you want them to be so you can have some simulation of happiness.
Giving up your claim that anyone stays with you or is loyal to you. Giving up your claim that people are nice to you. Giving up your claim that it’s anybody else’s fault that you’re in whatever condition you’re in–anybody else’s fault past, present or future. Giving up your claim that there’s any fault. What are you left with when you give up all those claims? Try and do that as a thought meditation experiment. Right now, what would it be like to be living in the world with no claims? On yourself or anybody? What would you be doing? You’d just have to fucking deal with it. Whatever arose, whatever arose in your life, whatever circumstance, you’d just have to fucking deal with it.