Nothing is more powerful than a sincere demand for self-knowledge and greater freedom. Only hitch is, most of us are not that sincere. A podcast from Satsang with Shambhavi
Podcast First Words
I’m going to read you something Swami Rudrananda wrote.
“You have to make up your mind whether you really wish to grow, whether you really wish to surrender you, or whether you wish to hang on to the six million extraneous things which haven’t nourished anybody for ten thousand years. It is not the past that is needed. It is the moment that is needed. It is the capacity within you to assimilate the energy as it comes in to the universe.
The best way not to be attached is to do exactly what I do, go into your heart and open, and any hurt or attachment that you have burns out. You take a breath inside and you say ‘I really wish to transcend that attachment.’ You keep doing that, and you will feel inside of you, whatever it is, suddenly start to take fire and burn out.
See, a wish in a human being is extraordinary. It’s an extraordinary property. It is so fine that it can soak through anything. It is so very fine it can go through bone. It can go through skin. It can go through steel. It has a penetration like a laser beam, and you keep wishing and wishing, and you cut right through into the deepest part of you, so that anything you’re attached to, you can burn out completely. And then it will reform without the attachment. It doesn’t mean that you won’t have it. It means that you won’t be attached.”
Of course, Rudi was an American Tantrik teacher. He was very much attached to a kind of way of approaching life as work, struggle, and burning things out. He was really into tapas—hard, hot work. And that’s not the way everything has to be done. That’s just one flavor at one stage of spiritual development.
Nonetheless, what he says about having a very deep—he says “wish,” I would say desire—having a very deep desire and sincerely, continually expressing that desire while you’re opening your heart is absolutely right. It’s like a laser beam that cuts through and helps to unwind karma.
