You must learn to be happy with your compulsions. Anyway, you have the compulsion. If you are not happy with it, now you have two problems: compulsion and unhappiness. At least if you have one problem, it’s easier to deal with it. You have your compulsions; learn to look at it joyfully. This doesn’t mean you’re happy about your compulsions. You are happy.
You must learn to be happy with your compulsions
Why always we are talking about joy and love and things is to keep the mind pleasant, to keep the emotion pleasant. Because when your mind and emotions are pleasant, You are flexible; we can do many things with you. When your mind and your emotions are in unpleasant, you become rigid; nothing can be done about you. So, already, you have one problem, don’t create the next one.
Unhappiness is unpleasantness. Now, when you’re in a state of unpleasantness, nobody can touch you, nobody can help you, nobody can do anything with you. If you’re in a state of pleasantness, you’re willing to be molded into a different shape, isn’t it? When you’re in a state of unpleasantness, you are not even willing to be touched.
Unhappiness is a bigger problem than whatever damn compulsions you have, a far bigger problem
So, unhappiness is a bigger problem than whatever damn compulsions you have, a far bigger problem, because now you cannot be touched, you cannot be molded, you cannot be helped. So, first settle that. Whatever the nonsense you are, first thing is, learn to be joyful and loving. Now it’s easy to work with you, it’s easy to help you, it’s easy to reach out to you, it’s easy to do things with you, Beyond your likes, because your likes and dislikes are the basic compulsions. If we have to help you out of that, you have to be in a pleasant state.
If you’re in an unpleasant state, we cannot make you do something that you do not like, you’ll do only what you like. The more unhappy people are, the more they will insist, “I’ll do only this; this is how I am!” Joyful people are flexible – you can make them dance, you can make them cry, you can make them jump, they’ll do everything when they’re happy. They are flexible.
Don’t lose your flexibility. That’s the most important thing. That’s the reason in the morning – Yoga! Starting with your back, slowly we’ll work up to the head, because flexibility is key. If you become fluid, it’s great. From being solid to become flexible, then to become fluid, then to become gaseous, then to become nothing, that looks like a progression, isn’t it?
Flexibility is not possible when you are in any state of unpleasantness, either in the mind or in the emotion
So, it’s important to keep yourself flexible. Flexibility is not possible when you are in any state of unpleasantness, either in the mind or in the emotion. So, that’s the reason why being joyful, being loving, being happy, being peaceful is important only for this reason.
So, don’t create a double problem. You already have enough, and these are not the only compulsions you have. You have many more and the very purpose of Samyama is to bring all those things that you have hidden out because if you bury it, it will only grow. You bury your potatoes, they will multiply and grow. Karma is like a sack of potatoes. The deeper you bury them, the more they will grow. So, this is a place to pull them out. Dry them in such a way that they cannot grow again.
If you put yourself through intense enough sadhana, you will see, when you go out in the world, so many of your simple compulsions are gone. And I am telling you, if you had the compulsions that you had just a week ago, you cannot sit like this, which all of you have been doing wonderfully well. You cannot sit when there are compulsions. Yes, this and that nonsense is coming; it’s not that you become a hundred percent free, but so many of your compulsions are finished. That’s why you’re able to sit.
Everything is hurting; who is not hurting, everybody is hurting, including me. For me, only one leg, for you, both. That much exemption I have because I have to sit through many Samyamas. Only one leg, for you both legs. It’s hurting, that is the whole thing, “Hurts, I want to get up; get hungry, I want to run and eat. Feel like this, I want to go and pee.” That is what we have outgrown that. Very hungry but it doesn’t matter; very painful, it doesn’t matter. It’s a terrible compulsion. Most people won’t bear it for two minutes. They’ll hop around.
Now you are just sitting, and somebody sitting next to you, they’re also doing baa, baa, boo, boo, boo. They’re pulling out all their potatoes (Laughter), not just yours. You also have to bear with the surrounding potatoes, rotten potatoes just spilling all over the place, but still … So, don’t complain, you’re doing great, but still, there are a lot of potatoes to pull out.
They need to be pulled out every day. Just doing it once a year for seven days is not good enough. Every day, you need to pull them out, dry them up, and keep them in. Dry them to such a point where they cannot sprout again. Then it’s okay; potatoes are useful. You shouldn’t get rid of your potatoes, because all your experience of life will go. Just dry them in such a way they don’t keep growing. What is there, is there. The same potato grows into a million; that’s an exaggerated potato, isn’t it? So, dry them and keep them as they are.
See, it’s like this. You have five minutes of intense experience, let’s say of pain, fear, or something abhorrent to you. This five minutes of potatoes will multiply and rule your whole life. Wherever you go, that’s what you talk about; wherever you are, that’s what you think about. If something moves, you think the same thing is going to happen, because you are multiplying your potatoes. You’ve buried them, and they’re multiplying. They will become millions of potatoes, of the same abhorrent kind. Now, dry this potato and keep it. It is there; it’s a good experience.
If you went through a real bad experience, it’s invaluable. What you learn from unpleasant moments in your life is priceless. If you forget that experience, you are a fool. Only a fool would try to forget. If you’re smart, you must remember every unpleasant experience you had—without resentment, anger, or unpleasantness, just in your memory, always ensuring you never get into the same situations again. If you burn your experience, you’ll go through the same problems repeatedly.
Karma is the only thing; the memory of experience is the only thing that can bring wisdom to you
We want to pull out the potatoes, dry them in such a way that they cannot sprout, but we want to preserve them. We don’t want to get rid of them, otherwise, you’ll be an ignorant fool who’ll do the same things all over again. The value of life’s experiences cannot be thrown away. The value of lifetimes of experience definitely cannot be discarded; it’s needed if you can keep them at a distance and use them as experience. If you let it grow into you, it poisons your whole life.
Karma is the only thing; the memory of experience is the only thing that can bring wisdom to you. And it is the only thing which can bind you, and it is one thing which can so heavily poison your life that it can destroy you. So, karma is not the problem; how you carry it is the problem. How you carry it is the only problem—karma itself is not the problem.
