52.
Being Happy, Making Happy is the Rhythm of Life
Questioner:
I came from Europe a few months ago on one of my periodical visits
to my Guru near
Calcutta.
Now I am on my way back home. I was invited by a friend to meet
you and I am glad I
came.
Nisargadatta:
What did you learn from your Guru and what practice did you
follow?
Questioner:
He is a venerable old man of about eighty. Philosophically he is a
Vedantin and the practice he
teaches
has much to do with rousing the unconscious energies of the mind
and bringing the hidden
obstacles
and blockages into the conscious. My personal sadhana was related
to my peculiar
problem
of early infancy and childhood. My mother could not give me the
feeling of being secure
and
loved, so important to the child's normal development. She was a
woman not fit to be a mother;
ridden
with anxieties and neuroses, unsure of herself, she felt me to be
a responsibility and a
burden
beyond her capacity to bear. She never wanted me to be born. She
did not want me to grow
and
to develop, she wanted me back in her womb, unborn, non-existent.
Any movement of life in
me
she resisted, any attempt to go beyond the narrow circle of her
habitual existence she fought
fiercely.
As a child I was both sensitive and affectionate. I craved for
love above everything else and
love,
the simple, instinctive love of a mother for her child was denied
me. The child's search for its
mother
became the leading motive of my life and I never grew out of it. A
happy child, a happy
childhood
became an obsession with me. Pregnancy, birth, infancy interested
me passionately. I
became
an obstetrician of some renown and contributed to the development
of the method of
painless
childbirth. A happy child of a happy mother -- that was my ideal
all my life. But my mother
was
always there -- unhappy herself, unwilling and incapable to see me
happy. It manifested itself
in
strange ways. Whenever I was unwell, she felt better; when I was
in good shape, she was down
again,
cursing herself and me too. As if she never forgave me my crime of
having been born, she
made
me feel guilty of being alive. 'You live because you hate me. If
you love me -- die', was her
constant,
though silent message. And so I spent my life, being offered death
instead of love.
Imprisoned,
as I was, in my mother, the perennial infant, I could not develop
a meaningful relation
with
a woman; the image of the mother would stand between, unforgiving,
unforgiven. I sought
solace
in my work and found much; but I could not move from the pit of
infancy. Finally, I turned to
spiritual
search and I am on this line steadily for many years. But, in a
way it is the same old search
for
mother's love, call it God or Atma or Supreme Reality. Basically I
want to love and be loved;
unfortunately
the so-called religious people are against life and all for the
mind. When faced with
life's
needs and urges, they begin by classifying, abstracting and
conceptualising and then make the
classification
more important than life itself. They ask to concentrate on and
impersonate a concept.
Instead
of the spontaneous integration through love they recommend a
deliberate and laborious
concentration
on a formula. Whether it is God or Atma, the me or the other, it
comes to the same!
Something
to think about, not somebody to love. It is not theories and
systems that I need; there are
many
equally attractive or plausible. I need a stirring of the heart, a
renewal of life, and not a new
way
of thinking. There are no new ways of thinking, but feelings can
be ever fresh. When I love
somebody,
I meditate on him spontaneously and powerfully, with warmth and
vigour, which my
mind
cannot command.
Words
are good for shaping feelings; words without feeling are like
clothes with no body inside --
cold
and limp. This mother of mine -- she drained me of all feelings --
my sources have run dry. Can
I
find here the richness and abundance of emotions, which I needed
in such ample measure as a
child?
Nisargadatta:
Where is your childhood now? And what is your future?
Questioner:
I was born, I have grown, I shall die.
Nisargadatta:
You mean your body, of course. And your mind. I am not talking of
your physiology and
psychology.
They are a part of nature and are governed by nature's laws. I am
talking of your
search
for love. Had it a beginning? Will it have an end?
Questioner:
I really cannot say. It is there -- from the earliest to the last
moment of my life. This yearning for
love
-- how constant and how hopeless!
Nisargadatta:
In your search for love what exactly are you searching for?
Questioner:
Simply this: to love and to be loved.
Nisargadatta:
You mean a woman?
Questioner:
Not necessarily. A friend, a teacher, a guide -- as long as the
feeling is bright and clear. Of
course,
a woman is the usual answer. But it need not be the only one.
Nisargadatta:
Of the two what would you prefer, to love or to be loved?
Questioner:
I would rather have both! But I can see that to love is greater,
nobler, deeper. To be loved is
sweet,
but it does not make one grow.
Nisargadatta:
Can you love on your own, or must you be made to love?
Questioner:
One must meet somebody lovable, of course. My mother was not only
not loving, she was also
not
lovable.
Nisargadatta:
What makes a person lovable? Is it not the being loved? First you
love and then you look for
reasons.
Questioner:
It can be the other way round. You love what makes you happy.
Nisargadatta:
But what makes you happy?
Questioner:
There is no rule about it. The entire subject is highly individual
and unpredictable.
Nisargadatta:
Right. Whichever way you put it, unless you love there is no
happiness. But, does love make
you
always happy? Is not the association of love with happiness a
rather early, infantile stage?
When
the beloved suffers, don't you suffer too? And do you cease to
love, because you suffer?
Must
love and happiness come and go together? Is love merely the
expectation of pleasure?
Questioner:
Of course not. There can be much suffering in love.
Nisargadatta:
Then what is love? Is it not a state of being rather than a state
of mind? Must you know that you
love
in order to love? Did you. not love your mother unknowingly? Your
craving for her love, for an
opportunity
to love her, is it not the movement of love? Is not love as much a
part of you, as
consciousness
of being? You sought the love of your mother, because you loved
her.
Questioner:
But she would not let me!
Nisargadatta:
She could not stop you.
Questioner:
Then, why was I unhappy all my life?
Nisargadatta:
Because you did not go down to the very roots of your being. It is
your complete ignorance of
yourself,
that covered up your love and happiness and made you seek for what
you had never lost.
Love
is will, the will to share your happiness with all. Being happy --
making happy -- this is the
rhythm
of love.