7/22/2016
This is a Friday night with Santosha Ma, and She skipped meditation to talk with us about what was happening in Her circle of devotees at that time, and how to help each other in love.
SANTOSHA MA: It took a lot to convey that other people are suffering, and that in relationship, sometimes you are the cause of the suffering. It has been hard for all of you to do that, to acknowledge that you might be the cause of the suffering.
DEVOTEE: It is a great gift to know it, though.
SANTOSHA MA: If no one ever tells you, you never know. Everybody wants to think that they are a nice, caring person, and that they would notice that they are causing suffering in other people, but it’s not really true. What is your excuse? What has been your excuse?
DEVOTEE: Self-interest.
DEVOTEES: Selfish…it wasn’t my intention…good intentions…justification in your mind… you don’t understand me…blame…
SANTOSHA MA: Everybody has to open up and be vulnerable to that you might be causing suffering in other people, and not act like it doesn’t matter. Everybody has some excuse, but is depression some legitimate excuse not to love? No, you must love through everything.
You have got to find your way out no matter what, no matter what is going on with you, no matter what you are suffering, you have got to find your way out to the Unifying Field of Love, not the field of separation. Are they going to be able to get through this by themselves?
DEVOTEES: No.
SANTOSHA MA: How are they going to get through it?
DEVOTEE: Your circle of devotees….
SANTOSHA MA: Yes. That is what we’ve got each other for.
Say, ‘This is what it’s like for me, this is the suffering I have experienced, I understand suffering. We’re all suffering, we’re all experiencing unlove in ourselves and in others. But that’s why we like being with Santosha, because She is the Unifying Field of Love, so then we get to feel free of that for a while around Her.’ How do you stay here? That’s the question. How do you stay here? I think being vulnerable, and not using the Teaching as a means to ‘shape up or ship out’ idea, but be vulnerable with the way you use the Teaching.
You know how the ego sees the world, through hierarchy, not through Unity, but through hierarchy. That means that someone is on top, and someone is on the bottom! And most people don’t want to sign up for being on the bottom! ‘Wait a minute! I signed up for being on top! You tell me I’m on the bottom? What? I can’t accept this!’
What have you got?
DEVOTEE: Each other.
SANTOSHA MA: Each other.
DEVOTEE: And You.
SANTOSHA MA: What can happen now?
DEVOTEE: Love has to happen!
SANTOSHA MA: Love has to!
DEVOTEE: There’s nothing left.
DEVOTEE: We just have to hold it, hold to you.
SANTOSHA MA: Well, the question is if you do ego, do you go more crazy?
DEVOTEES: Oh, yes, yes.
SANTOSHA MA: If you do practice, do you get freer?
DEVOTEES: Yes, saner.
SANTOSHA MA: Does anybody here think they’ve gained the capacity to be vulnerable? That you can tell people what you feel, what your real struggle is, in a relatable way? Everybody feels they can do that better?
DEVOTEES: Yes.
SANTOSHA MA: If you watch TV, and the politics, it’s everybody’s big fat ego, and it’s (loud!) ‘UHHHH! They’re wrong! UHHHH! I’m right, they are wrong! They are awful! Put her in jail! Do this, do that, shoot um up!’ Wild West of egos!
I remember hearing stories when whoever was with Adi Da, in His Company, they came back and they are all alive with how much they love Adi Da, and Adi Da’s love, and everybody would be infected with that for a while. That is what you have to bring each other, how you are infected by That – your love for Me, and nothing is hopeless, nothing is dark. Why?
DEVOTEES: It’s the Truth! Love is so much stronger than all of that. So much stronger!
SANTOSHA MA: Tell it like it is! How many people believe that love is stronger? How many people have the evidence of it?
DEVOTEES: Yes! We do!
SANTOSHA MA: OK! You have to live there now. What is your darkest hour about? When you lose that faith? When you lose that faith in Love, even though your experience is that, you forget about your experience, you lose your conviction, and you just try to protect yourself. In your old age, hoarding food, whatever, it’s all about self-protection and self-preservation. But if you just went up to somebody and said, ‘Man, I’m hungry, could you share your food with me?’, what are they going to say? Yes!
You have a feeling when I ask that question that most people would say yes, so that’s your real belief in humanity, see? Not the other answer, ‘No.’ Your real belief is yes, people will, because are we all going to need help sometime, or we are all going to be in a down position.
Any comments? Anybody want to say anything?
DEVOTEE: You’re so incredibly the Heart in every second, when it seems so dark and heavy and You’re just like Light. And You just shine the Light on it.
SANTOSHA MA: Nothing is really real. Everything is kind of real, but not really real in the Illumination of Love. Whatever seems dark, and whatever seems suffering, you can feel it, you experience it, but if you live in the Illuminating Field, the Unifying Field of Love, it’s not the Reality, it’s just the sensation, or just a difficult moment.
Anything you do, any endeavor you do, you’re going to have to endure something to get through it! Just your jobs every day, there’s something you have to endure every day to get through it, and you do it because you want to live, and you want to support yourself and the people you care about. Your reason for it is survival, and not just survival, but a loving survival. That’s why people want meaningful work that makes sense to them! That’s why they want to do a good job, because they don’t want it to be just for survival, they want it to be about loving survival.
In every place you go and everyone you meet, you want to have a connection of love! You’re not looking to have a hierarchy position, are you? That’s what the ego is doing, and it’s proven to be destroying everybody’s ability to be here in a relatable good way. What if you just were innocent, and just were vulnerable and came into the room?
The idea that you cannot be vulnerable, the same idea that ‘When I’m old I’m going to have to hoard food and a pile of money, because I can’t ask anybody for anything, because no one will love!’ Do you have real evidence that no one will love? Have you met everybody in the world, including Me, and they have refused to love you?
DEVOTEE: It is just not true!
SANTOSHA MA: It’s just not true!! If it’s just not true, then why are all egos acting like it is true? Like, (very loudly!) ‘This is the way things really are!! It’s really awful!!! Nobody wants to love!! And it’s dog eat dog!’
DEVOTEE: People get confused by what they want and what they need.
SANTOSHA MA: That’s right. What do they need?
DEVOTEES: Love. More than anything.
You know everybody suffers, so it helps you to get through it, and that people care about you, and that helps you get through it too. When anybody thinks that you are embarrassed about whatever…Have you ever been embarrassed about an illness and you kept it to yourself? And then it just festered as a dark psychological situation for you?
That is why being vulnerable is the answer to everything, but that is the hardest thing to do for most people, is be vulnerable.
I would really like it so much if you could teach this way, and really help them, and that anybody else that feels moved by it could. That you could do it, not just Me always taking on all of this for everybody all the time – that you become agents of this as well now, instead of ‘Well, we get to be around this nice Enlightened Person, She is loving.’ Why can’t you be that too? Be vulnerable and have, not a stupid sympathy for someone’s suffering, but say, ‘Hey, we all suffer. I suffered this, you’re suffering that. What do you need? What’s going on?’ and recognize that everyone suffers, instead of everyone is in their own little world of superiority or inferiority and suffering.
I know you could do good work, and anybody else who wants to be vulnerable. But you must go in not teaching and preaching, but be vulnerable! That’s what it is going to take. My Sacrifice to you is what it took, didn’t it?
DEVOTEES: Yes.
SANTOSHA MA: It wasn’t, ‘Here’s a good teaching, it sounds good. Follow it, shut up, do it!’
DEVOTEE: ‘See ya!’
SANTOSHA MA: See ya! (laughs) I went through all the hardships with you! Suffered all your lack of caring about Me, and your drama and trauma. Do you think that is something you can practice now? Or try? You never know how good you can get at it unless you do it! You have to do it to know how to do it.
DEVOTEE: Do it, make a mistake, do it again, do it again.
SANTOSHA MA: Do it again, don’t give up, don’t give up, don’t give up. Let’s see the miracles you can pull off! I will be looking forward to it! (laughter) Think you can do it?
DEVOTEE: Yes.
