In his early teenagers, my father was a fervent opponent of European colonialism in what was then referred to as “the Dutch Indies” — an archipelago which, like a garland of emeralds, winds concerning the equator. Not surprisingly, his views additionally opposed these of my grandfather, who was of the opinion that “we (the Netherlands) merely can not afford to lose our colonies.”
However only some years later, when the Dutch — just lately liberated from 5 years of Nazi occupation — launched a army marketing campaign to invade and reclaim “their” misplaced colonies, my father’s political beliefs had drastically modified. He had grown essential of Soekarno and Hatta, the leaders of the Indonesian resistance, calling them “criminals,” and supported the crimes of the Dutch military in a rustic that had by no means really been theirs. What had occurred?
Assuredly, love was the figuring out consider his change of coronary heart. My father had fallen in love — passionately and romantically — with a lady who had moved to the Netherlands shortly after the tip of World Warfare II. Upon seeing her and experiencing the shock of affection at first sight, he made some inquiries and came upon that she had been born within the Dutch Indies. There she, like all the opposite colonialists, had been imprisoned in a Japanese focus camp.
My father now dreamed of visiting the unique land the place his sweetheart had spent her childhood, a dream which may nicely turn out to be not possible if that land misplaced its Dutch identification and have become Indonesia. In my father’s coronary heart, political justice and private, romantic attachments had turn out to be unduly intertwined.
Enthusiasm, as we mentioned within the earlier weblog, is a deity (theos) entering the human coronary heart. It brings euphoria, however over an extended time frame, it might probably additionally carry disappointment and despair. This merely is dependent upon the supply of our enthusiasm.
It’s doubtless that few of us have by no means skilled some manifestation of romantic teenage love. The tears shed for old flame’s sorrows are generally remembered nostalgically amidst grownup life’s challenges, similar to crying infants and soiled diapers, electrical energy payments, estranged adolescents, mortgages, marital quarrels, bitter divorce, and outdated age. Is there, in truth, any lasting good in that kind of adolescent enthusiasm?
For enthusiasm to turn out to be a gentle undercurrent of pleasure, one should fall in love — not with a schoolmate, however with a real non secular instructing. It should beckon to us and paved the way out of the fabric land of duality and into an internal dimension of Spirit, lasting peace, and transcendence. This internal transformation would be the actual finish of overseas colonialism.
If you end up a non secular seeker, you’re additionally a scientist. You may solely be taught from your personal expertise, so you have to experiment. If you end up blessed to likelihood upon a real instructing – and to acknowledge it as such -, you’ll nonetheless need to make internal notes about what works and what doesn’t work. The discernment required for this scientific job can solely be cultivated by common meditation.
“Into an internal dimension of Spirit, lasting peace, and transcendence…”
I actually, after discovering my very own Guru a few years in the past, have needed to discover my manner out by fairly a number of karmic entanglements, human love being solely considered one of them. But one reminiscence stands out like a lighthouse in a stormy sea.
I used to be in my automobile, on my solution to see my children, who lived with their mom. It was a difficult interval of monetary stress, skilled insecurities, and the ache of dwelling far-off from my kids. To distract my consideration from my gloomy ideas, I placed on an audio cassette of Mozart’s Laudate Dominum.
Immediately, in the midst of a forest street, I needed to cease my automobile, for I might really feel a crying spell coming over me. How stunned I used to be to really feel tears of gratitude flowing over my face. Such an exquisite life, Lord, I saved repeating. Thanks, thanks!
A few years of strenuous non secular effort, of integrating my Guru’s teachings into all elements of life, had yielded its fruit. My coronary heart had turn out to be regular, and crucial a part of my consciousness would stay untouched by “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.”
Why not permit the good Gyanavatar himself to explain the happiness that awaits us in our personal souls as soon as the center is steadily set on liberation?
Following affectionately the holy precepts, he (man) learns to pay attention his thoughts directing his organs of sense to … the door of the interior sphere. There he perceives the luminous physique of John the Baptist, or Radha, and hears the holy Sound (Amen, Aum), like a stream or a river; and being absorbed or baptized in it, begins to maneuver again to his Divinity.
“The door of the interior sphere”
Sources:
Authentic submit: anandaeurope.org / October 15, 2022
