12th  August,  2007

Ellaeenah

15th August is not long away, and it took my mind today, that it’s been 60 years – 60 years of being an Independent Nation.  Which means 60 years of being Independent Indians, and yet when one looks at the society that we are surrounded by, Independence is truly the last word that seems to describe us.  Somewhere, the Essence of Independence has passed us by.  It remained for most of us an intellectual pursuit. Look at independence from another angle. While I was pondering on this, I realized that there are so many words that seem to be completely different in meaning; in fact may seem diametrically opposite and yet mean exactly the same thing, when one views it with correct vision.

Independence doesn’t seem to be the same as co-dependence; in fact when one uses the two words, they seem to be completely different in what they signify. Co-dependence does not bring about the aspect of unity because co-dependence, by its very term, suggests the presence of at least ‘two’. Thus there has to be a ‘separation’ and therefore there cannot be ‘unity’. Does ‘independence’ mean ‘unity’ or does it mean ‘I am independent of you’? Once again there is ‘separation’.  So what do all these terms which really mean? May be that is why we have lost the Essence of Independence, because though we desire to live in a free and independent society, we truly do not know the significance of ‘independence’, and ‘co-dependence’ and ‘dependence’, and ‘unity’ and ‘separation’, and may be that is why, the Indian Society which is a reflection of who we are, is what it is.  When you look at the word ‘GOVERNMENT REPRESENTATIVE’ what does it mean? That government representative represents you. And the person who represents you, cannot be stronger than you, because you are the one, who is giving him the commands. He is only a REPRESENTATIVE, but when you pick up a newspaper and you complain and blame a government representative, you truly are playing a game.  You are playing a game so effectively, that people will not realize that it’s actually you who is the corrupt one.  He is your REPRESENTATIVE.  He follows your commands. He represents you in every action, in every word, in every thought, in every deed. The Indian Government is YOU.  That is the role of a Democracy. But when we find it easier to blame our Representatives, and play games of hide and seek, we can never truly be a democracy and we can never truly experience the Essence of Independence.

I find it rather disturbing because so many people to be saying that “what India needs is a benevolent dictator”. Be cautioned…the more people who voice this, the quicker it will manifest for us. Is that truly what you and I want? Is that truly what you and I want?  And if you are sitting here and saying “no, that’s not what I want” then you need to change, and I need to change, because unless we change, the Indian Government is not going to change, and the Indian Democracy is not going to change, and more and more people are going to hold this very frightening thought, that India needs a benevolent dictator…. and so it will be. 

Let us understand the Essence of Independence so that if we don’t want this ‘benevolent dictator’, then we ensure, WE ensure, that this dictator will never come. Let us ensure that ‘Independence’ will not be a word only used on 15th August to hoist the flag and sing the National Anthem. And so many people don’t even do that! Their wish is “I hope it comes on a Friday or a Monday so that I can take a long weekend off”. That’s the kind of honor and pride that many hold!   National pride and honor is a reflection of your own pride and honour.

When every single Indian is truly proud to say “I am Indian”, it will be then that national pride and honour will be exalted.  Look around you and look at ourselves….we are always justifying being Indian --- as though it is something that we’ve made a second class choice. There is no pride at all.  Who are you justifying your existence to, and why?, Why can’t there be pride and honour to say “I AM INDIAN”?  BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT INDEPENDENT …..that is why there is no personal pride and honour, and that is why you keep looking outward, whether it is the West, whether it is the Far East, whether it is the Middle East, you keep looking outwards and saying ‘they are better than we are’.  When ever India has to be compared to another country, India comes out, not even second best in you mind, it comes out last.  When you, you, the Master has no honour, how can your representative have honour?  In your ever thought, in your every word, in your every action, you are dishonoring India. How then can you truly and honestly expect your representatives to be honourable?

So what is Independence? And how is it so closely related to co-dependence and unity?

To be Independent means to have pride and honour in what one believes, in what one thinks, in what one feels, in what one does. 

To say, “This is my truth, and though it is not your own, I still honour my truth and respect yours simultaneously.  I give you the right to think and be who you are, for I give myself the freedom to experiment with all that I am.  I give myself the freedom to make mistakes, and thus I will never shout at you, or abuse you or condemn you for the mistakes you make”.   -  That is FREEDOM.

Freedom is not the absence of someone else’s ‘political rule over yourself’. Today you claim to be free and independent  because there is no ‘Britisher’ ruling over you.  But friends, instead of the Britisher, all of society is ruling over you!!  Your every move is well monitored by you, with only one view in mind, “what will the other person think of me?”   How free are you, then, truly?  Freedom is not freedom from political rule, its freedom from any external rule over yourself because you are independent of thought and belief and action --  you do not allow the commonly held beliefs to become your own only because they are commonly held and you have no courage to think differently.  At present you are scared of the jeers and sneers. When one is truly independent there is no rebellion. So many have a compelling inner need to rebel against society’s very tacit unspoken rule over them, so they will deliberately flaunt social norms, deliberately break all social standards or familial standards. Why? They want to make a rebellious statement ‘I AM ME’ --- the extent of rebellion is a statement which conclusively proves ‘how ‘conforming’ you are within  -   how scared you are within to be different, ‘to be ‘YOU’’  because when you are ‘you’, you are different, you are unique.

I may hold the same truth as another and yet I am completely different and so is she.  Holding common beliefs does not make us the same.  It just brings our energies together dovetailing at different points and beautifully separating and moving our own ways at different ones.  When we can allow ourselves to do that we are not giving up our individuality, just because we think what another thinks. Goal-less Rebellion and making an empty statement of your individuality is not independence and freedom. 

When you truly imbibe the essence of independence within you, co-dependence is a natural result, such that each one of us can give ourselves the permission to ask for help, knowing that this help is asked for, out of the strength of ‘choice’, not emotional dependence.  By being rebellious and stating ‘I will not accept another’s help’ --- you are not stating your individuality at all, it’s only your rebellion against your own powerlessness. Co-dependence is asking and accepting the help of another even though you know completely, that you can do it on your own. You CHOOSE not to do it, because you CHOOSE to focus your attention on some other aspect of your existence. Of course you would be able to, if you should choose, ‘find a cure for cancer’.  But you and I have CHOSEN not to do it, -- we have chosen to be co-dependent with those scientists, because you CHOOSE to focus on, let us say, ‘to experience my power in the field of teaching others spiritual laws and truths’.  In that statement of complete co-dependence is the creation of Earth as it is. 

We now know that ‘consciousness is completely aware of unity but knowingness can experience it only through separation’.  So separation is a vital aspect of our existence. Without it this lower intellect would not be able to understand the essence of unity.  So when you and another get together on a project, co-dependently, she doing her tasks and you doing your own, you come to a common goal together, and through the experience of your separation, you both understand the unity of that common goal which you have attained and which has come only through that separation.  And when you look at this same aspect from a larger perception of National Independence. This is exactly the same, in a nation as well.  Each one first has to stop feeling small because they are Indians.  There must be full honour in that truth, just as there would be honour in that truth I am who I am with my strengths and my flaws.  Proudly say I am INDIA with all my strengths and flaws. 

For if we didn’t have our strengths, why would the rest of the world be restlessly knocking at our doors right now?  Why is the rest of the world seeking spiritual truths from us? Why is the rest of the world seeking a business and economic standing in our country?  Is it again that you can see the outside better than you can see the inside, and so living in India, we cannot see its strengths?  We can only smell its odious smells and we can only see its poverty and over- population?  Where then, is the co-dependence of saying ‘here is poverty, here is corruption, here is dirt, here is non-education.  Which one of these do I choose to focus my attention on, and help eradicate? Co-dependence is not depending on the Government to do it all.  Does democracy mean going to that polling booth and casting your vote? And then feel supercilious and say I have done my bit – now, ‘they’ have to the rest. They have to clean the roads, clean the garbage, they have to educate the millions, they have to ensure that the roads are in perfect condition – they have to take away all the odious sights, smells, sounds, that I hate about India because I have done my sacred duty of casting a vote.  That is power-less DEPENDENCE, not power-full CO-DEPENDENCE. 

Co-dependence is making that effort to first caste your vote…. To caste your vote for the candidate who you choose as your ‘best representative’.  But it does not stop here. Co-dependence goes further.  Now, that ‘X’ is your representative – every single day, connect your energies to your representative’s and through your energy structure, command your representative what you wish to be done.  But understand one thing, that your energy structure is influenced by your daily word, action, thought and feeling.  So you first live, be and act like you want your representative to, and then align your energy structure with your representative. If millions of Indians do that, every single day, we will come to the 65th Independence Day and shout out loud – ‘HEY WORLD --- I AM INDIAN!!! DO YOU HAVE IN YOU TO CHALLENGE MY POWER?’  But you want to do differently than what you preach. Your expectations of yourself are much lower than your expectations of everyone else.  You will justify every flaw that you make, you will give yourselves reasons and excuses – but let someone else trip up and you will be the most unforgiving.  With such an internal environment, how can the external environment ever, ever be different?

For 60 years, all that we have been doing and saying ‘let the Government improve our country’.  May be that is why there is no or very little improvement…. because you don’t have the courage to say ‘I choose to improve the country’. 

You sit in a car, your kid is eating a chocolate, the chocolate wrapper is filled with melted chocolate, and you will say, ‘just once throw it out now, never mind, I can’t allow ants and cockroaches in the car’.  And then you drive 50 meters down the road and there’s a huge garbage buzzing with flies and sanctimoniously you will shake your head and say ‘these BMC officials really are so corrupt and inefficient’.  Rewind the tape…. what did you do 50 meters ago?  WHEN EACH ONE OF US HAS THE COURAGE TO ACT OUR OWN WORDS, WE WILL BE ‘INDEPENDENT’.  When we learn to help another without any selfish gain, to ask and receive help without feeling humiliated, without feeling small, we will learn to be Co-Dependent.  And when you know you are Independent as well as Co-Dependent you know and experience the Essence of Unity through that joyous separation of You and I.  And then that you can become the government, you can become that family, you can become that partner. It’s all the same. 

Our Indian Vedas teach us, that at the age of 60, the man leaves his home and his family and enters the ashram stage of his life. He leaves behind familial and social responsibilities and becomes a hermit.  India is 60 years old.  She has to become the ‘hermit’ now, to look within and to see ‘what are my responsibilities to self?  How do I add and enhance and enrich my own essence?  What learning do I still have to do? Before the man left for this journey from which he would never return – there would be a joyous family celebration and the entire family and village got together to bid this man a warm, warm farewell. There were no tears for they knew that though the man was going away from them, every moment of his inner search would not only make him richer, but they would get richer too, because his energies are their own, their sense of unity, for consciousness is bound-less.  Friends let us celebrate Independence Day joyously.  Let it be a huge farewell party to the India that was, for the India that is to come, for from the dawn of 16th August India IS what you and consciously choose it to be!

No more will India be determined by unconscious choice.  No more will India be influenced by the blame game. You may say But Ell, we are only 25 of us, and I reply ‘that’s 24 more than what we need’. 

You teach a lot of Spiritual truths, and I honour you for that, I honour you for that effort you make in your daily lives to follow those truths, to live them. Today I am presenting you an area where your Spiritual Truths have not been applied, have not been realised.  For Spiritual Truths is not only about relationships and children and money and career… it is also about your country. 

Today is 12th August, 2007 – you have two more days – two full days – 48 hours to do one exercise.  Each moment choose the India from 16th August 2007 and write down each choice that you make, and then everyday, you, India, live those choices. When you live them, your representatives have to live them. When you live them, you, India, have to live those choices.  If you can do this for the whole year of 2007, taking responsibility for India, then in 2008 we can joyously proceed towards rapid growth and expansion and abundance.  It’s just one year that India asks of us.She has given us 60 years. The question is, CAN YOU GIVE HER ONE?

Happy Independence Day