After Self Realization, how does our vision broaden to deal with a negative circumstance and see its positive side?

Bitter circumstances can be made sweet

Dadashri: How is your mother’s health?

Questioner: Ordinarily her health is good but yesterday she fell in the bathroom; she is getting old now.

Dadashri: The rule of circumstances is that one weak circumstance will pull together many other weak circumstances and one strong circumstance will pull together many other strong circumstances. Old age is a circumstance of weakness that is why one meets with other circumstances of weakness. To the one who is weak and feeble will come circumstances of weakness. We have no choice but somehow deal with circumstances in any way that we can. People of this world will bully a weakling. The Lord has said that whenever you spoil any circumstance of another being, you are really spoiling your own circumstance and you will have to face the very same circumstance.

Every circumstance is a ‘file’ and you have to deal with it with equanimity. For countless past lives one has been contemptuous towards circumstances he did not like, and that is why in this life he has to have to face circumstances that bring nothing but contempt from every direction. Circumstances represent the account of parmanus that are brought forth by vyavasthit. People keep cursing and pushing away bitter circumstances. Circumstances say, “We have come because vyavasthit has sent us. If you curse us, vyavasthit will make you pay.” And people welcome with open arms circumstances that are pleasant. If you remain within the circumstances, circumstance will perish and so will you but if you remain as the Self, separate from circumstances, You will remain separate and eternal.

Bitter circumstances will still come even if you reject and repel them and pleasant circumstances will still go away even if you invite them. You have wasted away countless past lives doing just this; you have done nothing but adverse meditation. If you want liberation, then remain as the Self (shukla dhyan) and if you want the worldly life, then maintain an attitude of helping others and avoid negative meditation (artadhyan and raudradhyan). A person who has dharma dhyan maintains the awareness, ‘It is my own past life’s account that brings forth this bitter circumstance,’ when someone hurts him. Thus he turns the negative circumstance around into a positive and a pleasant one. If a person comes to fight claiming you paid him 25 rupees less, you should settle the matter by giving him 25 rupees plus another 5. Please him and then send him away. This way you will have sweetened that circumstance. If you ‘wash and clean’ the circumstances that present to you, you will have only good circumstances in your coming life. The circumstances that harass you in this life are verily the entanglements that have been created by you in the past life. Therefore, do not look at disagreeable circumstances as disagreeable, make them agreeable before they leave and that way you will not have to face disagreeable circumstances in your next life.

People tell you, “You are Shantaben; you are a mother-in-law to this person. You are this person’s mother” and you have accepted and believed everything they tell you and you have become the role they impose upon you! A person will even forget his own name if he were to think too much, in the same manner if you become besieged with circumstances, you will forget the Self; this is called worldly life. In this, the only agreement that you have signed is of ignorance and the only thing that you have nurtured is ignorance. That is why ignorance prevails and proliferates.

People say, “He is a son-in-law to so and so and a father-in-law to so and so…” You ask him, “Hey! How can you say you are a son-in-law?” and he replies, “I got married.” To enjoy and taking a beating is called a marriage. Marriage is an agreement of one lifetime, but one thinks it is forever. And the prize for this is endless beatings in just one lifetime. And it is all because the Lord within has lost his awareness and that is why this worldly life has perpetuated.

The opinion, ‘This circumstance is good’ and ‘This circumstance is bad’ is the reason the worldly life perpetuates. If one understands and says, ‘All circumstances entail suffering’, then he has begun his journey to liberation. This verily is the science of the vitarag Lords. Lord Mahavir was such a great scientist. The Vitarag Lords knew that the world has come about simply because of circumstances. People turned them into agreeable and disagreeable circumstances and created raag and dwesh towards them, whereas the Lord made them both disagreeable and became liberated.

‘Aego mei shashao appa, naanah dunshaan sanjuo.’ ‘I am an eternal Soul with the attributes of knowledge and vision’.

‘Shesha mein bhaheera bhaava, savee sanjog lakhana.’ ‘The rest are all my external intents, all circumstances have recognizable attributes.’ I am an eternal Soul. I am a pure Soul with knowledge and vision. I am eternal.

Whatever is left is bhaav (content and inner activity) of the non-self. What is the nature and quality of these bhaavs? They come as circumstances. They are, for instance, a negative thought, a thought of marriage, a thought of widowhood, all part of the external bhaavs. And they are verily in the form of a circumstance. That which is going to dissipate (viyog) is all a circumstance (sanyog). They were invited in ignorance (past life) and they have come.

‘Sanjog moola jeevenah patta dookham Parampara,
‘At the root of all circumstances (life) lies infinite suffering (life after life).’

Tammha sanjog sambandham, savvam tiviheyn vosariyami.’ ‘All these circumstances and their relations, I surrender unto You.’

At the root of all life’s circumstances lies infinite suffering life after life. All these circumstances I herby surrender unto ‘Dada Bhagwan-the vitarag Lord.’ This means to surrender and hence we are no longer the owner of these bhaavs. How many circumstances are there? They are infinite. How can one ever succeed in surrendering each individual circumstance, one by one? Instead if we surrender all the circumstances to ‘Dada’, then we become free.

The Soul has infinite energy; it has so much energy that it can procure infinite circumstances or it can obliterate infinite circumstances in a matter of just one hour. But who has the right and the manifest energy to do so? Only the Gnani Purush.

There are only two things in the world: sanyog (circumstance) and sanyogi (entity that has to face the circumstance). If the sanyogi is straight forward, so will be the circumstances. If you have to face a disagreeable circumstance, you have to immediately realize that because you had been disagreeable in the past, you now have to face a circumstance that follows suit. There is no need to ‘straighten out’ the circumstance. Rather, become straight yourself. There are infinite circumstances, so when will they all become agreeable? People in the world try to make the circumstances agreeable, but if they were to become agreeable themselves, so will the circumstances. If one becomes straightforward himself, he will still encounter circumstances that are disagreeable but after a while the circumstances will change.

When there is no superior above you, why do you have to face disagreeable circumstances? It is because you had been disagreeable that you have to face disagreeable consequences. If a person has dysentery, is his illness an immediate consequence of his neglect? No, the seeds of dysentery had been planted twelve years ago, which has now come into effect. And this effect has to break a twelve-year-long mistake, does it not? If he does not make the same mistake again, he will not have dysentery again, will he? If you board a train and find it crowded, it is because you had created a cause for such an effect. If you come with a large load of karmic baggage, the circumstances you will be obliged to encounter will also be heavy and if you come with very light baggage, your circumstances too will be very agreeable. Your own mistakes are your superior; do you have anything to fear anymore once you understand this? No matter who sees ‘us’; they feel happy. When ‘we’ become cheerful, the other person will feel the same. One doesn’t just feel happy and cheerful, when he sees ‘us’; he becomes speechless and awed. The other person is your own reflection.