Fear of the vast

At times we fear the expansion of our limited consciousness. A child likes something very vast. If you bring him something very vast and put it in front of him, he will appreciate and admire it. But at the same time if you ask the child if he wants to be as vast as the thing that you are showing him, he will be afraid. If you show an elephant to the child, he will appreciate and admire it. But if you ask him, “Do you want to be like this elephant?” his immediate reaction will be, “No, no, no!” He will feel that the elephant will strike him.

This is also true of adults. When we think of something vast, we like and appreciate it. But we are so limited that we cannot expand ourselves into the ocean, into the vast. We see and appreciate the vastness of the ocean from the shore. But if somebody asks us to become the ocean, we immediately think of the water-animals inside, see the tumultuous waves and think of the terrible storms. Immediately we say, “No! I can appreciate the ocean from a distance, but I don’t want to be the ocean because there are many things inside it that will devour me.”

An ordinary person likes an aeroplane. When the plane is in flight he appreciates and admires the pilot, and everything above and below is at that time beautiful. But if somebody asks him, “Do you want to become a pilot?” he will say, “Oh, no.” He is ready to go from here to any part of the world. But if you ask him to be a pilot, immediately he will think of the height and be frightened.

So when we see the vastness of Reality with our physical mind or with our vital, we are scared to death. Why? Because we do not have the capacity to identify ourselves with the vast, with vastness itself. We are ready to appreciate, we are ready to admire; but when it is a matter of becoming or growing into that vastness, we are terribly afraid.

We have to know what we are and what we are growing into and that is Vastness itself. But what is it that resists? It is our fear. In everything we see, fear looms large. Always fear comes because we do not know how to identify ourselves with something that is beyond our normal capacity. In the beginning we have no fear; we just appreciate. But when the time comes for us to grow into the vastness, we are afraid.

But we do have something else to save and protect us and that is the heart. If something as small as an insect comes along, the heart has the capacity to identify itself with this tiniest creature. With its concern, compassion and feeling of oneness, our human heart becomes one with the insect. And when this same heart looks at the vast sky, it can identify itself with the vastness. The poet uses his inner heart to look at the ocean and feel his total oneness with it; or he looks at the sky and becomes totally one with it. If he looks at a mountain, he becomes the mountain itself in his inner life, in his inner being. So the heart has the capacity to identify with anything, be it small or big.

In the spiritual life we use the heart and if we want to realise the highest Height with the heart as our sincere friend, devoted slave, then our journey is safe. The heart will not resist; it will always jump. We see this even with the emotional heart. When there is an emotional relationship between two people, how they jump to please each other! And if a person has a pure heart, an aspiring heart, then that person jumps into the spiritual life in quest of realisation. If we follow the path of the heart, we will feel at every moment a sense of satisfaction, because the heart is identifying itself with some vast reality. And that reality has boundless Peace, Light and Bliss to offer us. It is our aspiring heart that is the representative of our entire being, our entire existence.

So please try to follow the path of the heart. There will be no resistance and no fear because the heart is always in tune with the soul. The soul is all light and in light there is no hesitation, there is no resistance. The physical mind is still in darkness and it does not want to come out of darkness. The vital also is still in darkness and it cherishes its aggressive and undivine animal propensities. But the heart that is pure, that has received light from the soul, will feel that it is ready at every moment to offer its existence to the light of the soul. If we can consciously identify ourselves with the heart, it will carry us to the real source, which is the soul.

Please feel that you are the heart. If you feel that your heart has the capacity to identify with my compassion and forgiveness, with my concern, love and blessing, then negative qualities of yours will automatically go away. Fear, doubt, anxiety and worries will disappear if you can identify yourself with positive qualities of mine.