Listening to marketing jargon you’ll think, oh my status is this, so I have to travel by plane. Travelling in a plane is not a desire, it’s not luxury. That’s a need. Oh, I can’t travel in a taxi or train. Somebody else on a lower scale will say, oh, I can’t travel in a local train, I have to travel by car. That’s a need. Somebody on a still lower scale will say I can’t walk to work, I have to take the train. Somebody still lower will say I have to walk to work, I have no option. Somebody lower than that will say oh, I can’t work, I have to work here. I can’t travel also, there’s no money to travel.
These are fake things. Okay? Now these kinds of status symbols, of being somewhere in the world of men, in society, these are images created. We know that this is not real. We know this. We say, status is not real. Like a few years ago, caste was not real. Today, money is the new caste. Earlier, it was caste. Now it’s class. Differentiation of somebody from somebody else. So you have levels of differentiation. That need to be different. The need to possess something so I may differentiate myself from other people.
You understand? I’m a doctor, so I’ll differentiate myself. I have more money, so Ill differentiate myself. I have more knowledge, so I’ll differentiate myself. I’m fair, I’ll differentiate myself. I’m tall, I’ll differentiate myself. I’m broad-shouldered and broad-chested, so I’ll differentiate myself. I’m more beautiful than you, then I’ll differentiate myself. I have a better son than your son, then I’ll differentiate myself. I live in a better house than you, then I’ll differentiate myself. I have a better car, I’ll differentiate myself. I have this kind of bai, not that kind, I’ll differentiate myself. Everything that we do, we look for differences, never similarity.
The path of spirituality is to look at similarity, never differences. This has to be understood that you have to all the time – focus on similarity, not the differences. In the world of men, we look for differences, not similarity.
When we look for similarity, what we see in everything, we see ourselves. Whether it is a rich man or poor man, whether it is a man or woman, whether it’s the air hitting my face or fire burning you, I look for similarities. I can see myself in everything and I can see everybody in me. You go through pain, I’ll be able to see and feel that pain. Differentiation will stop. And differentiation is there, so that I can see my similarity in that. That is why the world is composed of innumerable different forms. God has created so much of an illusion and by innumerable, I mean innumerable. We can’t count. But you see the word innumerable too is very small to convey the innumerality of things. The word is not enough. You will be able to count every grain of sand on all the beaches in the world but you will not be able to count the many forms of God. All the forms of God. There are so many.
Suppose if you’re immortal and you set out to count all the grains of sand on the planet, you’ll be able to count them because they’re finite. Because the earth is still one globe, one ball. Nothing new is coming from anywhere else. So there’ll be zillions upon zillions of them, but you can still count them. But you will not be able to count the forms of God. They are beyond counting. So if you just look for the similarity in everything, you’ll become everything.
Now how do we go about doing this? When you see a thing, you have to observe. Like, you said earlier, how you’ve seen that there’s a comparative analysis going on every moment. You’re realizing this now that it’s happening every moment.
U: Can I tell you something that happened? When we were out earlier, I saw a woman and her son from an obviously lower class background and they were eating some street food dish. And the woman was eating it in a very gross sort of manner, stuffing it in her mouth with relish. At first, I felt all kinds of things not pity, but the fact that they’re enjoying something like that so much.
D: Condescending.
U: Yeah, condescending. But then I realized that when I’m home and I’m watching TV and I’m alone, eating with my fingers, I am probably eating the same way. So I saw myself in her. And there was no way anymore that I could judge her.
D: Why not?
U: Because I could see myself in her!
D: You see? We never condemn ourselves.
U: But that’s how we’ve been designed right? That’s the hidden meaning.
D: You’re right. I was thinking of telling you this. You see, suppose if you had leprosy. You will not run away from yourself. You will never feel disgust at yourself. We’re never disgusted by ourselves. Everybody else’s defecation disgusts us, not our own. If you’re a leper, you’ll still like yourself. No matter how much of boils you have on your body. Nobody else will come near you but you’ll always be okay with yourself. See on how many levels we feel separation all the time.
But coming back to the original topic of need. The original thing is desire but when it comes together with your identity, in the social context its need.
U: Desire is what’s inside, need is what comes up when other people are around.
D: That is also on comparative analysis. So if you think, oh, I’m hungry and that I need food. But if you probe deeper, you’ll think why do I need food? You’ll come to the point that I have a desire to live. That is why I need food to sustain the living, which is being lived out by the body brain system.
U: Even bodily hunger?
D: I’m talking about bodily hunger only. What you know as a factual need is not a need, it’s a desire in operation. But what need? If the body is not there, who’ll need food? So you’ll say, of course the body is there. But why is it there? Did it just appear by itself?
Now why the body is needed has been explained earlier. The Divine Fragment, in order to experience the world, takes upon three bodies. But why does he take upon these three bodies in the first place? There’s a desire to experience. If there’s no desire to experience, why is there a need for all this? No need, no natak. That means the body is not a need. The body is a product of desire. All the three bodies are not based upon need they are products of desire.
Coming back to the social construct. So we talked about, oh I can’t travel in this or a that, because it is a need. So you see, depending on your status, a luxury is a need now. It’s not a luxury. Like a colour TV was a luxury in 1982 for most and for some, it was a need. But now, it’s become ubiquitous. You can’t even think of a black and white TV. So that means, till the time there was no colour TV, we were all happy with a B&W TV
U: How can it be a need now if it didn’t even exist once?
D: And before B&W TV, there was no TV. Okay? So as long as the product is not there, you don’t even think about it.
U: But in normal usage by the world, the meaning of need and desire is opposite.
D: It is. What is it?
U: Need is something that always existed and desire is for some special thing.
D: And that’s what you were thinking yesterday. That’s what I cleared.
U: Yes, you said that all need is desire.
D: And you thought desire is some special thing that I desire some time in my life. Not all the time. What I want all the time is a need: I don’t want it, I have to have it, otherwise how will I survive?
But this is how it really is you desire living. And you’ve made it so automatic that you forgot that you desired it in the first place and it has become a need.
U: So even hunger is a constructed need?
D: It’s a constructed need. Now tell me about colour TVs. Or wearing clothes. Is wearing clothes a desire or a need? One would say, how can you not wear clothes. But there was a time when nobody was wearing clothes, we were all walking around naked.
U: But hunger came in the moment the physical body was taken on.
D: No, the hunger began with the mental body where the hunger was for ideas, for concepts. Emotional body came into being and there was a hunger for attention, for feeling. And with the physical body, the hunger is for food. Every body has its own hunger.
U: So is desire and hunger the same?
D: Desire to be, to live creates hunger for the sustenance of the body that you’ve taken. Say first, you’ve taken the mental body. It’s not you, it’s something you’ve taken to experience the world of concepts. So now, understand this now, emotional body and physical body are not there. The mental body has to experience the world of concepts. If it is given a choice, it will say I don’t want to experience, fuck it. It can say that, no? If it’s given a choice.
Do you understand? You don’t. I’ll tell you what I mean. So the body has been created in such a manner that it can never think whether it really needs this, it wants this. It’s functioning on automatic mode. It always has to eat concepts, ideas all the time, so that it can keep going on and on and on. It cannot think, do I really need to be in the world of concepts? Excuse me, Divine Fragment, why am I here? It cannot do this, it’s not designed to. It’s a robot it’s functioning the way it’s been programmed to function.
So then what happens it goes on filling itself up. The food for this body is ideas. Now is this a need or a desire? It’s a need for this body. The desire is the original desire of the divine fragment to experience.
It’s like this a code is put in the robot to walk all the time. Now walking has become its need. If it doesn’t walk, it will die. There’s only one piece of code walk. So it keeps walking. You can’t ask it, where are you walking? Because it can’t stop and tell you, oh I am walking because my Master instructed me to walk from this place to that place. It’s not in the programme to speak, to answer questions. It’s not programmed to even stop and listen to your question, process and then answer. It’s programmed to walk. How can the robot stop, it’s not going to stop. So somebody looking at the robot will say, oh he needs to walk, that is his food. If you stop him, he’ll die. The robot obviously will start believing it has to walk, because it is programmed and because if he stops, then he will die. And you don’t want to die. That’s another part of the programme: you can’t die. You can’t stop.
Now, the human being, when it takes upon the emotional body, there is a feeling of fear oh something has come in my way, it might make me stop. I have to move from here, there, somewhere. Now something has to be done, a roadblock has come. Because the programming is you can’t stop. So now, based upon the fundamental fear of death, it has to always walk. This fear is programmed in the emotional body.
Now in the third body, the physical body, there are organs, muscles, tissues, bones, eyes, nose, ears, hair etc. Now all this is one body and inside it, if you observe with a microscope, there are millions of cells and within these cells, there are molecules and atoms. And all these are accumulated together which forms organs and makes up a body. But they are all atoms of a certain kind of programming they’re all programmed to not stop walking. Which means here, to not stop eating. Which means in the emotional body, to not stop getting attention. And in the mental body, to not stop thinking.
If you stop doing any of these activities, you will die. That is the programming. And at the same time there’s another programming you cannot die because the fear is of dying. So what to do now?
U: So everything is working against the Divine Fagment.
D: No, the Divine Fragment has created this stupid programming to experience life.
U: And if there was some loophole, the body would just die and it would go back
D: Right, there’s no loophole. The divine fragments can’t go back. They’ve undertaken to play the game to its fullest. Understand? Now they are fully free to go back any moment they want. So now what to do? Break the programming. Die.
And what is death? Stop. Stop what you’re doing. Stop walking. Stop eating. Stop thinking. Stop feeling. But you can’t, you see the programming is there.
So what you do is, slowly, you cut out each thing that you think is a need. So, in the world of men, we have stupid things called needs. Oh I have to travel by plane, I have to wear these kinds of jeans these are stupid, surface-level idiocies. So trash them.
We come to the next level, which will be whatever your individual level is. So I have to sleep on the right side of the bed, I have to sit like this, I have to walk, speak like this. Trash that also.
Then you come to another level. What you think you are is the only thing you know you are. Then encompass, become whoever you want to become. Fundamentally, you have to commit suicide.
So you start by what you think is luxury first, for you. Then what you think is need for you. You’ll think, oh, but I have to eat food.
Why?
Because I’ll die.
So die!
No, no, I can’t die.
Why?
What rubbish, how can I die?
(interruption)
The programming is that you will die if you stop. So now you have to delete this programming. Delete it to what? Not to go on eating. Delete that thing that if I stop eating, I’ll die. So you have to rewrite the code, I shall die. Simple.
Then why do you need to do anything? Look at it. If you’re willing to die at this moment, do you want to do anything now?
U: Yeah, if I adopt that fuck it attitude, then why should I be nice to people?
D: Why should you be arrogant towards people?
U: Why not?
D: Ah, but that is what is automatic to you.
U: That’s a need for me?
D: Yes. That’s a need for you.
U: To validate myself.
D: That’s why we’re not doing that which is our need. I tell you, be nice to people. But I will not be able to tell you in that moment the entire thing the way I’m telling you this now. But this is not the only thing. Each day I tell you something new. Or rather, I tell you the same thing every day in a different manner.
See, I’ve already told you the action to put in. I’m telling you the reason for the action and in many different ways, I’m putting it across. So you gain newer perspectives, it reinforces your whole decision, the entire process and all the actions you’re putting in.