YoY soetra 066: be the unsame same
“BE THE UNSAME SAME TO FRIEND AS TO STRANGER, IN HONOR AND DISHONOR.”
Heraclitus has said, “You cannot step twice in the same river.” The same can be said about man: you cannot meet the same man again. Life becomes a misery if you expect the other to be the same. All you need is simple awareness that body and mind changes. Body and mind change; that is natural. But then who knows about childhood and about youth and about old age? Who knows? This knower must have remained the same. This knower is the same and has one perspective. This witness must have remained the same. This witnessing consciousness, this knower, is always the same.
So you have two realms or two dimensions existing together in you. You are “unsame” on the periphery, but at the center “you” remain the same. Remember that, which is the same. Just remembering will be enough; you need not do anything else. That which is constantly the same is difficult to remember. Whenever something new enters, you become conscious — for many reasons. But if everything is as it was, there is no need. You need not be aware. And this same element in you? Because it is so permanently the same, you are missing it.
You take notice of the body, you take notice of the mind because they are changing. And because you take notice of them, you start thinking that you are them. You know only them; you become identified. The whole spiritual effort is to find the same amidst the unsame. “BE THE UNSAME SAME TO FRIEND AS TO STRANGER.” As far as behavior is concerned you will be different, but as far as your consciousness is concerned you can be the same.
Look at a friend: do you really know him? You can predict only if you have a dead friend: then you can predict. If you can look at the stranger in your friend, you will never get frustrated because you cannot expect anything from a stranger. If a friend can be a stranger, then a stranger can be a friend. Just by your looking deep down into his eyes, the friend will be revealed. In personality we differ, in manifestation we differ; in essence we are one.
“IN HONOR AND DISHONOR…” Who is honored and who is dishonored? Others come in contact not with you, but with your manifestations. They can call you a sinner one day and a saint another. Remember this, they are not honoring and dishonoring YOU. You are two, the periphery and the center. They come in contact with your periphery, they never come in contact with you. Remember this, that whatsoever they are saying, it is not about you. Apply this technique to all opposites: in love and hate, poverty and richness, comfort and uncomfort, or in anything, remain “THE UNSAME SAME.”
Try this in polar situations. Go on feeling something in you which is the same. Once you have the feeling of the natural detachment, nothing can disturb you. You will remain silent. Whatsoever happens, you will remain unmoved. This “beyondness” leads you into existence, into that which is bliss, eternal. Remember the two realms. Give emphasis to your knowing. Never say that “I am hungry.” Always say, “I know that my body is hungry.” Never say, “I am becoming old.” Just say, “My body is becoming old.” Then in the moment of death you will know, “I am not dying; my body is dying. If the discrimination deepens, one day, suddenly, there will be enlightenment.
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