One of the four litmus tests for genuine love is balancing. The word balancing has a different and a rather deep approach in context of love, however, while discussing today with an old friend another view of balancing flashed in my head.
It was about the balancing that creates happiness. It’s the balance between two temperatures that reside in us.
We all want to be cool headed with a string of different meanings attached to the word: patient, carefree, not worrisome and / or not troublesome, living and let living, easy going, calm, gentle, forgiving, tolerant, a buddha in oneself, permissive, being able to be woed by nothing, etc etc.
And a few lucky ones among us get to that point where they can truly claim that they are at peace with themselves, but the irony starts here. After going through a lot in life, we feel arrived.
The truth in the journey of spirituality is that we have arrived at the set off point. It is like traveling across Sahara desert to arrive at the port of Cassablanca, but the voyage is still there. Another long voyage.
If you are the chosen one, then all the pain that you have gone through shall take you to the door step of the light. Going through misery and having come out is not the final elevation. No doubt it is an achievement, since a majority of others do not learn to grow through their pain.
Since we feel arrived, we think there is nothing more left to achieve and we start to very slowly suffer from losing life in us. It is a very delicate point in life, where our previous toil can go fruitless or can prove to be the key for the door awaiting to be opened…. by us.
“And what was the purpose of all that pain then?”, we think. The pain acts as a sandpaper only, ripping off unwanted particles away from our soul, preparing us to learn to accept. The first step is acceptance and all the efforts of a true mentor are directed on one thing: to teach the disciple to accept. Only then lessons shall begin.
With peace attained after going through a lot comes a certain lack of ambition, an absence of that fire which has to exist in us, we feel arrived.
The journey has two parts: the preparation of it and the actual journey. The pain prepares us for it. It makes us cool. But the actual journey needs fire. In philosophy and from Arabic and Persian saints, the fire, the desire is termed “talab”, for whom it is, is called “matloob” and the one who possesses the desire is “taalib”.
To arrive at the doorstep of matloob, there has to be a balance: a fire in our hearts and a peace, a certain solemness in our heads.
When the balance becomes perfect, one of the initial signs is joy. The final sign: universe kneels before you.
From the collections of Hassan Bukhari. Read the opening pages of The Happiness Manual — free, or explore the coaching programs.