Why do people think spirituality is restrictive? | Mohanji
Many people are afraid of spirituality (spiritual path) because they think that it means restriction. It’s not. It’s freedom. People think that, oh, you are a spiritual person, so you can’t do this. You can’t do that. What the hell? You can do everything.
Freedom
You are free, but sometimes you don’t want certain things. That’s all. For example, some of the pleasures of the senses you’re not interested in anymore because you’ve gone through them. You’ve transcended it. But it’s a wrong notion that by being spiritual, you got to be pretty restricted; you can’t look here, there, do’s and don’ts, tremendous problems. That’s not the case. You are free. You are like a bird. You’re free flying. And what do you need, you do. But it doesn’t mean that you’re bound by it. You are freedom; that means you’re not bound by an emotion, a person, or a situation. This is what we must understand.
Fear
People are afraid of freedom. Many of us cannot handle love. We believe that love means a man and woman. If you just see people around, when you smile at them, many people don’t smile back. They’re afraid to smile. It’s as if something is compromised. What does this mean? They are too much in fear. When you smile at people (I smile at people sometimes), but when they don’t smile back, I leave it because I don’t get hurt because of that. I know that they are walking heaviness, mountains, burden. You can see the burden. A spiritual path is a place where you’re free. The restrictions that we keep are usually signs of insecurity.
Mast – Ecstasy
When you’re spiritually or fully aware, whatever makes you not aware will not be of interest to you – such as something which intoxicates you; you’re already in ecstasy. The book Mast is about the nature of an ecstatic man – a man who’s in absolute enjoyment, drunk with God; totally drunk with God; full ecstasy.
Then if you say I give you some alcohol, what’s this? It’s nothing. It’s boring – making you unconscious. What for? I am conscious. I’m happiness – happy in consciousness. You don’t need anything, any intoxication. Then you say, oh, no, no, no, he’s a spiritual master; he can’t drink. It’s not like that. He doesn’t want to drink. He doesn’t have to drink; that’s the difference.
Redefine yourself
You start redefining yourself because you’re free. When people don’t understand freedom, they think it’s the freedom of the senses and the mind to do whatever you’d like to do. That’s not freedom. That’s slavery because the senses and the mind are dragging you everywhere. And they say, oh, this isn’t good because you’re not free. I want to have a coffee. Oh, you can’t have a coffee. Oh, that’s not freedom. It’s not that. You don’t need a coffee. That state where you’re free – you can have a coffee if you want, but you don’t really need it.
Social conditioning
This is exactly what we must understand all these things – mostly people don’t pursue the path of spirituality because they are afraid to evolve. The second is social conditioning; what’ll people think? They’ll look at you as if you are weird; he sits and meditates, closing his eyes. So, this is weird.
This is again another problem. We are afraid of society – what society is going to talk about us. The moment the fears are gone, you’re flying. You must fly; you have the right to fly. You’ve to be liberated. You are liberated. That’s why you’re born liberated until you change your mind. You know the mind has put you in a cage. If you take this mind away, then you’re not in a cage. You are free.
Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt
Proofread by Yogesh Pandit