Daily Offerings from Alokda

It has been said in spiritual traditions that success is often a harder test to pass than failure. Truly, if we compare the effect that the two have upon us, we can see why it is so.

Success can make one dizzy, haughty and even arrogant. Men drunk with success often forget the great Power working from behind that has pushed them to victory. They begin to believe and sometimes even delude themselves that they are someone special and extraordinary. Very soon their confidence passes into an overconfidence that loses contact with earthly realities. Flying upon the wings of vanity they presume, like Daedalus & Sampati, that they can touch the sun with their beaks. Success is indeed a heady wine that one enjoys in the beginning but ends up by being swallowed by it.

Failure has another effect, if one can endure and bear and go through it. While success hypnotizes you and gets you stuck to one option, failure dehypnotizes and unstucks us. It forces you to humility and makes you aware of the realistic limits, so that you may work steadily and patiently to exceed them. Success creates the illusion of power and control except in exceptional cases and even there one can easily fall into trap of confusing a limited and ignorant power for a genuine and supreme one. Failure strips us of all shows and shams, those facades and images that men hang on their outsides to deceive themselves and the world. It teaches us how to distinguish the real from the artificial, the genuine from the imitation by robbing of the sheen and shine and the glitter and glamour that falsehood uses sometimes as a cover and a cloak to hide its ugliness. Failure bares us all, so that we can confront us in our utter nakedness and walk, even if slowly, in the light of truth. Indeed failure has a much greater potential than success to bring us closer to truth… and open new doors for us.

Indeed when all outer doors close upon us one by one, we have this one rare chance to open the inner door and find ‘the One’ who never fails us; ‘the One’ who is the source of all security, satisfaction, strength; ‘the One’ whose touch upon our lives brings such a peace and joy that no outer success can ever bring. Success often depletes us by expending our energies over perishable goods and toys that break and by crowding our life with flowers that are scentless. Failure increases us by teaching perseverance and endurance and helping us discover our own inner strength. It allows us the possibility of new perspectives, and invites us to fresh goals, different aims; alternate life-views that are more complete an enduring. Indeed, he is most unlucky who has never known failure for such a one has never known God and His Grace. And fortunate is he who has weathered the storms of failure that toss against his boat. He has seen through the mask of night and when the storm and the dust settles he is ready to receive wider horizons & the light of wisdom. Success creates a zone of artificial light within the dark night. Failure ventures into the heart of night and pucks out of its folds of secrecy the jewels that hide within the darkness’ caves. Indeed, blessed is misfortune for through it one can see the face of God.

This does not mean that we should seek for failure. We should seek neither for failure nor for success for they are two sides of the same coin. As we have seen every success carries in itself the seed of failure and every failure hides within its crust the fruit of success. Yet we should seek neither but simply do the deed that God has put into our hearts, to fulfill the purpose for which we are born, to be in tune with the ‘Will’ that moves the world. And this indeed is true success, the sign of a life well-lived, a life worthy of man. To go ahead and do what we must and are meant for without caring for success and failure, victory or defeat, the jeers and cheers of the crowd, the praise and insults heaped by demons or the gods. Better it is to fail and fall fulfilling one’s true calling rather than succeed while following what may come natural to another but is alien to our own deepest self.

The Mother has written the following: “Our Path To walk on the path you must have a dauntless intrepidity, you must never turn back upon yourself with this mean, petty, weak, ugly movement that fear is.

An indomitable courage, a perfect sincerity, a total self-giving to the extent that you do not calculate or bargain, you do not give with the idea of receiving, you do not offer yourself with the intention of being protected, you do not have a faith that needs proofs, – this is indispensable for advancing on the path, – this alone can shelter you against all dangers.”

In the above message vis a vis our need for protection She is not saying that we cannot ask Her protection when in difficulty or danger. All that She is saying is that we do not take to the Path in the spirit of bargaining or calculation for then it would mean that the sadhaka was motivated by purely outer and worldly gains rather than seeking the Divine for the sake of the Divine.

Secondly, She is asking us to keep fear as far away from us as we can since it shuts us in a very narrow hole, a weakness that closes us to the Divine working. On the other hand if we walk with courage and faith we are actually truly safe since we thus create the best conditions for the Divine Grace to act and protect us. Fear, on the other hand invites the danger. She is in fact giving us the perfect recipe for safety. She is not telling us not to call Her when we are in distress. Whom else will the child call but his mumma? But this call should be full of trust. Besides, the reason for our undertaking the journey of yoga should not be out of calculation about what we will get out of it. That puts the cart before the horse. When we give ourselves to the Divine with the complete trust of a child as Dhruva and Prahlad did, the Divine takes full care and protects us from every danger. But if the seeking is done with this or other ulterior motives then it comes in the way of the full workings of the Grace.

The self giving should be an act of love and done freely without any other motive except the joy of self giving. We can equally say that a giving which is accompanied with a hidden agenda of personal gain is really not a giving but a calculated move which cannot deceive the Divine who knows the truth behind our seeking. 

Equanimity is not a dispensable element but the very foundation of yoga. It is the bedrock on which all later genuine yogic development stands. First of all it liberates us from the touches of outer nature, the shock of the senses, the waves of anger and desire and grief that besiege all of us. Thus by its liberating influence it prepares a suitable and strong ground for the awakening of spiritual experiences. But its role does not end here but extends itself far even when we begin to climb the inner peaks and receive touches from the subtler domains. In the absence of equanimity the sadhaka is often carried away by the experience rather than containing it as one more useful link in his spiritual progress. He often exaggerates it or sometimes doubts it rather than studied and observing it with a calm and equal vision without prejudices or hasty jumping to conclusions. For there is always the vital in us hiding in a little corner that is enamoured of experiences for their own sake and often, most often unconsciously adds colour and flavour to what transpires within and thereby not only distorts and falsifies what was coming but also looses its true utility. Thus equanimity has a double utility, one practical in facing the painful trials and tribulations as well as the blinding and misleading pleasures of outer life. It helps us to keep our head on the shoulders in the face of contrary appearances and the crest and troughs of life. But also in our inner life it helps create a suitable field for the descent of truth and to maintain our balance in the wake of the new experiences whose origin and meaning we do not know to begin with.

In other words equanimity has two sides to it. First the passive side that receives the touches and gifts and shocks of life without an undue reaction, or better still with an enlightened and calm passivity to the Will of God for the moment in the universe. But it has a dynamic side too. It consists in the right evaluation of men and events and forces and circumstances without undue exaggerations and aberrations that arise by the interference of our personal emotions and reactions in any judgement.

Equanimity is not indifference, nor is it a courageous stoic affront. Even a philosophical outlook and vairagya do not strictly qualify for being termed as equanimity though all these can lead us towards them. But most of all one should not make the mistake of confusing an inert and unenlightened passivity born of weakness and ignorance with equanimity. Equanimity is a great power and immensely extends our mastery over life. It is born from the Knowledge of the soul, from recognizing the truth that a deep wisdom works in this world with its inscrutable ways. As we begin to grow in the knowledge of Its ways and appreciate the relative utility and place of each and every circumstance of life and see how it is leading us to the grand goal, so do we begin to grow into an enlightened equanimity that is full of wisdom and therefore also full of force. For the force of equanimity comes from a growing stillness and Peace, from the Impersonality that lets the Divine do His Will freely in us and through us as well as in the world making us His conscious and plastic instruments. Finally true equanimity caries in itself a sense of joy and surrender rather than being a labouring and painful achievement. Knowledge, Impersonality, Universality through the growing vision of God and His Working, and its resultant Peace and Joy and detachment from all that is not yet recognized as the Divine are the edifice on which equanimity rests.

Finally equanimity is not something sudden and instantaneous. Just as most true spiritual experiences this too grows as we grow in our soulfulness and Godward aspiration and sincere surrender. It gradually extends itself to other and vaster fields than that of our limited present limited zone that we now call ourselves. And as it grows it prepares and helps grow other diviner elements in us. Then we find how beautifully God’s Grace has been leading us despite ourselves, we begin to see with open eyes God’s play and His method in the world. We recognize the utility of each stumble and failure and the marvelous Grace that works even when all seems darkest. And our hearts are filled with an ever increasing gratitude and love for Him who is the very core and essence of our and the world’s existence.