Shivakumar Viswanathan, Thursday, July 30, 2015 11:04 am

I am deeply and madly in love with you…for my sake

Yesterday morning my wife and I were having breakfast in our still unfurnished kitchen. While helping myself to some not-so-ripe pappayas, I looked at her and said,

‘I am deeply and madly in love with you…for my sake.’

There was a deafening silence for a moment when my whole life flashed in front of my eyes. Luckily, instead of busting my bald head open she burst out laughing. I guess there are some benefits to being recognized as a confirmed nutcase!

Vedanta vichAra is for one’s internal consumption – personal reflection. I guess it is not meant to be used on others. If someone trips and hurts his feet and you tell him, ‘Don’t worry. You are not this body’ it is very likely that he will give you a black eye in the next minute. After all, you are not the body either! Its like the slogan I saw on someone’s T-Shirt, ‘Statutory Warning: Repeatedly complaining about my smoking habit could be injurious to YOUR health.’ Well said, my friend.

Just about everything that one does in one’s life is purely for one’s own sake. I love this upaniShad-ic statement:


????????? ????? ????? ?????? ????

Atmanastu kAmAya sarvaM priyaM bhavati

It is for one’s own sake everything else is loved

None but the upaniShads can speak the truth so boldly. Whether it is people, places, things…anything and everything that we can think of is loved and liked for our sake alone. I do everything for my sake, with the expectation that it will bring ME happiness. I love mangoes for my sake, not the mangoes. I love my dog for my sake not the dog’s. I build a house for my sake. I don’t stay in the house for its sake. I buy stuff for my sake. I sell stuff for my sake. I marry for my sake. The husband loves his wife not for her sake but his own. The wife loves her husband for her sake and not his.

Swami Paramarthananda, in his humorous style says, “First people say ‘I love you’ and then end up saying ‘I allow you’” – meaning ‘I allow you to leave.’ Why? Initially people put on their best faces in order to woo and get the other person into their lives. Later the other person’s presence becomes unfavorable and hence the person is ‘allowed’ to go. Try a Google search on the correlation between social networking sites and divorce rates in the US! People are now using evidence gathered from social networking sites to apply for divorce. And then there are attorneys who help in filing for an online divorce in less than an hour! They can probably have a catchy slogan like ‘Love at first sight. Get divorced at our website.’

So much for undying love.

But there IS undying love…for oneself. The Self is of the nature of absolute bliss and is loved more than anything else. All other things are mere means to an end – happiness. The Self, being of the nature of bliss and joy, is loved for its own sake. And it is an end in itself. It is never used as a means to acquire some other happiness. And hence, self-love is superior to all other types of love.

My teacher recently sent an email with a series of pictures that a mother had clicked of her sleeping baby. The baby was dressed in various attires and the floor (used as the background) was carefully decorated to the give the image of a particular activity. There was a photo with the baby – still sleeping – holding an outstretched hand with a pillow/cloth shaped as a floating balloon. The blue bedspread with fluffy white pillows give the impression that the baby was flying in the sky holding on to the floating balloon!

Fantastic imagination and creativity, no doubt. For me the the best part of the email was my teacher’s one single sentence added in the body of the mail: ????????? ????? ????? ?????? ???? !

(It is for one’s own sake everything else is loved.)

The baby was sleeping and was completely oblivious to the surroundings. The baby was not enjoying the creativity or the imagination or anything else for that matter. She was blissfully sleeping. Then, for whom was the beauty and the spectacle? For the mother and all of us who saw those photos. Such a simple creativity turned into a vedantic lesson by my teacher as only he can!

This morning as I was leaving home my wife said, ‘It is very hot today. Take care of yourself…for my sake. You see ????????? ????? ????? ?????? ????. If you fall ill, I will have double the work.’

Thank God! Vedanta has taught me equanimity in handling a taste of my own medicine!

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