What’s Truly First in Your Life: Earthly Attachments or Divine Purpose?

Have you ever wondered about Luke 14-26?

It goes “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”

I have written about this in an earlier blog.

It makes more sense if you combine it with Matthew 6-33. “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”

We want God in our life, but this is a weak, insipid desire with no vibrancy, no urgency. We go to church or temple or mosque and perhaps we meditate and then we are done. We go on with our life.

There are lots and lots of other things that we want and with greater urgency. We want to do well in our careers, see our children flourish, go on vacation, watch movies, and see our favorite sports teams win.

Feeling the presence of God in your life, truly realizing that a benevolent universe is aware of you and has your back at all times, is not a trivial, part-time undertaking. If you want to walk through the valley of the shadow of death with no fear, you must work at cultivating that presence.

Which means that this quest comes before everything else in your life. It comes before all the bonds you hold so dear. Before your father and your mother and your wife and your children and your brother and your sister. You hate them insofar as they steal your attention from your primary quest.

“Wait.” You protest. “I cannot give up all that I hold so dear.”

Fine. Hold on to as many as you like. But then you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven and there will be trepidation in your heart when you walk in the valley of the shadow of death.

Understand that “giving up” your father and mother and all others does not mean you walk away or banish them. It means that you get rid of your clinging to them. Of your emotional dependence on them.

Now we come to the tricky part. Your clinging comes from a deep-rooted desire and you cannot give up desire volitionally. The best you can do is give up indulging the desire.

Say you are a heavy smoker. You can give up the physical act of smoking, but you cannot give up the desire. When someone lights up in your presence, you instinctively wish that you, too, could have a smoke.

I repeat – you cannot give up desire. Desire has to give you up!

How can you persuade or force desire to go away?

There are two ways to do this. You can use either one or both in parallel.

First, practice deep reflection. Think of how your desire is harmful to you in so many different ways. Are you an alcoholic? Reflect on the money you waste on drinks. The ruptures in your relationships. The way it hinders you in your career. Think of how much better your life would be if you did not have this addiction.

Gradually your desire will attenuate and finally go away.

Second, hand the problem over to a ‘higher being’ and ask for help. Pray to Jesus or Krishna or Allah or Guru Nanak or whoever inspires you. Ask to be relieved of your burden. If you do so sincerely and constantly, your load will be taken away.

If you are atheist/agnostic, confide in the Universe and ask for help. It will come. Don’t expect instant results. Wait patiently.

This is a rest-of-your-life journey. When you have been on the road for a few months you discover that a strange, inexplicable joy has come into your life. And this joy becomes deeper and stays longer as you continue your practice.

And you discover that you can be a loving child even as you ‘hate’ your father and your mother.

Annamalai Swami describes this beautifully, “When you have become one with the Self, a great power takes you over and runs your life for you. It looks after your body; it puts you in the right place at the right time; it makes you say the right things to the people you meet. This power takes you over so completely you no longer have any ability to decide or discriminate. The ego that thinks ‘I must do this’ or ‘I should not do that,’ is no longer there. The Self simply animates you and makes you do all the things that need to be done.”

Think about what I have written. Ponder it deeply.

It is not easy to ‘grok’ this.

Peace!