The Book of Secrets - Deepak Chopra [110]
CHANGING YOUR REALITY TO ACCOMMODATE THE FIFTEENTH SECRET
The fifteenth lesson is about unity. As a young man, I was driven to reach as far as I could, but over time I began to grasp that unity is not an achievement one can set for oneself in the way one can set winning a game or finding the perfect wife or rising to the top of a profession. Unity is more like music. Bach might visit a kindergarten class and inspire the children with hope that they can all be like him. In reality, few children will ever grow up with Bach’s genius for music. But they don’t have to. Music is a glorious pursuit on its own, comparing yourself to no one. Every moment of music making brings delight on its own, not just as a step up the mountain toward the highest peak.
Spirituality can bring delight at every moment—or at least every day—if it is pursued with the four things in mind that Vashistha taught. Let’s review them again, this time as they might be applied to our own lives.
Contentment: Look for a moment of contentment every day. You have a right to it because, in the cosmic design, you are safe and cared for. Be content not with your lot in life but with being here in the flow of life. The glories of creation are in your very cells; you are made of the same mindstuff as the angels, the stars, and God himself.
Inquiry: Don’t let a day go by without asking who you are. Understanding is a skill, and like all skills it must be coaxed into existence. To understand who you are means returning again and again to the question, Who am I? Each time you return you are allowing a new ingredient to enter your awareness. Every day is filled with the potential for expanding your awareness, and although each new addition may seem tiny, overall the accumulation will be great. It may take thousands of days to know who you are; it takes only one day to quit asking. Don’t let today be that day.
Self-awareness: Never forget that you are not in the world; the world is in you. Whatever you need to know about existence will arise nowhere outside yourself. When anything happens to you, take the experience inward. Creation is set up to bring you constant hints and clues about your role as a co-creator. Be aware of them; absorb them. Your soul is metabolizing experience as surely as your body is metabolizing food.
Strength: No one will ever be able to say that walking the spiritual path is the easiest thing in the world—or the hardest. The birth of the new is too intimately tied to the death of the old. Joy comes on the heels of sorrow, as it must if birth and death are merged. Don’t expect one or the other today. Use your strength to meet whatever is coming your way. Be as committed and passionate about spirituality as you can be. Strength is the foundation for passion, and you were designed to survive and thrive no matter how life unfolds. Be strong today in that knowledge.
Epilogue
SECOND BIRTH
AT A CERTAIN POINT life has no more secrets to reveal. You live as if there is one reality, and in return it repays you richly. The fear born of duality is gone, replaced by an unshakable contentment. Awareness has become fully aware of itself. When we reach this stage of freedom, life starts over, which is why enlightenment is rightly called a second birth.
Growing up in India, I never met an enlightened person. My family was deeply religious, particularly on my mother’s side. But when I was born the whole country was caught up in the turmoil of a political birth, as the English decamped overnight and left us to suffer our birth pangs alone. These were terrible times: Rioting and wholesale killing raged unchecked, as religious intolerance led to violence throughout North India.
When Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by a religious fanatic on January 30, 1948, the killer claimed another victim. A thread. The traditional costume of the Brahmin caste included a double thread worn over the shoulder. There were many evils in the caste system, but in my mind the double thread