The following is an excerpt from Chandrasekhar Babu's journal, 'Stopped In Our Tracks - Third Series'. It is a wonderful piece of eloquent writing that captures the real essence of UG's talks over the years.
The writeup is powerful and insightful, a true reflection of the openness and receptivity of the author. The simplicity and clarity of these lines are truly impactful.
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Man uses his every action, thought and experience to seek pleasure. The search for pleasure has the only aim of maintaining the continuity of the ‘I’ without a break.
When we notice that our attempts are, even in sorrow, worry and depression, to make the ‘I’ continue, we must also count them as part of the search for pleasure.
It is as much a pleasure movement when the devotee pines for God’s mercy, when the spiritual aspirant yearns for oneness while struggling in duality, unable to achieve unity with the animate and inanimate world, as when the lover trembles in eagerness for the bliss of his beloved’s embrace.
We seek pleasure especially in the food we try to find, prepare and fill our bellies with. The body doesn’t know what we eat, nor does it care. The body doesn’t know hunger. Hunger is a chemical event. If thought does not translate the chemical event that occurs when the blood glucose level drops to a certain level as ‘hunger’, we wouldn’t be anxious to fill our stomachs; and in that condition there wouldn’t be any debate in the body about what to eat and what not to eat. The body grabs whatever is within its reach. It won’t be eager to hoard for the next day.
All that food worry is only for the false, delusional individuality, for the separate identity called the ‘I’ that this culture and civilization have created in the body. That individuality constantly - every moment, day and night - fights with the mechanism of the body to assert its separate existence. It needs permanence. It must always survive. It must live higher and higher, wealthier and wealthier, happier and happier. Even if one’s body is in ruins, is decomposed or dead, it must continue to live at least in another body.
Immortality and permanence, living forever, these are the primary goals of this 'existence'. It is thanks to these goals that man has become a pleasure seeker.
By trying to plan every action based on wanting to secure his happiness, his pleasure, his satisfaction, he becomes a poisonous worm, destroying the whole of creation which supports his body. The body tries to shake off this poisonous worm with all its might. It is this struggle which the 'individual' experiences as fear, anxiety, disease and psychosomatic illnesses.
When the struggle with the body stops, the individuality called 'I' will disappear. It will appear only when it is necessary for the protection of the body. At other times, it is merged with the mechanisms of the body with no separate existence of its own; and it does not separate itself from this creation and struggle in duality; it lives quietly, united with life. In that state there is no 'pleasure movement'. There is no search for pleasure. That's the natural state of each one of us. That's what I feel UG is saying.
The guy called Chandrasekhar is a squatter there [in that body]; he is an alien. He is a thief who is trying to appropriate [that body]. The body mechanism tries with all its might to expel him. From time to time, human culture and civilization pour life into 'him' (the self), seeking to maintain him permanently.
What you call life is only the struggle between these two conflicting goals. The body is not concerned about Chandrasekhar's likes and dislikes. In fact, whatever he likes are like poison to the body. Still, he imposes them on the body. He wants to impose them forcibly and lock in his experience of pleasure permanently. The body pushes it all out as shit. The thoughts that come into his head, it throws out through the mouth as verbal shit.
This is why wise men command us to sit quietly shutting up both the top and bottom orifices. Yesterday UG demonstrated this truth so forcefully that it has left a deep and lasting impression on our minds.
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The title of Babu's book, 'Stopped In Our Tracks' describes the exact state of those who were associated with UG for a length of time.
UG took the wind off the sails, putting an end to the torture of needless spiritual shopping and guru hopping. Interactions with UG, sometimes resulted in tremendous amounts of friction and heat. But all this was indeed an act of supreme empathy. He 'stopped people in their tracks' averting the many dangers and disasters associated with spiritual pursuits and self-seeking gurus.
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