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Video Information:
Advait Learning Camp, 25th November, 2018, Jim Corbett, Uttarakhand, India

Context:
"Love that does not renew itself every day becomes a habit and in turn a slavery"
"How shall My heart be unsealed unless it be broken"
~Khalil Gibran

~ How to renew love?
~ What is this Newness Gibran is talking of?
~ What is the meaning of unsealing of heart?
~ How Truth is always new?
~ What is the journey of love?

Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Transcript
00:00Love that does not renew itself every day becomes a habit and in turn a slavery.
00:21How shall my heart be unsealed unless it be broken?
00:28Kindly elaborate on the above two lines.
00:31What do renewal of love, unsealing of heart and broken heart imply here?
00:38So how could there be slavery in love?
00:41With gratitude and respect.
00:43Love that does not renew itself every day becomes a habit and in turn a slavery.
00:59How shall my heart be unsealed unless it be broken?
01:03The truth, Shweta, is neither new nor old, beyond time.
01:14So what is this newness Zipran is talking of?
01:21All that is new and all that would be old is within the stream of time.
01:34So obviously when something new is being referred to, something of the world is being referred to.
01:56The lover of truth is on a continuous journey.
02:09The journey is through herself.
02:22The destination is not changing.
02:28But the traveler is constantly changing as she is moving towards the truth.
02:37Are you getting it?
02:44As one journeys towards the truth, one changes with every step.
02:58This journey is the journey of love.
03:03In essential terms, love is nothing but the love of this traveler towards the truth.
03:12That is the only right love.
03:22To be helplessly attracted towards something unknowable.
03:44Now the journey is in the world because the traveler is worldly.
03:51The traveler is worldly so the journey is in the world.
03:56And because the journey is in the world, the traveler seeks and gets support for her journey from the world itself.
04:21The worldly traveler cannot approach the truth directly because the truth is beyond the world.
04:35So how is the journey made possible then?
04:38The journey is made possible by the help of someone within the world.
04:49The worldly traveler needs the help of someone within the world in order to move towards the one beyond the world.
05:08The traveler is in the world.
05:14Therefore, if the traveler needs guidance, she will have to go to someone in the world.
05:24But this person or force that the traveler goes to
05:42must be someone who can guide her to her point beyond the world.
06:10But he began by saying that the traveler keeps changing with every step in her journey.
06:26If the traveler keeps changing, then the one she keeps getting attracted to for the sake of help must also keep changing.
06:57Repeating.
07:00Today you are one person.
07:12And this person
07:27needs the help of someone
07:42who will help her go beyond, who will help her progress in her journey.
08:01And if this person is rightly on her journey, then tomorrow she would be a different person.
08:23And if tomorrow she would be a different person, obviously
08:35she needs to go to someone else to get help.
09:01We said that the lover of truth is on a continuous journey of self-change.
09:13As one changes, that which one prefers, even in the world, cannot remain the same.
09:26The one you preferred yesterday, the one you chose to be with yesterday,
09:34obviously cannot remain attractive anymore to you today.
09:39Why? Because being on the journey, you have changed.
09:47Yesterday's choices would remain today's choices only if you haven't proceeded at all on your journey,
09:58only if you have been stagnating.
10:04And stagnation is a word you cannot at all associate with the lover of the truth.
10:30Therefore, Jipran says that love has to renew itself continuously.
10:47As you keep changing, that which is likable to you in the world too continuously keeps changing.
11:04It must change.
11:10If it doesn't change, then Jipran says that love is just habit and slavery.
11:26When you are associated with the truth,
11:36then you are continuously changing and it is a change towards freedom.
11:44When you are associated with someone in the world,
11:48then you are not allowed to change and that is total slavery.
11:56In fact, in the relationships of the world, change is a dirty word.
12:06Your worldly lover would accuse you
12:17and allege that you have changed.
12:25Is that not an allegation in worldly terms?
12:29You have changed.
12:32He would not want you to change because he is incapable of changing.
12:39He is incapable of changing because he has a stubborn resistance to truth.
12:48Only truth can give you real change.
12:52Otherwise, all change is cosmetic.
12:57And when you are resistant to the truth,
13:09then obviously no real change is possible.
13:24And the funny thing is,
13:28neither do you change nor you allow the ones associated with you to change.
13:44And as we said, if you change,
13:54then you charge them, rebuke them,
14:04try to humiliate them.
14:14Keep this very clear.
14:17The one who is worthy of being loved
14:31would enable your freedom
14:37and catalyze your change.
14:44And the one who is unworthy of being loved
14:49would want you to forever be frozen in time.
14:58He will say,
15:01kindly remain forever the way you are at age 18.
15:17He's interested in keeping you a dwarf.
15:24It is a compulsion with him to keep you a dwarf
15:26because he himself is not growing up.
15:35Truth is immense and therefore
15:40wants you to be immense.
15:46The worldly lover is a dwarf
15:48and therefore wants to keep you little, pygmy size.
16:07Love must constantly renew itself.
16:10As you change,
16:13your choices in the world must also continuously change.
16:19You must be able to outgrow your old choices.
16:32And if by grace you are with someone
16:38who is able to constantly outgrow himself,
16:43someone who not only matches your pace
16:48but actually sets the pace for you,
16:50then by all means stay put with him.
16:55Stay put with someone who is himself on the divine journey.
17:05If he is on the journey,
17:08he will hold your hand and pull you along.
17:15But keep going beyond people,
17:19going past people
17:25who are sticking to their own outdated,
17:31stale, ugly versions.
17:50Love must constantly renew itself.
17:53What?
17:55Not the love towards the ultimate
18:01but the love towards the medium.
18:12The destination, obviously,
18:15as we said in the beginning,
18:22is neither new nor old.
18:28You must renew yourself.
18:30If you really are on the path,
18:32then you would be renewed.
18:35And if you are renewed,
18:36how can your choices remain the old ones?
18:40Also,
18:49though the destination does not change,
18:58but your eyes that look at the destination do change.
19:06So your version of the destination,
19:08your concept of the destination changes.
19:11And that is important
19:13because till the time you actually reach the destination,
19:23you do continue to live in concepts.
19:25The concepts keep on getting purified,
19:29sublimated,
19:31but still they remain.
19:34And all said and done concepts are just concepts.
19:39So when you are initially attracted towards the truth,
19:44you have one story about the truth.
19:50And as you progress in your journey,
19:55your story too changes.
20:01Your very self-image changes.
20:09Initially, you might say,
20:13I'm working for self-improvement.
20:17That's your initial story.
20:20I'm working for self-improvement.
20:24Somebody asks you,
20:26what is this journey you are on?
20:29What are you working for?
20:31And you will say,
20:32I'm working for self-improvement.
20:35And later on,
20:36you might find that you are saying,
20:40I'm working for self-dissolution.
20:42See how the story has changed.
20:44The truth has remained the same.
20:47The destination has remained the same,
20:48but because you have changed,
20:50so your way of looking at the truth has changed.
20:53Your way of looking at the journey has changed.
21:02You are saying you are developing yourself.
21:04Now you are saying you are dissolving yourself.
21:07Look at the twist in the tale.
21:35At one point in the journey,
21:39if asked, where are you going?
21:42You might say,
21:44I'm going to my beloved.
21:47At another point in journey,
21:50you might say,
21:52I'm going for a pilgrimage.
22:01At a third point in the journey,
22:03you might say,
22:04I do not know where I'm going.
22:06I'm just being helplessly pulled away from myself.
22:16See how your perception of what is happening is changing.
22:25Love must constantly renew itself.
22:30Your stories are renewed.
22:33That great beloved,
22:40you at first just thought of somebody wonderful to be with.
22:48And as you gain proximity to him,
22:56he reveals more of himself to you.
23:01And then you say,
23:03I have been moving for so long towards him,
23:08but how little do I know of him?
23:13Every day, something more is revealed.
23:21And yet,
23:24nothing has been known so far.
23:31All that I know about him
23:38is not even a tiny fraction
23:41of what yet remains to be known.
23:44I keep running towards him,
23:46but he is like the horizon
23:50that keeps receding away from me.
23:54I keep running towards him,
23:56but he is like the horizon
24:00that keeps receding away from me.
24:23And that is why
24:31the spiritual seeker never gets bored.
24:35Neither does the true lover.
24:42Do you now see why?
24:48Because in true love,
24:50both the lover and the beloved are constantly changing.
24:55Where is the question of boredom then?
24:58It's a new love story every day.
25:01Wow.
25:11Serious variety.
25:13It's not merely that you are getting a new beloved every day.
25:27You are also getting a new lover every day.
25:34Both the lover and the beloved are changing.
25:40Don't get confused.
25:44The real beloved, the destination cannot change.
25:48We said
25:53the worldly lover
25:56as well as your perception of the final destination.
26:05They constantly keep changing.
26:09Hmm?
26:27People recite holy scriptures every day.
26:34And onlookers ask,
26:36you are repeating the same verse every day.
26:40How do you manage to do it?
26:45Don't you get bored?
26:50And they answer,
26:51it's not the same verse every day.
26:53Every day the verse reveals something more about itself.
27:00There is such immense depth here
27:02that even if I read it for 2000 years,
27:07I would never reach the end.
27:14So in fact,
27:16I read a new verse every day.
27:19Not only is the verse new every day,
27:23the reader of the verse is also new every day.
27:26Why? Because he is determined and committed to the verse.
27:33His devotion to the verse renews him,
27:39changes him for the better,
27:41dissolves him a little more.
27:47So there is a new text every day
27:49and there is a new reader every day.
27:53Now who can get bored?
27:57And the text today is deeper than the text yesterday.
28:03And the reader today is deeper than the reader yesterday.
28:11Every new day is a new depth.
28:16Now who can get bored?
28:27Everything that is related to you must change.
28:33Only that
28:37which is beyond all relationships,
28:44which is beyond all relationships,
28:49can be changed.
28:51Relationships
28:56will not change.
28:59And mind you, only that which is beyond all relationships
29:04is worth having a relationship with.
29:14All other relationships
29:17are just instruments
29:23to help your work.
29:28As you proceed in your work, your instruments must change.
29:33I know it sounds a bit insensitive.
29:41But that's how it must be.
29:44But that's how it must be.
29:49True love towards the one
29:53would necessarily mean
29:56disloyalty towards
30:00the many.
30:02Jesus said, man cannot
30:08follow two at the same time.
30:15He was referring to God and gold.
30:20But the matter is the same.
30:22Where there is God, there is no question of allegiance to
30:26a second one as well.
30:28God cannot have a competitor.
30:35You cannot offer divided love to God.
30:41You cannot offer divided love to God.
30:46You cannot offer divided love to God.
30:49You cannot offer divided love to God.
30:59Even when you
31:01offer
31:05ritualistic
31:08homage to
31:10a deity in a temple,
31:14you ensure that
31:16the rice or the coconut
31:18or any other material that you are offering
31:24is
31:25whole and intact.
31:29Right?
31:31That's why the rice that you offer
31:39at the temple is called Akshat.
31:42What does Akshat mean?
31:44Undivided.
31:48Unbroken.
31:52Even a rice grain that you offer to him has to be undivided.
31:59How can you offer
32:01divided love to him?
32:04Therefore,
32:13my apologies
32:15word
32:19the seeker of truth
32:23will never be loyal to you.
32:29His undivided love will be for the one.
32:34All else
32:38is mere chance.
32:48All else is just accidental.
33:14Peas and bush along the highway.
33:19Cannot be the destination.
33:24Not even co-passengers can be the destination.
33:35Even the driver cannot be the destination.
33:39Though he is going to remain with you for a very long time.
33:42How shall my heart be unsealed unless it is broken?
33:49This just refers to
33:52the giving up of the slavery.
33:59The heart that Khalil Gibran here is talking of
34:02is just the mind.
34:07The mind is the heart.
34:09The mind.
34:12In his poetic exuberance, he keeps talking of
34:16the heart, the heart.
34:17This is nothing but
34:21usual old mind.
34:26Unsealing of the mind just means opening of the mind.
34:33Breaking of the heart here refers to
34:35dissolution of the mind.
34:40On the way to the truth,
34:43giving up of old patterns is necessary
34:46and dissolution of the mind happens.
34:48That's what Gibran is talking about.
35:03Yesterday we talked of
35:06yesterday we talked of
35:08the
35:15seeker
35:20staying awake through the night.
35:27He said
35:30the lustful man
35:35cannot sleep
35:43cannot sleep
35:51nor can the seeker.
35:57Now do you see why
35:59spiritual practice
36:01often happens at nights?
36:10And now do you see why
36:11spiritual practice
36:13often takes place
36:17away from
36:19human civilization?
36:31Because the way of the world
36:35is
36:37disturbance.
36:40Disturbance is the very engine of the world.
36:46As you sit with me here in silence,
36:51these sounds appear very loud.
36:53Very loud.
36:58But these sounds would have appeared
37:00very usual to you
37:03had you not been
37:05in meditation.
37:12The world is noise.
37:24Even these little
37:27sounds
37:28somebody opening the door,
37:30somebody doing something,
37:33somebody chatting with someone somewhere,
37:38the click of the camera,
37:45they become noticeable
37:50when you are meditating.
37:53Otherwise they are just
37:54run-of-the-mill stuff.
37:55You see?
37:57That's what
38:02civilized life is all about.
38:05Right now you can
38:07hear these noises
38:08and they are so loud
38:09and so disturbing.
38:12Are they not?
38:17That tells you something
38:18about the spiritual processes.
38:20Your sensitivity increases.
38:24And therefore
38:28your suffering also increases.
38:35Stuff that didn't used to mean much to you
38:39now becomes unacceptable.
38:47Events that you used to just gloss over
38:53now appear unpardonable.
39:04The events are the same.
39:05You have changed.
39:15Have you ever heard
39:20a vehicle horn
39:21so loudly
39:24that you can't hear it?
39:29It is just a faint sound.
39:31But do you see how
39:33the ripples are
39:35discernible now?
39:40Usually
39:41you just ignore
39:42these things,
39:43don't you?
39:45Now you can't.
39:51And it's a
39:54you cannot
39:59unhear
40:00what you are hearing.
40:05It is as if your
40:07senses and your
40:08mind has become
40:10unnecessarily sensitive,
40:12unnecessarily aroused,
40:14unnecessarily
40:15alert.
40:17And therefore
40:18you have to change.
40:20And therefore
40:21your ways change.
40:25Your surroundings change.
40:26Your associations change.
40:41It is not really a
40:42difficult thing
40:44to change
40:45It is not really a decision.
40:46It is a compulsion.
40:51Change becomes
40:56unavoidable.
41:08No vehicle ever
41:09honked louder than this.
41:16And it's
41:17just a usual honk.
41:22That is why
41:23I have been
41:26pushing the
41:28session timings
41:34continuously to
41:38late hours.
41:42When the online
41:43courses began
41:46we used to
41:47start at 7 pm.
41:55Now sometimes
41:56we start at 10 pm.
42:03It is not enough.
42:13The sleep
42:15The sleeping ones
42:16must be allowed
42:17to fall asleep
42:21so that the ones
42:24who love wakefulness
42:28can be allowed
42:29to stay awake.
42:45Rather
42:46can be
42:47helped
42:48to stay awake.

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