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you in your spiritual progress. Whatever sweetness you find in
life, is equally filled with bitterness. So deal with the bitterness
first, all that will remain will be sweet and that is easy to deal
with. It is a great achievement to digest the bitterness of life.
Everyone smiles when they are offered flowers, but what happens
when people hurl stones at them?
Penance : Invisible (Adeethha taap)
Ego is an object to be known (gneya) and ‘You’ are the
Knower (gnata). Where there is a relationship between the
Knower and the known, the known should not be protected. If
you protect one gneya (ego), then you have to protect all others,
and they are infinite. From now on you have to practice invisible
penance (adeetha tapa). You have to maintain awareness that
you do not become engulfed and become swept away with the
ego. That awareness is invisible penance. This kind of penance
has to be done because from time immemorial you have acquired
a habit of identifying yourselves with the known, the gneyas. As
you do this penance, these habits will become weaker and so
will the ego and consequently the puzzle will be solved. Once
you resolve to do this penance, it will continue to occur on its
own.
Of what use is the ego that has made you fall in every
circumstance and made you look ugly despite your beauty?
Awareness is that which does not allow the known to become
the knower. That is invisible penance. The awareness that you
have to maintain in order to render the ego juiceless and insipid
is invisible penance.
Obstacles to spiritual progress come from the outside as
well as from within. Ego is an obstacle against which you will
have to be well prepared.
Even the importance and respect people give you, is not
acceptable. Only those who can endure insults can endure