36
Aptavani-2
What bliss can there be in such a fruit? All day long you have
to drink the bitter juice and once in a while, it gives you a little
sweetness. Why not drink all the bitterness instead? How can
one afford to be fooled in this way? We could accept it if there
were fifty percent bitterness and fifty percent sweetness. We
could even accept fifty-five percent bitterness but having said
this, the bitterness just seems to increase. There is ninety-five
percent suffering and only five percent pleasure in this worldly
life. For a trace of this pleasure, how can you afford to put up
with a life like this? There is an ocean of bliss within you which
you would experience, provided you are not distracted by a
drop of pleasure of the worldly life. Your memory of worldly
pleasures prevents you from experiencing the bliss within you.
This time cycle is very strange indeed. It is so strange that
one can say even the bitter melons taste sweet. In the current
times all you should do, is do darshan (acknowledge with
reverence) of the Lord within everyone, but keep your distance
from the packing (body complex). No matter how rotten the
external packing is, do darshan of the Lord within and keep
your distance. People may say, he was like an angel, but he too
went on the funeral pyre, albeit one of sandalwood. When a
person dies, if you ask someone to sleep next to that body,
people will refuse to do so even if that person was godlike. That
body was attractive only because of the presence of the Lord
within. That Lord illuminates the Self and the non-self.
Why do women put flowers in their hair? They do so to
disguise the body odor. In this age of Kaliyug the head smells,
the body smells and that is why they put flowers in their hair to
cover the body odor. The women of the past era were padmini,
meaning they had so much fragrance to their body that even if
they were cooking in the kitchen their fragrance would carry
throughout the home. Those women ate food and so do the
women today. The men of the past did not have a fragrance to
them, but they certainly did not smell either! Today the stench is