One Good No
As you welcome the New Year 2009, resolve to say one good NO everyday. On this, please do not say No to me.
Find out what has wasted most of your time all through life. Say NO to it daily in the coming year. What has weakened you? What has spoiled your valued relationships? What has damaged your efficiency and effectiveness? What thought, word or deed has let you down consistently? Give it up.
In the Hindu tradition, you give up something very dear to you when you visit Kashi (today’s Varanasi or Banaras ). Please remember, the word Kashi means Light or Effulgence. When you visit the luminous true nature of your own, the Atman, you will naturally break the shackles that bound you all along. You give up the worst all-time bad habit of yours. You conquer time and stay in the timeless, shining Self.
What has been your constant error? Fearing something? Have you been afraid of ‘what others say’ even when your conscience is very clear about the right thing to say or do? Say NO to that fear on January 1, on January 2 and daily till December 31.
Was it some silly pursuit of pleasure, which came in the way of your duty? Was it the attachment to some comfort that prevented you from performing better? Was it some slavery to sense enjoyments that brought a foul smell to your relation with family, friends and associates, which otherwise had the perfume of true love? Let go of such an unnecessary clinging. Bask in the lovely sunshine of freedom in the New Year.
Did you waste your time and energy trying to please somebody who really did not deserve any of it? Did you give a lot of attention to certain people who anyhow never valued it? Enough is enough; now say NO.
Was it an ambition to become something, while you are actually very fine as you are? Caught in the clutches of that desire, you never found time to smell the roses that bloomed in your backyard. That great longing was no other than a false conditioning that you fell a prey to. Say NO to it now. Celebrate what you are and do not waste an iota of energy anymore on building castles in the air.
In the name of love of truth (that is what philosophy means), did you actually get caught in books and more books? Say NO to all those heaps of words. Live your life in true eagerness to understand directly (and not through some scholar’s descriptions) what life is all about. You have all the intelligence within you. Let not concepts bring smoke in those flames of ‘right seeing’ that are part of your true nature.
One good NO a day, keeps the guru away. (No disrespect meant; when you are full of light, the guru stands at a distance and smiles away.)
With lots of good wishes,
Swami Chidananda
Varanasi
December 31, 2008