After a Tarot reading with F and K, Giridharji asks them to hold hands.

What a privilege you have, to hold hands in front of the Master… and the Master asking you to do so! (To K): Tell me, at forty-three what must you be thinking of?

(To both) Your holding hands let it be in the spirit. You are not the flesh; you are spirit – if you remember that, holding hands, embracing, etc., no problem.

K: That also needs some practice, always from that (pointing to his heart) to that (pointing upwards).

I do not want you to get lost in the flesh that is what I mean.

S: Otherwise he gets lost in the practice…

The cards were perfect: they lead you straight to the point.

I play my mischief, but your life is your life. I will marry you and I will divorce you. Just appreciate the relationship and I may get you hooked!!!

K: What to do with the feelings, when I cannot express them in my old ways?

Learn to watch it for a while – see how long it remains. You have not come to the end of your life. So we experiment with this for a while. You have done in those ways before. Now let us try this out.

Just watching. And see where it ends up. How it comes, how it goes. What it builds up to. See[1] is what I am trying to say.

Again, in a relationship, is it utility that should bring us together or should it be something deeper? Say, if we only perceive the flesh and not the spirit or something deeper, then it could be just utility. So this is the understanding.

It is basically what you do with life; there are no rules.

Again that too is not a rule! Through your conscience reach to the truth of your being – and therefore in action you can play around with this.

By leading this enquiry I bring something more in your awareness, to bring in certain considerations and that brings maturity.

There is life waiting out there for you! But you must be able to analyze and recognize exactly where you are coming from – the feelings, emotions, everything that you perceive, that may rise in you; the impact of the outside, the impact of another at various levels, and what you do with it. How you go about it makes you also inquire – a self-inquirer. After all we are sadhaks.

This is the whole point: what is your objective? Even in a relationship – is it just plain utility? And that is why marriage as an institution came about – to make you responsible and committed! You see, a relationship should neither be a convenience or utility, nor a constrain preventing growth.

What is a relationship? How do you reach to a relationship, otherwise? We make use of relationships all the time – the whole idea is to grow in depth.

Life is more than just utility.

So of course, you were given this idea before you got into marriage… Life has responsibilities.

What is marriage and what is divorce – basically just relationship, how you are with one another. Are you to live life only to utilize? Although life does so, and there is life at that level. But then we have to consciously look at all this. You do not have to get married to be together.

Should any institution, any relationship be just a utility, a possession? Whether you are married or not, you can do this to each other. When you get intimate with someone, then always, emotions, possessiveness, jealousies, etc, will come up.

You are sadhaks, so you have to take every act, every movement, as sadhana.

Whether you get married or get divorced, the act is all yours, whether you hold hands or you do not hold hands, whether you embrace or you run a mile away, that is your act. Through our acts we create a culture. What culture you make is your responsibility, not only to yourselves, but to the other and to the whole that you form part of. Our whole behaviour is a culture that is individual to ourselves and has its impact on the whole.

And yet you have all the freedom of life. You are your own Master.

I do not say, do this, I do not say, do not do that. I only share my understanding. I share my discoveries. And so also you discover life through yourselves. There is nothing denied here.

But each act and how it is done leads you somewhere. And yet life is also an onward progressive evolving involvement.

Should we be exploiting of the other, or should we be uplifting to the other? It is wise to discover it – but how long should we take to discover it?

Life is a great teacher. Life is an adventure, but let it be an adventure in consciousness. Are we watchful of our motives? What level do they come from?  Then you live at that level when you come forth from there and you create a pattern, a fixation, a culture. Are you able to see all that? Then you are watchful.

When you go into an act, do you go into the act as a Master or do you go into it enslaved? Can we inquire? Are we to rise above and beyond the act itself, even if it were through the act? Or should we continue blindly the same pattern again and again, the same fixation, the same conditioning, the same slavery?

It is only a thought I am sharing, an enquiry – you are your own Master.

Discover life for yourself. I am only a friend that you have met around the corner, for a moment in time. I do not bind you with my words; I only show what I have understood.

So you are welcome to your friendships. I say there are no rules and yet that too is not a rule. What we are reaching out to is a self-discovery, a discovery not just on the surface, but also in the depth of our being, in the lifting of our spirits.

So to be watchful of our motives is to be responsible of our acts. We learn this in life. So to physically touch each other is magic, but let there be depth, let there be light. Where should it reach you? Should it reach you to bondage or should it reach you to freedom?

Arya Vihar

 16 April 1996

[1] ‘See’ as in ‘seer’.