ADDICTION

Q: Sir, I would like to ask you about my nicotine addiction.

Good. Any addiction, it might be alcohol, it might be nicotine, it might be eating, it might be…

Z:  Computers.(laughter)

Addictions are safe havens. A ship that is tossed finds shelter in addiction. How quick you all are to judge and condemn an addict. Remember, children, an addict is one who is empty within. The higher the degree of emptiness, the greater the addiction. Do you not run to your computer when you are upset?

A: Yes, sir.

Do you not reach for a cigarette when you hear a harsh word?

A: Yes, sir.

Because you know that your ship will start floundering if you do not run back to your safe haven. Now you might ask me in which sea is my ship. We do not know…may be do but we will not tell you. But very often we don’t. The one who will know is your guide, and the ones who knows even better than the guide is yourself. But that sea is so fearful and so dark and so stormy that you do not wish to enter into it. Because you have to give it a name. But you have to enter that sea first.

Do not ever condemn an addict. What is the difference between an addict and others who face stress? NONE. It is just that you cannot see it. You can see his cigarette, and you can experience that man’s alcoholism, but you do not see his running away to fantasy (pointing to one). It is an addiction. You cannot see how she turns to self-flagellation. Ah, it feels good, it feels good. Instead of waiting for another to tell her she is wrong, it feels good to tell herself. You do not see the addiction behind a man who is constantly ill. He is addicted to illness. He forces himself to fall ill every time he has to face a deep problem. But you do not see that. You only see the bottle, and the drug and the tablet and the cigarette. All of you are addicts.

Q: Sir, would guilt also be an addiction?

Of course. What did I just say of self-flagellation? It is an addiction, very pleasurable.

Chocolates are an addiction, anger is an addiction, and fear is an addiction. Not deep emotional fears but the ones that are externally manifested. ‘I am scared to do this.’ ‘I am scared of that.’ Do you all not know at least one person who is always scared of something; Who loves to talk about his or her fears? You have seen an addict.

You wanted a prayer, my child. The same prayer, which every one can pray who is an addict. It consists of only three words… I AM GOD. His behavior causes problems for others. Just because you may not have what society and others consider to be an addiction, do your behaviors not cause problems for others? Yes, she wants to help him. And she can. She can by first praying to her guides to point out to her where his area of emptiness lies. You can tell her that this man has never had one moment of experienced love. Never. Now when you will try to show him love he will push it aside. It is dangerous. He does not know how to deal with it. He is happy in the familiarity of not being loved, and he deals with it, by his addiction. It is his defence and at present his greatest ally.

Q: Sir, is it because he does not love himself?

How can he? How can he? He has a past history of having done what he considers wrong to his family. We will not go into what he did to them but he considers it very, very wrong. This soul refuses to accept what he has done as an experience that he had to undergo. He refuses to accept. The guilt that he has brought with him will not permit him to love himself, will not permit him to receive love. That is why we said that he has not experienced one moment of love. You see, my child, with the experience of that one moment his guilt will be crushed. He knows that, and what is a greater addiction than the alcohol, is his addiction to his guilt.

Children, you speak of attachment to pleasure. A far more severe attachment is attachment to pain. You do not wish to let it go. You are comfortable with it. Everyone is attached to it because you enjoy it. Enjoy. Attachment to pleasure is easier to let go than attachment to pain. Because you see you have been conditioned to believe that if you have done something wrong you must constantly pay the price. And do you know children, this happens throughout your life. When you do a wrong as a child, how many times do your parents remind you of it, and remind you, and remind you, till you learn that ‘what I have done must never be forgiven or forgotten’. Then you go into your education system. And what you do as a tiny tot is remembered till the day you leave as a teenager. And not only is it remembered but it grows with you, till finally the child himself or herself accepts that ‘I am a liar…that I lied once is irrelevant but I am a liar. And therefore I must now lie constantly. I am a cheat…the fact that I just slipped up once is irrelevant, I am a cheat and so now I must become more and more ingenious in my ways of cheating the entire world around me.’ And this goes on and then this child marries. And, oh, can any spouse forget the wrong done by the other?

Please, my children detach yourselves from your pain. Remember you did wrong because you are a human being. Be proud that you are a human being who is trying so hard to walk the path of truth. And, yes, on the path of truth you will fall, you will falter, you will leave the path completely for a while, but when you hold on to that guilt you can’t move on. It is like the reins that are pulling you back. And your efforts have to be so much greater. Haven’t you all found that the path of truth is hard to traverse? Haven’t you all complained that we do not understand the physical experience? How can the path of truth be hard? How? It is the only path there is. But your attachment to your pain holds you back and that is why your efforts have to be so much harder. Learn your history, my children. Learn the lives of your saints and your sages and find out how many of them were thieves and murderers and liars and cheats…all in one lifetime. Aah, but you canonized them.
And why did they have the courage to go on? Because they could look at their deeds, learn their lessons and say thank you to themselves. And then traverse the path of truth that was so easy. Is this clear, my son?

Q: Sir, then shouldn’t there be any repentance?

NONE. What is there to repent? For being human?

Q: But, then what should we do if we realize we have done something wrong?

You have realized, you have learnt, you have acknowledged that you are a being with weakness. That you must acknowledge, because then when you see another being with weakness you will realize that ‘I am the same’.

Q: Just realizing and acknowledging is enough, sir?

No. You have not heard completely what I said. I said learn.