In the Middle of What? - Swami Chidbrahmananda

This poem from Hafiz is called Our Union, you know.

And he says, "Our union is like this.

You feel cold, and so I reach for a blanket to cover our shivering feet.

A hunger comes into your body, so I run to my garden and I start digging potatoes.

You ask for a few words of comfort and guidance, and I quickly kneel by your side, offering you a whole book as a gift.

You ache with loneliness one night so much that you weep, and I say, 'Here.

Here is a rope.

Tie it around me.

Hafiz will be your companion forever.'" I love that, that notion of love being a notion of service, you know.

That, that this is a relationship.

Really gives a great clue in that first one where he says, "You feel ...

You're ...

You feel cold, so I reach for a blanket to cover our shivering feet." You know, that notion that, that, uh, that, uh ...

Now, uh, was it Sri Nisargadatta who wrote that book, I Am That.

He says that that's the difference between a realized soul and, and someone still caught in the senses or caught in ego.

He says that when, when some- when a realized soul, uh, sees someone suffering, he doesn't go and help a suffering person.

When a realized soul sees a suffering person, he suffers, and he alleviates his own suffering because he knows that there is no difference between that person there today and himself at other times.

It's a beautiful notion because when we go out and help people like that, it's an imbalance, right? It's ego that's telling you that you are in a position to help someone less fortunate than ourselves, right? That we take that, we take that kind of relationship with them, and in time if you serve somebody with that attitude long enough, it's gonna go sour, right? They're gonna, they're gonna get tired of being subordinate to you, and it's gonna change their behaviors, and then you're gonna feel like, "Hey, they're not being very grateful.

I've been feeding them for months now, and you know, they're treating me kind of loosely." And then it turns into a bad relationship, and you split, and everybody goes their own ways.

And so this, this idea of love is quite beautiful and very apropos.

It will save you a lot of suffering to understand that your husband's cold feet or your wife's cold feet are your cold feet, so you run and get a blanket because you are the beneficiary in that.

You know, we learned long ago, we talk about it all the time, but it doesn't affect us in our lives very often, that it's better to give than receive, that you do feel, uh, uh, uh, because you're being true to yourself.

You're being true to your nature, to what you are when you serve and when you love like that.