Cravings of life

They are four types of fears or cravings that bind you to the world. These are called aishanas and they are: putraishana, vittaishana, lokaishana and jeevaishana. When these four types of fear disappear, then you are qualified to come and sit close to the divine and hear about the Brahman

What is it that keeps you away from reality, from truth, from the Divine? They are four types of fears or cravings that bind you to the world. These are called aishanas and they are: putraishana, vittaishana, lokaishana and jeevaishana.

Putraishana means always thinking about the progeny, attachment to the children. It gets you so feverish in your mind; it clogs your thinking so much that you don't really see what is good for them. There are so many problems and suffering because of this aishana.

Then comes vittaishana, hunger for money. I know one old woman who used to say if a person is sick in his head, give him lots of coins. He will go on counting and the sickness will go away. How much can you have? What do you want to do with it? Money is essential but the craving for money in the mind can overshadow your life so totally that you will be unable to see the reality, recognise love, and see something beyond.

Vittaishana binds you. It is a book that keeps your mind in the bank. It gives you a false security. Why worry so much about money? Have trust that what you need will be provided and work putting in one hundred per cent. Whatever has to come will come and whatever has to be spent will be spent.

Lokaishana means craving to be famous, wanting to be something. Wanting to do some work so that your name should become immortal! You want to be praised by everybody in the world. See, what is happening to people who are very famous.

Does their fame remain the same all the time? And when some other person becomes a little more famous, they become jealous and unhappy. When you are in the peak of fame, and trying to maintain your fame, there is so much fear and uneasiness in you. You become so uncomfortable. Lokaishana can create fear in you and pull you down.

Then comes jeevaishana or wanting to live longer! Wanting to become immortal physically. But why make the physical body immortal? Nature is providing you a fresh body again and again. When there are so many fresh apples growing, why to keep one apple, make it ancient, and then eat it? Body is a perishable item. People who have not lived their lives fully have this craving to live for more and more years.

Even very sick people, who are terminally sick, are not ready to die. Jeevaishana is holding on to life. It does not allow you to enjoy the moment, to be free. And it creates a tension in life. A healthy man will die, and a sick person will also die. A patient dies, a doctor dies. Every 'body' will die. It is an inevitable phase in life. That does not mean you don't have to take care of your body. You should take absolute care of this body, but without feverishness, without this aishana.

When these four types of fear disappear, then you are qualified to come and sit close to the divine and hear about the Brahman. What is that 'something' beyond this world? What is the reality? What is the truth? What is the centre of all this? Then this secret, which is very sacred, will be revealed to you.

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