The State of Freedom
A journey of Truth into the mind’s sanctuary
with the destination of inner Freedom.
Β38. The two facets of the humble beggar.
The word “beg” acted upon the mind as though it woke him up from a dream, as he suddenly realized a substantial part of the truth of his bygone life:
“That’s it. I have been begging until now; not only from the enchanting worldly women, but from the very life in its wholeness. Yes, I have been begging. I used to feel in the same way like a beggar begging on a pavement. Yes, this is true, now that I returned back to my roots, only now am I up to see this so boldly. As long as I used to act as a beggar, I was not able to observe the beggar’s attitude which had come over me, thus affecting every thought and deed of mine. No sooner did I wake up every day than I re-entered life with the miserable mood of ‘I do not have; you give me!’
“I recall a disabled beggar whom I used to see for years inside a train station leaning on his walking sticks always at the same point of the staircase and saying to the passing passengers in an imploring tone: ‘I have also been borne by a mother, guys!’
“As to what did I differ from that beggar all these years? As to nothing! ‘I have also been borne by a mother, enchanting worldly woman; I also deserve some joy, you have so much, give me some too!’ Whether I like it or not, this is the truth. This was my persuasion: ‘I do not have. Give me, please. It is unfair that you have and I do not!’
“The same applied to my relationships with my friends; and with my parents, as well; also with the money, the houses, the cars, the travels and all material goods. This was my relationship also with glory: ‘Nobody admires me in the way they admire such and such person. Admire me, please, look here how beautiful things I have made, admire me for my works, ideas, words, smartness, skills, body, sexuality and movement!’ And as long as I saw that I am not the best in whatever I wanted the others to admire me, I was deeply upset and disappointed, exactly like the beggar to whom the begged coin is refused.
“I had been trained to hide well my begging attitude and show outwards a self-reliant and independent façade, so as to not lose the esteem of my brothers whose admiration was important for me. However, sooner or later I unavoidably forgot the pretention, the façade collapsed and all my misery was revealed. Quite the same also happened to many of the brothers to whom I was related. Thus, the relationships decayed, wore us down, became ‘baggy’ and naturally fell apart by their own.
“I am now experiencing, perhaps for the first time in my life, a totally different inner attitude towards my brothers: ‘I have. Do you want?’ What is that, which I have now and did not have then? Nothing more than the cognition that I have also been a beggar throughout my life like they have; a beggar who has now decided to persistently dedicate and deliver one by one all forms of his begging attitude to his Creator, the Divine Mother who bore him.
“I confess my begging attitude, I understand its deeper causes, I justify it and I forgive it for the joys it has deprived me of and the misery with which it has overwhelmed me. I deferentially lay it at the feet of the Divine Mother, who, by making use of her magic wand, redeems me from the burden of my miserable past. Consequently, I ask every brother or sister of mine: ‘I have cognition of my begging attitude. Do you want to share the cognition of our begging attitudes with each other and deliver them together to the Divine Mother, so as to relieve ourselves of this burden and get liberated?’”
By these considerations, the mind attained a definition of comradeship which accurately responds to his new perception: comradeship between two brothers is to confess and share with each other their begging attitude, jointly forgive it and deliver it to their Creator. By this procedure, the old hardly bearable humiliation of the beggar became palliating humility. From humiliation it became humility; these are two words which, despite being acoustically similar, differ from each other so much! The distress of deficiency changed to humble comradeship, a raw material which will be later transformed to the final product, which will be love for my brothers.