Today’s food was sponsored by Marion Mühlin from Erkelenz in Germany. Today she inaugurated a room in her house, her new massage room and she invited us for the next days to be here with her. This is how we came from Sonja’s house today to Marion. But we will see Sonja in the next days, too, because she lives very close and so it did not really feel like saying goodbye. Tonight she also stayed for Darshan.
It was a nice atmosphere and I talked a little bit about how many rules we have in our life. We have rules about what we can and what we cannot do at this moment, rules about what we should do and what we should not do…we get these rules from our parents, our teachers and different other persons in our life. I have written before that I only follow one rule: Break one rule daily. And I believe that we need to get rid of all these rules if we want to live free and with open heart.
If you have all these rules you always have to think before you express any feeling. You can often see hesitation in people before they start laughing, because they know that it is not always allowed. Break these rules and live your feelings and emotions freely.
Click here for pictures of today's lunch
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Thank you Swami Ji for your beautiful words! They are inspiring and uplifting. Some people that recognize that there is something off or odd about the rules that they comply with respond to this by making a rule for themselves to have no rules. This can be valuable, especially if it is recognized that one rule has been replaced with another. The mind can live bound by rules and these rules can be very misleading. The body can follow a rule in action (out of respect perhaps) while the mind is not bound by the rule as an old man can follow an “order” from a child without feeling insulted.
You are wonderful Swami Ji!
There are many rules in various religious texts; texts that are profound and point to truth and many people follow these rules, never understanding their intention. Rules just like other words have been a way to point to god…maybe a practice to help you become close with god. But thinking of these “rules” as rules will keep you from this closeness. When I read religious texts I interpret them through my own inward guidance and if I do not understand something I may come back to it another day, but I make no attempt to follow it blindly. This is not what that text is meant for. This is not its purpose.
I agree that rules often hinder our freedom and self-expression by limiting our behavior. When you create a rule, you create something to be broken, something to go against, something to disagree with. It’s like creating an extreme, in which the opposite extreme has to oppose it. I believe that if we were allowed total freedom without rules, people would follow their hearts and live according to their deeper truth within. There wouldn’t be right or wrong, there would just be what is. And people wouldn’t have to break anything just to do what they want. It would change the psychology toward freedom and behavior.