Are You Tired?

Are you tired? If not, get tired. If you aren’t tired, you will never reach home. Only if you are tired will you ever rest. Everything in the world will tire you. Only one thing doesn’t tire you. That is love. Love doesn’t tire you because that is the end, the home. It isn’t possible to be tired in love.

In fact, enjoyment brings tiredness. Tiredness is the shadow of enjoyment. What puts you on the road is your desire to enjoy. What brings you home is being in love. In your life, you move from one place to another in search of enjoyment. Wherever you saw joy and reached for it, you found that it moved further away, somewhere else. So you had to move on, and that moving is tiring.

Look at your whole life. A child gets tired of playing with older toys and wants new toys. Then they want people to play with, and they want new friends. They grow a little older. Their games change. As a teenager, you no longer look for toys but something else — some new movie or party to go to. How to show off your talent? Teens are like that. After that, you want to have the best match for you. Once you have your desired life partner, you want to have your own home and children. Those who are single think that married people are better off. Those who are married think that single people are better off. Some think that people with children are happier. People with children wish every day that their child would grow up quickly so that they can be free. They wait for someone to give them a break, to take care of their children. Life moves on in this manner; it is like moving from one type of tiredness to another type of tiredness.

When will you get that solace and love which is comforting? Where is eternal bliss? You cannot be at rest till you reach home. You may sit on the path, a bit here and there, but you cannot be there forever, isn’t it? You may take a break when you drive, and you rest at motels on the motorways. You stop your car, use the restrooms, stay a while, stretch your body a bit, but that is all. You cannot be at peace there. In your mind, the thought that you have to drive further keeps playing. There is no fulfilment.

It is the desires and wants in your mind that tire you. Your mind tires you more than physical work. If you are willing to do some work, doing it even 15 hours at a stretch will not tire you, but if you are not willing and you have to work, you will be tired in four hours.

You have a party at home, and you are busy with Diwali decorations. You may be working late, but you don’t feel tired. But if you work in a place you don’t like, you would like to have multiple coffee or tea breaks, and even then, you feel it is tiring. Or even, don’t work at all but just sit and go on thinking. You will be terribly exhausted. For many people, tiredness and exhaustion come from thinking and worrying, not from working. When you are tired, small things can irritate you, push your buttons, and throw you off balance. Our peace is so fragile that anything, even a phone call, can blow it off. Our peace is shredded into a hundred pieces with just a few words from someone. Fragile peace is of no use. The peace and love in our lives should be so solid, like a diamond. Nothing should shake or move it. Thinking you need rest makes you restless. Thinking you have to work hard makes you tired. Thinking you have worked hard brings self-pity.

There is a place to rest. That is the Divine, that is surrender, and that is love. And you cannot do it unless you get really tired, unless you get sick of everything — so sick that you just drop. That is called surrender.

There was a king. He attained all that he wanted in the world, all the wealth. The whole continent was under his control. Thousands of people were under his command, all the wealth was at his disposal, and all the pleasures possible were at his beck and call. He could snap his finger and get anything he wanted. But that couldn’t get him home. It made him more and more tired. Then he sought spiritual knowledge. He went from place to place, collecting things here and there, but nothing worked. Everything worked for a while. Finally, he got so tired that he renounced everything. That also didn’t work. Being an emperor didn’t work. Renouncing everything didn’t work either.

One day, he collapsed near a tree. He was exhausted from looking far, but not finding a real master. It isn’t easy to find a master. Even if one finds a master, it is difficult to recognise and surrender. So he finally dropped under a tree, and at that moment, a dry leaf fell from the tree.

He was looking at the leaf, and the leaf flew to the east when the wind blew east, and it flew to the north when the wind blew north. Looking at that, something in him suddenly snapped — the ‘doership’, the ‘want’ simply dropped from him. That very moment, he realised that the moment is eternal, and he came back home.

Make life like that — become like a dry leaf - agree with what the Divine has provided for you, float with the moment. Don’t regret the past, and don’t anticipate the future.

That is what all the enlightened Masters in the past have said: “Keep practising on your own. When you feel you can’t do any more, that it’s all so tiring, then come and rest.” That’s why the places of enlightened Masters are called ‘ashrama’, where you come and get rid of your tiredness. ‘Shrama’ means effort. Ashrama means the place where all efforts loosen up. All tiredness, both mental and physical, vanishes.

Even spiritually, you don’t have to strive for it. You just need to be present. There is a candle, there is a light burning for you. You only have to sit under its light. And it lights you up. You don’t have to do anything. It is burning for you. You only have to connect, sit there, and feel the presence. Be a part of the Divinity; then you will find that nothing can tire you in the world. You will become the source of love. You are home. Nothing could irritate you.

You cannot rest when you have to do something which you cannot. And you cannot rest when you feel you have to be someone you aren’t. You aren’t required to do what you cannot. You will not be asked to give what you cannot give. Nothing is expected of you that you cannot do.

Doing service involves only doing what you can do. And no one wants you to be someone you aren’t. This realisation brings you deep rest. You cannot rest if you have either ambition or lethargy. Both are opposed to good rest. A lazy person will toss and turn at night and be restless, and an ambitious person will burn inside.

This rest brings up your talents and abilities and brings you closer to your nature. Even a slight feeling that the Divine is with you brings deep rest. And prayer, love and meditation are all flavours of deep rest. The only thing you have to do in your life is to make your peace strong, your love profound, and your joy eternal.

Make your home God’s home, and there will be light, love and abundance. Make your body God’s abode, and there will be peace and bliss. Feel that your mind is a toy of God, and you watch and enjoy all its games. See this world as play and as a display of God Himself, and you will repose in the non-dual Self.