10+ Qualities of a True Lover of Truth
Given below are the essential qualities of a true seeker that are woven in this narrative from the novel Romancing the Truth by Dr. Sanjay Grover. Vivek, the teacher at the Academy of Overabundance is addressing the people who have come to attend the two-day JoLiFest – the Joy of Liberation Festival.
As you read this short scene from the book, try to identify as many qualities of a seeker as you can, and check your score at the end of the blog.
EXCERPT FROM THE NOVEL: ROMANCING THE TRUTH
“I don’t want to get stuck in the rat-race, nor do I want to be brainwashed by religious mumbo-jumbo. I just ‘need’ to know the truth of life before I die – and I feel that death can come at any moment. So, can I participate in the Yearn challenge?” Sid, an eighteen-year-old, asked Vivek.
“Sid, the challenge is open to all. Enlightenment is everyone’s entitlement. Each one of us not only has the potential to get enlightened, but also has the duty to strive for it. You seem to have all the right qualities of a true seeker. First, you are the right age, for it is important that the quest begins early, before you get trapped in the rat-race,” Vivek said, beaming at the boy. “Secondly, your question reveals that you are intelligent and aware enough to realize that the world and worldliness are not the Truth and that the winner of a rat-race is still a rat. Thirdly, you are egoistic enough to value your life and time, and realize that this one and only life is too precious to waste on merely earning a living, or in running after false gurus and illusory concepts. You value yourself, and one needs to have self-respect and value for one’s life to be desperate enough to seek the truth at the earliest, so that the rest of one’s life is lived in accordance with the cosmic game-plan.”
Vivek raised his hand to welcome Nutsy who had entered from the back door of the hall, then continued, “My child, you are aware enough to realize, in your youth, that death can come at any moment, even right now, and so you already have the urgency and the intensity to seek the truth. You value your self, your life, and your time. Your yearning to learn proves that you have another quality of a true seeker – the emptiness. Wisdom can be transferred between the one who seeks and the one who has found, only when the seeker is empty, and the giver is overflowing. And finally, you have the strength to resist being misled by others and their tempting answers, and are willing to dig the well and seek the pure water of truth first-hand. One needs to be a rebel – strong enough to resist being washed away by the tide, and bold enough to follow one’s convictions. Equally important is a big sensitive heart. And I assume that you are also naïve enough, which one is in youth, to seek like a crazed lover who has never seen his beloved, yet has the innocent faith that if love is there, the beloved surely must exist! Only true thirst and true love can make you fearless enough to develop the passion and energy to seek tirelessly till the goal is reached.”
“I sure am a great lover,” Sid said with a chuckle.
“Ah, this quest is more intense than the love of Romeo for Juliet, or Majnun for Laila,” said Nutsy. “They fell in love after seeing each other, but here you don’t know what you are yearning for, you don’t know what the Truth is like, yet you seek it like one possessed. This requires honesty and trust – a lot of trust. All love does!”
“Honesty, trust, courage and love are essential qualities for Romancing the Truth. And one must have the capacity to totally surrender in love. Only in the emptying lies the fulfilment,” Vivek added.
“And one must start running after the truth early, for in the ripe old age you tend to run away in the opposite direction, for you are afraid to face the Truth that will reveal the falsehood of the life which you have already lived!” Nutsy continued.
“And you must also start early, for Truth can be experienced only till your forties… rarely after that,” Aruna added.
“Chasing enlightenment sounds interesting! Can you tell me what happens at the moment of enlightenment?”
“Well, before enlightenment, seek like a crazed lover; after enlightenment, love crazily; and what happens at the moment of enlightenment – well go crazy thinking about it till you experience it for yourself!” said Vivek, and everyone laughed.
“I have another issue,” said the earnest young seeker, “I enjoy non-vegetarian food, and I also enjoy self-pleasuring at times. Does that disqualify me?”
Vivek marveled at the courage of the boy who had asked this question in public. But at the same time, he felt sad about the superstitious conditioning of people. “Well Sid, you indeed have all the qualities of a true seeker. You are frank enough to admit that you are human and have human needs. You accept your rootedness to the earth and are not misled by ‘holier-than-thou’ ideals. My child, spirituality and enlightenment are the celebration of life, not an abstinence from being truly alive. You must not waste your time and energy fighting your own self and and its genuine needs and living in needless guilt. Enjoy your food. Life survives on life, and we have to kill to eat – be it killing a plant, or a plant eater! Relish the food, chew each mouthful as an act of worship, the use the energy produced by the food creatively and lovingly. Even in acts of pleasure, be involved fully, with total awareness, gratitude, and love. The needs of the body are not sinful; it is the desires and wants that are. Enjoying something is no problem, but clinging on to that enjoyment is the problem! My dear, instead of considering the pleasure of the body as distractions, it is only after the indulgence and fulfillment of pleasures that the mind becomes free to focus on the really essential issues.”
Some clapped to encourage the young boy as he sat down, others cheered Vivek’s honesty. But most looked confused, some even aghast.
Amid the din, Neeraj stood up and said, “I am also ready for the challenge. I have just one query. To qualify, do I have to first get rid of the Five Vices according to Sikhism – Lust, Wrath, Greed, Attachment and Ego; or the Six Enemies of Liberation according to Hinduism, which adds Jealousy to the five; or do I have to get rid of the Seven Cardinal Sins according to Christianity, which adds Gluttony and Sloth to the six, but does not consider Attachment to be a vice?”
“My dear, you’re wise in your research on vices. Wrath, Jealousy, Gluttony and Sloth may be vices, but a true seeker, ‘lusting’ after the Truth, needs to have Selfishness, Attachment, Ego and Greed, in order to succeed,” Vivek said with a laugh. “Now don’t fall off your chairs! Allow me to explain,” he said after a pause, raising his voice to be heard above the sudden whispered discussions among the audience. “Don’t all of us feel that we have two selves; the ‘I’ self and the ‘Me’ self? Well, all the vices that Neeraj listed, and which religions condemn, are vices when they arise in the ‘I’ self, but are virtues for the ‘Me’ self.”
The whispering turned into exclamations of incredulity, and Vivek raised his hand to silence the audience.
“Just before Sid asked his question, we were discussing how most people are willing to ‘spend’ their life to ‘earn’ money, for they value money more than their lives. When our ‘I’ is concerned about its bodily comforts, pleasures and security and is willing to trample upon the rights of others in order to be secure and to fulfill its desires, then it is being selfish. The I’s selfishness gives rise to all the vices – Lust, Wrath, Greed, Attachment, Ego and Jealousy. Religious preachers make us feel guilty for this, and we rush to temples and churches to atone for our sins.
But I say that its good to be concerned about one’s self. And here, I am talking of the ‘Me’ self. The selfish person values and respects his ‘self’ above all else. He devotes less time and energy for unessential relationships and unessential tasks, and is greedy to make use of each and every moment of his time, to the extent of spending less time and energy to earn money, for he realizes that it is a bad bargain. Only a poor business person will spend something invaluable and irreplaceable to earn something destructible and less precious. A true business person knows profit and loss. He is egoistic enough to value his life and does not squander his time and energy on frivolous activities like the rat-race, or on needless guilt and worries about what to eat and what not, for he feels that his life is a once-in-a-lifetime miracle. We need to be selfish and zealously devote time to seeking the ultimate meaning of life. Unfortunately, we are not selfish enough. We give up seeking the Truth and the associated Bliss and Immortality merely for seeking mortal security and pleasures.”
“But we are taught that we must get rid of selfishness and ego,” said a woman from the audience.
“Everybody needs a scapegoat, and for almost all religions and gurus, it’s the ego which is the obvious culprit. It has been so publicly flogged that you also join in flogging it, without pausing to think how important the ego is, and why it has evolved. Ego is important, for only an individual with a mature ego and self-esteem can value his life and strive to make it happy and meaningful. He strives for self-growth and self-actualization and does not seek the false solace and escapes doled out by religious preachers. Religions hate such a self-respecting ego. The followers of gurus are mostly individuals plagued with unhealthy, immature, irrational, self-destructive and other-destructive egos that wallow in self-made misery due to a lack of self-respect. They seek respect through a display of possessions, name-dropping, ‘religious humility,’ and what not. Such persons never embark on the quest for Truth, and feel happy being engaged in the never-ending cycle of trying to end these so-called vices. So, dear friends, you are perfect as you are,” concluded Vivek. “You are That, and even the illusory vices that you are attempting to rid yourself of, are also That,” he said with a smile.
“And that’s that!” a voice from the audience said, and everyone laughed.
CHECK YOUR ANSWERS HERE:–
1. AGE: The younger, the better. The quest takes, on an average, 10 to 15 years, and enlightenment is rare after the age of 40. So better to start in ones teens or early twenties.
2. IQ: is essential to recognize that the rat-race is a trap and the world is an illusion. High intelligence and awareness is also essential for SWAT
3. EGO: is required to have self-respect and value for one’s life.
4. URGENCY: is essential for time and life are short and one needs to be desperate to know truth, and not waste a single precious moment of life.
5. COURAGE… for you need to become accident prone, since the SWAT of enlightenment comes about by accident
6. HONESTY…. to thine own self be true… self-deception is the worst enemy of a true seeker.
KEEP ADDING TO THE LIST…
7. ———-
8. ———-
9. ———-
10. ———-
11. ———-