STRIP Before You Enter

“By stripping he meant that all those who enter should strip their ego, anger, hatred, jealousy, pretensions, fears, insecurities etc. outside his gate and enter naked.”

My Beloveds

               About two hundred years ago, in the region that is currently Pakistan, there lived a saint who observed silence most of his life. He lived in a small hut, along with his wife. They had no children. He had a long beard and was partially blind. His house had only three rooms. But the land in front of his house was open, and he paved the floor with cow dung which is a natural disinfectant. There used to be a line of planted shrubs which served as the fence and there was a small gate which always remained open. The shrubs grew so tall that from the gate, one could not see the inside of the compound. And the ground was nine steps high from the gate. At the gate, instead of the ‘remove your footwear here’ sign which is common in front of all ashrams and temples, there was a distinct signboard “STRIP before you enter”.

              The saint always sat in the front of his house, stark naked, looking at the gate. And he spoke nothing. All the visitors would come in silently, sit on the floor in the open yard of the house, clothed, looking at the saint and speaking nothing. The only message that the saint ever conveyed was that of nakedness and silence. The difference between the visitors and the saint was just physical nakedness. The saint was naked inside and outside. The visitors were in various degrees of clothing, inside and outside.

               Even though there was no word uttered, everyone left for home happy and fulfilled. None felt hungry or thirsty. None felt cold. Even though there was no discourse, everyone’s questions were answered. The only offering or ‘dakshina’ the saint asked was ‘nakedness’ or the state of emptiness and non-pretension. By stripping he meant that all those who enter should strip their ego, anger, hatred, jealousy, pretensions, fears, insecurities etc outside his gate and enter naked. His only teaching was silence. Since his aura spread all over the place, people automatically got healed in his presence. He never traveled outside his compound. Mostly he remained still and silent.

             It so happened that many people who read the board were quite distracted and did not enter the premises. They were quite afraid to be naked!

             There was one rich woman in the neighboring city. She had lost her son and was under tremendous sorrow. One of her friends heard about this silent saint and suggested that she visit him. She decided to travel. It cost her a day to reach the abode of the saint. But when she read the signboard “Strip before you enter”, she was so distracted that she left without entering.

             This is the case with most of us. We are not ready to “STRIP”. We are not ready to leave anything. Yet we expect the ‘saint’ or GOD to give us everything. When the inner vessel is filled and overflowing with insecurities, ego and similar negativities, how can ‘the saint’, the silent God, deliver anything at all? We support ourselves and justify our insecurities! We miss the ‘saints’ of our time!

              We all are essentially naked. But we learned to clothe ourselves layer by layer and the clothes started to control and restrict our movements. We started to become immobile and stagnant. And in many cases, we are proud of our immobility and stagnancy, which we even call as stability! Real stability is flexibility. Real stability is fluidity, motion. The most rigid tree is readiest for the axe!

I Love You Always

M