How to Protect Yourself

Everyone wants to feel protected. We believe that this makes us calm and relaxed and then we feel more at home. Whenever we feel safe, with a particular person, or in a certain place, we say that we feel "at home" with this person or in this place. What does it mean to feel "at home"? Being at home means feeling safe. Everyone wants this. To feel totally at home means to feel totally safe.

How is it possible to attain a feeling of "absolute home"? In love we find absolute home. Because of love we protect ourselves less. The more love we have, the less guarded we are. If we have less love, we guard ourselves more. The more we protect ourselves, the more problems we experience. We perceive more problems and we encounter more problems. When we have more love, we protect ourselves less and this means we perceive less problems and at the same time we encounter less problems. When we don’t guard ourselves we become absolutely safe. Therefore, don’t protect yourself; this is the best guard. If you have more guards, it means that you have more enemies. If you have less guards, less protectors, then you have less enemies.

Why do I say, "Don’t protect yourself?" Because you are naturally very safe. We live, and this is our nature. Naturally, we are safe. Your nature is one of safety. But when we start to protect ourselves, we go outside of nature and we become a stranger. The more we protect ourselves, the stranger we become. When we make ourselves a stranger it means that we make ourselves different from others. We make ourselves special. And when we become special we have more enemies and more problems. "Don’t protect yourself” means "be normal." To be normal means not being different from others. This also means that you will have fewer problems with others.

The key method to becoming absolutely safe is not saving yourself. This is the best way to protect yourself. If you want to be absolutely safe, don’t protect yourself. The more guarded you are, the more mentally and psychologically unsafe you will be. Don’t protect. There is no story on all of earth of one who protects themselves so much that they have found a safe place and feel totally safe. There is no history of this.

Be like a yogi.

You know, my friends, saying, "Don't protect yourself," is crazy wisdom. But if you protect yourself, this is stupid mind. Make a choice! Do you want to be crazy or do you want to be stupid? Yogis say, "You think I am crazy and I think you are crazy, but I am crazy in love and you are crazy in suffering." When we want to be happy we also need to be crazy. Happiness comes with craziness. Crazy, fearless mind. This is a great method to liberate the mind. Come out of fear and be safe. Do you think I am crazy? Or do you think you are crazy? Ha! Ha!

 

~Tulku Lobsang