What is death is just a reminder that we are actors and not the character we are playing on the stage. In this background, what is self-love? An actor may become overly obsessed with the character onstage. Does his self-love mean that he will do anything to continue to play that character on the stage? I feel that generally, we just perpetuate ego in the name of self-love. There is nothing called self-love. On the other hand, one may be aware of being "a wave in the ocean". That awareness makes one love all other waves. With that awareness, one plays the character on stage to the best of one's ability and also helps others play their characters. Unfortunately, we are on a stage that is full of lunatics who have lost the capacity to discriminate between the reel and real life. That's the fun part, too. If only a few remember that they are like "waves in the ocean", it becomes very interesting to watch people playing so realistically on the stage. People act as if they are the characters, and the play on the stage is so real. Only a few, who have awareness that "all the waves will merge into the ocean just to form another wave", do not get intimidated and play this game with joy, unaffected by selfish aggression. One needs to encounter death to learn to live. Often, what we call "self-love" is a reflection of ignorance-driven fear.
Sometimes I wonder what people do in the name of self-love. Anybody who dives deeper and deeper into the ocean of life would invariably realise that we are all connected. All the waves in different parts of the ocean are nothing but the ocean. They appear very different. Some silent, some noisy. Some harmless, some aggressive. Some high, some low. Underlying all of them is the water of the ocean. Water, dancing to different tunes with the winds.
All of us are also like waves, dancing to the wind of life. Fundamentally, we are comprised of the same matter, just having different mindsets and beliefs, like different types of waves dancing on the surface of the ocean. What is the self-love of a wave? Love to protect its shape? What if it merges into the ocean? It will just reemerge as a wave. What's so great about protecting its form?
Love is very different. A loving wave will love all the waves. It will have the realisation that all the waves share the same source. A big wave may engulf a smaller one. At the end of the day, it does not make much of a difference. The same ocean can generate trillions of such waves. When seen from the perspective of the ocean, how does it make any difference whether a particular wave stays or disappears? We may create infinite mental stories to justify self-love, but the fact of the matter is that there is nothing like self-love. There are only two possibilities. Either one may be capable of loving or not. The capability to love comes with awareness. When the wave knows it has originated from the ocean and will merge back into it, it knows its true nature. As a wave becomes aware of its true nature, it becomes free of fear. Death is not something to be afraid of. Death is just like a wave merging into the ocean. As one becomes aware of the source, one knows that all the waves share the same source. That appreciation of oneness brings love.
But then why did Krishna fight the battle of Kurukshetra? He knew very well that the Pandavas and Kauravas shared the same source. Why would one encourage Pandavas to kill Kauravas? Why would he not allow Arjuna to run away from the battlefield? A director knows very well that whatever is happening on the stage is just a drama. Some of the actors, especially if they are playing the same role in a sopopera get lost in the character. But the director knows very well that they are just playing the characters. Suppose an actor is so lost in the character that he has lost all his memory of being an actor. He is so lost that he starts to disrupt the other characters' roles. The other actors are finding it suffocating to act. What will the director do? An intelligent director will ask another actor to kill the first one on the stage. The director knows very well that what is being killed is just the character, and once that character is killed on the stage, the actor who has lost awareness of being just an actor will regain his consciousness. That will help other actors play their roles on stage, and the departed actor will also be able to re-enter the stage as another character.
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