All things are complementary. The five fingers go together; they are all part of nature. See, only with contrast, can you appreciate. If there is no contrast, you cannot appreciate. It is because of the heat that you can appreciate the coolness. Opposite values are complementary. So it is with effort and effortlessness. When you want to work, you put in all your effort and then the work is done – but, when you want to sleep, can you put in effort and get sleep? There are certain things you can do through effort, and certain things that you do effortlessly, e.g. sleep – the less effort you put, the better sleep you get. Otherwise, your effort, itself, becomes an obstacle to sleeping!
The same, with memory – if you forget something, and you struggle to remember it, you will not remember! Your very effort becomes an obstacle for memory. So you just drop it, and when you drop the effort to remember, memory comes! Memory is something that happens effortlessly.
The third thing is appreciation and love. If you want to appreciate beauty, you cannot do it through effort. Simply and suddenly, the appreciation of beauty happens in you! And love? – You cannot try to love. The more you try to love, the more difficult it is. Love is effortless.
The next effortless thing is meditation. If you put effort into meditation, your meditation is finished! Meditation happens effortlessly.
All other things need effort – memorizing anything requires effort, learning skills need effort. If you want to learn the computer, it takes you some time to adjust to the keyboard! If you want to learn some sport, you have to give 100% effort. If you want to play the sitar, you have to put in effort. And… if you need to tell a lie? – 500% effort! [Laughter!] This is because when you tell a lie, you forget what you have told, and it needs a lot of effort to keep it in mind!
Life is a combination of effort and effortlessness… and they are complementary!
