The dance of push & pull
The marketing world is widely acquainted with the push-pull strategy. In fact, that is the essence of advertisement. Companies push the new product by advertising it through the media and then pull the consumers towards them.
It sells the product, companies collect money and hypertension for money brings its side effects on the trail.
This is one way of living, but the deeper you go in existence, which means in yourself, the more you find that pushing doesn’t work here. Because existence is not a consumer whom you have to convince and sell your product. Existence is an organic whole, where each particle, each person is part of the whole. Pushing doesn’t work here as much as pulling does.
There is a story of Swami Rama that while he was in the US, he wanted to enter an office and he tried to push hard to open the door but the door didn’t budge an inch. It stood like a strong wall. When he looked down he noticed the sign “pull,” he laughed and pulled the door to himself and the door opened. Then he narrated this incident in his talks and said, “On the gate of the divine the sign says, ‘pull’ not ‘push’. But people keep on pushing and therefore can’t enter.”
This is the secret of a harmonious and peaceful life. Our life has become stressful because everybody is pushing, struggling to get ahead of each other.
As if life is a great battlefield and we have to win by defeating people, fighting our destiny. These are very egoistic ideas.
Existence is both an ecosystem and an echo, whatever we do returns to us in multiple waves.
Pushing is easier for the ego, but pushing is using violence on nature. Of course, pushing is needed sometimes but one should learn where to push and where to pull. Pulling is more difficult today because pulling is passive, it feels like weakness.
Osho says, “Pulling is an art. Surrender is the art of pulling towards oneself. The rain falls on the mountain, flows downwards and fills up the lakes. As lakes are empty, they pull rain towards themselves. Surrender pulls. When you are empty inside, yielding, when you are receiving, you become a womb. Then you start pulling and in that very pulling the walls become the doors. Love pulls, struggle pushes. Surrender pulls, resistance pushes. The art of pulling is subtle.”
We have lost the balance of push and pull. Love is required for pulling and there is no love within us. If we are in a state of surrender we create a vacuum.
The cosmic energy starts flowing towards the vacuum and fills it.
We can learn this art from the earth and the clouds. The earth heats up and pulls the clouds; they come running and pour their heart out. The clouds don’t push, they simply respond to the need of the earth.
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