I wake up this morning and can't see a thing. It is pitch dark. I wonder what happened and why it is so dark. I want to see the time. I somehow stretch to the switch for the light, feeling the wall with my fingers and hoping I don't end up dashing or breaking something else on the way of my hand. I turn on the light. But it is still dark. The light didn't turn on. I don't know what to do. It feels desperate. I have a touch phone. If I don't see, I don't know anything. I try turning on the torch on my phone. No!! Even that is not working!! I can't even understand why it is so dark. I now start wishing I had a torch, a music player or things that could help me feel less helpless. Fear and anxiety grip. Slowly I start thinking of the things I want more than the light I want, because I feel there is no hope of light now. I don't know why this happened, and how it has happened. There is sorrow and suffering. I start walking towards the cupboard to find myself some candles. But on the way I hit the table and fall. I am in pain and suffering. Tears roll down my eyes. And just then, a kind friend enters and I hear the sound of the door. I don't fully trust it is a friend because I have not seen who has entered. But I blurt out "This feels awful. I want a music player here. And a torch. And a candle too. Why not light a lamp? It will be good. At least it won't be so dark!" And he says, "But, dear friend, it is not dark. It is bright. It is a beautiful morning. The summer sunlight is playing around with the bright bulbs of your room and flooding the room with streaks of golden white light...What darkness are you talking about?"
Huh??? Then why am I seeing darkness? I want a torch, a stick, a bell, a music player....
"You need nothing!! Give up these silly attachments and just take your hand off your eyes!! You have shut your eyes with your hand!!"
WHAT?????
Yes, this is how it is. I am infinite. But I have shut my mind with my own ignorance and vasanas. And now, to remove this sense of limitation and incompleteness, I entertain attachments, pursue anger, nurture greed, fuel jealousy...hoping it will heal us of the darkness of the ignorance which is not!!!
Stop stop stop!! Renounce the desire, give up the anger, drop the greed, forego the jealousy...
Why should I?
Well, because everything has a maintenance cost. And the maintenance cost of desire, anger, greed, jealousy is "sense-of-finitude".
What's the problem with that?
The moment you start living as a finite being, you start having fears, anxieties and insecurities. And that makes life miserable. And a miserable life is too much of a maintenance cost to pay for the sake of these negativities.
So Bhaja Govindam urges us to give up these negativities. Just drop them all. But it seems very difficult to fight fear, anger, jealousy, pride, etc all at once. We are not Bollywood actors with the bran to fight a heavily-armed mafia-gang single-handedly. We can't!!
That's right. We can't fight all of them. So let's fight one. Which one? The one that causes all the rest: ATTACHMENT. If you don't have any ATTACHMENT, you will never be angry or jealous or greedy. These are just symptoms. Attachment is the disease. Fight that.
But what to do then? Wouldn't life be drab and dry without any attachment? Yes, it will be.
....So give it the juicy slushy ripe Self-knowledge! A mouthful of Infinity is all that we need and we will soon start realizing how bitterly poisonous our attachments are!
Like the fish swimming exhaustingly in circles trying to catch its own tail, we are trying to gain Infinite Happiness through all our attachments. It will be a never-ending, exhausting, draining, straining cycle of pointless effort. Don't waste time. What to do? The fish has to do nothing to get its own tail!!! Just BE.
Yes, Infinity is not an object outside, not an experience, not an achievement. Infinity is Me. I AM HAPPINESS. We have to do nothing to experience Infinity. We just have to Be.
Not Be "happy" or Be "sad" or Be "spiritual" or Be "smart" or Be "slim" or Be "something". No. Just BE. Full Stop. This Being is seeing. Rest is illusion. See the Truth. See the Self. See Infinity. BE Infinity.
Like the air without oxygen, like water without liquidity, like dance without feet, like music without notes, like fire without heat, like love without identification, life without Self-Knowledge, is meaningless, worthless, pointless. Caught up in all sorts of mundane non-essentials, an opportunity called life gets wasted in earning, achieving, aspiring and enjoying. The limitedness of our own false identities is the greatest tragedy that can be. We do not even realize how we have gotten so used to this painful existence in the rotten darkness of ignorance, that even when light of infinity is thrown at us, we shut both eyes and weep. This self-created horror of a life confined to worldliness is called hell. This is our 'self-created' hell - tormenting us continuously for lifetimes.
Gurudev writes:
In the non-apprehension of Reality, misapprehensions of ego, its desires, greed and anger, likes an dislikes, and such other misapprehensions, arise and they create a self-made hell for man to live in and suffer continuously. Tortured by them, torn limb by limn by the buffeting waves of passions in his own bosom, man cries as a sorrowful creature, eternally suffering in a self-condemned existence, in a hell created by himself, for himself.
Stop living thus in hell. Walk out into the open skies of Self-Knowledge and fly!! Yes Realization of the Infinite is a flight unto unconditional freedom. Don't waste more time in the charming golden cage of your own attachments. Drop it all, and Discover the Self.
Practices for Today:
1. Observe life and become aware how each and every facet of life is riddled with sorrow. Know that we live in hell.
2. Consciously drop attachments. Attachments are dropped when we accept whatever life brings us without complaining or worrying. Acceptance is the highest Detachment.
3. Spend at least 7-10 mins daily contemplating on these questions: What am I if I am not all that which I think I am? What is it to not be "anything" but just be? WHO AM I?
TODAY'S REFLECTION IS BASED ON VERSE 26 OF BHAJA GOVINDAM
Huh??? Then why am I seeing darkness? I want a torch, a stick, a bell, a music player....
"You need nothing!! Give up these silly attachments and just take your hand off your eyes!! You have shut your eyes with your hand!!"
WHAT?????
Yes, this is how it is. I am infinite. But I have shut my mind with my own ignorance and vasanas. And now, to remove this sense of limitation and incompleteness, I entertain attachments, pursue anger, nurture greed, fuel jealousy...hoping it will heal us of the darkness of the ignorance which is not!!!
Stop stop stop!! Renounce the desire, give up the anger, drop the greed, forego the jealousy...
Why should I?
Well, because everything has a maintenance cost. And the maintenance cost of desire, anger, greed, jealousy is "sense-of-finitude".
What's the problem with that?
The moment you start living as a finite being, you start having fears, anxieties and insecurities. And that makes life miserable. And a miserable life is too much of a maintenance cost to pay for the sake of these negativities.
So Bhaja Govindam urges us to give up these negativities. Just drop them all. But it seems very difficult to fight fear, anger, jealousy, pride, etc all at once. We are not Bollywood actors with the bran to fight a heavily-armed mafia-gang single-handedly. We can't!!
That's right. We can't fight all of them. So let's fight one. Which one? The one that causes all the rest: ATTACHMENT. If you don't have any ATTACHMENT, you will never be angry or jealous or greedy. These are just symptoms. Attachment is the disease. Fight that.
But what to do then? Wouldn't life be drab and dry without any attachment? Yes, it will be.
....So give it the juicy slushy ripe Self-knowledge! A mouthful of Infinity is all that we need and we will soon start realizing how bitterly poisonous our attachments are!
Like the fish swimming exhaustingly in circles trying to catch its own tail, we are trying to gain Infinite Happiness through all our attachments. It will be a never-ending, exhausting, draining, straining cycle of pointless effort. Don't waste time. What to do? The fish has to do nothing to get its own tail!!! Just BE.
Yes, Infinity is not an object outside, not an experience, not an achievement. Infinity is Me. I AM HAPPINESS. We have to do nothing to experience Infinity. We just have to Be.
Not Be "happy" or Be "sad" or Be "spiritual" or Be "smart" or Be "slim" or Be "something". No. Just BE. Full Stop. This Being is seeing. Rest is illusion. See the Truth. See the Self. See Infinity. BE Infinity.
Like the air without oxygen, like water without liquidity, like dance without feet, like music without notes, like fire without heat, like love without identification, life without Self-Knowledge, is meaningless, worthless, pointless. Caught up in all sorts of mundane non-essentials, an opportunity called life gets wasted in earning, achieving, aspiring and enjoying. The limitedness of our own false identities is the greatest tragedy that can be. We do not even realize how we have gotten so used to this painful existence in the rotten darkness of ignorance, that even when light of infinity is thrown at us, we shut both eyes and weep. This self-created horror of a life confined to worldliness is called hell. This is our 'self-created' hell - tormenting us continuously for lifetimes.
Gurudev writes:
In the non-apprehension of Reality, misapprehensions of ego, its desires, greed and anger, likes an dislikes, and such other misapprehensions, arise and they create a self-made hell for man to live in and suffer continuously. Tortured by them, torn limb by limn by the buffeting waves of passions in his own bosom, man cries as a sorrowful creature, eternally suffering in a self-condemned existence, in a hell created by himself, for himself.
Stop living thus in hell. Walk out into the open skies of Self-Knowledge and fly!! Yes Realization of the Infinite is a flight unto unconditional freedom. Don't waste more time in the charming golden cage of your own attachments. Drop it all, and Discover the Self.
Practices for Today:
1. Observe life and become aware how each and every facet of life is riddled with sorrow. Know that we live in hell.
2. Consciously drop attachments. Attachments are dropped when we accept whatever life brings us without complaining or worrying. Acceptance is the highest Detachment.
3. Spend at least 7-10 mins daily contemplating on these questions: What am I if I am not all that which I think I am? What is it to not be "anything" but just be? WHO AM I?
TODAY'S REFLECTION IS BASED ON VERSE 26 OF BHAJA GOVINDAM
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