Watch

everyday i watch it, it watches itself. It has nice thoughts, it has bad thoughts. It is the saint, it is the sinner. It is fame and success, it is humiliation and loss. It is stability. It is change. It is creating new relationships and discarding old. Craving for old, discarding new. It is what it is. A self created principle. The great illusion which you dare to think of as real.

It is ambition and willpower, it is peace and being. It is addiction and instinctive. What gives it that power if it were unreal? It is the one which seeks answers for questions. I am Not that. I am ....

Approaching death of the ego

Sometimes god gives our ego a new low. He redefines how much the ego should bend to humility. such an experience lightens the heart but leaves a memory and a mark.

I observe the same fear in people all around the world -- job related insecurity, old age and being single, divorced people who feel people with family are blessed, lonely people who resort to mindfulness and meditation. Happening all over the world. I attended a sangha meditation centre in Milwaukee and saw that a pediatrician was there, an old lawyer was there, a man who was about to get divorced was there, old women who are about to die were there, relative middle aged people who have gone through much sufferings were there.

Sometimes we don't understand why people dislike us -- but go deep inside them and it becomes clear the sufferings that they are going through and what it is which is making them hate us. when someone does something to you which you are not able to understand, it means there is something about you which you don't understand yourself. Why? because the same energy flows in them which is flowing in you. Everyone is behaving out of conditioning and therefore nobody is guilty. Yet nobody is innocent because they have a choice on how to use their energies. Wow -- such an awesome creation of God. He creates the world of opposites and gives a choice to souls.

Looking again at the back of the mind, there is nothing else other than the present moment all the time. memories is what makes the mind interfere. As UG Krishnamurthy says there is no way you can experience anything at all without the knowledge of it. The vicious cycle is such that Knowledge "enables" experiencer to experience and the experiences fortifies the knowledge. In the present moment there is no memory, no knowledge, no experience -- just beingness. Yet there is no word to describe the state. Buddha calls it emptyiness, Jesus called it the fullness of life. Yet they all describe the same thing.

Flying in an aeroplane

I was flying in air plane to a different city yesterday. Viewing the city from top from a few thousand feet, I got the mountain view perspective.

Each illuminated light below on earth represented a house or family. There were thousands and thousands of such lights. Some were stationary lights of houses and some were moving vehicles.

But the common thing was, each of those lights represented souls who are in pursuit. Some lights belong to corporations some belong to individual houses and people. Nevertheless all of them were in pursuit. Pursuit of more money, profits, better lifestyle, dealing with their own problems emotional, financial or intellectual. Trying to enjoy life meanwhile with various distractions like movies, drinks etc. Each one had their own attachments, and none of them were satisfied with whatever they had in the present moment.  They were all moving. Always on the move.

That's when I was aware that I too was one of those lights. Doing my own thing. Having my own attachments. I was one such light caught in my own pursuits.

I have decided to live a life free from all these things that make us human and earthlings. Every attachment is a pursuit.

Excerpt from the "power of Awareness"

The world moves with motiveless necessity. By this IS meant that it has no motive of its own , but is under the necessity of manifesting your concept,the arrangement of your mind, and your mind is always arranged in the image of all you believe and consent to as true. The rich man , poor man, beg-gar man or thief are not different minds, but different arrangements of the same mind,

Health, wealth, beauty, and genius are not created; they are only manifested by the arrangement of your mind-that is, by your concept of yourself [and your concept of yourself is all that you accept and consent to as true.] What you consent to can only be discovered by an Uncritical observation of your reactions to life.

Man's CHIEF delusion is his conviction that there are causes other than his own state of consciousness . All that befalls a man -all that is done by him - all that comes from him - hap-pens as a result of his state of consciousness . A man's consciousness is all that he thinks and desires and loves, all that he believes is true and consents
to . That is why a change of consciousness is necessary before you can change your outer world.

You know a thing mentally by looking at it from the outside, by comparing it with other things , by analyzing it and defining it;[by thinking of it:] whereas you can know a thing spiritually only by becoming it,. [only by thinking from it]. You must be the thing Itself and not merely talk about it or look at it.

I am awareness

I am awareness, I project a thought and I see it. I'm not the thought though, I'm awareness which projected the thought.

analogy: I'm a traveler who visited and saw Germany, but I'm not Germany.

I'm awareness who projects various thoughts, and sees it, sometimes the projected thoughts are pleasurable, sometimes the projected thoughts are painful, but I can turn off the remote any time,  disentangle myself any moment from the images, and be awareness.

Why is it that awareness gets caught in its own projections, and forgets that it is awareness? Due to ignorance and illusion?

What's my locus, its nothingness when I'm awareness and only awareness, I'm not having a reference point. Awareness doesn't have any limits or reference point.

Again I'm awareness, I'm not the thought which tries to discover awareness or its locus point.

Powerful Meditation

Last night there was a power cut at home & hence me and my wife went upstairs on the terrace for a walk. After some walk, she started listening to Music on her MP3 player while I sat cross legged on the terrace floor for a meditation.

- Took some 5 minutes for my mental and physical systems to cool down

- After that awareness was just in the present completely, the sound of the neighbourhood, the feel of the breeze, the honks of distant vehicles in the city, the sound of my own breath, walking sound of my wife, sound of the leaves, and there was no me, just perception. This might have continues for 10 minutes or so though I was not aware of the time.

- Then mind entered contemplation – to observe the observer of all the perceptions that were happening. This was when I observed the breath had come to standstill, i.e. the incoming and outgoing breath was neutralized to a very short in-out breath which almost became standstill. Was in this state for the next 5 minutes.

- The next moment I observe I was feeling my spine, I was feeling myself as in the observer, in the infinite super-conscious state. There was a mild light at the top of my head and also sound. Together there was a heaviness feeling in my head – as if all the activity was only in head and the body awareness was lost. I was just the head and spine – that how I felt. It was a beautiful state. Don’t know how long it lasted but i dont remember anything on the material plane during this state. No more sound of external world disturbed me or even came to my notice.

- Then my guru appeared in my meditation vision & he was cross-legged just like me. Then we spoke a few things which happened very fast. Next thing I remember is my wife calling me for dinner as power was back. I stayed in the same state for 5 mintes feeling completely refreshed, rejuvinated and full of energy.

Thanks to my guru for guiding me into such a wonderful meditation.

The Conscious mind (Jagara chittam)

 

I have been living too much in the conscious mind over the past few weeks with little or no time to reach the super conscious states (in meditation). The work in the external world, the obligations, the duties and the desire for fulfillment is what is responsible for keeping the ego in the conscious mind states.

Here is how the great Yogis of yore controlled their awareness when they find themselves living too much in the conscious mind from my gurudeva.

“ The mystic's goal is to control awareness while he is in the conscious mind -- to know where he is in consciousness. When he finds he is aware in the conscious mind, and the five senses have become his ruler, he then controls his awareness within the conscious mind itself. He does this in a number of ways. One way is through the control of breath. Breath is life, and life is breath. Breath is the controlling factor of awareness. Awareness rides on breath. Breath is also a controlling factor of our willpower. A seeker must develop a dynamic will to walk the path of enlightenment, so that he does not stumble or falter, but continues onward no matter how difficult the path seems to be for him.”

“The mystic loves the conscious mind, for he sees it like an adult sees the toys of children. An adult does not take children's toys too seriously, but the child does. Meditate on that comparison. Meditate also upon the conscious mind while you are aware in it. Write down on a piece of paper the various areas of daily experience over a period of three days to which you are most attached. Then meditate on those time periods until you are able to see the chemistry that makes the conscious mind appear to be what it is. When you live two-thirds within yourself, even physical things begin to look transparent to you.”

The below painting from Himalayan Academy beautifully summarizes the conscious mind and its ramifications, the way it leads us on and on – minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day, year after year, life after life like a donkey being led by a carrot.

The Conscious Mind (Painting courtesy: Himalayan Academy)

Related Posts: Understanding is control, Donkey and the carrot

Water drop on a lotus leaf

 

There is one song from a Tamil movie “Baba” which captured my attention after my mom casually explains its meaning while watching it on TV. Its a beautiful music composed by AR Rahman and the song lyrics go like this

“santoshi santoshi santoshi nee santosham kondadu sanyasi santoshi santoshi santoshi un santosham un kayill nee yosi.”

Meaning : Cherish the happiness which is inside you, No matter what happens – your happiness is in your hands – think about that. Its so very true that no matter how miserable the experiences are which are given by life – if the awareness is transferred to a pleasant experience – say a beautiful scenery from nature – you are still happy.

Example: Imagine you are in a dark prison alone with no one to speak/interact around. Now imagine that while sitting there you are totally in control of your mind and you imagine a beautiful beach in Hawaii. You imagine it so perfectly that you can see the waves coming and washing your feet, the slippery sand pulling your feet inside, the beautiful trees on the coast etc – And guess what – you are actually happy as long as you continue to imagine it and the dark cell does not exist.

The above is just a small example which summarizes that your happiness is in your hands. There are many people today who even though in a beautiful beach – instead of enjoying the beach – they are actually thinking of some depressing event that happened in their life in the past.

The next important lines of the same song which gives a much important message goes like this.

“maya maya ella maya, chaya chaya chaya ella chaya, pattum padamaley tottum todamaley, tamare eley tannir pol nee votthi votthamalliru”

Meaning : Everything around is an illusion, everything around is just your own (mind’s) reflection. Like a drop of water on top of a lotus plant leaf – which is Touching the leaf and yet staying untouched, live your life in (actinic) love yet free of attachments.

 

Illustration: A drop of water on a lotus plant leaf which is touching the leaf yet remains untouched as it does not leave any traces of itself when it moves around on the leaf.

A New outlook of life

By making the number of in-breath counts equal to out-breath counts -- and by holding the water-vapour-like-prana (blur and odic) just inhaled along with air in the solar plexus -- it is possible to effortlessly maintain concentration and willpower on a particular task for any desirable amount of time. Experienced this fact recently and realized its practical importance.


The only barriers that makes us lose focus from being awareness -- and force us to end up being the mind with its 60,000 useless thoughts we get on an average everyday -- and thereby prevent the "will" at the solar plexus to manifest "willpower" are

1. Mental Arguments with oneself or others.
   
2. Engaging mind in sexual fantasies.
   
3. Consuming Non-vegetarian food / those veg food which grow below the earth.

That way we don't add more into the subconscious dross -- and end up removing stuff from it.

If this is followed correctly -- it becomes easy to detect the other barriers due to the newly acquired siddhi -- which is the power of observation. The other barriers that i came across were

1. Thoughts/Beliefs implanted by society/parents in those early childhood days. These are tightly wired into our subconscious makeup - and some of them are plain erroneous.
2. Our very intellect which brought us till here in life and its associated novelties.
3. Strong Opinions/thoughts of people around us.

The intellect -- which is responsible for the "inner talk" in our mind can lead us on and on. Due to its being subtle in nature -- its more difficult to keep track of it and subdue it. In fact it may be happening this very moment as you read this post and you could still be unaware of it. But by a strong motivation and sheer will it quiets down eventually.

Thoughts, beliefs and goals that we have formed for ourselves in the past probably due to influence of family/relatives or sometimes books/novels also play an important role from capturing awareness in the mess of consciousness. One has to be there to understand what these subtleties mean.

Bottom-line is the more you remain the "watcher"/"awareness"/"energy", whatever you call it the more knowledge you receive in every minute of the day from this great University of Learning called Life.

Lord Krishna who recently celebrated His birthday in our home says these beautiful words in the Bhagavad Gita

When the yogi, by practice of yoga, disciplines his mental activities and becomes situated in Transcendence--devoid of all material desires--he is said to have attained yoga.


One should engage oneself in the practice of yoga with undeviating determination and faith. One should abandon, without exception, all material desires born of false ego and thus control all the senses on all sides by the mind.


From whatever and wherever the mind wanders due to its flickering and unsteady nature, one must certainly withdraw it and bring it back under the control of the Self.


The stage of perfection is called trance, or samadhi, when one's mind is completely restrained from material mental activities by practice of yoga. This is characterized by one's ability to see the self by the pure mind and to relish and rejoice in the self. In that joyous state, one is situated in boundless transcendental happiness and enjoys himself through transcendental senses. Established thus, one never departs from the truth and upon gaining this he thinks there is no greater gain. Being situated in such a position, one is never shaken, even in the midst of greatest difficulty. This indeed is actual freedom from all miseries arising from material contact.

As a lamp in a windless place does not waver, so the transcendentalist, whose mind is controlled, remains always steady in his meditation on the transcendent Self.


Steady in the Self, being freed from all material contamination, the yogi achieves the highest perfectional stage of happiness in touch with the Supreme Consciousness.

Hare Krishna

Be energy, think energy, feel energy

My Next goal to be attained : Steadfastness, dhriti: Overcoming nonperseverance,fear, indecision and changeableness.


Feel the energy at the centre of the spine, its like feeling something in a hollow space in you - something intangible. Its that easy to grasp the essence of the inner being, that which powers the nerves, the hands and the legs. That is the energy powers the whole body, powers the fingers i use to type, the same energy which manifests thoughts, the same energy which also makes me react. The same energy works in everyone and either makes a person a saint or a sinner depending on how he uses it. My guru says - Be this energy always. On doing it, one starts living in the present, soon starts seeing the clear white light in the head and things fall under the right perspective. Practice supersedes philosophy, intellectual knowing, everything -- so Be the energy and claim the inner being as you.

Its a higher state of consciousness to live in and you are more aware.

Remember that all the greatest souls have had the toughest experiences, heartbreaks, emotional disasters, they have also had the greatest temptations and distractions, they have all had enough experiences, so many experiences to make their awareness finally turn in on itself and be the pure energy. Enjoy the doing, enjoy the journey when you do it - not the end result, because the one which waits for the end result is but a subconscious habit pattern not the all intuitive self. Aum

Cyclic Habit Patterns

Old habit patterns repeat themselves when you are least aware. Thats why its very important to keep awareness continuously renewed in the present and remember past mistakes in order to not repeat them. A similar experience which i had blogged a few months back repeated itself. Life is truly a great university of constant learning. Its important to be steadfast in spiritual learning and meditation on a daily basis to improve and not repeat past mistakes. Laziness is a bad habit which doesn't allow a person to be steadfast. It often accompanies "Tiredness", so people who are tired often tend to be lazy. By controlling breath, it is possible to keep the mind and body relaxed and never get tired. So which again comes to keeping awareness always at the present. If this is possible -- all will be well.

Instead of getting frustrated when goals are missed - follow what the Tirumantiram states

The holy scripture - Tirumantiram states

When you seek to reach the Lord and miss your goal, take it as the work of your past evil karmas and fervently persevere in your devotion. You shall, at last, reach the Primal Lord.

Tirumantiram 2668