Lights of Consciousness

The true nature of self is like light. Like a lamp in whose light all actions take place and in which the lamp itself is not interested, similarly one lives like that and acts but is free from volition. Light expels the ignorance. What is ignorance? Ignorance is to believe the changing entity as a permanent one and giving importance to something which is not worth that important. The true seeker seeks for the truth and the true knowledge comes from discrimination.

The earlier articles shed lights on dispel of the ignorance. Only the content heart is ready for the enlightenment. The contentment can be achieved by sharing and giving which leads to true happiness [I sing because I have song]. The obstacles are always there in the journey of life which makes us worry. We need to stop worrying to progress further in this journey [How I stopped worrying and love to live]. But the way we progress is important. By building the right character we attain the illuminative state like the light [How big you are in this small word?].  So, how to travel this difficult path? Like the water finds its way to ocean through hard rocks [Emptying the cup]. Earth is the place to enjoy and make achievements, never the less the goal is ‘Know Thyself’ [Self].

In this auspicious occasion of Deepavali, let these thoughts expels the ignorance in our mind. Deepavali also know as ‘festival of lights’ where the word ‘Deep‘ means ‘light (of the truth)’, and ‘avali‘ means ‘a continuous line’. The core essence of Deepavali is to rejoice in the ‘Inner Light’, in particular the knowing of which outshines all darkness. These lights can only show the path, but it is you who have to walk. The choice is always yours.

Emptying the Cup

“That which moves, can’t be static. That which is static, can’t move. Can anything satisfy both the properties like a moving static?” the curious student questioned his philosophy teacher. The teacher did not get any spark to answer this question. Hence he requested another student who is standing along with him to answer this question. But that student said, “Sorry Sir, I am here though my mind was away brooding.” The reply enlightened the teacher and he said, “Ah! This is the answer. See, he is here but his mind is elsewhere. This satisfies both the property.”

The mind (brain) never gets tired like any other organ. The thoughts were always flowing in the mind. The thoughts form the character. Basically a thought is a percept and a group of thoughts forms the concept in the mind. Suppose someone scolds you as ‘pig’, then you get angry. But technically it is vibration produced in the air and reaches in your ear drum and those vibrations are translated to thoughts in your mind which depends on your preconceived thoughts. So you get a flash image of ‘pig’ and your ego assigns the equation, ‘I’ equal to ‘pig’. Thus the comprehension of this complete word-form is an attribute of mind and not of the sense of hearing. The ego is rigid and it shows a negative reaction. It is like throwing a ball against the wall. With rigid ego you can never build the right character.

Hence keep the ego flexible. Be formless, but still balanced like the water. The property of water is it always balanced. You pour water in the cup, it becomes the cup. You pour it into any container, it takes its shape. It is the state of mind you reach where your thoughts always flow in calmness. The core spirit of the techniques like Yoga, Kung-fu, Tai Chi, etc.., is this. You become like water, soft, free-flowing, and oneness with the environment but still powerful. Nothing is softer than water, yet it can overcome rock. It does not fight and anything that try to defeat it get defeated by itself.

The core idea is to live in present. Most of the time either we dig into the memories or constructing new memories (imagination) and missing the present moment. Being in the present does not make you happy rather you feel the calmness. To reach this state of mind is very difficult, but the answer always is practice. So, flow like water.

How big you are in this small world?

There lived a young lethargic man who spent his most of the time in sleeping and wandering around his village. He had never worked under anyone for more than two days. He had so many excuses for not doing the work and keeps blaming others to hide his inability. His favorite time pass is sleeping under the boughs of a spreading tamarind tree, where an old man does his business of selling sweets. The old man used to look at this sleeping young man and one day decided to teach him a lesson. So he called the young man and said in low voice, “You know, there is a forest in the outskirts of village! There is a precious treasure inside a cave. But the cave’s entrance is blocked by very big rock. See, I’m old, if you want you can take that.” The young man got delighted and found a permanent solution to his financial problem. So he found that cave and started to dispatch the rock which is obstructing the way. After several months with hard efforts he moved the rock and entered the cave. To his surprise there was no treasure. He got angry and went to the old man and shouted at him, “You cheat. There was no treasure. I’m going to kill you now”. The old man with smile said, “Boy, you already got the treasure. Just see how you are now and what the transformation you had in the past few months. Now you are no longer lazier, your body become strong and more over you got the attitude to work. The state of mind you got now is the real treasure.”

In pursuit of any task there is an expectation, the task may succeed or fail, but the important question is how you are going to react for the success or the failure? And that is what defines you, the Character. Especially in a failure moment, you got the right opportunity to build your character. In the journey of life, everyday you come across the cross-road of making the decision to choose the right path which will define your character. But the right path is always tough. It is easy to get angry at others, easy to blame others, easy to point at others in a bad situation, and easy to be selfish. But it is not easy to forgive, accept the mistakes or to be selfless. You might have accomplished many achievements at a gross level, but at subtle level you might not have improved and your character remains at the same level. Most of the things are done for sake of pride. As Abraham Lincoln quotes, “Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.” How much time do you devote to the shadow part of your life rather than observing your true-self? Courage is what you dare to do in public; Conscience is what you dare not do in private. Clear conscience forms the base for the character because it roots at the thought level. It is worth to build right character rather than make achievements just for greed and pride.

Building a right character is a difficult task. It is subjected to ultimate test. Character is the state of mind you reach after some experience and its reflection is the behavior. There is lot of factors that plays key roles in shaping the character. But at least we must have these three sorts of ideas in the mind.
– We must have friendship for all. Our mind will always have the attitude of comparing others. So when others are in joy, it makes us jealous or makes us worry for the inability to accomplish that. If we develop friendship attitude, then their joy is our joy.
– We must be merciful towards those that are in misery. Showing compassion shows the openness of the character.
– We must show indifference or neutrality to people who cause trouble to us. This requires patience and endurance, but instead of getting angry or causing pain to them it is better to neglect them.

The core spirit of the above ideas is not to cause injury at thought level to others. It is tough to follow these ideas, but that what constitutes the real accomplishment in your life.

Build the character.

How I stopped worrying and love to live

Once a man who was in pursuit of enlightenment returned to his village with arduous spiritual training from his guru. He began his simple meditative life surviving on natural vegetation in a small hut. One day he noticed holes in his clothes which were caused by the rats and also the rats disturbed in his meditation. Baffled, he consulted the villagers for the solution. The villagers suggested him having cat in his house. So he bought a cat. Cat did his duty well, but it started moaning with hunger which disturbed him. Again villagers suggested having cow for the milk to feed the cat. Now, he spent most of the time in managing the cat and cow which affected his meditative life. Now villagers advised him to get married to take care of everything. So he got married. Then to take care of his wife, he started working to meet the financial needs. After few years, his guru came to his home and surprised to see him in that situation. His Guru asked for the reason and he replied, “All for the clothes”.

The pursuit of pleasure is a chain reaction and leads to all the problems. With contentment one gains unsurpassed happiness, but the boring mind demands some thrill or anxiety. Boring mind watches others in happiness and plans for the high levels of pleasure in the anxious path. Pain is the tail of the pleasure; we know that but we excuse with the statement that life is boring without any thrill or simply declare that life is composed of both pain and pleasure.

We all came to this earth to kill the time. Though the purpose of life is not enjoyment, the essence of life is to enjoy. In the pursuit of pleasure, at the end if we experience pleasure then the passion arises or if we experience pain then hatred arises. As we mature we balance this aspect.

There are three kinds of painfulness:
1. Painfulness of after-effect : Caused when expectation of pleasure goes in vain.
2. Painfulness of agony : Caused by the inability to achieve the pleasure due to any physical ailment (disease).
3. Painfulness of habitual potency : Remembering the past enjoyments which are not available now and whereby the heart burns, leading to pain.

The effect of painfulness is worrying. People, having experienced the painfulness, worry because of the feeling of happening again. Worrying is distraction for any activity. With contentment, happiness will freely flow, but to have contentment, first we need to stop worrying. For any progress this is the base and it is difficult to have this state. Hence the moral is, ‘Stop worrying for the pain which is not yet come’. When the pain comes either experience it or work in advance in an ethical way to avoid/minimize the pain.

There was a blind man selling fruits on the roadside. He offers discount to the customers who answers his question. So he asks this question, “Is the day is beautiful for you? If yes then please describe it”. Most of the people answer that they don’t know and some say yes but unable to describe it. One day a woman evinced a positive reply. She said, “It is a beautiful day with the glorious sun shine in the morning broking my lethargic mind to remind me that I was gifted with another in this lovely earth. The energy of the delicious food made this day purposeful for me to contribute for good things as the gratitude for this lovely planet. Uh… well this road too replenish the beauty. There are some yellow flowers blooming on a tree and some purple ones, too. Uh…it’s just an ordinary day in this city, you know. People rushing back and forth, cars driving, everybody’s got somewhere to go, somewhere to be. Nobody really cares about nothing. It’s like a huge living clock. It never stops. In midst of this a dog sleeps happily without any worry.” The blind man with satisfaction said, “Madam, most of the people were not able to describe because they always worried about something and their mind was occupied in it. They have eyes but still blind. Today my day is beautiful because of you”.

“If the problem has a solution, worrying is pointless, in the end the problem will be solved. If the problem has no solution, there is no reason to worry, because it can’t be solved.” ~ Zen

I sing because I have a song

Once a sage was travelling in a village saw a worried man sitting under a tree. The sage inquired the reason for his worry. The man explained his financial problems which kept disturbed him day and night. Understating the situation, sage took a diamond from his knapsack and gave it to him. The man asked, “Is it for me?” The sage replied, “Yes, you can have it. I found this while wandering in a forest”. The man had no words to speak. He delighted and conveyed the thanks to the sage. As he was walking towards his home, he struck up with some thoughts and started to ponder on that for long time. After a while, he went back to the sage and returned the diamond. He then requested the sage, “Could you please give me the thing that made it possible for you to give this diamond away easily?” But the sage gave him a smile. The man demanded the sage what is his secret of happiness?
The sage revealed the secret, “From contentment, unsurpassed happiness is the gain”.

Happiness is always an interesting topic. Happiness lies in the mind. Basically it happens in two phase. First, happiness conceptualizes as an idea in the mind and then it becomes the state of mind. The idea is created in the mind based on the experience of pleasure, a positive flow in the body creating a harmony of mind. We create the idea like going to picnic, watching movies, playing games, etc., are the means of happiness. Then for that we get motivated and work hard to execute the idea and reach the state of mind which we call as the happy moment. Thus the same cycle repeats again, but most of the time happiness remains only in the idea state which makes people to feel that they are not happy in their life.

Happiness is a flow and it can be experienced through the feeling of contentment. Most of the people misunderstood the idea of contentment. For example few claim that they will be happy if their salary is x amount and some other claim with y amount. This is not real contentment. The contentment does not depend on the results which are variable entities. Contentment is an attribute of action. You should be happy because you are able to do that and not by measuring the happiness on the action’s results. A bird sings because it has a song and not because that someone will appreciate it. The ability to do is the contentment and doing that is the celebration. You can only feel the essence of contentment only by giving or sharing, not by taking.

Happiness is our natural state. The only obstacle that obstructs the flow of happiness (or the state of content mind) is the ego. Best example is when you were child it is easy to make you laugh, but now it requires some effort because the ego has evolved. The true happiness flows freely in the state of contentment without any ego.

(True) Happy-ness = Happiness – I

“When my house burned down I got an unobstructed view of the moon at night!” ~ Zen