Awareness
Friday, 17 March 2023
We live with a little bit of awareness, a little bit of consciousness, we all know that we are but we don’t know what we are, as if, living in a drunken state. We go on doing things, we go on moving this and that but we are not conscious. Have we ever had any moment of consciousness, awareness? We are the Divine current of life and consciousness within the body. We are not the combination of few molecules to be disintegrated sooner or later. In essence, in truth, we are omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient. So long as we are immersed in body consciousness we are like strangers in a foreign country. Our native land is omnipresence.
अपनी न की पहचान बड़ी भूल यह हुई
बरसों किए ख़राब खुदा तलाश में हमने
Great was the blunder to be unaware of ourselves – our true nature, our true self. Many years were wasted in search of God.
Meditation is an effort to be aware of the whole process of life. But in the beginning one can chose an object like breathing. It is a very natural object to be aware. The ingoing and outgoing of breath. Just be aware without any effort. Be aware constantly, the breath has gone out, it has come in and the rhythm and the process and the in and out going phenomenon, be aware of it. The moment you will be aware, you feel a certain change, a chemical change within your mind. Because when you become aware of the breathing process, mind becomes silent.
Silence is automatically created because total mind is engaged in seeing and witnessing the breathing and rhythmic circle of breath creates an inner music. That inner music too leads you to more and more silent and sweet moments within. When you are sitting, eating, standing, walking, doing anything as doing farming, be aware of your breath. But this awareness, this effort of awareness should not be a strain. It must be spontaneous. The very effort should be effortless. If we put extra effort or strain to witness the process of breathing, the rhythm, the process and ingoing and outgoing of phenomenon is interrupted. Awareness is lost. We should not do it upto an anxiety is created a strain is created or we feel some tension in doing it. The effort should be effortless. It means we do it without any strain.
Through awareness, we can discriminate what is what, what is real, what is false. What is the effect and what is the cause, what is eternal and what is ephemeral; what is fire and what is smoke; what is misery and what is the cause. The man of awareness knows that the cause of misery is not outside in the circumstances but it is within you. The seeds of misery are within you and they go on growing. Everything leads to misery. As you are meaning that you are sleeping in the lap of your reckless mind. And if you remain as you are, everything will go on leading to misery.
So arise, awake and stop not till the goal is achieved.
It is not a question of changing the situation; it is a question of a very deep rooted thing within you which is your reckless and boisterous mind which runs wild on two ropes of past and future. This mind within us frustrates the very possibility of Bliss. That goes against our flowering in a blissful state within full awareness, we live in present. We can’t live anywhere else because when we are aware, only the present is there. There is no past or future. The whole life becomes a present phenomenon. We are freed of our own bondage which was created by ourselves.
Awareness is freedom, unawareness is bondage. Without awareness, life is a life of dreams, a life of fantasies and is not a real life; a life which desires but does not know.
A life which hankers but never reaches. To be aware, we have to be a WITNESS to tricks of mind, magic of mind, traps of mind, thoughts, sanskars and expectations. We have to be aware of these things. We are not to interfere within the intricate doings of mind. We are not to wage a war with mind. We are to be WITNESS, SAKSHI, a neutral energy. We have to remember only one thing.
SEER IS NOT SEEN
Whatever we see, we are not that. If we can see habit of laziness, we are not that. If we can see the habit of occupation, we are not that. If we see our mind, we are not that. If we see our thoughts, we are not thoughts. If we can see misery, we are not miserable. We are awareness and awareness is transcendental to all that it can see. The observer is beyond the observed. We are a transcendental consciousness. This is VIVEK. This is AWARENESS.
To start with, we can’t attain this awareness constantly but even if for moments, we can rise to the Seer and beyond the seen, the thoughts, the misery, suddenly misery will disappear and the effulgent one will appear. Suddenly clouds will not be in the sky and we will have a glimpse of blue clear sky – the freedom that it gives and the Bliss that comes through it. In the beginning, only for moments, it will be possible. A day will come when suddenly, there is no mist and the sky is all clear and the observer has gone beyond the observed and you are in the state of no-mind, beyond mind. This is how we attain our awareness and a voice rings:-
दिल के आईने में है तस्वीरे यार
जब ज़रा गर्दन झुकाई देख ली
In the innermost shrine of heart, dwells the shining one. Just be aware and get his vision.
In the past, we suffered due to absence of awareness, loss of consciousness spending the whole life sleeping and snoring in the lap of mind and considering ourselves nothing but mind. We were the masters of our mind but mind made us slaves and wrecked our lives. In future there is no necessity of suffer provided we awaken our awareness through persistent and consistent meditation and we become the Seer, the Witness of our thoughts and misery.
If we suffer and we are miserable, we are responsible. We live in a fog. We live far away from our real self. We live in a fog, in a drunken state with no awareness. Through regular Vishvas Meditation we become aware of our own true self about whom the last Mughal emperor of India, Zaffar said:-
“In reality one who forgets God in pleasure and loses faith and fear of God in anger and excitement – cannot be called a man”.
ज़फर, बशर उसे ना जानियेगा
जिसे होश में याद-ए-खुदा ना रहा
जोश में खौफ-ए-खुदा ना रहा
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