This is a world that we are trying hard to possess. With both hands. With thousands of desires. With infinite aspirations and we want to pour them all into ourselves. We fill ourselves with the world and worldly possessions. The more the possessions one has, the more one wants to fill oneself with. Look at the logic:
The more you have possessed, the more wretched you are, and the more terrified you are of losing it. What do all these possessions give you in return?
They give you an assurance to your mind that your future desires also will be fulfilled instantly. You live here and now. In here and now your mind dissipates. But your mind keeps on making you insecure with desires of possessions that you don’t have. The power you don’t have today, the position you don’t have today. The money you don’t have today. Then it asks you to wage a war to get them. You begin waging a war in search of these possessions. You keep searching for these possessions but they make you wretched more and more.
Then you meet a god man; he tells you to leave these possessions and go in search of God. Then your mind changes goalpost and fills you with thoughts of God and desires for heaven.
Death is a certainty. When a child is born, he is born with a certainty of death. Death is not in your hands. Life is also not in your hands because you don’t know from where you come. What is in your hands? Living is in your hands. There are only two ways of living a life. Either you follow your mind and keep on waging wars for possessions in the hope that one day you will find peace and relax. But that day never comes. Second is that you pay attention to yourself.
When Alexander the Great was on his way to conquering the world, he met Diogenes, an outcast who lived naked outside the city of Corinth. Alexander said, “I am Alexander the great king.” To which Diogenes responded, “I am Diogenes the dog.” Alexander asked Diogenes whether there was anything he could do for him. Diogenes was enjoying the lull of the winter sun; he answered, “Stand aside to stop blocking the sun.”
Alexander told Diogenes that he was going to conquer the world, to which Diogenes asked: “What would he do by conquering the world? Alexander said that he would relax thereafter. Diogenes said that moment would never come. That moment was right here and now. But Alexander didn’t care. Alexander on his way back after conquering some parts of the world died. Before dying he asked his doctors if they could get him life for 24 more hours so that he could meet his mother. But that did not happen.
Life is not in your hands, death is not in your hands. Your valuable possessions have no value in them. All that value your possessions has is the value that you have thrust on them. They cannot get you any value in terms of life or death. But there is something that is invaluable which can neither be purchased nor sold. That something is you. That something is your is-ness. That something is your am-ness. That something is your being.
In being right here now you can rejoice. You can live this life without the need of any possessions or any future insecurities. You don’t have to renounce the world or renounce the possessions; they disappear in this moment right now. This is the moment of ecstasy, the moment of joy, and this moment is to be rejoiced in. This moment is to be lived in. Living is in your hands. Tell the possession those have trapped your mind to stand aside and stop blocking the sun. Let the lull of the warmth of the sun send you to the womb of existence, the womb of life. Let your life be lived by you.
I am. When you say I am, I think I will do. The doer is created which is separate from you. Ego is created by your misunderstanding. If you just look at it, it drops by itself. If you be silent it drops. You will be there. But no ego. No desire. If you are totally alert in this moment, silence dawns upon you. In that silence you are here and now. When you look at yourself in the totality of now-ness, in the totality of alertness, in the totality of your being without letting your mind think in fragments, your ego disappears. And a heavenly smile a bliss dawns on you, silence dawns on you and you are in love with existence and you are full of compassion.
Mind is a memory chip. It does not need your consciousness to collect data — it is like a live streaming account that is mechanically collecting all your data and storing it in the mind. All this is being collected and stored as past knowledge. It can be replayed back and forth any time. Like in hypnosis all that data can be brought forward bit by bit, even your past lives. All that data is mind. Your consciousness is within. Without consciousness you are not. All that data is accumulated and stored as I. All these are built by your ‘I’ and you go to the world with this ‘I’ and collect this data that gets stored in the mind.
You get identified with data. That is what forms “dukkha”. Buddha said, there is dukkha and there is a way to go out of it. You have to put your attention on yourself; once you do that, silence dawns on you. Silence rains on you and it transports you into deep bliss.
When you are paying attention to others or this world or possessions, you forget yourself. Don’t forget yourself. Remind yourself. Ask yourself: Are you there? Be there. Be there in your own being. Don’t run away to movies or clubs or hill stations. Be there, look at it. When you forget yourself, you forget that which is inside you. If dukha comes, look at it with the totality of your being. You are often caught in it unnecessarily. Look at it and in pure looking you will find you are beyond dukkha and sukkha both. Rejoice in the totality of your being.
The author is a spiritual coach and an independent advisor on policy, governance and leadership. He can be contacted at arunavlokitta@gmail.com.
