Question: Dear Sir, I need your guidance in understanding this. Kindly help me.
The last week, I was extremely happy about my mental constitution. My mind was silent, there was no constant flow of needless thoughts, and I was engaged in what I was doing: playing music, reading, working, running etc. All fell into a flow, the order that JK keeps talking about.
I did feel that every moment was being born out of the previous one without much effort. I distinctly see that there were times when I was so immersed in the stream that I was not there (rather my worries and my thoughts and my own identity were not there).
Then yesterday, I ran into issues at home, and I had a terrible fight and I felt a terrible rage. In that state of rage, in a sense, I was not there. There was only rage and no ‘me’. The observer was the observed, and there was no interval. It was me and I was it. And since the morning, I have been thinking that how was my state in rage last night any different from my state of ‘supposed bliss’ when I was playing music, and working, and writing, and reading.
Are these two experiences the same?
Answer: Let us see:
“My mind was silent, there was no constant flow of needless thoughts and I was engaged in what I was doing”
“the order that JK keeps talking about.”
“I did feel that every moment was being born out of the previous one without much effort. “
“I distinctly see that there were times when I was so immersed in the stream that I was not there.”
Look at the first three statements. Contrast them with the fourth. Are they not mutually incompatible and exclusive? You can either be in the first three or in the last one.
Remember that the saakshi , the witness, does not have a mind with a memory house. Observing does not mean recording. Without recording, how do you recall so much? Was the mind quiet enough to really observe, or was the observation itself a desirable, pleasure-giving, pre-approved mental activity? You could remember JK in those moments, and remembered him vividly enough to recall the states he talks about?
Is it not a mind that is overseeing, comparing, judging, recalling the past? Do you see the violence contained in judging yourself against Jiddu’s words, moment to moment?
Next day the violence becomes explicit. The tyrant, who was pretending to be a mere observer, takes over the reins. It is not difficult for the tyrant to snatch control whenever he feels a little angry, is it? On more agreeable occasions, the tyrant would allow the pretense of a healthy system in which he is merely a witness. We know better than that. We know that tyrants can’t remain mere spectators.
I am not out-rightly denouncing the tyrant. Let’s call him a benevolent dictator. For all his wishes are worth, he wants good for ‘you’. He thinks it is good for you for conform to JK and make his words a benchmark. He has been assured that thoughtlessness is good and he guards over (!) your thoughtlessness. Nevertheless, a tyrant he is.
He recalls with satisfaction the moments when he achieves the right kind of states for ‘you’. And he is baffled that his defenses were breached and violence crept in.
Please don’t keep yourself under the radar continuously. How do you remember that “the present moment is coming effortlessly out of the previous one”? Why watch? Is this watching desireless, without expectations?
Constant remembrance is a passive thing. It is not the remembrance of conscious memory. It is the remembrance of the entire being. It is the kind of deep remembrance in which you do not consciously know that you remember.
– Based on my interactions on various e-media.
Dated: 1st Dec,’11
