Would you continue to act puzzled with the myriad reflections of the Sun in the lake?
Question: Dear Sir, for last few days I was at a vineyard with a group of people. The weather was beautiful, the lake was beautiful and the people I was with were wonderful.
Yesterday night while returning, I saw a strange grip of fear over me. I asked myself that what had transpired. Was it the fleeting nature of the pleasure and its absence? Was it fear?
The people I was with and I were happy when we were there, but my mind mistook that to be how their whole lives are.
Is it only conditioning that makes me feel like this at the end of the evening or is it awareness? What makes me loathe their pleasures? What makes me want to stay up at night and read the Upanishads and poems I read. What makes me crave answers from philosophers and scriptures?
There is no ‘I’, that I know. I still don’t know how I did not become the people I was with. I enjoyed every single moment of the last three days. Of that I am certain. I have come back to the confines of my room and here I sit on my unmade bed!
Answer: Every question that you ask is asking for the same thing.
Every answer that you get is arising from the same thing.
The question is THAT, the answer is THAT. What is causing both the question and the answer is THAT. What is craving to search is ThAT, what is being searched for is THAT.
Will you continue to look at your state in a fragmented way? Will you continue with the Q n A format? This state vs that state format? Experience vs experiencer format? Present vs past format? Freedom vs Bondage format? You will; till you are watching from the middle. The actor will have to necessarily differentiate between the fellow role-players, and be totally involved with them. For the wise watcher, all who are appearing are just actors. He knows that besides the actors, there is a director, a producer, a script-writer.
Would you continue to ask about the actors? Would you continue to ask ‘why is that scene so poignant’? Would you continue to think that the vineyard, the rain, the evening, your craving, and your unmade bed is what this story is about? Would you continue to act puzzled with the myriad reflections of the Sun in the lake? A thousand reflections will be seen, and a thousand images may arise, but why not just look upwards?
If you are asking ‘Why is it happening to me?’, there must be a reason.
One feels a small itch, and there is a reason. If you are feeling something substantial, there must be a substantial reason. What is the reason?
If you are asking, ‘What is happening to me?’
You are seeing the reflections and are fascinated. Even the reflections are luminous enough to dispel some of the darkness. You have begun to see that there is light, and it is so different from darkness. It is but natural that you have begun to dislike darkness. That part of you that was comfortable with darkness is dying. But will you celebrate at this? Will you continue to make do with mere reflections?
-Based on my interactions on various e-media.
Dated: 10th October,’11.
