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Swami Suddhananda |
A report said fat outside the body is not
dangerous, but the fat inside the body is. Similarly, it is not the
possessions outside by the possessiveness within that affects.
The newspaper article had the picture of a Sumo
wrestler extremely heavy set. The article went on to describe that
the fat ‘on’ that body is not dangerous – though the common belief is
that obesity is dangerous. It is not the fatness but the fat in the
blood stream that destroys the body.
What a universal principle it is! It is not the
physical or material possession that is harmful but ‘the
possessiveness’ within that creates conflict and emptiness. On a
positive note, we can say that the knowledge of the man of
information makes no meaning as much as the knowledge within. Or the
nutrition in the food outside has no meaning unless it is a part of
the body.
Thus, it looks that either for pain or pleasure we
have to internalise a lot of things in life. There is no question of
attraction or distraction, elation or depression in the presence of
the object. The object must be internalised as a thought to be the
first information which we can call knowledge. Then the ‘I’, the
individuality, may or may not go on converting those thoughts into
various emotions beginning from like, dislike, indifference, desire,
love, greed, hatred, etc., leading to elation and depression at
different times.
When the ‘I’ converts every thought to some type
of temporary attraction or distraction, usually he thinks that the
objects have become the source of the problem instead of recognising
the fact that the ‘I’ alone is responsible for converting a simple
thought to a desire and many other subsequent emotions. This habit of
blaming everything other than oneself for any type of conflict has
been the cause of human confusion and the consequent suffering.
Let us take for an example the environmental
pollution that has reached a dangerous proportion. While driving from
Hardwar to Rishikesh after seven long years, suddenly I saw two
chimneys spewing grey smoke to the sky where the Himalayas forms an
innocently majestic backdrop. I could not believe my eyes. People all
around complain of pollution – the polluted rivers, waterways, the
depleted forest, the ozone layer, the warmth, the extinction of
species, etc., but rarely they blame themselves for that. Nobody
pauses for a moment to go to the root of the pollution. If they do,
they will discover that if the jungles are disappearing, mountains
are being leveled, ‘the greed’ of human being is responsible for it.
The single most important pollutant in the world
is human thoughts or the thinking as that thinking has a source in
the limited individuality. That ‘individuality’ is picked up in time
and he feels limited identifying with every limited role. Considering
himself limited, mortal, unhappy, the individual begins the chase to
grab, to amass, to aggrandise. And that compulsion ‘to become’
limitless, immortal or happy has the brute strength of possessing the
whole universe yet to feel empty. The source, the ignorance of the
‘I’, is a bottomless pot that nothing can fill up. On it is a magic
bowl that can swallow up any number of things and still remain empty!
We can introduce a person to any number of things
in life, but if we have not introduced him to himself, then the
limitation, the hunger, the emptiness within will manifest itself in
mindless possession, indulgence and greater emptiness.
Man must be introduced to ‘himself’. Any other
attempt to suspend that individuality for sometime through singing,
breathing, meditating, centering or through sensations of various
kinds will only enhance the problem of emptiness and the
individuality will master the art of self-deception in the name of a
religious or secular lifestyle.
This is the simplest and the direct thing to do.
But that will take away the engagement of many who have opened the
shopping centres of various kinds of tricks in the name of religious
mysticism, miracles or secular earthiness. If the person looks at
himself, knows himself, knows the meaning of the word ‘I’ in its both
absolute and relative sense then the limitations will no more be
haunting and the person will be sensible to create wealth to enjoy
wealth, to create a forest to enjoy the mood, to know himself to
enjoy living. Immediately, people will complain that the awareness of
the absolute meaning of the word ‘I’ is not easy. That is what they
have heard or read. And that is what they have swallowed without ever
batting an eyelid. They remember and quote the verses from Gita where
Krishna seems to have said that among thousands in humanity, a rare
one strives to know himself and from among the thousand who strive,
only rarely a person understands.
The meaning should be properly understood. In
fact, not only in the Self-knowledge, but also in every other aspect
of life, it seems, only a rare few attain great heights. Hence, the
common perception is that only a few people among millions can reach
great heights. That may be and ‘is’ true in case of objective
knowledge like different branches of science or arts, but that is
never the truth in the case of Self-knowledge.
The fact is that long before we pick up any
knowledge and therefore a role, we are already existing as ‘The
Truth’, ‘The Consciousness’, The Self. There is absolutely no high,
low, inferior, superior or any comparison there as it is one
incomparable existence. Hence, it is easiest to know as it is always
known and easy to achieve as it is already achieved. It is easy to
reach because it is already reached and there is no distance to be
covered either in time or in space.
Yet, people seem to find it difficult to
understand as for generations human beings have been conditioned to
believe that Self-knowledge, the Brahma Vidya, the Atmagnanam, the
Iswara are the deepest mysteries difficult to be fathomed as
revealed. Again and again we have been told about the rarity, the
difficulty about the awakening to own Self or God, with a very
sincere purpose of making God or Self very precious, mysterious and
supernatural.
Even when the Gita says that among thousands of
people only a rare person strives to know, we must understand that
those thousands of people are not outside. Each thought is a role and
the ‘I’ seems to gain an identity with each role. There are thousands
of such roles inside and from among those only ‘a’ single role at a
time may be fed up with itself to find some resolution. Sometimes a
frustrated father, brother, friend, professional, lover, beloved,
student, teacher, traveller or any such identity can strive to go
beyond the problem. Each time the person may think that he is solving
the problem once and for all. Even such a person is far better than
millions who can sleepwalk through life taking everything for
granted.
That person who is striving to reach the goal is
‘one role’ within thousands of roles. Though ‘role’ after ‘role’
there shall be conflict, the resolution of conflict in relation to
one role will not solve the problem of any other role. When ‘the
father’ may be happy, ‘the brother’ may be unhappy. When the brother
may be happy, the professional may be unhappy. When all roles may not
have many things to complain, ‘the person’ the ‘I’ may be unhappy. To
know that the ‘I’ itself is the problem and to understand the ‘I’ is
to be one with the Absolute, Infinite, Happiness or freedom is the
ultimate solution.
Therefore, the rarity of the man of understanding
should not be seen as the presence of an exotic specie, a rare white
tiger, white peacock, a painted eagle or a rainbow parrot. It should
be understood that the wisdom is inherent in all without exception
and to be wise is to question and find the answer to the presence of
‘I’, the individuality and not the roles. When we think in relation
to larger humanity while talking about thousands or millions of them,
we tend to conclude that only a rare few will strive to know
themselves and the vast majority is condemned to lead the life of an
unquestioning, unprobing helpless animal, condemned to ignorance
forever.
What is to be understood is that within each one
of us there is a crowd of humanity with thousand different roles. It
is not enough to solve the problem of one role or the other but to
question the ‘I’ itself whose presence precipitates conflicts in
relation to many different roles who may be limited but are
inherently innocent.
The confusion and the mess in the human world are
compounded because of the vagueness of the reasoning where we go on
blaming the objects around the world, the perceptions, the thoughts
and the memories of different kinds for all the ills of the mankind.
We must pinpoint the problem. If we think, we shall see that the ‘I’,
the individuality, is the first accused as well as the last accused.
There is nobody or nothing other than the ‘I’ to create any
complication in life.
It is just like the fat outside or the wealth
outside – harmless by itself until the fat is internalised and the
person is ‘possessive’ about the possessions. There is nothing wrong
in thinking, but wrong thinking confuses all. Right thinking begins
when ‘I’, the thinker is challenged and the source is known. Knowing
the source is to be delightfully surprised that the source was always
known and one had never left it. The simplicity of the wisdom will
take away all the sense of limitations of the ‘I’ and shall make the
limitations of all roles gloriously harmonious in their own places in
relation to the ever-changing gross and the subtle universe.
May all see this! The ‘I’ appears to be the simple
gateway to both meditation and agitation but when understood, one
discovers that one is always in meditation in spite of continuous
changes in the gross universe and in spite of the presence or absence
of the thoughts in the realm of the subtle. The whole presence is
glorious!
Swami Suddhananda
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