Life -as I see it

We should know what life is first to mange it, isn't? Well most of us have different definitions of it and I should confess that they may be right or wrong, for I am no expert. But I have my own definition and based on that I also have designed my living. I will briefly explain the major points of it. If it will be of help to you also I don't know. Here is how I look at it.

What is life?:

In my opinion life is an endless pursuit for happiness. All our actions are driven by that basic instinct. I have seen this even in almost all normal sentient beings. This pursuit is always in the subconscious mind and prompts us unknowingly for us to undertake daily activities. At the end, of all those actions we undertake, the expectation of reaching a state of fulfillment in the form of happiness is what we expect. If it is in waking state or dream and including deep sleep, we need that at the end.

What is Happiness?

We often have “a definition of happiness” from our past memories and search of validation there. Other than memories of events we have no clue of what a real happiness looks like. We want to posses and accumulate things like wealth, position in job, house, dress, etc the list is endless. What we cannot achieve in waking we try to meet it in dream and be happy about it.

What are we actually doing in the process of accumulation of these so called things of happiness? Are we not trying to 'expand' ourselves by owning or possessing them? From one accomodation we will try for another one too if possible also acquire land, objects, and even objects which can take us in space like car or plane etc. This is because of a basic defect in our perception of things. We think that by having these we will be happy. But never there can we put a full-stop for them. Because they are limited themselves in space. But our urge is to keep continuing that. Which gives the first fact that we want to expand our reach or presence in space. Not as this physical body but as a being our demands are to occupy as much space as possible. But the mistaken identity that we are limited by the body fools us to own and occupy object-related space.

Similarly the other false notion in happiness is the time. We think we want to posses all that the have gathered for maximum time. Including this wrongly defined life. The wrong definition of life is that we are living beings and eventhough from knowledge and experience we are definite that there is death waiting around corner, yet we behave as if we are never going to have that moment of death. Every night, why every night?, in every action of ours we presume that we are going to be there to honor or execute our wishes and commitments. But which moment in life do we want to perpetuate? Childhood, young age, now or old age? We can't define.Yet our subconscious mind is prompting that “I can and want to live for ever”.

So all our actions are an attempt in expanding our spacial extension and perpetrate life for ever. Using a world of impermanence? Nothing in this world can exhibit those qualities existing in them.

So how do we become happy?

Not by what we are doing under the confused state of mind. Either we should expand to occupy the whole space and time as infinity. In other words infinity is also a point which tends from zero to infinity. Hence we should start from that point in time and space, only being in the Now. Because the whole space and time is represented in that Now and expansion of all Now is what is infinity. How do we do that?, will be the question that may come up in your mind. For that first we will have to unlearn what we have been trained by the family and society to redefine our course.

Living in the Now.

This is a terminology you might have heard from the so called management gurus and trainers. But hardly anyone has the real meaning and implications of it built into their modules. They are more of workshops and do not give you the real secrete behind it.

We all are by default either living in the past or expecting the future. Meaning, it is the memories of past lingering in our mind or the anxiety or worries of unknown future haunting us. In the process we miss out what happens now. So to live in the Now you have to do away with past and future. It is easy said than done. Because we are a bundle of impressions of our past. Never can we even define or explain anything without a reference to our past. It can be good or bad. That's immaterial. But we lean so much on them so that we have no real identity without them. Also we have developed opinions based on our past experiences so much that we can hardly see beyond them. Whenever a name is heard we already have a preformed opinion about that without even taking effort to find out if the same has undergone changes over time. This is true to forms too. So in the end we dance as puppets of our memories. These memories are instructors or guiding principles for us to live Now and not “real fresh Now”.

We need to learn to unwind all those impressions in our memory and it needs practice.

The most useful tool in the process is observation and patience. While the observation without referring to the impressions of the past will give us 'freshness to life', it needs lot of patience to be aware of that need to look at things fresh and also not to learn and bring in new impressions. Because these new fresh of this now also becomes past one day. So unless you have patience to practice that aspect of looking “a thing afresh each time every time”, you are getting back to the whirlpool of past again.

Patience is a virtue and also a weapon.

Not all are blessed with this quality of patience. Impatience is actions driven by the needs and past impressions of the situation. One needs to make effort to cultivate it. Over a period it will become a natural habit. Once it starts exhibiting in your behavior, you yourself will feel a strength and power. These are powers getting bestowed on you due to your patience from the nature you are observing. They need time to study your intentions and accommodate you in the whole picture of universe. Once that starts happening your self confidence will also improve. Your outbursts and reactions to events will no more be guided by the past impressions created, but guided by the forces of nature which have attuned with your needs. It will also help you as a weapon from those who are impatient and expose themselves. You will be able to understand those reactions but your patience will give you time, knowledge and calmness to react the best way.

When you have the patience, you can improve your observation of events happening. Your mind won't wander in woolgathering. This will make you live every moment in the Now.

Why should I live in the Now? What way can help me in my problems?

May be these thoughts are worrying you? These are your habit till now. Let us get into why these questions came up and what are the reasons for it. The predominant reason is that you still want to ensure that your happiness of your future is assured, right? But your future is going to be a Now one day and if you have not learned how to live happily in the Now, that moment in future also will a moment of worry of its future. Which means if you handle your Now, every moment, every incident, there is no more 'future' for you to worry about. For that moment in future will be a moment of Now then and you know how to live happily then.

Okay. Teach me as to how to live happily in the Now!!!

Great. Now you are on track. You have understood the road you are travelling is not the one to your chosen destination, but being driven. That is the reason for your unhappiness now. For you have been guided by your past impressions and future anxieties and in the process you messed up your travel.

A bit of information that will help you to understand the process of life, not living. We all have heard “as you sow so you reap”. Everything in life is exactly the same. But that doesn't mean you are a helpless victim of your past. You will become a victim when it befalls on you but do not know how to take it. But if you know how to live in the Now happily, even though those reactions of past may befall on you, at the same time, your knowledge gathered from observation and patience will be the strength with which you will handle them. You will not react the same way you used or would have. But the knowledge makes you smarter to react or not. If you have to react what will be the best way to react and how. By doing this you are reducing the reactive actions of life which will gather strength and befall on you later.

What knowledge is that you will gather? The knowledge that the past cannot be undone and I am in control of the Now which will be the creator of my future.

So you will accept the way things are happening and will look at it not with your impressions from past, but with an impersonate event for which you know how to react.

Your desires will be not for a event or an object of future, for you know they are a product of now and hence you will live in the Now in such a way not worried or anxious of your future, but fullest to the happiness of Now. Only happiness can produce happiness. You wont be sorry for losses, because you know that nothing is everlasting and your control of emotions for the loss will be with the knowledge of that in the back of your mind. May it be the greatest loss in definition. That definition is falling short in measuring the happiness of the Now. So you will acknowledge it but won't be really sad.

Happiness will become your nature. You will spread happiness around and will become the beacon to many who want to learn from you how you could handle the so called ups and downs of life in their definitions.

Be Happy and Living in the Now, you will conquer the world and the happiness of your life.

A birthday ---What it means to me now...

As a kid and later the thrill of this day visiting once a year was a thing to look forward to and cherish later. As any other I too had my joys and fun of this day until it all was questioned and was asked to look deep into my heart. It all happened on the 10th December 1978. the incident was like this.....

It was one of the chill mornings of the about-to set-in winter of the year 1978. I was attending Vedanta classes in Sandeepany Sadhanalaya, Mumbai of Swami Chinmayananda. Sivaramji, the personal attendant to Swamiji used to take the morning coffee for Swamiji at around 04:30 to his kutiya. We knew this was the best time of the day when we can catch Gurudev at best of his moods and with less crowd. Which also gives us longer time on a one to one basis. 

As usual there were only four of us apart from Swamiji and Sivaramji. I was eager on that day as it was my birthday and wanted Gurudev's blessing as the first thing in the morning. So we were squatting on the floor of his personal office, waiting for Swamiji to come from his chamber and occupy his chair with his beaming smile and penetrating eyes.

As expected Swamiji  came and occupied his chair. As he settled himself on the chair. I got up and went up to him, bent on my knees and whispered to Gurudev that I need his blessing as it is my birthday. With his normal raucous laughter, a paradoxical and rhetoric in intention, he asked me " Whose? and then quoted अजो नित्य शाश्वतोऽयं पुराणः.........(Ajo nitya swashwatoyam puranah.....meaning The Unborn, The Eternal, The Everlasting, The Ancient...) I was dumb founded and was shaken by his action. I might have been in that frozen moment for sometime and not realizing what is it all about, while I was looking at his face, he with his smile repeated the same and lifting my chin gave his penetrating look which pierced through me to the bottom of my heart.

I was speechless and bowed to him. At that time he tapped on my head and said "THINK.....THINK.....THINK" ..... and he smiled again.

I sat in his presence for may be an hour or so while he was listing to others and giving advise on their personal questions. I, sitting there was not able to listen any of that was happening, but his words were ringing in my ears, nay, my heart and the whole body was reverberating of those words..

Throughout that day I was moving around trying to get the message of Gurudev and its implication or its relevance to my request for his blessing. 

We had regular classes and lecture by Gurudev in the study hall. All through the day I felt as if, when ever I was in his presence, he was looking into me to find out if I had got the message. I was genuine in expressing my haplessness also in my presentation of the caricature I depicted throughout that day. What does the message of Gurudev in the morning mean?? It kept haunting me.

In the evening the temple hall after the aarati we usually have bhajans for sometime and followed by lecture by a Swamiji whoever takes classes or by Gurudev when he is in the hall. This evening was one of those blessed one when Gurudev gifted us with his presence. The bhajans are also truncated by all so that we get more time to listen to Gurudev.

I was sitting on the left side of where Gurudev was sitting and just close enough so that I don't have to crane my neck with pain while looking at Gurudev. To me it felt that my face disclosed its helplessness and Gurudev, when he started his lecture appeared as if he was answering me on one to one even though there were ocean of devotees and students sitting in front of him.

He started saying,.... " When a child is born, we all celebrate his coming to this world......." I knew he was answering my troubled mind. I cannot reproduce the words of the master here for me he was hand-holding and taking me to a world I have no idea about. But those words which mattered me then and what it matters me still are being narrated in my own language here.

What followed the next half an hour was a demystifying experience which transformed me and my way of looking at life in total. Through the reasoning and logic Gurudev held my hand, as if, and took me across the false values and beliefs that made me imagine what I was, to what he wanted me to THINK and realize by his statements of that morning. From the unreal entity he showed my Trueness, from the darkness of ignorance together he flew with me to the abode Light of all Lights and established me in Immortality. How can I then ever even imagine that I have a day to celebrate? I have never ever....

The mundane values of waking are not valid in our dream nor in deep sleep. Since we are so conditioned by family, society etc we cannot think beyond those values. They have no reality other than in our waking world of senses. Just the dream is as valid as a waking state while in dream, our waking state also is absolutely not different from another plane of persistent experiences. No gravity pulls the dreamer when he wants to fly nor the fire of dream burns the one who is in waking. Mind undergoes pangs and inflicts in dream and waking, but we ridicule dream while awake. In the deep sleep he shuts down the entire worlds of experiences and jokes at us by throwing it back to us when we get up. Unable to control these states we fly from one to another as helpless creatures and is unaware as to what will bring an end to our miseries of either waking or dream. To us, like a child to whom the trees move backwards while in a train, life moves through time and we celebrate events. We think time is in motion as we are thrown between the three planes of experiences. The repetition of the cycle of experiences make us feel existence of time. In reality there is no time. Nor the space. If it was a reality it should have held to its values in all realms of experiences of ours. They vary from the waking to dream to deep sleep. Which one can we take it for true? None. A Truth is that One which can never have changes.
The only one I can relate to this value of Truth is my "being" of me. The me has been remaining as me from time immemorial. Me as the body has undergone change and it is no more the same body which can claim to celebrate its birthday. No part of my body is the same today from the six decades it has been experiencing the three states unabated. The mind, intellect etc has accumulated and thrown-out various values and memories. The Earth, the Sun, the Moon none of them are the same. But the Me who witnesses all these changes remain Changeless and because of it I know the changes. I am The Changeless. If I am Changeless, I cannot be having birth or death(अजः- Ajah). The Changeless, hence The Eternal( नित्यः - Nitya). The Changeless hence Ever-Existent( शाश्वतः - Swashwatah). The Changeless without a beginning hence The Ancient ( पुराणः -  Puranah)........