- Relaxation does not mean to do nothing. The Hindi word for rest or relaxation is ‘aaram’. Aa-Ram. In Gujarati, the word for play is ‘Ram’. So relaxation means to be at play. To not be in fear, in anger. Play with the mind but don’t believe it. Know that it’s all an illusion. To play is to be a master. If you’re afraid or angry in a situation, you’ve become a slave.
- All inner disturbance is only because we do not want to see our true intentions. Instead, we constantly throw it out on the other person.
- In every communication, there are two people – the one who communicates and the one communicated to. But the true purpose of communication is to make the two one. To make duality non-dual. The very essence of duality is communication. And using communication, one can fuse duality and become one.
This communication does not move externally to the person outside, but moves inwards towards the source. In our world, communication goes outwards – we don’t know where it comes from but we see the target outside. However, the source of right & wrong, good & bad, the mechanism that’s working to create it is something we can’t see.
- As long as you believe you have a right to something, you will never open up, never been in awe, never have wonder, never feel gratitude. And because rights are never fulfilled, we are always in desire and always fixated on the other to feel secure.
In reality, we have only one right – the right to go back home.
- We are not meant to relax on the surface. We have to be in constant tension until we reach the deepest relaxation. Be watchful inside of both sides – the one who wants to relax and the other who wants to hold on. Pay attention to both. Attention is the point, literally.
- When energy is dispersed, there is creation of time and space. When attention is held on the singular, space disappears. And when there is no space to traverse, there is no time. When there is no time, there is no you. So, how do we hold onto the singular? Stare naked. At everything. More on this later.
- To be certain, one has to stand alone. There can be no certainty in a crowd.
- Growing Up means to finally become real. To destroy the pretty pictures we have painted about ourselves. And no one can grow up without destroying the lies that one has created about oneself.
- If we have no certainty of life & death, how can we be certain of anything in between?
- The concept or image that a teacher should be a socially correct person always comes between the student and the teaching. That image has to be destroyed. Otherwise, we shoot the messenger.
- Fear/Doubt is our guiding light home. And anger is our fuel. To learn how to start using the two, practise in your daily life.
E.g. You go to a shop and are told that a product costs a certain amount. You doubt that this can be the cheapest price you can get. You think you could get it for cheaper somewhere else. So, you fear paying more for it.
What should you do? Buy the product anyway and now, start doubting this doubt. Ask yourself what does ‘cheaper’ really mean. Or the concept of luxury. Start doubting your own mind. And when you do find out that that product was really cheaper somewhere else, observe the anger. Observe how you feel cheated. And after this, look at the many people inside you whom you must now answer to for the extra money paid. Observe whether you really were trying to save money or being subservient to a collective within you. Observe your hidden agenda, your hidden motives. Observe whether you were really angry or was the anger being used to hide the fear behind?
Do the above and whatever else possible to begin doubting and observing your own mind. Begin getting angry at your own mind. Look at the fear governing all our patterns. Do this in daily life.
- Why do fasts not last? Because the same personality that we’re supposed to be fasting from is supposedly committing to the fast. How can this ever work? Do you understand this?
It is said – ‘Any fool can fast but it takes a wise man to end his fast well.’ What does this actually mean? A fast cannot be broken. Only after a complete transformation takes place – when the one who began the fast is no longer present, when he has been completely obliterated and no traces of him remain in the universe – only then is the fast broken. Only when the fool becomes the wise man is the fast broken.
Fasting is not about not eating food or taking an oath not to talk. Fasting is a cessation of the personality. Fasting is not a new activity. It’s a cessation of the old. If you don’t understand this, you’ll keep trying to do something new.
- The stronger the environment for our trait to flourish, the greater the desire not to break away from that particular pattern.
- We feel safe practising what we’ve grown up with. Without it, we feel extremely threatened.
- Observation can happen only when there is separation between you and the conflict.
So, pause for a few moments. Do the Gayatri Mantra to the 3SRB rhythm for 20 minutes daily.
The things closest to you get distorted the most.
Take a daily inventory. Every night, before sleeping, hold your attention on the day’s events. Don’t think about the events. Simply see them in your mind without the usual justifications and the rationalizations. Observe what feelings they actually evoke without the justifications. Feel these feelings. There will always be an automatic justification and rationalization happening. Keep feeling the feelings and being impartial, keep watching the event and also the efforts of the system to distort the event in some way. Observe the various ways in which the system wants to remember or register a difference in the event than what had actually happened. Observe how it wants to blame and not take responsibility. If it takes responsibility, observe the pleasure or sadness it feels in doing so.
Go to the next layer of every feeling, of every observation. Do not take in anything at face value. (With others, always take everything at face value). Keep practising daily for the rest of your life. Increase duration of practise from nightly to every few hours and then to every hour and then to after every few minutes. Soon, you will come to living.
- Wherever we are threatened, feel attacked; know that we are in the animal state. Wherever there’s a blame, we’re animals.
- Before the conscience can start pointing inwards, we start blaming outside. Take a pause. This pause is NOT about thinking, of reflecting or understanding, of knowing, of feeling, of doing. It really is a PAUSE in and of all that is happening. It is the cessation of all inner chatter and within this brief stoppage, more is revealed. Take a pause.