Saturday 27 July 2013

In pursuit of awareness

In pursuit of awareness

Someone found it very difficult to be aware in her place of work, where there were many people lined up
and many phones were ringing and a lot of distractions, and she was alone. She
also found it extremely difficult to maintain serenity and calm when driving in
traffic with blarring horns and people shouting four-letter words. She asked
whether eventually the nervouness would dissipate and she would remain at
peace. Did you pick up the attachment here? Peace.
She was , in other words, saying ‘unless I’m at peace I wont be happy’. Did it
ever occur to  you that you could be
happy in tension or a depressing situation? You don’t make a goal of relaxation
and sensitivity.

Heard of people getting tense trying to relax? If you’re
tense simply observe your tension. You will never understand yourself if you
seek to change yourself. The harder you try to change yourself the worse it
gets. You are called upon to be aware.
Get the feel of it. In other words come to reality. Allow tension and calmness
to take care of themselves. Matter of fact you’ll be so preoccupied with
reality that you would have to let tension and/or calmness take care of
themselves.

When an egg is broken form the outside a life is lost, but
when an egg is broken form the inside a life is born. So 
allow reality to happen in your moment. That is ‘evolution’ that is
‘growth’ that is ‘revelation’. Its coming from within, not being imposed, its
not being fragmented by concepts, ideas, words. Its just ‘flowing’, ‘growing’,
‘moving’. This is change, this is growth, this is reality.


Awareness, I being able to step out of myself and observe me.
Try it, keep trying, and it will become second nature to you. You will truly
begin to enjoy it. Before awarenes I was worried, after awareness I am still
worried, difference is I don’t connect with it. This is what scripture talks
about when saying ‘stay awake,’ ‘be alert,’ ‘be aware’. Now nobody can manipulate,
hurt you, control you. You are beyond that. Detached. In the world yet not of
the world. Living life in all its fulness, no fear. Now I am able to identify
me. I am able to see that ‘I AM’. Iam not me, I have come to understand that my
body is changing, millions of cells are renewed every minute that by the end of
seven years there is not a single cell left that was there seven years ago!
Cells come and go. Cells arise and die. But 'I' seem to persist. So, am 'I' my
body? Evidently not. I is somethnig more than the body, ‘Isnt life worth much
more than the body’?

How about my name? Is ‘I’ my name? Evidently not, because I can
change my name without changing the ‘I’. How about career? Religious belief? Is
my religion an essential part of 'I'? Remember the little girl who says to the
boy: ‘Are you presbyterian’? and the boy answers ‘No , we belong to another
abomination’!

Paddy was walking down the street in Belfast, and suddenly
realises a gun pressing against the back of his head and a voice says: ‘Are you
Catholic or Protestant’?. Paddy has to do some pretty fast thinking, he says ‘I’m
a jew’ and he hears the voice say: I’ve got to be the luckiest Arab in the
whole of Belfast’. Labels. They are so important to us.

Labels. I am a republican, but are you really? Does that mean
that you are a new ‘I’ when you switch parties? Are you planning to vote
Republican?. The friend says ‘No, my great-grandfather, grand father and father
were Democrats!’ ‘That’s crazy logic’ the friend says, ‘I mean if your Great grand
father, grand father and father were horse thieves, what would that make you?’
Ah the other replies ‘then I’d be a Republican’!

Labels.Here’s another. A man went to a priest and said:’Father
I want you to say a mass for my dog’. The priest gets indignant, ‘What do you
mean, say a mass for your dog?’Its my pet dog,’ said the man ‘I loved that dog
and I’d like you to offer a mass for him’. The priest says ‘We don’t offer masses
for dogs here, you may try the denomination down the street, ask them if they might
have a service for your dog’. As the man was leaving he said, ‘Too bad. I
really loved that dog. I was planning to offer a million dollar stipend for the
mass’. The priest says, ‘now wait a minute, you did’nt tell me your dog was
catholic’

So you see labels belong to ‘me’. What constantly changes is ‘me’.
Does the observer change? The fact is, no matter what labels you think up
(except perhaps human being) you should apply them to ‘me’, ‘I’ is none of these
things. So when you step out of yourself and observe ‘me’, you no longer
identify with ‘me’. Suffering exists in ‘me’. When you identify ‘I’ with ‘me’
suffering begins.

When ‘I’ doesn’t identify with any name, nationality,
person,friend, money or any other quality, the 'I' is never threatened. It can be
very active, but never threatened. Think of anything that caused you worry,
pain, anxiety. First, can you pick up the desire under the suffering? What is
that desire?. Second, it is’nt just the desire, there is an identification
there. You have somehow concluded that the ‘well-being of ‘I’, the very
existance of ‘I’ is tied up with this desire. All suffering is caused by my
identifying myself with something, whether that something is within or outside
of me. 

Have a wonder-filled week end! 

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