Monday, April 12, 2010

Be A Witness - Always

Let not your 'I' get identified with your body and mind. This de-identification is meditation.

The Buddha was once meditating. His mind started creating problems and distracted him from the path of enlightenment. It was as though hundreds of horses were galloping through his mind. But the monk remained a witness and did not identify with fear. His mind turned into thousands of elephants tempting him to identify with them, but again Buddha was just a witness... he saw through the mind's game. His mind became a loving deer but still Buddha remained a witness. He did not get tempted.

Finally, his mind turned into a loving child drowning in the ocean, seeking his attention. Buddha, out of compassion, merged with his thoughts and stretched out his hands to save the drowning child. At once, the child turned into a monster and started pulling Buddha to the ocean. Buddha realised his folly and left the monster and continued being a witness. The monster turned again into a child and started pleading for help.

Buddha continued his meditation of being not participating but being a witness. The child drowned in the ocean and emerged as an enlightened mind, reflecting Buddha's mind.

Learn to be a witness to your thoughts and feelings. In the witnessing consciousness, there is no identification with anything. Identification leads to misery. Worry is a form of identification. Literally, worry means twisting and tearing. Have you observed that when you worry, your moving centre gets twisted? Negative state of worry depression or fear... shows up strongly in the form of twisting one's body-moving centre.

I read the above extract around 6 months back. And I did not totally understand it then. But somehow it made an impact on my mind, because I tried to understand it but I couldn't make much sense of it.

I recalled it again and thanks to Google, it acts like a copy of your mind. You think it, you get it.

What I get it from this now, in my present state of my mind is, learn to dis-associate actions with results. The actions may include anything like, speaking to someone, suggesting to someone, participating in discussion, helping someone, asking for help,... You may get expected results or unexpected reactions. Do not get attached to the results or reactions. Disconnect the actions from results.

Sounds pretty far off. It is easy to write / read / discuss / preach, but difficult to practice. But practice make a man...

My take is God has made human beings as super living beings. The ultimate super powers. S/he can achieve anything desired. Just desire.

Extract from: