Chapter 2 : A New Beginning


But then everything is imperfect by design. So why should I suffer? Each realm created by God has been perfectly designed an illusion, meant to be imperfect, and reality, that is consciousness, which is eternally perfect. 
"Purna Adah Purna Idam", "That (consciousness) is complete, whole, infinite, perfect. I need to be in perfect sync with both creation and consciousness, with the imperfect and the perfect. You see this is very important for me to realize, the misery is from seeking perfection in people and situations and never finding it. Me being imperfect and seeking perfection in this world is also by design! It's natural! so I say to myself "Relax! It's ok, I'm imperfect, that's the way it's meant to be."

Knowing this I need to fully engage in the world and play by it's rules, far from perfect rules! If I hate them I'll be unhappy. So while I participate in this imperfect world outside I need to be dispassionate-detached inside, otherwise again I will be miserable! In both the outer realm of imperfection and inner realm of perfection I need to be in symphony. Stress and misery comes when I'm in disharmony with rhythms of nature. All the wheels of the clock need to work in tandem.

Seeking permanence in anything: love, friendship, job, money, is futile. Everything and everyone will change, it's natural. Yet again and again I seek permanence, it changes and I sulk. I want to hold on, like trying to grasp the wind in my fist, or arrest the flow of a river, not wanting it to flow away...No! I need to put my boat on the river of life, have Karma and Dharma as it's two banks and finally merge into the ocean of consciousness. And both the changing and permanent co-exist.
Whenever I am happy let me remind myself, perfection and permanence can only be found in true reality, consciousness.

When I want the deepest rest and want to feel secure I feel like crawling back into my mother's womb. So peaceful, protected, serene, loving is that feeling of being in my mother's womb. The source from where I came, innocent and complete. When everything goes wrong and you are at your lowest the only the person who I can go to is my mother. Her love is God's love, she is the divine in human form. The other refuge is inner refuge, being one with the Self. When you're stuck in one perspective the opposite perspective is a savior. A completely different way of looking at myself, life and this world. Like waking up from a dream!

A mother is a protector, a refuge, who loves unconditionally. Wisdom, knowledge, is a savior, rescuer. God is also a protector, a guide and blesses us with His grace and divine love.

Who is God? Who is a Guru? Is it a person, a body, an entity? Someone out there protecting me, watching me, loving me? Are there really two: God and me? If God is everything, everywhere, and all the time then how can he be separate from me? If he is separate from me, and not me, then he's not everything, everywhere. If he is everything then he is me too! Then who am I? Who is God?
Ok. If God is within me also, or rather God is me also, then? Ohh! It's all Him! I can relax. I am also part of him, and he is me. I have no fear. Take a deep breath in and let go. Ahh! Just this feeling that inside me there is just God, his presence, solves so many mental worries, tensions, emotions and problems. All is well, all is well. I am already feeling better. Is it a new day, a new beginning?

The fact is that a lot of people think they are protected by God or their Guru, either because of their devotion for Him, or how much they do for Him, give Him, please Him, etc. Which is fine, but it doesn’t mean that those who don’t should fear the lack of protection. God and Guru loves unconditionally, so it’s not based on where you love Him or not. The sun shines on everyone equally. Yes one should have devotion, do service, but then for whom? I have a basic question as to who God is. Who is the Guru? Is there something wrong when I feel that God and Guru are an integral part of me and I am an integral part of Him? And really there is no two. It’s all ONE. If I am so established in this feeling of oneness and living in that consciousness becomes stronger and more prominent, then whom should I seek protection from, for whom, what should I fear? The problem in fact is that people think there are two, that ignorance is the source of fear that seeks protection. In devotion there are still two. But at the peck of devotion I feel that Krishna is my soul, my consciousness, within me, not separate from me, and He can never leave me. At that level of feeling and experiencing The Presence all identities vanish and all there is – is Existence. So is true of the feeling of God and Guru, it is just all One.

The basis of all that I experience is this inner core, this vastness, which is both immediate and transcendent. It’s hard to explain. It’s like when you are just at the brink of falling asleep or at the point of waking up, when you are at the edge of both waking and sleeping. Both the states are opposite and it’s just a difference in viewpoint and awareness. If one can be aware in that moment of slipping from one state to another, like I did today, there is a great dive into the ocean of consciousness. So to compare that with this world and the waking state with another state where this world, my body, mind, everything and everyone seems like happening outside of me, like watching a movie. Someone is observing this whole play, things just happening and I just observing. It is so much like a dream. Till one experiences that separation from body, mind and creation, one is soaked in it like water in a sponge. The water thinks it’s the sponge. Therefore there are two viewpoints depending on where the awareness is. Most of my life I am so conditioned, trapped, glued to this physical and subtle world that it is impossible to separate the water from the sponge.

My son was saying to me yesterday, that reading the Bhagwad Gita feels good, but implementation is what’s important and yet so difficult. So I said keep reading, and work on implementing, the result is not in our hands. You feed the plant with water, fertilizer and sun and the fruit ripens on its own. Just like that we need to listen to this knowledge, reflect on it for a deeper understanding and removing doubts, and then meditate to experience it. These three things are the food, water and sun for the fruit to ripen and have it manifest in our lives.

The knowledge texts say that the more a person has wisdom, discrimination, and dispassion the more this spiritual knowledge will manifest in us. However; the more knowledge we soak in the more wisdom, discrimination, and dispassion will grow in us. And that then feeds into furthering the cycle of listening to, understanding and meditation on that knowledge.

When one hits rock bottom in life, or when there's a problem, is when one looks for help, for wisdom, for rescue. The first thing I tell myself is, "this too will change!". Everything is changing, everything is passing. Life is like watching the river flow from it's banks. No matter how bad it gets, that too passes and changes. Knowing that everything is changing is what is known as wisdom, discriminating between what is changing and what is permanent. "I" - the real me, that's observing everything change is changeless. It's the pivotal center around which everything is rotating. We get lot in the world, get affected by a traumatic event, react to people's words and behaviors, or get carried away by name, fame, money and power. And when it starts affecting me is when I pull back and take a look at it from a different "I". It helps to know everything is changing, and also to know that sorrow, misery, sickness and death are going to be there, it's part of life, and we can't fight it. I have to get back in touch with that space in me that is peaceful, blissful, and separate myself from this misery. That space within me is never changing, there's a substratum behind/underneath all this that is changeless, permanent. I have lost touch with it and therefore I am miserable. As soon as I meditate and get back in touch with my Self... Ah! a sigh of relief! I am stupid that I keep getting lost and forgetting my self. That old habit is hard to change. I suffer again and again because of it. At least the first step in rescuing myself is to remember the knowledge that everything is changing.

When I am more established in myself, that centeredness bring calmness. Being aware brings calmness. And when I am calm I make less mistakes in dealing with people and situations. Being spiritual doesn't mean not being smart in the world. I want to ace both the material and the spiritual world then I will be a complete whole, otherwise half empty.

It's the eight day of the nine nights festival in Hinduism called "Navratri". Had a prayer at my home and several ladies came. Feel so sacred and serene. The smell of camphor, incense, oil lamps, and flowers makes the atmosphere so divine. This long rainy night I am alone late at night, all lights are off. Just looking outside the window, in the lamp post light I see the branches of the trees waving in the wind and rain. The pittar-patter on the roof top like a lullaby. I curl into the warm comfortable lap of mother nature like a baby, and slip into sleep....

Feeling God's love. God can love me only as much as the love I feel inside. That love within is all there is. His divine grace, blessings and love is as much as the devotion I feel inside. That divine within is all there is.

I look for someone to give me that love I am looking for, only to be disappointed in it's limitation. I don't need to depend on anyone else. He calls me to Him, and I feel that coolness, comfort, the expansion, the bliss, the divine love - within! I need nothing else, nobody else. I feel complete this moment. I have found what I have been looking for. I say to myself, "Be strong, have firm faith, unshakable devotion, have dispassion, let not sorrow move me, be established in This." I smile, I am happy for this moment. Let's see how long I can hold this state.

There is going to be suffering. Desires will be there. It is the nature of creation, of the body and mind. Let them be there. I am not the body, I am not the mind. They are not the body, they are spirit, "atman", that resides in that body. Have this wisdom to differentiate, "Vivek". Let the misery, old age, disease, death, desires be there. Once I keep that differentiation, that I am not the body, I am not the mind, I feel my true self and I am not so affected by all this. Nor by the suffering of my parents and those I love. My true nature is...untouched, describable. That vast space that the great beyond, separate, that permeates everything and yet untouched and untainted. That dispassion. "Vairagya", that awareness, I must be established in. And to be established I need spiritual knowledge.

I am that person who went to sleep and now I am dreaming. That dream is this life. Each life before and each life after is a sequence of dreams. Just impressions. What is a dream? It feels so real. There is a story, there are characters, there is fear, anger, happiness, sadness, someone may die, there may be a disaster, I may loose my job, or all my wealth. It's a dream. The person who is dreaming exists all along. The dream is an illusion. The process of dreaming is a part of nature, it just happens. This dreamer is saying, "I am dreaming", yet I can't wake up! The whole truth can be explained and understood by this example of a dream, the dreamer and the waking up from the dream.

Though understood mentally it is almost impossible to realize this truth that this world is like a dream. Although it needs to be realized very simply, naturally, I seem to be stuck in the dream. Yet the true state of pure existence seems to be apparent and transcendental, it is here and now and eternal at the same time. At least I have begun my journey back upwards from the delusion, dismay and distress that I have been going through. There were few happy moments for me recently, I was on a high earlier this year, then down in the dumps, and now slowly inching my way out of the dungeons. I can see the light of knowledge, some hope is there.

Life was so simple, natural and happy when I was a little girl. Had no worries, stresses, responsibilities and problems were so small. There was so much playfulness, laughter and love. Didn't care what was happening in the world, was so immersed in my own world, about the here and now. I still feel that innocent, naive child within me, in my core. I wish to go back to it. Somewhere within me that natural state still exists that is peaceful, calm, and blissful. Look at how far I am from that now even if on the surface. After four and a half decades I seemed to have gone furthest from where I wish to be. How can I retain that pristine innocence, purity, love and blissful state that was so close to divinity?
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Let me close my eyes and feel that child again...that innocence, divinity, purity, peace and bliss...

Events come and go. People come and go. The world keeps turning...
Nothing matters. Don't worry be happy! Enjoy this moment. As I drive on this beautiful moonlit night, alone, I put on my favorite Sufi song and sing along, smiling and swinging. Who cares about the rest of the world, this is my journey, let me celebrate my time here.
One day I too will go, what happens after that? I don't know and can't know, so let it happen, flow with it, be with it, at Peace! Like when you're going into an operation and they're going to give you anesthesia, you know you are going to knock out, you feel it coming on for a few seconds and then you're gone! The next thing you feel when you come back is this fuzziness in the mind, you feel drugged or drunk. Or like when we fall asleep everyday. There is no trauma or fear, we accept it as a natural phenomena. In fact we look forward to sleep everyday to rest and recharge! Where are we when we are sleeping? In deep sleep our mind is switched off and have no awareness of existing. So too death must be. Yet it is the greatest thing I fear.

What am I looking for in this life while I'm here? I just want to be happy! Not just now but always, every moment, no matter what happens it should not affect my happiness. Happiness should be unlimited, permanent, and infinite! Everything else give me momentary happiness, we get a new car and love it for a few days and after that it's like any other car, same thing with new gadget, new house, etc. Most people think that money will make them happy yet there are so many rick people who can't even sleep well at night! So many look for job satisfaction, they live to work rather than work to earn a living, and one day they may loose their job in an instant! Those who want to get married think they will be happy once they find the perfect spouse, those who've been married from years envy single people! I have done everything to find this happiness, in relationships, from friends, changed jobs, homes, cities, bought so many things, went on a vacation, taken spiritual courses, waited for better times, etc. Basically I have looked for the perfect happiness externally, in places, things, people, time and circumstances and it hasn't worked.
Ok, now there are two aspects to life - "I" the experiencer/subject and the world of objects and my body, breath, mind, emotions. If happiness was the nature of the objects category it would not change with time, place, circumstances, etc. So if happiness is not the nature of objects then it has to be the inherent in the subject, right? Therefore I MUST be the source of happiness. I am what I seek?! It makes sense, happiness is my nature that's why I seek it, that's why it feels natural and that's why I get weighed down by sorrow and want to get rid of it. Hence, unconditioned objectless happiness is our own true nature.

There are two types of achievements.
1. Gain of ungained things. If I am in need of money then I need to know how to earn and work hard to gain it. Therefore, knowledge + action = gain.
2. Gain of things already gained. If I was looking for my keys and someone says you have them in your pocket, then there's nothing to gain. I was unaware of the fact that I had them all along and thought I'd lost them! On knowing I "gained" them. Therefore knowledge = gain.

I am unaware of my own true nature which is bliss and also of my own existencial presence, my soul. And this is what I need, Self knowledge!