In our journey thus far we came across many milestones – body, senses, mana, buddhi, chit, ahamkaara and their characteristics of raag-dwesha, avidya, abhinivesha and asmita respectively, and the three gunas i.e. sattva, rajas and tamas.

We then came to Consciousness. What next? Isn’t consciousness the end of the journey?!!

No! It is just the beginning. You have only seen the light at the end of the tunnel; you are yet to step out into that light.

Remember the mantra, ‘Tamaso Ma Jyotir Gamay’ (May we move from darkness towards light.)

This is the destination where we need to change the mode of transportation. Now we have to perform action, purushartha, to move out of the tunnel and be in the light. We have to contemplate and meditate on all these aspects.

Everything Is Consciousness

Every dimension of our being, be it body, mind or ego, is percolated by consciousness. Take away Consciousness and the body is ready to be cremated or buried.

We are indeed living as Consciousness. But are we really living as Consciousness or is it something else? Let us examine this a little bit.

We are living as body-consciousness (seeking comfort), or sense-consciousness (seeking gratification).

There are some who are living as mind – consciousness (mana-mauji). All the children fall in this category. (If only we could live with the purity of a child it would not have been bad to live as minds-consciousness.)

There are yet few who are living as intellects. (This is a group for whom walking out of the tunnel is most difficult.)

And, all of us are indeed living as ego-consciousness, the big sense of ‘I’.

There are yet more who live in self-consciousness; they are overly concerned about what others think of them.

The Truth About Our Consciousness

The fact not to be forgotten is that when we are living as body, mind, or ego-consciousness we are actually living in an auto-mode. Everything is happening automatically, instinctively and involuntarily. Something happens and we get angry; we go past a chaat - shop and we become hungry!

We do not know what exactly is happening inside; and we keep reacting to these involuntary impulses from within.

We are living automatically as a habituated being living by rote. We are thus not living as CONSCIOUSNESS ; we are actually living as SUBCONSCIOUNESS.

We need to live as CONSCIOUSNESS.

What it implies is to get back control of your life.

If you have to get angry, do so; but do it as a matter of your choice. No person or situation should have a power greater than yours to be able to trigger anger in you. Choose to be angry like a Mother chooses to be angry with her child; she invariably warns the child initially that she will get angry.

The Consciousness that is our aspiration is that Pure Consciousness. It is pragya.

The seat of that Consciousness is the point between our eye brows.

The ways to reach there are two – Silence and Music.

Silence is about SAMENESS; when you can learn to enjoy the SAMENESS, are not driven by an impulse seeking change, you are on your way to the mouth of the tunnel.

The Music is about the harmonized differences of various notes. When you can start to accept the differences in the environment and are not driven to make everyone a photocopy of your being, you are on the Way.

The Rainbow

We all want to be ever joyous and happy. We want a rainbow to shine over our lives.

Living as Subconsciousness is like living as the moonlight. A rainbow can’t be seen in the moonlight!

First step out of the tunnel; let the vision get used to the brightness of the sunlight. Then on a rainy day you may be lucky to see the RAINBOW.

Once you have seen the RAINBOW the joy will never leave you. It will be the MOMENT that will fill your heart with the music of LOVE and the song of life will find its expression on your lips, (a song like the one mentioned at the end of this post).

Now listen to the song ‘Kisi ki muskurahaton pe ho nisaar …… at email ID abhayblog@gmail.com [whose password is - abhayji]

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In the last post we had come to an important milestone – our true identity, the CONSCIOUSNESS that we really are.

It was just a glimpse of the destination (which is Pragya); it was a milestone that actually read ‘AWARENESS’.

Where do we move beyond consciousness? The real fun starts from this point onwards.

Awareness is what a dog has – always relaxed and always alert. He is 100% present. When you infringe his territory he barks, as you retreat he gets into the same comfy position he was before you ‘happened’. From his relaxed position of advantage he keeps a watchful eye till you go beyond his Lakshman Rekha. He does not go back to thinking, speculating what could have been your intention for coming into his territory or how he will attack you more ferociously next time you trespass! He does not celebrate his success, nor does he brag about it to other dogs. He will respond to the situation next time as it presents itself. He acts instinctively and forgets. He does not have a concept of ‘forgiveness’.

When you become AWARE, you notice that the ceiling and pedestal fans rotate in opposite directions; that the digits on a calculator and the telephone are marked differently; that normal switches and electronic switches are ‘ON’ in opposite directions!!!

Awareness implies being 100% present. Awareness implies that Only Consciousness is present, and not the consciousness attenuated by the mind; in other words it implies our presence without the interference of our mind.

With awareness you now start looking into yourself. When something causes irritation you say, ‘Oh! I can sense some irritation’ or ‘Yes, I almost got angry’. You no longer wish to eliminate the cause of irritation or anger. Instead, you watch the rise of anger; as you continue to keep watching you also witness the ebbing of anger. The consciousness, at the point between your eyebrows, can now observe that the anger arose on its own, that the cause of anger was not really the other person or his wayward act but the involuntary response of our own antahkarana. You acknowledge that the other person was behaving strictly as per his character, be it tamasic or rajasic. It was actually foolish on your part to expect him to behave any other way.

You also become aware that your getting angry this way, involuntarily, has not helped improve the situation ever.

Instead of worrying about changing the world you simply resolve to change yourself. In the process you progressively liberate the ‘Real You’ from the clutches of involuntary mechanisms that are constantly operating inside you.

Osho said, ‘Awareness is like fire to thoughts. It is just like you burn a lamp in the house and darkness cannot enter. Thoughts are like darkness; they enter only if there is no light within… If you really become integrated in your awareness, thoughts don’t enter you; you become an impenetrable citadel. Not that you are closed, remember – you are absolutely open, but just the very energy of awareness becomes your citadel. You can see them coming ……. Then you can move anywhere, then you can go to the very hell - nothing can affect you. This is what we mean by enlightenment. If you can retain one-minute of awareness, you can become a Buddha.’

Look around. Just look; don’t interpret, don’t judge.

What do you gain by awareness? You’ll gain nothing! Rather you’ll lose many things – the miseries, the pain, the anguish, anxiety, ambition, jealousy, hatred – you’ll lose all. You become unburdened!

Are there any tools to facilitate awareness to take root? A disciple of Swami Rama suggests three simple tools. When an inappropriate thought occurs:

• Do not deny their presence.
• Do not justify their presence.
• Do not feel guilty about their presence.

Let’s live in ananda. Life is a beautiful journey. Let us not convert it into a race.

Aum Shanti

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