All of us are not aware of what we are and who we are. When someone asks a question, ‘who are you?’ We instantly tend to spell our name or something else. The same question came in the mind of bagwan Sri Ramanamaharishi. The question was ‘Who am I?’. After a long thought process the following occurred in his mind. ‘I am not the mind, I am not the ego and I am not the senses. I am beyond all that. I am pure consciousness.’ After negating all mentioned herein as ‘not this’ ‘not this’, that awareness which alone remains – that I am, was his reply. The nature of awareness is existence –consciousness-bliss.
Thus we see that we should not think we are mind and body. Animals do not have a sixth sense and so we are a shade better than them as we allow our senses to guide us. The true potential of human beings is not in the power of mind. The purpose of human life is to transcend the mind and reach a higher state of consciousness. In that state we are truly in the divinity that we descended from. Till we reach that state of unity with what we truly are, we are in turmoil. This turmoil between our true nature and what we pretend and strive to be is what we call stress or tension.
If we set aside our judgement about ourselves, about people around us and about situations, we can see that out of the blue we have become stress free. Thus you are instantaneously liberated from stress.
In doing our karma we have to close the chapter of the past and not parade into the future that is not there and learn to live in today’s life, enjoy every moment of being in the present and reap the benefits of it. A tensed and confined mind is a barrier to such a joyful life. Man is the mind. As is the mind, so is the man. The attitude of a person determines the altitude of performance in any chosen field. If a man is capable of being proud of doing a good job, he is also capable of being guilty in doing a shoddy job. Pride and guilt are the two sides of the same coin.
The act of performing karma, as yoga, is an art in itself, and the Gita has very explicitly and beautifully described this karma yoga. Karma yoga shows us the way ‘to live with the mind and yet to transcend it’. The very secret of Karma Yoga is that it teaches one how to perform his Karma rather than to tell him what action to choose. Avoiding karma is not intelligence and we should learn and adopt the right attitude while performing it. Let us try to understand it by an example. An archer aims his arrow at the target. When he aims at the target very playfully, without any expectation in his mind, just for the fun of shooting, the arrow reaches the desired destination. The whole act is so effortless. But when the archer’s mind is fixed on a gold medal then the game becomes a strain. An unknown fear arises in his mind. His whole mind is not fixed on the target. One part of his mind is drawn towards the medal while the other part is aiming at the target. Now there is a duality in the mind. When the medal is gold his tension becomes manifold. He is more concerned with the praise, than with the aim and thus his talent suffers. There is division, confusion and suffering in the mind. This is the nature of the mind. Instead of being in the present it swings either to the past or into the future. To live in the present means to enjoy singing the song totally. Expecting the results of action means to swing to the future that is yet to come.
Sri Krishna in the Gita says, “Sacrifice the fruits of action unto me.” Such a mental attitude removes the fear and tension from us. Tension and worry are for those who carry their ego and bring it into every action they perform. They become slaves to their own egoistic minds. We should practice detached attachment for this is the only way to attain stability and happiness. We find the world offers variety, novelty and diversity but no stability. We can see that wherever there is stability there is happiness and this makes us look for a stable life rather than seeking pleasurable pursuits. Thus surrendering the fruits of our action to the lord is the right way. This is truth.
He or she who lives life, free of the fear of death lives life truly. It is only natural that as mortals death is certain to us and gives us an opportunity to rest. He who works hard during the day eagerly awaits the night so that he can have rest. Just as dawn follows dusk, a new birth follows death. Death is a blissful state of rest. The process of sleep and awaking when living in this body is called rest. To leave this body and to awaken in another new body is called death. This is the only difference between death and rest. Death is therefore a state of blissfulness. When we learn to live life free of bondage and attachment then we will welcome death happily.
We should perform our actions with awareness and should not look forward to its results. We should not worry about the future and learn to live in the present. Too much concern about the future makes us tense and we will fail to enjoy the present and unnecessarily loose the joy of action. When the fruits of our action are offered to the God it is called iswararpanam. If we take a stand and ask so what? Instead of what? Be it in life, profit or loss, victory or defeat, pain or pleasure, joy or sorrow, honour or dishonour and accept everything as his Prasad a great tranquility sets in. On the other hand if we look upon all happenings in our life as only the result of our actions, name them as victory or defeat, profit or loss, and then the mind becomes filled with worry, anxiety and disappointment. In other words mind becomes sick. A mind that accepts everything as prasadam and as a blessing bestowed by the lord is a healthy mind. No one can disturb a man who accepts everything in life as his Prasad. Not even God can disturb him. This is the kind of mental attitude that we must develop.
We shall see an example quoted by swami Chinmayananda. A glass is half filled with milk. An optimist looks into it and says “the glass is half full”. A pessimist says, “It is half empty.” The first man sees what is there, the positive side; the second man sees what is not there, the negative side. The optimist is always happy seeing only happiness and joy around him. The pessimist is sad failing to see the good in all things. Both the statements are true but there is a great difference in their mental outlook and attitudes. One sees the fullness, the other only emptiness. A contended mind is heaven. An unfulfilled mind is hell. Our mental outlook can make a great difference. Yet another point to be noted is that in looking into the English alphabets and assigning values like A=1, B=2, C=3 … and so on , we find the word Attitude will add up to 100 thus showing that one can achieve 100% in his pursuits if he has the right attitude.
Money can make one happy or sad. Some feel sad that they have only one lakh rupees. Some others feel very happy and contended that they have one thousand rupees. A mind that is contended is a mind filled with Prasad buddhi. Karma yoga teaches us to accept everything with the attitude of prasada buddhi. Greed and desire are diseases of the mind. You can be ambitious. You should not be avaricious.
I felt like taking to Sanyasa in order to get rid of this mundane world where we are connected called bondage or samsara sagaram. I made self enquiries to myself and heard the view points from learned people on this subject and the following is the outcome. Sanyasa does not mean withdrawing from this world and running away into the Himalayas. If we try to escape from worldly affairs this mind cycle will follow us wherever we go. To live in the world and yet be detached is Sanyasa. That is the subtleness of Karma Yoga! While on this subject we can look into the difference between knowledge and enlightenment. When you have knowledge you use a torch to show the way. When you are enlightened you become a torch.
I hope that all the readers of this article would be enlightened and have a sense of urge to dwell more into the subject of consciousness and thus end up in bliss.
S.SEKAR
Contact: sekrajc@yahoo.com
Thus we see that we should not think we are mind and body. Animals do not have a sixth sense and so we are a shade better than them as we allow our senses to guide us. The true potential of human beings is not in the power of mind. The purpose of human life is to transcend the mind and reach a higher state of consciousness. In that state we are truly in the divinity that we descended from. Till we reach that state of unity with what we truly are, we are in turmoil. This turmoil between our true nature and what we pretend and strive to be is what we call stress or tension.
If we set aside our judgement about ourselves, about people around us and about situations, we can see that out of the blue we have become stress free. Thus you are instantaneously liberated from stress.
In doing our karma we have to close the chapter of the past and not parade into the future that is not there and learn to live in today’s life, enjoy every moment of being in the present and reap the benefits of it. A tensed and confined mind is a barrier to such a joyful life. Man is the mind. As is the mind, so is the man. The attitude of a person determines the altitude of performance in any chosen field. If a man is capable of being proud of doing a good job, he is also capable of being guilty in doing a shoddy job. Pride and guilt are the two sides of the same coin.
The act of performing karma, as yoga, is an art in itself, and the Gita has very explicitly and beautifully described this karma yoga. Karma yoga shows us the way ‘to live with the mind and yet to transcend it’. The very secret of Karma Yoga is that it teaches one how to perform his Karma rather than to tell him what action to choose. Avoiding karma is not intelligence and we should learn and adopt the right attitude while performing it. Let us try to understand it by an example. An archer aims his arrow at the target. When he aims at the target very playfully, without any expectation in his mind, just for the fun of shooting, the arrow reaches the desired destination. The whole act is so effortless. But when the archer’s mind is fixed on a gold medal then the game becomes a strain. An unknown fear arises in his mind. His whole mind is not fixed on the target. One part of his mind is drawn towards the medal while the other part is aiming at the target. Now there is a duality in the mind. When the medal is gold his tension becomes manifold. He is more concerned with the praise, than with the aim and thus his talent suffers. There is division, confusion and suffering in the mind. This is the nature of the mind. Instead of being in the present it swings either to the past or into the future. To live in the present means to enjoy singing the song totally. Expecting the results of action means to swing to the future that is yet to come.
Sri Krishna in the Gita says, “Sacrifice the fruits of action unto me.” Such a mental attitude removes the fear and tension from us. Tension and worry are for those who carry their ego and bring it into every action they perform. They become slaves to their own egoistic minds. We should practice detached attachment for this is the only way to attain stability and happiness. We find the world offers variety, novelty and diversity but no stability. We can see that wherever there is stability there is happiness and this makes us look for a stable life rather than seeking pleasurable pursuits. Thus surrendering the fruits of our action to the lord is the right way. This is truth.
He or she who lives life, free of the fear of death lives life truly. It is only natural that as mortals death is certain to us and gives us an opportunity to rest. He who works hard during the day eagerly awaits the night so that he can have rest. Just as dawn follows dusk, a new birth follows death. Death is a blissful state of rest. The process of sleep and awaking when living in this body is called rest. To leave this body and to awaken in another new body is called death. This is the only difference between death and rest. Death is therefore a state of blissfulness. When we learn to live life free of bondage and attachment then we will welcome death happily.
We should perform our actions with awareness and should not look forward to its results. We should not worry about the future and learn to live in the present. Too much concern about the future makes us tense and we will fail to enjoy the present and unnecessarily loose the joy of action. When the fruits of our action are offered to the God it is called iswararpanam. If we take a stand and ask so what? Instead of what? Be it in life, profit or loss, victory or defeat, pain or pleasure, joy or sorrow, honour or dishonour and accept everything as his Prasad a great tranquility sets in. On the other hand if we look upon all happenings in our life as only the result of our actions, name them as victory or defeat, profit or loss, and then the mind becomes filled with worry, anxiety and disappointment. In other words mind becomes sick. A mind that accepts everything as prasadam and as a blessing bestowed by the lord is a healthy mind. No one can disturb a man who accepts everything in life as his Prasad. Not even God can disturb him. This is the kind of mental attitude that we must develop.
We shall see an example quoted by swami Chinmayananda. A glass is half filled with milk. An optimist looks into it and says “the glass is half full”. A pessimist says, “It is half empty.” The first man sees what is there, the positive side; the second man sees what is not there, the negative side. The optimist is always happy seeing only happiness and joy around him. The pessimist is sad failing to see the good in all things. Both the statements are true but there is a great difference in their mental outlook and attitudes. One sees the fullness, the other only emptiness. A contended mind is heaven. An unfulfilled mind is hell. Our mental outlook can make a great difference. Yet another point to be noted is that in looking into the English alphabets and assigning values like A=1, B=2, C=3 … and so on , we find the word Attitude will add up to 100 thus showing that one can achieve 100% in his pursuits if he has the right attitude.
Money can make one happy or sad. Some feel sad that they have only one lakh rupees. Some others feel very happy and contended that they have one thousand rupees. A mind that is contended is a mind filled with Prasad buddhi. Karma yoga teaches us to accept everything with the attitude of prasada buddhi. Greed and desire are diseases of the mind. You can be ambitious. You should not be avaricious.
I felt like taking to Sanyasa in order to get rid of this mundane world where we are connected called bondage or samsara sagaram. I made self enquiries to myself and heard the view points from learned people on this subject and the following is the outcome. Sanyasa does not mean withdrawing from this world and running away into the Himalayas. If we try to escape from worldly affairs this mind cycle will follow us wherever we go. To live in the world and yet be detached is Sanyasa. That is the subtleness of Karma Yoga! While on this subject we can look into the difference between knowledge and enlightenment. When you have knowledge you use a torch to show the way. When you are enlightened you become a torch.
I hope that all the readers of this article would be enlightened and have a sense of urge to dwell more into the subject of consciousness and thus end up in bliss.
S.SEKAR
Contact: sekrajc@yahoo.com
