Can I sit and be quiet?
Meditation. Being — that is so important. Time when I don't ask anything, I don't do anything. Such an apparently lazy way of spending time is highly regarded in spirituality. It means that, for the time being, I am free from the obsession with "what next."
When I am not in a hurry, my mind is free from anxieties. It becomes quiet, and in that silence something may be heard which is ordinarily too fine and subtle for perception. I am curious to find out what that is. What I am actually doing is bringing my mind into the right state for understanding what is real.
I am a brave for this discovery and don’t worry about my worries. I want to be, just be. I do not try to be quiet; I do not make "being quiet" into a task to be performed. I’m not restless about "being quiet" or miserable about thoughts. I just remain aware that I am — and I don’t say: "yes, I exist; what next?"
There is no "next" in the "I am"
It is a timeless state.
I am what I am, forever — but of what use is it to me unless I act on it? I go around the world always begging for something — mostly I want attention and recognition from others — but as long as I do not know my real being, I am a loser. I must know my inner worth, my very existence, and trust it and express it in my daily life.
Still, thoughts linger in spite of my vision of being. Well, the habit of longing for the known past and fearing the unknown future is still here. I must be brave and have courage to go beyond all this.
As long as I have an idea about myself as a name and body with a personality, I take myself to be what I am not.
My mistaken identity
To know myself as I am, I must give up my idea that I am something.
As long as I am interested in my present way of living, I will not "see" my real being. Discovery cannot come as long as I cling to the familiar. I realize fully the immense sorrow of my life and I revolt against it.
There is nothing to learn. The learning is not what I am going about. I may read spiritual literature, know the theory, but without the actual experience of myself as the impersonal and unqualified center of being, love, and bliss — mere words and sterile knowledge are not enough.
I try to be, only to be. Be my very existence. The all-important word is "try." I allot 2 hours daily for sitting quietly and trying — just trying — to go beyond the personality, with its addictions and obsessions.
Don't ask me how — it cannot be explained. I will just keep on trying until I succeed. If I persevere, there can be no failure. What matters supremely is my sincerity and earnestness. I am really disgusted with being the person I am, and I see the urgent need of being free of this unnecessary self-identification with my memories.
This steady resistance against the unnecessary is the base for my future
After all, I am what I am every moment of my life, but I am rarely aware of it — except in meditation. All I need is to be aware of being, not as a verbal statement, but as an ever-present fact in daily activities.
The awareness will open my eyes to what I am. It is all very simple. Constant meditation.
All dependence on the world and others is futile, for what others can give, others will take away. Only awareness will remain in the end. I accept no guidance but from within.
Nothing I perceive is my own
Nothing of value can come to me from outside, from my thoughts; it is only my clear sense of existence that is relevant and revealing. Thoughts, words, meaning only create images in my mind — but I am not a mental image. I am the power of perception and action behind and beyond the images.
I am not truly interested in anyone. The others only enrich my own image of myself which is egoistic, self-concerned and self-oriented. The ultimate selfishness is to care only for the protection, preservation, and multiplication of body.
By body I mean all that is related to it, my name and shape — my family, country, race, etc. To be attached to my name and shape is the worst selfishness. If I really accept without shadow of doubt, that I am neither body nor mind then I cannot be selfish — for I have nothing to be selfish for.
So I'll try again. If I keep on trying, something may happen. But if I don't, I am stuck. I know all the right words, quote the religious scriptures, I'm brilliant in philosophical discussions and yet I remain a bag of dead bones.
What is my deepest, the final conviction, of who I am?
Just as I'm not this clothes I wear, similarly I am not this body. That is most important step. Slowly and effortlessly in meditation I am getting rid of identification with body. My sense of I feels just like space - the beginning and end of everything.
Without feeling "I am", still I am!
From this body and food I eat, I get knowledge "I am". On this "I am" sense, thoughts come through self-dialogue and involvement with others, the daily experiences. I observe them staying in the knowledge "I am". This is "just being".
The world is spontaneously happening out. I am free from the world only by seeing myself in right manner, not as an individual. Finally I'm realizing there are no others, it is all consciousness.
My individuality is dissolving by meditation, by being the one with THAT by which I know I exist.
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