THE MEDITATION OF ‘SEEING ‘ OR ‘THE CHOICELESS AWARENESS’

What is true Self Knowledge is it assuming about immortality of soul, of re – incarnations or of supposed eternity of Atman, or repeating to oneself that one is brahman?? I believe none of these, I am afraid however profound, lofty or esoteric these phrases sound but these are all in the area of conceptions and speculations based on the ideas we have gathered by reading scriptures and religious books. These are second hand knowledge without much substance.

Then how to begin with this profound meditation of self – knowing, of understanding and freeing one own self. We must “Start near to go far ” , we must begin with “ Where we are not where we want to be ”. That requires tremendous patience and passivity of mind, not a mind that is eager and greedy for the results , mind in becoming, becoming somebody in the realm of spirituality. We must start with the process of self exposure, exposing ourselves to ourselves. We must watch our own movement of thoughts, our mind, the SELF ( totality of emotions- feelings – thinking which creates the I – consciousness, sense of an individual entity ) without judging, without condemning, suppressing or justifying but just to see without any identification. To quote mystic – philosopher- seer J Krishnamurti “So, being aware of a thought or a feeling as it arises, without condemning it or identifying with it, you will find that it unfolds ever more widely and deeply, and thereby discover the whole content of 'what is' .To understand the process of 'what is' there must be choiceless awareness, a freedom from condemnation, justification, and identification…The awareness of which I am speaking is of 'what is' from moment to moment, of the activities of thought and its subtle deceptions, fears, and hope. Choiceless awareness wholly dissolves our conflicts and miseries.”  “Like most people, you have ideals, have you not? And the ideal is not real, not factual; it is what should be, it is something in the future. Now, what I say is this: forget the ideal, and be aware of what you are. Do not pursue 'what should be', but understand 'what is'. The understanding of what you actually are is far more important than the pursuit of what you should be. Why? Because, in understanding what you are, there begins a spontaneous process of transformation; whereas, in becoming what you think you should be, there is no change at all, but only a continuation of the same old thing in a different form.” – J Krishnamurti. But we want comfort and not the discovery of truth, we don’t want to destroy the illusions which give us certain sense of security, identity and vitality. Sri Bhagavan has point out our reluctance to ‘See’ ourselves as we are “ To postpone ( seeing ) is another trick of mind for its continued security , to postpone ( seeing ) is the height of hypocrisy, to postpone ( seeing ) is to deny freedom forever”.

We can assume about God, about eternal soul but that is not going to free us, to the most it can balm our aching mind and drug us to sleep, mind being the product of time can never know the TIMELESS, mind being the perpetrator of all problems and sorrow can never touch ecstasy. That is why our sages and seers talk of mano – nasha, annihilation of mind. ‘Seeing’ or ‘ The choiceless awareness’  can be the first step towards it. For my personal experience I can only say that this process of ‘awareness’ helped me to a great extent, I have experienced moments of deep relaxation, joy and penetrating insights. May we all awaken into Awareness.