Step beyond the net

August 11, 2009

INSIGHTS

Surge 67

STEP BEYOND THE NET

The

great Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj observes, “We see the world through the

net of our desires, divided into pleasure and pain, right and wrong,

inner and outer. The real world is beyond the mind’s ken. To see the

universe as it is, we must step beyond the net.”

He then adds, “Stepping beyond the net is not hard, for this net is full of holes!”

What

are the holes? How do we find them? When we look at the net, we can

find many contradictions. We do and undo at every step. We want peace

and love but work hard to create pain and hatred. We want to live long

but we overeat. We want true friendship but exploit everyone.

The net of our thoughts is thus full of holes, its contradictions. If we see them, they will go.

Therefore

the urgency is not about reading all those books that we have collected

at our home library. It is rather about being aware of the mechanical

way our mind is working. Krishnamurti called it reading the book of life. The action is needed here and now; of

what use is it to think, “Oh I must meditate tonight; I must go to the

temple this weekend”? Meditate now – in the form of breaking the habit

of imagining and by way of seeing things as they are. Go now to the

temple in your own heart – where the light of pure awareness shines,

unconditioned by memory.

Are

we earnest at all about our own freedom? Or are we content with the

praise, “He is a good slave?” When we have given primary importance to

social respectability, we thereby put off indefinitely our own breaking free. This

does not of course mean we must simply disregard the society and break

its laws thoughtlessly. We need to see how we create artificial

structures of power or glory and then suffer under their weight. We

make somebody a celebrity and then envy her. We make someone else a

(so-called) common man and turn indifferent to him. The extra attention

we give to the celebrity and the attention we deny to the common man

are both actually expressions of our lacking the quality of true

attention. In such self-created hierarchy we lose our sensitivity; we

live carelessly.

If

we are earnest in self-inquiry, we would not live under the pressure of

various notions. Fancy ideas of who is great and who ordinary create

the false net of the mind. The idea of greatness makes me ‘want to

become like that’. Similarly the idea of commonness makes me ‘not want

to remain like that’. Either way, I am pursuing an image (or avoiding

an image) and, in the process, am failing to know myself as I am. The challenge before us is to ask, “Who am I?” and not to get caught in the wild goose chase of becoming.

Caught

in the net, we look out and chase a dream. Stepping out of the net, we

wake up. Many dreams, no doubt, are lovely. Alas, all of them at the

end are nothing. They are, as a play of Shakespeare is titled, Much Ado about Nothing. The

Vedanta therefore gives the analogy of going after the mirage,

mistaking it to be real water; or desiring the silver in the (sea shell

called) mother of pearl. The Upanishads ask, “Are not all actions (karmas)

a sign of ignorance? Are you not chasing one illusion after another

through them?” The wise do not (with plan and scheme) do any karma. If at all, karmas take place spontaneously through them. Swami Chinmayananda therefore made a distinction: the unwise act for happiness; the wise act out of happiness. The happiness of the wise is from their intuitive awareness of their own fullness, no matter what.

Let us not think of long years of tapas on the slopes of the Himalayas; that is a grand future plan. What is the present plan? Let us live today

with all vigilance, ensuring that no word slips from our mouth wrongly

and no food enters our mouth unnecessarily. Let us, if necessary,

reprimand somebody who is at fault but not utter one un-parliamentary

word. Let us eat sweets (provided we are not diabetic) but not take one

more piece than the appropriate quantity. Living now rightly may make the grandiose plans redundant.

Swami Chidananda

Varanasi

Monday, August 10, 2009

www.j-krishnamurti.org (KFI, Varanasi)

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