Nature of Viveka

One of the common questions I face is why I always talk about of the coming and going of events or transitory nature of things and events. I would like to answer saying that this is the most essential recognition to be learnt in spirituality, without which it would be almost impossible to love truth or Reality. It is obvious that we cannot love truth when we believe what is unstable as stable. The reason why this happens is we like pretence to truth. It is not just events that come and go, all mental activities, all physical activities, all spiritual activities, our beliefs, sensations, perceptions, and feelings also are events in nature and they too come and go regularly like a sunrise in the morning or as rain off and on. They are results of our action in the past and present.

This does not make events, thoughts, feelings, or any phenomena bad: this simply clarifies what it is and what it is not. It is only through this recognition that these events can become a joy rather than a curse. When we identify with these things we are forced to suffer disillusionment.

We are in fact only pure and simple consciousness and that is the gift of God. It is something that we are born with and is not created by us. In fact that is the cause of our creating our worlds however small or big it may be. The whole problem is we cannot help but performing actions and consequent results will always be there. Because we allow our minds to attach itself with the actions and its results sufferings and joys appear to gain reality value. But these are transitory and last only as long as the effect of action remains. As Master puts it "This is all the creation of the human mind which results from our ignorance of the right relationship of things. Our passions, emotions, and impulses too contribute a good deal in aggravating the troubles and at times cause fiercest tempest strong enough to threaten a complete wreck. We generally attribute its causes to circumstances." Because these things are ephemeral they do not constitute our true nature. This disillusionment is persisted habitually by us: otherwise it is painful and we might bring down the whole sandcastle of false identity which we nurtured carefully so far.

Our friends and foes alike, who wish to avoid their own suffering, support us in believing in the forms and notions in which they are interested. The group thus gets formed and the vicious circle thus formed has the support of the group or more appropriately the herd. These people are called friends, colleagues, and associates, satsanghis, abhyasis; they are at times well intentioned. If we look carefully we can see that the pockets of "authorities" and their 'advertisers' (Gurus and Sishyas) are filled with money while reinforcing and giving meaning to ideas and dreams (new or old) that serve their interests. This is to convince us to switch from the ideas and dreams that does not serve their interests. And, it is true that some ideas and dreams are more functional and get more social support than others.

The groups thus formed avoid others who do not fit their standards and statuses. This is exemplified in our society where people identify with their education, cars, economic status, beauty or lack of it, property, prestige, politics, religion and spirituality, so on and so forth, without end. Obviously these things cannot be who we are because they came from outside and also are transient. To identify with that which we are not is to welcome suffering that cannot be avoided. Sooner or later it will manifest unless we avoid trying to identifying with them.

It seems that, without at least an inkling of this recognition of the coming and going of events, inquiry into truth or Reality is impossible. It is possible certain times that some event in life which disrupts us badly and which should be recognized as travail is treated as trivial. But, the old habit of not recognizing the transitory nature of events and things begins again and unless this recognition of the coming and going of experience becomes unshakably clear, it will continue until death, robbing us of our living freedom.

The evidence that this recognition is not clear is that we tend to identify again and again with some ephemeral form. Ironically this clarity is taken for granted because of course we know events come and go, our whole life proves it. Viveka is easy to know and hard to learn and to earn it is much more difficult.

The reason why Viveka is stressed most by us is though every one knows it the real understanding of this is completely missed. Mind empowers experiences and events with meaning through imagination or conceptualizing. This creates very strong emotion. Then one ends up seeking the "right experiences" by altering themselves, their concepts, imagination, or circumstances and then again identifying with the results. This is an unending foolishness. I repeat myself because people see the coming and going of events conceptually and not actually.

One of countless examples is the way that death is related to only conceptually. That is the reason for the imagination of Heaven and Hell: they are conceptualization of death. If we look sincerely we can see that even Hell is a consolation for the ego because even in Hell, our concept of 'self' lives on eternally even in torment. It is truly amazing the kinds of absurdity we are willing to believe rather than exist in Reality.

Only in the Reality we find the benediction of life and where unnecessary suffering ceases. Unfortunately with these concepts of Hell and Heaven relating to death people live as if there is an endless supply of tomorrows to draw on. Eternity assured, we seem to have little concern for living truth!!

In fact it is not difficult to live in truth or Reality. It is easy even in the midst of all the responsibilities of the life of Grhastha. The pain we wish to avoid, which we never truly succeed in avoiding, is in the lack of clarity of the Reality before us and our own disillusionment. The understanding of the coming and going of events and experiences is the beginning of giving up the dreams and the lies. Not just some of them, all of them. That is the power of Viveka.

Instead of living in Reality, living in imagination and concepts about who we are we find our life easier because we avoid painful disillusionment. What one is most afraid to lose is only what exists in the mind, or we could say ideas about the self. It is unreal. If we look for it we will never find it. In one moment of silence imperienced during meditation, it is gone along with its contrived importance. When we lose all that we imagine us to be, we have truly lost nothing because imagination is unreal to begin with.

Actually living in the mind with all our illusions and conceptualisations is immeasurably harder; it is only the ongoing suffering that is sought to be avoided in moments of entertainment or the achieving of desire. No wonder the number of halls of entertainment and fast food centres are ever increasing. And, people believe this to be all there is, and hence all seeking including spiritual seeking, becomes an attempt to satisfy this desire to avoid. This is exemplified in the afore mentioned way that of Heaven, Hell. The truth is the sense of self we are trying to protect by believing any kind of nonsense, that very sense of self does not exist even now because if we look for it we won't find it. It is only ideas that create this sense or concept of self. For those in whom this clarity does not emerge there is always the possibility of the "bound consciousness" - which has binds of its own creation - attachments to things, personnel and property and ideas- to find expression in another life- call it reincarnation or rebirth.

It is clear that contemporary mankind is beholden to ideas, perhaps it has always been so, but today it seems incredibly difficult to extricate oneself from ideas unless those ideas are immediately replaced with other ideas to identify with, this is again a vicious circle. There is an endless supply of salesmen for these ideas. There is one Divinity and there are Infinite marketing personnel! This fosters more living in the mind. Living in the mind is the true meaning of the word Maya or delusion. When we see delusion or pretence for what it truly is, we are liberated. That desire is love of truth born out of a deep discontent which may be termed as divine in nature as it helps liberating us from our illusion of self. Then and then only the question of "who am I" can arise naturally. Then our true nature of our Being gets revealed slowly ending finally in the awareness of our Infiniteness as our essential nature. Then our mind becomes pure (Nirmala) truly benign and truly useful. Then we truly experience Reality as it is in itself.

Our own nature is our only refuge from senseless suffering. No one can give it or take it from us. This is the narrow path of Realisation and has to be trodden alone. We can and we should do all that we can to help others find their feet in Reality and that is the Divine decree. It is wisdom not to waste our chance to live this in our life.

That is why I speak of the coming and going of experience and events.