Be a Bug

In Blog 82: Get yourself a head-start, we understood the importance of giving ourselves a head-start and start working towards the ideal we’ve set to achieve. And in Blog 81: INTENTional Living, we already saw that the first significant step to change your life would be to set yourself on fire, burn with high intensity, or in other words, it is to set an INTENT!

To set an INTENT, however, you need to consider your ignorance. Do we know whether we’ve set an intent that leads to growth? Of course, any movement is better than stagnation, but that does not mean we should be lazy in our thinking, make poor decisions and set foolish goals. [By the way, I’ve also written about what aspects of life are the most important and it is those that one should consider while setting an INTENT, in my book.]

However, this calls for a certain attitude towards everything in life. You need to enter a different mode altogether. THE SEER MODE – the path of awareness.

This is not the same as the student mindset people talk about. It is not just about curiosity and humility. They play a major role too. But this is beyond that. This is the purpose of your intellect and intelligence, and this is you practicing to use it. It must become your nature. It is already in our nature, we may have forgotten it.

Just like a bug. It does not move towards light because of humility or curiosity, it is just its nature to move towards the light. That’s how we need to train ourselves, to be in that natural state, to always seek and move towards awareness.

If you choose to stay ignorant, beware! Being ignorant is also a Karma. It catches up with you.

Ignorance is bliss. You might have heard people say that. It is true, but it is a half-truth, again, like most, popular nuggets. The full version of it would be this – Ignorance is bliss until there’s a glimpse of light. And the glimpse of light is natural and eventual.

Moreover, just like you’ve heard this quote – “You may be born poor, but you must not die poor”, you must also realize and remember that you are born ignorant, but you must not die ignorant. If not enlightened, let’s at least die trying the path.

Put simply, with such an attitude, you don’t do something for the sake of it, or, because you believe in it, or, because your family did so for generations, or because society says you do so. You do something out of awareness.

I’m not saying you do something after you’re totally aware and enlightened. All I’m saying is to interrogate, and self-interrogate every action of yours.

Observe your thoughts, words, & actions. Question everything. For example, if you said you hate someone, ask why. In reality, there’s no such thing as hate. If you had felt offended by someone’s viewpoint on a societal norm, ask why & deeply reflect till you realize the truth. There is no place for feeling offended when you become aware of this non-dualistic reality.

Start eliminating words and actions in your daily life, which are originating from these reasons:

1. You blindly believe it to be true
2. Doing it for the sake of it
3. Your family told you that’s tradition
4. Society says you be that way

You can add the prefix “blindly-” to all of those reasons. You can keep doing the actions you are doing for those same reasons if you are aware of the actual reason behind it.

Someone told me, you are asking too many questions, once you stop that, everything makes sense. It didn’t fit into my belief system, but I took it in and analyzed it to look for the truth. And then I realized two things:

That person wasn’t someone who should be giving advice to a Jnana Yogi or a Seeker.

He had mistaken or misspelled “Stop” for “Subside/reside”.

I now know what he may have meant. Questioning will eventually fade, with awareness. But stopping one from asking questions is a crime. You should not do that to yourself either.

I even wrote a poem in Kannada a few months ago (May) to convey the same

ಬೇಡವೈಯ್ಯ  ಯನಗೆ  ಆ  ಜನುಮಾ

ಕಣ್ಣಿಲ್ಲದಂತಿರುವ ಆ ಬಧುಕು ಬೇಡವೈಯ್ಯ

ಬೇಡವೈಯ್ಯ ಯೆನಗೆ

ಚಂದ್ರನಿಲ್ಲದ ಇರುಳಿನಲಿ

ಕತ್ತಲಿನಂತಿರುವ ಆ ಜನುಮಾ

ಅಂಧಕಾರದೊಳು ಮುಳುಗಿರುವಾಗ

ಧೀವಟಿಗೆ  ಬೇಡವೆನುವ  ಆ ಜನುಮಾ

ಎದುರಲ್ಲಿರುವುದನು ಕಾಣದಿರುವ

ಅಜ್ಞಾನ  ಸಾರವಾದ  ಆ  ಜನುಮಾ

ಸಿರಿವಂತನೂ  ಆಗಿ  ಬಲವಂತನೂ  ಆಗಿ

ಮೂಢನಾಗಿರುವಂಥಹ  ಆ  ಜನುಮಾ

Translation (Of course the beauty is lost when translated):

Let there not be such a lifetime for me, like there are no eyes.

Like the darkness in a moonless night, let there not be such a lifetime…

Like the state where one rejects a torch while sinking in the darkness, let there not be such a lifetime…

Like the state where one cannot see what’s in front due to ignorance, let there not be such a lifetime…

Like the state where one is rich, one is powerful, yet is a fool, let there not be such a lifetime…

Basically what I’m trying to say is whether you become a soldier who serves the country with pure patriotism, or you may become an artist who serves with pure love and passion, but before & within all that, nurture the soldier within, who’s striving for truth, who’s constantly working to seek awareness, all the time, forever.

If you wire your mind that way, nothing is just suffering and pain. Everything transforms into an opportunity for you to get closer to the light! And whether you get enlightened or not, this path definitely brings you a great life!

Thank You

Sanath Kumar Naibhi