Procrastination is the thief of time. This is a familiar proverb. When it comes to the ultimate knowledge of finding out who we are, procrastination steals not just time, but our lives as well. The greatest miser is he, says the Upanishad, who lives a long life and dies without knowing who he really is.
Adi Sankaracharyaji sings a beautiful verse in Moha Mudgara which reminds us of a small child asking his father for something repeatedly. However, the father keeps forgetting to fulfil the child’s wish.
The master says: To a child, the search for inner self or realisation holds no interest. He will be more interested in toys. Show a child a chocolate and a gold ornament, and he will unmistakably ignore the latter to pick up the former.
The guru laments that children are fascinated by their play things in their early years.
Now the question arises that when a child grows to be a youth, and has the ability to learn and concentrate, will he enter into the world of reality and come up with a number of questions? Not at all! For, at that age, the youth will be hooked on to his real or dream girl. Once grown-up, the man will get married and will be surrounded by obligations. Now will the same man, after completing his worldly responsibilities, sit and contemplate on his true and unchanging self? Not again! For, now his mind would be helplessly preoccupied with the thoughts and memories of the past.
“In 1947, when I got married and moved into this family, I was the queen of the house. Now see what is my condition.” The woman is caught in a pall of gloom reminiscing about the past 80 years.
Which man holds on to only the supreme truth that is present in us? None indeed cries the poetic seer of truth.
What does he convey? Setting out on a quest for the truth. We cannot postpone the truth for an imaginary time of retirement. A time when all the problems of life would settle and there will be nothing else to hold on to or worry about.
If our consciousness is like an ocean, all the thoughts, including the problems and desires, are nothing but waves in the ocean.
Will it ever happen if we wait for all the waves to stop in order to take a dip in the ocean? Waves will never stop. Also, waves are abundantly present only in the shore. A little beyond the froth and foam of waves along
the shoreline, one just sees a single expanse of water moving around in the deep silence of the ocean. Just as we duck in to let the waves pass over us to swim in the ocean, we bend low and allow the tidal wave of problems to flow past us and we find ourselves enjoying a delightful swim in the deep ocean of consciousness.
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