Our aim is to be happy in life. To achieve that aim, it is very important to perfect and train the tool with which we experience happiness. What are those tools? One is the body with its five sense organs of perception and sense organs of action. Through the organs of perception—ears, eyes, nose, tongue and skin—the mind receives prana in the form of sound, forms, smells, tastes and different experiences of touch.
When the equipment is shaky, the resultant input of knowledge is also disturbed. It is like seeing something underwater through a turbid and shaking surface condition. When my eyes are disturbed physically and emotionally, then the object that I see—consciousness plus an object—is also disturbed. When I base my mental calculations of future course of action with the help of the disturbed mental inputs, then my understanding of the situation, person or object is also disturbed.
However, if my knowledge springs from a steady source of understanding, then there is nothing that can disturb my understanding of the situation. Take the sense organ of sight, for instance. When I observe a person’s facial reactions and conclude that he is angry, my subsequent thoughts in the mind are generated only from my understanding that the person is angry. Even my very vision of his angry face is because my sense of sight is disturbed by my thoughts and I see a corresponding disturbed image.
When a calm mind looks through the eyes, then I get a direct understanding of the flow of thoughts and emotions behind an angry face. It can be even insecurity born out of fear.
When I understand clearly, then my reactions will not be born out of misconceptions, but will spring from clarity of understanding and hence I have an opportunity to express with compassion, rather than agitation and counter-anger.
What should I do to cultivate this steadiness with sight? For the next week see all the visuals around you without a comment. This running commentary of thoughts with every object we see is natural and normal. If I see a flower, immediately some thoughts spring up—it is beautiful, it is soft, it is nature’s gift for me, it symbolises love…. or basically I like it and I must have it. Observe these thoughts.
The moment I observe the thought formations which are made up of a very subtle element called consciousness, the formation gets cleared like a thin sheet of ice that melts in sunlight. This leads me to an understanding of the reality behind the vision, rather than its appearance.
Brahmacharini Sharanya Chaitanya
(www.sharanyachaitanya. blogspot.in)