When I see an object before me, I see that it can be stationary or it can move. I will be able to see the two states of movement and stillness only if I am still. If I am moving, it is impossible to experience movement.
On a flight, or travelling fast in a car, it seems to us like we are stationary because there are no relative differences in our perception to make us experience movement from one place to another.
In the Vivekachoodamani, Sri Adi Sankaracharya describes this experience very beautifully. The one who is aware of all the changes and movements in anything that moves, thoughts, breath, feelings, mind, intellect, body and the objects of senses—sound, sight, taste, touch and smell and the actions of the mouth, hands, legs and organs of reproduction and excretion—cannot also be a moving individual. The knower of the changes has to be someone who does not move.
All movements we see around are only temporary and hence illusory. The seer of the changes is completely fit to be steady at all times. If this is known clearly, then it is foolish to keep believing that all the changes are real and keep getting affected by it. If we understand that this world is an illusion, it is important that we live in that understanding.
How can I practice this thought on a daily basis? I may be caught up in a whirlwind of experiences. I should just step back, take a deep breath and see that the witness of the experiences—I—was the same witness before it began, during the experience and will remain the same after it is over.
Does all this seem vague? Not at all, it is our day-to-day experience. We may be seated in our room and create a beautiful visual image in our mind of walking through a lush forest area, climbing on to a tree house, sitting on a tiny balcony overseeing the view of the forest and sipping a hot cuppa. Someone will just shout out our name and hot tea will spill on our clothes and we are shaken out of the reverie only to realise that it is a beautiful day dream!
So all the changes in surroundings we experienced from the messy ground zero that we may be actually living to a fancy treetop are shifts from different perspectives and not real. In deep sleep too, the knowledge of ignorance sends waves of blissful experience. These three clearly show us: I am the witness of movement, I am stable and everything else moves.
The result of this contemplation of the steady self and the moving world of people, objects and emotions is that the changes will cease to affect me as I breeze through the situations of life with love and laughter! Again and again the universe that keeps changing reaffirms the untruth of permanence of anything that we see, hear, taste, smell, touch and think.
The writer is Sevika, Chinmaya Mission, Coimbatore
(www.chinmayamission.com); email: sharanya.chaitanya@chinmayamission.com