Husband tells his wife, “I am missing you. How will I bear your absence?” The wife replies, “Is it the whisky speaking, or you?” The husband says, “I am saying this to the whisky.”
People have become witty but not wise. To be wise is to lead a wise life, not just to speak words of wisdom. ‘Let the earth meet the sky’ is a commonly used saying which means ‘let every experience reach its peak’.
Once, a group of people went to the Himalayas. While some experienced immense joy and the sheer bliss of seeing the mountains, others did not—maybe because they were worrying or upset about something. In such a state of mind, they cannot experience the beauty of what they are seeing.
Now assume that you are eating a slice of bread. You can do that with gratitude, with joy, with love. When you eat that way, you optimise the experience of eating and also bring it to its peak. On the other hand, imagine a situation where you are eating a variety of dishes, but with anger or upset. Then you minimise the experience of eating. So, it is not what you have that matters, but how you use what you have.
But how to maximise an experience rather than minimise it? Minimising or maximising an experience is dependent on one’s attitude to the experience. To optimise an experience, one must begin with developing an insight through meditation and bring in an attitude of joy, learning, love, which makes experiences reach their peak.
You are aware of the story of Gautama Buddha and mustard seeds. Even the death of her child made her wise. So, even the difficulties of life can be a learning experience if you know the art of handling them.
You have to be alert and awake to the situation—aware of the fact that your past knowledge is trapping you, and at the same time, focused to transform gracefully. Let the purity of these qualities guide you in handling difficult situations.
Your past knowledge, conclusions, opinions, hurts and sorrows interfere with maximising your experience. It is so because all of them strongly influence your listening, thinking and feeling. The past should be a point of reference for increased awareness, not a block. Your unconscious leads your life mechanically. So be alert. When you are alert, you become conscious of your unconscious, and that enables you to lead a better life instead of a bitter life.
To relationships and possessions, you say, “This is mine.” But what you think is yours is not really yours. You are riding on a dream. You are only using them for your needs in a remarkably subtle manner. Your son is yours—hence, expectations are built around him. Your son will have his own dreams to pursue. Each one uses the other for the fulfilment of one’s own dreams.
Whatever you call “mine” can be snatched away. What cannot be snatched away is your consciousness. Only your consciousness is intrinsically yours. You have to invest your energy in understanding yourself as consciousness, which is your true nature—fullness and completeness or poorna. In such a state, you will maximise every experience, and then the earth would meet the sky.
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