Expression of consciousness
Column by Sri Sri Ravishankar
Expression of consciousness
The entire creation is made up of five elements and ten sense organs - five organs of perception and five organs of action. This entire creation is there to give you pleasure and relief. Whatever gives you pleasure should also give you relief. Otherwise the very pleasure becomes pain.
Let me give you an example: you like apple pie, but five of it at one time may be a little too much for you. The same thing which gave you pleasure will now make you suffer. It's the same with music. The entire creation gives you pleasure and liberation. You have to get yourself liberated from all these at some point of time or else pleasure becomes pain.
The self, though it is ever pure, untainted, is just a witness. But when you feel it becomes one with the buddhi/intellect, then it appears as though it is coloured. Like, somebody who is stuck in the intellect just stick to their ideas as though it is their own and they suffer a lot. The self is the centre of this whole creation.
Though this world does not exist for one who is enlightened like the way it exists for the one who is not enlightened, the world continues to exist with its opposites. For one who has awakened in knowledge there is no more suffering for him. The world appears completely different. For him, every inch of this creation is filled with bliss or part of the self. But for others it exists as they see it.
Your body is made up of three gunas - satva, rajas, tamas - and your thoughts and behaviour patterns change accordingly. It attracts the events accordingly. Tamas creates more dullness, sleep, lethargy and Rajas creates restlessness, desires and anguish. When the mind is dominated by Sattva, it is joyful, alert and enthusiastic. When these three gunas act in your body according to their nature, all these different qualities dominate. Observe the tendencies that come up in you and don't think that you are those tendencies.
There is a story.
There was a great monk, who lived in the
People in the palace were surprised. ``What happened to the monk? He has never taken anything like that, what has happened today, that too without telling anybody?'' they wondered. Three days later he brought the things back. This was even more puzzling.
The king called all the wise people to analyse the monk's behaviour. The pundits and the wise men investigated to find out what was fed to the monk that day. They found out that it was some food which was confiscated from some robbers/dacoits, that was cooked and served to the monk and that had made him rob!
So, to eliminate the root cause of pain, a definite understanding is essential.(Refer The root cause of pain - Sri Sri ) Body, mind and the whole world are undergoing changes all the time. The entire universe is in the form of fluidity. The definite knowledge is, `I am not the body, I'm the self, I'm the space, I'm the imperishable, untouched, untainted by this world around me. Every particle in this body is changing and the mind is changing'.
This definite knowledge is the way out of this cycle.
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