Some like to drive their cars themselves, while others like to be driven around. What about the psychological experience of driving or being driven around?
Most spiritual seekers realize sooner or later in their lives that living from one deadline to another is no way to live. It can never bring total fulfillment. And isn’t that what most of us are doing most of the time?
It is helpful, no doubt, to always have something to look forward to and something to do. It saves us the trouble of deciding how to go through the day. There is something already planned for us by someone, something we have committed to, or something that is expected of us. Thus we live from hour to hour, day to day, month to month, year to year. No sooner one task is accomplished than another pops up, no sooner one deadline is met than another looms ahead, no sooner one commitment is over and done with than we find that we have already committed ourselves to something else. In this entirely familiar scenario, we are not in charge of our lives. We are not at the wheels. We are not driving our vehicle of life. We are being driven by circumstances, by our ambitions, or by others’ expectations. Is this all what life is about? To be driven around—“kicked around like a football” would probably be a better way to express it—is no fun. And serious spiritual seekers soon realize this.
The realization that my life is no longer in my own hands and no longer in my own control is disconcerting. After all, it is my life, and it is my time that is begin used up and my energy that is being exhausted. Why should I not have control over it? Why should anybody or anything else determine how my time should be used and my energies employed?
Reclaiming my own life from the clutches of everything else is easier said than done. We are faced with what seems to be the inevitable and harsh reality of our boring and monotonous lives. What about my job which pays my bills? My time and energy during my working hours don’t belong to me. They belong to my employer who has rented me for 40 hours (or whatever) every week. There is no way I can get those under my control. And what about my other responsibilities in life? It is impossible to have total control over my time and energy. My life is no longer only my life.
Karma Yoga shows us the way to reclaim our lives fully and irrevocably. It teaches us how we can have full control over every moment of our lives and every ounce of our energy. Life is “life” only when it is free, otherwise it is only existence in the pale shadow of death, which is ready to pounce at a time and in a way of its own choosing. Since we don’t know when we’ll die and how, it is never to early to begin living one’s life on one’s own terms.
4 comments:
Pranam to Thakur Sri Ramakrishna , Ma Sarada , Swami Vivekananda.
Yes, we give up the driving control everytime we become unconsciousness.
Once we become unconsciousness, then we are at risk of self inflicted affliction.
We can never have fullfillment if we live outside the PRESENT moment. For most part we are physically somewhere, while mentally elsewhere. This is unconscious living.
To live in a fullfilling way, we need to live with Awareness without a single wavering thought in our mind. When thoughts appear on our awareness and hijacks us elsewhere from the present, that is when we lose control of our driving and become unconscious. What good can be expected when we are unconscious ?
That does not mean, we are not allowed to think. Conscious Thinking is a wonderful tool, but unplanned,unregulated thoughts are potentially dangerous.
As we begin to do self investigation, we will find any type of addiction is a result of acute form of attachment. When we excessively want something, we become unconsciousness to that wanting and loose our awareness to that desire and towards fullfillment of that desire.
Different situations in life triggers these attachments and takes control over our mind.
So, to remain in control as the driver of our life we need to reduce and eventually stop our mind from being hijacked by the world.
We need to remain watchful, practice discrimination and detach from our influencing agents, until we experience no unregulated thoughts appearing in our awareness.
As our beloved Swami Tyagananda mentioned - all these are often easier said than done, so as a spiritual seeker our emphasis should be on practising and not intellectual discrimination only.
Though it is not easy, but it is not hard either to give up attachment as we begin to practice and stay determined.
Consciousness(God) has all the power to free us. Consciousness alone will detangle from forms and identity, but for that we need to allow consciousness to operate. We only allow consciousness to operate by constantly discriminating and keeping our attention in the PRESENT moment.
Respectful greetings Swamiji,
This is a wonderful post and one can easily resonate with the ideas put forward.
It is a challenge to reclaim your life when you're immersed in a sea of deadlines. To be rescued from this sea requires some practical tools - one such tool, which has worked for me, is the constant affirmation that work is worship. Dedicating every act of work to Paramatma has a liberating and strengthening effect. Another wonderful "side-effect" of such an attitude is that since you're working for Paramatma and not a boss, deadlines are a lot harder to miss. :)
Om Swamiji.
What a wonderful thought-provoking post and insightful comment! Thank you very much!
I start my day by listening to your podcast and it is slowly and steadily changing the perspectives I had held for a long time. I am based in India so it would be surprising that I would listen to a podcast than go to a in person lecture. I have found that this medium perfectly fits in my daily routine and gives me a personal time to reflect. Thanks.
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