The Still Center
You are in reality the still center and have nothing to lose or gain in any activity. You are aware; nay you are the awareness. Mere thoughts make you seem the victor or the loser. If thoughts do not filter your understanding, you will have no difficulty in seeing your own changeless nature.
Relativity is maya (the universal illusion). The rainbow, the rising sun and the moving moon are all examples of physical illusions. The sense of separate ‘I’ is the psychological illusion, which is at the root of your suffering. Let us call it the self. This self is the breeding ground of desire and fear, of hope and frustration. When you think you are depressed, the self is actually depressed. Therefore someone like Maharshi Ramana would ask you, “Find out who is suffering.” He would further prod you, “Who are you?”
While knowledge is very useful in functional matters, emptiness is of value in psychological freedom. You ought to know how to drive your car. Here, you have to draw from memory. If your mind loses its knowledge, you cannot drive the vehicle. Now, in relating to people, your being fully attentive to the present moment is of more value than carrying judgments based on knowledge/memory/past. This does not mean you suppress some memory related to the other person. Such suppression cannot make you good or wise. You rather understand intelligently how all judgments have serious limitations. Seeing the truth of how prejudice colors every one of your judgments, you suspend judgments. All past knowledge not only is questionable with respect to the understanding of another person, but also is a hindrance to your own being impartial. Memories condition your own identity and you go about evaluating the other person with a particular sense of self-notion. Self-interest accompanies this self-notion. Can you see the other person with no self-interest? To be free of self-interest totally, you have to be free from memory!
Use memory. Let not memory limit you. Let it not color your perception.
Swami Chidananda
Monday,December 06, 2004