Om Guru-Ganeshabhyam Namah
It is very beneficial to just withdraw for a while, one's active participation in life, and just be an impartial observor of all that is perceived - whether they be sounds, sensations, breath, taste, smell, thoughts feelings,memories, ego - the individuality. This means that one withdraws one's will, and simply observes, whatever that is taking place. In the process, you become aware of yourself as a simple conscious being, in whose self-evident, impartial, ever-presence various perceptions take place. The nature of perception is to change moment to moment.One needs to make note of this fact. The one in whose presence, changing perceptions take place, does not change. One needs to note this fact too. Therefore, recognizing both these facts, towards the changing perceptions, one is open, receptive, yet non-clinging.
The Bhagavad-Gita points out that life will unfold itself, in keeping with our prarabdha, in the form of the pairs of opposites like heat and cold, success and failure, love and neglect, respect and disrespect etc. If one receives them as an ego, a person who defines oneself through them, then one is doomed to suffer a mind that jumps up and down like a yo-yo, between elation and depression, restlessness and craving. And such a person, who defines the self, through what happens in life, can never never recognize the innate freedom of the self.
So towards whatever happens in life, pleasant or unpleasant, favourable or unfavourable, let there be a gracious acceptance, an openess of heart that does not cling.
This is possible, only when there are well- assimilated attitudes towards life, which are based on :-
• understanding of oneself as a simple, changeless, limitless conscious being independent of the experiences of life, who is endowed with a body-mind complex,with which to experience life in it's diverse forms
• understanding of the ever-changing diverse experiences of life as acceptable because they are unfolding according to the Divine order- the infallible laws of cause and effect, and they are in reality non-seperate from oneself.
This teaching of the innate freedom of the self is very subtle, so one grasps it in stages, in keeping with one's emotional development. The Bhagavad-Gita guides us gently through very many stages of emotional development. If we are willing to accept her teaching, the promise is, we will indeed discover the innate freedom of the self.
From this we come to understand how important it is to study the Bhagavad-Gita and other scriptures from a competent teacher, and assimilate what is being taught through it.
Om Tat Sat
