"Jau Tau Prem Khelan Ka Chau,
Sir Dhar Tali Gali Meri Aao,
It Marag Paer Dhareejae,
Sir Deejae Kaan Naa Keejae." (Nanak)
Literally:
"If You Want To Play The Game Of love,
Come To My Street With Your Head On Your Palm.
One Who Steps On This Path,
Doesn't Flinch At Giving His Head."
One distracts oneself. One is always short of time. One is in ceaseless pursuit of pleasure and sensation. One is restless. One is hankering after enjoyment of all kinds. Movies, books, music, gossip, romance, marriage, travelling, web-surfing, cleaning, ...
Why?
What am I escaping from? Why this urge to fill up time? Why this need to have various "pastimes"? Why is passing time such a chore?
What would happen if I did not distract myself? What is boredom, after all? Why is it so hard to remain bored? What is the kind of pain involved in boredom?
Distraction is self-forgetfulness. Being immersed in something outwardly, we escape from something. What is that?
Mind itself is restless, thought is restlessness in action. Thinking is also a kind of immersion. Many "meditation" techniques involve concentrating and repeating, so as to point the mind in a certain direction, to quieten it, to subdue it, to control it.
But why this storm in the mind which needs to be controlled? Why is there so much noise inside?
...
Why is it painful to be bored? Recall to your mind a situation where you were terribly bored. What was going on inside the mind? The mind was furiously looking for something to immerse itself into. The escape might have been a newspaper with another passenger in the train, it might be a new movie at the cinema, it might be going again and again to a web-site to check if there are any new news... it might be your wife.
So why, after all?
What is the fear involved in remaining bored and empty? Why does one escape from emptiness? Is it a reminder of one's nothingness? One is very attached to the idea that there is a "ME", and the "ME" is only confirmed in relationship. "I" enjoy, "I" think, "I" play, love, web-surf and learn... But in boredom, the concept of "I" is not related anywhere. It has no tether. It is on its own, alone.
The mind starts flapping as a fish out of water. And we dive again.
Our energies are spent in distracting ourselves from a deep realization of what we are and what we are not. Why?
Contentment and patience are not empty virtues. Patience is spending time without going anywhere, mentally or physically.
So, the question finally arises:
WHY DO I ESCAPE FROM EMPTINESS? Why am I impatient? Why this desire to be attached to one thing or the other? Why do I reject freedom, again and again and again?
Distraction is just attachment, albeit in the short-term.
There is a certain comfort in not being free. A certain security (howsoever illusory).
If I am free of my habits, of my urge for pleasure and my fear of pain, then what do I do? I cannot see so far. All I know is the world of causation and motivation. And thinking that that state of beyondness is non-existent, un-attainable and nonsensical, I continue in my pursuits.
There is no bigger challenge in this world. Can you enter freedom?
Can you be free, totally and unconditionally?
Ask yourself this question. Do you want to be free?
And the reply comes: "But what will I gain by being free?" "Why should I want to be free?" "What am I being promised?"
It is very clear that these replies are coming from a conditioned mind, which is still entrenched in the domain of its memories, identifications and attachments.
This question is incomprehensible to me. The mind cannot grasp the fullness of this question.
Do you want to be free if you don't know anything about what will happen to you after that? Again, do you want to be unconditionally free?
That is the question.
It is totally up to you. You don't need anything to be free.
And see if you can find a greater freedom. What are you waiting for?
You want to wait, to experience this world? You want to see new mountains? Have sex with different people? You want to earn millions so that you are powerful enough to do anything? Are you powerful enough for freedom? Are you powerful enough to reject every kind of bond being offered to you by the biggest marketing agency in the world, your mind?
"Whatever pleases you, holds you back." (Nisargdatt)
And ask yourself, holds you back from what? Are you even after that goal. What are you after? You think knowledge will set you free? You think money will set you free? You think having power means having freedom? Power is needed to defend and to pursue.
What are you defending, and what are you after? You are after your pleasure and your survival, aren't you? Where were you before you were born? Who caused your birth, and who is responsible for your survival? If your birth was a chance event, what makes you believe your life, thoughts and actions are any different? Or if your birth was not a chance event, what makes you believe you can change the event of your death? And why would you want to? Hundreds of thousands of people will die tomorrow, unexpectedly. Your time is also coming. Chance or not, it is coming.
You are free to be free. And you know it. The choice is offered to you every day. It will be offered again, presently.
Can you see yourself dying in the future? Your body that you care for with perfumes and soaps and fluffy beds and air conditioned cars will be burnt and scattered, will be buried and decomposed. Your heart will stop beating one day. Do you doubt it?
If you will not be afraid of death then, what are you afraid of now?
If you are afraid of something now, how much more afraid you will be then? You will lose everything, nothing will remain. Your world will end there. And all throughout your life, you would have lived in fear. You call that living?
So, listen to music, watch your cricket matches and enjoy the movies, and remember: It will all end. The muscles you built over the years, the weight you lost and gained, the knowledge you gained and cherished, the innumerable books you read and wrote: for you, everything will end totally and suddenly.
So you are working for the world, eh? You are contributing to the world? By amassing wealth and sensations? By ensuring a name for yourself? You don't even know what the world is, and who you are.
And you are arrogant enough to say that you are working for the world.
So, what would you do if you were to die tonight? If you were to die tomorrow? If you were to die after one week? One month? One year? One century? What are you after? What will you be at the time of your death, after 80 years? A tired, spent human being? You will have memories of having scaled Everest, of having being on the moon, of having loved and of having fought, of regrets and aches, of a million different events in your life. And all that will end and turn to ashes.
You were born, and you will die.
So what are you doing?
"But what SHOULD I do?" You know very well what you should NOT do.
But oh, venturing out without knowing what you WILL do is absurd, isn't it? Exploration is absurd, you say.
No excuses, no rationalizations, no postponements. Haven't I heard them all?
You can be free NOW. It is being offered to you, the ultimate goal, the Liberation, the Enlightenment that you had heard about, that people dream of, that they strive after for thousands of years. The momenturm of the whole human history, which is in you, can be stopped Right Now by you.
I see you trembling.
This is your chance.
Are you willing to take it?
You know your answer.
"This realization in itself is sufficient."