Tuesday, September 8, 2009

The Waves within Us

Let me tell you an incident which Swamiji speaks about in one of the discourses.

'A young devotee came to Swamiji for some counseling. He was telling the Master about how much he likes a girl and the girl is not reciprocating. This has become the biggest problem in his life. He has not been able to do his work. He is constantly thinking about that girl etc. etc. The Master was just listening to the whole thing.

After a few minutes, someone called this person and informed him about some litigation problem with his house. For the next few hours, the devotee was making phone calls and busy resolving it and after he was done with it, he went to the Master. Swamiji told him, "Did you see what was happening within you? Few hours back, the biggest problem in your life was your love life and in the last four hours you did not even think about it." '

Swamiji says,
"All our emotions, our thoughts are just like waves. One thought or emotion comes like a wave, to be swept away or absorbed by a bigger wave."

If we look back into our lives, all our emotions or thoughts are so momentary. Be it worry, stress, guilt, pain or happiness, everything comes, stays in our inner space for a short while before being engulfed by a stronger emotion. Within a few minutes, we would have gone through a big rollercoaster of emotions. Every emotion seems big and important till it is escapes into another emotion.

It is amazing how we constantly want to hold on to these thoughts and emotions. Swamiji says, "By nature, we are actually renouncing every moment. We renounce thoughts and emotions every moment."

The problem is we choose to create, maintain and destroy thoughts. Instead of just watching them and letting them go, we go into the dustbin and pick the rags saying, 'Oh, this a good rag. Oh this is bad one.' We fail to see that every in the dustbin is still waste and of no use.

Swamiji's technique of unclutching is all about watching and witnessing our emotions and thoughts rather than connecting them to form a long convoluted chain.

Imagine the liberation one can have if we can just relax and watch those emotions/thoughts just like a movie. Enjoy these video:

Be Unclutched - 1

Be Unclutched - 2