Topic suggested by shiva on Mon Apr 19 10:51:25 .
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.
guys: This was one of the first articles(???) i wrote in English...and at that time i was reading a lot of philosophical books...(!!!)...so it might be a bit more of "Meta" stuff..
waiting for your comments on how i fared in this...
ME
The second me called “Hey Shiva, are you awake?”
“Oh Yes. Always.” my ego snubbed him.
In a rather pleasing tone he spoke, “Are you ready for a small talk with me?”
“Obviously, yes” my voice turned into in the same soothing note as his.
“What do you intend to talk, Mr. Me?”
“I have a series of questions for you. Try to answer them, possibly with the fullest of your consciousness” Mr. Me said.
“My Consciousness is you and I’ll be true to you”, I sounded so polite that I couldn’t believe myself, before I realised the reason. I was talking to myself.
“Proceed...” I said.
“Have you realised why you are here?” This was Mr. Me.
As usual my ego got ahead of me, and before he could complete the question I asked, “ Here -- what do you mean by “here”. My workplace, my office, my home?”
“Hey hey… hold on. Be natural. This is not the you, you really are.”
Who on earth this person is?
He knows about me.
I realised I was talking to myself. Again.
I said a big bye to Mr. Ego and came out of my shell, which I had been wearing for this long, realising it was impossible to act, and to be in the artificial demeanor, which I had woven for myself.
“Thatz a good boy.” said Mr. Me.
“Do you now realise which here I was meaning”, the tone was sharp enough to disturb me.
“Yeah, I know. You meant the world, rather, the place I live.” I could’nt help my voice sounding sad.
“Why are you here? If it is for saying that I am not living a life with a purpose, please go away. I’ve heard it a thousand times from you”. Mr. Anger inside me got up and slapped Mr. Me.
“Come on, you are slapping yourself. First, get into your basestate”, the voice again courteous.
Previously I had an agreement with Mr. Me that, I will always speak to him being in my basestate and we gave a definition to basestate as the natural me.
He told me.
“Imagine yourself sitting in the quietest of the places, in a seashore, with gentle breeze hugging you physically and mentally. No responsibilities, No expectations, No pain, No pleasure, No nothing, in fact no thing. How will your mind then be? That is what is your basestate. Then you are really you.”
I closed my eyes in concentration.
I could see blue waters, blue sky.
Everything was blue.
Even the trees and sand around me showed a shade of light blue in them.
Something cold went across my spine.
My body was getting light and I was flying.
It was being like me without a physical form.
Mr. Me’s voice sounded as if it was from a tunnel. “Thatz good. You understand what I say. Now, you can talk”.
How clear was he in his speech. But that was me.
Then why was’nt I clear enough?
Are me and I different? Oh My God what am I upto???
“I am sorry. I still don’t know why I am here. Absolutely no idea. Believe me, I have been trying hard to find out that . But I have got a serious doubt whether i’ll really find it out or not. I have no clue where to start”
I did’nt know how I sounded. Compromising, convincing, sympathising, sad. No idea.
Me started. His voice directly ringing inside my ears.
“There is no way that you will fail to realise something if you keep on trying.”
“What you are is what you think ,
What you think is what you do,
so simply
What you are is what you do”
“The power to be something is in you, is in what you think;
So think what u want to be and you are that.”
“Find the purpose, Execute it without expectations, and then you have lived your life”.
Words, array of them, each having infinite meaning flowed from him directly into my thoughts. I was taken aback. Somewhere from the blue a white flood came and filled my head.
Head, what do you mean Head? There is no form for you right now.
It was as if the formless I was drenched with white. Is this what they call realising?
Oh My God…. What all other things still I’ve left unrealized??
I looked at him.
Trying to see him more clearly, the Me, in the process closing my eyes tightly in concentration. I was not seeing anything. The more I concentrated the more void it was.
“Why are you not visible to me, Please show me your face”, this time I was sure I sounded sympathizing.
“If you think I am visible to you, I am visible” He sounded the way he is.
“Is that always a solution? Can I do anything if I think I can do it?”
“Yes” - Stern and Cold.
“Can I fly if I think so?”
“Yes” - This time Perfectly toned .
“Can I burn myself and still be alive?”
“Yes” - Unperturbed by the question.
“Damn it. Do you ever know that there is a word NO”
“No”. For the first time me uttered a no to I.
Again some change, a big wave drowned me in it. Realisation - Again in different form, may be I have just realised what is positive thinking.
The respect I had for me increased multifold. Realisation increases self-respect. Pretty simple.
How much true it is.
“What is your next question?” This time I was plain enough.
“Instead of me asking questions to you, why can’t it be the other way?” It was him.
How perfect he was. Who was I to ask him questions when I don’t know the answers.
My thought was loud enough that. Me heard it.
He said in his unruffled tone “You are asking questions and I am answering it. And I am you. Does this mean something to you shiv?”
“Not a trifle”. If I would have been with all my artificial overcoats this question would have been answered in a different way.
“It means that you are the question and you are the answer” - Shocking plain Me was.
“What do you mean?”, my voice shreiked.
“I mean it. And the answers you give for the questions you pose yourself is again your thought and you are not constrained by anything in this world.” ---
Oh my God! This answer was more shocking than the previous one.
“What is that? Do you mean to say that the answers I give is not restrained by any factors. Persons, environment, that, this.” I generalised as I did’nt get hold of any other factors.
“Yes. Absolutely yes. The answers You give for the questions you pose are the thoughts which get converted into actions and if you hold someone or something responsible for that, you are escaping the aftermath of failure. But remember it does not change the outcome, You fail.”
How on earth can he be so coldly, True. He has just now told something which nobody in this earth will dare to accept.
He continued.. “ .. instead of blaming someone or something, Seek the truth, discover where you faltered and repair it ”
Before he could finish, my brain shot a question and involuntarily my mouth uttered it. “What happens if I fail again and again”.
“Seek the truth every time. Find your faults, rectify it and Try again and again”, he answered like some ruthless computer program which executes whatever it is told to, how many ever times it is told to, without faltering or deviating.
“How do I get such an attitude, to try again and again...”
“Practice. Practice trying. If you practice trying you are trying to practice and the purpose is solved.”
It was Me.
Oh my God!
How many meanings to what he has uttered now.
I can spend a day analysing it and every millionth of it had a million meanings. I gulped my feelings, going into a trance thinking of what he has said and I felt as if something bright flickered inside me. I knew I had understood what he said.
Realisation, again.
So beautiful to get those realisations.
May be now I knew that, I, and only I was the person responsible for my acts. Clear as a crystal.
“Now what is your next question?” The voice woke me up from my trance.
I was scanning my cerebra for my next question.
“When do I say that I have achieved the purpose of my life?”
My voice was clearer this time. Maybe it was the influence of Me.
“To really live a life, you should find out the purpose for which it was created, then perfect the purpose, the aim, and you will reach a stage where you know that you are performing that, for which, you have been created for”. The voice sounded candid.
“What is perfection?” I could’nt believe, i was asking valid questions....
“Perfection is to master a particular act to its finest detail so that there is no flaw in it when performed under any condition, physical or mental.” It sounded to me like some vague physics definition and I started spelling it word by word, trying to understand the meaning...
“Do you mean to say that I should find out the purpose and perfect it?” I shot my next one.
“Yes”. Old cold fashion.
“When can I know that I have attained perfection?”
I was mentally afraid to accept his answer as it would change my views colossally and would make me redefine my attitude towards a lot of things. So stunningly true Me was.
“There is or are no limit or limits to perfection. If you associate a number as a limit, number is still a number and there can be one more than that.”
Oh My God. What has he said just now?
My mind felt as if it was shattered into a thousand pieces, and I could hear crumbled pieces falling.
It was as if a pure antique glass vase has broken right inside my head.
Before I could recover the voice echoed right inside me,
“If you associate an end to it, that may be the beginning.”
“You cannot put perfection inside a limit, as there is nothing called limit, unless you define and constrain yourself. Again it is you and only you who can constrain. Otherwise there is no limit..”
I was unstable.
Everything went “relative” to me.
Lot of questions ricocheted inside me.
His answer unsettled all my thoughts, which I have tied to the stable posts of idea, which I had created for myself.
It was like millions of baloons, which were tied to a pole being released, at the same instant, into the air.
Realisation, of a different form, again. All my thoughts rearranged on a different plane, different dimension. I had just realised what is perfection, what was perfection to me had changed and there was a new definition of perfection on which my thoughts were now based. That is why so many baloons flew inside me.
So many realisations.
Why did’nt I talk to Me before?
He was always here. He was always with my self. Why on earth did’nt I talk to him?
Again Me heard my thoughts.
“Fear.” he said. Clear, Unruffled, candid and what else?
“Oh my God.What do you mean? Why should I fear you?”
“Iam your consciousness, and since the questions you pose to your consciousness have answers which may go against your predefined set of attitudes, you fear to listen to it. You infact make your consciousness talk artificially, and you keep on repeating it so that the answers you give artificially coincide with your predefined set of answers.”
“What is fear, exactly?” , My voice already shattered by the answer was very weak.
“You define certain things to happen in the future, based on your actions. The thought that it might go against your expectations is fear. If you analyse, you are concentrating on something which is going to happen, on which you have no control.”
He continued..
“There is another form of fear. You might have experienced certain results to your actions, in the past. And the thoughts that the future might happen so, is fear.. Again you are correllating something of the past with something of the future, on both of which you have no control.”
“So, thoughts of some control less events, which disturb your present, where you have absolute control, is fear, and that is why fear is baseless.”
Thoughts flowed inside me.
Lots of tones ringing inside. Questions were passing from one end to another, and answers flying across through me the same second. I was not able to even recognise which of them were questions and which answers.
Again a solid voice, quietening my chaos.
“Be true and allow your consciousness to speak freely to you, so that you uncover the truth within yourself, in the present, and that, will free you, from fear...”
He continued...
“Everybody has one basic fear. It is the fear of their life. Everyone creates a lot of relationship, expectations and dreams which all depend upon their existence, their life, and hence all their acts are based upon that fear, the fear of their life”.
Something like a lightning sparkled inside me.
The voice continued..
“A small example I can give you. Why do you fear your Boss and not your beloved? Because if go against your Boss or displease him with some of your acts, you will be in a position to lose your job. So it is the fear of losing your job. Why do you fear losing your job? Because you won’t earn. So it is the fear of not having money. why do you fear not having money? Because if you do not have money you will lose your status, you will not be able to get the basic needs of life like food and shelter. So it is the fear of food and shelter. Why do you fear not having food and shelter? Because you will die. The “you” will cease to exist...
So it is the fear of life which is the base of all fear including the fear of position, power and status.”
“How will I overcome that basic fear?”, this was I after a long pause. Soft and purposeful.
“Try to understand that life is a gift. Make all the present now’s worthwhile”.
Instead of expecting lot of future now’s and planning something for that, have the feeling that you have performed your best in whatever now’s you have lived and hence the expectations of future now’s disappears automatically.”
So “Perform your best in all your present now’s, hence have the satisfaction that you have performed well in all your past now’s and do not expect future now’s. You do not fear your life then.”
The words shot the bull’s eye of my cerebral cells and everything was dark inside the formless me.
Realisation again.
I had just realised how to overcome, fear.
-shiva