Miles to go before I Sleep

 

Miles to go before I Sleep

I am sure all of us at some time or the other in our life have been asked the question, “Are you asleep? Wake up and pay attention!” In retrospect when I think about this question, I ask myself – have I been awakened? And that is when I feel that I have got miles to go before I finally sleep! That deep sleep from which there is no return. To achieve that state, one needs continuous spiritual practise, one needs to keep surrendering and letting go on a continuous basis. As we live in society it is imperative that we learn to let go on an ongoing basis. We can only do that when we start witnessing our life from a distance dispassionately, without involvement. Once we learn to see without involvement, we learn to detach our mind and emotions from the circumstances which we find ourselves in.

This comes with continuous practise with full awareness. As you learn to become a witness you will find yourself beginning to live in the moment. You will observe that your mind is becoming quiet – your thoughts no longer vacillate between the past and the future at the pace at which they used to earlier! As you sit for meditation, you will start getting into a meditative state sooner – a calm mind is essential as that is the first step to going into deep meditation. Meditation starts unravelling aspects about you from deep within, which you were never aware of. It helps bring in a sense of perspective in relation to the whole universe.

When one looks at the sky one realises how insignificant one is – when this ultimately dawns on us, our ego begins to dissolve. Desire starts dropping away, one starts becoming empty in the real sense of the word. The emptier you become the more you are filled with divine cosmic energy. Levels of alertness increase and you remain in a perpetual state of inexplicable joy enjoying life as it comes. With deeper and deeper meditation, you start rising in levels and as you go up you realise there is no end to this journey. This journey begins from nowhere and leads nowhere. We realise that this journey is from nothing to nothing just like space – you look at the sky with a high-powered telescope and you find millions of galaxies and stars in an ever-expanding universe. So, this begs the question – how significant are we? We actually do not matter at all. The day we merge with universal consciousness that is the day we merge with the infinite and become ‘that’ as Nisargdatta Maharaj said! So, till we become 'that' we have miles to go!