Becoming Watchful

 

Photo Credit: The Sisterhood Hub

Becoming Watchful

Stop considering what is right and what is wrong, because if we consider what is right and what is wrong, we will be divided, we will become hypocrites. We will pretend to be doing right and we will do the wrong thing. And the moment we consider what is right and what is wrong, we become attached, we become identified. We certainly become identified with the right.

Suppose we see a 500 rupee note lying on the side of the road which could have fallen from someone’s pocket. The choice for us is whether we should pick it up or not? One part of you says – “take it, nobody is watching, and this is not stealing as it is just lying there! If we don’t take it, somebody else will take it anyway. So, why miss the opportunity, it is perfectly alright!”

But another part says – “This is wrong, the money is not yours, you will be stealing it indirectly. You should inform the cops or hand it over to them, and if you don’t want to be bothered, just move on and don’t look back. Don’t be greedy, as greed is a hindrance to spiritual progress.”

Now, the two minds within us are battling – which mind will win ultimately? That will determine which mind you become identified with – the greedy one or the moral one! In such times of difficulties, people don’t think of such delicacies. We will identify ourselves with the moral mind. But there is every possibility that we will take the note. We will identify ourselves with the moral mind, and we will disidentify ourselves from the mind which is going to take the note. We will condemn it deep down; we will say, “It is not right - it is the sinner part of me, the lower part, the condemned part.” You will keep yourself aloof from it. You will say, “I was against it. It was my instinct, it was my unconscious, it was my body, it was my mind, which persuaded me to do it; otherwise, deep down we knew it, that it was wrong. We know deep within that it was wrong.

We always identify ourselves with the right, the moralistic attitude, and disidentify from the immoral act - although we do it. This is how hypocrisy arises. We ask for forgiveness, saying we go on doing things which we know we should not do, and also we don’t do things which we know we should do.

This is the conflict; this is how one becomes troubled. The key that can take us out of all identification: don’t be identified with the moral mind - because that too is part of the mind. It is the same game: one part saying good, another part saying bad — it is the same mind creating a conflict within. The mind is always dual. The mind lives in polar opposites. It loves and it hates the same person; it wants to do the act and it does not want to do the act. It is conflict, mind is conflict. Don’t get identified with either.

Become just a watchfulness. See that one part is saying this, another part is saying that. “I am neither this nor that - I am just a witness.” Only then is there a possibility that understanding will arise.