Capacity to ‘See’

 

Photo Credit: Spiritual Crusade

Capacity to ‘See’

‘Darshan’ means the capacity to see. We don’t call it a love of thinking, as the word ‘philosophy’ means. We call it: the capacity to see.

In India becoming a witness has great importance – the capacity to see. The whole emphasis is not on the object; the emphasis is on the subject. Subjectivity is religion. Objectivity is science. To pay attention to the object is to be scientific. To pay attention to the subject is to be religious.

We look at a flower. If you pay attention to the flower, then it is scientific. If you pay attention to the witness of the flower, it becomes religious. A scientist and a religious person may be standing side by side, looking at the same flower – but they are not looking in the same way. The scientist is looking at the flower and has forgotten himself completely. The religious man is witnessing the flower, and remembering himself.

When we are listening to Swamiji’s discourse, we pay attention to what he is saying – then it is a scientific listening. Or we can be aware of the one who is listening to Swamiji within ourselves – then it becomes religious. The difference is very delicate and subtle. Try it right now. Listen to the discourse and forget yourself. Then it is scientific.

A scientist while working is absolutely concentrated. Science is concentration. Religion is meditation. And that is the difference between concentration and meditation. Concentration is not meditation. Meditation is not concentration. Concentration is focusing your eyes on the object; meditation is focusing ourselves on our own self. Meditation has no object in it; it is pure subjectivity.

When we listen to Swamiji, we forget ourselves. Then we do not know who we are - we are simply listeners. Then change the focus. It is a knack. It cannot be taught how to change it. We simply change it. We just become aware that we are listening. Awareness becomes more important than what we are listening to. Immediately, a deep change has happened in our being. In that moment we become religious.

If we go on paying too much attention to the object, we may come to know many secrets of nature, but we will never come across God on any of the paths that we will travel. It will never be a pilgrimage. You will wander and wander into the wilderness of the world and matter. That’s why science cannot think that God is – it is impossible.

God is not an object. Our very approach is such that God is excluded from it. God is not an object! God is our within-ness. It is not in the object of concentration. It is in the subjectivity of meditation. He is the self.

God is our subjectivity. He is there within. When we focus outside, there are objects. When we become unfocused and look within, without any focus, He is there – absolutely alive, throbbing, ticking.