Buddha has said, ‘there is Dukkha (suffering) and there is a way to go beyond Dukkha. Man wants to be happy because man is terrified by fear. Man is terrified by death. Man wants to go beyond fears. Man wants to go beyond suffering. What is fear? Dukhha is the fear of mankind? Man looks at death as suffering. But merely existing in life is happiness for him because man’s mind is dreaming of happiness in future. Therefore man wants to elongate happiness. And a race of mankind is racing fast to grow happiness. Happiness that will end suffering is perceived as wealth and amenities. So man runs towards what he perceives would end suffering. It is quite logical. Isn’t it? But it isn’t.
In reality, man does not know that suffering arrives in the same proportion as happiness and in no way such happiness would end suffering. This looks contradictory. But it is true.
What is suffering and what is happiness? Man is terrified by death. Because he does not live life. Death kills that part of life that is left unlived. You think possessions that you create would end suffering but all your assets will be annihilated by death. All your happiness and suffering too will be annihilated by death. Your mind is positively oriented towards happiness and negatively towards suffering or unhappiness.
Man thinks living is an accomplishment and death a curse. When burdened by memories mind keeps creating the future. Because mind is time and time is mind. Mind can only live in time. Time is past and that which has not come is future. So mind keeps living in the future. One thinks that one will live a life as planned but meets an unplanned and accidental life that wrecks all plans. Back of the mind, the terror of death always lurks behind.
Physically one sees changes in one’s body. As one age years of the world enter the threshold of elderly, one denotes signs of ageing because one’s mind is burdened by the past. One fears that one is ageing. One fears ageing. Because in ageing the terror of death stares at him. Ageing means you are growing in psychological and chronological times. Ageing means a tiny fraction of death.
Why do we fear ageing? Because we wanted to make the time longer by creating the happiness that will end suffering. In ageing, one looks at one’s mortality eye to eye in the back of mind. And in that ageing one lives one’s mortality.
One lives the fear of a death that has not come because death has not come that will come only at the time of death. But one perpetually lives in fear of an unknown destination of death that has not arrived yet. Fearing an unknown death creates tremendous suffering. Therefore, one tends to elongate one’s life through all kinds of disciplines and yoga meditation that might bring immortality to his mortal body. One wants to lengthen one’s chronological time. That feeling of lengthening your life is exploited by the priest who asks you to believe in words like ‘eternity of religion’. That you will be eternal if you believe in eternal religion. Man takes refuge in a baptized eternity and creates a forced belief draped in beautiful holy words of eternity. But back of one’s mind, fear crawls.
Man does not live his life. In fact, he runs away from life. He runs away from life so that he may run away from the death that comes from living. But death comes. Death is eternal. Because body has a time limit.
In reality, we never age. When you entered the womb of your mother, you are the same one when you are a child, and the same one when you are young and old. You don’t age but your body age. And you think you are body and you are ageing. You fear to age. Ageing is like when you were in the body of a child and the body grew gradually into the body of a young man into an old man. But it is the same you. It seems childhood, youthfulness and old-age pass by you. And you are the same. Like as if you are a train station where trains of childhood, youthfulness and old-age pass by from the station. But you stay there as a station in that sameness that does not change.
When you are looking from the perspective of time, that is, past knowledge memories, you say that you are passing time. Time is passing you by. Time age. Time is ageing. You don’t. Time is psychological and chronological. You are the same when you are born and when you die. Your sameness stays the same. Childhood passes you by you stay the same. Youthfulness passes you by you stay the same. Old age passes you by and you stay the same. And one day death to pass you by and you stay the same.
In actuality death that you fear does not come to you to make you fearful. But the way you orient towards life makes your death a dreaded episode. Because you think life is a burdensome affair therefore one has to crawl up to death. You think in terms of crawling up to death over time. You think you pass time. Contrarily life is a most burden-free experience of blissfulness. Don’t be burdened by your knowledge. Knowledge is always limited and a life led by knowledge makes life limited and burdened. When you are not burdened by the knowledge you can marvel at the beauty of the whole world around you and dance in the spontaneity of your being. Beyond your knowledge lies the beauty of the world that beholds your eyes. And you look at the world the way the world is. Not the way your mind thinks the world is. The world is not a repeated commentary generated by your thoughts. As many minds as many worlds are around.
Being spontaneously not burdened by memories does not create any future. You don’t suffer. You begin to grow in life. When you look at the suffering and happiness eye to eye in togetherness, you would know that as much happiness you yearn to beget as much suffering is bound to be bred. Equal proportion.
You have to grow on this earth. One who is ageing is the one who is languishing in one’s world. The moment you begin growing you stop ageing. Growing is meeting life eye to eye. Growing is living life in the now-ness of your being. Because time is not there. Because that what is time age. You are timeless and ageless. Ageing is a shadow of not growing. When you start growing your identification with your self-image disappears and ageing will automatically end.
Life is not happiness and death is not suffering. You enter the womb of the mother pre-programmed carrying an aggregate of your past experiences. That seed incarnates you. When you are sitting in the being-ness of your being, you are in pure blissfulness. Whatever you want from this life creates the aggregate code of a new life at the time of death. When you are ageing, you are languishing in life. Mind smokescreens your state of being to create a shadow of happiness. When you meet that happiness eye to eye your suffering disappears, and bliss beholds your being. Your state of being is pure blissfulness. Hindus call it SatChitAnand (Truth Consciousness Bliss). That’s your true nature.
The author is a spiritual teacher. He can be reached at arunavlokitta@gmail.com
