Mind Cannot Watch – In Gita Verse 7.30 Those in full consciousness of Me, who know Me, the Supreme Lord, to be the governing principle of the material manifestation, of the demigods, and of all methods of sacrifice, can understand and know Me, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, even at the time of death.
Krishna says that you will come across everything when you are living in the objective world. This objective world will have a lot of temptation, desires and everything. Like in my Bhagavad Gita Verse 7.29, blog I wrote regarding Janak, all the pleasure he was enjoying when the sannyasin came into his court. But the next day how Janak made him realise, in one night, by giving him everything which is needed to sleep comfortably with a sword hanging on his head. With this experience when he said to sannyasin that all the time I look at the sword which is called death, he understood Janak. So even when I am in the middle of all the kinds of luxury and temptations I am aware.
How to become more aware. Become more aware of the precariousness of life. Death can happen any moment. The next moment, it may knock on your door. You can remain unaware if you think you are going to live forever. How can you live unaware if death is always close by? Impossible! If life is momentary, a soap bubble – just a pin prick and it is gone forever – how can you remain unaware?
Bring awareness to each act. Walking on the road – walk fully alert; eating – eat with awareness. Whatsoever you are doing, don’t let the past and the future interfere. Be in the present. That’s what awareness is all about. Taking a shower; just take the shower. Don’t let the mind go far away, into the past, into the future. Don’t allow the mind these faraway excursions, these journeys. Taking a shower; just take the shower.
Bokuju, a great Zen master, was asked, “What is your fundamental teaching? What is your fundamental practice? How did you become enlightened?”
He said, “My teaching is simple: When hungry, eat; when sleepy, sleep.”
The man was puzzled. He said, “I have never heard of such a practice. I am asking about the fundamental practice and you are talking about ‘When hungry, eat and when sleepy, sleep.’ What kind of teaching is this?”
Bokuju said, “That I don’t know, but that’s how I became enlightened, and that’s how many of my disciples are becoming enlightened. You can go and ask them.”
But the man said, “That’s what we all do. Hungry, we eat. Sleepy, we sleep.”
Bokuju said, “No, there is a difference and a great difference. When I am eating, I am simply eating and doing nothing else. When you are eating, you are doing a thousand and one things in your head – except eating; you are doing everything else. Eating is done mechanically. When you are sleeping, are you really asleep? How can you be asleep when you are dreaming? Dreaming so many dreams, the whole night; waves upon waves of dreams go on coming. Only for a few minutes, here and there, dreaming stops and you fall into deep sleep; otherwise, dreaming continues. Dreaming is a sleep distraction: you are distracted by a thousand and one things. But you are not asleep. You are not doing one thing only.”
To be aware, one needs to do one thing at a time. And do it with full awareness, watchfulness.
This is something to be understood. Either you can think or you can watch your breathing. You can’t do both together. Breathing and thinking are such processes that only one can exist in you – in awareness. In unawareness, both can continue: you can go on breathing and you can go on thinking. But if you become aware, either you can think or you can breathe; and when you breathe with awareness, thinking disappears. Your whole consciousness becomes focused on breathing. And breathing is such a simple process: you need not do it, it is already happening. You can just bring your consciousness to it.
Krishna says Watchfulness is beyond mind. Mind cannot watch. That is the only thing in existence that the mind cannot do. That’s why the mind cannot pollute it, the mind cannot lead it astray. Once you become aware of yourself only means – full consciousness of Me, who know Me, the Supreme Lord, to be the governing principle of the material manifestation, of the demigods, and of all methods of sacrifice, can understand and know Me, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, even at the time of death.
Only these people can die consciously.
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