VBT – Week’s Meditation 51
Take Charge from the Robot
Whatsoever you are doing, do it consciously. Take charge from the robot – with any ordinary thing. When eating, eat consciously. Do not do it mechanically, as you have done every day. When smoking, smoke consciously. Do not allow your hand to move to the packet unconsciously, do not bring the cigarette out unconsciously. Be conscious, alert – and there is a difference.
I can raise my hand mechanically, just without any awareness; I can raise my hand with full awareness flowing in my hand. Try it! You will feel the difference. When you are aware, your hand will be raised very slowly, very silently, and you will feel that the hand is filled with the awareness. And when the hand is filled with awareness, your mind will be thoughtless, because your whole awareness will have moved to the hand. Now no energy is left to think.
When you raise your hand automatically, mechanically, you go on thinking and your hand goes on moving. Who is moving that hand? Your robot. Move it yourself! Do it in the day at any time, any moment, while doing anything. Take charge from the robot. Soon you will be able to have a mastery over the robot. But do not try it with difficult situations – that is suicidal. We always try with difficult situations, but because of the difficulty you never win. Start with simple situations, where even if you are not so efficient no harm is going to result…
Try! Start with simple things such as walking. Try with this; there is no harm. You can say to the robot that ‘There is not going to be any harm. I am just walking, taking a walk, and I am not going anywhere – just walking. So there is no need of you; I can be non-efficient.’
And then be aware and walk slowly. Be filled with awareness throughout your whole body. When one foot moves, move with it. When one foot leaves the ground, leave the ground with it. When the other foot touches the ground, touch the ground with it. Be perfectly aware. Do not do anything else with the mind; just turn the whole mind into awareness.
It will be difficult because the robot will interfere continuously. Every moment the robot will try and will say, ‘What are you doing? I can do it better than you.’ And he can do it better. So try it with non-serious things, with non-complex things, simple things. Buddha has told his disciples to walk, eat and sleep with awareness. If you can do these simple things, then you will also know how to enter into difficult things with awareness. Then you can try.
Awareness Should Be Moment to Moment
The first thing to be understood: awareness should be moment to moment, but it can be only when it has become effortless. With effort you will lose contact again and again, with effort you will have to rest. Effort cannot be continuous, it is impossible. How can you make an effort continuously? You will get tired and then you will have to relax. Every effort needs relaxation. So if awareness is through effort, then awareness cannot be a constant, continuous flow. There will be moments when you will have to lose awareness. Those will be the moments of relaxation from the effort.
Life pulsates. Life always moves to the opposite. Effort, then you have to rest. Again you make the effort, then you have to rest. But there is an awareness which goes beyond life – the transcendental. Then there is no pulsation, but it is effortless, it is spontaneous.
Tags: Take Charge from the Robot
