Essential Practice

Depend On Awareness

How easily the wind overturns a frail tree.

Seek happiness in the senses,

indulge in food and sleep,

and you too will be uprooted.

Buddha says: “Remember, if you depend on the senses you will remain very fragile – because the senses cannot give you strength. They cannot give you strength because they cannot give you a constant foundation. They are constantly in flux; everything is changing. Where can you have a shelter? Where can you make a foundation?”

One moment, this woman looks beautiful, and another moment, another woman. If you just decide by the senses, you will be in constant turmoil – you cannot decide because senses go on changing their opinions. One moment something seems so incredible, and another moment it is just ugly, unbearable. And we depend on these senses.

Buddha says: “Don’t depend on senses – depend on awareness.” Awareness is something hidden behind the senses. It is not the eye that sees. If you go to the eye specialist he will say it is the eye that sees, but that is not true. The eye is only a mechanism – through which somebody else sees. The eye is only a window; the window cannot see. When you stand at the window, you can look outside. Somebody passing in the street may think, “The window is seeing me.” The eye is only a window, an aperture. Who is behind the eye?

The ear does not hear – who is behind the ear who hears? Who is the one who feels? Go on searching for that and you will find some foundation; otherwise, your life will be just a dry leaf in the wind.

The wind cannot overturn a mountain.

Temptation cannot touch the man

who is awake, strong and humble,

who masters himself and minds the law.

Meditation will make you awake, strong and humble. Meditation will make you awake because it will give you the first experience of yourself. You are not the body, you are not the mind – you are the pure witnessing consciousness. And when this witnessing consciousness is touched, a great awakening happens – as if a snake was sitting coiled up and suddenly it uncoils, as if somebody was asleep and has been shaken and awakened. Suddenly a great awakening inside: for the first time you feel you are. For the first time you feel the truth of your being.

And certainly it makes you strong; you are no longer fragile, not like a frail tree that any wind can overturn. Now you become a mountain! Now you have a foundation, now you are rooted – no wind can overturn a mountain. You become awake, you become strong, and still you become humble. This strength does not bring any ego in you. You become humble because you become aware that the same witnessing soul exists in everybody, even in animals, birds, plants, rocks.

These are only different ways of sleeping. Somebody sleeps on the right side, and somebody sleeps on the left side, and somebody sleeps on the back: these are only different ways of sleeping. A rock has its own way of sleep, a tree a different way of sleep, a bird still a different way – but these are only differences in the ways and methods of sleeping; otherwise deep down at the core of every being is the same witnessing, the same godliness. That makes you humble. Even before a rock you know you are nobody special, because the whole existence is made of the same stuff called consciousness. And if you are …awake, strong and humble… this gives you mastery over yourself.