A wise gift to oneself
A student once asked his master, “Please give me a wise practice…a kind of spiritual discipline that I can follow every day.”
The master suggested he sweep the floor, wash the dishes, and dust the house.
The student wondered loudly how such an unusual advice could be a wise practice.
The master replied, “When you sweep the floor, your body might be sweeping, but your mind is usually miles away. In the same way, when you wash the dishes or dust the house, your mind is miles away from your actions. Learning to integrate your mind, heart, and actions is a wise practice. So, try performing the tasks with complete focus.”
Have you observed this in your daily life as well? You will notice that you are physically at office and doing some work, but your mind is wandering everywhere. When you work or do anything from such a space, your action is not backed by your mind or heart, and you end up feeling incomplete.
When we experience incompleteness at work or home, we usually think the reason is the situation in hand. But this is not so. Lack of integration of mind and heart is usually the reason we feel like that. We get stressed at work, not because of the work itself, but because we are not being completely present[AS1] to what we do. When we learn to be fully present, then there is fullness in one’s action. It is this fullness that gives us joy, for joy is fullness. This is not learned by reading books but by deep observation. This learning is a beautiful gift we can give ourselves.
Rather than expect answers from others in life, we should observe and learn. The answers we get from others are borrowed answers which will not help us. The answers we get from others are only information, and information is not transformation. When we observe and see for ourselves, we get insights that lead to transformation.
When we observe ourselves, we realize we are a bundle of reactions to the past or are always dreaming of the future. We are a bundle of upsets and hurts. This chaotic inner state, results in emptiness which we then try to escape from. Our life is thus a story of escaping from our inner emptiness. We escape through pleasure, through entertainment, through drinks, sex, etc. Pleasure has a place in life, but pleasure cannot remove our inner incompletion.
Our mind is always seeking something. It is a victim of the past and feels incomplete because of the past. This incompleteness gives rise to unhappiness. Such a mind then dreams of a future it hopes will bring happiness. The mind always oscillates from the past to the future and misses the present. But actually, life is in the present. Until the mind realizes that the present is life, present is joy, present is happiness, it will always wander.
We have to learn to change old habits that do not help us anymore. We have to learn to observe our emptiness and our incompleteness, to end it. We have to trade our old unwise past for a wise ‘present. ‘When we learn to do that, our life becomes a journey of joy and bliss.
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