Vipul Agarwal, Delhi, 19 July 2023
Observation plays a very crucial role in spiritual life. Observation means simply observing like observing a kid or a bird or clouds or the table. What matters is how we observe. Whether we observe each of these things with our past memories or we look at the things afresh?
If we look at a kid with our old biases and memories, there is no observation at all. We are just reliving our old memories in that case. We may have memories of kids being very naughty or cute. That does not matter at all. So long as we are observing the kids with our old memories, there is nothing new. Similarly, if we are looking at the bird with our old memories, it does not matter whether we look at the bird as a pigeon or a peacock. It also does not matter whether it makes us feel happy or sad. That’s all about reliving the past.
It’s only selfless observation that fits into spiritual exploration. When we observe the bird or the kid or for that matter anything or anybody around without assigning any meaning to it, that’s a selfless observation. That helps us move away from our fixations. Initially, it looks almost impossible to observe selflessly because we are used to assigning meaning to each and everything around us and placing it in our framework of self. But slowly, as we practice, we start realizing it’s fun.
Our mind is generally full of thoughts and, therefore, there is no free space to receive the sensory inputs. We start mental surfing on the waves of thoughts, the moment we see something and miss the entire fun of observation. On the other hand, when we observe something devoid of thoughts, we establish a connection with that. When we observe a bird, without assigning any meaning to that bird, we establish a connection with the bird and enter into the world of the bird. Our mind becomes fully involved with the bird and that’s mindfulness. A mind which is already full of thoughts cannot practice mindfulness. Only an empty mind can practice mindfulness.
When we practice mindfulness while interacting with fellow human beings, we observe them. Rather than the mind being full of our own emotions, and leaving little space for the sensory inputs, the mind becomes empty leaving space for the inputs. That improves the quality of the interaction significantly. Rather than operating with preconceived notions and biases, we operate with reality. It is like living in a room with all its windows open. It makes our perspectives richer and fixations weaker with each interaction.
The practice of mindfulness makes us free of the fixations and biases and freedom from biases and fixations allows us to live life with mindfulness. Whether chicken comes first or the egg comes first is a long-drawn debate. The fact of the matter is that biases and fixations are not in our hands but mindfulness is. We should focus on what we have in our hands, especially if that can make our life beautiful.
