Experience the hidden treasure

Experience the hidden treasure
Monday June 2 2008 00:00 IST Express Features KOCHI

ANUBHUTI is about experience. You have personal and direct experience of many things in life.

Seeing a good painting or a bad movie, tasting good, bad and weird cuisine, smelling the pleasant and unpleasant, hearing terribly noisy music or the distant sounds of a chirping bird, feeling a hot shower, the chill of the air-conditioner and the rustling of a breeze when you stood by the window etc, can be classified as sensual experiences.

Based on what people, tabloids and television told you, these experiences could be branded by you as good or bad. You are great indeed if you have the ability to experience all this and also be aware of it when the experience takes place. However you ought to know, that there is a whole new experience, which has been elusive to you till now.

That is the experience of your self. You have enough objects around you to experience every moment of your life. It somewhat keeps you busy and many times happy too.

But you should know that your mind has been one-sided in its perception and has experienced only the outer world. It did not know that there is a flip side to its self. On the other side (inside) of your mind lies your self quietly.

Your mind needs to experience it, if only it could turn around a bit. Just like the satisfaction you derive in experiencing objects outside you, there is a very deep contentment that you would bump into when the inner self is experienced. This direct experience -Aporaksha Anubhuti - of this self can be the finishing touch to your spate of experiences.

There may not be anything more left to experience further. Remember you need your mind intact to experience this self. While experience of the senses outside brings happiness or sorrow to you, the experience of the self makes you blissful.

The outer experiences multiplies and scatters your thought pattern but the experience of the self will make your thought flow like a steady stream under the moonlit sky of a silent night.

Experiencing the self in no way can rob you of the experiences of the outer world, just that you will begin to experience the world with little more intensity. Strangely, you would stop calling your outer experiences as good or bad thereafter.

They are simply experiences. When you could experience the dynamism of outer life and the silence of the inner self, you will come to a full circle in life. This full circle of experiences makes you complete and full. That fullness is the ultimate purpose of your life.

Swami Akshara http://www.swamiakshara