Self Liberation

Hari Om

'Freedays' are the 'gather our thoughts' days; Q&As; a general review of the week so far…

In Tattvabodha this week, we found the student enquiring as to what the Guru meant by "Self", giving it a capital and therefore importance.

The entirety of Vedanta serves this enquiry! As the student grows in understanding of the disciplines and principles, it acts as a fuel to drive the enquirer ever deeper into their being, yet at the same time expanding them, stretching them, merging them with the greater existence and creating a universal view. Its logic is of the highest order. Its practices as simple as waking and sleeping... (yet we make a fine mess of those do we not?!)

This week a follower was questioning an event which occurred in life which demonstrated that, at this point, the situation was a little overwhelming.  It resulted in the event appearing as if 'the snake' for this person.

We have that, don't we?  We can be overworked, a bit stretched in patience and tolerance, then along comes something which is just that one thing too much to cope with right in the moment. That thing, however trivial (or indeed, significant) gets magnified in its effect - which is almost always negative. It is as if we would break under the strain and our focus is on that thing we now perceive to be the negative-ness affecting everything. It may or may not be the case, but what matters here is the state of mind. Right at this moment, the event, the situation, is our 'snake'. We can see nothing but risk to ourselves by its presence and we have no idea how to escape or remove it.

This is when it is necessary to have others around us who can see the thing from a different angle. They can give us the logic which helps to calm us and ease our way. We find that the 'snake' event is actually a 'rope' opportunity, or at the very least nothing of threat and we can move on.

A Vedantin becomes their own 'snake wrangler'; by adopting the disciplines required, it becomes easier to see situations and things for what they are and this means that the population of 'snakes' in life becomes much less! How freeing is that? Knowing the exact identity of everything, knowing the exact value of it all and what importance to attach to it; these are the things which can grow within the Vedantin who truly seeks freedom from the frustrations of life.