Hungry For Words
Sweet words are not the same as tasting sweetness. Wisdom means constantly learning and reflecting life like a mirror.
If you get satisfied with words and look for more words, that means you are not thirsty or hungry.
Sweet word is not the experience of sweet taste.
Hence, there is chaos in the mind by too many books, thoughts, and philosophies because you misunderstand your deep thirst and try to quench it with words. It gives a temporary distraction from thirst, and you think you are fulfilled, but the thirst to feel life surfaces again, and you start hunting for more words.
In India, the word for enlightenment is attaining knowledge - “gyana”. This word is misunderstood as knowledge. This created a vast ignorance - people started to focus on gathering knowledge and called it wisdom.
But truth of the matter is attaining wisdom is more like always learning and knowing like a mirror.
But people thought it to be like a camera which copies and remembers the image. So-called wise people are a collection of a vast variety of images of life.
Being enlightened means you are constantly experiencing life like a child, innocent and free from thoughts. One of the names of Shiva is Bholey, which means innocent, fresh, reflecting life as it appears.
It does not mean you don’t use thought. You are just not used by it. Your intelligence is a live reflection of life - not a copy or image which we call thought.
Meditation is the state of knowing, reflecting, and listening to the present sound of life. It has nothing to do with material or spiritual. It’s good to understand attachment, detachment, and reflecting state of mind.
Attachment in Sanskrit is called raag - meaning attachment to a thought, person, your situation, or your reality - property possessiveness.
Detachment in Sanskrit is called vairagya - a quality of indifference, non-possessiveness, and withdrawal - very much propagated as a spiritual virtue.
In a deeper sense, it is still a duality, an aversion to life which happened after a perverse attachment.
Both of these states of attachment/detachment define each other. One is like a camera film attached to an image. Other is like shutting down, closing any reflection from outside, and denying the world as an illusion. Hence, it creates an idea in the mind of yet another illusion, a thought of liberation and enlightenment.
That’s where disconnection with life happens, and you miss both material and spiritual.
The third state in Sanskrit is called veetraag- meaning beyond attachment and detachment. Like a mirror, your intelligence reflects, not getting attached or averse.
You cannot practice this because, at the core, your being is like a mirror - just knowing and reflecting, responding to a situation, and doing what needs to be done. Attachment is I want to do. Detachment is I don’t care. Such a person is neither so-called worldly nor other-worldly.
People can never understand such beings because they will appear to be doing things totally in the world, yet at the same time, they are not attached or possessive at all. They will have wealth, but they don’t see it as wealth but as a tool for living. Because they are emperors in this kingdom of present. Their wealth is to be alive with present life.
We like mirrors because they become you and reflect you. They don’t show previous images. They are all there with you. This is participation. It cries with you, laughs with you, dances with you. But once you are gone, they don’t reflect you.
This is what Krishna’s playfulness meant - “anasakti” - non-attachment but full participation.
You may think the mirror only reflects you, and it’s true, yet untrue if you misunderstand reflecting. The real state of life is such participation with life.
Meditation is not to get averse or attached to thoughts or emotions - just do nothing and reflect like a mirror, like Bholey, what is in front. It will pass by the nature of things. Be patient.