The 'See-er' must not Attach Oneself to the 'Seen'

The contact of the senses with object arouses desire and attachment; this leads to effort and consequently, either elation or despair! Then, there is the fear of loss or grief at failure and the train of reactions elongates. The 'see-er' must not attach oneself to the 'seen'; that is the secret to living happily. With many doors and windows kept open to all the winds that blow, how can the flame of the lamp within survive? The lamp is your mind, which must burn steadily unaffected by the demands of the world outside. Complete surrender to the Lord (Saranagathi) is one way of closing the windows and doors. For, when you surrender completely to the Lord, you are bereft of 'ego' and so, you are not buffeted by joy or grief. Saranagathi, will enable you to draw upon the Lord's Grace for meeting all the crises that arise in your life and renders you heroic, steadfast and better prepared to face life's challenges. 

Here Swami is telling us that the 'see-er' must not attach oneself to the 'seen'; that is the secret to living happily. 

We can ask ourselves how we detach the 'see-er' from the 'seen' what is outside of us on the sense-level. If we keep the doors and windows of the senses open the wind can blowout the flame of the lamp. He compares the lamp with the mind, it should be unaffected by the world outside. 

In the next sentence he is telling us how, with complete surrender to the Lord, that way we close the windows and the doors. The question is still how that complete surrendering is possible. He talks in that sense of the ideal, but for me it was always a question how to reach that ideal. 

I began with watching to reach the higher self, just watch and automatically it was as well a waiting state and after some time I got aware that I didn't really know what I was waiting for, the higher self, but how did I even know that we can experience it, therefore, I was just watching for a spiritual experience and the question was how long would I have to wait and watch to get there or how much would I be able to take it as it comes, as it began to confront me at the outside with my own limitations. That was also something I had not been aware about it when I began with watching, that there was no way of getting out of it, it went on the question was just if I would reach what I was waiting for or not, it was just about a spiritual experience and after all that very experience was there one day in the dream stage. I don't remember how long it was until it was there, I remember that it felt like no way out what was not that great and got me inside on the experience level in touch with someone else working at the same firm and he committed suicide, because he also saw no way out, only my inner prison I had created by my own doing while his was created by outside circumstances. It was first a scary experience to realize that I went beyond the limitations of my mind and I was holding on to watching, when people around me began to die and we were like sitting at the shore and we began to watch the bodies flowing down the river. That was really scary and not what I had wanted after all, so the challenge in that experience was to find a way to take a risk, that risk situation could change it or it could not change it, but I didn't do it really in that sense, I just answered to another job opening, but in that very moment it felt like a huge thing going for that job really as it could be binding as well if it would have been yes and in reality I didn't really want it, I wanted to get out of it, that is what I wanted and I didn't know how as I was not able in that situation to just quit my job and get a new one as I had an inner commitment to watching and a self-experience, what I was looking for was a self-experience. 

That self-experience was there when I got the news that I didn't get the job and someone else was right for it and that was as well right for me, now I had a reason to quit and get out of it, in the night there was a beautiful light body in the dream stage and it was just light and love and beauty, that was the higher self and what I had challenged and waiting, watching and hoping of getting there by facing my own limitations, after I knew what it was, it was about a self-experience. 

Nobody around me noticed what was going on, as I didn't speak about it and it was not possible to share it with anyone, that was another feeling which was not very uplifting, the feeling of being alone and not being able to share with someone. 

After that I changed my life and I tried to stay in touch with others and good company, that was always an issue, the question of good company. 

But that was what I had been waiting for, the higher self and that way I got aware of it in the environment of my job. The first time I got aware of self-realization had been with a relationship and by writing a diary, but that guy after he got married turned into the opposite and began to pester my life space, he was constantly around, he didn't move away, he came always closer and his presence was somehow felt for me in my family and it was disturbing, but only for me, my family made fun of it, they didn't believe me, nobody saw that he had turned into an enemy, they made fun of it when I mentioned it and thought I was unable to forget him, when in reality he took care of it that I would not be able to forget him and he was in my dream once as I will harass you until death, the result was that he died quite early in his life a few years later and the man coming in our dreams to awaken said, 'harm set, harm get'. 

I was glad that it ended in that way and inside it was able to relax, he was no more sitting in front of my parent's house pestering my life space. He was finally gone. 

It had been in the dream stage as 'manipulation only', the disturbance was felt on all levels and I wrote him to stop it and that he should leave me alone, but it didn't help, it made me feel better to address it. It had been present on all levels, most of all with the family making fun of it, it was that disturbing, there was a time when I had no idea what was going on and why I felt that disturbed in that environment around my parent's house. It was the disturbance in the neighborhood and when for a change I went home I just wanted to leave and never come back, the manipulation of the neighbor was such that I didn't remember anymore how it had been there being a child and undisturbed just living in that neighborhood. 

The feeling of self-realization had turned into something else and it was not possible on that level to experience it again. In the opposite it felt always disturbed. After I was living at the ashram in Swami's presence one day it was in the air, 'he is responsible', it was the neighbor, my family ignoring it had been that strong that I didn't even question it anymore, it was there, but I as well thought there was nothing and I was just imagining it, what means I had to ignore how it felt, because it felt never right and I got used to it that the family made fun of how I felt. 

With Swami I began to follow the master, fight to the end and finish the game. He came as the neighbor in my dream again and again and every time when he was there, at the outside level I had no idea why, but when he was there again at the inside, as there had to be a reason for it, I wrote the neighbor and asked him to stop coming in my dreams and I always hoped it was for the last time I had to write and two years later it was again the same and I had to write him to stop it. When I got the news that the had died, I was actually glad that it was over and the disturbance was after all gone and it relaxed at that place, and it was not more felt as disturbance, but now we had to get aware of it why it had been like that. 

The contact of the senses with object arouses desire and attachment; this leads to effort and consequently, either elation or despair! Then, there is the fear of loss or grief at failure and the train of reactions elongates. The 'see-er' must not attach oneself to the 'seen'; that is the secret to living happily. 

It was always difficult in that situation to get the 'see-er' detached from the 'seen'. As it was manipulation only it was going on the background, on the level of the 'seen' it was like nothing and that is what my family wanted to believe and they found all excuses to not listening to me. The way I felt nobody seemed to be interested in it. On the level of the 'seen' there was nothing, but on the level of the 'see-er' or the level of the 'experience-er' it was a different reality and it was felt as disturbing and most of all because the family reacted like that. Therefore, I had the man coming in our dreams to awaken and he said that I had been let down by the family. In that sense it was difficult to keep the doors closed and to stay undisturbed at the inside, my family took care of it that the doors stayed open and when I said something, they told me there is no wind, what do you have and even seemed to open the doors some more, that is how I got aware of it that the flame was blown out every time again and they told me what do you have there is nothing and with time I began to wonder what had been that bad that is was impossible to look at it or to face it. It seems it had to do with shame, my mother was focused on her job only and working hard and she had no time, so first I thought it was about time and having no time, but that was as well an excuse, in reality it had to do with shame, she was attached at her idea of working hard, she was attached at her way of seeing it as ideal as she worked that hard, she was attached to what she did really, her way of seeing it and the disturbance I mentioned had no room in that and probably that was a reason why the neighbor turned into manipulation only, the time he had known my mother, he must have realized that it was possible and that she would not notice it, so it was possible to disturb and he did it. 

With many doors and windows kept open to all the winds that blow, how can the flame of the lamp within survive? The lamp is your mind, which must burn steadily unaffected by the demands of the world outside.

It was impossible to keep that flame inside unaffected as the manipulation was that strong and my family ignored it. I moved away as far as possible, but that was not the answer as well, I somehow always had to go back again. 

Every time when I went 'home' I moved away again and I had to find a way of closing the windows and doors to be able to keep that flame undisturbed, but as it was not possible, it always came up again as the source of it was hidden and I had to find the source and that source came up in Swami's presence and was in the insight or dream stage present as the neighbor, the door and windows were open and the wind was too strong and the wind was in my dream as the neighbor disturbing in the neighborhood of my parent's house and the question way why, but the wind was that strong, I was unable to ignore that the windows and doors were open and my mother didn't agree, so we had a problem and that was the result of the manipulation, I had a constant problem after that with the family. Why he didn't go on with his life and he forgot about it? 

From the moment I had left the parent's house until later I always tried to close the windows and doors and after my mother died I tried in vain to make my brothers and sister aware that the windows and doors had always been open and they didn't allow me to close it, they also thought it was normal and I was the one who was wrong, so the pattern of the abuse went on. 

Because of that reason I never really felt okay in that parent's house and that environment again. 

There had been the feeling of self-realization during writing a diary and in a sense that situation forced me to look afterwards for self-realization, after it was no more present and gone and when I got aware of the disturbance and why I wanted to move away always again as far as possible, only then things began to fall in place and I began to feel okay in myself again. 

When I was waiting for a self-experience more or less in that situation waiting to feel myself again, as I had the feeling I didn't know anymore who I was and I couldn't relate to my parent's house and how I had felt as a child in that environment, I had to surrender to the Lord and wait until the self-experience. 

I didn't know why I felt the way it felt and what was ignored by my parents and the family and why it felt that disturbed and they went on telling me that there was nothing and that they felt good, later in the dream stage it was present in the mother as attachment and pride. That is why she was unable to see it and it disconnected our experience from hers and the reality how we lived it from the way she wanted to see it. 

 Complete surrender to the Lord (Saranagathi) is one way of closing the windows and doors. For, when you surrender completely to the Lord, you are bereft of 'ego' and so, you are not buffeted by joy or grief. Saranagathi, will enable you to draw upon the Lord's Grace for meeting all the crises that arise in your life and renders you heroic, steadfast and better prepared to face life's challenges. 

As Swami is telling us here, if we see it as a crises of life and we went through it, without him in the background and the dreams when he was present as the neighbor, I would have gone on ignoring it as well like the family did, but that was no way of getting aware of it and it was no way of getting rid of it. 

I could only get aware of what was going on in the neighborhood of my parent's house in facing it and looking at it and that is how I had to get prepared to face the life's challenges.