Dr. Vijai S Shankar MD.PhD.
Published on www.academ-advaita.com
The Netherlands
1 January 2020
Adventure (4)
“Life”
The joy in knowing that life is an adventure is tremendous, many times more than the adventurer has when he discovers whatever he my discover. Now, why is it that you want to be logical? What could be the illusion of logic?
What could be that, which has logic, made you an escapist in life? If you look deeply you will know that you are escaping life. Isn’t it so? Escaping this life for another secure life. Is that not what is happening?
And not realising that even that life, when it comes, you will be escaping from that life too. The mind is an escapist. When you are an escapist, you cannot be an adventurer.
Do you know what the paradox is? You are an adventurer and an escapist at the same moment. So beautiful it is. You need not become an adventurer. Understand that you already are when you recognise these two things in the moment.
What you want, what you do not want, both are there in the same moment. You cannot be away from it; you cannot separate them; you cannot distance them from you. That which you want and do not want is in front of you in the mind in the same moment.
That’s why life is paradoxical. Then you will know, my goodness, every aspect of life is paradoxical. The moment you have recognised it, you have become an adventurer.
You want everything to be logical. And logic will be provided for you. The mind is ready to deliver that to you. But that is the only thing the mind can keep on giving to you, but not the paradox.
So what is it that makes you want to be logical? The very thing which makes you logical, the very issue which makes you become logical, the very issue is paradoxical, meaning it may or may not happen.
Look closely in life. You want to be logical, only because you want to secure life. Security is the basic thing. Secure life. It boils down to that one word called security.
The paradox of security is that it may or may not happen in the moment. The moment you understand this, every moment will be an adventure to you. You face life as it happens and you are not an escapist but an adventurer.
With this understanding you become wise, calm and relaxed in life in every moment.
The enlightened live the adventure of every moment.
Author: Dr. Vijai S. Shankar
© Copyright V.S. Shankar 2019
Editor’s Note:
We all experience issues in our daily life. Some issues may be disregarded as trivial, but some become the cause for serious concerns and anxiety in the mind. Man will resort to almost any measure to dissolve or avoid issues that are regarded as threats to wellbeing or to personal safety or are opposed to social norms. The wise are explaining in this article the paradoxical nature of life in which there may be and there may not be, it may happen and it may not happen are present as contrary outcomes. Such contradictory positions are commonly regarded as unreasonable and untenable, yet they are evident on a daily basis. Such is the paradoxical nature of life from moment to moment, fit for an adventurer, as the wise proclaim.
Julian Capper. UK
German Translator‘s Note:
An escapist is, according to the dictionary, someone who wants to escape reality and avoid something. Often, due to a lack of understanding, the wise are called escapist, unrealistic. It is claimed that wisdom denies the reality of everyday life, claiming that everything is an illusion that man cannot control. The wisdom of this article puts into perspective the understanding of what can reasonably be called escapist. It is exactly the other way round: namely, the person who relies on the logic in his mind of what could and will happen tries to avoid something, namely the spontaneous and paradoxical life, as it is, whether one likes it or not. The adventure of life is found precisely in the paradoxical, illogical spontaneity, unpredictability and uncontrollability, and that is life as it is.
Marcus Stegmaier, Germany.