Dr. Vijai S Shankar MD.PhD.
Published on www.academ-advaita.com
The Netherlands
25 November 2019
Anxiety (2)
“Impatience”
On close observation, you constantly want so many things to happen to you and you want to live for it. This makes you impatient in life. On the other hand, if you are really patient, you will be interested in becoming thoughtless, so that you may live life as it happens, just as the enlightened live life.
But how many people wish to let go of their memory? Wish to let go of their mind? Let go means, not as an act. Let go means, to understand how illusory the mind is, including its memory.
You are only impatient to live. But how can you be patient to become thoughtless when you can never know what the thoughtless state is? For instance, if a child says, I want an ice-cream, mommy will say, be patient, you will get it in the morning when the sun is out.
The child is patient for the ice-cream. Similarly, you think I will be patient to become thoughtless. The patience will be focused towards thoughtless state, the patience will not be real patience.
So how could you be patient to be thoughtless even though the focus is on the thoughtless state? But how would you know when the thoughtless state comes to you that you are thoughtless? How would you know and would you? How could you know that you have become thoughtless and could you?
You cannot because, if you can know that you have become thoughtless, that would be a thought too. Therefore, the thoughtless state will happen the moment you realise that everything in life happens and disappears eventually.
The moment you realise that everything in life is just a manifestation of light and sound, the thoughtless state will happen, if it is meant to happen. The known is nothing but an illusion of sound in the mind. To realise that your body is just a thought in your mind, an illusion of sound in your mind, is a phenomenal realisation for any man or woman.
These are profound statements of your existence. You have to handle them, that is if you are patient to live life that happens to you. You become patient to live life only when you have realised that all thoughts are illusory. Not as a belief, but as a deep understanding of life.
You become patient to live life when you understand that, though you are impatient, you keep on receiving all that you have received in your life - and others have received - over and over again in your generation.
Yet man remains impatient in every generation. There should be a profound understanding of life if you are going to deal with impatience. It is a very nice phenomenon in life.
Man and woman with wisdom understand that life gifts you in a particular moment, including what is within that particular moment, whether you are impatient or patient.
The wise understand that anxiety neither brings any moment nor what is within any moment. The wise understand that the intelligence in life brings every moment and what is within any particular moment in every generation.
The wise understand that every moment is a thoughtless state of light and sound and, intermittently, particular moments of light and sound appear as illusory thoughts of the known that is within a particular moment.
The enlightened live life patiently without anxiety.
Author: Dr. Vijai S. Shankar
© Copyright V.S. Shankar 2019
Editor’s Note:
Why reach into your mind to appreciate the essence of this article? It is a life-long habit which is easily triggered. Why search your memory for those moments when thoughtlessness was perhaps within a moment? Habit again, but also a reliance on mind and memory. Maybe like a ship going into harbour for safety and security during a storm. Such is the force of anxiety. The wise reveal that mind and memory are illusory: illusions of light and sound that support a life that is illusory. Yet this is perfection by the intelligence of life. So too are patience and impatience perfection by the intelligence of life. Understanding that everything we experience is an illusion, an illusion of light and sound is a wise understanding that may dissolve anxiety, if it is meant to. Let it be so.
Julian Capper. UK
German Translator‘s Note:
Anxiety is a widespread mental state in humans. Anxiety begins earlier and earlier in the child and reaches its full development in adolescence, for example when sitting still at school, studying or at work, especially when it is not physical work. There are numerous explanations for anxiety. It is often attributed to lack of exercise or, in the case of children and young people, for example, the use of electronic media. But hardly anyone understands that this is not a human error, but a part of the evolution of the human mind and its conditioning. It is not easy to endure the anxiety and so people often reach for natural or artificial sedatives. The only sedative that really works permanently, however, is a clear understanding of impatience and the accompanying anxiety in the mind. Dr. Shankar's article, if understood, is an effective remedy against the natural consequences of the conditioning of the mind.
Marcus Stegmaier, Germany.