Dr. Vijai S Shankar MD.PhD.
Published on www.academ-advaita.com
The Netherlands
21 December 2019
Fifth Season (9)
“Mind”
Let us understand exactly what is meant by mine. My happiness, my object, my car, my pen, my house, how does something become yours? How could objects or living beings become my car, my wife, my husband?
Let us understand ‘mine’ and then you will understand the illusion of ‘mine’. What do you exactly mean when you say mine? In life, in your mind, when something becomes mine, it is yours.
But where was it before it came to you to become mine? If it was yours, meaning mine, it should always be with you, is it not so? Suddenly something which was not with you becomes mine.
This means it is falsely mine, not really mine because, if it was really yours, it would be with you as long as you are there. When you were born, you came with your aliveness; it has always been with you and nothing else.
So how has something, which was never yours, suddenly become mine, meaning yours?
You are happy when your conditions to be happy are met and not otherwise. Understand that, if you do not put any conditions to be happy in life, you will always be happy.
Understand that you cannot put conditions for any moment in life to happen. Understand that every moment in life happens without conditions because the moment in life was present in life without you or your conditions.
Understand that you cannot put conditions on how any weather should be in any season in life. Understand that any weather in any season will be without you or your conditions.
Therefore, understand that what is within any moment in life belongs to life and not to you. If it belongs to you, then you should be able to make the moment which has what it has in the moment.
But you do not make any moment in life. So understand that it is not you who makes what is within any moment. Understand that what you claim to be ‘mine’, meaning yours, is actually gifted to you by life.
The wise understand that every season with its weather is gifted to man and woman by life. The wise understand that every object and every human being is gifted to man and woman.
The enlightened realise the mind is the fifth season in life.
Author: Dr. Vijai S. Shankar
© Copyright V.S. Shankar 2019
Editor’s Note:
Playtime with young children is a breath of fresh air. Enjoyment of whatever is to hand is unconditioned and freely shared. They are a beautiful and precious manifestation of life as it is – accepting whoever and whatever is here and now.
Beautiful too is the growth from childhood into adulthood. It is a perfect expression of the evolutionary process in creation of body and mind. This is where, also, by the intelligence of life, identity appears as a force: the force of personality, of who I am. In man’s search for realising who I am, simplicity may become complexity and acceptance may become demand, albeit illusory.
By understanding the fifth season of life, precisely revealed in these articles through the wisdom of Dr. Shankar, man may come to realise who I am, if he is meant to.
Julian Capper.UK
German Translator‘s Note:
If a human being believes that it belongs to him, all kinds of things are called "mine": "my house, my car, my parents, my children, my husband, my wife, my skills, my abilities, my sportsmanship, etc. This linguistic naming is not wrong, because all those things belong to a certain individual, but not in the way the ego believes. The ego believes in real ownership, that is, permanent, self-acquired, self-made, or earned. In spiritual and religious circles there is the idea of possessiveness and this leads the believer into confusion, because everyone always possesses what he or she possesses, whether he or she wants it or not. The present article by Dr. Shankar does not deny the belonging that is in the word "mine", albeit completely illusory, but only the claim of possession, which is based on the false feeling of having brought about "mine" and being allowed or able to expect something. True non-possession thus means the clarity that possession and belonging happen to everyone and disappear again, as determined by the intelligence of life. This understanding is inner freedom from possession and not external behaviour.
Marcus Stegmaier, Germany.