Dr. Vijai S Shankar MD.PhD.
Published on www.academy-advaita.com
The Netherlands
8 May 2020
I try, I tried, I am trying (4)
“I believe”
Understand that your trying is not there in front of you. The concept which feeds your ego is that you try, have tried and will try. The concept makes the ego feel good, so you are attached to that concept which is a feeling of trying.
The same thing happens between lovers. They fall in love and how much effort each one tries to please each other. You follow their conversation and you will notice the words I loved so much, I tried so hard to please.
Understand that he or she never loved each other. Each simply loved the trying. Just the trying. The focus is neither the boy, nor the girl. The focus is trying. If each loved the other, they would not try to please each other. Each will accept each other as they are in any moment.
The mind is focussed and rooted on trying. Everything is gone to waste. You will use that word. What has gone to waste? Your efforts. How much of your time you have spent, you will say. Is it not so?
If you are not in a particular situation in which you like to be, you will say, oh, my goodness, all this time I was trying so hard to be in that situation. Now I am not and somebody else is.
If you try very hard in examinations, you will get good results. You are attached to your trying. Not your result. No way. You can see when the result comes, you declare I did so well in my exams.
You will never say, good marks came to me in the exams. No. You will never say it. You will never say, a nice boy came to me in my life. You will never say. A nice girl came to me in my life.
You will say, I tried everything to get that boy. I tried everything to get that girl. All my life I tried. So the focus all the time is on trying. Trying, trying and trying because you have not understood as yet that objects come to you. Your lover comes to you.
Life cleverly manifests the concept of trying. Now keep him or her with you. Try everything which you can to keep him or her with you. Understand that life is keeping him or her with you.
But you believe, by the concept of trying everything, that he or she is with you. Understand, whether you like it or not, that life is very intelligent! Understand that he came to you, whether you like it or not. Understand he was with you, whether you like it or not. Not because of your trying.
Understand that, whether you like it or not, he or she will go if he or she is meant to go.
The enlightened live with anyone they are meant to live with.
Author: Dr. Vijai S. Shankar
© Copyright V.S. Shankar 2020
Editor’s Note:
To live life as it happens implies a way of living that imposes no terms or conditions on what happens, be it in thought, word or deed. Such a way of living is realised by few human beings, for each new generation is influenced by the beliefs and ideals of the environment in which they live. The enlightened, in wisdom, are declaring clearly here and elsewhere that each moment in daily life contains what it is meant to contain. It is by the gift of the intelligence of life, whether we like it or not. Such is acceptance. Realising this is freedom. Freedom to live life as it happens.
Julian Capper. UK