Dr. Vijai S Shankar MD.PhD.
Published on www.academy-advaita.com
The Netherlands
16 May 2020
I want (3)
“To have”
The moment the mind has a want, an illusion is manifested by the want. Life manifests an illusion whenever the mind wants. Understand that the ego creates a separation between you and what you want to have.
That is the first thing any want will do. Want will create a separation between you and the object or a subject or whatever you want to have, because want gives rise to ‘You are now mine’. I possess you.
Understand that possession immediately starts separation for you. You will either appreciate it or find fault with your possession, not realising that the possession will go on its journey on its own the way it is meant to go.
Understand that ‘want’ creates a cycle of separation, conflict, anger, jealousy, hate, anxiety, sadness, happiness. You want people to speak nicely to you. You want people to behave in a certain manner to you. Is it not so?
Positions of objects and thoughts, you always want are illusions. For example, if your car gets a scratch, you are in conflict. You do not understand, my goodness, the car has come my way. It is going in my way which is also its way. It has taken a scratch.
Understand that the car has a bruise. Understand everything is transforming. Nobody is responsible or guilty for it. This brings unconditional love, unconditional care and unconditional concern for everything and everyone in you.
By this understanding, there is no room for conflict. The intelligence in life will give what you are meant to have. The intelligence in life manifests this transforming process.
Understand that what comes your way will go the way it is meant to go. Understand that a want has never transformed into a peaceful man or a peaceful woman.
Life is transforming itself. By this transformation you have got what you are meant to get. You did not get it yourself. Life gifted it to you. But the moment want is in you, you remain the same, merely wanting, and never a person at peace with himself or herself.
The wise understand that what you are meant to have, life will gift it to you.
The enlightened are grateful to life every moment.
Author: Dr. Vijai S. Shankar
© Copyright V.S. Shankar 2020
Editor’s Note:
The expression that ‘possession is nine-tenths of the law’ is frequently applied to disputes over ownership between human beings. To possess is a fundamental tenet in mind with thoughts though leading to conflict and disharmony. This tenet is supported by man’s conviction that he is the supreme arbiter in the animate and inanimate world around him. He has little knowledge of or respect for the intelligence of life itself. Yet man’s conviction is by that same intelligence in his journey towards knowing who he really is. So too is the gift of the enlightened who reveal here and elsewhere that man is not and never has been the doer – the illusion manifested by mind that wants. Live life as it happens, without condition.
Julian Capper. UK
German Translator‘s Note:
How the concept of wanting here by Dr. Shankar not only concerns objects and persons, but also thoughts, is remarkable. The connection becomes clear when one considers that wanting and having are thoughts and not something physically real. So what a person wants are actually always only thoughts, because what one believes to possess is on its uncontrollable journey in life, just like the supposed owner himself. The thought that this or that belongs to me is therefore what actually the mind wants, because possessing is not possible in any other way. With decreasing conviction that thoughts are real, which is not the case, the desire to possess decreases and inner freedom, no matter how much one may possess in thoughts, increases. Beginning or ending of possessions happen nevertheless, illusory though they are, whether anybody likes it or not.
Marcus Stegmaier, Germany.