Dr. Vijai S Shankar MD.PhD.
Published on www.academy-advaita.com
The Netherlands
26 September 2019
Patience (3)
“Understanding”
Man’s focus is on the body which is changing every moment. You are never aware of your body as it is. You are aware of your body only when you have pain. Similarly, you are aware of gain, only when you have loss.
Loss does not give an experience of loss. Has anybody experienced loss or is everybody experiencing the loss of gain, that the gain is not there? What is it?
It is loss of gain that is experienced and not loss as it is.
Nobody experiences loss or gain. That is an illusion. You will say, I had a terrible loss. What do you mean? You mean you have lost money, that which is already gained in the moment here and now in life. Can anybody really have a gain?
In life, if a breath of air comes in the moment, it is a gain. Even if you take a step in the moment, it is a gain. Even if you can sit in a moment, it is a gain. Even if you eat in a moment, it is a gain.
When you understand that you came into life empty-handed and did not make the moment in which you came, you will understand that anything that comes in any moment to you is a gain.
When you understand that you did not gain in the moment, because you did not make the moment, you will understand that you can gain only if you can make the moment in life. Furthermore, that gain in the moment is a gift to you by life.
When deep understanding of the mind happens to you, you will understand that you cannot experience loss, because you have not gained anything by yourself. The gain in the moment is gifted by life to you.
When deep understanding of the mind happens to you, you will understand that life gifts to you and when life does not give the same gift to you every moment, you believe that you experience loss. And similarly, you believe you experience gain.
Wisdom reveals that you have not gained or lost in the moment, because you do not make the moment which you believe contains gain or loss. Wisdom reveals that, if loss is present in a moment, the moment too will be at loss. That is impossible.
Wisdom reveals that the moment in life is never at a loss, because the moment in life always has something in it for you as a gift. If there is no loss in the moment, there cannot be anything called gain in the moment, because gain exists only if loss exists.
Wisdom reveals that every moment in which you are is a gift to you. Wisdom reveals that you are neither in gain nor in loss. Wisdom reveals that you just are in any moment, which is a gift.
When you understand that every moment in which you are alive is a gift to you and that you can neither gain nor have loss in the moment by yourself, patience will happen to you.
The enlightened are patient in every moment in life as it is.
Author: Dr. Vijai S. Shankar
© Copyright V. S. Shankar 2019
Editor’s note:
The meaning of this article is self-evident. Man’s journey towards self-realisation is a gift from the intelligence of life so that man may understand, if he is meant to, what is true and what is illusory, that is to say what the mind says it is. What the mind knows is illusory; what the mind can never know is the truth - for truth can never be known. Such is the realisation of the wise. With patience, the understanding that life itself, your very own life here and now, is the supreme gift, come what may.
Julian Capper, UK