In the blog, ‘To Possess, To Become‘, I talked about the qualities and drivers of a Gathered Mind and qualities and drivers of a Scattered Mind. It is the state of mind, I guess, that is the most complex hurdle to get past.
So, while thinking about desire driven actions and desire-less actions, an other question came to my mind, ‘Does desire-less action mean suppressing desire? Likewise, not being unhappy, does it mean suppressing unhappiness; does being fearless mean suppressing fear, and does being free of anger mean suppressing anger?’
In the Gita, verse 2.56, Krishna says ‘He whose consciousness is unshaken by affliction and is not excited by good fortune; who no longer hungers for earthly affection and is without fear and anger; such a man qualifies to be considered a muni (sage) of steady discrimination‘.
One whose consciousness is unshaken, one is who is not excited, who does not clamor affection, one who is without fear and anger – the key message here is not about SUPPRESSING but in BEING through those emotions, observing them as they occur, watching them as they occur and recognizing that they too will pass.
OSHO, says ‘We think others make us angry from time to time, but this is a misconception. When there is no anger within you, nobody in the world can make you angry. Others making us angry is just an excuse. When I place an empty bucket in a well, it fills up with water. But the well needs to be full of water for me to fill up my bucket. I cannot fill my bucket with water from a well that is dried up. Someone else’s insult at the most can function as an empty bucket, but there has to be anger within me, otherwise the bucket cannot be filled with anger. A person who does not understand his own condition, is never going to attain the ultimate state of consciousness. If right now we would be able to see our real condition, our reality, we could embark on a journey which leads us to our ultimate state, our ultimate nature.’
BEING able to WATCH, OBSERVE, RECOGNIZE, LET GO, NOT ENGAGE IN and NOT GET AFFECTED by these emotions is the essence of this verse, in the Gita.
Our BEING is the fact, everything else (misery, excitement, fear, anger, happiness..) is an interpretation of the mind.
BEING, enables PURE ACTION, everything else (outside of BEING) leads to DISTRESSED ACTION, as a result of a scattered mind.