It is strange that we watch a movie or read a book again after a few years and it looks quite different to us as compared to when we watched or read it earlier. Yesterday, I watched the movie "Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara" again and I had some sort of mystical experience. I wondered why I had not noticed many things while I had watched the movie earlier. Probably we see only what we want to see. There was a scene in the movie where Hritik and Katrina go for scuba diving. Hritik was very afraid and Katrina was the coach. After that event, Katrina asks Hritik about the experience and he explains that it was a wonderful experience. Katrina says that since she did her scuba diving for the first time, she could not leave that and became a coach. Hritik asks her if isn't it "addictive" and then Katrina answers beautifully that it is like "living life to the fullest" where we can feel every breath and life seems to have halted. She says I wish we could live our entire life like that. It is such a profound statement and I salute the director, scriptwriter, and the actors who executed it so beautifully.
I feel that each moment of life gives us infinite opportunities. However, we are so occupied with our thoughts that we just do not see them. Like a pot full of water, there is no space for air. We are so full of memories of the past and the imagination of the future that there is hardly any space for the present. That is the reason why we feel so good at different hill stations and tourist places. We move away from the workplace and reach a city that we have not explored earlier, and where everything is new. This newness helps us get rid of past memories to an extent (if we do not get stuck to mobiles, shopping, or an uncontrolled loop of mental reels of the past). We explore the places, the mountains, and the nature. That is why we feel fresh. The mind which is fixated on some office project, relationship crisis, or worry for the future, becomes free and that freedom creates space to explore reality.
Why can't we live the same way each moment of our lives? Why do we need to wait for scuba or go to the mountains? Why don't we live each moment like that? Probably, because we are fearful and insecure from the inside. We are so afraid that it is almost impossible for us to live without making one or the other meaning of life. We make different meanings to soothe us. We make meaning of life in money, powers, excellence, efficiency, relationships, validation, and beliefs. As we grow, the meaning we imagine looks more and more real because we keep selecting friends and colleagues who subscribe to the same worldview either consciously or unconsciously and keep reducing interaction with people who have a different worldview. Slowly, by the time we reach our forties, we have already fortified ourselves and with our worldview and there is hardly any space for the newness. The walls of our fort are so strong that no ray of light can't enter and we just keep waiting for something we call disaster (or divine opportunity to shake us) such as the loss of a very close relative or some physical ailment to wake us up. However, in some cases the fort is so strong that even these so-called disasters can't bring light inside, and finally, only death can bring a new beginning (or even death can't because the strong karma samskars also travel to the next life).
Is there a way out? Yes, it is very simple if we actually want a way out. If not, it looks like the most difficult path. We just need to create a little space from our thoughts. We keep flowing with the flow of the river so long we are inside the river. The moment we come out of the same, we are free from the pressure of the river current. Similarly, so long we identify with anything in the world, we will have to face all the pulls and pushes of life. The moment, we maintain little distance from the world, mentally, nothing can affect us. However, the moment we try to create a little distance, we become restless because we have placed a lot of value on external things due to inner hollowness. We can't bear the thought of moving away from the river. The moment we keep the thoughts of office projects, promotion, relationships, or health at a little distance, they get hold of us with greater force. The flow of the river makes us anxious about having missed life. We fail to realize that life is in the present moment on the bank of the river. If we keep flowing with the water, we will just end up in the same ocean where we came from and never live our lives.
Vipassana is a technique of meditation that helps us practice living in the present moment. We can live in the present moment to the fullest, only when we come out of the fort of our own thoughts (which is very dear to us). We mirror the society, parents, and relatives we live with. Our brain is a big mirroring machine and keeps mirroring whatever we see around us. That is why like the other members of society, we keep making different meanings of life and slowly these thoughts fortify our conscious and unconscious mind. When we sit in Vipassana or meditation, these thoughts surface. We keep traveling with these thoughts but it is difficult to get rid of them because the mind is so fixated on them. During Vipassana, we realize that these thoughts are so strong and difficult to get rid of because they are hardwired in our bodies in the form of body sensations. Since we have developed very strong likes and dislikes for the body sensations, we can't get rid of the thoughts. Why would we destroy a fort that we like? That's why we start observing the sensations without reaction. Equanimity with the observation of sensations helps us come out of the fort and see reality as it is. That helps us realize how life is so limited inside the fort. That gives us the courage to destroy the fort of our own thoughts and meanings we have made. It helps us in turn to connect to reality and live in the present moment. We happen to see the reality rather than seeing what we want to see.
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