48. Action-sleep and Thought-sleep🔗

Absentmindedness! Because of absentmindedness, people miss many things – relationships, decisions, life itself. When you are absentminded in your outer activities, you may lose the things of the outer world, like success and wealth. But if you are absentminded during your inner planning, inner visualization, inner thinking – you will miss the links in your life! That is the worst thing. For example, you may be thinking, 'I should start seeking sincerely, I should read this book...' – and suddenly, there will be a pause! And after a few minutes, you will be thinking 'I think I should watch this TV show!' The flow which was happening inside you is missing! It is gone!

Please understand, the nidra which is happening in your internal flow of consciousness, flow of thoughts, is worse than the nidra which is happening in your outer activities. If you are absentmindedness in the outer world, you may have only a few problems in the outer world. I have a story about that! I will read it out.

An absentminded professor was moving to a new house further along the same street. His wife knew that he was prone to forgetting things, so she wrote down the new address on a piece of paper. Before he went to college, she handed him the paper and the key to the new house, and reminded him not to go back to the same old address. That morning, one of his students asked him a complex question, and the professor wrote the answer down on the back of the slip of that same paper. The student asked if he could keep the paper. Forgetting what was on the other side, professor said, 'Certainly.'

In the evening he returned out of habit to the old house, tried the key and could not get in.

Realizing his mistake, he searched in his pockets for the slip of paper with the new address. But of course, there was no sign of it.

So he wandered along that street and stopped the first personable-looking lad whom he saw.

He asked the lad, 'Excuse me, I am Professor Galbright. You would not happen to know where I live, would you?'

The lad replied, 'Sure Dad, I know.'

This is too much! But even with absentmindedness in the outer world, you lose only the things of the outer world. Forgetting to take your handbag, forgetting to take your glasses – these are simple mistakes. You lose only simple things. But forgetting to keep the things which you really need in your life - that is where you lose too many big things. Forgetting to keep the seeking alive is one of them.

Many times I have seen, whenever I come here to the USA, a big group gathers, and they all get terribly inspired about seeking. They pick up all the DVDs, all the books, everything. And then what? They will be lying in the cupboard till I come back again! It really happens. It is like how, when people read some book about fitness, or when they watch some show on TV, or when the doctor says they have to exercise, they go and buy all kinds of gym equipment and all kinds of books, and everything will be lying in the garage for the next six months – till they see the doctor again, and he says they have to exercise! This means, there is absentmindedness in your very thinking, in your very planning for your life.

Please understand, whenever I put a fire inside you, you decide, 'Yes! From today I am going to live what Swamiji says. I think I already wasted too much of time.' You take all possible vows! But by the time you are back home, that mental setup slowly, slowly, slowly... it's not there! Nidra has happened in your energy flow, in your thought flow. You can see very clearly, how many times you take vows – what happens to all that? After all, it is your mind, you took the vow! Then what happens to your integrity?

The other day somebody told me, 'Swamiji, in the last six months, I quit smoking twenty times.' It means that nineteen times you started again! It is not that you want to break the vow. If you want to break it, perfectly alright; you have the freedom. It is your choice! But here, something else is happening. A kind of a sleep is happening in your thought flow, which does not allow you to keep the passion alive, to keeping the vow alive.

The sleep which you experience during the thought flow or the action flow is what leads you to anguish. If you experience sleep during the action flow, you will miss the things of the outer world. If you experience the sleep during the thought flow, you will miss too many things of the inner world.

How many vows have you taken and broken in the last one year? Can you trace the absentmindedness which led to breaking each vow?