6. Preparing To Unclutch🔗

So the first understanding is, both the identities which we carry don’t have a base. They are not real. The second thing is, how to go beyond these two? It seems difficult because from the moment you come out of your sleep till the moment you fall into the dream state, these identities have a continuous hold over you. They have a say over you. They have an influence over your being. How to unclutch or detach from them? This is the word that we will be using again and again. We will be using the word ‘unclutch’ repeatedly for this kosha.

While driving a car, in order to change gears, you have to first press the clutch, come to neutral and then move to the next gear. In the same way, between any two thoughts there is silence, a neutral zone. When you move from one thought to the next, you will experience the neutral zone.

You have to disengage from the moving wheels before you change the gear, is it not? That is what is unclutching. You have to disengage from the moving thoughts, from the moving identities. Whether it is from the first gear to the second gear, or from the second gear to the third gear, or any movement, you have to completely declutch or unclutch from the movement first.

In the same way, any state you fall into, whether it is from the waking state to the dream state or from the dream state to the deep sleep state, any state that you move into within your inner space, you have to unclutch first. You have to first come to that zero zone. You have to come to that neutral zone. You have to come to the centre space.

The centre space is continuously happening in you without your involvement. If you can experience that centre space with your awareness, suddenly you will experience what I call ‘freedom’! What I mean when I say freedom is really freedom from these two main identities. You will experience a state beyond these two identities. Let me try to explain with a small example.

In North India, you might have seen in the forests how they hang a small stick between two trees in order to catch birds. The hunters use this trick to trap birds. The stick will hang between two trees in this fashion. You may wonder, how the bird will be caught by such a small thing. The bird will come and sit on one side of the twig. The moment it sits, because of its weight, the stick will turn over and become topsy-turvy, and the bird will hang upside down. The poor bird will not understand that if it lets go, it can simply fly! It will think that if it relaxes, it will fall and die, and so it will be continuously hanging on to it, for maybe even two to three hours. The hunter will come, slowly catch the bird, put it into the cage and go.

Understand: just like this bird, we too have a great fear that the moment we let go of the ‘I’ and ‘Mine’, the ahankar and mamakar, we may become mentally imbalanced or we may not be able to run our day-to-day routine. This is the first fear. People always ask me, ‘Swamiji, you ask us to relax from the two identities, the outer identity and the inner identity. If we relax from them, how will we be able to manage our daily routine? How can we even think? How we can live our lives?’

Understand very clearly that there is no reference or record of any bird having relaxed, falling and breaking its head. No! So if we let go, we will only fly. Just like the bird hanging onto the stick, we hold on tightly to our identity and continuously because our identity is our security. That is our security, whether in the outer world or in the inner world. That is our boundary; that is our security. The big problem is, when we hold onto it, we hold on only for security, but slowly, that boundary becomes practically like a boundary made for our bliss, our joy, our expression, our intense enjoyment.

The boundary which we create as a security, itself becomes a bondage or prison for our joy, of our very being. All that the bird needs is a little courage to let go. Maybe during the two or three seconds after it lets go, it might struggle to get its balance, it may experience a little chaos, a little difficulty.

But after those few seconds, it will simply be in bliss, is it not? The courage to manage those two or three seconds is what I call tapas - penance. That is what is penance. All we need to know is, the identity which we project to the outer world and the identity which we believe as ourselves, both have no base. Second: when you understand that both have no base, that they have no direct use to you in your life, that they do not directly contribute to your life, you can simply relax and play the game in a much better way without these two identities.

The whole game which you are playing now, your whole life, your whole day-to-day routine, can be handled, managed and lived without these two identities coming into play or without these two identities remembered in your inner space as yourself.

If this possibility is understood, then you have caught what I call the 'right listening' – shravana! You have finally rightly listened to my words! And if you are continuously contemplating and trying to live this newfound freedom, you have caught what I call manana – contemplation! You have finally started contemplating the great Truths. If you are established always in that freedom, we call it nidhidhyasana or living enlightenment! It means you have started living enlightenment.

Maybe in the young age, some fear and greed is needed to drive your life. But now, the maturity is in being driven by inspiration. That is what I feel is maturity. Even after becoming physically mature, if you have to be driven by fear and greed to run your day-to-day life, it is no good. But the problem is, we are never given the inspiration. We are never given the courage that we can live just by inspiration. We always think, 'Either there should be fear or greed, else I will become lazy.' This is not true.

Sometimes you can see, that for no reason you will radiate excitement and for no reason you radiate intelligence. Those few moments can be extended to become your whole life. That is what is experiencing the bliss body or anandamaya kosha.