DISCUSSION FORUM

A Short Excursion:

by Sri Saumen Sengupta

Sri Soubhik Patranabis in his essay “The Lost Dreams” (January 9, 2009 issue of e-Sri Sanai) raises some interesting questions that demand attention along the broad corridors of our awareness. He asks: “But who is a Realizer? How can we become one? Surely engaging in wishful thinking or merely aspiring to become a Realizer doesn’t help much - for the mind should be free of even the smallest of ambitions and aspirations. Self-analysis is the most important thing that is needed. A constant practice is required to ‘Shun the I’, and surely conventional thoughts don’t help out there.”

I’m going to be a devil’s advocate here. Let’s take the second question first: “How can we become one?” Surely, if one is still in the process of “becoming a Realizer”, then we could definitely assert that one is not a “Realizer” as yet. And so long as one is not a “Realizer”, all that one could assert is falsehood. Even this question would have no answer for one engaged in “becoming” a Realizer. We can have all our opinions stacked up to amuse each other, but an opinion has nothing to do with the truth, and truth has no obligation whatsoever to follow an opinion regardless of its overall appeal.

In the question “How can we become one”, there is a desire to become a Realizer, to become enlightened, to become something different from what “I AM RIGHT NOW”. If I’m stupid and ignorant right now, then that’s essentially what I am - no less and no more. Any desire to be different from what one is right now is a mad man’s imagination. Isn’t that the source of our problem? Day in and out, we are struggling to become other than what we are. Why? Why can’t we be just what we are without “becoming”, without aiming for a specific mission, a goal or an ideal? So long I’m on my mission, I’m always separate from my mission – my mission and I remain forever non-convergent. As long as I’m “trying to be good”, I’m not good – and, there will always remain a distance between what I’m and the goodness I think I will reach one day, someday, in some life time, in million-zillion life times. By setting and following a goal, I’m encapsulating myself in my own decorated cocoon from which there is no escape - since I’m my own prison!

Therefore, the question “Who is a Realizer” cannot be answered by a mind already imprisoned in its cocoon. Sri Patranabis observes further: “ … for the mind should be free of even the smallest of ambitions and aspirations”. But, is it not directly contradicting the expressed aspiration implied in “How can we become one?” See the logical discord between the two?

Why is there this demand that the “mind should be free”? How does a mind “know” that? Can a mind, which is never free, ever know “freedom” unless it is dreaming? Why is there this condition of “should”? Is there really a choice? What if I start with the proposition that “mind is never free”? And seeing this as it is, seeing its inability to be free, to become free, am I not directly on the path of truth without imposing the demand that the mind “should” be free?

Sri Patranabis makes another observation: “A constant practice is required to ‘Shun the I’, and surely conventional thoughts don’t help out there.” Practice for what? Is there a skill to acquire? One needs a lot of practice just to hone a skill. Furthermore, who is going to do the practice? Isn’t that the very “I” that one is attempting to “shun” via practice? Is this not another contradiction? Who is going to “shun” the “I” if it is not “I” itself? Is there anyone other than the “I”?