The absence of self

Aug 18, 2010, 12.00am IST
Sumit Paul.

Buddha's disciple Subhuti suddenly discovered the richness and fecundity of emptiness; the realisation that everything is impermanent, unsatisfactory and empty of self.

In this mood of divine emptiness, he sat in bliss under a tree when suddenly flowers began to fall all around him. And the gods whispered, "We're enraptured by your sublime teachings on emptiness." Subhuti replied, "But i've not uttered a word about emptiness." "True," the gods replied. "You've not spoken of emptiness, we've not heard of emptiness. This is true emptiness." And the showers of blossoms continued.

If i had spoken of my emptiness or even been aware of it, would it be emptiness? Music needs the hollowness of the flute, letters, the blankness of the page, light, the void called a window, holiness, the absence of self. "Divinity descends on a man who never seeks divinity," said a Persian mystic. Our minds are too cluttered with the ideas of self, divinity and spirituality. In our conscious endeavour to become spiritual we fall short of our objective and remain worldly. We're all too preoccupied with things that have no real significance in life.

A woman went to Lao Tse and said that she was constantly tormented by useless thoughts whenever she sat for her evening prayers. Lao Tse said, "Try to pray anytime in a day and come to me after a few days." She came to meet Lao Tse and told him that no thoughts tormented her now when she didn't set aside a fixed hour for prayers. "When you fixed a time, your self was conscious. You were aware of the need to pray at a given time. Now with random prayers, you've broken that stifling mould. You're no longer conscious, thus free of any pestering thought." Unawareness is a blissful state. With awareness comes a set pattern. It gives birth to a structure, a formula, a format.

Rumi said, "While talking to my beloved (Allah), i'm unaware at times whether to speak or not. I often remain silent because my beloved doesn't like much volubility." Silence is unspoken emptiness and is much more eloquent than any set or fixed prayer.

The trouble is we've set aside practices and rituals even for spirituality. One has to visit a Shani mandir only on Saturdays or wear a certain stone on a specific day. This has no meaning. Every hour is auspicious and every day is lucky.

Blissful ignorance is divinity. Only in a state of bekhudi or self-immersion you can reach the stage of enlightenment, called 'turiya avastha'. Buddha never felt that he had attained satori or enlightenment. It became integral to his mystic consciousness. Any effort to expedite the process of enlightenment is futile. In Ramz-e-bekhudi Allama Iqbal says, " Spirituality is not something mundane to attain, the way we put all our efforts into achieving an object in life. It occurs like a bolt from the blue when you least expected it."

Conscious endeavour cannot lead a seeker to his spiritual destination. Nor is the lifestyle of a monk assurance of achieving the state of perpetual bliss. The moment mind becomes free of wish, desire or wistfulness, a divine consciousness descends. Christ was a carpenter's son, Muhammad was reportedly unlettered, Moses was adopted and he was reportedly illiterate. "God finds his way through unconscious and unpretentious people. Because divinity resides in a blissfully unaware mind," Tagore wrote in the Gitanjali.