Break
the Spell and Be Free
YOU HAVE
PROJECTED ONTO YOURSELF a world of your own
imagination, based on memories, desires and fears; and you
have imprisoned yourself in it. Break the spell and be free.
Once you realize that the world is your own projection, you are
free of it. You need not free yourself of a world that does not
exist, except in your own imagination! However is the picture,
beautiful or ugly, you are painting it and you are not bound by
it. Realize that there is nobody to force it on you, that it is
due to the habit of taking the imaginary to be real. See the
imaginary as imaginary and be free of fear.
Meditation will help you to find your bonds, loosen them, untie
them and cast your moorings. When you are no longer attached to
anything, you have done your share. The rest will be done for
you.
In
the mirror of your mind all kinds of pictures appear and
disappear. Knowing that they are entirely your own creations,
watch them silently come and go. Be alert, but not perturbed.
This attitude of silent observation is the very foundation of
Yoga. You see the picture, but you are not the picture.
Meditation is a deliberate attempt to pierce into the higher
states of consciousness and finally go beyond it. The art of
meditation is the art of shifting the focus of attention to ever
subtler levels without losing one's grip on the levels left
behind. The final stage of meditation is reached when the sense
of identity goes beyond "I-am-so-and-so," beyond all ideas into
the impersonally personal pure being. But you must be energetic
when you take to meditation. Save all your energies and time for
breaking the wall your mind has built around you. Believe me,
you will not regret it.
The value of regular meditation is that it takes you away from
the humdrum of daily routine and reminds you that you are not
what you believe yourself to be. Awareness is unattached and
unshaken. It is lucid, silent, peaceful, alert and unafraid,
without desire and fear. Meditate on it as your true being, and
try to be it in your daily life, and you shall realize it in its
fullness.
Whatever happens, happens to you, by you, through you; you are
the creator, enjoyer and destroyer of all you perceive. You are
the maker of the world in which you live; you alone can change
it, or unmake it. You are the infinite potentiality, the
inexhaustible possibility. Because you are, all can be. The
universe is but a partial manifestation of your limitless
capacity to become.
~
Writing:
I AM THAT, Nisargadatta Maharaj
Art:
Goro Fujita
The Prince and the Magician
ONCE
UPON A TIME there was a young Prince who believed in all things but
three. He did not believe in Princesses, he did not believe in
islands, he did not believe in God. His father, the King, told him
that such things did not exist. As there were no Princesses or
islands in his father's domains, and no sign of God, the young
Prince believed his father.
But
then, one day, the Prince ran away from his palace. He came to the
next land. There, to his astonishment, from every coast he saw
islands, and on these islands, strange and troubling creatures whom
he dared not name. As he was searching for a boat, a man in full
evening dress approached him along the shore.
"Are
those real islands?" asked the young Prince.
"Of
course they are real islands," said the man in evening dress.
"And
those strange and troubling creatures?"
"They
are all genuine and authentic Princesses!"
"Then
God must also exist!" cried the Prince.
"I am
God," replied the man in full evening dress, with a bow.
The
young Prince returned home as quickly as he could.
"So
you are back," said his father, the King.
"I
have seen islands, I have seen Princesses, I have seen God," said
the Prince reproachfully.
The
King was unmoved.
"Neither real islands, nor real Princesses, nor a real God exist!"
"I
saw them!"
"Tell
me how God was dressed."
"God
was in full evening dress."
"Were
the sleeves of his coat rolled back?"
The
Prince remembered that they had been.
The King smiled. "That
is the uniform of a magician. You have been deceived!"
At
this, the Prince returned to the next land, and went to the same
shore, where he once again came upon the man in full evening dress. "My
father the King has told me who you are," said the young Prince
indignantly. "You deceived me last time, but not again. Now I know
that those are not real islands and real Princesses because you are
a magician."
The
man on the shore smiled. "It
is you who are deceived, my boy. In your father's Kingdom there are
many islands and many Princesses. But you are under your father's
spell, so you cannot see them."
The
Prince returned home pensively. When he saw his father, he looked
him in the eyes.
"Father, is it true that you are not a real King, but only a
magician?"
The
King smiled, and rolled back his sleeves. "Yes,
my son, I am only a magician."
"Then
the man on the shore was God!"
"The
man on the shore was another magician!"
"I
must know the real truth, the truth beyond magic."
"There is no truth beyond magic," said the
King.
The
Prince was full of sadness. He
said, "I will kill myself!"
The
King by magic caused death to appear. Death stood in the door and
beckoned to the Prince.
The Prince shuddered. He remembered the
beautiful but unreal islands and the unreal but beautiful
Princesses. "Very
well," he said. "I can bear it."
"You
see, my son," said the King, "you too now begin to become a
magician!"
