Faculties

We look at everything but we do not look at our own faculties. Life has many faculties — body, breath and mind. Are you aware of your body? You become aware of your body only when it aches. Just as a child throws tantrums when it is not given attention, your body throws tantrums when you don’t attend to it. If you attend to your body constantly, it won’t throw tantrums. And attending to the body is not just about food and exercise; it is taking your attention to each part of your body and loving it consciously. Your body is the closest thing to you; it is the first layer of our existence. The second faculty is breath. What makes the skin different from leather. It is the breath. Even shoes have some value. But your body, when it is not breathing, has no value. Our first act, when we came to the world, was to breathe in and the last act will be to breathe out but we ignore this primordial function of our life. The third faculty that we possess is our mind. This is the faculty through which we perceive and yet this is what we know the least about. The mind is the biggest mystery. It can be your best friend or your worst enemy. The mind is responsible for your happiness as well as misery. When the mind is in the present moment, everything appears beautiful. However, when the mind is a mess, even in the best of places it can find a thousand reasons to be miserable. We should learn the method of cleansing it of these distractions. Once the mind is free, everything you hope to find in life starts to fall into place. The next faculty is intellect. Even as you are reading now, your intellect is saying something. It is passing some sort of judgement, it is accepting or rejecting what is written, questioning my words. It harbours inhibitions, likes and dislikes, approvals and disapprovals, alongwith wisdom, which brings forth intuition. The pure intellect is not caught up in the emotional turbulence of the mind. Otherwise it often gets coloured by the emotion and becomes impure like muddy water. Then it is unable to reflect the self. Whereas pure intellect, still and serene, reflects the self. The fifth faculty, our memory, functions in a funny manner; if you receive 10 compliments from someone and one criticism, it is that one criticism that will cling to your memory. Basically, memory feeds on interest. If you enjoy astronomy, your memory will also treasure it. Memory is a blessing and your best friend, when it comes to your true nature. It is a hindrance when it does not let you be free of events, pleasant or unpleasant. Pleasant events create cravings and competition in the mind and do not allow fresh experiences, whereas unpleasant events give a biased perception and create paranoia. So the memory is both a blessing and a hindrance. Then there is ego. When you are happy, something in you expands. That something is ego. It brings happiness; it brings creativity, shyness and grief. If you are shy and timid, it is because of your ego; joy and pride are also due to ego. Behind every fear, there is ego which causes heaviness and discomfort. It doesn’t let love flow. Ego can be transcended by knowing the Truth; by enquiring “Who am I ?” Ego is separateness; non-belongingness. It is wanting to prove and to possess. And when you wake up and see, there is nothing to be proved and nothing to possess, ego dissolves. There is also a positive aspect. It drives one to do some work. A person will do a job either out of compassion or out of ego. We know very little about the function of ego. Knowledge of your ego can strengthen you; it will eliminate your vulnerability. The next faculty is something that does not have tangible boundaries. Sometimes when you are relaxed or you are in love, you feel a sense of wonder, that there is something more mysterious in life than you are aware of. That something is the self, the consciousness, the atma. You may hardly notice it but those few seconds give you so much peace and tranquility. Preserving those moments will enrich your life. Any joy you experience in life is from the depth of your self when you let go all that you hold on to and settle down being centred in that space. That is called meditation. Actually, meditation is not an act; it is the art of doing nothing! The rest in meditation is deeper than the deepest sleep that you can ever have because in meditation you transcend all desires. This brings such coolness to the brain and it is like servicing or overhauling the whole mind-body complex.