Questions:
If I am not the body, mind and have to take the observer position always, it creates problems in my transactional world. How do I have to go about?
Totally agree that being the observer should be our ultimate goal. And in my programming understanding / software-speak, my mind should be doing while (true) { observe(); }.
What are some practical ideas that can be implemented / practiced to observe and be the observer?
Two broad answers:
- Be an observer, or be in the other person’s shoes and understand their view.
- Be true to your nature (gunas — recollect ‘guna-gunesu presentation) and remember that consequences will also have to be borne by the nature (I.e our BMI construct) and constantly remind oneself that ‘my true nature is Atma, not BMI’
Details:
- Split the ‘personality’ in three levels: B,M,I. B includes senses (S).
- Observe with M+I what Body (B) wants: tasty food, touch / physical contact with another, and similar. If it is legitimate — do it; if it is not legitimate — don’t do it / do it but be ready to bear consequences. Example: Eating second helping of ice cream because we are tempted. Most times, conflict comes because we want the icecream but not the consequences.
- Observe with I what M wants: example: ‘I want to desperately travel to India to meet people’. Again, apply the principle of legitimacy and practical wisdom and be ready to bear the consequences of the act.
- Observe how ‘I’ decides: and ask the question of legitimacy again: is this the right decision according to the principles of dharma (don’t do something that you don’t want others to do to you).
Journaling these observations in a diary helps us to truly understand our ‘nature’. None of the psychological tests like MBTI will help.
Never get into understanding the content of the experience .. it is much harder to be an observer of it 😁
One thing I want to highlight — while observing, the observing has to come from consciousness level and not intellect and mind. i.e. When someone says something, one can answer and the observer is observing the mind’s reaction/response. So Observing doesn’t mean stopping activity. E.g while waking up my son in the morning, he gets irritated. By becoming an observer, it is not that my body+mind doesn’t go and wake him up. It does, I completely ignore(from my reaction perspective) his reaction and keep repeating from body+mind that you need to get up.
How do we stay as Observer / mindful / in the moment always? Only possible if mind is calm and still, which is only possible if there are no distractions/conflicts etc. When the mind is at ease, and in equipoise, observation is possible. In a way, this is a chicken and egg problem — should the mind be calm first to be the observer? Or will be the mind be calm when we are the observer. In fact, both are true.
Yet another secret we will realize is that the act of observation changes the observed. Try this with your breath. Try it with thoughts in your mind. When you observe your breath, it slows down. Breath is closely associated with thoughts in the mind (both are connected to prana). When you observe your breath, your thoughts slow down too and you experience calmness. This calmness allows us to be even more mindful and a better observer.
A calm mind allows the intellect to express itself better. So when we say “respond, don’t react” — what we really mean is respond with your intellect, don’t react with the emotional mind.
It is also interesting to ask ourselves — “Why is my mind agitated?” Keep following the cause-effect chain and you will see that it comes down to desires. I am agitated because an expectation is not met, or angry because I did not get something or someone else got it and I did not etc. This is where the theory helps. Why should I have these desires? Only when I associate with this body and mind. Can I accept things that are beyond my control? If I am the Consciousness, do these things really matter?
The key thing is there are multiple ways.
The “top-down” approach: Assimilate the theory and practical becomes easier.
What I suggested above is the “bottoms — up” approach. Keep the goal as Samatvam or mental equipoise and equanimity and work steadily to remove anything that disturbs the mind from this equilibrium. Slowly but steadily, we start to assimilate the theory.
Just saying that all paths lead to the same place. It is great that we have different paths because all of us are different and will be drawn to one vs the other.
Thanks folks — to summarize my understanding.
One answer: Keep reminding “Aham Brahmasmi” and then think.
Another Answer: I didn’t fully understand but to paraphrase this seems to be “Let it be” — don’t try hard.
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I have two takeaways.
- Before a response, ask a meta question, is this my mind or the intellect?
- Use the Mind-breath connection and observe breath when mind feels fast or vice-versa
In a way my dilemma and question was also the same above — How do you transact in the operational real/corporate world where you are expected to have problems and react to them in very natural “human” ways? I had this thought flash through my mind which is — “when you are in a battlefield of this world(which is mithya or maya), be like Arjuna as he was after listening to The Gita”..🙏🙏
Your thought that flashed in mind: Very well said; Bhagavan actually validates this in Sloka 2.38, 239:
https://www.holy-bhagavad-gita.org/chapter/2/verse/38
I think “let it be” is from the mind’s emotion/reaction perspective. Once undertaken a duty/activity, the body+mind can give 100% because if it doesn’t, the mind will be upset and it doesn’t like that status because it is opposite to its nature. By introducing “I” ness, it just adds to the complication. All of this can be observed.
Any situation that needs handling, if no one else is taking care of it, my body+mind understand that it needs to take care of it and it does, in fact better than before where it would cause anxiety.
Do try to come up with mind’s issues because it will always have conflicts. Just don’t associate that issue with Self. Let Self observe how the mind takes it up and resolves it
The idea of observing is a concept of mind isn’t it? If yes, then it is still in domain of mind and intellect
Mind is used both as an instrument and as the observed, isn’t it. The common example used is that of a splinter. To remove the thorn, we need to use another thorn.
Actually it can be segregated very subtly. That is where I was going with don’t look at the content. That is mind+intellect’ss department and let them take care of it. As an observer, gently feel “I” within, which is calm and composed and it recognises the mind’s thinking&agitation and the intellect’s understanding and can feel the disconnect from both. That is the observer.
Look for that “Who Am I” within and then spread that as awareness pervading the universe and feel everything is happening within that awareness including your body+mind and everyone and everything else around.
Well said. A key thing to remember (using my Guru’s example): Ganga is a long perinnal river and accessible for us to take a dip anywhere along its course. However, not all places are ‘conducive’ for us — so there are specific bathing ghats built.
Likewise, Atma / observer (which is our true identity — the ‘I’) is pervasive but not accessible all places. The ‘bathing ghats’ where one can experience this is within one’s body — and specifically in heart (physical heart). This is because our heart is the ‘seat’ of our mind.
Adding to comment on “bottoms-up” approach, Swami AA says this about a technique to work on the mind (a funny example of which Mahesh brought up in todyay’s GD) — When one feels agitated, dejected, impaitent, sad etc. contemplate on who is the one feeling those emotions or reacting in that way? You will find that there is always a persona enveloping the real you which is reacting in that way — A husband, a wife, a parent, a manager, a coworker etc. It is not our true self which is pure consciousness and joy and which is same in all of us and pervades everything we can comprehend with our senses and are not able to comprehend too..
I have found it useful to list down my roles (whether I accept them or not😀) and then do the roles well. Separating out roles from myself is helpful — then I feel I am like an actor in the play — changing roles and doing (acting) them well, but back stage — I am none of those roles.
I was thinking about the scenario where a person tried not reacting, and the other person was unhappy about not getting a response… I’ve been on both sides of that kind of situation, and I think that silence or a non-response also conveys a response… if one can become an observer, I think the mind/body will then provide the right kind of response that the other person is looking for in that moment, which is often one of compassion or understanding of what the other person is going through.. like when you watch a movie, you often have a very balanced view on how the characters should act in a given situation because you are an uninvolved third party..
Well said. Reminded me of my favorite Viktor Frankl quote:
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
To the question on the corporate scenario, I’ve begun to realize in meetings and just informal chats, being able to observe what’s happening is very helpful. The intellect is able to respond properly with a small space for it to analyze and synthesize what’s happening in the meeting, like what Frankl says. I would also add that it has brought some growth, some freedom and a lot of removal of fear.
Having said all that, still working on it. But surely have observed a change in the way I’ve been observing — and it’s helped tremendously.
There is another powerful benefit of ‘seeing ourselves’ (even be it for some time, like ‘pretend’ing to be that:
It improves our self-esteem. Actually, we see ourselves in a different light because the yardstick to measure has changed.
I struggled with esteem issues as I started seeing people richer, smarter, better looking, humorous,…….and the list goes on both in number of such adjectives one could find and also in the degree of intensity in them.
After knowing the truth about who we are, my yardstick changed. I am happy for that girl who got a promotion in my office or that guy who has a Ferrari, Tesla and a Porsche or that friend who has struck it rich in startup…(again the list is endless). But none of these now bother me as much even if I did not have them (& would not be proud if I had them too!).
In the same breath, if I am not promoted at work or someone criticizes me for poor quality of work delivered, it does not impact my self-esteem but helps to objectively ask what can be changed within me to change the perception of others or to get the promotion in the next cycle. Then, I am more deliberate in what I do.…like an actor improving his act in the next scene he is playing.
And, to sum it all up in a picture:
