Breaking the_Inner_Monologue_

Breaking the Inner Monologue

MOUNAM STUTIHI

SILENCE IS PRAYER.

But why is dreaming needed?

Remember one thing: make every moment complete. Live every moment as if there is no other moment to come. Then only will you complete it. Know that death can occur at any moment. This may be the last. Feel that ”If I have to do something, I must do it here and now, COMPLETELY!”

Greek General Pericles

I have heard a story about a Greek general. The king was somehow against him. There was a court conspiracy, and it was the general’s birthday. He was celebrating it with his friends. Suddenly, in the afternoon, the king’s manager came and he said to the general, ”Excuse me, it is hard to tell you, but the king has decided that this evening, by six o’clock, you are to be hanged. So be ready by six o’clock.”

Friends were there; music was there. There was drinking, eating and dancing. It was his birthday. This message changed the whole atmosphere. They became sad. But the general said, ”Now do not be sad, because this is going to be the last part of my life. So let us complete the dance we were dancing and let us complete the feast we were having. I have no possibility now, so we cannot make it complete in the future. And do not send me off in this sad atmosphere, otherwise my mind will long again and again, and the stopped music and the halted festivity will become a burden on my mind. So let us complete it. Now is no time to stop it.”

Because of him, they danced, but it was difficult. He alone danced more vigorously; he alone became more festive. But the whole group was simply mot there. His wife was weeping, but he continued to dance, he continued to talk with his friends. And he was so happy that the messenger went back to the king and he said, ”That man is rare. He has heard the message, but he is not sad. And he has taken it in a very different way – absolutely inconceivable. He is laughing and dancing and he is festive and he says that because there moments are his last and there is no future now, he cannot waste them: he must live them.”

The king himself came to see what was happening there. Everyone was sad, weeping. Only the general was dancing, drinking, singing. The king asked, ”What are you doing?”

The general said, ”This has been my life principle – to be aware continuously that death is possible any moment. Because of this principle I have lived every moment as much as was possible. But, of course, you have made it so clear today. I am grateful because until now I was only thinking that death is possible any moment. It was just a thinking. Somewhere, lurking behind, the thought was there that it was not going to be just the next moment. The future was there, but you dropped the future completely for me. This evening is the last. Life now is so short, I cannot postpone it.”

The king was so happy, he became a disciple to this man. He said, ”Teach me! This is the alchemy. This is how life should be lived; this is the art. So I am not going to hang you, but be my teacher. Teach me how to live in the moment.”

We are postponing. That postponing becomes an inner dialogue, an inner monologue. Do not postpone. Live right here and now. And the more you live in the present, the less you will need this constant ”minding”, this constant thinking. The less you will need it! This is there because of postponing, and we go on postponing everything. We always live in the tomorrow which never comes and which cannot come; it is impossible. That which comes is always today, and we go on sacrificing today for tomorrow which is nowhere. Then the mind goes on thinking of the past which you have destroyed, which you have sacrificed for something which has not come. And then it goes on postponing for further tomorrows. That which you have missed, you go on thinking you will catch somewhere in the future.

You are not going to catch it! This constant tension between past and future, this constant missing of the present, is the inner noise. Unless it stops you cannot fall into that silence which is prayer. So the first thing: try to be total in every moment.

The second thing: your mind is so noisy because you always go on thinking that others are creating it, that you are not responsible. So you go on thinking that in a better world – with a better wife, with a better husband, with better children, with a better house, in a better locality – everything will be good and you will be silent. You think you are not silent because everything around is wrong, so how can you be?

If you think in this way, if this is your logic, then that better world is never to come. Everywhere this is the world, everywhere these are the neighbours, and everywhere these are the wives and these are the husbands and these are the children. You can create an illusion that somewhere heaven exists, but everywhere it is hell. With this type of mind, everywhere is hell. This mind is hell!

One day Mulla Nasrudin and his wife came to their home, to their house, late in the night. The house had been burglarized, so the wife began to scream and cry. Then she said to Mulla, ”You are at fault!  Why didn’t you check the lock before we left?”

And by then the whole neighbourhood had come around. It was such a sensation! Mulla’s house had been burglarized! Everyone joined in the chant. One neighbour said, ”I was always expecting it. Why didn’t you expect it before? You are so careless!” The second said, ”Your windows were open. Why didn’t you close them before you left the house?” The third one said, ”Your locks appear to be faulty. Why didn’t you replace them?” And everyone was pouring faults on Mulla Nasrudin.

Then he said, ”One minute please! I am not at fault”

So the whole neighbourhood said in a chorus, ”Then who do you think is at fault if you are not?”

Then Mulla said, ”What about the thief?”

The mind goes on throwing the blame on someone else. The wife throws it on Mulla Nasrudin, the whole neighbourhood on Mulla Nasrudin, and the poor man cannot throw it on anyone present, so he says, ”What about the thief?”

We go on throwing the blame on others. This gives you an illusory feeling that you are not wrong: someone else somewhere is wrong – X-Y-Z. And this attitude is one of the basic attitudes of our mind. In everything someone else is wrong, and whenever we can find a scapegoat we are at ease, then the burden is thrown. For a religious seeker, this mind is of no help: this is a hindrance. This mind is the hindrance. We must realize that whatsoever the situation is, whatsoever the case is with you, you are responsible, no one else.

If you are responsible, then something is possible. If someone else is responsible, then nothing is possible. This is a basic conflict between the religious mind and the non-religious mind., The nonreligious mind always thinks that something else is responsible. Change the society, change the circumstances, change economic conditions, change the political situation, change something, and everything will be okay.