Conversation with a Sadhak

Conversation with a Sadhak

A sadhak “A” called me.

A: Dr. Shah, I’m going through some tough situations. I can’t tell you everything, but I’m suffering.

Me: I am sorry to hear that. I don’t need to know the details of your situation, but let’s talk this over.

A: Ok.

Me: Please sit quietly, close your eyes, and pay full attention to what I’m saying.

A: Ok.

Me: Focus 100% on the problem you are facing. Are you ready?

A: Yes.

Me: Tell me when it started.

A: 2-3 days ago.

Me: Is this the first situation ever to happen in your life that brought suffering for you?

A: No, I had others in the past also.

Me: What happened to those?

A: They went away.

Me: Did you suffer with them in the past also?

A: Yes.

Me: So, with every problem you suffered, but at some point, the problem went away, and you stopped suffering, correct?

A: Yes.

Me: Are you still with me?

A: Yes.

Me: Let’s focus on the current situation again. Are you suffering from it?

A: Yes.

Me: Who is suffering?

A: Me.

Me: And who is me?

A: My body, my mind; that’s me. Right now, it’s my mind that is suffering.

Me: Tell me something, who KNOWS that your mind is suffering?

A: My mind knows that it is suffering.

Me: Now, that’s a very controversial statement. You have a car, but you and your car are separate.

When your car breaks down, you don’t say, “I broke down”.

A knower and the known can’t be the same; they have to be separate.

A: Hmmm

Me: Similarly, there is a knower in you that knows that a suffering is happening. (Just the way you know that the car broke down; it just happened).

This knower also knows that there were other sufferings in the past, and they went away.

Sufferings are like car breakdowns; they just happen.

The knower remained the same throughout, in the past or now.

In reality, the body, the mind, and the sufferings are the known, and the knower is the real you.

They are the car, and you are its owner; that’s why you can say “my body, my mind”.

But, by calling yourself the body and the mind, you are choosing suffering; every time they “break down”, you will feel that you broke down.

But, you are the awareness, the knower, the witnesser of life; you are not the sufferer.

A: In this quiet state, now I’m realizing what you have been telling us all along.

This awareness has been here all the time: when I fell and hurt my knee when I was five, when I excelled in my studies, and it is here, right now, too. I just don’t realize this fact.

Either I stay as the body and mind and suffer,
or come out of it.

Suffering was my choice so far, and now witnessing is.

I will stay with awareness as a witness and let suffering come and go.

We communicated about a week later, and A’s response was “Everything is good now, Doc.”

You are the witness, not the sufferer.That breaks identification. But for a sadhak stuck in habit loops, belief isn’t enough. Behavior is.
How suffering becomes a habit and how to rewire
As the mind won’t believe that until behavior changes
As we have invested in it

Yes, absolutely.

That’s why – Practical Spiritual Life.

You will learn through experience only.

Life is the biggest teacher.

Every event, good or bad, can teach you, if you are ready to learn.

Life was there even before languages and concepts were created.

Play with life; that’s what life wants you to do; life is playing with you.

A single lesson learned from life will be worth more than millions of concepts and so-called knowledge offered by scriptures.

Whatever you learn in meditation, apply in life, and see the life change in front of your eyes.

Every (sukh) happiness and even more, every (dukh) unhappiness can be your teacher.