Question:

Patanjali said that smriti is also a vritti. My grandmother passed away last year and I miss her a lot. If I try to ignore her thoughts my mind says if you will forget her you will not meet her ever. And yes I wish to meet her again. Why is it so? Why are we so attached to our family? Why do we want them to be with us in all our lifetimes? Why is there a fear of separation? How do I get out of this? Are we all not ONE in the end?

Answer:

Yes we are all ONE. But the human mind is lost in Maaya and finds it difficult to understand this. Thus we get attached. The mind just needs to be trained. Just like you educate a naive little mischievous kid, train your own mind, mother your own mind.

How?

1] By enlightening the mind with the Truth…………What is Truth?

Truth means ‘seeing life as it is and not the way you want it to be!’.

Truth means ‘acknowledging things as they are, not the way you want them to be’.

Truth means ‘not fooling yourself’.

Truth means ‘having faith in the laws that govern life’.

Truth means ‘respecting life!’

The Law of Karma…. The law of Birth…. The Law of Death….. are all a part of this Supreme Truth of Life. Whether it is a living being or an inanimate object, all will soon be devoured by time. This is the law!

The wise one knows that everything and everyone will have to follow this law and drops attachment to the people, situations and things.

Like the famous dialogue from the movie ‘Anand’ goes – “Zindagi aur maut uparwale ke haath mein hain, usse na aap badal sakte ho na main. Hum sab rang manch ki katputliyan hain, jinki dor upar waale ki ungliyon mein bandhi hui hai. Kab kaun kaise uthega, ye koi nahi bata sakta hai!” [Translation – Life and Death are unchangeable truths dictated by that one up there. We are all just puppets in a show. Our strings are in the hands of the one up there. No one can predict who will be pulled up and when!]

2] Understanding that you need to get out of this cycle of Birth and Death

The cycle of birth and death is bondage. To have the freedom means, to have the choice to come back into ‘physical realm of existence’ or not after death. Did you have this choice? NO! Were you asked whether you want to be born to this family or that family? NO! Were you asked, do you want to be born at all? NO! Why were you not asked?

Because you are a slave! Only a master can dictate, a slave cannot dictate. Yes, you are a slave of your own Karma! And how did you become a slave?

The wise one understands that repetitive thinking, repetitive yearning for someone/something only creates seeds of future karma impressions called agami karma. Because the seeds are created, now you must wait for them to sprout and yield the appropriate fruit. If you die before the sprouting of the seed, you are bound to come back to complete the process of ‘sprouting of seed and experiencing the fruit’. SO STOP CREATING AGAMI SEEDS BY REPETITIVE THINKING / YEARNING  / LONGING / HATING / DISLIKING / BEING AVERSE / OR BY ANY KIND OF EMOTIONAL DRAMA!

3] Scolding the mind when it creates emotional drama by revealing the ‘Truth about its drama’

Educate your mind like this -“You had another grandmother in your previous lifetime, and you will have another in the next lifetime. Why don’t you cry for them also?” Then the mind stabilizes. This knowledge brings the mind back to the present moment.

You need to train the mind again and again. This is called ‘Mind Management’. Just like you would train a small child. Happy mothering!