Good morning friends
I love stories, and especially stories told by Osho or other spiritual gurus. A short story can effectively convey what a two hour long discourse would have difficulty in explaining.
There is a beautiful story about a Zen Master and someone who wanted to be his disciple. The novice approached this Zen Master who was renowned for his strictness. Before accepting him as a disciple, the Zen Master told him that he would be watching the novice carefully and whenever he saw that the novice was not practising awareness, he would hit him with a stick. The novice agreed to this condition, little knowing how hard this training would turn out to be. The novice was required to do a lot of work in the kitchen and the garden. In the early days, the Master would creep in soundlessly and hit him hard on the head with a stick. This would happen several times a day. As time passed however, the novice learned to keep an eye on the Master and hence could avoid the beating most of the times. In a few months, he could escape all the hits with his Master’s stick but now the Master started hitting him when he slept. Initially this was hard to avoid for the novice, but as time passed, he began to master awareness and very soon, he could avoid the beatings even during sleep. Even when he slept, a part of him remained aware and could sense his Master coming. This was when he was finally accepted as a disciple by the Master.
This story beautifully illustrates how we normally blunder through life without any awareness. We are never really present in the present moment, in what we are doing, never alert to our surroundings and very often not even aware of our innermost motives behind our actions and our words. But as we start practising mindfulness ( meditation), slowly our awareness is heightened and we can take each and every step with total awareness.
Osho has talked about this awareness in his book ‘ Meditation- The first and last freedom’. As we start practising meditation, our awareness increases. First, we become aware of our breathing, then our thoughts and after that we begin to get in touch with our emotions. When that happens, it helps us a lot in our daily lives, in dealing with tough situations, in expressing our emotions correctly thereby avoiding conflicts and improving relationships. Awareness is actually the key to living life with love, a caring attitude and consciousness.
To quote Osho, “Awareness means a conscious mind. Anger, greed and hate are possible only in a very unconscious, sleepy state of mind.”
I hope all of us can make attempts to improve our awareness,
Love,
Anjali Bhatawdekar
