'Alive' vs 'Floating'

Today is 21/12/2012. I have decided to write today not because the significance of the date but I have just completed one of the assignment given by my Prof. Past 1 week I was pre- occupied with the assignment. So much so, it was difficult for me to be ‘alive’. I lived like anybody else. I functioned like anybody else. But I was not ‘alive’. I got up in the morning, took breakfast, walked to the tram, reached workplace, rushing to meet the dateline while doing assignment and back home. The cycle continued for past 10 days. But I was not ‘alive’. Maybe there were moments I was ‘alive’ but most of the time I was ‘floating’. It was harder to be ‘alive’ when I was pre-occupied with the assignment. I needed the faculty of intellect and mind to help me to achieve the completion of the assignment. But in return ‘they’ made sure I was ‘floating’.  I was ‘existed’ as real as the stone and plants that I passed everyday to work. But at the same time ‘I’ was not existed in my context of ‘aliveness’. So, what is it to be ‘alive’ vs. ‘floating? We are alive only, when we are fully aware of our surroundings and ourselves. We are alive only, when we can appreciate the flower blossoming. We are alive only, when we can smell the flowers fragrances. We are alive only, when we can appreciate the morning breeze touching our face and hair. We are alive only, when we just remain as we are. We are alive only, when we are not dreaming. We are alive only, when we understand absolutely what is running in our thoughts. We are alive only, when not a single thought can pass in our mind without us noticing. We are alive only, when not even a single breath can go out or go in form our body without we realizing it.

 But those 10 days, I was ‘floating’. The thought of assignment occupied most of the time and space in my brain. I was walking and thinking the best way to finish it. I was eating and wandering the best solution for it. I was sleeping and even in dream finding solutions for the assignment. I was ‘floating’ rather than be ‘alive’. Those 10 days I was back to my past 35 years where I was ‘floating’ rather than being ‘alive’. The greatest misery of human kind is most of the time we are ‘floating’. Occasionally we are ‘alive’. Some, I would say never experienced the ‘aliveness’ in them. They were born, live for 100 years and die one day without knowing anything about being ‘alive’.

I was talking to my wife the other day about the same topic and I asked her to experience ‘aliveness’. I asked her to do a simple experiment by observing her breath. I asked her to watch her breath and observe how many times she will ‘miss’ from observing the breath. Those moments she was noticing the breath I called ‘alive’ and the moment she ‘miss’ to notice the breath, I addressed it as ‘floating’. Interestingly she managed to hold on to observe the breath going in and out for some time. Later on she needs constant reminding to be ‘alive’. A nick of time is sufficient for the mind to take control and we forget who is the master and, there we go ‘floating’. It was a continuous, tedious and long exercise initially to remain ‘alive’ rather than ‘floating’ but with constant practice it can be achieved. Even in that moment of observing breath, there will be thoughts running in our mind, such a powerful attachments of our body to the mind. Stopping the remaining running thoughts requires another exercise on top of the observing the breath. I told my wife to divide her whole concentration/thinking equally into two; one part should be concentrated on watching the breath and the other part should concentrate on the epigastrium/heart. By dividing the attention into two, one needs to be extremely aware to be constantly watchful of the breath and at the same time concentrating at the heart. By doing so, a glimpse of being ‘alive’ is possible for those particular moments. That is what I called living in the present. Living in the moment absolutely without past and future. That is the moment of truth. That is the ultimate reality. That is the blissful moments.  That is the state of ‘thoughtlessness’. May all of us blessed to be in that state. Aum Sadguru.