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Self possession
Well good morning it is morning now and I am in a mood to talk as usual. What is going to be the subject of my talk? Can it be the art of maintaining or retaining possession? Can it be the art of maintaining balance? Call it equilibrium, call it self possession. Or call it maintaining control. So how can I start? I have come to a conclusion of what topic I am going to talk about. It is the art of control. Why do we need to be retaining self control? What is the purpose behind that? Do we always need to be in control? What is freedom? What is bliss? Are we in control in our freedom, in our bliss? How do we retain control?
We voluntarily think about what is right and what is wrong in our capacity to retail control or possession. Now if we always keep thinking about what is right and what is wrong and then execute it we will just be a computer doing calculations and if we are too much obsessed about being right. Then we won’t have time for creativity. So making mistakes giving ourselves a chance to make mistakes our desire to make mistakes, even that is control. So after having given a small introduction; Of what I am going to talk about.
I would like to narrate a small story. In “mythology” I don’t want to be too religious. So I use the word mythology. Let me be down to earth. There is a story where two beasts which serve as vehicles to god heads talk to each other. In Hindu mythology we have a lot of god heads and they have their own vehicles. This is a discussion between the vehicle of lord Shiva and another vehicle called Garuda. Lord Shiva’s vehicle is the snake. So from lord Shiva’s neck the snake asks Garuda which is a bird. From lord Shiva’s neck the snake asks to the bird “are you doing well? “. For which the bird says “if we are where we are and then we talk every thing is ok and good. So we are safe in the place in which we are. Why am I telling you this story? This story is very important in the art of retaining possession, the art of control. When we are to enjoy we need to enjoy to the maximum and when we need to sorrow we need to be sorrowful or cry to the maximum. What I may say could be strange. What is this guy, he says that he will talk about control and he says that when we are to be happy we need to be uncontrollably happy and when we are to cry we need to uncontrollably cry. But then this is very important in the place that we are. I did not mention the place. When you indulge in sex see to that it is safe but then in the pleasure that you enjoy experience uncontrollable pleasure. When someone close to you dies, it is very uneventful for me to talk this but then I am giving an example. When someone close to you departs, never to come back again? What do you do? You cry you sorrow, Sorrow to the maximum it is uncontrollable sorrow. What befalls this state of uncontrollable sorrow or uncontrollable happiness it is a state of clarity. It is a state where you don’t have sorrow or happiness.
So that is the purpose of being uncontrollable in situations where you can be uncontrollable. They call it a state of “shunnya’ or zeroness in Hindu philosophy. So you reach a state wherein you can start your minds working in a normal and in a state where you can be receptive to day to day needs. When do we need to control? When do we need to exercise voluntary control? When we are capable of knowing that we are in the wrong way or when we are to do something wrong that we are about to commit a mistake. We can correct ourselves this is voluntary control. Where could you exercise voluntary control it could be in your job? It could be in your relationship with your friend. It could be in relationship with your lover. So “voluntary control” is important here. If you indulge in being involuntary, If you can relax your minds resources in things that deserve uncontrollable attention like that uncontrollable happiness and uncontrollable sorrow that I have mentioned above you will have resources in your mind for calibrated or voluntary control. Now don’t be obsessed with what is right and what is wrong in retaining your control, in retaining your self control. If some one deliberately insults you, think once or twice whether you really deserve it. If you really deserve the insult take it. It is your punishment for the wrong that you have done. Feel for it and mend your ways. Try to correct the mistake that you have made. That is the right way to retain possession or control or equilibrium. If you don’t deserve the insult just don’t take it. Don’t take it at all. You need not inflict the insult that insult back to the person who is doing it to you.
It could be that he is not in control and so he may do so. Why do you want to compound the problems of a person in distress or who does not know the art of self retention.
Just ignore it get away from that person. Don’t take the insult. A story comes to my mind it is a very common story. It is the story about Buddha. Buddha walks with his disciple on a street. The theme of it conveys the message. Buddha walks with his disciple on a village, it’s a narrow road and it takes Buddha through a lot of huts where there is population. People seeing Buddha finding him strange abuse Buddha verbally but then Buddha just walks past this shower of abuse not showing any change of his expression.
Retaining his enlightened state he walks past. After they walk past the village his disciple asks Buddha “what is this, these people have been insulting you but then you have just walked past undeterred and there is no change in you. There should be some sort of anger an expression of anger in you”. For which Buddha says “I just don’t take what they have said”. So this is the art of retaining self possession. Know what you must take and know what you must not take. Where did the insults on Buddha go? It went back to the people who directed this insult towards Buddha. Know what you should deserve and what you should not. One thing that is very important is as long as we are in this physical state where our soul’s reside in your body we can’t hope to be extra physical persons.
We are people whose souls reside in our body. We are bound to nature so we need to take care of our bodily needs. This is very important in the art of retaining possession. That is why if pleasure gives you balance. If pleasure helps you in retaining your capacity to judge where you can exercise your righteousness and where you can afford to make mistakes. If pleasure can help you out with this then indulge in it. Indulge in it in the amount that will satisfy your desires. I don’t want you to indulge in excessive or abusive pleasure. Pleasure can be experienced in safe and useful ways. It is a pleasure to teach your child something useful in his life. It is a pleasure to plant a tree in your garden. It is a pleasure to watch the sun rise. It is a pleasure to have sex with your beloved wife. That is the sort of pleasure that I am talking about. The aversion of pleasure is not control. Aversion of reasonable pleasure that we embodied souls are bound to causes us to loose our balance or equilibrium. We are as people capable of knowing when we should be firm on things and not be. We should know when we have the liberty of mistake and when we don’t have the liberty of mistake. What are you going to prove by retaining your firmness? When you say you are firm of doing something about achieving something think whether it is really worth the purpose be firm be persistent. But in being persistent know your place very well. You could say something that is true. You could say something that is un-harm full. But the place in which you are may not be conducive for you to reveal the truth. It is not only true it is also un-harm full and really be good. But the place in which you are may not be suitable for you to reveal this thing. So be very aware of it. What was I talking about? I was talking about self control and talked about retaining control. I also talked about where we can loose our control so that we can relax our mind and body. This is a very big topic it is a very intricate delicate and complex art.
My efforts at telling this may not be complete even if I make one or more tries. I may not be complete in fully expressing the nuances of this art of self possession or self retention.
I may not be in a position to reveal much. I have already talked about judgment. Judge if we are really in need to curtail our actions. Judge whether you can openly enjoy your actions. Judge whether there is really any action in action. “One who sees action in inaction and inaction in action is a yogi and he has accomplished all his tasks” this was something that I read somewhere it came to my mind. Relax your mind and body whenever you have time for it and in a position of it. When you at home, when you are intimate with your loving people, your parents, your children, your friends and wife, relax. One significant thing that I am going to talk about is you need not always control yourself. There are instances where you can allow some one else to take control over you.
If you are too tired and don’t know what to do then it is good that you allow some other trust worthy person to take control over you. If you are in distress and if your wife really has experience in quelling your distress, then, allow her to take control over you. If she is an expert in judging and delivering what is good to you then let her take control over you. After you return tired from the office and you have tried to cope up with a lot of problems and after you have given a lot of solutions you reach home tired and you no longer want to be in control let her take control over you. Let her care for you. If your child returns from school tired of learning and learning and burdening himself too much of things that he may not understand really. Then you take control over him. Play with him tickle him embrace him. So all these things are important, even being controlled is such a joy. But be careful about who controls you. “Anger” we in a lot of instances in life get angry, a lot of events happen and these events may not be in our favor. We may become angry because of these events which are not in our favor. Anger is different from happiness and sorrow because it is a sort of aggression. How can you control this? You can give a vent to your anger or you can understand that you are angry and then go about setting things right. When things are set right you know that you have corrected the problem or issue. You don’t have that anger. Don’t be angry, don’t be angry at all. You may in circumstances act like being angry because we may have to work with common people. When common people respond to you when you are angry and when they think that they should act only when the boss commands them in anger you can act as if you are angry.
But I tell you anger is not good. It is detrimental to the mind as well as the body. So what will you do when you are angry? You first realize that you are angry and then analyze the cause of this anger and try to set it right. Your anger should make you eager to set things right. There should be persistence in your thought that you should set things right. And once you have set the things right your purpose is attained and then anger disappears.
What purpose can anger have? If it has the purpose of insulting someone and then escalating the problem further then that is not what you should do. But then if it serves the purpose of you becoming eager and energetic in finding a solution to the problem then it is ok. So that is how you take things in life. That is how you go about dealing with a lot of mood changes. Your mood is not always stable you sometimes be happy, sometimes you become sad, sometimes you become relaxed, sometimes you become energetic, sometimes you become enthusiastic, sometimes there is anxiety, sometimes there is hope. Sometimes there is desperation, sometimes there is elation and sometimes there is depression. So there are a lot of moods we are bound to these moods. The art of possession is very important when we are in the state of these moods. If we know that these moods are nothing but manifestation of inadequacies in bodily parameters. We will know how to be independent of such mood swings. If we come to realize that these mood changes are a result of changes in bodily parameters. We will know that we can be stable even in mood swings. If we constantly teach ourselves this art of self possession or retention. You may not be happy. You may start the day but you realize that your son has done something bad. You may become sad you may become angry at him. And you may have to go to the office. But when you reach office you may be in the same state of sadness and anger. But if you realize that the actions that emanate from this state of your mood will be detrimental to the relationships that you may have to manage in the office. Then you will mend your actions. Despite being sad, despite being angry people will be able to make out that you are sad and angry. But then if you exercise caution in your action they will also that this man despite being in a state of imbalance is giving the right action. He is doing a measured act, he is being very reasonable. He is using his judgment. Then they will appreciate it. They will tend not to put further imbalance in the state you are in if they are helping. But then if you go to the office and then shout at your boss or shout at your secretary then it will trigger a chain reaction. Then it won’t solicit cooperation. It will trigger non cooperation people may not cooperate with you. They will think that you are very arbitrary and very not unreasonable and irresponsible. Even in a state of anger if you are aware of it and deliver good action. What else can I talk about self control? The feelings are very important there has to be a balance of a lot of feelings so whenever you get a chance. Whenever you feel that, whenever you come to realize that the imbalance or some sort of feeling try to fulfill it. If you have a strong desire to watch a fiction movie and you haven’t been for it for a long time it may not suit your balance. Go and watch it watch a fiction movie. What’s the harm in doing so give some time for your feelings too. If you feel that you have been deprived of loneliness for a long time, be lonely take a shot. Ok if you feel that you have to be persistent in being active for a long time or long hours. Think whether it is really worth it. Whether the situation demands it if the situation demands it do it. Don’t be a workaholic. If you feel like having alcohol have it if you feel like having it but then don’t go to the state of a workaholic.
Alcohol should help you in retaining control. It should not make you uncontrollable. If you are driving don’t take alcohol. If you are to be fully receptive to stimulus if you are to be fully receptive to sensory perception or intellectual perception then don’t take alcohol. But then if you want to relax, if you are in safe places where you can loose some amount of your sensory perception and intellectual perception. Then take alcohol. It is medicine. The medicine gives you side effects. It is the same thing it has to be a medicine it should not become a poison. So I don’t advocate alcoholism. It is very bad. So what else? Ok as I have told you one or two attempts at describing the art of retaining possession is not sufficient. I may have to make further more attempts. Any how my talk has been very slow. It is because of the nature I have been talking about. Ok bye see you.
Well good morning it is morning now and I am in a mood to talk as usual. What is going to be the subject of my talk? Can it be the art of maintaining or retaining possession? Can it be the art of maintaining balance? Call it equilibrium, call it self possession. Or call it maintaining control. So how can I start? I have come to a conclusion of what topic I am going to talk about. It is the art of control. Why do we need to be retaining self control? What is the purpose behind that? Do we always need to be in control? What is freedom? What is bliss? Are we in control in our freedom, in our bliss? How do we retain control?
We voluntarily think about what is right and what is wrong in our capacity to retail control or possession. Now if we always keep thinking about what is right and what is wrong and then execute it we will just be a computer doing calculations and if we are too much obsessed about being right. Then we won’t have time for creativity. So making mistakes giving ourselves a chance to make mistakes our desire to make mistakes, even that is control. So after having given a small introduction; Of what I am going to talk about.
I would like to narrate a small story. In “mythology” I don’t want to be too religious. So I use the word mythology. Let me be down to earth. There is a story where two beasts which serve as vehicles to god heads talk to each other. In Hindu mythology we have a lot of god heads and they have their own vehicles. This is a discussion between the vehicle of lord Shiva and another vehicle called Garuda. Lord Shiva’s vehicle is the snake. So from lord Shiva’s neck the snake asks Garuda which is a bird. From lord Shiva’s neck the snake asks to the bird “are you doing well? “. For which the bird says “if we are where we are and then we talk every thing is ok and good. So we are safe in the place in which we are. Why am I telling you this story? This story is very important in the art of retaining possession, the art of control. When we are to enjoy we need to enjoy to the maximum and when we need to sorrow we need to be sorrowful or cry to the maximum. What I may say could be strange. What is this guy, he says that he will talk about control and he says that when we are to be happy we need to be uncontrollably happy and when we are to cry we need to uncontrollably cry. But then this is very important in the place that we are. I did not mention the place. When you indulge in sex see to that it is safe but then in the pleasure that you enjoy experience uncontrollable pleasure. When someone close to you dies, it is very uneventful for me to talk this but then I am giving an example. When someone close to you departs, never to come back again? What do you do? You cry you sorrow, Sorrow to the maximum it is uncontrollable sorrow. What befalls this state of uncontrollable sorrow or uncontrollable happiness it is a state of clarity. It is a state where you don’t have sorrow or happiness.
So that is the purpose of being uncontrollable in situations where you can be uncontrollable. They call it a state of “shunnya’ or zeroness in Hindu philosophy. So you reach a state wherein you can start your minds working in a normal and in a state where you can be receptive to day to day needs. When do we need to control? When do we need to exercise voluntary control? When we are capable of knowing that we are in the wrong way or when we are to do something wrong that we are about to commit a mistake. We can correct ourselves this is voluntary control. Where could you exercise voluntary control it could be in your job? It could be in your relationship with your friend. It could be in relationship with your lover. So “voluntary control” is important here. If you indulge in being involuntary, If you can relax your minds resources in things that deserve uncontrollable attention like that uncontrollable happiness and uncontrollable sorrow that I have mentioned above you will have resources in your mind for calibrated or voluntary control. Now don’t be obsessed with what is right and what is wrong in retaining your control, in retaining your self control. If some one deliberately insults you, think once or twice whether you really deserve it. If you really deserve the insult take it. It is your punishment for the wrong that you have done. Feel for it and mend your ways. Try to correct the mistake that you have made. That is the right way to retain possession or control or equilibrium. If you don’t deserve the insult just don’t take it. Don’t take it at all. You need not inflict the insult that insult back to the person who is doing it to you.
It could be that he is not in control and so he may do so. Why do you want to compound the problems of a person in distress or who does not know the art of self retention.
Just ignore it get away from that person. Don’t take the insult. A story comes to my mind it is a very common story. It is the story about Buddha. Buddha walks with his disciple on a street. The theme of it conveys the message. Buddha walks with his disciple on a village, it’s a narrow road and it takes Buddha through a lot of huts where there is population. People seeing Buddha finding him strange abuse Buddha verbally but then Buddha just walks past this shower of abuse not showing any change of his expression.
Retaining his enlightened state he walks past. After they walk past the village his disciple asks Buddha “what is this, these people have been insulting you but then you have just walked past undeterred and there is no change in you. There should be some sort of anger an expression of anger in you”. For which Buddha says “I just don’t take what they have said”. So this is the art of retaining self possession. Know what you must take and know what you must not take. Where did the insults on Buddha go? It went back to the people who directed this insult towards Buddha. Know what you should deserve and what you should not. One thing that is very important is as long as we are in this physical state where our soul’s reside in your body we can’t hope to be extra physical persons.
We are people whose souls reside in our body. We are bound to nature so we need to take care of our bodily needs. This is very important in the art of retaining possession. That is why if pleasure gives you balance. If pleasure helps you in retaining your capacity to judge where you can exercise your righteousness and where you can afford to make mistakes. If pleasure can help you out with this then indulge in it. Indulge in it in the amount that will satisfy your desires. I don’t want you to indulge in excessive or abusive pleasure. Pleasure can be experienced in safe and useful ways. It is a pleasure to teach your child something useful in his life. It is a pleasure to plant a tree in your garden. It is a pleasure to watch the sun rise. It is a pleasure to have sex with your beloved wife. That is the sort of pleasure that I am talking about. The aversion of pleasure is not control. Aversion of reasonable pleasure that we embodied souls are bound to causes us to loose our balance or equilibrium. We are as people capable of knowing when we should be firm on things and not be. We should know when we have the liberty of mistake and when we don’t have the liberty of mistake. What are you going to prove by retaining your firmness? When you say you are firm of doing something about achieving something think whether it is really worth the purpose be firm be persistent. But in being persistent know your place very well. You could say something that is true. You could say something that is un-harm full. But the place in which you are may not be conducive for you to reveal the truth. It is not only true it is also un-harm full and really be good. But the place in which you are may not be suitable for you to reveal this thing. So be very aware of it. What was I talking about? I was talking about self control and talked about retaining control. I also talked about where we can loose our control so that we can relax our mind and body. This is a very big topic it is a very intricate delicate and complex art.
My efforts at telling this may not be complete even if I make one or more tries. I may not be complete in fully expressing the nuances of this art of self possession or self retention.
I may not be in a position to reveal much. I have already talked about judgment. Judge if we are really in need to curtail our actions. Judge whether you can openly enjoy your actions. Judge whether there is really any action in action. “One who sees action in inaction and inaction in action is a yogi and he has accomplished all his tasks” this was something that I read somewhere it came to my mind. Relax your mind and body whenever you have time for it and in a position of it. When you at home, when you are intimate with your loving people, your parents, your children, your friends and wife, relax. One significant thing that I am going to talk about is you need not always control yourself. There are instances where you can allow some one else to take control over you.
If you are too tired and don’t know what to do then it is good that you allow some other trust worthy person to take control over you. If you are in distress and if your wife really has experience in quelling your distress, then, allow her to take control over you. If she is an expert in judging and delivering what is good to you then let her take control over you. After you return tired from the office and you have tried to cope up with a lot of problems and after you have given a lot of solutions you reach home tired and you no longer want to be in control let her take control over you. Let her care for you. If your child returns from school tired of learning and learning and burdening himself too much of things that he may not understand really. Then you take control over him. Play with him tickle him embrace him. So all these things are important, even being controlled is such a joy. But be careful about who controls you. “Anger” we in a lot of instances in life get angry, a lot of events happen and these events may not be in our favor. We may become angry because of these events which are not in our favor. Anger is different from happiness and sorrow because it is a sort of aggression. How can you control this? You can give a vent to your anger or you can understand that you are angry and then go about setting things right. When things are set right you know that you have corrected the problem or issue. You don’t have that anger. Don’t be angry, don’t be angry at all. You may in circumstances act like being angry because we may have to work with common people. When common people respond to you when you are angry and when they think that they should act only when the boss commands them in anger you can act as if you are angry.
But I tell you anger is not good. It is detrimental to the mind as well as the body. So what will you do when you are angry? You first realize that you are angry and then analyze the cause of this anger and try to set it right. Your anger should make you eager to set things right. There should be persistence in your thought that you should set things right. And once you have set the things right your purpose is attained and then anger disappears.
What purpose can anger have? If it has the purpose of insulting someone and then escalating the problem further then that is not what you should do. But then if it serves the purpose of you becoming eager and energetic in finding a solution to the problem then it is ok. So that is how you take things in life. That is how you go about dealing with a lot of mood changes. Your mood is not always stable you sometimes be happy, sometimes you become sad, sometimes you become relaxed, sometimes you become energetic, sometimes you become enthusiastic, sometimes there is anxiety, sometimes there is hope. Sometimes there is desperation, sometimes there is elation and sometimes there is depression. So there are a lot of moods we are bound to these moods. The art of possession is very important when we are in the state of these moods. If we know that these moods are nothing but manifestation of inadequacies in bodily parameters. We will know how to be independent of such mood swings. If we come to realize that these mood changes are a result of changes in bodily parameters. We will know that we can be stable even in mood swings. If we constantly teach ourselves this art of self possession or retention. You may not be happy. You may start the day but you realize that your son has done something bad. You may become sad you may become angry at him. And you may have to go to the office. But when you reach office you may be in the same state of sadness and anger. But if you realize that the actions that emanate from this state of your mood will be detrimental to the relationships that you may have to manage in the office. Then you will mend your actions. Despite being sad, despite being angry people will be able to make out that you are sad and angry. But then if you exercise caution in your action they will also that this man despite being in a state of imbalance is giving the right action. He is doing a measured act, he is being very reasonable. He is using his judgment. Then they will appreciate it. They will tend not to put further imbalance in the state you are in if they are helping. But then if you go to the office and then shout at your boss or shout at your secretary then it will trigger a chain reaction. Then it won’t solicit cooperation. It will trigger non cooperation people may not cooperate with you. They will think that you are very arbitrary and very not unreasonable and irresponsible. Even in a state of anger if you are aware of it and deliver good action. What else can I talk about self control? The feelings are very important there has to be a balance of a lot of feelings so whenever you get a chance. Whenever you feel that, whenever you come to realize that the imbalance or some sort of feeling try to fulfill it. If you have a strong desire to watch a fiction movie and you haven’t been for it for a long time it may not suit your balance. Go and watch it watch a fiction movie. What’s the harm in doing so give some time for your feelings too. If you feel that you have been deprived of loneliness for a long time, be lonely take a shot. Ok if you feel that you have to be persistent in being active for a long time or long hours. Think whether it is really worth it. Whether the situation demands it if the situation demands it do it. Don’t be a workaholic. If you feel like having alcohol have it if you feel like having it but then don’t go to the state of a workaholic.
Alcohol should help you in retaining control. It should not make you uncontrollable. If you are driving don’t take alcohol. If you are to be fully receptive to stimulus if you are to be fully receptive to sensory perception or intellectual perception then don’t take alcohol. But then if you want to relax, if you are in safe places where you can loose some amount of your sensory perception and intellectual perception. Then take alcohol. It is medicine. The medicine gives you side effects. It is the same thing it has to be a medicine it should not become a poison. So I don’t advocate alcoholism. It is very bad. So what else? Ok as I have told you one or two attempts at describing the art of retaining possession is not sufficient. I may have to make further more attempts. Any how my talk has been very slow. It is because of the nature I have been talking about. Ok bye see you.
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