Enlightenment is just a step away: Awareness

The early mornings in the beginning of winters have a mild chill. So here I’m draped in a chador, the best way the farmers and their ilk feel warm. Give them the best of a thermal clothing, which would keep one warm even in Antarctica, but the farmers would feel unequipped against cold in the absence of chador or blanket load over them. It only shows the level of habits in shaping our realities.

So here I’m draped in a light chador picking up fresh clothes to wear after a bath. The set of clothes slung over my arm, I’m looking for the missing towel. The towel has gone missing. It gives me concern as I go searching over the place. Then the concern turns to irritation for the inconvenience caused due to the missing towel. Then arrives self-justification. I’m sure that I always place my things at their proper place. So the reason for the missing towel must be someone else, not me. My family members can hear my irritated exclamations over the missing towel as I wander around looking for it. It’s not to be found anywhere. I’m sure that I cannot be so careless as to put it at a place where it cannot be found. There is a prompt conclusion that someone else has misplaced it—the very same old habit of putting the blame outside of one’s own self. ‘I always place it here, someone has misplaced it for sure!’ they hear my summarized mumbling over the episode.

Then it’s found. All of them are staring at me as it’s found. It’ there on my shoulder, hidden by the fold of chador draped around me. That was the first item I had picked up but then the chador corner must have slipped over and while adjusting it the towel got hidden. So here I stand with my lost towel found now. The towel that was always with me. But for whom I had already gone searching out, looked for the missing cause outside and already made judgments about the others as the cause.

It’s deeply humbling to be caught so wrong-footed, to be found so unaware. It only shows the level of unawareness we carry with ourselves on a daily basis. Then we go for a frantic search over the missing towel, the towel that was never lost. We go out on a search outside and naturally look for the reasons for its misplacement in other people.

Well, the towel is always there. But it’s hidden in the deep folds of the chador of unawareness. The chador of ignorance spun by a conditioned and customized self; made of the threads of limiting beliefs, fears and insecurities. Unawareness is draped around us like a chador’s folds and hides the towel of our real self. And thinking that the towel has gone missing, i.e., our real essential self, we go on a frantic search. We believe it to be outside. And when we don’t find it, obviously we blame others.

Like the missing towel we have lost touch with our real self. The hiding blanket of unawareness draped around us gives us a false sense of security against cold and vicissitudes of life. The towel of our real self is hidden among its folds. And we going on a futile search, feeling restless, wading our way through the network of family, friends, relatives, acquaintances. Assuming them or the larger world outside to be the cause of the missing towel. And we won’t feel the real rest till we find the missing towel. It but is nowhere to be found. How will it be found outside? It has been with us all along this time. But we have moved far and wide. We judge and blame others for the missing towel. We try different occupations, careers, faiths, belief systems and relationships to find the missing towel but fail.

The experience was deeply humbling. It showed me how our unawareness is the cause of all the unhappiness. From the missing towel to the estrangement with our true essential self, it’s the same germ of unawareness that begets us unhappiness and suffering. We just need to watch, understand and be aware of all that goes within and around us. Then maybe suddenly we find the towel slung right there on our own shoulder, while we had futilely covered miles after miles searching for it.