The Book of Secrets - Deepak Chopra [108]
As you keep reading, these themes get elaborated hundreds of times over with such total conviction that the reader becomes mesmerized. The sentences sound arcane, sometimes inconceivable, but then that is the point—this is life compressed into ideas as dense as diamonds:
Whatever the mind thinks of, that alone it sees.
What people call fate or divine will is nothing other than action from the past acting upon itself.
Even as motion is inherent in air, manifestation is inherent in consciousness.
As you pore over his words, it’s easy to fall into a kind of trance in which the visible world blows away like a feather. The effect isn’t to inspire or uplift: Vashistha offers absolutely no consolation. Nothing matters to him except essence, and therefore he is the ultimate teacher on the subject of getting real. Getting real is the goal of this book, too, and therefore I’ve tried to distill Vashistha’s advice on how to live if you are totally serious about waking up from unreality. He describes four conditions that must exist if you want to find reality:
Contentment
Inquiry
Self-awareness
Strength
Four ordinary, somewhat innocuous words. What did he mean by them, this sage who knew essence perhaps better than anyone who ever lived?
Contentment: This is the quality of restfulness in the mind. Someone who is content exists without doubt and fear. Doubt is a constant reminder that there is no answer to the mystery of life, or that all answers will turn out to be untrustworthy. Fear is a constant reminder that you can be hurt. As long as either of these beliefs exists in your mind, resting easy in yourself is impossible. So contentment must be won on the level where doubt and fear have been defeated.
Inquiry: To get real, you have to question the unreal over and over until it disappears. This process is a kind of peeling away. You look at something that seems reliable and trustworthy, and if it betrays your trust, you say, “No, this isn’t it,” and throw it away. The next thing that asks for your trust also gets examined, and if it proves unreliable, you peel it away as well. Layer by layer, you keep inquiring until you reach something that is completely trustworthy, and that thing must be real.
Self-Awareness: This quality tells you where to conduct your inquiry—not outside in the material world, but in yourself. Turning inward doesn’t happen as a single step. For every challenge there are always two solutions—inner and outer. Only by working through every reason to look outward are you left with why you should look inward.
Strength: Because you are looking inward, no one from the outside can help you. This implies a kind of isolation and solitude that only the strong can accept. Strength is not a given; it’s not that the strong are born different from the weak. Your inner strength grows from experience. The first stages of looking inward give you a hint that you can get real, and with that bit of added strength you move forward. You grow in resolve and certainty. You test what you find out until it feels secure. Step by step you discover that strength is built from experience. The journey itself makes you strong.
Vashistha has almost nothing else to say about everyday matters. No one has to start living a certain way or stop living a certain way in order to get real. Vashistha’s viewpoint is totally accepting: He is content to allow life to unfold. “For only as long as one invests any object with reality,” he says, “that bondage lasts; once that notion goes, with it goes bondage.” In other words, unreality has to melt away on its own. Until it