A messenger of awakening

By Rohit Sahoo

The famous lines of Rudyard Kipling, “East is East and West is West, and never the twins shall meet” seem to be proved wrong. The Eastern spirituality is now deeply embedded in otherwise skeptical westerners’ lives. The prosperous west appears to have a new quest; discovering the meaning of life. Australia, a country situated in the eastern hemisphere and culturally western, is the ideal place where the east and west can meet.

Just recently, when a kid asked a pointed question to a visiting Indian spiritual guru about the purpose of life, his answer was simple and touching: “No God is sitting in the seventh heaven to give you any purpose. Everything in this existence is an end in itself. Have you ever asked a mother what is the purpose of loving her children so much? She will be startled because to her, loving her child is an end in itself. The same is the case with life. The only purpose it has is to live it fully.”

The guru was Sakshi Shree, addressing a gathering of seekers and skeptics at Paravilla Function Centre in Sydney. Since his retirement as a top bureaucrat for the Indian Government, he is now expounding a refreshing take on the purpose and meaning of life in simple and effective terminology. But there is a catch when he says, “Live life to the optimum level.” For a westerner, a good life means a luxury home, a big car, and holidays to exotic locations. In a nutshell, western life is all about gratification. We are living life on the plane of body, mind, and emotion only. But every human has a soul too. When Sakshi Shree advised us to live life optimally, he meant to live on the plane of consciousness. And this is the only purpose of life.

Sakshi Shree said that first and foremost, you must cease to identify yourself with your body and mind. But it’s not as simple as it seems. This requires a complete inner transformation. How will this transformation take place? He says, “Only if you stay alert. Awakening happens at three levels: First on the plane of the body, second on the plane of mind, and third on the plane of emotions. Be mindful of your thoughts and watch them dispassionately. Don’t resist or get in conflict with your thoughts, just be a witness. You will find that you have become more aware of what you are eating, how you are reacting to the situations, and whether your body is feeling light or heavy. You will discover that your mind is a little less crowded now. You are feeling light and relaxed. You will realize that what is coming from outside is mere information, it doesn’t belong to you. But what is emerging from the inside is priceless. This is self-realization. Someday you will get a little taste of your soul, your consciousness. The key is meditation and mindfulness.”

We must pay attention to this Indian guru when he sounded a warning about the perils of identification with thoughts. He warned us, “Our identification with thoughts has ravaged the planet with countless wars in the name of religion, nationalism, race, language, territory, etc.” People heard him in rapt attention. Were they thinking about Russia and Ukraine? Maybe! He stressed the need for the synthesis of ideas.

Sakshi Shree will come again in September this year, but his ideas are food for thought for the spiritual community here. And his ideas are simple and inspiring.