Before we begin the story, I recommend you spend a few seconds looking at the image of this girl. She has a vacant expression in her eyes. Most of us have this expression when dealing with uncertainty because our mind constantly creates stories about possible outcomes. Beyond a point, we lose the ability to process these stories, leading to the infinite gaze. We live and prosper in a world where predictability and certainty are rewarded when it comes to individual and organizational performance. However, we operate in an increasingly volatile and constantly evolving world. Organizations constantly look for and reward individuals who can provide this perception of predictability while operating in a volatile ecosystem. How do you become such an individual? Let's learn that by reviewing the story of King Janaka.
The mighty emperor Janaka was asleep in his palace and suddenly jerked awake. People were screaming, and guards were running around. They shouted about an invasion by an enemy and asked the king to defend the kingdom. Janaka slipped on his armor, led his army, and fought a terrible battle. He was finally defeated and dragged to the enemy. Since Janaka was of royal blood, the emperor said he could not be killed and banished him from the kingdom. Janaka wandered around in his kingdom with his clothes in tatters and covered with filth and dust. No one dared offer him food or water because they did not want to upset the new king.
Janaka crossed over to the next kingdom. He saw poor people being fed a humble meal in an ashram (Indian spiritual hermitage). He stood in line for the food, and by the time he reached the counter, the person serving folded their hands and apologized since the food was over. Janaka begged him to scrape the bottom of the barrel and gave him something. After receiving the food, Janaka brought the bowl to his lips when a kite knocked it out of his hands. This was the last straw. Janaka collapsed on the floor with a cry and asked God to end his life.
Janaka suddenly woke up on his bed with his heart pounding and his body drenched in sweat. Guards ran in upon hearing his scream and enquired about his wellbeing. While most of us would have said it was just a dream, Janaka was more inquisitive. He mumbled, "Yeh Sach Ya Woh Sach." Is this true, or is that true?
His queen came over to visit him and was escorted by the finest doctors in the kingdom. Janaka kept saying, “Yeh Sach ya Woh Sach.” "Is this the truth, or was my dream the truth."
The story spreads like wildfire around the kingdom. The king had lost his senses. Hearing about the king's state, the sage Ashtavakra came to meet him.
Ashtavakra walked up to the king. Since he was a spiritual master, he knew what was troubling the king. He gently asked the king whether he experienced defeat, humiliation, pain, and exhaustion at the present moment. Janaka thought for a while and said, "No." The sage then asked, "all the majesty, might, your army, your beautiful queen, were they with you when you were lying on the road ready to die?" The emperor whispered, "No, I was alone."
Ashtavakra emphatically said that’s why neither this is true nor that is true.
He elaborates that even when the world as we see it is was not true, we experience it like it's real. Similarly, in the dream, the pain and humiliation experienced by the king felt real, but it was not. He summarized that "Neither this not is true, but you are the truth." You are the truth, and the world is mithya or an illusion.
When you read King Janaka's story, you realize that he is mentally paralyzed by the duality of two choices in front of him. He is unable to distinguish between them and becomes incapable of action. Think back to moments in your life when you have experienced such intense uncertainty. Here are some common scenarios:
Your organization recently got acquired and you don't know how it will impact your role.
You are preparing for a crucial job or promotion interview and it seems everything rides on it
You are preparing for a crucial exam and are paralyzed by the amount of information you have to remember.
You are new to an organization and everything seems extremely intimidating.
You are a part of a high-performance team and you constantly feel like an imposter.
In all these scenarios, your mind is rushing through a series of possible outcomes and YOU witness this and feel overwhelmed. Did you notice I drew a distinction between your mind and YOU? We don't do that most of the time. This fact is so crucial that Google invested in a series called Search Inside Yourself to help employees develop mindfulness. Here's a one-line summary of mindfulness.
You are not your mind. Instead, you can observe your mind and train it.
How can you free yourself from the paralysis imposed by thoughts? When my guru Om Swami suggested this method, I laughed out aloud. It was too simple to work. However, over time I realized that genius lies in simplicity. He said every time, you feel you are being drawn into a slipstream of thoughts pause and ask yourself the following question:
What should I be doing at this moment?
When you bring your mind to the present moment, you realized the essential truth. None of the scenarios your mind cooked up is real. All you can control is the present moment. You then focus on doing whatever is the best course of action for the present moment. You study, prepare, learn, smile, relax and focus on enjoying the process. It takes time and some mindfulness to focus on the present moment. Meditation as a practice helped me a lot. I used Black Lotus, and it made a difference.
One of the best illustrations of the power of this process comes from the work of Dr. Lisa Barrett one of the worlds leading neuroscientists.
Neuroscientists like to say that your day-to-day experience is a carefully controlled hallucination, constrained by the world and your body but ultimately constructed by your brain,” writes Dr Barrett, who is a University Distinguished Professor at Northeastern and who has research appointments at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. “It’s an everyday kind of hallucination that creates all of your experiences and guides all your actions. It’s the normal way that your brain gives meaning to the sensory inputs from your body and from the world (called “sense data”), and you’re almost always unaware that it’s happening.
https://www.gq.com/story/lisa-feldman-barrett-interview
When we are awake, we see the world, do our job, spend time with our families, love, and get heartbroken, but it all disappears when we sleep and enter a different world. However, in a deep sleep, even that world disappears.
We consider our waking state real because we spend all our time in this state. Ashtavakra gave the king the example of a gold necklace. It’s false, yet it appears to be true. The same gold is used to make a necklace and bracelet or ring. The names are different, and they look different and are used differently. However, the only reality for all three ornaments is gold. Without the gold, they don’t stand, and this is reality. Take away gold from all of them, and they don’t exist.
What does the name necklace refer to then? It’s a word without a referent. The reality of gold is not affected by name or form. Nothing has happened to it. Consciousness appears as a physical world. The same consciousness without changing appears as a dream. The same awareness shuts down, and we have a deep sleep. However, when we wake up from deep sleep we still feel rested and better so we conclude that deep sleep is also another state.
The Madnukya Upanishads, an ancient Hindu text states waking is no more real than a dream. Everyone protests when they hear this the first time. Ask yourself this question. “If you are thirsty when you are awake, will water in the waking world will satisfy your thirst?” “If you are thirsty in a dream, will water in the dream help you satisfy the thirst”? When you ponder this, we realize that different states of awareness are not equal to different states of consciousness. There is only one permanent state of consciousness, and that is Brahman.
The following video provides you with more profound information about this story.
Indic knowledge systems present some of the most esoteric knowledge in the world. However, in ancient times, the guru would choose the brightest students to give them this knowledge. We are fortunate to have these texts available to us. However, in order to receive them we need to purify our minds and Vedic Sadhana is the most powerful way to do it. You can use the Vedic Sadhana app, which makes the ancient rituals and practices followed by the sages of India available for you.
