Life is like a movie beamed on a screen

Swami Akshara

You would make an obvious mistake, almost always, when you think the world outside is independent of you.

If you see a brand new car parked on the road, glistening in sunshine, it is not just because of only the sunlight, but also because of you.

Your mind gives life to what you see, hear, smell, taste and touch. Your self from inside flows through the mind and reaches the object outside. Indeed and action it gets filtered by your mind in between the subject (self) and object (the car).

Just like a projector plugged in to a power socket nearby, the mind is plugged into your consciousness (self). The projector cannot function without the electricity and so is your mind which cannot function without consciousness.

While the movie projector sends light beams to show images on a plain white screen, your mind is projecting ideas, opinions, beliefs on the canvas of the world.

Did you notice, that you immediately comment on just about everything you see around you as good, bad, right, wrong, hopeless and incredible? That comment is the projection of the mind.

While the self enables your eyes to see the object, your mind goes on with the commentary. The projection and commentary are endless. These abilities called Vikshepa Shakti (power the mind).

The hitch is, your mind’s projection and commentary need not be always right, however much you take them for real and try hard as you can to impose it on others too.

That’s why the same world appears differently to different people. The same life is experienced with such differences amongst all human beings.

To stop projecting is to ask for the impossible to happen to you at the start.

But certainly, I can suggest to you to be aware of this projection and commentary when they happen. And voila! That’s the beginning of a whole new perception in you, towards life.

A beginning where you would want to see the sunrise as sunrise and not as a beautiful sunrise, that the prime time serial on the television has actors enacting roles and not real life characters.

You would come around soon to figure out the fact that you have dumped your whim and fancy upon just about everything you come face to face with. You have created a surreal world of your own.

Its a kind of a dream with your eyes open, watching this world in a manner that your mind personally interprets to you. As long as the mind is at work, there will be projections invariably.

But not as much as a mind that knew and is in awareness of the projections. Projection happens in both, the ignorant and the aware mind.

But a mind in awareness now has stopped the projection of its own but allows the consciousness(self) alone to flow through itself to reach the objects.

The meditative mind is able to see this world as it is. It projects the consciousness alone without any distortion. However, even after that, you would still be commenting on the world and your experiences, but you will know that its just for the sake of it and you don’t really mean to comment that way.