Photo Courtesy: bvaradinov
Consciousness and the ability to think and communicate is what distinguishes a human being from the rest. The exchange of ideas, learning and communicating with the external has always enabled our outward growth, ideas and experiences are an outcome of various thoughts and learnings which happen over the course of our lives. However, when we are able to shift the focus from the external to the internal and start paying attention to our internal thought streams we realize that there is a constant churning of thoughts always at play, and if we can stay in a space where we can observe this churn and are able to appreciate the outcome of the churning then our path of self-discovery has begun.
Any path of self discovery or better still self actualization has to start from within. Our scriptures have often used powerful stories to illustrate this complex nuanced concept, and one such fabled story from Indian scriptures is that of “Samudra Manthan or Churning of Ocean ”
The ocean is a metaphor of a source of wealth—known and unknown. This story is an invitation to reflect on the vastness of the ocean, its unlimited potential, its beauty, and the possibility of it existing within us as an untapped unconscious.
The story is a classic between the conflict of good over evil and the eventual divine intervention in ensuring that the good prevails over evil, but one has to dig deeper to really understand the nuanced, yet highly empowering message embedded in the story. The churning requires both the demonic and divine qualities —this means that one needs to come to terms with both the demonic and divine qualities within oneself. Every detail of this story is a symbol. The nectar of immortality is a metaphor for “becoming free of ignorance”.
To make this simple, this story represents our path to our higher consciousness. We struggle against our ego, there are challenges, roadblocks, mental anguish - you name it. However, we must push beyond the ego, beyond the poison that clouds us & binds us to our lower self & keeps us from our higher consciousness & optimal health.
Questions to reflect upon are :
What is the churning that is happening in our consciousness?
What are we doing today that supports life?
What are we doing that is taking us far from our true selves?
What is that nectar of immortality, in our own life, which we are after?
Over the next few articles, I will attempt to go deeper into this story and let us together dig deeper and try to understand this wonderful and meaningful story of Samudra Manthan and how it applies to our lives.
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