Permanance of Change

Nothing is permanent but the change. Everything else changes around us. The seasons, the weathers, day-night, months, weeks; everything changes. This change is a permanent happening. And this is wrong on our part to say that everything should remain as it is, and nothing should change. Because if this change doesn’t happen, then the growth will also not happen. The growth which has occurred in your body, in your mind has happened because of this continuous change.

Somehow it is so difficult for the man to accept the change. Someone loves you and then you go on expecting the love. But the next moment the person may change. The person may hate you. Then you get disturbed. You are not disturbed because of this hatred. But because of this expectation which you had from the person. The person has changed. The person is alive. So he or she is bound to change. But only if you could see the reality, you would not get disturbed. The one who was in love a moment before can be in hate a moment later. But wait. Again the circle of the life moves. And the person may love you again. So don’t be in a hurry. Just be patient. Only if others could also see this change, this change of patterns, which will happen, then no one would be fighting with the other person, just for the change. And we fight with one another accusing that you have changed. You haven’t remained the same.

Only dead bodies don’t change. Living people will change. Now lets come closer and have a look at your body. It changes. If you try to understand your mind closely, even it changes. Its never the same. Even for two consecutive moments, nothing is same. Your personality goes on like a flow of river. If this is all and there is nothing which remains the same continuously, eternally, timelessly, then who would remember that this was my childhood?

Childhood has changed. You don’t have that body. Do you even remember where you left that body or where has it been stored? The body has changed. But this change is happening so slowly, so gradually so silently that even you, who are living in this body are not aware that your body is changing.

There is someone who is not changing within. The one who is remembering, the one who is constantly keeping this subtle contact with this changing body and who knows that this is my body. Who knows about the youth, about the old age. Simply speaking, the one who knows. This knower must remain the same. The one who is witnessing these phenomenons has to remain same. Only then this witness can have a perspective. The witness can say, that was my childhood, that was my young age, this is my old age, that moment I was in love, that moment I was in animosity, that moment animosity changed into fiction and fiction into love. This witnessing consciousness, this knower is always the same.

We have two realms or two dimensions existing together in us. We are both. The changing one and the non changing one. If we become aware of these two realms, then this technique will be very helpful. The technique is to observe the one which never changes. So who will be this observer? The mind? But mind is changing. So is the intellect, so is the body. You observe the observer who is observing all these changes happening. Remember, that which remains always same, that’s the center. Because on the periphery, the change is occurring every single moment.

Now, your inner being never changes. But you can forget it. You can be so engrossed and obsessed with this changing world which is happening in such a fast speed around you that you may completely forget your own center. And your own center is you. The center is so much clouded by the changing flux. Now this is one of the biggest dilemma of the mind. The mind wishes to stick in the glorious moments and wants to run away from the sad moments. But the mind will never try to observe or look underneath all these changes to find who is the one who is not changing. Its difficult. When the change is happening so constantly, so gradually with such a slow pace, it will go unnoticed. For example, if there is a constant noise happening around you, you will not be aware of it. For example, a clock. The tick-tack of the clock is happening the whole day. And you are living in that room. Your ears are listening, your mind is listening. And then one day that sound is not existing for you. But if suddenly the clock stops, you will immediately become aware. Something has happened.

If something is constantly the same, we don’t take notice of that. But then something changes and mind jumps with all its attention and alertness to notice what happened. It creates a gap and the pattern vibrates. You are hearing a sound continuously so there was no need to hear it. It was there. It became part of your life. But now suddenly when the clock stops, a big change happens. You will become aware. You will notice. Your consciousness will suddenly come to that pause and the mind will wonder, what has happened. Its just like when a tooth falls out, then our tongue goes continuously to that gap. As long as all the teeth were safe and secure in your mouth, your tongue remains lying in the mouth. But the moment that space, that gap is created, the whole day, howsoever you try not to touch that gap with your tongue, but your tongue would be going as if some habit has been created and it will go again and again and again. It will try to fill up that gap. Because something is missing. The background has changed. Something new has happened.

That’s the reason there is so much craze for newness in our life. We get bored with the sameness of the life. People get bored of the same faces, of the same relationships, of the same house, of the same office. Thus they are always lurking for something new. Because this new creates a gap. This new creates an attentiveness. This newness creates an alertness. Thus this modern man is always hankering for something new. A new toy, a new car, a new girl friend, a new boy friend, a new scenario, a new office, a new job. And this whole search and this whole run is happening just because of the mind’s habit of being in the gap. Because these gaps create strange kind of newness.

Whenever something new enters, we become conscious for various reasons. Number one: it is for the safety reason. We need to be alert and aware if anything new happens because it may be dangerous. So to survive we have to observe what change has occurred and we have to take notice. We have to adjust again and again to the new situations that come into our life. But say if everything remains as it is, then there is no need. Then you don’t need to be aware. Because the sameness is constant. And this sameness in us, in this life has been called the Atma.

The body changes, the mind changes, the feelings change, intellect changes, senses changes. But someone doesn’t change. The Vedas don’t say that you don’t change. They gave a new name. They said Atma doesn’t change. So that your mind wakes up and takes a notice of what is that in me which doesn’t change. Now the soul, the Atma has always been there from the very beginning and that’s the very reason that we don’t take notice of it. We are not aware of it. Because it has been eternally the same nonchangeable.

And it is so permanently the same, eternally the same that we miss it. We are missing our own true being. We take notice of the body, we take notice of the mind, we take notice of the changing thoughts and feelings and sensations and we think about them, we become one with them. We know them. We get identified with them. But we don’t take notice of our own true self or Atma. Because it is absolutely non changing, eternally the same. So the whole spiritual effort is to find the non changeable amidst the changables. To find the eternal amongst these non eternal ones. To seek the real center. And only those who become aware that there is something which doesn’t change, only those will take notice of it. So now for a change, you have to bring your awareness from others to self. As I have already said, the change is good. So initially the change was regarding others but now let it be a change for yourself. So know who you really are. What your true being is. What is there within you which is constantly non changing.