BEING CHILDLIKE: BAAL-BUDHI

Adopting the innocent mind of a child, I have found Peace... (sggs 214).
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An infant's mind is unconditioned for it is not influenced by the world. Such Pure mind is free of imprisonment from false ego — lust, anger, greed, attachment, pride, delusion, jealousy, lust, selfishness, fear, desires, stubborn mindedness, pride, confusion, conflict, fear, grief, repression and death. As an infant, we all were born with such a Pure mind! However, afterwards, while growing up, we were programmed and trained to identify with the feeling of "mine, mine!". In the process, side by side, false ego gets developed as we grow from infancy to adolescence. It then gets firmly-rooted after we marry and entangle in the achievement of various worldly desires. The moment physical ego becomes stronger in us, we become prisoner of cravings, fears and delusions. Consequently, the world-appearance looks real to us. And we take this body-frame to be our true Self.

Such conditioning results in false self-identifications with the time-bound consciousness, resulting in contamination of the state of Pure Being. The scriptures tell us to abandon this "burden" of false self-identifications with the time-bound consciousness if we wish to retrace our steps back to the Original State - the state of egolessness or desirelessness, Timeless Awareness or Intact Consciousness, Mool...

With the feeling of "I, me, mine, you" arises the confusion, in which we keep making one error: we take the inner for the outer and the outer for the inner. In other words, that Divine Substance which is in us, we take to be outside us, and what is outside (the world of gross objects) we take to be in us. Looking at it from an another angle, the mind and its projections are external. But, due to our faulty vision (Haume), we take them to be intimate. Consequently, we believe the world to be objective, while its entirely a projection of our psyche. Is there a way out of this dense forest of delusion? As revealed in the Gurbani, the way out of this time-bound awareness is to go back to our Original Nature — Mool... Thus, although the man was born with Intact Consciousness ("Saabat Soorat"), however, with the expression of Vaasnaas or ego-sense, he ended up being a limited body-mind-intellect, from which arose the perceiver of objects, the feeler of emotions, and the thinker of thoughts. To put it otherwise, when we were born, our consciousness was adorned with the Intuitive "Ease" (Sahaj). But, because of the forgetfulness of our True Unconditioned Nature, we have become "dis-eased" (diseased)! The Gurbani puts it as follows: How can the Jeeva (individual being) get out of this "diseased" condition? By reverting back to its initial state of Intuitive "Ease" or Baal-Budhi; declare the scriptures. Also, the scriptures urge man to think himself out of this "diseased" condition; for nobody else can do it for him! To put it in other way, one's sustained self-efforts are essential for success. Ball-Budhi denotes Sahaj Avasthaa, the state of Intuitive Stillness. Self-realization is nothing but attainment of Sahaj Avasthaa. The mind in purity is the the Joti Svaroop (Mool...) . As the mind of an infant remains in Sahaj Avasthaa, abidance in Baal-Budhi is nothing but abidance in the Pure Self. In other words, being childlike means Being oneself. This joy of Being — Timeless Awareness — gets disintegrated as over time our awareness becomes time-bound. Since the Pure Self is unchanging, man's True Nature, Sahaj, is also unchanging — it is Sahaj at birth, it is Sahaj during his entire life, and it remains Sahaj even after the destruction of his physical body (death). Therefore, Realization of Baal-Budhi is to know that we never were without It! Then who shattered this state of Natural Being in us? It is the rise of false ego-sense (Haumai) that caused Its disintegration! Ball-Budhi is the state of perfect detachment (Bairaag). However, with the rise of false ego, we become attached to world and its gross objects (Maya), and forget our True Nature in the process. To link back to Baal-Budhi, therefore, is to develop the attitude of detachment, which is the key to Realization of Spiritual Consciousness. Worldly attachments and inner renunciation are incompatible. It is only when the mind becomes totally detached to the attractions of the world that Spiritual Unfoldment can result. Worldly attachments will fall away on their own accord when the mind attains the necessary detachment with the practice of Jap. But the onus of actively engaging in Spiritual life is on the individual and there is no alternative to self-effort (Shabad-Vichaar...). Ball-Budhi also characterizes the state of complete inner surrende. But, what is surrender? It's the relinquishment of our falsehood or ego-mind! With the relinquishment of the false ego comes the Baal-Budhi. For instance, a mother puts her infant where ever she wants to; the infant does not know anything for he is in a state of complete surrender. He is left sometimes in the bed, sometimes in the crib and sometimes on the ground. She administers her milk knowing the infant's needs. Simply put: assuming the attitude of Baal-Budhi is to surrender to God's Hukam (Will or Divine Law). Baal-Budhi is transparency, Pure Truthfulness. It also signifies humbleness. It's devoid of duality (Doojaa Bhaav): there is no feeling of "likes" and "dislikes" in it. Also, like the Divine Spirit, an infant sees everybody with an even vision. Just as the infant is not under the control of Maya's three Gunas, similarly, the Divinity is also beyond the three Gunas — Saatav, Raajas and Taamas. God is in none other than the Sahaj Avasthaa, so is the infant. That's why after Realizing the Self, the man becomes like an infant! All we need to do is to set right our ideas of ourselves. So long we perceive the ego-center, there exists the sense of individuality or separateness between the mind and the Self. Where the mind's perversions have ended, there the mind ends, and rebounds back to its Original Nature, Baal-Budhi.

— T. Singh
www.gurbani.org

Updated on Monday, April 23, 2012 9:12 PM (PST)

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