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Ājnā---The Eye of Inner Wisdom
Naturally, there will be critics who will want to review your performance. From this center, you can accept both their praise and their criticism with equanimity. You know you must play this drama lightheartedly. After all, what was deadly serious to you in one season of life seems unimportant to you in another. So why should you be somber and inhibited in your acting? Why lose your real identity in the roles you play? Why spoil the drama with tension?
Most people have no idea what they are really doing in life. They identify totally with the process of gain and loss, fame and shame. They do not see that their minds are under the influence of the outer world of changing opinion. In time, this influence crystallizes into psychological conditioning—set patterns of thought—so that people lose touch with the core of their being. They lose touch with the real experience and do not taste the freshness of each moment of life.
We cannot avoid the influence of the world, but we can liberate ourselves from the bondage of identification with it. Normally, by the end of every day, we have retained in our consciousness some residue of the world's influence. This residue surfaces in our dreams at night. We have stored so much of this residue in our consciousness over the years that our centers have become blocked. Burdened by our fears and anger, we lose spontaneity in our life.
It is time we cleared our mental slate. The process of meditation lifts the cloud of confusion and dissolves our crystallized conditioning so that we can perceive the world and ourselves with a new clarity. The light of awareness will transform our thoughts and emotions. It will transmute our self-destructive patterns of behavior into positive,
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