Give Life to Your Experience: Extract from a Lecture by Swami Mani Finger

We try all day to create happiness and freedom from suffering in our lives, but so often, in one fell swoop, act not only as the creator, but also as the executioner of our happy experiences. We see something beautiful, experience something beautiful-yet the moment the experience is ended, so is its effect upon our lives.

Why does the experience not live on through the rest of the day? You wake up early in the morning, take a breath of lovely fresh air, see the beautiful sun rise, then turn towards the day’s activities within an hour you are tense, worried, negative and the executioner of all the wonders you have experienced. And this is not all. You become the undertaker as well.

Your experience should, and can, colour the rest of your day. The technique used, is to deepen the awareness of everything that is happening, by working wholeheartedly in the laboratory of your experiences.

Take sleep for instances. So many people enquire about sleeping problems. But, if you use your awareness or consciousness properly, there should be no problem at all.

Here is a technique. When you ready or go to sleep, unlock the laboratory of your mind and work through the day’s experiences. Go through all that has happened to you through the day, from the moment of rising. The moment you strike any discord or hate, reverse the attitude of that experience. Forgive, if necessary, and change the hate to love, thus squaring up your accounts for that day. But don’t go beyond that day.

Having thus got a receipt, you then visualize that your mattress embraces you like a huge soft cloud. You will find that the awareness of this harmony concept will enable you to fall asleep.

It is no use saying: “oh, I am a busy executive” or “this is too simple for me”. Harmony is something which you must create.