Words from the Master

Yes…
Swamiji, earlier you mentioned about drinking. My husband drinks ever so often claiming that he drinks to forget his worries. What do I do?

As I told you, this is a common problem. Anyhow, if your husband was here it would have been helpful. If you analyze the habit of drinking, you will understand how self-contradictory you are. Let me try to explain:

You drink to feel joyful, but you end up becoming miserably miserable.
You drink so that you can be called sociable, so that society will accept you, but you land up becoming argumentative!
You drink so that you will look sophisticated but you end up looking insufferable.
You drink so that you can sleep forgetting all your worries but you wake up feeling…? more exhausted than ever!
You drink to experience ecstasy and end up feeling depressed!
You drink to feel confident but end up becoming afraid of yourself.
You drink to maintain the conversation but end up becoming incoherent.
You drink to see your problems dissolve but end up seeing them multiply!

All these are the truth and you know it better than I do! Now tell me honestly, is it really worth drinking? This is how self-contradictory you are in not only this matter but in all matters in life. If you clearly knew what you want to do and spent every ounce of your energy in that direction, you will grow steadily and experience joy. You will then never be self-contradictory.

Every time you drink, drink with complete awareness. Let me explain: Every time you drink, drink consciously, slowly, watching every movement of yours, tasting every drop of the drink, watching the reaction of your body to it. Make it a process filled with acute awareness. I assure you, if you do this every time you decide to drink, you do not have to drop the habit, the habit will leave you forever.

Addiction to anything is an unconscious or mechanical process. It is not just addiction to drinks or tobacco. It is addiction to even religion. People who pray unconsciously and mechanically, following a routine, will find it very hard if they miss even one day’s prayer. For them, it is an addiction and so it causes anxiety when missed. Just like when an alcoholic misses his evening drink, he starts trembling in insecurity, the mechanically religious person will feel a big void if he misses his routine prayer.

The key is to understand the difference between doing things with awareness and doing things mechanically and out of fear. Doing things in the former fashion will never bring you under any sort of binding. It will not bind you in space and time. You will be a master. Doing things in the latter way will bind you and cause misery to you. You will be a slave.

To drop an addiction, flood it with awareness; it will transform in the right way. Remember: Never think that you need to drop an addiction. Anything that you resist will persist. You simply need to transform it by deep awareness, that’s all. When you understand the language of transformation, you are on the right track; you are on the path of openness.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.