The feeling of “I am doing” creates a big burden in the mind. It causes arrogance in success and regret in failure.  Both will affect your future performance. The desire to remain on top always causes feverishness and the inability to do that causes frustration and depression.

For an advanced seeker (Sadhak), this simile helps him to observe himself and remain as a witness to all his actions and experiences. It is a state of ‘knowing’.

What does it mean? We all know that we become happy or angry according to our sensory experiences. That means, our mental state is decided or dominated by external people or objects or simply speaking, the ‘outside world’.

To begin with, you start observing your own actions and reactions. You will observe your own thoughts, words and deeds and what you feel when you see and hear others. Others’ words and actions will create certain reactions in your mind. This happens in an unconscious state, which means, you do not know that you are angry or jealous when it happens, and then regret later.

As your observation increases, your knowledge about your own state of mind increases.