Articles for Saadhana

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.

You know I am always thinking about spiritual matters particularly sadhana, how to make this sadhana aspect clear to the people, drive home the message of sadhana to the people in one way or the other. A thought that came to me today is that your mind has to become pure; your intelligence has to become clear. When does the mind become pure? When from your mind pure, noble and elevated thoughts go on emerging without any effort. This means the quality and character of the mind will have to change. Now the question is are you making any efforts to bring about a qualitative change in your mind? Maybe you want to become pure. But what are you doing for it? The mind is given to thinking and it thinks about the past, about the present. It is also concerned about the future. If you leave the mind to itself whatever has taken place in the past, that alone will be in the mind and the present will depend upon whatever routines, place and circumstances you are in.

So where is the scope for change? It is in this context that two distinct practices become relevant and helpful. One is you must have an austerity practice. What is that austerity practice? A practice by virtue of which your mind will be filled with some definite good, noble thoughts, feelings, insights and the like. It is in this context that what I told you some two days back becomes relevant. My mother asked me to recite Vishnu Sahasranāma and I went on reciting for years. Sitting in a place and chanting right from memory.

See, when we go on installing, instilling these sahasranāmās into our mind, the sahasranāma shabdās, their vibrations, their influence, they start penetrating into the mind and gaining a place. This is called a distinct abhyasa. It need not be Vishnu Sahasranama. In Vishnu Sahasranama you may not have much to think but it can be Bhagavadgeeta. It can be any other thing. The better will be things like Bhagavadgeeta, maybe some portions from Sreemad Bhagavatam, Ramayana etc. The idea must be to emboss in the mind all those thoughts, feelings, values and goals. Taking half an hour or one hour if you do this austere practice the mind gets involved and it becomes impressed with all these things. Now at one point of time you can start thinking about with a view to understand, i.e. taking your connection with what you do to a higher level, the intelligence level.

viśvaṁ viṣṇuḥ vaṣaṭkārō

What is this viśvaṁ? We generally say God is present in the world. But here we are using a synonym called viśvaṁ itself. So is God the world? Why is he described as viśva, the world? Now intellectually in the level of intelligence you get connected to the proposition. Either with the help of mouth you have to do the austere recitations or with the help of your intelligence you can try to reflect upon whatever you are doing or reflect upon God world, yourself and the like. But this practice, sitting in a place, thinking about, thinking about, trying to reflect over, reflect upon, that is inevitable. Maybe a man is religious. For fifty years he has been with religious practice. Let him think at the end of fifty years, during all these years I was practicing something. Very good. But what has been the net result of my practice? Has my mind changed its pattern of thinking? What about the harmful and undesirable effects of thoughts? Am I thinking well of others, good of others? Or the defects of others alone become my object of attention? Am I good? Am I benevolent? Am I pure? Am I sublime? Am I able to think of God with absolute reliance, dependence and restfulness? If these questions are asked you will find they don’t have much of an answer. All of them will say I have been, I have been, I have been. Why not the mind change its structure? The black mind should become white. The thick mind should become light. The earthy mind should become watery. The watery mind should become airy. The airy mind should become spacial. When the mind becomes spacial it will constantly reflect, reflect its own, its own substantial essence. That is what you call Self and God.

So these recitations suppose we are spending everyday half an hour in the Samadhi Mandir and half an hour here, this one hour of practice if you are able to apply your mind to it you will find it will definitely change the structure, quality of your mind. It is this qualitative static change that we want. Every practice should be adjudged to find out whether the practice is effective in the matter of bringing about a structural and qualitative change in the mind and mind processes. Will you remember this? You don’t have to go anywhere. Every day you find out whether the mind has qualitatively changed, qualitatively changed. When you eat good and nourishing food the stomach passes it to the intestines, by the intestines peristaltic movement secretion of so many substances the food is digested, assimilated and absorbed and in a matter of hours it becomes blood in you. If you don’t have potassium, if you take potassium in one form or the other the blood has potassium. Similarly other things. In the same manner your practices should be inputs into your mind. And these inputs should be absorbed by the mind like the potassium in your blood these inputs should become part of your mind structure and quality. Will you please look for this and see that every day the mind is changed, changed, changed, changed, changed? Why am I jealous? Why am I intolerant? Why am I fault-finding? Why am I not able to appreciate others? And then with a view to accomplish whatever you want conduct this austere practice, austere practice with the help of mouth, but primarily in the mind with the help of the intelligence also. Intelligence does introspection, the tongue does recitation, mind does think, thinking and feeling. It’s a very simple process provided you can understand it by spending some time.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.