Articles for Saadhana

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.

The other day I was talking to our people here, and I was stressing on one important point. Do you know what it is? Whenever we find, on reading or listening to the scriptures or scriptural expositions, scriptures or scriptural texts, allied texts I mean, there are quite a number of propositions, evaluations, assessments, discussions, revelations - various things are there, and whenever you happen to either see or hear any one of them, I don’t know what kind of an attitude and receptivity you have. I think most people do not have the required note of response towards them. After all, revelations are revelations, assessments are assessments, evaluations are evaluations. The difference is always in the people who come across them either by seeing or hearing. I always say that one subhashita, a proverbial statement is sufficient to transform even the most notoriously corrupt individual. It is a question of how you respond to it - with what intensity, wholesomeness, and astuteness.

Why do I stress this? The reason is everything depends upon your mind, its emotional attunement, your intelligence, and its rational commitment. Whenever I used to read the scriptures or allied texts, even now when I find a very useful and profound statement there, I wish you had some kind of a gadget which will measure the type of response my mind and intelligence have towards them. I was talking to A. the other day, “My dear boy, why are these revelations before us? Why are these exhortations before us?” They are actually to enlighten you, to beckon you, to inspire you, to compel and persuade you, to lead you, to guide you. How can they guide you? How can anybody guide you - by tying a rope on your waist and pulling? So, in the whole of man’s evolution, in spiritual life it is all the more so, the whole process is resting upon your mind and intelligence. Intelligence is the tool by which you receive the knowledge. After receiving the knowledge, the intelligence has to pass it on to the mind, and the mind has to receive it with the best of wholesomeness and feeling. We can say it is all a question of intensity and fervor.

We are using two words like intensity and fervor. Yes, they are two. Now, the trouble is what is meant by intensity and how you grow it? The long and short of what I say is that, my dear souls, yesterday I said when I was looking at you from my office, the people who have come from Malaysia, after the introspection or so, they were going back to their rooms, an imagination occurred to my mind. See, having travelled such a long distance, all of them have come here. Why? What for? If only they will be able to introspect over and evaluate properly the purpose of their visit, I think they will become great sadhakas and the intensity in them will become tremendous.

You take any spiritual proposition, try to cogitate over it and find out how your mind responds to it. In my pre-sannyasa life in Kolkata, sometimes at about 10.30, I used to read the Upanishads or such other texts. One day I happened to read perhaps the Kenopanishad. It was saying-

iha cet avedīt atha satyamasti | iha cet avedīt atha satyamasti |

If you succeed in knowing this here and now, your life becomes meaningful.

na cedihāvedīt mahatī vinaṣṭiḥ - Suppose you fail to know the supreme truth about yourself, then colossal is going to be the loss.

I don’t think we need anything more than this kind of an evaluation. Only when you know the truth - call it GOD, call it the Self, call it Brahman, call it the Nature, only when you know it, your life becomes meaningful. Otherwise colossal is going to be the loss. If you analyze it properly and understand the propositions, then what is the option before you? I think there is no option except realizing it. Otherwise colossal is going to be the loss. Would you like to lose something colossally, or would you like to be profited, credited, and benefited. So, I was wondering - what is the power in this exhortation and how sweeping and wholesome it is?

I was telling A.:

Vasishta tells the young Rama, 16 year old Rama, “Rama, in the course of ordinary secular life, unless you leave something, you cannot attain another.” We are all involved in the secular life and its demand and its tolls - unless you leave something, you cannot get hold of another.” A girl is married, after marriage, if the marriage has to be fruitful, meaningful and wholesome, she has to live with the husband, and she has to go away from the birth place, from the parents. You cannot say, “I will marry and I will bring my husband and stay with my father.” So, you have to leave the birth place, your home, and go to the husband’s place. Suppose you have a child and one more child - the 24 hours are the same. Two hands do not increase. Within the 24 hours you have to give some time taking away from the first child to the second child. Every time it is like that. Unless something is left, another cannot be attained. “So, Rama, svātmalābhe tu kā kathā.” In order to attain the all-pervading Self, how much of leaving and sacrifice are necessary. I don’t know whether you understand the meaning and the exhortation this simple statement contains, conveys.

So the extent of leaving and sacrifice required in order to attain the all-pervading Self in the form of knowledge and realization; the extent of leaving has to be or will be immense. And why should we mind it? Because you cannot have … Suppose you want to go to the office room, you have to leave the living room. If you have to go to the dining hall, you have to leave the office. If you want to work in the office, to that extent you have to leave the home. If you have to come back home, you have to leave the office. Every step we place on the ground, we take that step and we leave that place and place the step ahead. Again we raise our foot, leave the step, and go to another - everywhere it is a question of leaving, leaving, and leaving. Then only holding, holding, and holding.

When I read it, it generated so much of imagination, so much of attitudinal fullness in me. “Oh! this is the case, is it not?” Why I am saying all this? My dear souls, whatever you may do - your sadhana , the process of refinement, the process of enrichment, the process of empowerment, the process of serenity - everything is a mind-intelligence, mind-intelligence interaction. We have a visible body, but the whole body and its limbs are employed, everytime, by the mind. No memory is there in the hand, or the feet, or in the stomach. Memory is a property of the mind. Every action is designed by it. Then it employs the body to execute it, and when it is complete, it only remains as a memory in your mind. What does it mean? It means mind is the sole focus of your life. The entire sadhana is mind-intelligence, mind-intelligence. Why I am stressing this? When you are exposed to something, it is for you to respond to the exposure in a full hearted manner. And after responding to it, if you find something in you has to be left, leave it. If something else has to be held, hold it. We have to leave a number of products of our delusion, and we have to gain and incorporate a number of products, the outcome of knowledge.

Ultimately what is this sadhana? It is the twin process of eliminating the undesirable and incorporating the desirable. Whatever undesirable is there, the knowledge that it is undesirable itself is sufficient for you to get rid of it. I don’t think you should seek any other help. You don’t have to go to a temple, you don’t have to go to a mountain. Simply leave it. Why? It is undesirable. Otherwise say desirable, desirable, and have more of it. The moment the intelligence is told this is undesirable … undesirable … undesirable, reflect upon this word. Undesirable … undesirable. “If it is undesirable, what shall I do? Shall I host it? Shall I fondle it? Or shall I eschew it?” The question and the process are purely inner! It is a question of developing more and more intensity, intensity. In other words, the entire sadhana is sharpening your intelligence. It has to drill itself into the mind and the mind has to grow purity, sublimity, blissfulness, contentment. And by what can you develop it? You can only develop it by a mind-intelligence process. That is why we call it manana. Manana is mentation and bodhana is intellection. You know a quality is good. Instantly let the mind pick it up and grow it. If the mind refuses, then there is something radically wrong! So, the entire sadhana is centered on your mind, on your intelligence. That is why exposure and knowledge become paramount in a spiritual seeker. He only has to get more and more exposed, and as the exposure settles in your system, it will have its immediate effect on the body, on the mind, and every undesirable item will simply leave.

I would like you to meditate half an hour on something that is undesirable. “This is undesirable, this is undesirable. I call it undesirable but still, why should it remain in me? So, my system should reject it, reject it! Why it is not rejecting? Am I not understanding that it is undesirable? What is the meaning? Either it is undesirable or it is desirable. Can I say it is desirable? No. Nevertheless it has possessed me. Therefore, what shall I do? Get rid of it. Why am I not able to get rid of it?” Because you don’t know that it is undesirable. “Yes I know. Then why doesn’t it go?” So, can there be light and darkness together? Can there be white and black together? Can there be gati and stithi together, movement as well as poise together? Can you sleep and be wakeful together? What is this? Either you say it is undesirable and leave it, or don’t say. Say desirable … desirable … desirable. See, there cannot be two options. This is the sensitivity that you have to develop. One day you put any proposition into test in the crucible of your own mind, and you will find, if you spend about 15 /20 minutes fighting against it, you will find an electrifying power overtakes your system. I think we don’t spend our time mentally on any proposition. I have been speaking about it, pointing it out variously and differently. I don’t know how much effect it has.

Let me swear upon this statement:

Your body has nothing to do, nothing to do. It is employed by the mind, for mind’s own purpose and the resultant is registered in the form of memory. Experience is in the mind, never in the body. That you have a body is your mental experience. That you are walking is a recognition or cognition in the mind.

So, the whole sadhana is centered on your mind and this sadhana is conceived and also imparted to the mind by the intelligence. Our discussions are knowledge oriented. That is why, that is why … why it is knowledge oriented? Because only the intelligence will be able to understand it, and after understanding how well it passes it on to the mind, and how well the mind absorbs it, the whole difference is there. That is why I asked you yesterday, “Do you really value, do you understand the value and importance of your having come here?” I doubt. May be you try to value. R. gave me a reply that is why we come here often, more and more. That is a very ready answer. Even a cat will give me that answer.

I am asking you, “Do you value, do you understand and value, do you appreciate and assess the importance and value of your visit?” Then I think every day there will be a substantial elimination of the undesirable and incorporation of the desirable. I would like you to put in a note book, mark today how much I was able to get rid of the undesirable and how much I was able to include the desirable. First of all make a list of the undesirables, and a list of the desirables, and every day you put a mark. I don’t think if you cannot eliminate here, you won’t be able to eliminate it elsewhere. Elimination is an inner mento-intellectual process. So put a mark. I would like you to see it at least 2 days before your departure.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.