Articles for Saadhana

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.

Last night during the Satsang, I was trying to impress upon all of you the nature and effect of spiritual introspection. In spiritual introspection, the introspection should be on truth. It can be truth about God, truth about world, truth about yourself or the mind, truth about life, truth about experience, truth about knowledge, whatever it maybe, it has to be on the truth. Second point, that introspection should be considered a real austere sadhana. The purpose of the sadhana will be and should be to bring about a direct effect on your mind and inner personality. If you have all these points incorporated in your introspection, then that is truthful introspection, spiritual introspection, infusional introspection.

Whether this introspection will have an effect or not, that is where we remain either deluded or discreet or wise. Most of the people refuse to get over their delusion. In the normal life that we lead in the world and the interactions we pursue, do you realize that the mind is the fulcrum point? I don’t think. Even in the assembly before me, I would like you to tell me very clearly, whether you have the real consciousness, not conviction, whether you have the real awareness that mind is the source of everything. I use two words, mind is the source, the one which sustains, and the one which dissolves and assimilates. If you understand that this is so, mind becomes the sole fulcrum, focus, process and perfection of spiritual life in human.

I am reminded of an instance I found in Hrishikesh in the Bhootnath caves. The Bhootnath caves are on, I don’t know which side I can refer to. When we proceed towards Hrishikesh, then Bhootnath caves will be on the right side. I happened to climb this Bhootnath caves two or three times. I was told that there was one Sannyasi, an ascetic there called ‘Tatvāli’. I don’t know the meaning of ‘Tatvāli’. He was a very tall Swamy. Through out his life what he had done was, take a big, may be some two or three inches diameter and may be about nine inches or one foot long, a chisel and a hammer. And then he started hammering, hammering, hammering and chiseling and extracting one small portion of the rock stone. They are in slates, one over the other, one over the other. And he had made a few caves there. The whole of his ascetic life he was doing this. To make a cave is not easy. It requires quite a lot of hammering, and taking away one portion after the other, one small piece of stone. How many, how much he will be able to do in one day? And he has made a few caves. I don’t know whether it is three, four, five or six.

So, for the first time I knew that the caves also are made by people. Maybe natural caves are there, some. I found there is a cave where you can enter and crawl or maybe bend and walk, and you can go quite inside. During the extreme winter if they go inside, the whole cave will be heated up by your own outgoing breath and there will be only one entrance, there will be no exit point. What was he doing? He was only doing, holding the chisel, fixing it at a point and hammering, holding it, fixing it, hammering it, holding it, fixing it, hammering it, holding it, fixing it, hammering it. Because it was a physical activity, it will tire him also, so he could also have a good sleep.

Now, in introspection, the persistence and process, I believe are largely the same. But you are not doing your physical parts, you are not employing your physical parts nor are you using any material or item different from your body. Our body will be seated or it may be lying, very seldom we stand and introspect. Either you will be sitting or you will be lying. In the sitting or lying pose, our body rests by itself on the earth. All that is available for you is your mind and intelligence. With mind and the intelligence you start introspecting over whatever you want. So, this introspection is an activity, it is a pursuit, it is an application, it is a process, it is an effort and it has got its progress and fruition. Will you consider introspection to be such a dedicated effort or sadhana? I believe, the idea will not easily occur to you and you will not take to it with dedication. This is what I am feeling.

Vicara itself is a tapasya. Vicara itself is a wholesome effort while whereas you will accept that in a temple you go and do pooja, you sit there waiting for the doors, the sanctum santorum to be open, then have a glimpse at the Lord or Goddess, that you will consider to be an austerity. Getting up early in the morning, going to the temple very early, having some vratham, austere discipline, then going there. All these physical exercises you will consider to be austerity, discipline, and every dedicated religious process. I agree. But that is a physical process behind which the source and cause are the mind and the effect of this austerity is also not on the body but on the mind itself.

Suppose you go to the temple and the temple going does not produce any sublime effect on your mind, do you think you will go there? Do you think that you will go there? There also we tring to apply the mind and bring about an effect on the mind but using the medium of the body. Now, in introspection, the bodily part is safely kept away and you have to consider your mind to be the body, the intelligence to be its parts or vice versa and apply the mind and intelligence to take up introspection, pursue it with dedication and complete it. In other words, if you do introspection for 15 or 20 minutes, at the end of it you must feel that you have that much of feeling of gainfulness as you will have done a physical austerity. You test your mind, whether the mind is prone to thinking in this manner. I am almost sure that every one of you will have to tell me that, “Swamiji, when we do introspection we don’t have such a feeling.” Whereas if you do one Sahasranama japa sitting somewhere you feel that you have done an austerity measure. I believe this is a delusion. It will take quite sometime for all of you to reach a level of understanding or call it by some other word whereby you will feel that introspection itself is a full-fold sadhana. Not only that, that is the right sadhana to bring about the desired result on your inner personality.

So remember this episode: This Tatvāli throughout his life making caves by keeping a chisel in his hand, looking up, fixing the chisel, hammering, fixing the chisel, hammering, hammering, hammering, hammering and ultimately what happened? A few caves were born; A few caves were produced by his hammering. Every time what he did was hammer, hammer, hammer. The process was the same. There was no difference at all except that the tip of the chisel was placed on a different point every time. Hammering was the same, hand was the same, chisel was the same, the place was by centimeter or inch different, that’s all. I would like you to think about it seriously. See, I am thinking in a very research-oriented manner and I am finding why this introspection is not taken up and why is it not effective in the people. Most of you are not given to introspection. Even if you do introspection you don’t have a feeling of value, benefit and effectiveness about it. It is better that the whole process is reflected upon, evaluated and then finally you take to it properly.

Hari Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.