Articles for Saadhana

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.

I find, seekers fall into two categories. One category will not take up the trouble of doing sadhana properly. Another category thinks that sadhana is so very difficult, it is austere, it is hard and all that. I think both are equally wrong. Both categories are equally working under delusion. So under delusion, any kind of an irregular thought and process may thrive. How to get out of it? It is very difficult. The only way that I can suggest is, you must be able to find an access to a Sadguru who is loving, kind, very much involving so far as seekers are concerned and who has got the maturity and fullness of the self-realizational life.

You know, the Self is to be realized. By whom? By a human. And the human is a complex personality. He has the sensory complexity, oral complexity, mental complexity and intellectual complexity. With these complexities, the self-realization one gains will also have to be expressive or expressed and radiational. So you cannot have self-realization except in the form of a human expression. The moment the human expression comes, it also carries that human sensory, oral, mental and intellectual complexities. With these complexities, all self-realized people may not be very loving, very kind, very involving, very sympathetic etc. The compassionate level and the manner of its expression are bound to be different from individual to individual.

Every individual is distinct in himself. Some may be irritable, some may be patient, some may be very much involving, some may be sparingly so, some may have the health, some may not have the health. Mā always feels that she is not now able to multi-think and multi-act. She is not able to do it, her system is not able to afford it. But she was quite considerate, patient, even now she is, but the body doesn’t allow, and some conditions in the body. So that puts a limitation to her interaction. So the health should favour us, the voice should favour us, the mind and the responses of the mind, both in the matter of reception and in the matter of expression should favour us. And the intelligence also should favour us. A person asks a question. You must be able to give a proper answer to this. If the intelligence is not sharp enough, flexible enough, assimilative enough and also innovative enough, how can you receive all questions and answer? It becomes a huge problem. This is something that people don’t know. Now, when I say people don’t know, I became a tall claimer. So, this is the interesting part of it.

Many people do not know and I have to speak in a very authoritative manner, even the so-called saints and sages, sometimes even ascetic knowers, they may not have all these qualities. Because self-realization like sleep is the same for everybody who has achieved it. But it expresses through a human complexity. In that complexity which each has derived at the time of birth, touched up by the parents, again touched up by himself, where is the will and the wish to be better, better and better.

I had a disciple, ‘X’ by name. Even when he was working as the executive director of Tata Mcgraw Hill, more than once he had told me, “At my age, Swamiji, do I need any public interaction?” He was salaried enough, he had no problem, given to always reading books, he had hundreds of books, he has grown through books even in his office. He used to say, “At my age and position, do I need any kind of a further friendship and interaction?” That means his psychology is such that he is not prone to any interaction. Now, in my case, I am available for interaction. And you know, in every interaction I would like to excel. Excel means what? I should not fail in responding to a situation, in assimilating an impact and in becoming amiable and endearing to the people. These are my watch words, my nature, my persuasion, my compulsion, my inspiration, my goal, my ideal. So whenever somebody wants to see me, I would like to see him. I know, the person is not fit enough for my regular interaction. But still I feel that they should not go away from here thinking that this Swamiji was not available. Do you think all people will have this feeling? May not. If you don’t know then I do. People don’t have.

Anybody can become a saint, anybody can become a knower also. But the complexity of the human personality is such that the knowers will widely differ. That is why when I read:

in Vivekachudamani, when I was in Calcutta, that suddenly became my nature, my compulsion, my thought, my introspection.

śrotriyo : He must be scripturally enlightened.  Akāmahato: He should not have any desire or possessiveness anywhere in his personality. Yo brahmavittamah: If a disciple comes and I feel that "He is a good man, I should use him.", it is the most spiritually criminal tendency that one can have. You know, in my interactions with people, some of whom are positioned in government and the others, whenever I talk to them, I say, “My dear X, do not do anything which will jeopardize your position or function.”

I went to DMRC at their invitation. First time ‘X’ was asking ‘Y’ that "We would like to give a cheque. Will Swamiji accept it?" I told ‘Y', let him not do anything which will be in any way viewed or audited wrongly. They should not think that ‘X’ is the disciple of a Swami, the Swami was brought and then he rewarded him. I don’t want this kind of a situation. So he should do everything within limits and with sufficient thought. I will come and talk and go. That’s a different matter. In this way, every time! ‘Z’ an IAS officer. I am very much concerned about the propriety of what the disciples do. Now this is a refinement that I like, not only that, one should have.

That is why in Bhagavad Gita you will find, this is all beyond knowledge. Spiritual realization is realizing the self and be a cocoon or be a householder or be a Swami, live in a kutira or live in a multi-storied palace. That is different. This is a question of inner personality. There, twenty qualities are listed in the 13^th Chapter of Bhagavad Gita. Everybody will have to use these qualities as a touch stone if he wants to, but most of them will never know about them. Even if they know, they will not consume. Now, should I not tell you that this is a very rare combination? And how will I tell you? Only when I am attuned to that. So my attunement compels me to say the truth about it and when I speak the truth, maybe I will have my style and my way characteristic of me. I was born of some parents. I must have inherited my father’s traits, my mother’s traits, maybe previous traits also. All we children except the girls, we are very well up in Sanskrit, primarily because our mother’s father was a Sanskrit scholar. He was living with Sanskrit. I have never seen him. Maybe we have inherited it. Similarly, inherited features are there, acquired features are there.

Now, why am I telling you all this? "The seekers fall into two categories", I said.

Yesterday ‘A’ gave me a note. I read it just before going to sleep. She has written four pages. It is all about her seeking, her distress and my helping her. So keeping that as a provocation or as a ground, I am telling you, please understand that this spiritual sadhana is very simple, easy, sweet and nourishing. But to understand that it is so and to pursue it in such a manner, is perhaps very, very rare because delusions overtake people.

Why is it that you go to a Guru? See, the spiritual wisdom and the path of sadhana, you find it to be so complex, so difficult, so this, so that. All this will be simply undone provided you get the right Guru and he initiates you properly. What does the Guru ask you? He tells you a sadhana and he says, "Do the sadhana." And what is this wonderful sadhana? Guru’s spiritual communication with the disciple is in silence. If at all, it acts on the mind, intelligence, heart and ego of the seeker. And true sadhana is one which acts inwardly in the mind level, intelligence level, the whole inner personality. The purpose of the sadhana is to reach the core of oneself and then help and facilitate the unfoldment from there. You tell me, why should it be difficult?

I ask my disciples, initiated disciples to have an 'āsan' for their sitting. I also ask them, “Sit on this āsan, make a cover for it, wash the cover but do not wash the āsan.” When these people go and purchase the āsan, you know, you can find the qualities and tendencies of the people in buying the āsan. Some will purchase a miserly āsan. Some will purchase a short-sized one, some will purchase a broad one. There is a selection. When you want to sit, why don’t you, you may not know it, you can know it later. Then close the door and the windows, take this āsan, sit there and whatever I ask you to do, just do. This is not climbing up a mountain, lifting a huge weight, doing pranāyāma, piercing the mind, no. I simply ask them to sit. Maybe I give them a few letters to occupy the mind.

So, what is this sadhana? The sadhana is a process where your mind and thought process are led to their very source. In other words, the thoughts and introspections will cease and dissolve into their own source. When the waves and the bores of the sea subside, tell me what happens? They don’t rest on the land, on the shore. The bore returns and it rests on the sea itself. There is a cyclone or a hurricane. After the whole hurricane, tell me what happens to the air. Has it gone out? Similarly, the turbulent mind will subside, will go to its own source and rest there. Now, to make the mind do so, I don’t want you to struggle. I say, be relaxed, be absorbed, be indifferent to the world, have no aspiration, no desire. Even about your sadhana, don’t have any desire. When you are able to thus be relaxed, free and soaked in unconcern, non-concern, there is a dissolution taking place and it will be followed by the natural inner unfoldment of your life. You will begin to be what you are to be. You will begin to be what you are destined to be. You will begin to be what you are fit to be. And by your association with me and now with the others in the Ashram, certainly there will be some qualities.

All the qualities are undoing the constrictions in you, delusions in you and stimulating an expansion. Tell me whether this is bad or good. Now, this the type of Deeksha and sadhana that a seeker should get. If he gets it, will not the sadhana be facilitated? Will it not be strengthened? People are struggling and worrying about sadhana, sadhana, sadhana, sadhana. What is this sadhana? The whole of Veda Vyasa’s creation, the Vedas, the Mahabharata, this Srimad Bhagavatam, wherefrom did he write it? He wrote it from the Himalayan air or the Indian Ocean? Wherefrom did he write it? He wrote it from within himself.

You may wonder, the whole of Mahabharata if you spread it, our body’s inside cannot contain it. But the mind is broad enough to contain hundreds of Mahabharatas. So the mind starts unfolding, unfolding, unfolding. And every unfoldment means an expression. The rolled up parapet is being unrolled and spread and you will find, it can cover the whole of the earth. I still am looking for a disciple or one or two of them who will be seekers of this unfoldment. I don’t want a disciple who wants to go and sit in Himalayan quiet, the Himalayan splendor. I would like to have one who has love for the people, who likes to master this wisdom and if providence so wishes, like Śankara, communicate it to the others. As you get it, you will also have to give to the others.

Why are people getting married? Poor people don’t know why are they marrying. They don’t know. They will say : marriage is a sexual alliance for sexual purposes. People are marrying only for Vamśa Vriddhi. We have derived a birth, we would like to have at least one or two to replace us. This is called Vamśa Vriddhi. Similarly, a true disciple would like to give rise to other disciples also. "I have become a disciple and I am getting what I want. Similarly, let many others also become disciples of my Guru, all of them be.", this will be the natural motivation. Anything else is contrary, anything else is unnatural. But that unnaturality also is within the scheme of nature like some people die young, some people are disobedient, some get into accident etc.

So, the summary of what I said is, spiritual sadhana is very sweet, simple, easy and nourishing. It is an expression of the mind, it acts on the mind, it results in uncoiling the mind, finally an unfoldment of the mind with its true intrinsic potential and possibility. What a beautiful sadhana is this! And you can get it only, from my experience I can tell you, from a Sadguru in the form of a Deeksha and it depends upon how fond you are, how much of allegiance you have and how much you will foster this in your life. It makes everything simple. The scriptures keep away, Bhagavad Gita keeps away and what the Guru has said and what you see and learn from Him, that is what matters.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.