Articles for Saadhana

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.

We have our eternal scriptures. Actually, all our scriptures are either spoken or written by people who have thought about the subject. Because it is a spiritual and inner subject, not only they have thought, they have pursued whatever they wanted to pursue, and they had their own direct experience, experiential fruition about whatever they said. So, it carries the experiential authority, the stamp of experiential authority with it.

These scriptures are there. On the basis of the scriptures and further researches we also have a number of allied texts. The first scriptures are the Vedas. They are pre-historic and ageless. Whenever we say something is pre-historic, we cannot precisely date it at all. It is much before history - so it can be - suppose history is available for 500BC, that is, two thousand five hundred years from now backwards - then, pre-historic can be five thousand, ten thousand… one million - more years, we cannot say when. But all the scriptures are - they carry the testimony of the authors. We don’t know who composed this scripture. Many people might have composed or a few of them. But all of them carry the testimony of themselves.

While these scriptures are there, as personified self revelations of the authors, there are from time to time, in our country, some knowers of truth, who also are like scriptural authors. They also think, they also pursue, they also experience, realize the truth. On the basis of what they have realized, plus what is there in the scriptures, they also start speaking and also writing about the whole subject. Whenever such knowers are there, their effort will be to make the sadhana of the seekers easy, straightforward, simple, and fast. I believe this should be the aim. So, everyone will have something to say which makes the sadhana clearer, easier, lighter and even faster. Whenever I say something, it is from this point of view.

I have had my own life. I got initiated by my Gurudev. I started my sadhana. Sadhana means what? Not reading books, not going anywhere, worshiping in a temple, or even doing pooja at home. Sadhana means completely focused on one’s own personality. Bodily you sit in a place, maybe you interlock your fingers, put them on your lap, the body is made straight, eyes are closed, and then, using the mind and intelligence, you try to pursue the sadhana. So the sadhana is very precise. It should not depend upon any external factors, even a garland of beads for you to count the number of. It is not so, not at all. The sadhana must be based upon your own personality, primarily the inner one. The mind and intelligence alone are employed in sadhana, nothing else.

I was doing like this, and gradually or, maybe, soon, I came to realize the truth. I started reading the scriptures, getting confirmed, trying perhaps to correct, improve. So, I found there is a lot called knowledge-orientation to be done by the seeker. Once you come to the sphere of orienting yourself with knowledge, our scriptures are tremendous. You cannot evaluate them properly. So great are our scriptures.

We have got a number of minor Upanishads, the basic Upanishads. In many of them, if you start reading, you will find one statement here, another revelation there, a third evaluation here, a critical assessment elsewhere. If you are able to grasp all these things you will find there are a number of corrections or improvements or refinements or sublimations to be brought about in you. And the whole thing reaches the climax when you understand you have nothing to do, everything is getting done.

We don’t have anything particularly to do or not to do. We have body and the senses. Use them. With the eyes you see. With the ears you hear. With the tongue you taste. With the nose you smell. With the skin you touch. With the lips and the mouth you speak. See, every organ is gifted with its own power and potential. Use them in a proper manner. Use, similarly, your mind, your intelligence, until at last you find the whole process is in harmony with nature’s own laws and orders. So, the ego is taken away, the desire is taken away. So many different claims and other things, all of them vanish.

We were born in a family, bred by the parents. We inherited a certain nature. This nature had something more in the way of an acquisition. Thereafter we become an adult, and as an adult we start thinking about matters ourselves. And we have our own choices and selections, we make them and we proceed. But before everything is done, the fact of heredity at birth, and acquisition till you become an adult - both of them are always circumscribing whatever you do. So, whenever I speak, it is in the light of what I have experienced and have been, and my effort has always been to make the sadhana lighter, lighter and feebler, feebler, easier for the others.

What I thought of telling you today is that you should not be bothered about whatever has taken place in life. Something will have taken place. Either you belong to this course of life or maybe there is another. What of it? We are all born not with our option. Somehow we were born and when we look at ourselves we are already grown and we have become an adult. I can walk only with the legs available to me. I can hold only with the hands available to me. Similarly, I can think only with the mind I have. I can reason only with the intelligence I have. The world is a forum in which we have to find our place. I think it is all taking place in one way or the other. In many areas we are ignorant. In a few areas maybe we are reasonably wise. Nobody is fully wise and nobody is fully ignorant.

So whatever has taken place in life, I don’t think any one of you should bother about it. Maybe some sins have been committed. Some omissions have been made, commissions have been made. Life is like that. No parent starts bringing up the child with previous experience. The first child is always a new item. So they may bring it up properly or improperly. Many mistakes will be there, but I don’t think we should worry about it. Have a light mind. Don’t magnify whatever you have in the form of troubles and irritations. Our mind has got full capacity to be at home with everything, either past, present, or future. Maybe some people go on lamenting. Whether they lament or do not lament, it is the mind that has to reconcile with whatever has taken place or is going to take place. Our mind has got sufficient potential for that. Have faith, if not understanding, and remain unruffled.

Even the spiritual sadhana, do as much as you can. You can have the aspiration to do more, but do as much as you can. Do not bother. Let come what may. We are sustained by nature. We are sustained by God’s will and wish. Try to recognize this more and more, and try to be free of undue botherations.

A woman rang me up from Bombay, and she started crying and crying. She said, “I have done some mistakes. I don’t have money. I have only four thousand rupees to look after a family of four. My husband did something for the brother-in-law and he lost everything.” I said, “You sleep comfortably today. Whatever wrongs you think you might have done, don’t worry about it. Sleep comfortably. Be assured.” And then finally I said, “Your family of four is not going to die out of starvation. Something will happen. Meanwhile keep your health and wellbeing.” I think she was relieved to a large extent. She has apparently a strong guilt, bordering immorality. So I felt like telling her, why should she cry? We are all born helplessly in this world and we live also helplessly. We don’t have always a choice. Out of ignorance, out of wrong persuasions or compulsions, we might do something wrong. Ultimately the wrong has come from the world and the world is created by God, so even the wrong has come from God. But mean well. Don’t repeat what you have done, if it was wrong. Mean well. Aspire to be good. I don’t want you to be good, but if you have an earnest aspiration to become good, that is more than sufficient.

I think we should make light of all situations, do not worry about the past. Whatever is in the present, it is okay. It is something like a cave which has been dark for one thousand years. Another place has been dark for hundred years. A third place has been dark for ten years. All these darknesses of different ages, when you take a candle, everywhere it will be bright. Similarly, all your past will be cleared when you have the right knowledge, devotion, and sublimity. Develop it and there is ample chance for it.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.