Articles for Saadhana

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.

I don’t know whether you compare notes on the basis of whatever I am taking in the evening in the form of a discussion on meditation, mind etc.

See, while discussing meditation I was saying that the mind will issue forth, you will have to bring it back and you will bring it back to the self again and again, again and again. So there seems to be a self and also the mind. The mind goes disconnected from the self to be occupied with the objects in the form of desires etc. This mind will have to be dissuaded from that process and brought back and tied to the self. This is one proposition. If you succeed in doing this, the mind will become calm and in that calm, the best of sukha will approach you by itself. And that sukha is the brahma-sukha. This much we said.

I was taking another verse from the fifth chapter and telling you that kāma and krodha are the two urges the mind constantly brings about. These urges create havoc. So the mind should be first of all told not to court and indulge in kāma-krodhās. So, what is the trouble for us? The trouble is mind itself generating obstruction, hindrances and clouding. So altogether we have only the mind. That mind by its own potential creates kāma and krodha and these urges bring about so much of havoc that we lose all our peace, composure.

So the focus should be the mind itself. The mind is the source initially of kāma-krodhās, passion and prejudice. You don’t go for any other point here. It is just like clouded, dirty water. Water is very much there but it remains clouded. It remains dirty. Compared to the quantity of the water, the dirt will be very, very small. But nevertheless it has dissolved into the water that the water has lost all its purity and purpose also. So what you have to do is somehow filter the water and remove the impurity.

Here you are not involved at any time in any substance other than the water. You are filtering the water alone and after filtering you are getting some sediments. You remove the sediments. It will be a very small percentage of the total quantity of water and pure water is there. Why don’t you get focused on this point?

When I say the self, self, self, self, it becomes, to some extent inconceivable. In another sense, it is very, very distant, complicated. But here there is no complication at all. Mind itself is the sole product. It is impure now. It has to be made pure. And the impurity is not a foreign or an alien product. The impurity is its own making. The mind produces desires, produces hatred and these forces obstruct the very functioning of the mind.

I think there is something very substantial to understand. The sādhana will become easier, faster and very, very specific because you have to only focus upon the mind. People are raising questions like “body, mind, intelligence, soul.” Then what? “Causal body, subtle body, transmigration, I have got it from my parents, grandparents, their parents, so many janmās.” And where is the storehouse? Nobody knows. “The universe contains so many store houses of different souls and after the body falls our soul goes to our respective store house and then collects, comes again.” See, all cock and bull story. Why should you worry about all this?

That’s all! When the mind becomes pure and purified, that pure mind itself is the self. The word self means what – the selfness of anything is called the self. There is an unchangeable, content, essence in every product. That is considered to be the self. I call it “Itselfness of a thing is called the self.”

So the mind has got an essence of itself. That essence is the self. That essence is not different from the mind. It is inlaying the mind. So will you discuss this, try to understand this? Don’t ask me how kāma and krodha can be attenuated or reduced. If you start thinking “My kāma and krodha should become less”, they will become less. If you think they should become more, you inflame them, they grow. It is so simple and so fast like this. There should be no difficulty at all!

But our books give a lot of procedures etc. but they also list the singular aphorisms here and there. The success lies in getting hold of them and practicing them. This is something very, very important. Please grasp it. All of you have come here, you are free, try to discuss it, collectively if necessary, groups if necessary and get at the right formula.

See, we are all moving about in the Ashram doing many, many different items of work. I always say though we are doing different types of work, all our work are revolving around one center. The segments may be many but all the segments are equally subsisting upon the one center. That central fact is the spiritual gain. Whether we are reading a letter, welcoming people, talking to them, discussing the wages of the workers, buying materials from the shops, whatever we do, it is all to enable this Ashram life. So everything that we do is that loka-saṅgraha as we call it.

Whatever we write, we write only spiritual subjects. Suppose people come here and they enter into so many different types of conversation we may not like it. Even our retreat functions, we are not interpolating the functions with any kind of a bodily or other exercises. We tell them “You take the bodily exercises in your room.” If anybody has any particular enquiry they come to my office and I tell them “This is what you can do.” Sometimes I show them also. But we don’t make it a public discussion.

Similarly no physical exercise should be interfering our knowledge exposure. This is meant for the mind and the intelligence. People who are attuned to it, people who have the necessary IQ, affinity for it, they alone will be benefited. This is how everybody should do – have a relaxed mind because your mind is going to be the focus, and then love people, adjust themselves with them, accommodate them, be considerate to the others, do not speak harshly, even if you happen to speak, later on mend it by polite and affectionate words. See, every time the mind has to become better and better and better. You start and even little by little, digital percentages, fractional percentages; you will find the mind will improve.

So for me I can tell that whatever I do, wherever I do, it makes no difference at all because the mind apparently is peaceful, poised. A little angry also I can become. Even if I get a little angry, I don’t find any difference at all. It is just like deep breaths, sudden breath, suppose you are climbing, then there is even palpitation, the breath will be faster, faster, faster. So that is part of nature as long as you don’t hate anybody, others feel that you are loving them, considerate to them.

Sacrifice is a great watchword for us. Suppose you give everything that you have for the sake of another, you know, you will still have a feeling of relief. “After all I did not do it for me. I gave it.” That’s all. So the more and more you remember it, the happier and happier, greater and greater relief you have, happier you feel.

So this kind of a simple, natural, expansive life, a life of purity, what is the problem in leading it? You love your wife purely, you love your children purely, don’t block the love for the others. As you love your children, you should feel all the more love for the others. “Just like I have love for my children, others have love for their children.” So you should appreciate it. So I think it is a process of expansion, ease, felicity, happiness, very nice! I don’t find anything irksome in spirituality at all. It is so very good. Of course, to find it so perhaps I did a lot of introspection, my head had become hot, I don’t remember it now. It is so very beautiful, nice!

So understand this, I will speak again today. I will be speaking on the mind by bringing some other verse from Bhagavad Gita.

The so called redemption, blissfulness, it should encircle you wherever you go, whatever you do. Not that you go to it. It accompanies you wherever you go. Try it.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.