Articles for Saadhana

Harih Om Tat Sat. Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.

Today I thought I will speak something which will be very helpful to the children, particularly students, some of whom are here. The children should first of all know that we have got a composite personality.

Our personality is a composite one, means what? It consists of different constituents. What are the constituents if you ask me, one is our body which is biological in character, our biological body. Though it is a biological body, it consists of only matter and energy. I don’t know whether you understand the fact that the entire world is consisting of matter and energy. Our panchabhūtas - earth, water, air, fire and space, all are falling within the two categories called matter and energy.

Whether it is matter, finer and finer forms of matter or different forms of energy, none of them has intelligence, the power to sense, feel, know, memorize etc. Is it clear? But all the living beings have the power to sense, the power to know. When they are touched, they will react. So, there is something besides matter and energy in all living forms including the plants. And this, the third factor other than matter and energy is maximum present and developed in the human body. That is why the human life is considered to be superior to all the rest.

Animals also have got their memory. We once sold a cow ‘Kamalam’ by name from our cowshed in my young days. It was given over to somebody in Wadakkanchery, at least 5 or 6 kms or more away. This cow has come to our house after three years. Nobody brought it, she came all alone. Some of the birds and animals have very great memory. Elephant seems to be having a great memory. Similarly, many animals may be like that. What about the capacity of a dog they are using for crime detection? So, all these are the powers not of the body - matter and energy - but of the other factor.

So, in our composite personality, the body is only a gross external form fully consisting of matter and energy. But there is an inner personality which employs the body and bodily organs. That inner personality is where you find the power to sense, the power to understand, memorize, feel, think, enquire and the like. They are generally referred to as mind, intelligence and ego.

Our inner personality consists of mind, intelligence and ego. A child is admitted to the school and the child is being taught upto the age of eighteen, actually it should be twenty-one, until they become an adult. So, until the body becomes an adult, they should not be employed for any work. So, they are given to education. By education, what are we supposed to gain? If it is the development of the body, then the mother feeds and the body will grow. But along with the growth of the body, we want the mind and the intelligence to grow. That growth will be had only through knowledge and knowledge interaction. That is why right from the beginning you are taught alphabet ‘अ आ इ ई क ख’ etc.

In the school, students only interact with knowledge, interact with knowledge-giving teachers. So, the mind and intelligence should grow along with the body. By the time the body completes its growth at 21, then it starts declining, becoming aged and weaker. That is the time we become an adult. So, after becoming an adult, the body cannot grow. Then what can grow? Obviously, the mind and intelligence.

Now when I ask the students – ‘What do you do to develop your mind and intelligence?’ It is not enough if you nourish the body and the body becomes bulky. You should keep the body flexible. Your eating should not be excessive but moderate. And whatever you eat, the energy you should be spending by using it, by activity. Suppose our activity is less and nourishment is more, it is imbalance and grave danger. Similarly, the activity is more and nourishment is less, then also there is problem. So, the nourishment and activity should go parallel to each other, balancing each other.

Many of the people have diseases primarily because they don’t do anything in the way of exercise, to keep the body and bodily organs healthy, agile and flexible. Merely by the day’s routine work, this exercise effect will not be had. So, you are asked at least to swim and walk. Simple walk. Walk fast, as fast as possible, as fast as possible. You can have specialized, targeted exercises, targeting different parts of the body. That is good. So, food, nourishment and exercise keep the body agile and active.

Now turn to the mind. Between the mind and the body, you tell me which is more important? Body has completed its growth at the age of 21. But throughout you are living. What will you do? You cannot do anything with the body. So, we can go on developing the mind and intelligence till the last breath. That is what you have to do.

The mind develops by what, intelligence develops by what? This is an important point. I think mind develops by feelings, emotions, very good responses, reactions etc. If I summarize, what are the emotions or virtues by which the mind will be growing and be healthy, I have three words to tell you. Love, sympathy and sacrifice.

You must be loving. Loving whom? First of all, your own family members. Then the society at large, the country and the globe. So, you must have a circle from which we will start loving the family, then the society, then the nation and then the whole globe. Suppose the love expands like this, proportionately will not the mind grow? The centre remains the same. You are an individual but you have got your mind which is global in character.

Now it is not enough if you have love. Proportionately you must have consideration, concern and sympathy for others. As you grow older and older, you should be considerate to your parents. Try to relieve them of their physical strain. Earlier they were doing everything for you. When you grow into something like 10, 12, don’t ask the mother or father to do petty things for you, regular things. So, you wash your own vessels and keep them on the table. Before and after meals, start washing your vessels, keep everything tidy and clean. Wherever you can relieve your mother of her routine work, try to relieve. Treat it as a diversion. For you who goes to the school and comes back, this will be a healthy and enjoyable diversion.

Then sacrifice. Unless we are able to leave something of our own for the sake of others, I don’t think either the individual or the family or the society or the nation or the world can grow. People are paying taxes - what is that? We are making part of our earnings, we give, we sacrifice it for the Government and for the people. Using that money, the Government makes all public facilities like road, bus stand, rail traffic, ship, airport, aerodromes, many towns, cities, hospitals, education centers, training centers. Every public facility, the Government does only by the sacrifice you make of your own salary income. Sales tax is one, now we have got GST. But it is levied by law. But the principle is you are made to be sympathetic and sacrificial to the others. From this love, sympathy and sacrifice, everything else will grow. As children and students, I would like you to incorporate this threefold virtue. I must have ample love for others. Equally I should be sympathetic and considerate to them and I must be able to make sacrifices for their sake. Every other virtue will grow from there.

For the intelligence, what is the development process if you ask me, you should employ your intelligence to think, think, think. Normally, the lessons you learn and copy them. So, you already have something, you only read it like swallowing a food which has been given to you. I want you to prepare the food and eat it. That means you have to use your intelligence to think independently and make it grow. So apart from learning the books and remembering what is written there, you must develop the habit of independently thinking and reflecting.

Now what can you reflect upon? Many things are there. But I would like you to reflect upon – ‘What is our life and what makes it great? What makes it noble?’ Why don’t you think and give your own answer? Don’t copy other’s answer. You think yourself. So, when the intelligence is employed in independent thinking, the intelligence begins to grow. So, mind grows by virtues, feelings, and emotions. Intelligence grows by knowledge and the means for it is introspection, rumination, enquiry.

You can think, we are asked to speak truth, why we should speak truth? And what is the wrong if we are untruthful? Unless you are able to understand truthfulness is the way for everybody… If I ask you “What is your name?” you have only one name. Who is your father? Who is the mother? Have you had your food? In which class are you studying? Where are you going? There can only be one answer. But untrue answers can be many. You say ‘I am 14 years old.’ That is the truth. If it is not 14, you can say any number. So, truthfulness is very important.

How truthfulness works if you ask me, my answer will be I give you a Rs 500/- note. It is written there, this paper has got a value of Rs 500 currency or equivalent value it has. Anywhere you go and give and ask for change, they will give you five Rs 100/- notes or ten Rs 50/- notes. Five-hundred is five-hundred for everybody. So, the statement that this paper holds Rs 500/- value is truthful. It remains the same.

You buy a ticket for your travel. It is mentioned there, this is a ticket for travel on such and such date by this train or by that flight and the flight leaves from X airport to Y airport or from this station to that station. You go there, your name is there, you get into the compartment, the train comes there, leaves and takes you. Suppose you go there and the train is not there, the seat is not there or you are asked to get into a train which takes you to a different destination, will it work? So, what works there is truthfulness. So, to be untruthful is to cut the rhythm of your life. It is something like pushing the Earth from its trajectory. You are revolving here in a certain trajectory now and I will push you out. It is something like that.

Both the mind and the intelligence require something called rest. Our heart goes on pumping they say, pumping and non-pumping. So, for every pressure it exercises, it has a relaxation. We have two legs to walk. When you place the second foot, the first is having a rest. Suppose we had only one foot, can you imagine the horrible nature of life? Our eyes are winking, winking, winking. As many times you wink, so much clarity of vision will be there. It is a rest. Blink as many times, never stare. Staring is tiring to the eye. So, you should give rest and relaxation, relaxation, relaxation. Learn to work with relaxation.

How will you have relaxation? As long as you are active and interactive, there is no relaxation. So, to practice relaxation, what you should do is, leave all work and sit alone in a place. That is why we have a pooja room. In the pooja room, we don’t think of other secular matters. Only pooja we have. And what is this pooja? Picking some flowers and putting, or chanting some stotras. There, our intelligence doesn’t have to think much. So, it is something that you do whereby the strain, stress etc. will be away.

Our Harvard University, last time I was told by ‘P’, have issued a bulletin in which they say, an average man sleeps for 7 hours. For 1020 minutes he remains wakeful, they say. Out of the 1020 minutes, at least 20 minutes you should sit in relaxation, meditation, and absorption.

For the body, at least four times you stop your work, go to your dining hall or otherwise, and you feed the body. At least 80 minutes, 90 minutes or sometimes two hours. Out of 17 hours, you give rest to the body at least for 2 hours. But what rest do you give to your mind and intelligence? Nothing. First of all, you don’t recognize it. Secondly you don’t know how to do it.

So, what you should do is you should simply sit in a place. With the mind you can think of a garden, the full moon, the expanse of a sea, the expanse of a sky, the different types of stars and luminaries there, a tall mountain, lush green, or the snowy caps of Himalayas. See something that is beautiful and nice, that will make you joyous. Or we have got religious and spiritual methods of guiding it.

With the intelligence, you should always do some independent thinking. What is this life? Wherefrom does it start? What do we do? And what is the end-point of life? What is the goal? We are a human after all. We are given to thinking. The power of thinking is very important. So, what is life? What am I supposed to do? What is the mind itself? How with the small eyes we are able to see a huge world with small eyes? Where is this world registered? Is it in the eyes? Or is it inside the body? If it is inside the body, does the body have so much of space to contain a big world? Why don’t you think like this?

We have our Ramayana, Mahabharata, Bhagavad Gita, Bhagavatam etc. They are all discussing two or three items – “What is man, the human? Who is God? And what is this world?” So, it speaks about character, behavior and interaction, making you worthier and worthier, better and better and more alluring.

We have a habit in Kerala, during the āshāda month, traditional families read Ramayana at least once. Ramayana consists of 24000 Sanskrit verses. So, you can imagine the length of the text. All these are meant to make you relaxed, relaxed, relaxed, relaxed. If you can go to the examination hall, early in the morning you get up, before going, simply sit for about 15 to 20 minutes not thinking of everything, observing your own mind, observing, not following. See what happens in your examination. Twenty minutes you should be relaxed.

Relaxation means what? I am moving with my hands like this. What is the relaxation for the hands? Keep the hand like this. Similarly, the mind and the intelligence constantly vibrant, vibrating, you should make it relax. Don’t give any subject for the intelligence to think nor make the mind have particularly any feelings for anybody. Let both of them be relaxed. As you will stop walking and sit on a chair, let the mind and the intelligence sit on themselves. That is how the worship, chanting a mantra, reciting slokas, all these become very helpful for us.

A person who chants Vishnu Sahasranama, his mind will be relaxed. It will take about 20 minutes or 25 minutes to chant Vishnu Sahasranama, because he is chanting the same Stotra over and over again, he doesn’t have to think. So, the whole period of chanting becomes a relaxation for him. Are you understanding what I say? It becomes a relaxation for you. Because you are not doing anything, we don’t have to attain. You only repeat what you know or look into the book and read. So that is full relaxation. You can chant some stotras, Bhagavad Gita you can recite, but spend at least 20 to 25 minutes a day. Even Harvard university says this. So, this is the relaxation.

Before going for the examination, sit for 20 minutes. Forget everything. And with a relaxed mind, you go to the examination hall, read the question paper. If you understand it in the first reading, whatever answer you know best, you start writing from there. If you don’t understand it well, read a second time, if necessary, a third time, then you will find the nervousness is gone and your mind is ready to write. Then write whatever answers you are sure about, and the best. When good things which you know are all over, then you can take up the answers which you don’t know readily and think. In the examination hall, you cannot do anything more. You can write only what you know. Then why worry? You can write only what you know! Maximum you can revive and rehearse whatever you have learnt.

So, this relaxation is very very important. So, don’t grow from ‘busy’ness to greater ‘busy’ness, and busier, busier, most busy, no no no…. you should sit and relax. That relaxation should become part of your life. This is the way to develop your inner personality, mind and intelligence. Are you prepared to do something like this? Do you want your mind and intelligence to grow? Then you have to do this.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.