Articles for Saadhana

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

I thought of sharing with you some information. It is better that all of you know it so that word will get around. These are days when people have psychological problems. Somebody who had gone away from India for studies in a foreign country, his family is very much associated with me. As a boy, he used to speak to me, tell me about his mental problems, sometimes philosophical questions and enquiries that face him and many other things. In all that I say it will not be merely a secular discussion, I will also bring some divine elements. So chanting Gayatri, Vishnu Sahasranama etc. thus becomes part of the whole process and pursuit.

Here is an instance where such a background is there and whenever the boy has been in trouble for writing examinations etc. I used to help him. He has gone abroad and he is studying there. But he has his problems. So, one day he wrote a very big letter. How beautifully the letter has been written in English, meticulously written! A person who writes such a letter in such a language, well structured, point by point etc. how can he ever have a psychological problem one would think.

So, I wrote to him a reply. I informed the parents. I told them this is a situation where some help should be given and all that. He again gave me a ring and I am talking to him. He is taking some anti-depression tablet. Apparently he is helped but he has no motivation. I told him that “In an emergency situation medicine is necessary and welcome but your idea must be not to cling on to the medicines for long but try to get rid of them.”

“Whatever constrictions and negative thoughts you have, do not go on harping on it, ‘I have negative thoughts, I have negative thoughts, I feel constricted, I feel suppressed.’ Every time you think in this manner, apart from having the trouble if at all, you are trying to enhance and strengthen it. You should scrupulously avoid any reference to the trouble and confirming it and strengthening it.” To make these people understand what I say, it takes time.

In all these matters, we have got a beautiful tradition; the tradition is to cultivate the opposite virtues. Suppose you feel constricted, you should constantly think ‘I am not constricted, I am expansive.’ Now how to put these ideas into them? They should stop referring to their trouble. Every time they refer to their trouble, the trouble gets confirmed. They should not refer to it.

They should always think about the opposite virtues. What are these virtues and how to remember them? He says, “I am chanting Vishnu Sahasranama. Whatever mantra you have given, I am chanting.” Whenever you chant a mantra, it generally arises from and it is implying your reliance on God. ‘I rely upon God’, that reliance! When you rely upon God, I don’t think you have to worry about anything. Accept what comes and go forward.

He was asking me again and again, “How can I think and get rid of this constriction?” Finally, I told him, “My dear boy, I will give you some thoughts which you can revolve repeatedly. Never think about your trouble and confirm and intensify it.” The question is that they should remember and do it. But sometimes the disease is such that it will never allow. So there is a conflict.

I was asking him, “You say you are constricted. Your body is very limited I agree. What about the air in your body? The air that comes into your body and there is a pressure inside as well as outside. That air, is it constricted by the body or is it widely spread out?” He said, “Yes, widely spread out.” “What about the mind then? The mind is not matter and energy. It is beyond matter and energy. That mind, will it not be far more spread out than the air?” He said, “Yes.” “Then which mind are you saying is constricted? Don’t say that ‘I am constricted’. Your body is limited, I agree. It is condensed, it is solid. But the mind is not a solid material. So, it cannot be constricted.” He agreed.

Then I told him, “I will give a śloka and its meaning. Meanwhile pick up one or two verses from Vishnu Sahasranama which will give you the idea of expansion and then focus on that particular śloka repeatedly.”

The more important point what I told him I would like you to remember, “You have to reduce the dosage of the medicine.” Now he is taking one full tablet. “These tablets have got chemical effect and they will suppress the thought process. If they suppress the thought process, the mind cannot suppress only the negative thought process. It suppresses the whole thought process, negative as well as positive. Then how will you have motivation? So motivation will be less. Please understand this but nevertheless the medicine is necessary for the time being. So you take it.”

“After you start doing what I have asked you to do, you try to feel more and more expansion, not contraction, then reduce the medicine by say one eighth and take one eighth less; instead of one full tablet, remove from it one eighth. And like that continue for two weeks. Then reduce it by 1/6th. Another two weeks reduce it by 1/4th. Like that you reduce it to half and further, quarter. Finally you remove it. But the medicine cannot be cut all of a sudden. It will take about two months or maybe three months.”

“Meanwhile I will give you a śloka and also the meaning which you can chant. It says that the air in my body, what about the space in me? The space is spread out everywhere. Our mind is something very expansive; it cannot be constricted. But the mind works through a brain process. So the brain is individualistic, mind is not necessarily so.”

A very good boy, studying well, who has scored well, he went abroad for studying in a better situation and there this is what he feels. He is not able to accept his bodily looks and features. We are born with something. Either we are tall or we are short , either we look very well or not. In what way are we responsible for our birth? Let us accept whatever is there, thank God, we have two eyes, one nose, two ears, one tongue, we are able to think, understand, write examinations. Everything is okay. Then why should we say that ‘I am x, I am y’? But somehow such thoughts come. That is also one fact.

So, after identifying the trouble, your sole focus should be to overcome the trouble. Understand that God is present everywhere. He is equally present in you. When God is present in you, in what way should you fear? If any adversity were to come, He would know it first and He would also safeguard you against the adversity. Was not Draupadi’s sari pulled in the open assembly? Duhshasana had caught hold of the tip of the sari and started pulling. But within 15 seconds, what happened there? His effort was not stopped but Draupadi could not be undressed because the sari became longer and longer until at last wicked Duhshasana felt that his hands were tired. He abandoned the task and sat there absolutely fatigued. You tell me how this happened.

Don’t treat it as a story. It is a story of what developed. God can create the whole world. In the created world, can he not bring about a magical addition? The sari is made by the hands of people those days. So if the handiwork can produce a sari, the power that made the hands and imbued it with that power, can it not produce sari without this also?

So there was a heap of sari and Duhshasana left the whole venture. Though his efforts continued, Draupadi’s request was fully answered though the gap between the two was very very critical and delicate. This is how providence works. You may feel it may not be. It can be many times. From void the world has been created. If there is a power which can create the world from void, it can also create an endless sari on the body of Draupadi. Is it any different creation, more difficult creation? It is unusual that’s all. Human beings themselves are doing quite a number of miraculous and magical performances. So, the presence in the human body can also bring about further magical additions.

Now I am to write to him a contemplation which he should continue for feeling the expansion of the mind.

‘S’ from Malaysia was talking to us when we went there. And during the course of the talk, she suddenly said Swamiji, “ākāśavallepavidūrago'haṁ”, when you say ākāśavat, that is the one verse which gives me a kind of a spatial elixir, special nectar. I was so happy to hear it from her. So all our statements and exhortations are not wasteful. At least one person says that this wonderful śloka has got magic in it.

When I used to chant this śloka in Jamshedpur in my very early decades of my life, ‘A’, she used to close her eyes and sit in the audience. She used to tell me, “Swamiji, when you chant this verse, I am simply drowned in the ecstatic vibrations of it.” But what we say people should listen to and obey and pursue. That is where I find difficulties.

There were so many vānarās. None of them ever thought they could jump over to Lanka. But Hanuman developed so much of fondness for Sri Rama, his master, that he said, “I will chat Rama, Rama, Rama, Rama, and jump.” For him, the sea was equally distant and he did not know where he would fall. But He wanted to reach the other side and he jumped from Mahendrachala mountain and reached there. It was a risk. Nobody knew definitely whether he would be able to reach Sri Lanka and land there. But he landed.

Don’t try to set limits, boundaries or walls to your mind. The body is only body but the body is motivated and inspired by the mind. The mind is a supra-material presence, supra-energial presence. You know that there is a mind. You also know that it is thinking, it is raising emotions. The source of thoughts, knowledge and emotions is the mind and that mind is an expression of the infinitely splendored Soul.

Somehow this boy is very attached to me. He says that “You alone will be able to help me.” I was telling the parents that they should understand the trouble of the son and if possible one of them at least should go and live with him for some time. I have tried this with some others also. If they listen to me and practice it, they will be free of the trouble. It is the mind that now becomes negative. If the mind can become negative, it can also be positive. For that, you should induce positive thoughts and cling to them and pursue them. If you start doing it, the mind will become positive.

Everybody has got a degree of love, hate and fear. Everybody has, still we are living! When the love, hate and fear become excessive, man is enfeebled. Avoiding the excessiveness of love, hate and fear, you should be able to keep it within check and sublimate whatever you have. That is possible, possible, probable, probable; it is sure to be had is the message I have to tell you. Don’t think that nobody is without fear, nobody is without love and hate. But we have to use them discreetly and we should not be subdued by them. Medicines subdue the entire mind. So, negative and positive, both the thoughts will be subdued. You have to come out of this rut. What is the way? I think this is the only scientific way.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.