Articles for Saadhana

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.

I have been researching on these points, not now, I have been doing it for a long time. That is why if at all I talk, there is a difference; that difference comes from that research. So I would like to tell you this point with open eyes. Yesterday we discussed a portion of Gita and I was mentioning what have you learned or gained from the discussion. Nobody answered to me. ‘N’ wanted to say something but it was not completed. But I would like to tell you something.

Vedanta repeatedly says śravaṇa, manana and nididhyāsana as the three stages. Śravaṇa means hearing exposition from the Guru. Manana means reflecting over what has been heard and nididhyāsana is meditation where our purpose is to dissolve the mind process. Here, I am wondering what is this reading, reading, reading, reading. Then these are contrasted with a number of other religious and devotional practices like worship, elaborate worship, pūja, this, that and all. In what way is it different? I don’t think you people have a clear grasp of it.

Whenever you read, what is meant by reading? With the help of a book you are trying to employ and exercise your mind, is it not? But do you think that you are doing it? I don’t think. You are reading, that’s all. Reading is actually a practice just like religious practice of puja, yogic practices of prāṇāyāma etc. This reading for a seeker is actually a sādhanā. When you read, you get ideas, explanations, discussions. Now, the mind is going through these, is it not? Visual presence of a book is only a help but it is an interaction that takes place within your body.

But do you think that this manana or reflection is a sādhanā? If it is a sādhanā, it must have direct impact on the mind. Let us say:

Whatever is to be done, you do. But you do asaktaḥ, free from or devoid of the delusional clinging. You have read this. Do everything but devoid of the delusional clinging. Do everything, but free from delusional clinging and that process will take you to the Supreme. The idea is very simple. It is expressed in sixteen letters.

That is the phala- śruti.

What have you understood by reading this? I think after reading it, you should stop. If necessary, you close your eyes and then think. Asaktaḥ satataṁ kāryaṁ karma samācara. You are not ‘doing’ here now. You are only ‘reading’ and ‘thinking’. But do you know that this reading, stimulating this thought process, it is a sādhanā? So this sādhanā you should revolve and pursue as much as you want until at last you have become asakta. This is what I want you to say. Your mind has to become asakta. How will it become asakta you tell me?

Mind has to become asakta. So mind is internal. That mind has to become asakta. By doing karma, will it become asakta? By not doing karma, will it become asakta? So whether there is sakti in the mind or not, you should be clear about. If there is sakti, you find out what is this sakti, how does it work and to make it asakta, what should be done? Unless you initiate this process into the mind, the sādhanā will not take place. So can you tell me, when it stops as a reading and when it begins as a sādhanā?

If you read a proposition, ‘You have to tie the Lord in your heart.’ Very simple. You have to tie the Lord in your heart with the cord of love. How? A very small sentence. The question is what is meant by tying the Lord. How shall I tie? Can I tie? What is that devotional cord? Am I able to generate it? Will it be generated? How will I know? Am I ready for it? Will I do it? Or is it only a statement that I read?

I also have another complaint. What is that? Whenever we read epic narrations, when we read the sufferings of people, difficulties of people, we shed tears and it is very ennobling. But when actually we encounter sufferings, it is not ennobling, is it not?

While reading it as an epic you feel very elevated, ennobled while reading and if you shed tears, it is all the more so. But when the same situation comes to you, I don’t think you have this thought. But as a narration you are happy to read, but as an experience are you happy to undergo? This is a question I always ask. If you are so moved after reading, then we should be extremely happier even that an opportunity has come to me for undergoing the sufferings. So should we not with equal emotional ennoblement undergo the suffering? This is a contradiction I find in the people. Tragedies they like to see on the movie. But if their life passes through a tragedy, they totally dislike it.

Yesterday I read a report in Matrubhumi, one full-page report of a boy, his dog and mother, aunt, altogether three or four people. Two or three nights he spent along with them, going to another house etc. and he started swimming. Water was over. Then he swam and went to a place, asked for a vessel, took water from there and brought it back. Before that he said he had some thermocol. Thermocol pieces he put them and stitched together so that he could place a vessel over it and that vessel he finally filled it and came and all that. And a dog was with them. He says ultimately for three or four days the dog did not evacuate, simply controlled. And they got saved on the third or the fourth day and he was swimming. He said he was swimming after thirteen years. So I wanted to read it through. It was one full page. Very late; it was one o’ clock when I started reading. So if you can have a tragedy, this is an open tragedy.

So I only want you say that all of you are missing the truth because you are not considering what is sādhanā and not doing it well. I speak and you hear. Fifteen-twenty minutes are spent like that and you go your way. I go my way. Similarly, you take a book and read and go away. At least you are doing that much. So it is good and not bad. But I think in reading, it is a sādhanā done by your mind, mind, mind. It is just like a sublime Vedic worship that is done. As is the worship done, so is the manana done here. But do you have the feeling of devotionalism, spirituality while doing this manana? I have my doubt. I would like to hear from you.

I think people don’t have the feeling that it is a sādhanā to read and to think, to read and to think. Thinking itself is the sādhanā. You think, think, think, think, think. You raised the question of anger, is it not? That is why I say if you spend fifty hours of mind application on anger, the anger will subside. Fifty hours of mind application. ‘Mind hours’ I call it. Mind should be spent for fifty hours. Mind should be spent. Then I think any quality can be built; any bad quality can be eliminated. I wanted to put it as hundred mind hours but I have reduced it to fifty hours. Fifty hours if you spend on it, the mind will completely change. But we are not allowing the mind to spend that much time, that is our problem. May not be at one time but on different occasions. In how many places Gita says, do this, do that? Gita is a book of sādhanā. Okay.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.