Articles for Saadhana

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

My role has always been to explain the intricate spirituality in a very simple manner, lucid manner so that people will find it easy and comfortable. There is a chronic notion in our country that spirituality is hard and spirituality is always identified with sannyāsa. Spirituality leads to sannyāsa and sannyāsa is the end point of spirituality. It is not something unusual. We have four ashramas - Brahmacharya, Gārhastya, Vānaprastha and Sannyāsa. All the four ashramas are meant for all people.

Householders should not think that by their household life their life is complete and fulfilled. Never, never, never, never! As you want youngsters, Brahmachāris to get married, you should also want householders to become anchorites, vānaprasthas. And vānaprasthas should be encouraged to become sannyāsins. Our life should end up with sannyāsa. This is the ideal for us. Any ideal is not actualized by all but certainly actualized by a few.

Kalidasa, a famous poet has written some masterly compositions and there is one composition called Raghuvamśa. It is the history of the Raghu dynasty. India had two dynasties - the Solar and the Lunar. Rama, Ramayana etc. belong to the Solar dynasty. Sri Krishna, Bheeshma, Arjuna, Pandavas, all of them belong to the Lunar dynasty. Solar dynasty was the oldest. Kalidasa decided to write the history of that dynasty especially from Raghu onwards. So it is called Raghuvamśa. While writing Raghuvamśa, he is describing the Kings of Raghu dynasty. I don’t know whether I am right in telling you all this.

He begins that this is a royal dynasty. During their young age, they acquired knowledge, knowledge of archery and knowledge of our scriptures. Then they got married. Kings had the freedom and the obligation to marry many women. So they were given to sensory indulgences, yauvane viṣayaiṣiṇām. But the moment they became old, they left the throne, went to the forest and led the life of quasi-ascetics, vānaprasthas, vārdhake muni-vṛttīnām.

Yogenānte tanu-tyajām, when they left the world, when they left the body, they did not leave it remaining in the palace sitting on the throne. They took yogābhyaāsa and through the practice of yoga, most probably in the forest regions, they left the body. Many people did not know when they died or how they left the body. Why I am saying this? This is the culture of our country!

So whenever you hear about sannyāsa, don’t think that it is reserved only for a few. It is meant for all but people are not able to take to it. Our life here not going to be fulfilled with money and wealth nor with family and possessions and properties. Our life is going to be fulfilled by mental contentment and intelligential knowledge, contentment for the mind and knowledge for the intelligence. These two are what make the human personality and life here full, abundant and ecstatic. Joy of any kind is an emotion. Emotion belongs to the mind. Mind is the source of joy. As long as you have the mind, you don’t require anything else to be joyous. But you are always doing things which will constrict the joy. So we don’t have the full joy in the hands of the objects of the world. They become conditioned.

We are taking to air travel to reach faster and safer. But do you know within the aluminium cabin, the pressure is less than what is on the surface of the earth where we live? I cannot say how much it is less. It is less than the earth’s atmosphere. This is why air travel puts us to fatigue and it affects adversely our heart and lungs. There is a statement, if you want to kill an executive, put him on frequent air travel. Are you able to understand the point? People take to air travel considering that it is a comfort and a luxury. It is true. Judged on the sensory level, it is a comfort and luxury. But judged in a wholesome human personality level, it is very much victimizing and weakening to the body, our age will become less. Then what to speak of the other sensory levels of enjoyment? That enjoyment is the best which will not unduly tire us and corrode our senses.

So in the name of civilization and science, whatever we have, more often than not it is not lastingly good. Spirituality always enquires about what is lastingly good. So when a person takes to spirituality, he can take to it any time, in Brahmacharya, in householder-ship, in vānaprastha life. Even in sannyāsa he only intensifies his spiritual pursuit. Why I said this? I always explain matters in this manner in a very very traditional way, in a scriptural way, and highlight how everything is natural and simple when you understand it properly.

I wanted to say about sādhanā. Sādhanā is a wholesome pursuit. It has got two aspects just like our life has two aspects. What are they? Of the twenty-four hours of the day, seventeen hours we are wakeful. But if the wakeful seventeen hours have to be spent wisely and well, then you have to sleep previously for at least seven hours. What is sleep? Multiplying wakefulness with a zero. All the wakeful activities are completely stopped and forgotten and you go into the depths of your soul, then you sleep. That rest and nourishment from sleep are necessary to keep you awake and to make you active for the rest of seventeen hours. So our life consists of seventeen hours wakefulness and seven hours sleep.

In the same manner, the spiritual life of a man is spread over into two stages. One is providing nourishment to the mind and intelligence. Secondly, use the nourished mind and intelligence to your activities. The activities spread over a long period, like sixteen hours or so. One hour at least you should take rest, not sleep and then nourish the mind and intelligence. This nourishment is called meditation. A diluted version of it is prayer, devotion, pūja etc. But you should directly approach the mind and put it to meditation.

And what is meditation? Meditation is an exclusive mental effort. You have to take an optional thought and give it to the mind to practice it, preserve it. Initially the mind may not be able do it. But it will agree and start doing it depending upon your intensity and a period of time like six months or one year. When it accepts the optional thought and goes on preserving it, the next stage is, with the optional thought the mind will stop as in sleep. Understand it very clearly. With the optional thought the mind will stop. When the mind stops, it reaches the source of itself. It reaches the source of thoughts, feelings, emotions, enquiry, knowledge, doubt, everything.

When the thought process itself stops and you go into the source of everything, if you can remain there for five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, twenty minutes, twenty five, thirty, thirty five, forty, forty five minutes, that is the super-best nourishment that you can think of for your inner personality. Our mind gets nourished. Just like the body gets nourished in sleep, when the body is absolutely still and you forget everything, here also you forget everything but don’t sleep. So the mind and intelligence are nourished by their source. So the real goal or objective of meditation is vritti vismaraṇam, absolute cessation of the thought process. This is what we aim at.

In Srimad Bhagavata as well as in Bhagavad Gita, these words are used, ‘na kincit-api cintayet’ - Think of nothing. Nothing you should think. This is what we have to reach. If you are chanting the name of God, that chanting should stop. Even God should be forgotten as world is forgotten. You have to forget yourself, God, world, everything. That vritti vismaraṇa or no thought is the goal that you have to reach in meditation. Until then what do you do?

You can practice the optional thought. If the Guru has given you a mantra, go on chanting the mantra. You observe your own mind, understand its character, structure and constitution. Find out whether you have good thoughts or bad thoughts. If you find bad thoughts are there, automatically you will feel they are not right. So you dissuade the bad thoughts and you persuade and welcome the good thoughts. This process will progress so that the bad thoughts will be lesser and lesser and lesser and the good thoughts will be more, more and more. Selfishness will start declining and selflessness will start growing. Worldliness will reduce. Godliness will increase. You will stop or reduce thinking about yourself and your family. In that place, the mind will start fostering the thoughts and concern of the larger family called the society and the world. When you go on improving in this manner, it is so effective. In an unwritten manner, unpronounced manner, if you are in a forest area, the animals and birds will go on knowing and cruel and gentle animals will come to you as if they are going to the mother. Please mark what I say.

When the desires do not assail your mind and you don’t have to get anything from this world, you have no enmity towards anybody, you only have abundant love for others, when the mind becomes pure, gentle, graceful and benevolent, cruel as well as gentle animals start going to such a person as if to a mother. What more do you want? This is spirituality. This is the benefit of spirituality. If you are young and you are spiritual, then the spirituality will strengthen you, enlighten you, empower you, so much so that you can do double or treble work for the benefit of the world.

You cannot sit at home. You will feel like getting out and doing something for the society. So powerful and influential is spirituality and the whole key is in the mind and intelligence. Put it to meditation. Go to a Guru. Seek deeksha if you want. Get it and then practice. Out of the seventeen hours of the day, one hour at least you should meditate. If not meditate, at least read spiritual writings; that is also a satsang. When the mind is engaged in spirituality, that is satsang. This is how you have to proceed.

So to incorporate about an hour of spiritual exposure and association, is it not something very good? It improves your worth, skill, merit and productivity. Your boss will like you more. Your family people will like you more. The society around will like you more. Your productivity will increase. Is it not something very good and great? Yes, yes, yes is what I have to say. Think about it.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.