Articles for Saadhana

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.

I have been speaking about the meditational absorption linked to interactional sadhana. ‘X’ was raising a question. “You are always emphasizing the interactional sadhana. Does it mean that our initiated sadhana of meditation and meditational absorption is not necessary? From whatever you say, it appears interactional sadhana is far better and superior.” It is in connection with that, that I started speaking about interactional sadhana. I will continue the subject. But my exposition will be effective provided all of you get involved and you start introspecting over the message distinctly.

What do you do in meditation? You withdraw from all actions and interactions, bodily and oral, sit in a place, close your eyes, interlock your fingers and put them on your lap, if this much is done, all physical and oral activities are suspended or brought to a stop. Now, what will you do? With whatever initiated sadhana and anusandhana are given to you, you will try to preserve and pursue it in your mind, but the mind will have its own job to do. So, the mind will undergo its own processes of memory, design, planning coupled with a variety of emotions. You try to meet them with your anusandhana, the mantra that has been given, and also the process you apply, that is also an interactional sadhana. The difference between this and interactional sadhana is that in this, you are only dealing with the mind exclusively. The mind does its job. You tell the mind: "Not that, but this." With the mantra that you have, you are trying to act upon the mind and either disallow its distraction or reduce the distraction and if you succeed in doing so, the mental activity as a whole will stop and you will get absorbed. Till the absorption is reached, it becomes interaction. But interaction with the mind and exclusively. Mark these expressions. Interaction with the mind but exclusively, avoiding all kinds of physical and oral display or interaction.

So, our sadhana is actually a very concentric or focused interaction with the mind until at last, the mind’s activity, modification comes to a stop and you get absorbed in the mind’s own essence or the self. How long will you do it? For about an hour or half? Then you will get up. Out of the 24 hours of the day, even if you sleep for seven hours, 17 hours are left. In the 17 hours, you may spend maximum two hours for looking after your body, answering the calls of nature, bathing, eating etc. So, 15 hours of the day you are wakeful and you are interacting. In the interaction, sometimes you may do introspection using the mind and intelligence alone. But normally, the introspection will be on the object world and object processes and pursuits. That cannot be meditation at all!

So, inorder to meet the challenges or torments produced by 15 hours of worldly and secular interaction, how can one hour of meditation and absorption be sufficient? So, every day as I say, you climb a foot and you fall a few yards. Next day also, you will climb one foot, and you will fall. In Malayalam there is a proverb. ‘Chaan keriyaal muzham cherukkum’. This is the plight and fate. That is why I tell you, the meditation and meditational effects should be continued in the interactional level. The only difference is that in all the interactions, the mind is the causal factor. When you speak, the mind is involved. When you move your hands, place your feet, write, anything whatsoever you do, the activity is designed, caused, motivated, propelled by the mind. So, without the mind’s involvement there is no interaction at all.

In meditation, you were exclusively handling the mind in the absence of physical and sensory interaction. You will handle the same mind in the interactional level also. Why? In all the interactions, causally as well as sustainingly as well as terminally or concludingly, the mind alone is involved. So, in the interactions either while you do, or while you get some impact from interaction either from persons or from places or from events, that impact will be acting upon the mind. In what way will it act upon? Either it will produce pleasantness – sukha, or unpleasantness, coupled with desire, hatred, fear etc. These are the only impact generations. Will you please understand this? Sit and know.

All the interactional results and outcomes can produce only two reactions in the mind – sukha and duhkha. Again some emotions also will be produced. The interactions may be anything. It may be running an office. It may be dealing with the people at home. It may be going to the market, driving a car, maybe a big national task. After all, you, the individual are doing the interaction. Let the objective interactional front be anything. As an individual, as an actor, as an interactor, you are the same. The resident and member of your family alone goes to the market. He alone goes to the office. So, the subject part of the interaction remains the same. Now, we are to deal with this subject part - namely your mind through the intelligence.

So, in all the interactions you should be conscious of the fact, "My mind should not get unsettled or unstable. Towards sukha duhkhas I have a golden, universal, wholesome attitude." Without duhkha there cannot be a sukha. So, duhkha is a complement to sukha. And sukha paves the way for duhkha. So, the desirability of sukha is gone in as much as it follows duhkha and it leads to duhkha. And the undesirability of the duhkha is also gone because in the absence of duhkha there cannot be a sukha. So, duhkha leads to sukha, duhkha leads to sukha, duhkha leads to sukha, duhkha leads to sukha. Preceding duhkha there was sukha and following dukha, succeeding it, there will be sukha. So where is the undesirability?

Will you not welcome hunger? Any kind of a sumptuous meal maybe made ready. Unless you have hunger, the meal will not be delicious. So, the delicious nature of the meal primarily consists in your hunger. Similarly, duhkha is the hunger which produces the sukha appeasement. Once you start thinking in this manner, this becomes a uniform, singular formula for the whole interactional impacts. So, every time what you should do is, you do interactions sensorily and bodily. But in addition to the objective attention and outcome you look for, there must be parallelly, simultaneously, a subjective sadhana portion in you.

Your interaction should be a sadhana. Declare that it is going to be a sadhana from now on. As I will be meditatively doing sadhana handling the mind, I will be also doing interactionally the sadhana of handling the mind. And every time you do this sadhana of interactional sublimation, what will happen? The mind will become lighter, the intelligence will become clearer, and with this, the inner potential and possibilities will be infinitely more. A job which you are afraid of taking up, after all, I, the individual, am going to work. I will work within a period of 24 hours of the day and with two hands, two feet, one tongue and a pair of eyes, ears etc. Whether I work for the nation or for the family, whether I work for the state or for the centre, in what way am I changing? It is my expression. Previously I was adding one to two. Now, I am adding one lakh to two lakhs, no, one million to two million. Both are addition. Physically you have to add a few zeroes, that’s all. But so far as the mind is concerned, it is adding two figures. You tell me, would you like to add millions or would you like to add decimals? So, the interactions are a great opportunity for us to do sadhana which we were otherwise doing receding from interaction and exclusively handling the mind. The same mind you now handle interactionally.

My dear souls, there is something more. All the troubles of the mind are accruing from only interactions and their impacts. Will you please listen to me and understand? Why are you meditating? We are meditating because of the interactional impacts which disturb us, affect us, torment us, by what? By the sukha duhkha delusion. By what? By raga-dvesha-bhaya addition. If you are able to handle your interactions being conscious of the fact that "I will not undergo raga dvesha and bhaya. My interaction should be a free expression, should be a spontaneity, should be a harmony. As I am using healthy legs to walk, as I am using my tongue to speak, in the same manner I will use the body and senses to interact. In whatever field I may be, it is an expression of my inner, individual personality. When the light radiates prakasha, when the light rays give you illumination, is it not a beautiful expression? When you look well, facially and otherwise, is it not good? Similarly, I have a potential. That potential I am expressing."

So, it is an opportunity. It is a pleasure. It is a joy. Dr Agarwal in Delhi told me that, “I have come to the hospital at seven o' clock. Now it is nine thirty. I have not taken any rest except having some meal. I love, I am having joy for my work. So I don’t feel tired.” he says. This joy, does the body produce it, or your table and file produces it? Or, the joy is produced by the mind? So, please get rid of the obsession that interactions are binding and tormenting. The torment is in your mind because you don’t understand the interactions to be a beautiful and harmonious expression.

I told the students in Jamshedpur that “Examination should be a festivity for you. One year you have studied. And one year study, you have to write for 2 ½ hours. Suppose the examination is not there, then your study will not complete itself.  So, examination means festivity. Go to the examination hall. Read the questions. If you understand them you write. Or read a second time, a third time. At least a few questions you will know. Answer them gallantly. If you don’t know the answer, simply come away.” Examination should be a festivity. The newspapers reported the message. Similarly, interactions should be a harmonious pleasant exercise for you. And you are only to add one point. The objective efficiency, technical knowledge, everything you have. Use it. But concurrently, you should also make your interactions the same unbroken sadhana. Have an attention on your mind. “My dear mind, sukha and duhkha are inevitable. Don’t be enamoured of any sukha.” Maybe from a world recognition you get sukha. What does it matter? So far as the mind is concerned, it is sukha. Just like a hungry man eating the meal. Or duhkha, it is a complement. So, get rid of the delusion. You don’t know how much expansive the mind will be.

Similarly never have desire, never have possessiveness and never have ego. Through every interaction, you should be able to sublimate them and before long there will come the glorious day where they have become practically extinct, very near that. Don’t worry about how much progress you have attained. You are going to have a decimal percentage of an infinite quantum. No matter how much you get, you may not get anything, even the attempt is great.

jijñāsur-api yogasya śabda-brahmātivartate, "Even a enquirer of this wonderful interactional yoga, he transcends the Vedic ken", Krishna says. So, even a small measure of progress is great indeed, my dear souls.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.