Articles for Saadhana

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.

Listen, for the past few days I have been speaking about as to how the absorptional meditation or meditational absorption is insufficient once you have gained it. It has to be complemented by interactional sadhana which alone will be lingering and lasting till you meditate again. Every day by half an hour or one hour meditation, you climb one foot. And in the interactional life thereafter, you climb down five yards. So, everyday by climbing, it is okay, but far more than climbing you descend and fall. This will not complete the sadhana.

So, the sadhana will be effective when you are able to import the meditational sublimity and purify, sublimate, enrich and elevate the mind, expand the mind, throughout your interactions and it is possible, provided you are intelligent and you are spiritually resolute and shrewd. Spirituality is actually not for the weak and the meek. It is for the bold, the heroic, the confident, who will be hopeful and who wants to achieve the goal of life in this very lifetime. I would go to the extent of saying, you must have spiritual pride, in a good sense, as much as humility. You must have clarity as much as valour.

Bhagavad Gita says anapekṣaḥ, śucih, dakṣah (Bhagavad Gita 12.16). Anapekṣaḥ– non expectant, śucih– extremely clean, dakṣah – very clever, very dexterous in thinking, in speaking, in acting, in interacting. You may wonder as to how these opposite qualities co-mingle. I think everywhere in creation, opposite forces co-mingle. Look at an atom. Though it is invisible there is a constant revolution of the electron around the nucleus. The revolution will not be possible unless there is a counter force exercised by the nucleus. There is nothing in this world non-moving. The earth remains in its own axis only because of its attraction and also the attractions of the surrounding planets, and this becomes true of everything.

My Gurudev used to say, "There is a point where contradictions meet.", I added, "and dissolve". He said, "Contradictions meet.", I would like to add, "and dissolve". This is what I have found, felt and realized in my life. Now, you should be clear and bold enough to understand this. The entire life in this world revolves around the individual. Don’t think that your life is anything else. It revolves around yourself. The whole universe which you see, is resting upon you, the seer.

I was looking at the sun for a while today though it was not very visible. At what distance is the sun and where is my body? In a corner of the globe. And the sun is lakhs and lakhs of kilometers away from me. Yet, with a pair of eyes or one of the eyes, very small organ in the body, I am able to see the sun. I have not gone to the sun. The sun has not come to me. But I still see him as clearly as a near object. Tell me, whose greatness is this? This vision which I am having, it is I who wanted to see, I focus the eyes, I gain the object’s impression which is formed in the mind and I see my mental image of the sun. It’s heat and light are only up to the eye and skin. Within the image of the sun there is neither heat nor brilliance. But there is something different from the visual brilliance and heat. What is that? That is what we call effulgence, luminosity. Just like light reveals objects before the eye, this luminosity and effulgence reveals everything external and internal. That is what reveals your thought, your emotion, your doubt, your quest. That is what pursues the quest and realizes the goal.

So, when I say, the whole life revolves around the individual, try to understand it. Only when I am there, my body is there, my senses are there. Only when the senses are there, the world around is there. If my eyes lose the vision, I will continue to live but I will have no colours and shapes in the world.

A child is born retarded, autistic, Down syndrome. The entire world cannot do anything about it. The shaping of the child takes place in the mother’s womb, unregulated, unconditioned by the mother or father who are considered to be parenting the child. It is nature’s inner creation. None of us has any role there. If at all there is a power that shaped the body, it is the power within the ovum and the sperm. Nobody has introduced it at all there. Understand the potential, the spiritual presence within the body which animates and activates the body and the senses, is independent and sovereign. It is that power that has gifted you the senses and it is through that senses that you perceive and decipher and determine the world.

Tell me now, if it is capable of creating five senses to capture and interact with the entire world, what should be its original power? But for the senses, the world would not have been there, would not have been recognized. So, to recognize the world, to conduct all the research, knowledge and activity that we are doing, tell me who is responsible and where is the secret? My dear souls and seekers, the secret is never outside. In fact, there is nothing called outside at all! Outside is a concept, a notion, an idea. It is just like inside. Inside and outside are two opposite concepts the mind spins, weaves. Every thought is produced by the mind, every emotion is generated by it, every doubt is its creation and the clarity, the mind alone has sought and gained.

When I say, the entire world of objects revolves on your own inside and the mind, it is a statement that requires to probing. Spend the whole of your life to understand this truth. I will relate it to God now.

God is omnipresent. The omnipresent God, tell me, which is the best place to access Him and realize Him? Is it outside your body? He is distant. Is He in the body, He is still distant. Go closer. The only place where you can access Him is within the body where He is the closest initially as the mind and thought, thereafter the intelligence, thereafter the ego. No! Even the ego is a little distant and a subtle object to me. He is the closest in you yourself, you yourself.

This is what Srimad Bhagavata repeatedly says. Whenever it refers to Lord, the Bhagavan, it will say, Ātmā.

Suhṛt preṣṭhatamo nātha ātmā cāyaṁ śarīriṇām, says Pingala in the Pingala Gita in Srimad Bhagavatam which Krishna quotes and explains. “Oh my Lord, you are the most benefactor, dependable one.” Preṣṭhatamah – the dearest and the most beloved. Nātha  – you are the Lord of the whole universe.  Ātmā cāyaṁ śarīriṇām – you are that which is denoted by the term ‘I’, by all. Śarīriṇām – for all the embodied people.

My dear souls, how can you miss this wonderful presence God whom you refer to repeatedly as ‘I’?  You don’t have to chant a mantra. You don’t have to walk a distance. You don’t have to do anything specially, because every time you say ‘I’ it is a reference to God.  All the other japas are object japas.  This is a subject reference. There is nobody who does not believe in God, who does not exist in God. When you say “I don’t believe in God” the ‘I’ already refers to and implies God. So, there is no disbeliever, no doubter, nobody who is distant from God. The day when you are distant from yourself, the ‘I’, then you can be distant from God. Such a beautiful proposition, why don’t you realize it? Get it, and start dancing, giggling with joy and ecstasy and liberation.

Jnana sadhana is jnana alone from first when? It is knowledge, as knowledge is an evolute or an evolution of the intelligence and the mind, jnana sadhana is focused in the mind alone, in the intelligence alone. It is a mento-intellectual pursuit done by it, resting upon it, concluded by it, terminated by it, realized by it. Get away the fear that you will be distanced from God. Get away from the doubt whether you can realize Him. You realize only Him, none else. He is not merely the realization and the realizer, he is the realizer himself. He is the one who realizes himself.

So, the individual is the focus of the entire life, in that individual personality, it is not the gross body. It is only an instrument which is to be employed by the mind and the mind is to be directed by the intelligence, the ego co-ordinates all these, and there is something beyond the ego. That is the wonderful, ultimate, original, sovereign, affluent presence, infinitely resourceful. Rest upon it if you cannot realize it. Rely upon it, even if you cannot realize. Be sure, whether I get or do not get, I don’t lose myself and hence God.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.