This individuality is a big illusion. Every person, every object, every thing is a location at a particular point in space created by a pressure exerted by an infinite past of impressions of previous lives, and an infinite future that is summoning from the front. Things are not in one place only; they are everywhere.
Objects are not so nice that they require our affection; they are also not so bad that they deserve our hatred, or rejection. Neither are things beautiful that we should go on looking at them, nor are they ugly that we should turn away from them.
Inasmuch as our notion about a thing is ultimately wrong, our loves and hatreds also are irrational prejudices, which cannot be justified in the end.
All persons exist in the past, present and future simultaneously. We are now in the present moment of time; that is what we are thinking. But we are in the past and future also, because what we are going to be influences us just now and is summoning us as a future possibility.
We are connected to all things; we cannot disconnect ourselves from anything. So when we rise up, the total that we are comes up. Hence, when one attains Moksha, the whole cosmos rises up together.
Sometimes a stupid idea arises in the mind of people: "What is the good of my going to Moksha when others are all suffering here? Let me wait until others also go." They are there and are as important as our brothers in the dream process. The whole thing ascends, a single sea of being.
The camouflage has to be lifted. The masquerading veil has to be torn asunder and we have to see the object 'as such' in meditation, and not as it appears to the senses and the mind.
We do not want "something" in the world; our basic longing is to have everything.
Philosophically, scientifically, rationally, anything is as good as anything else in the world. It is so because every part of the world is connected integrally to every other part, forming a living whole.
This knowledge which beholds the interconnection of all things among themselves is a higher knowledge, but the highest knowledge is something quite different. It beholds one Being, from which one cannot extricate oneself. All are immersed in that Being.
When I have a love for you, do I love your bones, your flesh, or your nose? What am I loving? When I tell you that I am delighted to see you, what am I seeing? I am seeing something inside you, the "you" which is not a conglomeration of bones and flesh. Thus, also, when you are satisfied and overjoyed at the perception of an object of meditation, you should not look at it as a picture or a drawing. It is vibrant life.
The object of meditation is a concentrated focus of the entire structure of the universe. To give the same example, if you touch any part of my body, you have touched my entire body, though it is only a touching of the toe.
The happiness that you feel in the presence of a beloved object is due to the Atman manifesting itself thereby.
We are confused when we feel that an object of sense is giving us satisfaction. We have transferred ourselves into the object. As we are out of ourselves, we are unhappy and we have lost ourselves.
Your feeling, your love, your longing for God in the form of the object that you have chosen as your object of meditation is not an imagination of the mind. It is a truth that has been manifested before you in the form of this little "occasion" of the cosmic power.
When I love you, I love your soul, the greatness, grandeur, beauty of your depth of personality, and not your physical feature. And when I love you, it is not my body that loves you, nor my mind. My whole being, the root itself, is poured forth on your centrality.
We have been designating the point of concentration in our Yoga practices as the "object" of meditation. Actually, the word "object" is not a suitable description of what we are aiming at finally, because what we regard as an object stands outside us.
Nothing can be under anyone's control, unless it is inseparable from the holder.
The fear of losing what one has possessed will contaminate the so-called joy of having it at all; therefore, there is no such joy in having it, and therefore, there is no such thing as real joy in the world.
I am looking at you, and when I look at you I am seeing your eyes; they are outside me. But that is not the proper way of looking at you. You have to look through my eyes and I have to look through your eyes, so that instead of myself and yourself being face to face, we stand in parallel collaboration. One enters the other.
All things in the world are flowing into us every moment of time, and we're also flowing into everything in the world every moment.
The whole world is trying to enter into us and sustain us but we repel the entry of these beneficent forces by our egoism. Does not every person feel that he is more important than anything in the world? Secretly one feels like that, but is it true?
Unless the soul rises into action, you will not feel happy under any condition. Even when you take a beautiful meal, the soul has to be satisfied. When the soul rises into action, the whole personality also rises into action. Then it is that you feel strength in your personality.
All associations foisted upon an object should be removed gradually, and we should try to behold the object freed from the notions that we have of it.
When I am seeing a person in front of me, what do I think of that person? Many ideas arise: this person has come from New York, he is the son of so-and-so, working in that office, with so much education. This person's name and form are like this. What other many things can I think about the person? But none of these descriptions really are that person.
Cosmic substances are responsible for the manufacture of this little body. Everything is here in this body saying, "I am here, I am here." It is as if you have borrowed money from ten thousand people and your very existence is conditioned by the existence of those people. You are not any more a human being singly existing, because you are eating the food which is bought by the money that you borrowed from everywhere.
We cannot be comfortable in the presence of anything for a long continuous period because mostly our thoughts are on the surface of consciousness. We have never an idea that we have also subconscious levels, and deeper still an unconscious sea of potential urges.
If you have something troubling you in the deepest level of your mind, that has to be brought to the surface of consciousness and to the daylight of proper understanding.
Go on with your meditations for three months, six months, with earnestness and intensity of concentration, carried on at fixed hours of the day, every day. Then the whole personality which has been ignored earlier, will rise up to action.
If you are honest, you will realise that you are a dustbin filled with umpteen cravings, submerged longings, and disturbed emotions. If you are dishonest, you will not progress even by one inch.
Can you live alone? Being literally alone is very difficult to conceive, but it is necessary to "pass the test." The social part of your personality will revolt against the individual life that you are forcing into yourself. Most of us are in a social atmosphere, and if you are out of that social condition and living completely alone, you may feel miserable at that time.
People hang themselves or drown themselves to maintain their self-respect. There is nothing more important than self-love, but you cannot describe what it means.
You want a twofold wealth from this world outside-physical property, as well as psychological property (intellectual property, as people sometimes call it). You would like people to recognise you as much as possible. Everybody should praise you.
Nature is intent on producing species of different kinds, and exerts the pressure of the species so that a human being would like to have children of a human type only. You would not like to have frogs and scorpions as your children. The individuality is a slave to the pressure of Nature, thought you may think that you are an independent, isolated person. Nature's species impulse pressures you, so all of creation goes to multiply the species concerned.
Desires are the greatest thieves in the world. They want to rob you of everything and make you a pauper until you die a miserable nobody. All people in the world who are subject to these desires die wretchedly, though they might have thought that they have achieved a lot.
As an intelligent person, you must appreciate even now that nobody really wants you in this world. None is your friend here. When everything goes, God comes; when something is there, He is a little far away.
If you have your own security and glory in this world, well, let it be. Why should you worry about God? Let Him mind His business. If you can live without Him, you are free to be happy with yourself. But, beware! There are various ways of handling desires. One is a crude way; another is a subtle, rarified manner. The crude way is to be physically away, as much as possible, from that atmosphere where there are things which tempt you. Go far away from them. You should not go on looking at a thing which is disturbing your mind. The other way is psychological, which is done by another technique called substitution. This is the way by which you give to the mind something else instead, not the thing which it is asking for.
Nothing should be cut off completely. Everything should be diminished slowly, gradually, stage by stage so that you will not know that any change is taking place at all.
Total disconnection from every kind of work is a sort of unhealthy complaint. Without some activity one cannot exist even for a moment. If God does not speak, the devil will start speaking. An idle brain is the devil's workshop. Do not imagine that when you are doing nothing, divinity is working through you. The other thing also may be at work, equally.
The complications of physical nature like illness, etc. can be avoided by a proportionate conducting of oneself in activity, behaviour, diet, sleep, as well as social contact. Complete dissociation from society also will disturb the mind, because man is a social being.
Why does lethargy arise in the mind? It is a trick played by the mind itself. It knows how to put a stop to your activities. If one method does not succeed, it will employ another method.
The mind has another technique to distract you. Varieties of doubts can arise. "The method that you are adopting for meditation is wrong. Do you know that it is an erroneous exercise that you are practicing? Who initiated you?"
When you are drowning, dying-what do you do at that time? Will you keep a timepiece and count the number of minutes? No, the entire soul then will rise up into a total action. Quality of thought is that which you feel when you are sure you will perish this moment, and you have then to think only one thought, the only thought possible, the all-consuming total thought.
Daily sacred study, daily recitation of the divine name, chanting the name of God, or the mantra, resorting to the Guru, attending Satsang (holy company) of saints and sages, being with them, listening to their discourses-all these will produce a cumulative effect of strength and security in your mind so that the problems mentioned will gradually diminish in their intensity and fade out completely later on.
God (in some way at least) is an extreme form of reality and, therefore, the presentation of God before the seeker also may take place in extremely unthought-of and unexpected ways.
Our duty is not to run away from what we are confronting, but to develop enough energy in us to confront it.
All our activities throughout history fade into a valueless nothingness before the tremendous activity of God. Who can say that the sun in the sky does nothing at all? He does not speak or proclaim himself. That silent existence itself is sufficient to make everything alive in this world.
Written by: Sri Swami Krishnananda
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