PROBLEMS AND EXPERIENCES-PART III

[Guest guest]

Problems and Experiences-Part III

 

Q: Through poetry, music, japa, bhajans [devotional songs], the

sight of beautiful landscapes, reading the lines of spiritual

verses, etc., one experiences sometimes a true sense of the all-

pervading unity. Is that feeling of deep blissful quiet in which the

personal self has no place the same as the entering into the Heart

of which Bhagavan speaks? Will undertaking these activities lead to

a deeper samadhi and so ultimately to a full vision of the real?

 

A: There is happiness when agreeable things are presented to the

mind. It is the happiness inherent in the Self, and there is no

other happiness. And it is not alien and afar. You are diving into

the Self on those occasions which you consider pleasurable and that

diving results in self-existent bliss. But the association of ideas

is responsible for foisting that bliss on other things or

occurrences while, in fact, that bliss is within you. On these

occasions you are plunging into the Self, though unconsciously. If

you do so consciously, with the conviction that comes of the

experience that you are identical with the happiness which is truly

the Self, the one reality, you call it realization. I want you to

dive consciously into the Self, that is the Heart.

 

Q: I have been making sadhana for nearly twenty years and I can see

no progress. What should I do? From about five o'clock every morning

I concentrate on the thought that the Self alone is real and all

else unreal. Although I have been doing this for about twenty years

I cannot concentrate for more than two or three minutes without my

thoughts wandering.

 

A: There is no other way to succeed than to draw the mind back every

time it turns outwards and fix it in the Self. There is no need for

meditation or mantra or japa or anything of the sort, because these

are our real nature. All that is needed is to give up thinking of

objects other than the Self. Meditation is not so much thinking of

the Self as giving up thinking of the not-Self. When you give up

thinking of outward objects and prevent your mind from going

outwards by turning it inwards and fixing it in the Self, the Self

alone remains.

 

Q: What should I do to overcome the pull of these thoughts and

desires? How should I regulate my life so as to attain control over

my thoughts?

 

A: The more you get fixed in the Self the more other thoughts will

drop off of themselves. The mind is nothing but a bundle of

thoughts, and the `I'-thought is the root of all of them. When you

see who this `I' is and find out where it comes from all thoughts

get merged in the Self. Regulation of life, such as getting up at a

fixed hour, bathing, doing mantra, japa, observing ritual, all this

is for people who do not feel drawn to self-enquiry or are not

capable of it. But for those who can practice this method all rules

and discipline are unnecessary.

 

Q: Why cannot the mind be turned inward in spite of repeated

attempts?

 

A: It is done by practice and dispassion and it succeeds only

gradually. The mind, having been so long a cow accustomed to graze

stealthily on others' estates, is not easily confined to her stall.

However much her keeper tempts her with luscious grass and fine

fodder, she refuses the first time. Then she takes a bit, but her

innate tendency to stray away asserts itself and she slips away. On

being repeatedly tempted by the owner, she accustoms herself to the

stall until finally, even if let loose, she does not stray away.

Similarly with the mind. If once it finds its inner happiness it

will not wander outward.

 

Q: Are there not modulations in contemplation according to

circumstances?

 

A: Yes. There are. At times there is illumination and then

contemplation is easy. At other times contemplation is impossible

even with repeated attempts. This is due to the working of the three

gunas [sattva, rajas and tamas].

 

Q: Is it influenced by one's activities and circumstances?

 

A: Those cannot influence it. It is the sense of doership -

kartritva buddhi - that forms the impediment.

 

Q: My mind remains clear for two or three days and turns dull for

the next two or three days; and so it alternates. What is it due to?

 

A: It is quite natural. It is the play of purity [sattva], activity

[rajas] and inertia [tamas] alternating. Do not regret the tamas,

but when sattva comes into play, hold on to it and make the best of

it.

 

Q: A man sometimes finds that the physical body does not permit

steady meditation. Should he practice yoga for training the body for

the purpose?

 

A: It is according to one's samskaras [predispositions]. One man

will practice hatha yoga for curing his bodily ills, another man

will trust to God to cure them, a third man will use his willpower

for it and a fourth man may be totally indifferent to them. But all

of them will persist in meditation. The quest for the Self is the

essential factor and all the rest are mere accessories.

 

NOTE: TAKEN FROM "BE AS YOU ARE", EDITED BY DAVID GODMAN, PAGES 170

TO 178