Swami teaches... Unsettled mind quiets by efforts towards the Divine

[Guest guest]

Sai Ram

Light and Love

 

Swami teaches.... (17 -18 May 2005)

 

Unsettled Mind Quiets by Efforts Towards the Divine

You can escape death, by not being born again. When you know that you are

the limitless atman, then you are no longer subjected to the limitation of

birth. How to know that? It is the result of a long process of sharpening the

intellect and purifying the emotions and the impulses.

You desire to exist for ever; you enjoy continuing to live; you avoid all

talk of your own death. That is enough evidence to conclude that you are

Reality in essence. Then, again, you are filled with wonder and curiosity and a

desire to know the world around you. You ask continuously what, why, how and

when, about all and sundry. Lastly, you are always seeking joy, through some

means or other. You try to avoid grief, you try to taste joy instead.

The Rishis of ancient India have consistently emphasised. 'Live together,

revere each other; let not the seeds of envy and hate grow and choke the clear

stream of Love,' is the prayer that they have taught the children of this land.

Their teaching has been Unity Divinity Charity from the first breath to the

last. Their teaching lead you to your immortality.

Fundamentally, the years of life are but a short span, a rest in a wayside

caravanserai, a drama played on a rickety stage, a bubble upon the waters.

During this fleeting hour, it has been given to teachers to share this golden

chance of imparting instruction, inspiring devotion, instilling courage, into

the growing children, so that the generation to follow will be ever grateful.

No amount of advice and exhortation can make the teachers rise to the full

stature of his profession. They have to improve themselves and cannot be

improved by external pressure or persuasion.

 

Poet is the person who commands, who lays down the law, the ancient, the

timeless - that is what the Vedhas declare. Kavi, the poet, is called the

all-seeing; he is the seer of Manthra (Manthra Drashta); his role is to

interpret God to human. He should not indulge in meaningless talk,

significanceless writing. He should not be asking questions without end, for,

he should seek in silence to get the answers, without infecting others with his

doubts and his posers.

The heart full of sathwaguna (quality of purity and poise) is the ocean of

milk. The steady contemplation of the Divine, either as your own reality or as

the ideal to be reached, is the Mandara mountain plated in it as the churning

rod. Vaasuki, the serpent that was wound round the churning rod as a rope, is

the group of the senses, emitting poisonous fumes during the process of

churning and nearly frightening the Asuras who held the head. The rope is held

by the good and the bad impulses and both struggle with the churning process;

eager for the results which each has set its heart on.

The Lord Himself comes to the rescue, once He knows that you are earnestly

seeking the secret of immortality and the your Divine essence : He comes,

silently and unobserved, holding the manana (reflection) process unimpaired and

serving as the steady base of all spiritual practice. Many things emerge from

the mind, when churned, but the wise wait patiently for the appearance of the

guarantor of immortality, and seize upon it with avidity.

Chandramouli Shaasthry was telling about the manthras, which when repeated

in faith and with full knowledge of implications, can endow you with mysterious

experiences of the Divine. That is to say, the manthra enables you to be in the

proximity of the Divine that is drawn near by the potency of the formula when

charged with your own mental current.

What are the conditions under which the mind can charge the manthra with the

required potency? The first and foremost one is onepointedness. It takes a time

to obtain this skill and the faith in Divinity as an inner state, style of

life.

Begin from the ancient, well-tried prescription for a calm peaceful life

cultivating comradeship with the good, developing compassion for the

distressed, fostering the feeling of elation at the happy and prosperous, and

deepening the feeling of indifference towards the evil-minded. However, to

experience it is not so easy as to read the texts. The mind is a very poor

instrument, it runs after too many objects and objectives. The moment you

persuade it to fix its attention on God, it wanders into the cinema hall, the

bazaar, etc. It will seldom agree to dwell onthe vast magnificence of the

Divine; when you direct it to the Divine, it will behave as if you are inviting

it to face the deluge or to counter the horrors of Hell. The faith in

Divinity essential for any exercise to dwell upon Him, is in many cases absent

today. That faith can come only slowly, by association with the godly, by

reading the lives and experiences of godly persons, and by gaining experience

oneself. Singing of Gods' names induces faith, very quickly. In the beginning,

the name has to be recited, willy nilly, as a routine; later, the taste will

draw you into the habit; the recitation will yield unfailing joy. You need to

tread the footsteps of the great teachers of the past, who transmitted their

spiritual wealth to succeeding generations.

When the Name is pronounced by the tongue, and the image is adored by the

mind, these should not degenerate into mechanical routine; the Meaning of the

Name and the Content of the Form, must, at the same time, inspire and illumine

the consciousness.

If you are able to equip your mind with this consciousness you are a person

of realisation. Else,you are a masquerader. There are three types of minds:

1. Minds like ginned cotton, ready toreceive the spark of highest wisdom and

to give up in one instant blaze, the weakness andprejudices of ages,

2. Minds - like dry wood, who succeed but only after some little time,

3. Minds, like green logs, which resist the onslaught of the fire of jnaana

with all their might.

Herds of cattle run towards a mirage to slake their thirst, but you ought to

be wiser. You havediscrimination (viveka), and renunciation (vairaagya); you can

detach yourselves consciously from pursuits which you discover as deleterious.

Sit quiet for a few minutes and ponder over the fate of those who run towards

the mirage. Are they happy? Have they the strength to bear distress and

distinction, with equanimity? Have they a glimpse of the Beauty, the Truth, the

Grandeur of the Universe, the Handiwork of God? Have they the vision of

themselves as the centre of the Universe?

The see-er should not attach himself to the seen; that is the way to get

free. The contact of the senses with the object arouses desire and attachment;

this leads to effort and either elation or despair; then, there is the fear of

loss or grief at failure and the train of reactions lengthens. With many doors

and windows kept open to all the winds that blow, how can the flame of the lamp

within survive? That lamp is the mind, which must burn steadily unaffected by

the dual demands of the world outside. Complete surrender to the Lord is one

way of closing the windows and doors, for, then, in that stance of Sharanaagathi

(complete surrender to God), you are bereft of "ego" and so, you are not

buffeted by joy or grief. Complete surrender makes you draw upon the Grace of

the Lord for meeting all the crises in your career and so, it renders you

heroic, more stalwart, better prepared for the battle.

The name of God is like moonlight, for the waves of the inner Ocean. It is

God echoing from within, the call of go from without. But, lo, the fascination

exerted by science - which deals with the objective world, with things and

events that can be measusured, weighed or calculated by means of ascertainable

categories of thought, has led human in search of joy without.

 

There are many who ridicule God-centred people (yogis) and scoff at them.

They call them selfish, anti-social, self-centred idlers who run away from

their obligations and seek asylum in solitude and silence. These yogis

moved out into lonely spots and sought teachers of the inner path. They go, to

seek the secret of eternal joy; they win it for themselves; and, by their lives,

they inspire others to win the precious secret, by treading the path they have

found useful. No one calls the man who has gone abroad to equip himself

better, as an engineer or doctor, selfish; why then should the man who

undergoes greater deprivations to equip himself better as an engineer of the

mind, utilising its undoubted powers, not for bondage, but, for liberation, be

tarred as ego-centric? This only shows ignorance of true values. The hermitages

in the forests are such places where people who want to be cured of the

infection of worldly life can undergo the treatment and come out free in order

to serve other patients. You may have the best of vegetables, you may be the

most capable cook, but, if the copper vessel in which you prepare the vegetable

soup is not tinned, the concoction you cook will be highly poisonous. So "tin"

your heart with sathya, dharma, shaanthi and prema (truth, right conduct, peace

and divine love), it will then become a vessel fit for repeating holy name or

symbols, meditation, religious vows, pilgrimage, ritualistic worship and the

other dishes that you prepare in it.

 

The Lotus grows up in and from water and blooms in the sun. The heart too

draws sustenance from Bhakthi (devotion) and blooms through Jnaana (wisdom).

When the three gunas, Sathwa, Rajas and Thamas, are equated in Saadhana the

result is Shaanthi.

Let the Peace in mind and the Love for the Lord grow in you, let that sense

of adoration, which discarded even a throne, flourish in you. Then, you can be

of great use to your country, your culture, your society, your religion and

your community. (Reet's compilation from, Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol. 4. "Be like

lamps," Chapter 14; Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol. 5. "Close the windows and save the

lamp," Chapter 1; Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol. 8. "Love and be loved," Chapter 31;

Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol. 9. "Exercise in futility," Chapter 24).

Namaste - Reet