Obstacles on the Path - Tips on Sadhana

[Guest guest]

By Swami Paramatmananda

 

 

Karma together with knowledge

 

Most of us are just ordinary people. We get up in the morning and do our

things, some of us do meditation or other spiritual practices and then go to

work, go to school and then come back in the evening, do a little something and

then go to sleep. That is the average life of the average man. So what hope is

there for such people to attain and repeat their mantra ten thousand times a

day, and do meditation, puja, study and all these things. They have their

practical life to deal with, but, if just doing karma would bring us

God-realization or bring us real peace of mind, then this whole world would be

full of realized souls, and it isn't. Although there are a lot of people that

claim to be, most of them are not.

 

So Mother is telling that it is not enough to do just karma. There should be

knowledge. What does she mean? All the rest of these verses are concerned with

knowledge, that is how to do karma in such a way, how to do our actions in such

a way, that our mind becomes calm, that our mind becomes pure, because we have

to do something in our daily lives, otherwise it is not going to be possible.

So the first thing she is saying that's most important in your day to day life,

when you are doing all your actions, is shraddha, she uses this word again and

again and all mahatmas place stress upon this. Shraddha means attention, or

doing a thing with care.

 

When I was living in Tiruvannamalai, a long time ago, I had to learn these

lessons in shraddha. In fact I would say, if I could sum up everything that I

learned in those thirteen years, it was shraddha. be careful or act with care.

One day I was doing puja. I used to do puja every single day for about ten

years. Even if I was traveling on a train, I was going on pilgrimage or serving

my teacher, I would not miss my puja. Then one day my teacher said, " I would

justlike to see how you're doing puja. " So I did it in front of him. Then he

said, " You're not even looking at that image while you're doing it. You're

looking at the book, or you're looking at the bell, or you're looking at this

thing and that thing. Where's the shraddha your having? What you're doing is

called ritual. That's called karma. It's not a sadhana. "

 

And so he said, " When you take the flowers, look at the flower, put it at the

feet, look at the feet. When you light the incense and you wave the incense in

front of the photo, look at the incense then look at the photo. Imagine that God

is able to smell that incense, look at the nostrils. When you're offering the

food, don't just mumble mantras. Make your hand go right up to the mouth and

imagine that God is eating the food! "

 

I tried it. Immediately, the first tme I tried it, I got tremendous

concentration. A feeling of love came in my heart toward that object that I was

worshipping which I had never experienced all those years and I would never have

experienced also the rest of my life if somebody hadn't told me how to do puja

properly.

 

This is the effect of shraddha! Bhajans for example, what does Mother say? she

says,

" There's no use just shouting your lungs out. Close your eyes. Imagine ishta

devata, your God, and then sing and try to become one pointed in that. If you

look around when people are doing bhajans, many of them, their eyes are just

wandering around, that's not concentration. Then they don't get the benefit of

doing bhajans if they do it like that.

 

To give a few more examples:

 

One day I had finished washing my clothes. I shook them out and I was putting

them on the line. I had finshed and I was just walking away when my teacher

said, " Why don't you look at your clothes closely before you walk away. "

 

I looked at them and said " What's wrong? Are they dirty? "

 

He said, " No, no it has nothing to do with dirt. Didn't you notice that the

bottom of the clothes are not in line with each other? One is like this and one

is like that. They should be in line with each other. Then if you do everything

like that in line, your mind also will get in line. "

 

Another day, he asked me to get something and it was in another building. So I

was walking to get it and there were some monkeys playing in the trees. So I was

looking at the monkey. I was looking this side and that side at the monkeys. I

finally reached the room and got the stuff. Again on the way back I looked at

the monkeys.

 

He said " Are you a monkey? You are acting like one of those monkeys. Why are

you looking this side and that? Its alright for an ordinary person. But for a

person who's trying to realize God, it's not all right. Because if you look this

side and that side when you are walking, then when you close yours eyes and try

to meditate, your mind is going to do exactly the same thing. "

 

This sums up the purpose of shraddha. In fact every word of every saint is

always aiming at this. If we're sincere, if that's our aim, to attain

concentration, to attain samadhi -- that's what samadhi is: perfect

concentration -- then the saints will advise us in that way.

 

The way we're using our instruments (body/mind) so to say, is like a child.

You know, today children have high-tech toys. Everybody must have seen them. In

fact, when I came to America last year, I was shocked to see the high-tech toys

because I can't figure out how to use them. They have several buttons, levers,

all kinds of things, screens, and things move around so fast that you can't even

follow or your eyes will fall out of your head. And just imagine, if a wealthy

person gave their two or three year old child one of these high-tech toys? The

kid wouldn't kow what to do with it. He'd stick it in his mouth or he'd smash it

on the ground.

 

It's just like that! We have this high-tech toy It's called the body and mind

and we don't know what to do with it. We don't know how to use it properly.

 

The importance of undivided attention

 

The next point Mother talks about is doing things with undivided attention.

This is, of course, related to shraddha. These are all inter-related. It's not

as if these are all separate things. But for the sake of discussion we're making

them separate. If you look carefully at the way you do things, all people, their

mind is only fifty percent or seventy-five percent in it. There's always

twenty-five or fifty percent that's somewhere else. We very rarely do things

with a full mind. And Mother says that this tendency is carried over into

meditation. When you try to meditate or concentrate, because you do't do it in

your day to day life, you won't be able to do it when you try to meditate, or

when you try to do bhajans, or even when you are listening to a talk like this.

Your mind will be wandering around. Why? Because all other times, actions are

being done like that.

 

Just look at the average person. When they're sitting eating food, they're

talking. Some people... sit and watch TV and eat. Half of their attention is

eating and tasting; the other concentration is going out through the eyes at the

TV, or at the person they're talking to, and the mind is thiking about the

subject. The mind is completely scattered.

 

So one has to do things fully. When you do bhajans, don't open the eyes and

look around. When you eat, you shouldn't talk, you shouldn't watch TV. If you

want to eat, eat. If you want to watch TV, Watch TV. If you're doing bhajans,

completely do bhajans.

 

What happens to a surgeon who left his scissors inside or cut the wrong nerve?

Or a person who has to defuse a bomb? They must have complete shraddha!

 

The next thing Mother says is, when we are working, which is for most of us

all the time, we should do japa. We should repeat our mantra. We do alot of

other things. So what do you do? Some people say " I don't have time for

spiritual practice. I have to work 8 hours a day. I have to drive an hour to

work and back... this thing and that thing. I have all my family duties and so

many problems. When is there time? "

 

Mother says that is no excuse! Time is never wanting because we can do japa

all the time.

 

Some people say, " Well, that may be true while I'm driving to work, I can be

doing japa. But what am I going to do when I have to use my brain? When my mind

has to think about a lot of other things?

 

Mother says in that case, when you're about to do that kind of work, then just

pray to God or Guru, " Let this work be an offering to you. Let me be an

instrument of yours. Let me know that I'm nothing, that the power to do the work

is given by you.

 

Mantra japa helps to become a witness

 

Then, what happens by doing japa again and again and again and again? And by

trying to remember that you're an instrument rather than being the doer? You get

distanced from the work. You develop a witness consciousness, if you're thinking

in terms of the path of knowledge, or the path of devotion, you start to live in

God rather than being sucked into work all the time.

 

If you notice, when you're doing work with a lot of attachment, your mind

becomes very restless. It becomes very distracted. If you're doing with a lot of

....... " it has to get done, it has to be done quickly, to be done in a certain

way. " It's when that attachment is there for the fruit of the work that it

spoils the peace of mind. It makes it very difficult to maintain our balance and

our peace. One way is by doing japa.

 

If any of you have been to the ashram in India, Mother takes part in a lot of

the work that goes on there. And if other people are talking, in the old days

she used to say something about it. Now she doesn't say anything. She just

starts to sing. Loud! Or she starts repeating " Namah Shivaya, Namah Shivaya "

until everybody is doing it.

 

Even now you can see on Mother's lips, if you sit next to her for more than

five minutes, she's saying, " Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, Shiva. "

 

I Once visited the Shankaracharya in Kanchipuram. He's also a realized soul.

He's always saying " Namah Shivaya. " Ramana Maharshi used to say, " Parama

Shivaya, Arunachala Shiva. " Mother says, " Shiva, Shiva. " They say that if you

meditate while you're doing work, that means if you're doing japa, if you are

trying to think of God while you're doing work, it's one hundred times more

powerful, that kind of meditation, than just sitting still.

 

Mother is talking about a karma yogi. Who is the real karma yogi? The real

karma yogi is one who is meditating all the time. If you ask them, " How many

hours a day do you meditate? What's the sadhana that you do? They'll be in a fix

to give you an answer because they always feel that they're meditating. They

never lose the feeling of God. They never lose the feeling of Self. By doing the

practices talked about, the mind becomes detached, slowly, and instead of all

these thoughts that are there all the time for all people, then there's one

thought that starts to take it's place.

 

With Mothers grace this one thought starts to replace all the diverse thoughts

in our mind. And if it's the thought of God then a feeling of peace, detachment,

light, and bliss start to come. Then we start to live in that world. This world

becomes a dream to you. And you don't react like an ordinary person in this

world anymore. You're always blissful in the vision of Amma. This world loses

its value. What is very important for most people becomes almost laughable for

you because you're enjoying the bliss of God inside.

 

At Mothers Holy Lotus Feet,

Robin