25. Keep your mind from wandering. Little by little, through patience and repeated effort, the mind will become stilled in the Self.
Instead of being impatient and always wondering when the Lord will come, if we throw ourselves heart and soul into the practice of meditation and the allied disciplines of sense restraint and selfless service, gradually over the years we shall become complete master of every area of consciousness. On the spiritual path we must make every effort to move forward even if it is little by little, even if every day we keep making mistakes. Sometimes we are so insensitive and preoccupied with ourselves that when we try to put others first we simply are not aware of their needs. Our mistakes begin to haunt us; but rather than sitting in a corner and crying over the day’s errors, or developing a comfortable guilt complex, we should repeat the mantram and make sure that we do not repeat the same mistakes the next day.
I remember how difficult it was for me to change my food habits, especially after years of highly spiced Indian food which was sadly lacking in nutrition. In the company of friends, seated around the table, you sometimes cannot resist temptation. When they are smacking their lips over french-fried potatoes or English muffins spread thick with butter, you find yourself joining in, and before you know it you have eaten food that will not help your body, mind, or intellect. In meditation, when I used to come to the verse in the Gita where the Lord says, “Anyone who allows his senses to sweep him away is like a little boat caught in a storm – he will never make harbor,” it would stab me like a dagger. The memory of something I had eaten would try to prevent me from meditating, but I would concentrate more and more on the words of the passage as hard as I could. During the day, when I was tempted to indulge in some special sweet, all that I had to do was think of how I would have to go through all that conflict again. When the senses are trying to sweep us away from the path, when our self-will is disrupting relationships with those around us, it is good to remind ourselves that even though we may get some temporary satisfaction, we will have to go through the pain of ridding ourselves of these selfish desires all over again.
In learning to control the mind, the repetition of the Holy Name is an invaluable aid. When we get angry or afraid, we should not ask the mind why it is in such a state, because this gives it more attention and intensifies its anger or fear. The mind is something like a high-powered computer which sometimes goes out of order, and when it gets angry or afraid, this is just a mechanical breakdown which does not affect our real Self at all. If anger or fear is taking possession of the mind, the way to prevent a breakdown is to go for a long, brisk walk repeating the mantram, and anger will become compassion, fear will become courage, and hatred will become love.
By doing this for many years, we can correct our destructive responses and cultivate a positive, constructive state of mind. Even if our habits have been developing since we were two years old, they can be changed through the practice of meditation. In this sense meditation is the most powerful learning tool we have, and though it may take years of hard work to get hold of it, once we have acquired this immense skill nothing on earth can equal the satisfaction, the joy, and the sense of mastery it will bring. We are all subject to deep resentments going back to the early days of our childhood. Usually there is very little that we can do about these deepseated problems, but with the learning tool of meditation we can travel into the depths of our consciousness and get rid of them once and for all.
When you are able to travel into deeper levels of consciousness, you may have an experience in your sleep in which something almost like a pistol shot goes off in your head. On the following morning, you can almost see your inhibitions lying at the foot of the bed. You get up and feel as if shackles have been taken off your feet, as if handcuffs have been removed from your hands. This will take place over and over again, because we have a list of fears to shed as big as a Sears Roebuck catalog, and it is only after we have shed all these fears and resentments that we will find ourselves in the supreme state, seeing the Lord everywhere, in everyone, all the time.
26. It is the nature of the mind to be restless and diffuse, always seeking satisfaction without. Lead it within; train it to rest in the Self.
The nature of the mind is to desire, to desire, to desire, and most of us firmly believe that permanent joy can be found by satisfying our desires. The mind is such a cunning, clever customer that I have a sneaking admiration for it when it comes and says it will make us happy by giving us, say, Helen of Troy. We fall for the mind’s tempting promise, but we find the Cyclopes instead. When we complain to the mind, “Mr. Desire, this is not what you promised – people with eyes in their foreheads trying to gobble us up,” the mind says, “Well, that was just an experiment; here is a real offer for happiness, and if you will accept it, I’m sure you will be completely satisfied.” Again we are convinced that we will not be led astray, but it is still the same story: we still haven’t learned; we still go searching for joy outside ourselves. Some of the great mystics have thrown up their hands at the number of times we have to go around the world before we see that it is round, at the way we turn our back upon joy until we discover, through the grace of the Lord, that joy has been right here within us all the time.
One of the games I used to enjoy was ping-pong, and with concentration I mastered all sorts of styles of gripping the paddle and returning the ball. I haven’t played ping-pong for many years now, but with the news of how table tennis tournaments between China and the United States have mended international relations, I had a little yearning to play the game again. Now when two people are arguing I can always bring them together and say, “Let’s play ping-pong.” When we were in Portland, Oregon, we visited Reed College, where we found a room with ping-pong tables and paddles but not a ball in sight. I felt a little frustrated having gone that far out of my way to play ping-pong and not being able to, but I repeated the mantram a few times and forgot all about the incident. Then yesterday at dinner one of our friends told us he had discovered a ping-pong table complete with balls and paddles in the barn at Ramagiri. Imagine going to Oregon and looking for ping-pong equipment when all the time it is lying right there in your barn! This is my illustration of Jesus’ statement, “The kingdom of heaven lies within.”
In order to realize this inner joy for ourselves, it is necessary to still the mind, to rid it of all selfish desires and expectations. This is what we are learning to do in meditation when we bring our mind back every time it wanders away from the words of the inspirational passage to the movie theater or the supermarket. As time goes on, the mind will wander less and less, so that after some years we may have to bring it back only two or three times. In deeper meditation the great day may come when it does not wander away at all but stays put on the words of the inspirational piece, which means the mind is so concentrated in all its power that it lights up the whole passage. In the mystical tradition this is described as the words opening their doors and taking us in. They are no longer just words we are repeating in our mind; they have become integrated into our consciousness, transforming our character and our daily lives. When we can concentrate completely on St. Francis’s words, “It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,” then instead of holding things against our parents, our children, or our friends, we will be able to open our arms wide to them. We will be able to stand steadfast with love and respect for those who oppose us, and our former enemy will come to us as a good friend. This steadfast love for all is abiding joy.
27. Abiding joy comes to those who still the mind and senses, who free themselves from the taint of self-will and unify their consciousness in the Lord.
The person who sees the Lord present in all life has unshakable strength, for he is rooted in the Lord. Not all the dangers in the world will shake such a person out of his security, because nothing can agitate him: his mind is still, and his thoughts are completely under control.
Every day we have opportunities for spiritual growth when things happen to us which we
do not like, which start the mind moving in all directions in agitation. There is no use getting mad at the mind, because the angrier we get at the mind, the more we will be agitated. The best thing to do is to keep the mind quiet by repeating the mantram over and over again. If you cannot repeat the mantram in your mind, write it in a book kept for this purpose. We used to have people dropping in at odd hours very agitated, and when they would start telling me what so-and-so said and how they wish they could have put him in his place, I would give them the mantram notebook and ask them to write the mantram in it two hundred times. When they had finished writing, they would leave with their minds peaceful. It is not at all helpful to exchange agitating stories, so when someone starts narrating his tale of resentments, ask him to write the mantram a number of times instead.
Another secret for stilling an agitated mind is to throw yourself into work with no thought of reward or remuneration. A necessary part of spiritual discipline for most young people is hard physical work, which when combined with the use of the mantram calms the mind.
When all our selfish, agitating desires have been expelled from our mind, what is left is pure joy, pure spirit, of which we have been unaware all this time. Joy is imprisoned within us, just waiting to be released from the jailer, our selfish desires. To release it, all we have to do is eliminate every selfish craving and extinguish every selfish impulse, which takes tremendous effort and inexhaustible patience.
Spiritual joy is sometimes described as a bashful girl who is just waiting to tiptoe up and put her arms about us, while all we are trying to do is keep her away. Our selfish desires and cravings tell us not to let her come near us because then they will have to go; and since we are under an hypnotic spell of ignorance, we believe that these selfish urges, which make us miserable to the point of agony, are our real friends. It is astonishing that we can be so perverse as to do just the things that will make us unhappy. Resentment and retaliation tear us apart, yet we let ourselves be driven by them. Instead, we need to learn to accept joy, who is always ready to come to us. This is what we are learning to do through the practice of meditation, to throw open our arms and welcome the joy of living that has been waiting all this time to embrace us.
28. This infinite joy of union with the Lord is easily attained by those who are free from the burden of self-will and established within themselves.
It is wise to remind ourselves that our real Self is absolutely pure; in our natural state we are untainted by any selfish desires, completely free of self-will. Anger, fear, greed, lust, malice – these are all unnatural states that we have come to accept as natural. Today we are imprisoned by our passions and cravings, but through the practice of meditation we can break off these shackles and live freely like the eagle soaring in the air.
Several days ago at Ramagiri I watched six baby swallows learn how to fly. They were seated on the telephone wires observing the mother bird, who came flying slowly in front of them, doing the easier turns and showing them the basics of flying. There was no point in telling these baby swallows to read books or attend lectures on how to fly; they have an inborn instinct for flying. They learn the skills of flight by watching their mother, who was showing her babies that there was no need to sit there quaking as if they were going to fall. Learning to fly may not be easy, but this is what birds are born to do. This was the lesson she taught her little ones.
Likewise, Sri Krishna sees us sitting on a perch made of pleasure, profit, power, or prestige, quaking with every variation in our bank account and every critical comment that comes our way, and he asks us if we would not rather forget our failings, weaknesses, and insecurities and become united with him. This is what we are born to do: to turn our back on our selfish interests and give all our love to the Lord, so that all the faculties and resources which have been hidden in us can come into our lives to the great benefit of those around us. Then we will no longer be acting; the Lord will take hold of our arms and act through us.
Today at a park in San Francisco we saw a mime show in which a young man really illustrated, to my mind, how we can be transformed when we yield ourselves to the Lord’s direction. At first the mime was seated on a bench, talking and eating like everyone else; then he started his performance, and all his movements changed as if some puppeteer were standing behind him pulling the strings. There were all sorts of people passing by, and he had an uncanny knack for imitating them. I enjoyed the performance so much because it showed what all of us are like when we are ego-driven. For example, a high-powered businessman was shooting along to the financial district repeating his Dow Jones mantram. He was annoyed at the mime’s clever caricature of his self-important air, but the young fellow’s gestures were so eloquent that he forgot his highpowered business freeze and became a human being again and walked on smiling. The only occasion on which the young fellow lost was when a buxom, middle-aged lady came along; when he tried to imitate her, she just hugged him.
When we are ego-driven, living for ourselves, revenging the wrongs others do to us and hating those who hate us, we are like the people the mime was imitating. But if we surrender ourselves to the Lord, when he picks us up and pulls the strings behind us we can make a tremendous contribution to the welfare of all those who come in contact with us.
29. They see that the Lord is enshrined in every creature, and that all creation comes from the Lord. With consciousness unified through the practice of meditation, they see the Lord everywhere.
The mark of the man or woman who has become united with the Lord is that he or she sees the Lord in all fellow beings, in every form of life. In one of the delightful anecdotes in the Mahabharata, Dharmaputra, the oldest of the Pandavas, turns up at the gates of heaven with his dog. Dvarapala, the gatekeeper, takes down all the vital information about Dharmaputra – name, address, siblings – and then he notices the dog. “Sorry,” says Dvarapala, “we don’t admit dogs. See that little sign? It says Dogs Not Allowed.” Then follows an awfully confusing situation: Dharmaputra is established in the Lord and should be admitted, but what should be done about the dog? Finally Dvarapala gives Dharmaputra a choice: to enter heaven alone, without the dog, or to go back where he came from with his dog. Without the slightest hesitation, Dharmaputra chooses to be with his dog, who is then immediately revealed as Lord Krishna in disguise.
The illumined man sees the Lord in every creature and is incapable of exploiting any other being for his own profit or pleasure. When we were on the Blue Mountain, we once saw a little black calf, only a few months old, being led to slaughter. I looked at the calf, and it was as if tears were flowing from his eyes; he was trying to tell me in his dumb language, “See what your brother is going to do to me?” Right then I decided that at every opportunity I would put in a good word on behalf of all animals.
It is not easy to understand, when we are caught in cultural habits, that eating meat violates the indivisible unity of life. It used to be very difficult to find a restaurant that served vegetarian food. Now, however, there are good vegetarian restaurants springing up in many cities, and at every chance we get, we can recommend these restaurants to our friends. This is a simple way of showing our love and respect for the Lord, who lives in the lamb, the deer, the cow, and all other forms of life.
30. I am ever present to those who have realized Me in every creature. Seeing all life as my manifestation, they are never separated from Me.
Now the Lord tells us that when we see him in everyone, when we show everyone the same courtesy and consideration regardless of what they do to us, we will receive his guidance, and he will protect us against all the storms of life. We can cultivate this equal vision every day by trying to see the Lord in everyone around us.
If in spite of our best efforts we become angry, agitated, or afraid, we can bring our mind back to the state of calmness by going for a walk repeating the mantram. The rhythm of our footsteps and the rhythm of the mantram will blend and stabilize the rhythm of our breathing, which is closely connected with
our state of mind. Angry people breathe irregularly; those who are calm, loving, and secure breathe like a little child, smoothly, slowly, and deeply.
Even if we turn to the Lord as a last resort, when all else fails, he is still content to receive us. When I was at the University of Minnesota I became friends with a young fellow from Kerala studying to be an engineer. He had always been a good student, but the night before his final examination he came to me afraid and anxious that he might fail. He had tried pep pills and lecture notes, but when they failed to dispel his fears he had come to see if there was anything in the Gita that could help him. I did not ask him why he had not come six years sooner; I just told him that the Lord is always glad when we come to him, always ready to help us when ruin is staring us in the face and all other paths have failed. He was so relieved to hear this that he asked me what exactly Sri Krishna had to say about engineering exams in the Gita. I told him that there was no exact reference, but in times of danger – “Oh,” he broke in, “that’s my final, all right. Real danger – I’ll lose my scholarship and my lifelong desire to be an engineer will never be fulfilled.” So I asked him to repeat the mantram while I took him for a walk from Minneapolis to Saint Paul and then back again – a distance of about twelve miles. He was so completely relaxed when we got home that he was asleep before his head touched the pillow. The breathing exercise of walking with the mantram changed his anxiety and insecurity into calm assurance that he would do well in his exam, and he did, too.
The End of Sorrow Page 38
