I am opening today the greatest wonder of our system of Raja
Yoga. Very few people could realise the efficacy of this
system. We think of one thing and one alone — the
super-human nature. We call It either Guru (Master) or the
object of concentration . We have but one thought and that
of a certain personality super-human in form; and very soon
we find ourselves attached to the form so much that other
things begin to look secondary. We attach importance to one
and the same thing. If we pump out water straight into a
channel it will flow by its own force to some extent and at
the same time with the help of the machinery attached at the
end of the butt. Similarly we proceed in the channel of
Almighty with the thread of thought, attaching our
will-force at its butt end, i.e., from the starting point.
The will-force comes from the individual mind which makes
our way clear. We keep the idea of pumping out a certain
thing from its proper place called the individual mind. The
force increases day by day; and our individual mind too,
having the idea of going above, becomes stronger and thus
begins to lose the effect of bad training. It serves a
double purpose. It cleans the individual mind, and also
brings the goal of human life within reach.
When you reach this stage, you find yourself soon jumping
into the ocean of eternal peace and sublimity, and when your
thought becomes so strong that it begins to dwell
permanently in the midst of the waves of the ocean, every
other thing downward then seems to be fading away. You have
no other thought but that which you have made already. The
result is that the things you see down below look like
objects in a deep valley when observed from a high peak.
When you do not see the things below, you feel no attachment
with them. In the long run the goal becomes quite vivid to
the eye, and there remains nothing but the object you have
really and correctly made. Now you are free from worldly
attachments. I mean to say you see things, but attach no
weight to them. This thing continues for some time as long
as you have the idea of the same nature. As time goes on you
feel yourself to be as free and forgetful as a sleeping
person who satisfies his itching sensation in a perfectly
unconscious state during sleep. A man, far away from the
place where a band of music is being played, does not hear
its sound, while another man standing nearby feels it but
little if he is deeply absorbed in his own thought. He does
not find himself with music but feels himself dwelling in
his own pious thought. How does he acquire this state of
mind? The reply, as already said above, is that he finds
himself absorbed in something of the most important nature.
Then naturally the unimportant things will have no effect on
him. This is the condition of vairagya or renunciation. The
inattention that he feels towards worldly objects does not
allow his heart to be impressed by things other than those
of important nature -- the pious thought of realisation he
now has. For an abhyasi the only important thing is to seek
his goal within his own self. Many people are striving hard
for vairagya or renunciation. How easily it is gained! He
has no idea but of his own goal and due to that he has lost
all that is not worth having.
You have gained vairagya or renunciation by elementary
practice of Raja Yoga. Your individual mind is, in a way,
now connected with the plane of everlasting peace and
happiness. In other words you have made the way from your
individual mind towards that high region. The gentle waves
of the calm in the region of Almighty begin to flow direct
to it (i.e., individual mind) and so in the long run you
become one with it.
We thought of one thing and one alone, attaching ourselves
to the thing far above our conception. The idea of greatness
is now in our heart. Naturally we feel ourselves as its
part, or a trifling thing in comparison to that. We do it
over and over again. Now we have made the passage by
connecting our thought with that high region for
realisation. As we practice this, clouds of darkness begin
to disperse and vacuum is created by the force of the will.
The power then begins to rush in, in higher degree, with the
result that individuality goes away and mind remains. When
mind separates itself from Godly Mind, it begins to call
itself as an individual one. Why do we feel it separated? It
is because the functions of the Big Mind on it cease to
exist on account of our doings, and our going on the wrong
path. It gets saturated with these things so much that we
feel nothing of reality, but feel only the impressions which
these things have already made. The impressions grow so
powerful that they begin to overrule our senses. The
surroundings, no doubt, leave impressions on it. Now, when
we give place to that important idea — the pious one, on the
mind of ours — the impressions we had made begin to lose
their density, and in course of time we are free from these
things. The effect of what is prevailing in that Big Mind is
felt as well. If you go on practicing you will feel the same
thing in your individual mind as there is above it. When you
feel these things permanently in your individual mind, think
that you have lost its individuality. When the time of
creation came, the latent motion beneath the Centre grew
stronger, causing a stirring movement which later led to the
formation of the universe. That may be called the first, or
Super-Mind of the Almighty. We owe our origin to that mind
which we call the first Mind. On the back side of the first
Mind there is Centre or the state of tam which is clearly
explained in the book Imperience Beckons. If you have
brought your individual mind to the level of first Mind,
then you have only to jump above the first Mind whereto
there is Centre or Almighty. When you realise yourself to
become one with that state, you have realised the true
Reality. There you swim and swim. Nobody knows its end. When
this thing comes to you, you feel everywhere plainness,
simplicity and calmness. When you begin to live in that
state without break even these three things seem to be lost.
That means you have no impression of even these things in
you. Oneness is reigning now. This is the thing we gain by
our elementary practice. See the efficacy of the system and
put yourself to work.
We generally lay stress upon meditation, apparently on human
form. The critics may perhaps consider it suicidal to the
spiritual feelings. The case is not so, provided the person
meditated upon is one of special calibre, who has come down
from the Immaterial Absolute for spiritual training, or has
attained the spiritual standard of evolution required for
the purpose by supreme self-exertion. We take the example of
our Master, Samarth Guru Mahatma Shri Ram Chandraji Maharaj
of Fatehgarh, U.P. The thing will soon come to light, and
the world will remember him ever after. He was one with
Nature. If we meditate upon such a great soul, the substance
we are seeking for will come by itself. Mathematically, if A
is equal to B and C gets equal to A then ultimately C
becomes equal to B. If you have selected such a Master as
your guide, the problem of life will be easily solved. I
quote an example. “Those who worship you and those who
worship the Absolute, of these which are the greater yogis?”
Arjuna asked Shri Krishna. Lord Krishna answered, “Those who
worship me with the highest faith and constancy are the
greatest yogis. Those who worship and devote themselves to
the unmanifested Absolute, the Omnipresent, the Omniscient
and the Omnipotent, their difficulty is greater in the
struggle, for in fact this path is trodden with great
difficulty by an embodied soul by self-effort”. When we
begin to love such a soul which becomes the object of our
concentration, Nature’s power then begins to run through us,
for the great soul is endowed with such powers. Our emotions
and feelings, made worse by our wrong doings, begin now to
come to their original form and attain the highest
excellence. By original form I mean that condition in which
they were at the time when they took the human form for the
first time. Our functions and work being unregulated, and
the mind undisciplined, we seek the shelter of such a great
soul or the Master.
1 The process of taking the Master as an object of concentration is no doubt
very efficacious, but only when the Master is really one of the highest calibre,
merged in the Infinite, or transformed as Nature personified. If it is otherwise
the effect produced upon the abhyasi will be the reverse and highly detrimental
to his ultimate purpose.
2 Vairagya as it is commonly understood today is only an outward show of
asceticism, detachment from all world relations and the total disregard of the
duties of life. Really speaking it is neither the forced physical detachment nor
aversion to, or hatred for, worldly objects required in life, nor any other
thing of the kind. It is simply an inner feeling which turns our heart away from
all that is superfluous for our normal living. Thus even an ordinary man,
leading a worldly life, looking to all worldly affairs and possessing and
claiming things for his requirements, can well acquire the state of vairagya in
his ordinary worldly life. |