Subtle Secrets of Sadhana - Do the Best and
Leave the Rest to God
·
“Do the best and leave the rest” is the key
motto in Karma Yoga. The ‘doing of the best’, of course, does not mean being
foolhardy or going headlong without thought on consequences, but the harnessing
of one’s full resources to the execution of a noble ideal which is calculated
to aid one in the attainment of God- realisation. To ‘leave the rest’ is to
resign the results of the work to God, for, when even the best that one can do
falls short of the effort needed to achieve a desired result, the mind is likely
to get upset, which is not the spirit of Karma Yoga.
·
The more we try to
depend on God, the more He seems to test us with the pleasures of sense and the
delights of the ego. Finally, the last kick He gives is, indeed, unbearable.
Those who bear it are themselves Gods.
·
Every moment of life
should be regarded as the last moment, as there is no knowing when this moment
will come. When it is said that the last thought of a person should be God’s
thought, we are impliedly admonished to remember God every day and every
moment.
·
The energy that
leaks through the senses by way of excitation and pleasure-seeking diminishes
the psychic force that is necessary for meditation. Hence before any attempt at
successful meditation this energy-leakage has to be blocked, and the direction
of the flow of this energy turned inward.
·
We should not try to
be more strict on others than we are on ourselves. Our task is not so much to
change the world as to change ourselves.
·
The prarabdha karma is like an extortioner who will not
let loose the victim until the last vestige of dues is cleared out. It cannot
be exhausted without being worked out through experience, and the role of
spiritual sadhana in relation to prarabdha is not one of negating or
counteracting it, but of bringing about a transformation in the vision that
evaluates and judges experience, pleasurable or miserable.
·
Mostly, the mind is
where the eyes are. Look not at anything which may stimulate desire, or rouse
egoistic ambition. The eyes have to be carefully guarded.
·
The importance of sadhana in spiritual life is great enough to
compel the attention of anyone wishing to be freed from botherations. The
vexations of life are due to entanglement in externalised forms, while freedom
at once manifests itself when the universal nature of these forms is beheld. Sadhana is nothing but an attempt to withdraw
from the particulars and sink into the Universal.
·
Doubts on the path
of sadhana indicate that the spirit of sadhana has not been properly grasped. When
there is enough conviction about the correctness of the method adopted, sadhana quickly bears fruit.
·
The highest
fulfilment is the result of the highest renunciation. The less you want, the
more you get. He who wants nothing from the world finds the world falling at
his feet. Even the gods are afraid of him who wants nothing for himself.
·
Space, time and
gravitation divide and pull the body by isolating it from other bodies. With
this division and pull of the body, consciousness also appears to be affected
due to its association with the body through the mind, Prana and the nervous
system. The overcoming of this distracting effect of space, time and
gravitation in one’s consciousness is yoga.
·
The establishment of
oneself in a state of consciousness which stabilises one’s being in a non-
externalised Universal Pure Subjectivity of Selfhood is the final panacea for
the sorrow of mortal existence. This is the great meditation in which every
soul has to engage itself throughout its career in life. This is the final duty
inseparable from man’s aspiration, nay, the only duty in life.
·
There are three
grades of Self: The real, secondary and false. The real is the Atman which is
universal; the secondary is the person or thing which one likes or dislikes;
the false is the aggregate of the five sheaths. Meditation disentangles the
real from the secondary and the false.
·
Buddha and
Sankaracharya represent two sides in the picture of life. The purely phenomenal
approach of Buddha implies the so-called solid content of the appearance called
the world, and the spiritual doctrine of Sankara fills this emptiness with
Soul, and completes the picture.
·
It may be that we
try to remember God when we are comfortably placed. But the test as to whether
He has really entered our hearts is whether we remember Him in sickness,
suffering, opposition and times of temptation.
·
The pain generally
felt at death is due to the nature of the intensity of the desires with which
one continued to live in the physical body. The more is the love for the
Universal Being entertained in life, the less would be the pain and agony of
departing from the body.
·
Who is a fool? He
who thinks that the world has any regard for him and is really in need of him.
·
He it is that, as an
old man, totters with a stick, thus deceiving the human eye, for He is all
things.
·
Ishvara , jiva and jagat are not three entities standing apart
like father, son and their house. They are three presentations of reality or
view-points of the Absolute from the level of the jiva.
·
sadhana is a sort of constant remembering a thing against heavy
odds, and pulling up oneself from sinking into deep mires. To retain the
thought of God in a world of colours and sounds that dazzle the eyes and din
the ears is hard enough. This is sadhana, a feat of will and
understanding.
·
Avoid contact with
such things as are likely to stimulate sense desire or excite the ego. This is
necessary until strength is gained to withstand the forces of the world.
·
The test of
spiritual advancement is a gradual attainment of freedom from doubts of all kinds
and a conviction of having reached a settled understanding in regard to one’s
true aim of life. It is this conviction that brings inner strength and power to
face all opposition.
·
The strength to bear
suffering comes not merely from a determination of the will, but the discovery
that a vast treasure is awaiting one who practises such endurance. Students
lose sleep and comfort, a lover undergoes untold pains, and an employee tolerates
the unpleasantness of work, not because of a mere determination of will but due
to the sure promise of an enjoyment which is known to exceed the pains which
pave its way. So it is with spiritual sadhana.
·
Spiritual sadhana is ultimately an effort to cease from
all effort. This is the highest effort, because no one normally can be without
exerting oneself in some direction. All activity is a process of moving away
from the Centre. The activity to cease from such activity is sadhana.
·
No saint has been
able to maintain the spiritual balance throughout his life. There have been
occasional reversals though these might not have left any impression on their
minds any more than the mark left by a stick drawn on water. But the mark is
there when it appears. Such is the difficulty of leading the spiritual life.
The case of immature seekers is much more precarious, indeed.
·
Just as when we
touch a live wire the electric force infuses itself into our body, when we
deeply meditate on God the power of the whole universe seeks entry into our
personality.
·
The sadhana that one does should speak through the
actions and the words which manifest themselves through one’s personality. The
personality is the vehicle of the aspiration that wells up within. And the face
is the index of the mind.
·
The Ramayana and the
Mahabharata are two great epics of the forces of lust and greed, respectively.
The passion of Ravana and the greed of Duryodhana caused the wars of the
Ramayana and the Mahabharata. These are the twin forces of the devil which can
be faced only with Divine Help.
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