Daily routine – Meditation
How do you improve the quality
of your meditation? Even if you sit for several hours, the mind may not get
ignited. You will feel that nothing has happened, though you have sat for
hours, because the mind refuses to accommodate itself to your requirement. The
refusal may be due to various reasons. It is not that everyone can do real
meditation; only a very few can do that. The mind refuses to act, just as
sometimes horses will refuse to move forward, for their own reasons.
Distress of any kind, anguish,
expectations which are dubious in their nature, financial penury, and a sense
of hopelessness that oftentimes catches hold of people for various reasons in
their life may bring some such situation that the mind will say that you have
better things to do than meditation. People who have a family have such an
experience. It is not that every family man is happy. Only one who has a family
will know what it is to have a family. All are not born with a silver spoon in
their mouths. They have to work hard with the sweat of their brow, and they are
not satisfied with what they earn. Even if they are working in a factory or an
office, sometimes their salaries may be inadequate, and the expenditure to
maintain a family may not be in harmony with the salary that is earned. You may
have to borrow, and borrowing is the worst thing that one can do. You will have
another agony of having to pay back your debt. Many such things are there. Very
dexterously, you have to adjust your daily program considering all these
difficulties in your life.
No one in the world can be
said to be entirely free from problems. Everyone has a difficulty, but how to
handle it is an art that you may have to discover. Yogaḥ karmasu kauśalam (Gita
2.50): Expertness in your dealings is also yoga, says the Bhagavadgita. In
handling all your day-to-day enterprises, you must have expertise. There are
certain things which you cannot handle, even though you may try your best. When
handling a situation, you may apply yourself to the task to the maximum limit
of your resources. When everything is found to be inadequate and you have no
support whatsoever, then only can you give it up.
Many a time, we make a mistake
in not distinguishing between what is possible and what is impossible. There
are certain things which are possible, and you can try to do that; certain
things also are impossible, and those things you should not try. The attempt at
achieving the impossible is a source of suffering to the mind. “Give me the
will to change what I can, and the courage to bear what I cannot, and the
wisdom to know the difference” is an old proverb. But for us, the wisdom is not
coming forth. We try to change what we cannot change. There are people who try
to change the entire society, all of humanity, with a new perspective. Yes, in
a very few rare cases that attempt may succeed, but mostly it becomes a failure
and a great sorrow befalling the person who has made the attempt. To understand
your own capacity and the position that you are occupying in society is
important. You must understand in what situation you are placed. You have to
know fully your social placement. Do not make mistakes and imagine something
which is not you.
With your determination,
coupled with proper understanding, you may be able to organise your day,
allotting enough time for sleep, for work, for diversion and some recreation,
and for meditation. Again, it has to be reiterated that if you have understood
the true spirit of spirituality, you would realise that meditation is not one
of the works that you are performing. Though some time has been given for
various things and some time for meditation, it does not mean that meditation
is one of the functions that you have to perform. It is the vitality behind all
your performances. Vitality cannot be regarded as one among the many. It is the
all-in-all.
You may find it hard to
accommodate yourself to the requirements of the meditational process, because
again and again the old habit of thought will persist in thinking that
meditation is a religious requirement imposed by scriptures, saints and Gurus,
while the world is real indeed, as real as anything else. One of the torments
into which we may enter in our spiritual aspirations is that the world, and the
activities in the world, will look more concrete than the requirement of
meditation. Meditation oftentimes appears abstract because it is a thinking
process, and thinking is abstract while the world is very solid. All the things
and people with which you come in contact in the world are solid events in your
life, while meditation looks like some airy, ethereal performance in respect of
something of which you have no knowledge. The fear of the contrast between an
ethereal, airy pursuit in comparison with the realities of life will harass the
mind.
In the earliest stages, you do
not require any guidance. Whatever be the success in your meditation – success
or no success – sit for 15 minutes before you go to the office, and let it be a
ritual, almost. But if you are very honest and determined to pursue this path
as an all-inclusive recharging of yourself in terms of the Ultimate Reality of
life, then you may require daily guidance from a teacher. It is something like
walking on a tightrope or learning to handle and ride an elephant. When you
take to exclusive meditations, guidance is necessary; otherwise, things may
turn topsy-turvy. The emotions are strong, senses are very impetuous, the world
is very real, and people around you are more real than anything else.
The pursuit of God, the
practice of meditation, may look like the pursuit of the will o’ the wisp;
something may be there, or it may not be there. Nobody has seen God, and nobody
has ever seen the success that anyone has attained in meditation. We hear that
it is good, but we don’t know anything about it. We have not practically seen
the results of it. Such difficulties will arise. In these lessons you have been
told that you are a Total Being attempting to put yourself in a state of en
rapport with the Total Being of the universe, which is called meditation.
Meditation is not a work that you are performing, in the same way as your
existence in this world is not a work. When you are living, existing, and
breathing, that condition cannot be regarded as an activity of your life. It is
prior to all activity. Similarly, the thing called meditation may look like a
work or activity, but it is something more than that. It is a recharging of
your whole personality with a condition of superior health.
To regain health is not a
process of acting or working; it is not work at all. To regain health from a
condition of illness is the gradual rise into a wholeness of your being, from
the condition of malady which is the illness. All the activities of the world
are included in meditation. This is something which is not easy to understand.
All your duties are included in this great duty of meditation, because thought
is so powerful that it can bring about transformations even in respect of
things which are so solid and real to sense organs in this world of human
beings.
Continue to read:
The Trident of the Sadhana Process - Chapter 12:Everything
About Spiritual Life by Swami Krishnananda
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