The Need for Both Dispassion and Practice
The normal way of thinking
about the spiritual life is that the individual soul has taken birth after
birth and needs to be liberated from this round of births and death. But the
scriptures tell us that we are already what we are seeking: That thou art...
You are the Atman, ever-free, ever-pure.
If that is so, then where is
the question of any bondage or any liberation in reality? The scriptures
explain that it is the mind that is the cause of both bondage and liberation in
the human being. In other words, it is an illusion that the mind believes in,
and, therefore, how to control the mind, how to correct the mind, how to purify
the mind, becomes our task.
This gives special
significance to Lord Krishna’s instruction to Arjuna in the sixth chapter of
the Gita. Lord Krishna tells Arjuna to sit for meditation in order to control
the mind. Arjuna protests: "It’s easier to control the wind than to
control the mind." Lord Krishna doesn’t say that it is easy, but He does
say that it can be done through dispassion and practice.
So if bondage and liberation
are both in the mind, and we need to learn to control the mind, then perhaps
the words dispassion and practice contain the essence of the spiritual life.
Dispassion means dispassion for thinking that we can get permanent happiness
from anything of this world be it physical or mental, and practice is the
practice of the presence of God.
As seekers it is important for
us to realise that we require both dispassion and practice and usually a
judicious balance between the two. It is possible to develop dispassion for the
world, to see how fickle our own mind is, how impure our intellect, and thus
develop true dispassion for everything about the world including ourselves, but
if we haven’t developed the practice of the presence of God, it will be
impossible for us to truly understand what liberation means. On the other hand,
if we ignore dispassion and only practise the presence of God, we may
experience the liberated state, understand liberation, but ultimately the pull
of the world will make us unable to sustain that bliss and understanding. The
mind will continuously pull us down by telling us that there is happiness to be
had in the things of this world.
Therefore, the importance of
following both of Lord Krishna’s instructions. We must develop dispassion and
at the same time practise the presence of God. And as both bondage and
liberation are in the mind, this combination of dispassion and practice will
ultimately allow us to see through the illusion and to recognise that we have
ever been free.
Excerpts from:
The Need for Both Dispassion and Practice - Early Morning Meditation Talks by Swami
Atmaswarupananda
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