Friday, October 11, 2013

Cleanliness of the Mind takes care of Bad Thoughts

External cleanliness, devoid of internal cleanliness is nothing short of deceitfulness. Internal cleanliness is more essential than external cleanliness. 
Though a cup may be clean and attractive outside, we cannot drink water from it, if it is unclean inside. Food cooked in copper vessels turns poisonous, if the vessel does not have a silver coating inside. Hence, observe internal cleanliness with meticulous care. Strive to remain free from the diseases of hatred, bad thoughts and vicious practices. God has gifted you this human body for achieving excellence in your daily life and attaining proximity with Divinity. Cultivate spirituality, acquire spiritual traits, attain proximity to the Divine and merge in Him. This must be your firm resolve. You can achieve this by sanctifying your body with sacred actions, until your last breath.Baba (thought for the day)

The best internal cleanliness we know is meditation, it takes care of the mind. If our mind is full of rubbish and past impressions and we cannot forget it or are tired because of that reason, we need to meditate. But also if we think we are in good shape and everything is okay, we should meditate to be able to get to know our mind and to develop discrimination.
If we have often headache, it mostly has to do with strain and stress in the mind, it is a sign of pressure, all of that we can get rid of with meditation, we deal with the source of psychosomatic diseases.

Meditation is like a clean bath for the mind, after the meditation, body and mind should be relaxed and past impressions in the mind should not load anymore on our present consciousness.
It is not possible in our thoughts to control those subtle processes and we don't know why past impressions stick to our mind, it is usually a sign that the mind is not relaxed enough. Therefore, cleanliness of the mind is the A and O of spirituality and mental health. In today fast living time it is even more important, because we cannot relax anymore only with sleep, not enough because the expectation of our time is high and therefore, it leads to burnout and constant tiredness. If we meditate regularly we have more strength and can deal with it on a better way. We have to go with the pace of our time and if it is fast changing, our health depends on how we are able to keep that pace. Time is constantly changing and we should be flexible enough to go along with it, if we are not, we get old and sick.


Our life is going for more and more, sometimes it is more skills other times it is more dynamics maybe and again other times it is more compassion for others, it depends on our insights if we are able to recognize the change and to go for it, because the lesson is not always the same.
Life is constantly changing and going in direction of evolution and if we cannot keep the pace with the change of nature and our life, we are not flexible enough and if the mind is stuck and not in the flow it can feel like overwhelmed by it. 
Meditation takes care of it and we develop more of our mental potential and it gives us the possibility to adapt to the changes in our life and to go for inner fulfillment in our life and that is our real happiness. We learn to look for it at the right place inside where we can find permanent joy and not to search for it outside where by the law of nature everything is just fleeting and passing by. 

If we meditate, we sit down comfortably, it is not important how, but nothing should disturb the mind and close the eyes and begin to think the mantra  effortlessly and we do it for about 20 to 30 minutes.

It is easy, the mantra in our thoughts is in focus, without any effort we should keep the mantra in the mind. If we notice that our attention is in thoughts instead of being with the mantra, we go effortlessly back to the mantra. 
Everything is okay, we can do nothing wrong and we don't expect to have no thoughts and we don't expect a result in meditation, whenever we notice that we are in thought, we go back to the mantra.
It is a very easy and effortless way of thinking the mantra and thoughts are part of the meditation. It is not about having a blank mind without thoughts, but about inner awareness. 
Every time we get aware that we are in thoughts, we go back to the mantra and if we forget all thoughts, we are not even aware of it, we get aware of it when coming back.
And if we want to know how long we sit already in meditation, we just open the eyes a bit and look at the watch, that doesn't disturb our meditation, nothing should disturb the meditation. 
It can be that we don't remember time and space and forget it and look at the watch and it has been much longer than we thought it was. That is real good, because during a meditation we can forget time and space and have no time feeling anymore. It is the result of the process of sitting and meditating and not something we can force us into by concentration. In that state meditation is more relaxing than deep sleep, it is already twice as deep. In the moment when we come back and remember the time again, we are back in the mind. 
After about twenty minutes we stop thinking the mantra, but we wait for one or two minutes before we open the eyes.

The focus on the mantra is going inside, as soon as we stop to repeat it in our thoughts, the attention will by itself go outside again, therefore, we take enough time to allow our attention to get back to normal again and to the outside world. 
If the mantra is still there, we just don't care about it, the mind will forget it. If we come too fast out of meditation, it could in headache, therefore, we should always talk enough time to end a meditation and not get fast into action because we want to move again, what is also natural, because we have more energy afterwards.

After a meditation we feel usually good, energized and it is a light feeling and we should never judge our meditation.
It can be that we don't feel it during the process of meditating and we have lots of thoughts, it only matters after meditation how we feel, it is light and relaxed and fresh and often also dynamic and ready to go into action again. 
It is like a mental bath.
If we are very tired, we should lie down and even sleep, only when waking up, we get up, meditate for a few minutes and end it like a normal meditation. Everything what is happening during meditation is good for our system and good for the body and we feel refreshed afterwards. It is more important than we do it regularly, every day, than to do it a very long time only. 
Twice a day morning and evening is the norm, some who go more into it extend it to more time, like Baba said three times an hour. 
But that we should only do if it is possible and if we are in the environment which allows us to do it without strain. 
If we are working and in our Western life it is easier to do it regularly once or twice a day, but to make it to a habit and to always do it.
I usually do it in the morning in waking up, I just sit up the mind is still calm and half asleep and that is easier than when we are once up and in our activity and the mind is all awake and usually after twenty minutes I am awake, fresh and that way I never feel sleepy ever, I always feel okay and ready when beginning with work.

A good way to go into meditation can be with a prayer, focus on the OM, it is direct dial to divinity, if we meditate with Soham, it is anyhow the OM and we just can pray, 'they will be done'. 
Everything what happens during meditation is okay, we just take it as it comes and after the twenty minutes the mind feels relaxed and refreshed. During meditation we get rid of impurities in the mind and the light can shine through only if it is clear and transparent like clean class and if there are no impurities.

Cultivate spirituality, acquire spiritual traits, attain proximity to the Divine and merge in Him. This must be your firm resolve. You can achieve this by sanctifying your body with sacred actions, until your last breath.

If we see the breath as meditation, during meditation we are aware of it and our focus is on the breath and afterwards we are not aware of it and our attention is in the world, we can easily sanctify our body with sacred actions until the last breath, because if we get used to it, as soon as we close the eyes and watch the breath, we are in meditation.

We can see our mind like silent water. If it is not calm inside, it is like some dirt is stirred up from the ground and we cannot see the ground, but when it is calmed down and settled, the water is like a mirror and transparent and we can get aware of each tiny detail on that ground and in our own consciousness. 

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