True Spiritual Practice lies in Controlling our Thoughts

 

Today everyone is troubled by worry and anxiety. There is not a moment when you are free from worries. “To be born is a worry, to live on earth is a worry; world is a cause of worry and death too is a reason of worry; entire childhood is a worry and so is old age; life is a worry, failure is a worry; all actions and difficulties cause worry; even happiness too is a mysterious worry”, says a Telugu poem! Body attachment is the primary cause of all anxieties. It is impossible to experience happiness without undergoing difficulties and worries. Pleasure is an interval between two pains. You undertake various activities, of which some are good and some bad. Your thought (sankalpa) is the root cause of this duality. Good thoughts lead to good actions and vice versa. You are the embodiment of resolutions and negations (sankalpas and vikalpas). True spiritual practice lies in controlling your thoughts and aberrations

We all know troubles and anxiety in our mind in the world we are living and we have out jobs and duties and it has a big influence. We started years ago before we went to Swami with regular mediation in the aim to purify the mind and that is the reason for it that we can control our thoughts and the mind and not the opposite way around, nobody who is not in a way in meditation is able to have control over the mind and with meditation we also got rid of stress and anxiety in the mind.

Today everyone is troubled by worry and anxiety. There is not a moment when you are free from worries. “To be born is a worry, to live on earth is a worry; world is a cause of worry and death too is a reason of worry; entire childhood is a worry and so is old age; life is a worry, failure is a worry; all actions and difficulties cause worry; even happiness too is a mysterious worry”, says a Telugu poem!

These words are motivating us to meditate. We start with that practice and do it usually twice a day, not just once a week or only from time to time, it needs to be regular practice that it helps to control the thoughts and our mind. It needs to be done every day twice about twenty minutes and it helps to get rid of stress and strain.
It is possible with meditation to keep a certain level of inner stability and at the same time we are also flexible and adaptable and we are not overwhelmed by worries as we would be without meditation, Swami mentions here that also old age is part of it that calamity.

Body attachment is the primary cause of all anxieties. It is impossible to experience happiness without undergoing difficulties and worries.


If our mind is overshadowed by worries and stress and strain and pain, he is telling us that the root cause is the identification with the body and worse our body attachment, that means we are not ready of letting go. But he is also telling us that without that we cannot experience happiness, that means it is part of life, isn't it?

Pleasure is an interval between two pains. You undertake various activities, of which some are good and some bad. Your thought (sankalpa) is the root cause of this duality.


If we see happiness as the interval between two pains and he reminds us that thought is the root cause of duality, we should think that there should be no thought or controlled thought or only the thoughts needed. If that is between happiness and pain, with the control our thoughts we get out of the duality. Oneness is one-pointed focus and to get that focus we have to understand that we need to understand happiness. We get somehow the feeling that every problem is solved if there is only one, as there is no second and it feels like the remedy for everything really. That is the same reason why we meditate and every time we plunge into the realm of no problems and perfect orderliness and get in touch with our inner pure being and awareness, we get out of it refreshed, relaxed and lots of things which seem to be a problem before, are gone afterwards.
If we listen to those words he is also telling us that with control over thoughts or no thoughts, there is no duality, that means there is unity if we are able to have no thoughts or only the thoughts we need or want to have.
Baba tells us that God leads to good actions and yesterday he said that a correct attitude is to see the formless divine energy which is everywhere and that is perfect with mediation, we experience the formless divine energy and no form and that it is part of our own self. If we mention meditation, we just meditate, it purifies consciousness and we get in touch with that divine pure being level and as it is divine it has an infinite potential. It is the formless divine and everywhere and it can only have a good influence. If we mediate, we use more of our mental potential and therefore, we get inside always inn touch with the divine energy, that is how we would tell that God leads only to good actions.


Good thoughts lead to good actions and vice versa. You are the embodiment of resolutions and negations (sankalpas and vikalpas). True spiritual practice lies in controlling your thoughts and aberrations.

Swami speaks in general, he is telling us that true spiritual practise is controlling our thoughts and aberrations, the negative tendencies in the mind. If we regularly purify the mind with every day meditation our mind gets purified and the thoughts will change and there will not be any aberrations.

Regular meditation is part of the code of conduction of a devotee and not always mentioned again, we all should know the code of conduct. He is not repeating it in every speech again how we purify the mind and the field of the heart. He is not repeating it in every speech again and again, he just talks about the general conditioning of our mind but when we don’t put it into practise, we don’t know how to control our thoughts and just once a week singing Bhajans is not enough to take care of it.

There is also a lot of confusion about meditation practise as much as I see in the study circle as it is not clear how it should be done and some expect a result from meditation even if we know that we don’t think about the result, it is just happening in the mind. People think they have to do something and they don’t know that we just sit down and the rest is done by the mind if we know how.

A lot of people don’t know how to meditate. Not long ago in a study circle we had a devotee she tells she is meditating and she had a text which was not from Swami that means we didn’t study his words and it was just about the fruits of meditation. It sounded good though, tempting, but we don’t go and try to harvest the fruits before the tree is ready to give fruits. With meditation we water the roots and the fruits will be there when they will be there and we don’t go and imagine all those nice fruits in our meditation, thinking it makes us feel good. That is not meditation, it is not beyond the mind, imagination is in the mind and meditation is only meditation if it is beyond the mind.
There is a result expected from meditation and it is not just a relaxed state of mind. We water the roots twice a day and the rest is done by time. The seedling will grow into a big tree and one day as Swami said that tree will bear all the fruits we like, love, compassion, service, self-inquiry and the grace of God. What we can do and should do is water the roots, the rest is done by time. That is also the meaning that he is the doer. Our meditation takes care of the purification of the mind, and we don't have to ask again and again the same question if we do it right and if we should not do something more.

Good thoughts lead to good actions and vice versa. You are the embodiment of resolutions and negations (sankalpas and vikalpas). True spiritual practice lies in controlling your thoughts and aberrations.

We have again the Sanskrit words the Westerners like so much that some react against it and don’t want to hear it anymore, because she cannot forget that she had to go to India and she thinks she will never get there anyhow, but we read those expressions also in the Patanjali sutras and we know they are translated, it is just relating us to the tradition of Veda.

We have been meditating for a long time if it is in the present now or in the past. Swami calls it true spiritual practise that is when it takes care of the impurities of the mind on a daily basis and it is like brushing our teeth then we will also be able to control our thoughts and there will be no or at least less bad tendencies in our mind.
The mind has to be purified every day if it should result in self-control, if not the mind takes over and it is mind control and not self-control. It needs to be kept pure, it is impossible that we are able to control our mind just by once singing devotional songs a week. It is has to be a daily practise and that is done by mediation or the practise of Japa, a form of prayer and repetition of the mantra with the help of a mala or the chanting of a mantra like the gayatry if it is done regularly, but whatever practise it is if it is about purification of the mind and the field of the heart and self-control it has to be a constant practise and if it is not regularly it is not self-control, but mind controlled.
It is impossible to keep the mind free of the influence of Rajas, passion and Tamas, dullness and ignorance without doing it regularly.

The tendencies of nature are always and constantly all around us and it is that subtle the influence, without meditation we don't even get aware of it, we just get taken in by the aberrations of the mind. The mind is not only our mind, but also the mind around us in all the people in our society and we are part of it and we are all connected as oneness is the ultimate reality of all living beings, we cannot get away from it, therefore, we have to take care of it that we purify the mind constantly to be able to have some kind of self-control over it.
If it is not self-control it is automatically mind-controlled.