Spark 9
WAY TO RISE
We can eliminate from our life factors that weaken us. We can emerge strong and victorious. Negative thoughts and debilitating emotions are the factors we are talking about. These often rise unexpectedly and hijack us. They jeopardize our journey to inner strength and lasting peace. They say about diabetes that it is a slow killer. We can say the same about bad memories. The Upanishads provide powerful meditations (upasanas, technically) to keep these factors low, and dismiss them eventually.
A horse shakes off his hair, and becomes clean. Dust and tiredness leave him. We may likewise meditate on our own true nature as Pure Consciousness, without any conditioning by thoughts, and shake off sinful tendencies. A mantra in the Chandogya1 supplies a passage for japa (devoted repetition) or dhyana (meditation), which has this illustration. The same mantra has a second illustration. We may rise above body-consciousness like the moon coming out of the jaws of Rahu2 at the end of a lunar eclipse.
“Peace – and stress – begin in your mind,” says Dr. Dean Ornish. He continues, “Meditation is the process of quieting your mind.” His book3 on holistic lifestyle for good health says a lot on yoga, meditation and right diet. He writes, “Dr. Herbert Benson and others have conducted pioneering research at Harvard and elsewhere demonstrating that meditation can lower blood pressure, improve productivity and decrease health care costs.”
As Dr. Ornish also comments, spiritual teachers in India didn’t meditate to lower blood pressure or to increase their effectiveness in business meetings. Their primary purpose was to increase inner peace and happiness.
It is a tragedy of modern times that a lot of very talented, qualified and well-placed people do not have peace of mind. They do not enjoy harmony with their surroundings. They must go for true spirituality. The life-giving insights of the Upanishads can make a difference to them. They can rise from their lower psychological levels. Rise they must.
Swami Chidananda
Notes:
1 shyamat shabalam prapadye / shabalat shyamam prapadye / ashva iva romani vidhuya papam / chandra iva rahor-mukhat pramuchya dhutva shariram / akritam kritatma brahmalokam abhisambhavami iti / abhisambhavami iti – mantra 8.13.1, Chandogya Upanishad of Sama Veda {Going from the pure truth in my heart, I attain the divine above. From the divine above, I come again to the pure truth in my own heart. I dismiss all sin from within me, like a horse shakes off his hair (and dismisses dust). I put aside (my attachments to / through) my body like the moon getting freed from the clutches of Rahu. I attain Brahmaloka, which is never a product of action, after I integrate myself. I attain Brahmaloka.}
2 Rahu devours the moon during lunar eclipse but as he has a head only, without a trunk, the moon comes out safe after a while. This is the description in our epics, which we may take in a poetic sense. Modern science has of course discovered the true physical phenomenon. The Rahu version may have its own significance though, in astrology and other disciplines. Science is not the ultimate word when it comes to the whole of life. The mystery and magnificence of our life, in other words, are far beyond the boundaries of science.
3 Dr. Dean Ornish’s Program for Reversing Heart Disease