STAY WHERE YOU ARE
The ways and means for your spiritual rehabilitation are readily available. If you employ them, you will be happy where you are. There is no need to make those external changes your unsteady mind keeps suggesting all the time. A humorous verse1 in Sanskrit teases us, “If you have not conquered desire and anger, why join an ashram? If you have won over them, why again join an ashram?” In the former case, you will be a problem to any ashram. In the latter, there is no need for you to join an ashram. Either way, it is better for you to stay where you are and focus on inner change.
Sri Gundappa (known popularly as DVG) makes2 an earnest appeal, “Rebuild the fallen house of yours, O man!” We must respect life and we must believe in the inexhaustible reserves within our own spirit. A hundred times we may fall; rise we must, and strive on. We must take care not to repeat our mistakes. We must open a fresh page in the book of our life as the sun rises and covers the earth with his light on yet another, new day.
Begin with the body (but do not stop there). Re-examine your habits. Do you exercise daily, or for four to five hours a week? Are you cautious with the food you consume? Last, but not the least, do you give, on a daily average, six (if not seven) full hours of continuous sleep to the body, which you use so much all through the week? If you are negligent about exercise, food and rest, but are very knowledgeable and qualified otherwise, you are clearly a case of lopsided growth. You are also penny-wise and pound-foolish, when you have acquired many cheap degrees but have let go precious health of your physical body. Stay where you are, and work on gaining robust physical health.
Meditate daily. The science of yoga says there are thousands of naadis (channels, paths) in our body, invisible even to microscopes. They carry praana, life energy. Breathing exercises (pranayama) and forms of meditation are known to bring about naadi-shuddhi3. These paths become clean. Today we know the importance of clear arteries for unobstructed blood flow. Similar is the case with clear naadis, and proper energy flow means you are cheerful, balanced and emotionally sound. Meditate by withdrawing your mind from its usual engagements. Help it unwind by giving it some space. Think of God or visualize the vast, blue sky; let your mind be freed from thoughts of men, money and matters of the world. Stay where you are, and work towards naadi-shuddhi.
Study a bit, if not a lot. Even scholars have to study so that they do not remain in their own little ‘frog’s well’. They have to know what other thinkers are saying so new vistas open up for them. You may study spiritual literature with a view to refresh your own understanding of life’s hidden depths. Life is surely much more than earning and spending, marrying and raising a family. You have to know the art of living as well as the art of dying. We are not talking of clinical death, which also is something everybody has to face one day, no doubt. We are concerned with the accumulation of memories in the human mind, with all its pain, misery, hurt and a little of pride too. Cleansing the mind of all such debris is a kind of dying. The old has to die, in order to give birth to the new. You must study the elevating thoughts of mystics. Sri Krishna, The Buddha, Jesus Christ and others have thrown light on ways to find peace. Stay where you are, and find peace here and now.
When the mind is gross, it struggles to find a way to peace. Upon getting subtle, the mind discovers that peace is the way. Stay where you are; stay in peace, which is within you.
Swami Chidananda Varanasi, May 27, 2011
1 kama-krodhau anirjitya, kim aranye karishyati?
athava nirjitau etau, kim aranye karishyati?
(We have taken the liberty to translate aranya as ashram, while it literally means a forest.)
2 bidda maneyanu katto mankutimma – verse 474, Kagga
3 See Ramana Geeta, chapter 6. * * *