Slipping into Stillness (2.c)

All these years I had realized that one of the most difficult battles to win for a human person is with one’s own mind; it may be easier to control one’s body, but not so the mind. All the rishis and munis, who had resorted to the Himalayas to enter into austere tapasya were doing just one thing : to remove the opaque sheet of the mind that prevented them from encountering their Being, the Lord of the Universe. What I think, Lord Buddha did at the shade of the bodhi tree was also precisely the same, to bring the mind under his control, not consciously though, but through awareness of the interplay of thoughts, and distancing himself from them. Even if I begin a non-stop tapasya in order to control my mind, I may hardly pass the test even at the time of my death! This is a lifelong test, and very few could be said to have passed the test.

But I have nothing to worry, because having even a momentary glance of the Eternal is worth a million, for even a tiny fragment of eternity is equal to the largest section of it, and by partaking of the eternal, I become part of what I partake, and I would not want anything more. It is possible that after weeks of practice, of observing the mindscreen for a few weeks as an external viewer, I may be able to find a few seconds of quietness and stillness, and the mind may be back to its play soon. But those couple of seconds can do me a lot more good than all my mindgazing, and that is what I am going to do today: to catch my mind off-guard at different moments of the day.

I am not going to venture into doing something which even seasoned saints and sages have not been able to achieve after decades of their sadhana. I would do something which I can reasonably attempt. Starting from the beginning of the day, I am going to pause for a minute, say at every 30 minutes or one hour, to find what my mind is busy with, and will spend about five minutes observing it each time. Without entering into the scene, I would drop in as if I am walking into the cinema hall at different moments to see what is going on. It is rarely that I might find the mind preoccupied with the same thing, but what it is preoccupied with may give me a clue to what matters the most in life for me.

The exercise itself is not an easy one, because once I quieten myself each time, I have to close my eyes in order to slowly focus the attention on the movements of the mind. It is like focusing of persons through the lens of a video camera. I may not be able to find what the mind is busy with at the beginning, until I have narrowed the focus to the endless stream of thoughts. Here I am expected to move above the physical (and physiological) reality, body sensations, feelings… Thus if there is tension or disturbance in the body, that is not going to let me concentrate or focus on the mindplay. Thus, I need to relax and make my body comfortable before I enter into this realm.

I realize one of the most difficult aspects of this exercise is to separate myself from my thoughts; I am so mixed up with my thoughts, to distance myself from the mind’s game is tough; but as Tolle assures, with practice I may be able to experience the stillness, at least in bits and pieces. Even these bits and pieces of stillness can give me enough spiritual nourishment, enough to last a life-time. Let me savor the sweetness of these few seconds, for these are the greatest privileged spiritual fruits that the season of Lent can bring to me, and help me take a peek at what great treasures are there for the people who can persevere. When I realize that I am able to experience at least a few seconds of stillness within, then I know that I am ready to enter into the third phase of my inward journey!

The Divine Spark

The Greek philosophers had understood the essential nature of human beings in its most profound manner, when they said that every human person has a divine spark in him/her, and we cannot exclude anyone from this category. All of us are born with the divine face, but this face is marred in the world, as we come in touch with the notion of good and evil. Unfortunately it is only the human beings who have this sense of distinction between good and evil; look at the plants and animals, for them everyone is the same; there is no difference between friend and foe, they go beyond this marked distinction, and that is what makes them so happy and contended with life on earth. They have nothing to grumble about, nothing to complain about. All is well with them.

One of the most important role and function of religion is to help humanity recognize the divine spark in them, and attain it through a disciplined way. In very simplistic terms, all religions show us the way to recognize that we have the divine spark in us, and it is possible to regain it. And the Bhagavad Gita, one chapter of the epic poem the Mahabharata, shows us one simple way, which is possible for every person. In chapter 9 of the Gita, Lord Krishna teaches his disciple Arjuna the path to eternal friendship with the Lord. Answering the question who is dear to the Lord, Lord Krishna shows his disciple the path of equanimity, or to use an Ignatian term ‘indifference’.

We are so used to black and white distinction, that we cannot think of grey, the in-between, and strangely the Lord teaches Arjuna he has to be untouched by happiness and sadness, not desiring holy and unholy; the one who is the same to friends and foes, to cold and heat, such is dear to the Lord. Ultimately what matters is that the devotee is able to offer himself/herself to the Lord of the Universe, in whose hands is our destiny. But it is not easy to reach this stage, and it is next to impossible to find persons who have reached this stage. We could call the people who are close to this stage as saints and sages, and it may be possible to find one or two persons during one’s generation.

The spiritual sages of our nation have shown that the path to freedom and sanctity is not easy to reach; one has to renounce everything, including the desire to attain complete freedom and remain in perpetual ananda. When we seek this freedom, we realize that everything on earth is equally good and valid pathway to reach the divine in us. We realize that the divine spark is in all beings, both animate and inanimate, and the moment when we realize the divine even in our foes, those who do evil to us, and relate to them as if we are relating to the divine personality, then we can be sure that we are closer to reaching our destination.

It is true that true saints and sages would talk to the plants and animals, stones and rocks as if they had life, just as human beings. What is more surprising is that often they believed they received a positive response from these so-called inanimate and animate beings too, which is quite unintelligible to us mortals. It is possible that we do not take pains to learn the language of the birds and plants, stones and rocks; it might take just a life-long sadhana to really understand their language, and that is the language of divinity. For when we have mastered this language, everything around us becomes divine, and the whole world is charged with divinity. We become part of God-head, and we are gods!