Many of us when we feel stress or mental suffering may feel like accusing the world around us.
What happens in the world is not in our control – it is not guaranteed that everything will happen according to our wishes. What we can control, however is how we react to a situation. If we can look at our own minds and remedy any problem that is there, we can avoid jumping into a reaction and judging something as stressful. We will be able to achieve that real peace for ourselves, irrespective of what is happening in the outside world.
This amazing achievement is what the Self-Realised masters of meditation realised and achieved for themselves. As Swamiji said, ‘Great people are those who can look at their own problems and remedy them’.
It may be easy to point out others’ faults rather than look at any fault that we may have caused ourselves and see how we can put it right. But if we can put in efforts to do this through the practice of meditation, then we won’t be making the same mistakes over and over again – we can improve and progress as human beings.
If we criticize and blame others all the time we will be wasting that precious time which could be used to better ourselves.
So meditation is taking responsibility for our own mistakes. It is that highest practice taught since ancient times to go within ourselves and remedy any problem that is in the mind. Through this simple technique our mind learns to let go of negative habits and thus becomes concentrated and purified.
Once we start putting in efforts to purify the mind, we will start experiencing that peace within ourselves. Then we can also be in a position to help anyone else, give counsel or at least not bother anyone. As Babaji says, ‘Only if you have peace yourself can you give that peace to others.’