Simon

The mind is infinite, like a boundless ocean.

When we gradually give up the habitual thinking which limits us, which gives us stress, tension and fear, we become broad minded, thinking of others and a larger cause. Eventually we can go back to the original Self of who we really are.

As the Masters say, that real Self is supremely peaceful and doesn’t need anything for its existence. It is contented in itself.

There is a story which Babaji gives to demonstrate how when we are consumed into our habitual thinking, we forget that this peace is within us at all times and think our narrow minded view of the world is the only reality. We are like a droplet out of the ocean, getting frustrated and disappointed when things do not go according to our wishes. But when the habits are let go and purified we can merge back into that ocean, settled and at peace. Meditation is the practical way to achieve this.

The ocean frog

A frog that lived in an ocean once happened to reach a small pond. Some frogs were living in that pond with their king. The king frog was informed of the new arrival. The king sent for the newly arrived frog. When the ocean frog was brought to the king frog, it looked arrogantly at the ocean frog and asked, “Where have you come from?”

“From the ocean, your majesty,” said the frog.

“Oh, nonsense,” shouted the king and, jumping a little bit in the pond, the king said, “Is your ocean this big or smaller even?”

The ocean frog could not help but laugh and said, “Your Majesty, I said I am from the ocean. You cannot simply imagine how big it is.”

“Shut up!” shouted the king. “Don’t teach me lessons, you liar! I will throw you out!”

Then the king thought for a while and with all its strength jumped a little more than the first one and said, “Tell me the truth. This is your last chance. Is your ocean this big?”

With all its humility and peace on the face, the ocean frog said, “Your majesty, this pond is just a small drop in the ocean which cannot be shown or explained here. I invite you to come to the ocean. See and you will experience the truth yourself.”

“Throw this frog out,” ordered the king and shouted, “There is nothing called ocean! How dare this idiot ocean frog invite me to see the ocean to teach me, as if I don’t have any knowledge or wisdom.” “Yes! Your Majesty, there is no such thing called ocean. Your wisdom is the ultimate. Hail the King of Pond!” shouted all the frogs of that pond.

‘Mind has become habitual and it plays tricks with itself. It wants to remain in that imagination world which is not true, which is not giving you any real happiness, but yet it wants to keep fooling itself because it has become habitual. This is what you have to understand, then in meditation you just watch’.  ~Shiva Rudra Balayogi.

Here is an ancient story from India that Babaji gives to demonstrate this.

Vikram and the ghost

Once there was a king Vikramaditya who was asked to bring a ghost to his master. Every night he used to bring the ghost. The ghost used to tell a story and at the end of the story it used to ask the king, ‘You have listened to the story, now if you know the answer you must tell me. If you speak I will run away. If you know the answer and don’t say anything, your head will break into a thousand pieces’.

So every night, Vikramaditya used to listen to the story. He always knew the answer so he had to speak, but then the ghost used to run away. Then finally after hundreds of days of doing the same thing, Vikram realised, ‘If I listen to the story of the ghost, then I will always know the answer because of my wisdom, and I will be forced to answer. Tonight I am going to ignore the ghost, I won’t pay attention to the story at all. If I don’t listen to the story, I won’t have to answer’. So that’s what he does. He had practised meditation so was able to do this. The ghost goes on telling the story but Vikram’s attention is on himself and he doesn’t listen to the story at all.

When finally the ghost asks him, he thinks, ‘I didn’t listen to your story, so I don’t know anything’ – he doesn’t open his mouth at all and just keeps quiet. Then the ghost has nothing to do and surrenders to him.

So like that, if we don’t listen to the story of our mind which is our ghost then we don’t have to answer, we don’t have to make a judgement, we don’t have to analyze – we are quiet. Then we have peace.

Click here to watch the Q+A with Babaji where he recounts this story

We may have things we want to happen in life. Things to achieve for ourselves or for others.

We can go on working in that direction if we believe it to be the right way. If we want something for our children, our family, we go on working. If we want to earn, we work to earn, if we want to achieve something, we work to achieve. But the important thing that is alerted is, when the result comes, we don’t feel any disappointment ever, we don’t feel frustrated, we don’t go into a depression. If we can simply accept it, keep smiling and think, ‘next time I will try again’ then the result doesn’t affect us negatively – we can remain positive.

If like this we can simply keep going then our mind becomes unconfused and at peace. We just do what we think is right, and don’t get affected by the outcome. This is what is practised in meditation. The attitude of just applying the technique and going ahead, without bothering if there are many thoughts or no thoughts, good thoughts or bad thoughts. So then the mind just gets into the job of doing it and starts to become concentrated, eventually receding and becoming quiet and at peace.

It is the habit of the mind to want to define things in a particular way. This is like this and it is a good thing, I like it. That is like that and I don’t like it. Constantly we are defining everything we come across in certain ways, based on how they appear to us. It is important to define things in the world for communication purposes. But these same definitions can also become a hindrance to gaining peace in the mind.

In order to experience true peace we need to be able to let go of those millions of definitions that are filling up our mind. They make our mind restless and constantly into cravings – it is this which gives us stress and takes us away from the truth. Meditation is a purification process where all the definitions that we have made rise up in the mind and disappear as we just watch them but don’t get involved.

As we allow this process to happen, the mind recedes as it has no job to imagine. When the mind recedes that is when we gain true clarity and peace. As the great masters of meditation went on meditating in this way for a long, long time they stopped making any definitions at all and realised the Truth of their own Existence. As Babaji says, ‘it is a dumbfounding experience’. They realised it was the Truth because you cannot define it in any way. If we were to try and define it, we are limiting it to our own definition, like trying to measure the all-pervading space with a measuring tape. They simply called it ‘That’ (Tattva).

In ancient times meditation was adopted as a way of life. It wasn’t a separate thing that one did on top of daily things, it was one of the daily duties of life.

When we embark on a practice such as meditation, it may be hard to find the motivation to practise it every day, even though we would recognise the need for it. At the first sign of difficulty we may feel like giving up. ‘Oh there are so many thoughts, it is too difficult to make this mind still, meditation is not for me’.

But when we take the first step and just start doing it at the same time every day, then it can become natural to us.
Just like we may get up, shower, have breakfast then start our work or chores, you would get up, shower, meditate, have breakfast then start work. So then it becomes part of your daily life.

We won’t have expectations; ‘this must happen in meditation, my mind must become peaceful every time’. All our job in meditation is just to keep putting in efforts in the technique that has been recommended, then our mind goes into the practice.

At work we don’t give up at the first hurdle if something doesn’t happen as we wanted. No matter, we keep trying, we keep putting in efforts because we recognise the need for it – we need to earn our livelihood. Just like that, when we recognise the need for our mind to be under our control, for that elusive peace and contentment, then we would keep going with it and not be fazed by the obstacles that may come in our way.

Without thinking or analysing, if we can go on practising every day, not minding what happens in our meditation whether there are many thoughts or not, then the real benefits of meditation come, the purification happens. And before we know it meditation will have become part of our lives.

Here is a great reminder by the Meditation Master Shiva Rudra Balayogi that the brain has such a hold on us – we believe whatever it imagines as the fundamental truth which can lead us into mental suffering. However, we can overcome all such imaginations with our mind by practising meditation and achieve a supreme, lasting peace.

‘It is a peculiar relationship between mind and brain. Mind is our consciousness energy and brain is a biological organ. No doubt the brain is an amazing organ. We may not know fully about the brain. As common people we all understand the fact that due to the brain we have obtained this world’s consciousness. Definitely we, as consciousness, depend on the brain to live in this world with understanding, analyzing, judgments etc. however, in my opinion brain is a wonderful servant but a bad master if we allow it to be.

Just like when you have a servant, you may depend on the servant for many things. However you cannot have your servant in command. For example, when somebody comes to meet you, your servant’s job is just to inform you. You shall decide whether you want to meet that person or not. Instead if your servant decides that you do not have to meet that person, sends him away and simply informs you that a friend had come and he decided that you do not have to meet that person or friend of yours, that means you are a victim of your servant’s temperament and nature.

In the same way the brain is in touch with the universe, receives messages and passes on orders. In this process it reflects a thought process or visual effect. This reverberates in the mind. The mind catches these thoughts or visual effects and registers them in itself as a truth, that means it is a victim of the brain and its reflections. If mind was a by-product of the brain then this would have been true totally that there is no free will.

When you practice deeper meditation and achieve control of the mind you are able to keep the mind totally quiet and withdrawn from the clutches of the brain. You are also able to discriminate good and bad, right and wrong independently by using your brain but not by the brain’s order only. You are able to exercise determination, remain disciplined and not become a victim of the brain’s reflections. This we call an exercise in will power. As we practice deeper meditation we also discover that we do not have to depend for happiness on the world’s objects which are reflected by the brain, but keeping the mind quiet supreme peace can be experienced.’

Although we live here in this same world, how one person experiences and perceives the surroundings could be very different to another. There is the phrase ‘One man’s food is another man’s poison’. I may find something beneficial and good, but that doesn’t mean another will also – they may think it is very bad or a waste of time.

This depends on our mental attitude. Someone who has a positive attitude will see any situation in a positive light. For a negative person, everything will appear negative, and they won’t notice the positive things.

There is a small story about this in the Indian text of the Mahabharata. In the story there are two princes who were cousins. Yudhisthira was a very righteous character who always tried to pacify conflicts and help others. The other, Duryodhana was a negative character, cheating others and getting into arguments often. Once they visited another kingdom and the king there asked them to look around during the day. In the evening when they came back, the king asked Yudhisthira how he had found the kingdom. ‘I was impressed’, Yudhisthira said, ‘everywhere I saw good people helping others, working hard, being righteous’. Turning to the other prince, the king asked him how he found it. Duryodhyana answered, ‘I don’t know if it was the same place – I only saw people cheating others and having arguments.’

So each prince had picked out in their environment what they had inside of them. Yudhisthira was noble and righteous, so he noticed other noble, good-natured people. Duryodhyana was used to cheating people and getting into arguments, so that is what he picked out and saw above all else.

To cultivate good character and culture in ourselves, we can adopt this meditation as a practice which has been recommended since ancient times. It purifies the mind – instead of being skewed by our mental habits, we can see things more for what they truly are. We can develop a mind with a positive attitude and see the good in others also.

When difficult times come, one great thing to see is when people start thinking of each other and working together. If we are mature in mind, we will realise that when I need something, food, or whatever it is, someone else would also need that. If we want to be happy, everybody has a right to be happy. That is generosity.

There is a beautiful story about this. Once there was a competition put between the Devas (Angels) and Asuras (Demons). The competition was they were all made to sit in line with each other with their hands tied with the bamboo sticks so they couldn’t bend them. The food was served, and they were asked to take the food and eat. The Asuras looked at each other, not knowing what to do as their arms were fixed and they couldn’t put the food in their mouth to eat. They were furious – “This is a trick!” they yelled and screamed.

The Devas, however, realized simply that if they sat in front of each other, they could feed each other. So thus they could all eat and won the competition. The moral of the story is, we all need each other.

This consideration for others can come more as the mind becomes purified through meditation. We start to think of a larger cause, of the betterment of society, the whole world.

Emotions can be our strength or they can be our weakness. Often they can get in the way. If we could just deal with a problem in a rational way then it becomes smoother and manageable. But if constantly we become emotional about things that arise, it is like being swayed by the waves in a stormy sea. We are not in control – our mind assumes a shape and we cannot get out of it easily. In so doing we fail to see the bigger picture and act in a way that is detrimental to ourselves and others around us.

If we could become the master of our emotions things would be so much simpler! It would mean we won’t become victim to our emotions constantly. For this, somehow we need to tap that emotional energy. This is what we are doing in meditation – we tap all our emotional energies into a single-pointed concentration. By doing so we can turn confusion into inner confidence, distractions into concentration and agitations into peace. Ultimately as the mind settles down we would see we have overcome our emotions. In any situation we would be able to think coolly, peacefully and with compassion for others. When the choppy waters calm down, life becomes smooth sailing.