by Gurani Anjali
If I were to ask any of you, “What is the most important thing in the world that you desire here and now, what would you say?” You might say, “to feel good, to feel I’m human, to be able to look at the sky and the spaces, and the trees and all of creation and to embrace this totality.” You would like to be rid of your fear, all your anxieties, ensnarements, opinions, all petty-minded thoughts. You would like to rid yourself of all that. This requires action that you have to perform, also known as spiritual practice. You need to practice to feel that state of perfection. The state of perfection is not a matter of mind alone. It is the entirety of your life. But too much thinking on the subject takes you away from that. You have to set yourself a goal and then go after that. Just keep working at it, until you have achieved it.
There are many responsibilities in this world, in your life. You took on each of these responsibilities. You said, “I’ll take it. I want it.” So you have to take responsibility for having responsibilities. It is your responsibility. It is not the responsibility of the person sitting next to you, your parents, your teacher’s or anyone else’s. It is yours. Let us not call it responsibility but a treasure chest, a jewelry chest, or bank account. What is most common to you? What is it that you hold dear to yourself? Use that as a name for what you usually call responsibility, whether it be home, spouse, children, relationships, and so forth.
The Yogic way of life, the way of responsibility, can include so much: work, family, music, children, gardening, pets, your body, the Ashram, the restaurant, writing – a thousand things. It can make you laugh! It can be that feeling of really being alive. Sometimes when people have the answer and are living the Yogic way of life, they should be mindful that the Yogic way of life is a very difficult way to begin to cultivate and attain. It takes so much patience to take on this great responsibility. Yoga practice demands great love for this life, a tremendous fondness for this way of life. Yogic responsibility takes you very, very deep into yourself and forces you to really live there. You really have to love it because, on some levels, it is like living between grindstones. To practice all that is involved in the path of Yoga is very difficult. Only the brave carry on. You really have to have a lot of courage and character to endure this path. Yoga is not freely given. It doesn’t give answers, doesn’t give direction; like do this and there you have it. It does not promise that if you believe as I do you will achieve mastery.
The disciplines and practices of Yoga do not simply say, “I’ll keep you here, just come as you are and stay.” You must change. This world is part of you and you are part of this world, but Yoga brings about a transformation. The path of Yoga itself demands total attention. It doesn’t take anything less. As you know from your own experience, if, for one minute of your existence, you fail to do sadhana or fail to perform some other discipline, your whole equilibrium will be affected. No matter how much faith you have in the method, that faith alone will not take you the whole journey. When you are feeling down, that faith does not work. It is the practice that works. It is not the thinking about it or having the answers about it or being eloquent about it; it is the practice itself that works.
When you say Om three times a day, thinking about it and doing it are two different things, two separate realities. When you say Om in the context of your breathing exercises, the whole body vibrates. There is a sensation that comes about within the entire being. After just doing this exercise of saying Om for a while, you will feel that the body has been pounded on by the vibrations. By saying Om with the exhaled breath you will see that the practice makes the theory real.
Your responsibilities are your lot in life. You took upon yourself all these responsibilities and now you have what you wanted. These responsibilities demand your attention, all the time. If you let up on your attention to your responsibilities, you forget to do this, forget to do that. Take your own body, for instance. If you don’t feed it and clean it, it responds. It yells at you! It yells and screams until you put some food in your mouth, drink some water or bathe. This very body, the only body that you have, constantly demands attention. As long as you are absorbed in paying attention to it, as with all your responsibilities, it performs for you. But if you do not pay attention to its wants, then it falls apart. It disappears. It does not disappear of its own volition but because you took your attention away from it. It can become non-existent. The minute you take your attention away from it, it can become non-existent. Om shanti.