by Gurani Anjali
Om shanti, Namaste. Blessed is a place called meditation. It is a beautiful place and we ought to make time for meditation every day. It is a very special place that you always want to be in, but for which you rarely get time because there’s so much going on in your life. The world is spinning around us. All actions and reactions are spinning away at a dizzying speed that confuses and bewilders you; and sometimes, you are held in despair. Therefore, do make some time for meditation every single day, one hour, one-half hour, any amount of time you have, even if it’s only fifteen or five minutes. When you think of all the time you put in the day, a little time set aside for meditation is not too much. It will revive you. It will make you strong. It will help you to see what is and what is not. It will help you to see the reality of life. This is what we want to know. Everyone is looking for contentment, peace of mind, love, ecstasy, joy. All of these things are possible, very possible, but we must make some time for meditation. Those of you who are new to the Yoga path and those of you who are just coming to the path, I give you my heart-felt thanks and namaste because you are seeking the reality of life.
Live one day at a time, one moment at a time. When you do Yoga, you can respect all living beings, all religions, and all traditions. You can understand, respect and appreciate them. When you do Yoga, you can be everywhere. You learn to bring everything together. In Yoga, a Unity is born.
The Yoga path is really very simple. There are postures (asanas), then there are the niyamas (observances) and yamas (restraints), you will carry these with you all the days of your life. There is pranayama (Yogic breathing techniques). Of course you are breathing already, but you learn how this breath functions in your daily life. There is dharana (concentration), which is to be concerned with and to concentrate all your thoughts on the object of attention. To concentrate and through the power of concentration, to see how your life is so connected with the object of your attention, is dharana. There is a lot to learn on that subject. There is dhyana, which is meditation. Concentration leads into meditation. When you meditate, you go beyond the object of your intention and that is a beautiful place. From meditation (dhyana), you go into samadhi, which is absorption, where all thoughts are held in abeyance. An experience of citta-vritti nirodha occurs, mindlessness, no thoughts. That is also a beautiful place.
Yoga is a wonderful way of life. These few words on the Yogic way of life are for the benefit of those who are just getting on the path. Yoga is nothing ordinary or extraordinary either. It is a fact of life. Some know and some don’t. All living beings all over the world are doing Yoga automatically. But knowing this consciously makes one appreciate and respect the totality of life. This is the way of Yoga: to keep the body fit, to keep the mind calm, to respect all living beings and to know that which is within, is also without. There are so many words spoken, so many statements said. The seeker of the truth must penetrate all of this and try to understand and through the understanding, one may live.
The kleshas are the afflictions in life. They arise in the moment and they bring you tremendous stress. Therefore, it becomes very necessary for the seeker of the sacred life to make each day an offering to the divine, to do with a light heart all that has to be done. Without looking for the fruits of your labor, enjoy the work and enjoy your action. You must find the joy in the doing, then the doing is not work anymore. It becomes play and when it becomes play, your face will be bright like surya (the sun), shining brightly because your actions are energizing and bringing life, illuminating everything around you. Then eventually you will come to the realization of Isvara (the Lord; the Vision), untouched by kleshas. You’ll be untouched and you in turn will become Isvara, untouched by the afflictions of ignorance. You will be untouched by asmita (I-am-ness), the great weight that we carry in life. “I am doing this, I have to do this, this is my job, this is me, I am doing this, I, I, I, I.” See how many times you use the word “I” when you are speaking. Eventually that will be erased.
It will be wonderful to be rid of the kleshas, the afflictions in life, avidya (ignorance), asmita (I-am-ness), raga (dwelling on pleasure), dvesa (aversion), and abhinivesha (clinging to life). Just see what happens when your cat uses the litter box and you go, “Oooh! What a smell, ooh.” Or your dog throws up, or better still, goes to the bathroom on your beautiful carpet. Wow! Or your friend comes to your house and opens your refrigerator and eats everything you’ve got. You begin to have an aversion to your friend. All these are the afflictions of life. Then there comes the great one, the great affliction, abhinivesha, clinging. Clinging because there is fear of loss, clinging because you may not have enough, clinging because someone may take something away from you. No one can take anything away from you. That’s an illusion. Everything is in the Rta, in the movement of life, as it rises, it moves and it falls. As it rises, it moves and it falls. Everything goes through the cycles of life. But you can’t hold onto anything. But there is the great affliction of “I have to hold on to this.”
These are the afflictions which cause us tremendous suffering so we cannot have joy in our work. We cannot have that joy of working. Working is a joyous activity. It is a doing. You are doing something you can do. How wonderful! You can do. You have two hands. You have two legs. You have a mind that functions. You can do so much. How is it that one is happy in just doing? One must have a purpose in life. But life is already a purpose. It’s already set in motion. You don’t even have to think about, “Oh, I have to program this, I have to program that,” it just happens in the course of time. What we are doing with great love for the doing, in the moment, leads to something else. It’s like art. It’s like sculpturing. It’s like music. You play a few notes on the keyboard and before you know it, one sound carries into another. The musician that is tuned into the ambience in the moment will create out of that very sound. Something else will come about. It’s a wonderful thing that is happening in life. But not everyone can enjoy it because there is so much pain. There is so much aversion. So the joy in the work cannot be felt.
Enjoy your work and try to be removed from the kleshas. Become untouched by kleshas. Remove yourself from them, deliberately. Tear yourself away from aversion, clinging, and the other kleshas. Tear yourself away from them. When you’re untouched by kleshas, you will be happy. You will be like the sun, shining. The sun shines so splendidly. We want to be splendid, don’t we? We want to shine, we want to glitter. A little tint of clinging and a little tint of aversion spoils the whole thing and then for the rest of the day we are very upset, because we couldn’t shine, because we had this aversion and we had this clinging, which comes from fear. That’s the way it is. So with this knowledge of the Yoga darshana (philosophy), this way of seeing, you can overcome. Om shanti.