by Gurani Anjali
Meditation is an Offering
Each one in this room is here because there is a voice inside saying there is much more to life than all the ordinary. Many of you have read books and have heard many comments on the topic of meditation, and so you are earnestly seeking this state of perfection. It is a state that has to be achieved despite the many wanderings in life, the going here and the going there. Meditation has to be worked at. You have to “churn the ocean of desire.” There are so many desires you have. We cannot come to meditation in hopes that it will give us what we need or what we want. Meditation is a place that we must come to with an offering; a giving away has to take place. Meditation is a very sacred place. It is a place to give, not a place to take. Meditation is a place where we surrender. It is the giving of all that we have, all that is most dear to us, most honorable, most sacred, most kind, most gentle. That’s what we have to give away. You may ask the question, “Well, what is that?” According to your level of understanding, according to your intelligence, according to your will to be, you can be.
Sometimes sitting in meditation and hearing the voice of one who is directing may not give one the understanding that one needs. You may come in here feeling you are going to get it all-and I hope you do. And then again, you may go and say, “Okay, I didn’t get it all, there’s something missing. I didn’t really catch it.” That’s fine. It is important to know that you didn’t get it. Then what does one do? If you don’t get it right away, then you have to seek understanding, and in seeking understanding, you have to humble yourself. There, too, it is required to give, to offer.
In meditation there is a lot of emptying that has to take place. A giving has to occur. “But what can I give?” someone may ask. “What can I give?” Keep on questioning like that. “What can I do? What can I do? What can I give? What can I give?”
Erase from your mind the thought of “What am I going to get out of meditation?” Don’t look for the taking. True meditation is a very wonderful offering and one has to achieve that state of meditation. You have to work at it. Not just over here a t this time, but with every breath that you take. With every action you perform. With every word that you utter. It’s a lot – meditation- it’s not just sitting down and closing your eyes, erasing the world before you. It is also done with the eyes open·. Meditation is not just sitting and feeling good. Meditation is a state that has to be achieved. It takes a long time to achieve that state. It takes many births. In this place called meditation one is elevated from what was to what is and is to be. When that state is achieved all your goings and your comings become meditation. All that you do becomes the meditation. In that state of meditation there is no me, there is no you. There is no this or that.
Many books are written on meditation. But one has to live in that state of meditation. From within and from without. Inside of you and outside of you. In all your goings and all your comings. Every where you are. No matter who you are, in your eating, in your sleeping. Every place is meditation. That state has to be achieved. At times you feel tired. At times you feel joyful. At times you feel a racy feeling inside of you like you want to go, but where to? Where to? The mind must be acted upon. “There is a place called meditation”.
I’m so glad that all of you are here and are seeking your higher self. Seek diligently. Seek earnestly. Don’t seek in order to feel wonderful. That thought, that idea must not be there even though you will feel wonderful. The mind must not seek that. You, the individual that is evolving, must not go towards grasping that state of feeling wonderful, even though it will occur. The seeker after truth must always seek the truth. Find that which does not change and is ever-present. Find that which is always, which does not have mood swings. Seek that. But in seeking there cannot be a grasping. There has to be a letting go – a surrender. A giving of all of you. Understanding begins with “I don’t know anything. I’m very stupid. I really don’t know anything. I’m ignorant. I’m ignorant of the reality of life. What is life? Who am I? What is all this I see? Where did it come from? Why am I here? What is my purpose in life?” Understanding. Om Shanti.
All Negatives Must Be Erased
Let us all bow to each other and say “Namaste.” Go all the way down. Keep your mind centered on the great lives that have been here in this world. If you find yourself getting very restless, very uncertain, very emotional, look at that and change it in the moment. It is difficult; it’s not easy. We are living beings that are being pushed by the past, by what was. All the things that you do are there because you worked very hard in making them so. At the root of all activities, you will find yourself the prime mover. You are at the root of everything. You allow things to remain the way they are and you also change them. Know that you have two hands and see how they work. Your hands will tell you a lot. It’s in the movement of your fingers and your hands that you will find what you are sacrificing and what you are taking in. You will find yourself freeing yourself and at the same time binding yourself. All negativities must be erased. Then circumstances will change. Actually, you are changing every day. But how are you changing? Are you changing to what was or clearing the path so that you can be divine?
Churn the ocean of desire and see what’s in your heart. See what is in your heart, and in your mind. The place of meditation is a place where you sacrifice, where you give your love, where you give everything that you have. Give it all up to be free. Now what is it that I’m talking about? Your gold & silver? Your dollars in the bank? Your clothes? Your shoes, sweaters, handbags? Your relationships? No, no. That will be taken away naturally; naturally, it will go. You can’t keep them. You know from experience how you’ve had coats & sweaters, how eventually there’s a hole in the pocket, the lining gets stripped away, the shoes get worn out. Everything that you have goes away. But there are things that don’t go away that easily– like attitudes, prejudices, ignorance. I’m talking about things that money cannot buy. All that you cannot give away. Attitudes are attributes that are very, very strong. They have to be given up. Prejudices, they must be given up. Differences, they must be given up. Thoughts, negative thoughts must be erased, must be given up. Lying, cheating, stealing. Attitudes and activities that come from the past must be given up, must be discriminated away. It takes a lot to achieve meditation.
The state of meditation is when one is pure in the mind. When one harbors no ill thought, one is nearing that state of meditation. From that state of meditation, one goes further, one goes to the state of samadhi (unitive absorption). A movement is constantly occurring. Know that. Change is _occurring all the time– within and without. Change. In this world of cause and effect, everything is subject to change. Everything. Your friend is very nice to you today, tomorrow something else. Or five minutes later, two minutes later, the change occurs and you ‘re left by yourself saying, “Hmm, that was some friend.”
The Mind is a Still Lake – The Mind; The Path; The Self
The mind is like a still lake– until a thought enters it like a drop of rain. The circles spin and spin and spin. So ask yourself what is the thought that you’re going to put in this perfect lake called the mind. The mind is always clear, always pure. It’s a perfect place. It’s a great reservoir. So the thought you put in will spin like a drop of rain that falls on a clear, still lake. The ripples begin, one thought leads to a thousand thoughts. And sometimes you cannot stop them. And you don’t stop them because you keep adding more and more drops of thoughts. Clear the mind. For that, attitudes have to go. Negative thinking has to be erased. How do we achieve that state? Through absorption. First, through pratipaksa-bhavanam (cultivation of opposition) and then through absorption. Being immersed in the activity at hand creates absorption. One eventually experiences citta-vrtti-nirodah (restriction of the fluctuations of mind). A silence occurs, and there is a rest. A silence occurs, and we are at rest for that time, for that moment.
In yoga we are not faced with guilt. In yoga we are not faced with having to go to hell. The fear of going to hell and being a sinner is erased. All we have to do in yoga is get to the state of non-duality. We have to get there with the mind because in the mind there is confusion. Through our experiences in life and because of samskaras (past impressions), we are filled with confusion and therefore we have to change our thought patterns. And through sincere practice of yoga, understanding comes about.
On the yoga path, there are no stupid people or smart people, just living beings seeking liberation. In the non-duality of yoga, there are no differences. One is not an Irishman, Italian, Indian, French, Persian, or whatever. The yoga path liberates by showing you the workings of your life, the union of purusa (pure consciousness) and prakrti (manifestation). All is made known. You begin to realize the elements and the sense organs. You begin to realize that these are channels through which you must perform in the world of cause and effect. Together with guilt goes the hate, because one hates to feel guilty. You want to feel great. All living beings experience a sense of being greater than what is apparent. Even animals have the sense of being greater than their peers, than other animals around them. They always try to achieve more than what is. Human beings especially don’t want to feel to be less than what seems to be. Human beings want to feel greater, higher, better. Omnipotence, Omnipresence, Omniscience. All these states must be achieved. Yes, there is that feeling of eminence, of being greater than all that there is. In one sense that’s a fact. It is true that you are greater than what seems to be. Why? According the perspective held in yoga, you are purusa (pure consciousness) and prakrti (manifestation), all in one. Some know it and some don’t. In your life there is that experience of that air that you have about yourself, your nature. That which you do not see is the Self, purusa. You know it is there. You feel from time to time that there is a greatness in you. Even though you may be alone in a room there is the sense that there is someone else. You may not grasp it with your mind right away. But there is that intuition that you ‘re not alone. That which you do not see is there but you cannot fully comprehend it. Therefore you seek out relationships and you look to be going here and going there, because you don’t fully understand it. You cannot comprehend it clearly and you feel alone. But there’s no reason to feel alone, because what you sense is very real.
When you utter the words “I am alone, I am lonely,” when you use the word “I”, the I stands in isolation. Everyone in the world says the word “I”. “I am coming, I will be there, I am going.” The I stands in isolation. The I is that non-dual state which presents itself in the form of “I”. It is purusa (pure consciousness). And then after the word “I”, hundreds of words come, and those hundreds of words are the many expressions of prakrti (manifestation). But it is a continuation of the I, you see. It takes form, and we call it prakrtic nature (nature of being). It is for the sake of purusa that all is. The many forms, the many colors, the whole of this grand display is for purusa.
The Sacred Breath
Everyone talks about God. One can say, “This is God, that is God”. Some people will say God is up there. Hell is down there. But in yoga you can really see God. God is ever-present. You can look at God with your eyes wide open and you can close your eyes also. God is everywhere and yet god is nowhere. It is and it isn’t. But the yogi can see that. After much training the yogi can see that, not only through the mind, but through the senses: to see with the eyes, to hear with the ears, to smell with the nostrils, to touch with the skin. To know, to know… not only to know with the mind, but to also know with the body. “With this body, I shall know.”
Yoga is not just a way life, yoga is a philosophy. It is a science. It is a means to be in that experience called citta-vrtti-nirodhah (restriction of the fluctuations of mind). Yoga means to bring together. The manifest and the unmanifest. What you see and what you do not see. To bring together, to know these two and to experience them in daily circumstance. In every action and reaction, in every thought, word and deed. To know that you cannot have one without the other. The manifest and the unmanifest. Now in Hinduism, we call that Siva-Sakti. In yoga it is Purusa-Prakrti. In English, we’ll call it unmanifest-manifest. What is seen and what is not seen. We are born of that. We are that. Some know it and some don’t. People go on pilgrimages all over the world from temple to temple, from mosque to mosque, different places at different times. Many thousands and thousands of people are going day after day to repent for their sins, to get a little bit of blessing, darsana (seeing, vision), offering up novenas and mantras and the like. Creating a lot of tapas(austerity, heat) for themselves, beating their bodies, bleeding, fasting, so that they may see and have the experience of being perfect– of being a god-child, of being spiritual.
When I was young I used to go to the Ganges and I used to dip myself in its holy waters early, early in the morning, because I was learning then. The waters can wash this body. But how is the mind to be washed? The thoughts– that which defiles the body, that which makes one imperfect– the negative thoughts, how are they to be washed away? Only the breath washes the negative thoughts away. Breathe it in, and with the breathing, put that positive thought there. Pratipaksa-bhavanam (cultivation of the opposite). Wash those thoughts that you find in you which cause you pain and distress. Breathe the breath. Breathe in, breathe in, breathe in and wash the negative thoughts away. Negative thoughts- they must be discriminated away. And when those negative thoughts of hate, anger and prejudice are all washed away through the inhalation of this vital force which no water can change, you will find a refreshing you emerging. “Oh breath, let me ever be conscious of you. Let me honor you. Let me breathe you in so that I may be filled with the sacredness of life, so that I may speak of you, so that I may speak to the whole world of how great you are. You purify my mind, you strengthen my body so that I may speak for you.” Speak to your breath. It is a Devata, it is a god. It is something that is always there. Breathe it in and up and send it to the mind. Take those negative thoughts away. You can also heal your body that way. Physical suffering comes from negative thoughts.
Hang on to the breath. It’s your lifeline. It’s the umbilical cord. It will give you strength, vigor, vitality, and renew your life. Everything about a human being is wonderful. What makes it not wonderful are all the negative thoughts, all the attitudes that have come into one’s life, and have created a restless individual, an individual who feels weak, not worthy, who feels he has to strive and fight. Human beings don’t have to fight; human beings have to love. Human beings ought to put their hands out and love. That’s what we are made for. We are all born through the power of love. If mother and father didn’t embrace each other, we would not be. Just think of that. You are born of the offering called love.
In all you do, do not forget to sacrifice. Let everything you do be an offering. Through the sacred activity of offering all, you will find the place called meditation. Om shanti.