by Gurani Anjali
Remember your experiences in life and uncover the Self. It is hidden in everything. It is hidden. It’s so beautifully tucked away and we have to seek it. Remember how you use to play hide-and-go-seek? The game is still on. You know how you play basketball, football, or tennis, always running after the ball, the bindu, the seed of life? You must go after the real bindu, the totality. Yes, the game is still on. Make the game intriguing for yourself. Create that suspense for yourself. The world is a big field. Circumstances are your challenges in life, the opponents. Everyone is going after that which they cannot see. Some know it, of course, and some don’t. Some are doing it consciously and some are unconsciously involved, but every living being, no matter how intelligent or how illiterate, is seeking it.
When you find yourself alone and you’re getting bored, don’t turn on the television, for goodness sake. Don’t turn on the radio. Don’t turn on the cassette player. Don’t create the noise. Try to seek the silence. Tune it all out and try to hear the natural vibrations in the world. If you can get into the silence and create an atmosphere of silence for yourself, you will hear the roar of the ocean within you, the waves. You have to create that in circumstance. And that doesn’t mean to go off someplace and just be by yourself.
If you could watch my life you would see that it appears very chaotic. I don’t appear to get one quiet minute. So I change the circumstance. I change it with my intelligence, with the knowledge I have, with the understanding I have. I walk the middle path. Not being overcome by pleasure or overcome by pain, even though I know I could indulge in both anytime I wish. Create that silence for yourself in circumstance. Aim for chitta vritti nirodha (cessation of thought).
There is a lot of work to do in seeking that state which is so desired by all. It’s like playing a game. All the rules have to be known in order to play the game. Once the rules are followed, the goal of chitta vritti nirodha is achieved very easily. It is very simple, but first you have to inspire yourself, you have to fan the fire that is already there. Ignite each other. You have to burn a fire. Get heated up a little. Feel the flames burning within you in order to penetrate deeper. You know how that feels, don’t you? You know how it feels because you’ve had glimpses of it already, but name, form and work cover it up. So when you hear the name, when you see form, when you’re caught up in activities, know that there is something beyond the activity. There is something beyond the name, there is something beyond the form. Try to respect the form. Respect the name and do everything selflessly, for the Self. That’s how to play the game. Om shanti.