by Gurani Anjali
The spiritual path demands everything. Everything you have; not everything you can give but everything you have to give. There is no way out of it, absolutely no way. When one really feels the spiritual impact, the beauty and thrill of being one hundred percent attached and one hundred percent detached is seen. It is a state of ecstasy. It is also the state at the core of our existence, but some know it and some don’t.
Everything around us is born of mind. We must strive through the mind for the perfection that Yoga teaches us: that Yoga is chitta vritti nirodha (cessation of mental modifications). Come to understand this. Yoga is no mind, chitta vritti nirodha. To go into that unmanifest state, you have to be like a little child. Christ said, “Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for such is the kingdom of heaven.” What did he mean by that? Little children have no mind. They are in a state of chitta vritti nirodha. The children are non-possessive, non-attached. They eat but they don’t know what they eat; they just eat it if they like it. They take in everything in site, drawing it into themselves. Yet, when you ask them what they ate, their answer is often silence. Mum is the word. they seem to say, “Ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies.” this is because they are mindless, they have no mind. And so Christ said, “Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for such is the kingdom of heaven.”
Adults have learned the power of language. With conditioned, cultural language we compromise and adulterate everything in sight. We play a game of words. through our words we protect ourselves and manipulate the other. With the adult, anything goes. this creates stress and suffering. the adult is attached and possessive.
Children, on the other hand, do not have this problem. Because they have no mind, they cannot deliberately hurt anyone. They take anything and are satisfied with it for the moment. They are free to be and free to go. But, because they don’t know exactly where they are going, they are pulled by the hand and taken here and taken there. The culture moves them, coming at them in the form of adults. However, the reverse can also be true. If the adult holds back and pays close attention to little children, that person is brought to a state of nirodha. Children bring you to that state of no mind. Learn from children how to look at and yet not name things. Try it. Just look. Do not name. Just look and be. Do not posses. Do not give any value to things; just look. the essence of life is beyond time and beyond place, beyond attributed values, beyond.
In the world of human relations, in the world of culture, we have to name everything. In communities, we have to speak the language of community. We have to say, “This is a cup,” or “Give me a glass of water.” We have to use language. This is not so in spiritual life. In spiritual life, in the essence, in the moment, there is nirodha, there is that silence.
So then what does spiritual life mean in society, in community? Societies have certain fixed ideas about what a spiritual individual is and is not. It is said that a spiritual person has to be like this or be like that. Some say that a spiritual person has no feelings, or a spiritual person doesn’t drink, doesn’t drive, doesn’t get sick. If you look at any group in society, it has fixed ideas about how a people should behave. But any sort of prescribed “behaving” is something that is against our nature, our true nature. We really don’t want to behave in a way that is prescribed. It goes against our nature, our true nature, because we are born free, we are born with nirodha. Anything that is put on us, any requirement to toe the line goes against our grain. We want to break out. We want to be free, we want to feel free.
The question is, where can this freedom be felt? You cannot be free in society. You have to be free in the Self. Free in the Self. How do you do it? When do you do it? What circumstance allows for it? Who will understand you? All this is unimportant when the state of nirodha is embodied. Unimportant, because in the state of nirodha you will automatically be in the Rta (through, norm, sacred order) and that will guide you no matter where you are. You will go into it and come out of it, but you will not be tainted at all.
It is hard work trying to live in society and live a spiritual life because you can never appease society. Society wants to claim you. But you cannot be claimed by anyone. You have to say, “I am in this world but not of this world. I am here but I am not here.” Who can see that? Who knows that way of being? that , indeed, is a state of nirodha: to be in this world but not of it. Or you can change it around and say, “I am of this world but I am not in this world.” Either way you are in the state of nirodha.
Watch the words you say. Watch who is speaking to you. Realize the significance and the power of words. Words are very, very powerful. Words are sacred. Each word is a mantra (instrument of thought, sacred speech). Each word has purity, vibration, sensation, sound; each word makes a body. Words are sacred, words are very powerful. When someone says something nice to you, you feel good. The body releases some tension inside and gives itself over to a state of equilibrium. But the minute something negative is said, the body roars, it tears itself apart, it rips you inside. This is the power of words. Words make the body, words make the world. They are makers of place and circumstance. Words are powerful, words are sacred.
Hence, Yoga is chitta vritti nirodha, the stopping of all words. I love that place. It’s a place that allows me to be in all places. That place, when it is known, allows you to be in any place at any time, one hundred percent attached and one hundred percent detached. You want to be a Mohammed, you want to be a Christ, you want to be a great soul, you want to be a Gautama Buddha. You want to have knowledge, wisdom, understanding. You want to be able to work wonders in the world. Why? Because you see there is so much suffering. So that place has to be known, that place beyond words. Without knowing it, without feeling it, without embodying it, without living in that place, nothing can be accomplished. Om shanti.