Words from the Master

Yes…you want to ask something?

Swamiji, while we are on the topic of rituals, can you please tell us something about the path of rituals and the path of meditation?

Yes...
See, with rituals, there is something definite about them. It is structured and you know when exactly it is going to start, when it is going to finish, where you are going to do it, what for you are doing it etc. With rituals, you go into them, and come out as the same person. There is so much of security in the whole process. That is why it has spread so much. Anything that is definite spreads.

But what happens in meditation? First of all, meditation seems too simple to produce any benefits when compared to rituals. People always ask me why I do rituals at the ashram. I tell them, if I tell people to simply come to the ashram and sit under the banyan tree and meditate, which is actually enough, will they listen?

If I did not have the Dakshinamurthy idol and the Nataraja idol, if they did not see these idols there, would they come to just see open space and a banyan tree? Probably only I will be sitting under the banyan tree and meditating!

To make people take the first steps towards their inner journey, I have to show them some of the complications that exist in their minds. Else I cannot lure them to it. I have to talk in their language.

They will be so happy to see the Dakshinamurthy idol under the banyan tree although they will be blissfully unaware of the Energy field that is actually there around the banyan tree even in the absence of the Dakshinamurthy idol. This banyan tree is live Energy. Its silence is a vibrating silence. It is enough if you just sit under it in a meditative mood. You don’t have to do anything complicated. Every leaf and twig here talks to me.

See, when you continue to worship idols, you have to become more and more aware of the tremendous Presence of Existence that you are trying to connect with through the idol. Then you will automatically start seeing God everywhere. You will understand that it is not just the idol but the whole of creation that is pregnant with the Presence of God. Then you can start relating with the whole of Existence.

With meditation, if you go into meditation with sincerity, the outcome is not definite. A personality change may happen. You may emerge as a different person. This is seen as a great risk! It is like taking a gamble. Transformation starts happening. It is this transformation that you are actually seeking, but when it happens you are afraid.

You feel comfortable in the security of your rituals. Rituals become a part of your every day routine; they become a part of the dead circuit that you are following. Somehow, they give you satisfaction and you remain where you are. With meditation, your ideology is shaken a bit and you start feeling scared. Your set of beliefs that have been built by years of conditioning suddenly seem shaky. You feel you are moving onto a less trodden path and that causes fear in you.

When you meditate, your awareness increases and when this happens, the fence that you have imagined around yourself, which actually society has put around you, slowly dissolves and you feel rebellious, not against society but against your own unconscious and ignorant state. This rebellion causes you to probe more into the cause of it and it opens out further avenues for you.

This is how you move deeper and deeper into a space that you have never entered before; a space which society does not even know; a space that society is wary of; a space that has all along been inside you but locked; a space for which you have been searching a key to unlock, but blissfully unaware of, not just in this life but in many lives before. When you have found this space, you have arrived!

It is like this:
A cow is tied to a rope and given a few meters of radius to move around.
It moves around and becomes aware and mature through its intelligence.
Then, the rope is loosened a little, giving it a few more meters of radius.
It goes further around and becomes more intelligent and then it is given still more length of rope to wander.

Depending on the cow’s growing intelligence and consciousness, it is let free at some point in time!

The same thing happens in man. The rope or fence around man is proportionate to his Consciousness. The more conscious he becomes, the greater freedom he enjoys and the more his consciousness grows.

See, it is a question of how willing you are to allow the transformation of your Energy. This is the only way it can happen.

But when this happens, society will tell you that you are moving away. It will tell you that you are moving away from what is right. The confusion then starts. When this happens, you only have to have courage and faith in yourself and Existence and move on.

Here is where, more than any books or lectures, a Master can serve you as a Yoga danda - a stick of support, to help you stand up for yourself. Every time you feel beaten by society in your path of spirituality, when you feel you are against the majority, the Master will pull you up in his own way and tell you to move on.

You need to be prodded at weak moments and the Master is the stick that prods you on and supports you till you walk again with your head high up. At every moment of faltering, the stick emerges to your help.

With the support of the Master, you can stand up as an individual, as an independent person, discovering your uniqueness. It does not mean that you are dependent on the Master; not at all. This is another common misconception. People think that you are being dependent on another human being for life.

It is like this: You are trying to find your way to a particular place. If left by yourself, you will ask for directions at several places. Sometimes you will be guided wrongly and may have to retrace, and in this fashion, you will reach your destination somehow. It may take you a long time to do so, but you will reach. But what if you have a map or a guide? You will be able to directly reach your destination without loss of time, is it not? Does it mean that you are dependent on the map or guide? No. It was just a quicker way of doing things, that’s all. In the same way, a Master is a guide who knows the way, who has already been to the place you are searching for and is available to guide you there.

When you have dedication alone, you will no doubt work hard towards reaching your goal, but when you have dedication with courage, you will take a leap towards your goal. This courage will come if you stop looking at others and look only into yourself, if you stop comparing yourself with others and watch yourself with awareness, at the subtle changes happening inside your system.

You need to stand up with courage of conviction in your own path. Courage of conviction will happen in you only when you are strongly centered in yourself without comparing with others.

Society is waiting to pull you into the familiar patterns that it knows, into the miseries that it is familiar with and can handle; into the well trodden and worn out path. It is very easy and does not require courage to fall into this path. But to tread the lesser-trodden path of spirituality requires courage. When I say courage, I don’t mean ordinary courage, I mean total courage.

To wear gypsy beads, does not require courage, but to wear rudraksh beads, requires courage. I give rudraksh beads to devotees who wish to wear them. The rudraksh beads are nothing but energy storehouses. They store the Cosmic Energy for you. They are like a battery house and recharge you when you get into a low. But society sees these beads as clear signs of sannyas! They see them as something worn by renunciates, without even understanding the meaning of renunciation.

They condemn people who stay in family life and wear rudraksh. But when they see the rudraksh beads on idols or sadhus, they are happy and pray to them. So many of my young devotees come and tell me how their family reacts to them wearing the beads. All these gossipmongers will talk endlessly about it and spread stories about them. Is it not absurd? When they pray, they are praying to the Cosmic Energy, but when the same Energy is available to them in simpler forms, they are not ready to take it! They pray to it but run away from it!

If you deeply analyze this, it will seem so absurd and nonsensical. They see themselves as so distinctly different from God; that is the problem. They are not ready to accept that they are God. Now I tell you: Whether you know it or not, whether you accept it or not, whether you like it or not, whether you believe it or not, you ARE God. This is the underlying basis of the Vishuddhi chakra also – discovering your own unique self and infinite energy.

When your courage grows, society automatically fades into insignificance. When your courage is low, society assumes power over you. It is all in your mind. How much power you give to society, that much power it will have over you. Never blame society for anything.

The choice has always been yours. Due to sheer lack of courage, you choose to go with what society says, you choose to pull and push by comparing and trying to beat one another, and then you blame society for it. It is the most absurd thing you can ever do. Remember, the choice is always yours.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.