Sunday, February 24, 2008

Truth and beauty through meditation

K VIJAYARAGHAVAN

MEDITATION that works in real life through its cleansing impact upon all accumulated opinions, prejudices, notions and perceptions opens the mind to see matters and things as they truly are. This is the working of the ancient Sanskrit prayer seeking to be cleansed of ignorance by the instrument of true knowledge. When truth dawns, things and issues also assume a different meaning and appearance. Integrating oneself with the wide and vast world of men and matter and with the breaking of one’s narrow world and his own sense of ego and self righteousness, the aspirant observes to his sheer delight the practical working of these words of Norman Vincent Peale: “When people get rid of fear, anxiety and self-centredness, they develop a kind of ecstatic joy and delight in living. The world seems so different and newly wonderful that they tend to love everybody and everything.” This is also the translation into actual reality of John Keats’ concept: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty.” Indeed, there comes about a ‘paradigm shift’ in all aspects! Truly, relaxation confers an altered state of perception. In this state of harmony of all things within and without, subtle and sublime messages spring to real life. These further soothe, gladden and enrich the inner spirit, adding to the quality of meditation within. This process further inspires the mind to absorb fully the spirit of sublime exhortations, which abound all over — a virtuous cycle indeed! This is the working concept of the Rig Vedic prayer, “May noble thoughts come to us from all over” and that of the Biblical exhortation (Philippians, 4, 8): “Whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely…. think on these things.” It is also in this state of inner power that acceptance and faith take over where doubts, grudges and anxieties had been. Even the apparently stressful, trying and difficult past would assume a new dimension — storehouse of didactic experiences, like adversity, which, “like the toad though ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head”. In this state of clarity, the natural outcome of simple and true meditation, sublime messages, benefits of inspiring company and every aspect of life and living — these become endearingly and enduringly rooted to the spirit. Naturally, these flower forth for the benefit of oneself and all others too!

Overcome The Cycle Of Birth And Death

Avatar Meher Baba

The series of incarnations the soul is impelled to take through karmic determination have a tendency to become endless. Through innumerable lives an individual has come into contact with countless persons and had all kinds of dealings of give and take with them. He is entangled in a web consisting of debts to pay and dues to recover. According to karmic law, he can avoid neither debts nor dues, since both are the outcome of karma inspired by desire. He keeps incarnating in order to pay off his debts and to recover his dues; but even when he means to clear up the account, often he is unable to do so. The power that keeps the individual soul bound to the wheel of life and death is its thirst for separate existence, which is a condition for a host of cravings connected with objects and experiences of the world of duality. It is for the fulfilment of cravings that the ego-mind keeps on incarnating itself. When all forms of craving disappear, the impressions that create and enliven the ego-mind disappear. With the disappearance of these impressions, the egomind itself is shed. Then there is only the realisation of the one eternal, unchanging Oversoul, the only Reality. God-realisation is the end of incarnations of ego-mind because it is the end of its very existence. The spinning of the yarn of karmic debts and dues would be endless if there were no provision for getting out of the karmic entanglements through the help of a Perfect Master. He can not only initiate an aspirant into the supreme art of non-binding karma, but can become directly instrumental in freeing him from his karma. If a person must get bound to someone, it is best for him to get bound to God or a Master, because this facilitates emancipation from all other karmic ties. When the good karma of past lives has secured for the aspirant the benefit of having a Master, the best thing he can do is to surrender himself to the Master and to serve him. The aspirant throws the burden of his karma on the Master, who has to find ways of freeing him from it. The master-disciple relationship is often carried forward from one life to another. Those who had gurus in past lives are drawn to him by an unconscious magnetism, not knowing why they are thus drawn. Treading the spiritual path continues for several incarnations before the aspirant attains the goal. The life of the reincarnate has many events and phases. The wheel of life makes its ceaseless rounds, lifting the individual to the heights or bringing him down from high positions. It contributes to the enrichment of his experience. Ideals left unattained in one life are pursued in the next; things left undone are finished; rough edges left by incomplete endeavour are rounded off; wrongs are set right. At last, out of the ripeness of experience and through the dissolution of the ego-mind, the soul enters into the unity of divine life. Then there is neither bondage of giving nor taking, because the soul has completely transcended the consciousness of separateness or duality.