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1 January 2007
REAL PEACE
How long do you want to live a life of duality? A life of restlessness and discontentment? How long do you wish to lead a life of ignorance, hatred, bitterness, and separation? How long do you wish to continue your own selfish struggles? How long do you wish to behold differences and distinctions? How long do you wish to keep the barriers between man and man?
You cry for santi, for peace. But where to get it? Through whom to get it? Realise peace in your own heart through association with sages and by meditation. You can find this peace only in the stillness, only within your own self. You certainly cannot find it in objects. Look within!
Sit silently in a quiet room for one or two hours. Close your eyes and concentrate on the point between the eyebrows. Withdraw the mind and the senses from the external objects. Be still.
Silence the surging thoughts and the bubbling emotions. Forget the body. Forget the world. Enter into the great calm. Dive deep down into the recesses of your heart. Plunge into the ocean of peace. Now you can realise your oneness with the supreme self.
Be regular in your practice. This is of paramount importance. It is useless to talk of the cessation of war, whilst you are still full of petty hatred and jealousy. So first remove your own inharmonious vibrations. Then there will be no more war between nations. It is only the individuals that constitute a nation.
Lead a life of peace. Kill suspicion. Kill envy. Kill prejudice. Kill selfishness. Kill the greed for power and possession. Do this ruthlessly.
Lead a simple life. Practise daily meditation and establish peace in your own heart. Then you will radiate it to all who come in contact with you.
Mysterious is this peace. If you enjoy this peace, you will be contributing peace to the whole world. Realise the peace that passeth all understanding and be free.
2 January
The Housefly Nature of the Mind
The tendency of the mind is always to move downwards. It would rather revel in darkness and multiply and die there than come and live for short time in the sunshine, like flowers. Man’s mind is something like the housefly. Of course, sometimes, if some sweet smelling object is kept, it may perch upon it for a moment. But the next moment it would prefer to alight upon a dung heap. Its nature is there. So, perhaps, a nice tune might attract your attention for a while, but the next moment if something is given, to which it is always accustomed, this housefly of the human mind at once goes and sits upon that. It is used to frivolities, to mere flippancies. It is used to taunt and give torment to others. When a very delicious dish is put before it, it forgets the spiritual path and alights upon it.
3 January
Mind: Its Machiavellian Movements
One of the vexing paradoxes on the spiritual Path is that your mind is both your best friend as also your bitter enemy. Mind becomes a true friend only after being gradually trained to be so. Until then it should be regarded as a troublesome and treacherous enemy inside us. It is extremely diplomatic, cunning and crooked. It is an arch deceiver. One of the master strokes of the mind’s artfulness is to make the aspirant feel and smugly imagine that he knows his mind perfectly well and cannot be led away by it and at the same time to delude him totally.
4 January
The Devilry of the Human Mind
The mind has the knack of making the unwary aspirant confidently think himself its master, while it makes a hopeless fool of him. Its deceptions are subtle. You have heard the saying, "The Devil can quote scriptures for its purpose." Similarly the mind can use a virtue to indulge in a vice. It has an inborn inclination to perversion. It can even take the support of a perfectly good principle seemingly to justify the most unprincipled sort of action. Unless it is scrutinised dispassionately its tricks are never fully discovered.
5 January
The Dog’s Tail Human Nature
The workings of Maya through the complex mechanism of the human mind, are so very extremely subtle, so very difficult to overcome, and human nature is fundamentally so asuric and unregenerate that real spiritual development and progress in Sadhana are indeed very hard to obtain. To achieve success in any measure in the spiritual life is a very difficult and uphill task so much so that truly it is Divine Grace alone that can raise the aspirant from darkness to Light. So vehement, self-assertive and rebellious is the egoistic self of man that it refuses to be changed from its vicious state to a state of virtue, goodness and saintliness. It is a great blunder to think that the mere act of renunciation is a sufficient achievement in spiritual life. If renunciation makes you feel that you have at once become quite superior to the rest of mankind and that it has bestowed on you the right to preach and to dictate to others, then the very purpose of renunciation gets blasted. You destroy the very foundation of Spiritual Life by this egoistic assumption. The eradication of egoism in all its numerous aggressive forms comprises the very core of spiritual Sadhana.
6 January
The Surging Emotions True Freedom
Physical freedom is no freedom at all. If you are easily carried away by surging emotions and impulses, if you are under the grip of moods, cravings and passions, how can you be really happy? You laugh for five minutes and weep for five hours. What can wife, sons, friends, fame and power do for you, when you are under the sway of the impulses of your mind? He is a true hero who has controlled his mind. Conquest of the mind is the conquest of the entire world. True victory is over the mind: that is real Freedom. Thorough rigorous discipline and self-imposed restrictions will eventually eradicate all riotous thoughts, wild impulses, cravings and passions. One should become a perfect Yogi.
7 January
The Havoc of Imaginary Fears
Mind works havoc through its power of imagination. Imaginary fears of various sorts, exaggeration, concoction, mental dramatization, building castles in the air, are all due to this power of imagination. Even a perfectly healthy man has some imaginary disease or other, created by this juggling power of the mind. Imaginary fears involve a tremendous loss of energy. Give up all forms of fear.
8 January
Conquest of the Three Arch-Enemies
Lust, anger and pride are the root of all human ills. They are the enemies of peace and are the parents of all the hosts of evils. Get up in the morning and meditate on the havoc that these three bring about in man’s life. If you work yourself up to a feeling that they drain out your vitality—physical and mental—and that for your own good, you should eradicate them, then conquest of these three foes will be an easy affair. Victory over these three arch-enemies of man, is the greatest conquest.
9 January
More than Martyrdom
Victory over mind is certainly victory over death. The inner war with the mind is more terrible than the outer war with machine guns. Conquest of the mind is more difficult than the conquest of the world by the force of arms.
10 January
The Restless Mind and the Dubious Mastery
You can bore a diamond with a bristle; you can tie an infatuated elephant with a slender silken thread. You can bring the sun down for the play of your child; you can make the flame of fire burn always downwards. But it is difficult to control the mind. For gaining mastery over the mind you have to know what it is, how it works, how it deceives you at every turn and by which methods it can be subdued. As long as the mind restlessly wanders about amidst objects, ever fluctuating, excited, agitated and uncontrolled, the true joy of the Self cannot be realised and enjoyed. To control the restless mind and still perfectly all thoughts and cravings is the greatest problem of man. If he has subjugated the mind, he is the emperor of emperors.
