Personality (Lectures delivered in America)/Meditation
MEDITATION
AT COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO
MEDITATION
There are things that we get from outside and take to ourselves as possessions. But with meditation, it is just the opposite. It is entering into the very midst of some great truth, so that, in the end, we are possessed by it.
Now let us see by contrast what wealth is. Money represents so much labour. By its means I can detach the labour from man and make it my own possession. I acquire it from outside and convert it to my own power.
Then there is knowledge. One kind of knowledge is that which we gain from other men. Then there is the other kind which we acquire through observation, experiments and the process of reasoning.
These are all efforts to take that which is away from me, and get it to myself. In these things our mental and physical energies are employed in a manner quite contrary to that of Meditation.
The highest truth is that which we can only realize by plunging into it. And when our consciousness is fully merged in it, then we know that it is no mere acquisition, but that we are one with it.
Thus through meditation, when our soul is in its true relation to the Supreme Truth, then all our actions, words, behaviour, become true.
Let me give you a text of meditation which we have used in India.
Om bhur bhuvah svah
tat savitur varenyam bhargo devasya dhimahi
dhiyo yo nah prachodayat.
OM. That means completeness; it is really the symbolical word meaning the Infinite, the Perfect, the Eternal. The very sound is complete, representing the wholeness of all things.
All our meditations begin with OM and end with OM. It is used so that the mind may be filled with the sense of the infinite Completeness and emancipated from the world of narrow selfishness.
Bhur bhuvah svah
Bhur means this earth.
Bhuvah means the middle region, the sky.
Svah means the starry region.
The earth, the air, the starry region. You have to set your mind in the heart of this universe. You have to realize that you are born in the Infinite, that you belong not merely to a particular spot of this earth, but to the whole world.
Tat savitur varenyam bhargo devasya dhimahi.
I meditate upon that adorable energy of the Creator of the Universe. The word "Creator" has dulled in meaning by its constant use. But you have to bring into your conscious vision the vastness of the all, and then say that God creates this world, from his infinite creative power, at every moment of time continuously, not by a single act.
All this represents the infinite will of the Creator. It is not like the law of gravitation, or some abstract thing which I cannot worship, and which cannot claim our worship. But this text says that the power is "adorable," that it claims our worship because it belongs to a supreme person, it is not a mere abstraction.
What is the manifestation of this power?
On one side it is the Earth, the Sky, the Starry Heavens; on the other side it is our consciousness.
There is an eternal connection between myself and the world, because this world has its other side in my consciousness. If there were no conscious being and no Supreme Consciousness at its source and centre, there could not be a world.
God's power emanates and streams forth as consciousness in me and also in the world outside. We ourselves generally divide it, but really these two sides of creation are intimately related as they proceed from the same source.
Thus this Meditation means that my consciousness and the vast world outside me are one. And where is that Unity?
In that Great Power, who breathes out Consciousness in me, and also in the world outside myself.
Meditation upon this is not taking anything to myself, but renouncing myself, becoming one with all creation.
This then is our text and we set our minds to it,—repeating it again and again till our mind becomes settled and distractions leave us. There is then no loss, no fear, no pain that can affect us our relationship with men becomes simple, natural—we are free. This then is the Meditation—to plunge into this truth, to live and move and have our being in this.
Let me tell you about another text which we use in our school for the boys to meditate upon and to use for their daily prayer.
Om pita no'si, pita no bodhi. Namaste'stu.
Pita no' si.
Thou art our Father.
Pita no bodhi. Give us the bodh, the consciousness, the awakening in this, that thou art our Father.
Namaste'stu.
Namah has no proper synonym in English, though perhaps "bow" or "salutation" gives its meaning as nearly as may be.
My namah to thee—Let it become true.
This is the first portion of the text, which our boys use.
Let me explain what I understand by it.
Pita no'si. The text begins with the assertion that God is our Father.
But this truth has not yet been realized in our life, and this is the cause of our imperfections, miseries and sins. Therefore we pray that we may be able to realize it in our consciousness, and so we pray that we may be able to do so.
Then it ends with Namaste. Let my Namah be true. Because that Namah is the true attitude. When I have fully realized this great truth,—Pita no'si,—then my life expresses its own truth by its Namah, by its humility, by its self-surrender, in the meek feeling of adoration.
In our prayers we sometimes use words which satisfy us though we merely utter them mechanically without applying our whole mind to realize their fulness. "Father" is one of these words.
Therefore in our meditation we have to understand more deeply what it means and so to put our heart in harmony with its truth.
We can take this world as it appears to us through the medium of laws. We can have the idea of the world in our mind, as a world of force and matter, and then our relation to it becomes merely the mechanical relation of science. But, in that case, we miss the highest truth that is in man. For what is man? He is a personal being. Law does not take account of that. Law is about the physiology of our body, the psychology of our minds, the mechanism of our being. And when we come to our personal nature, we do not know any law which explains it. Therefore Science ignores the very basis of truth about ourselves. The whole world becomes a machine, and then there can be no question of looking upon the Creator as Father, or as we Indians often call him, "Mother."
If we look upon this world merely as a combination of forces, then there can be no question of worship. But we are not merely physical or psychological. We are men and women. And we must find out, in the whole world, the infinite meaning of this, that we are men.
That my body exists, Science explains by universal laws. So that I find my body to be, not an isolated fact of creation, but a part of a great whole. Then I find that even my mind thinks in harmony with all that happens in the world; and so I can find out by the help of my mind all those great laws which govern the universe.
But Science asks me to stop there. For Science, the laws of body and mind have their background in the universe, but personality has none. But we feel that we cannot accept this. For if this personality has no eternal relation to truth as everything else has, then what chimera of chance is it? Why is it at all in this world, and how? This fact of my person must have the truth of the infinite person to support it. We have come to this great discovery by the immediate perception of this "I" in us, that there must be one infinite "I."
Then comes our question, "How are we related to this Person?" Man has got this answer in his heart of heart, that it is the closest of all relationships,—the relationship of love.
It cannot be otherwise, because relationship becomes perfect only when it is that of love.
The relation of king and subject, master and servant, lawgiver and those who obey the law,—these are partial relations for one particular use. The whole being is not involved. But this personal "I" must have perfect relationship with the Infinite Personality. It cannot be otherwise. Because we have loved and find in love the infinite satisfaction of our personality, therefore we have come to know that our relationship to the Infinite Personality is that of love. And in this way man has learned to say "Our Father," not merely King, or Master, but Father.
That is to say, there is something in Him which we share,—something common between this Eternal Person and this finite little person.
But still the question remains, Why should I use the word "Father" which represents the personal relation of human beings? Why cannot we invent another word? Is it not too finite and small?
The word Father in our Sanskrit language includes Mother. Very often we use this word in its dual form, Pitaru, meaning "father and mother." Man is born in the arms of the Mother. We have not come merely as the rain comes from the cloud. The great fact is that I am ushered into this life in the arms of my mother and father. This shows that the idea of the personality is already there. Herein we find our relation to the Infinite Person. We know that we are born of love—our relationship is of love, and we feel that our father and mother are the true symbols of our eternal relationship with God. I have to realize this truth every moment. I have to know that I am eternally related to my Father. Then I rise above the trivialities of things, and the whole world acquires meaning for me.
Therefore the first prayer is to realize God as Pita. Thou who createst the infinite world of stars and worlds, Thou art beyond me, but I know one thing intimately, Thou art Pita, Father.
The baby does not know all about its mother's activities, but it knows that she is its mother.
So I do not know other things about God, but I know this, Thou art my Father.
Let all my consciousness burn like fire with this idea, Thou art my Father. Every day let this be the one centre of all my thoughts, that the Supreme Person ruling all the Universe is my Father.
Pita no bodhi. Let me wake up in the light of this great truth—Thou art my Father.
Like a naked child let me place all my thoughts in Thy arms for Thy care and protection through the day.
And then Namah.
My complete self-surrender will become true. This is the highest joy of man's love.
Namaste, namah to Thee—let it be true.
I am related to the Infinite "I am" and so my true attitude is not that of pride, or self-satisfaction, but of self-surrender. Namaste'stu.
I have not finished the whole of the text which my boys use for their prayer and meditation.
You must remember that this prayer has been gathered from different places of our oldest Scriptures—the Vedas. They are not to be found in one consecutive order in any one place. But my father, who had dedicated his life to the worship of God, collected these words from the immortal storehouse of inexhaustible wisdom—the Vedas and Upanishads.
The next line is this:
Ma ma himsi. Do not smite me with death.
We shall have fully to understand what this means. You have heard me say that in this first line it has been said, "Thou art my Father." This truth is everywhere. We have to be born into this great idea of the Father. That is the end and object of man, the fulfilment of his life.
Though it is true that we are eternally related to our Father, yet there is some barrier which prevents the full realization of this truth, and this is the greatest source of suffering to man. The animals—they have their pain, they suffer from the attacks of enemies and physical imperfection, and this suffering urges them to strive still more to fulfil the wants of their natural life and struggle against these obstacles. This in itself is a matter of joy. And we can be sure that they truly enjoy their life, because through this impulse they struggle against obstacles and this rouses their whole vitality. Otherwise they would be like the vegetable world. Life must for its fulfilment have its obstacles, and by continual fighting against these obstacles of matter, life realizes its own supremacy and dignity. But all these obstacles come to animals with the accompaniment of the sensation of pain.
But with human beings there is another source of suffering still deeper. We also have to seek our livelihood and hold out against all the enmities of nature and man. But that is not all.—The wonder of it is that man, being born in the same world as the animals, and having the same vital questions to deal with, still has something else for which he struggles and cares, though it is not quite definitely realized. It comes to us in glimpses, and when we are in wealth, wallowing in prosperity, or luxury or ease,—when we are surrounded by all the things of the world,—still men feel that these things are not sufficient, and there rings out the prayer, not to the natural forces of the earth,—such as air, fire,—but to some being whom man has not fully realized or known. The prayer rings out: "Save me"—"O do not smite me with death."
We do not mean physical death, because we all know that we must die, and so the prayer to our Father is not for our physical immortality. Man has felt in himself instinctively that this life is not final,—that he must strive for the higher life. And then he cries to God—Do not leave me in this region of death. It does not satisfy my soul. I eat and sleep, but I am not satisfied. I do not find my good in this—I starve. As the child's cry is for the mother's food, which she supplies out of her own life, so we cry to the eternal Mother, "Do not smite me with death," but give me the life which comes out of thine own nature.—This is the cry—I am starving. My soul is smitten with death because it finds no sustenance in its surroundings.
Vishvāni deva savitar duritāni parāsuva.
O God, my Father, the world of sins remove from me. When this life of self wants to get everything for itself, then it gets knock after knock, because it is unnatural, because its true life is the life of freedom, because it hurts its wings against the prison cage. The Prison is unmeaning to the soul. It cries out in its prison, "I do not find my fulfilment." It knocks itself against the prison bars and from these knocks and pains our soul is fully aware that truth is not of this life of self, but of the larger life of soul. From this comes our suffering, and we say: "Break open this prison. I do not want this self." "Break all the sins, selfish desires, cravings of self, and own me as your child,—your child, not the child of this world of death."
This is the prayer we use when we want to realize full consciousness of life in our Father. The greatest obstacle is the selfish life. Therefore the prayer of man to God is not for worldly goods, but for the establishment of complete relationship with the Father.
Yad bhadran tan na asuva. What is good give us.
We very often utter this prayer and ask our Father to give us what is good, but we do not know what a terrible prayer it is if we were to receive its full answer. There are very few of us who, when realizing what is the highest good, can ask for it. Only he can do that who has been able to make his life pure, free from the shackles of evil, who can fearlessly ask God to fulfil his work, who can say, "I have cleansed my mind and got rid of impulses of selfish desire and the fear and sorrow of the narrow life of self, and now I can claim with fullest hope, 'Give me what is good, in whatever form—in sorrow, loss, insult, bereavement—I shall be glad to receive it, for I know it comes from Thee.'"
But however weak we may be we have to utter this prayer. For we know that even though we may be plunged into misery and sorrow, yet he who realizes that he lives in his Father will be glad to receive whatever comes from His hands. That is freedom. For freedom cannot be in mere pleasure. But when we can defy danger and death, privation and sorrow, and yet feel the freedom—when we have not the least doubt about the life in our Father—then everything comes with a message of gladness and we can receive it with humility and joy and bow our heads in gratitude.
Namah sambhavāya.
"I bow to Thee from whom come the enjoyments of life." We gladly welcome these, all the different streams of joy running through various channels—and for these we bow to Thee.
Mayobhavāya cha.
"I also bow to Thee from whom comes the welfare of man." Welfare contains in it both the joys and sorrows of life, loss and gain. To Thee who givest pain, sorrow and bereavement—to Thee I bow.
Namah shivāya cha shivatarāya cha.
"I bow to Thee who art good, who art the highest good."
This is the complete text. The first part is the prayer for consciousness that we are living not merely in the world of earth, air and water, but in the real world of personality, of love. And when we realize we are in this love—then we feel the disharmony of our lives apart from love. We do not feel it till we are conscious of our relation to our Father. But when we are conscious, we feel the discord so strongly that it smites us and we feel it to be death. It becomes intolerable when we are in the very slightest degree conscious that we are surrounded by the love of our Father.
Then comes the prayer for freedom from things and for the highest good—i.e. freedom in God.
And then comes the conclusion. We bow to Him in whom we all enjoy life, in whom is the welfare of the soul, in whom is the good.
Om, Shantih, Shantih, Shantih. Om.