Human Thoughts, and Beyond

Human Thoughts, and Beyond

Spirituality! The very word brings different thoughts to all of us. To some, it is a source of mental peace and happiness. To some others, it might appear as something holy, sacred or even ritualistic, religious or something that relates to the worship of various deities. Again, to few others it is something “boring” or something to be done when you are very old and have nothing else to do.
Actually, spirituality cannot be defined as any of these!

Then what does spirituality mean? What is it all about? What should it mean to us?
Spirituality in its true form is an assurance of permanent happiness and peace. Spirituality is something that can keep us in our purest form, with great devotion to the Lord, the Almighty. Spirituality is the science of the Spirit (Soul).

So why do we need spirituality? We need spirituality to attain everlasting peace and happiness.

How does spirituality assure perpetual happiness? To know this, we need first find out why we feel happy or unhappy. Where do these feelings evolve from? What are these feelings? If we know the exact source or cause of the problem, we can sure work in a correct direction to cure it, or to get rid of it.
But no matter what research we do inside our body, we cannot see or document the exact point from where these feelings are evolving. Nor can we find the point which is the reason for all kind of pains and unhappiness. No great surgery or microscope can show us our mind or the soul. These are something too subtle, or minute for any physical device.
Then what do we do? How do we find out the source of our emotions?

The physical science has done wonders. With help of microscopes we can see very minute objects, cells and even molecules. It magnifies the target to a level of our understanding. Logical, but it has a limit.
Spirituality is a similar technique to find the subtlest entities, with no limits. Spirituality works on the principle of “reverse magnification”, where we make our consciousness finer and subtler to the level of our mind, a very subtle entity, which is the source of all mood swings.

Now that we know the source, we must find out the reason. Why do we suffer? Why do we feel so low or so high sometimes? Once again, mind is the cause. We must understand that we are not our mind. It is the mind’s thought process what keeps us occupied all times. Whenever we are resting in a state of very few or almost no thoughts, we feel so relaxed and calm. E.g. coming home and lying down in bed after a hectic day, when one gives away all the thoughts for a moment, he feels so peaceful. Even though the body might not be tired, a resting mind gives us lots of peace and relaxation. A simple breathing exercise, which many people practice at times -- by trying to follow the breathing rhythm for few minutes-- or a deep, dreamless sleep completely rejuvenates us. What is the reason? The reason is the reduced activity of mind. It is proven that the mind consumes the maximum amount of our body oxygen. The mind keeps doing several activities continuously, consuming the conscious energies of the soul, leaving us restless and exhausted after some time. We do not realize this all-time-running mind which is tiring us and consuming all our mental and physical energies. An unstable mind can make our life miserable.

Behind most of the unpleasant moments in ones life, it is just the mischievous mind. Then how to control the mind? How to tame this beast?

For that, we must first analyze as to what the mind is. As mentioned earlier, we are not the mind and so, we must not identify ourselves as our mind. This might surprise you: mind is just an organ, just like the hands, legs, mouth etc. It has its own place, shape and size and can be seen in the higher stages of meditation practice. Shocking isn’t it? But true. The mind is a wonderful tool which helps us do all the worldly deeds. At the same time, for better control on our life, we need to control this mind, rather than the mind controlling us.

How will that happen? All the spiritual books or gurus talk about thoughtlessness, a state of no thoughts to gain mental peace. If we notice carefully, our mind is always in the past or the future, by either recalling good and bad incidences or by imagining about the future. Disappointment and fear are two very common results of thoughts in past and future respectively. If we manage to stay in the present, we can do away with many unhappy moments. True! Honestly speaking, for most of the events that occurred in the past, there is no use thinking now: you cannot change what has already happened. Similarly, you have no control over the future and most of the times a mere imagination is nothing but waste of time and energy. Staying in the “present” can make us do wonders in life. Be it exams, jobs, business or even relationships. Our thought processes, make us think of the unnecessary. This over-analysis often results in disasters.

Take a couple for instance - The wife comes back very late one evening when the husband is waiting to take her to a party. The first thing he thinks is that the wife doesn’t care for him. Next day, she doesn’t cook well. The husband again feels that she has stopped bothering for him. And the third day when he needed her support, she has to go to a close friend’s house. Few more of such small incidents and the husband jumps to a conclusion: “My wife doesn’t love me anymore”. Well, if we look back individually over all these incidents, they can all have independent and valid reasons. It is the mind which starts making a series of past unpleasant incidents – called a “pain chain” -- and comes to a conclusion. Instead of picking on the pleasant instances, the mind chooses to pick the bad ones. This is how a relationship breaks. No one wants the relations to break. In fact marriage is one of the happiest moments for many people. We put in so much effort to build a relationship, but it takes no time to break it because of the adventures of the mind. Issues which could have been openly discussed upon, become deadlocks because of our ego and presumptions. Had there been a presence in “present time”, this would have not happened. The moment we stop bothering about the past, many problems get solved automatically. Not thinking about the past or future, makes us powerful.

Most of the meditation methods teach us the same. We are asked to imagine something pleasant or soothing. For a moment, we are away from the thoughts of past or future. It relaxes us for the moment. But bringing one thought to remove another is no solution. Truly speaking, the thoughtlessness is not yet achieved. The mind is very much there, just in a little suppressed form. However, there is a way to overcome that as well. It will take you to the purest form of yourself, towards the conscious properties of a pure soul. The more we reach towards thoughtlessness, the more unaffected we remain from all kinds of agonies and grief. We grow beyond the plane from which all the pains are felt. We become more matured and stable.

The meditations practiced from the plane of mind, i.e. meditation done by imagining things with your mind itself, cannot help you stop the mind. Think of a person who wants to get away from the force of gravity. He can drive the fastest car and keep changing his locations one after another, but he cannot get away from the force. He is always based on a platform of ground, just the way a meditation practitioner might be based on the plane of his mind. He can keep bringing good thoughts when the bad ones appear, but it is no permanent solution. Even if one takes an airplane, he is away from the ground only for a limited time and is always under a pull. Sooner or later he has to come down. Similarly, few forms of yoga, like Raj Yoga can make you almost thoughtless for a short duration but once you are out of meditation, the mind is back to its form. You again get lost in your thought process. How to get rid of it then? What we need is something like a rocket which can pull us out completely from the gravitational forces. Yes it is possible. There are ways to reach the state where there is no mind, only a pure soul. The state where there are no agonies, no worries. This is what is called as the “sustained enlightenment”.

To reach this state, we need to find that rocket which straight away takes us beyond the limits of this physical world. The institution of Vihangam Yoga helps us find it out. That device exists and it is called the Sadguru. The Sadguru is a messenger of God, and is here to take us away from all grief and pain. Under the guidance of a Sadgurudeo one learns to reach a stage where there are no thoughts, no ego, but only the pure soul. This is a state beyond the limits of the physical nature, a state where the practitioner is not bound by any materialistic bondage. This stage is known as “Akshar Brahma”. Here appears the Sadgurudeo and guides us to our original abode, the lap of the Almighty, God. When a person achieves this state, he experiences eternal, infinite bliss. He is away from all kinds of pain. God is the only source of happiness and Vihangam Yoga is the way to reach Him. As we get closer to God, happiness streams into our lives. So let us all surrender ourselves to the holy feet of the Sadgurudeo, to take us to the land of immortality, the land of untold bliss.

Adbhut maarag yoga Vihangam, Main tumako batalaunga |
Yadi vidhivat tum Saadhan Kariho, Amar lok pahuchaunga ||
--Anant Shri Sadguru Sadafaldeo Ji Maharaj.