True Spiritual Living

by Swami Krishnananda

You may have no money in your hand just now, but you have the satisfaction that you have plenty in your bank. So money need not necessarily be in the hand always. It can even be in a bank, thousands of miles away from here, but a mere feeling that it is yours, or it is there, can give you a very healthy satisfaction. On the other hand, if I throw millions of dollars that belongs to the government on your lap, you cannot be happy, because it does not really belong to you and you cannot use it. You may be a cashier in a bank; what is the use? Counting, counting, for nothing! It is not yours. You will be cursing yourself even if you are touching millions of rupees or dollars. On the other hand, you are happy even if nothing is in your hand, merely because of the feeling that it is yours thousands of miles away. Subtle is the behaviour of the mind.

The mind can, therefore, satisfy itself by various means. Our attempt at a sublimation of desires would not always be fruitful, because who is to control or subjugate the mind? There is no doctor for it. It is the mind itself that has to rectify itself by an internal adjustment of its constitution. The mind is the patient, and the mind is the doctor. This is something difficult to conceive. How can the doctor and the patient be the same? But this is the situation. There is a peculiar feature in the mind which can act as a regulator for another feature of the very same mind which is to be regulated. In common language it is sometimes called the higher mind controlling the lower mind, etc.

Thinness of desire is an occasional device which the mind may adopt for the sake of making it appear that the desires are not there, while this subtle connection in the form of that thinned form of desire, thinned shape of desire, can swell it into inflated action the moment opportunities arise or suitable conditions are provided.

At other times, desires are intermittent; they come and they go. This is called vicchinna avastha, while the thinned form is called tanu avastha. Today you are angry, and tomorrow you are in a very pleasant mood. You have seen husband and wife quarrelling. They will not talk to each other, but they do not hate each other really. Even if they put on the appearance of disagreement, anger, and a mood of rejection, as it happens among members in a family, it does not mean that they hate one another. They have tremendous ties of attachment which can manifest at other times, under different conditions. It is a subtlety of love which gets suppressed by a fit of displeasure, at which moment it may look that the desire has gone or the love is absent, but it is pushed underneath. It is not absent, and tomorrow it will come up. It is possible that today you may be very affectionate, tomorrow you may be quite the contrary, and the day after tomorrow again you will be something else.

So, it is possible for a person to behave in different ways under different conditions of pressure, appearing to be one thing now and another thing afterwards. This is the intermittent condition of human desire, which takes shapes suitable to the conditions prevailing outside – because the purpose of the mind is to keep itself safe, secure, by hook or by crook. If desire should not be manifest, the mind will not manifest it. If the manifestation of a desire is harmful to its maintenance, to its security, it is good not to manifest it. It will manifest only those features which are necessary for its security at that moment; and at another moment, other features will manifest themselves, whatever they be, for the purpose of its maintenance and security at that time. And when every condition to manifest the desire is fulfilled, it can fully manifest. That is called udara avastha. Then, it will come like a roaring flood and swallow us.

Prasupta, tanu, vicchinna, udara are the four conditions of desire mentioned by Patanjali; and we are always in one or the other of these conditions. It does not mean that we have controlled the desires, or subjugated or sublimated them – nothing of the kind, because the moods that manifest in daily life will indicate they are still there.

What is to be done, then? There are various methods suggested by teachers of yoga as well as the scriptures. One of the methods is to live in a positive atmosphere even though there may be a rumbling of desires from within – for example, in the vicinity of a Guru. It is difficult for desires to manifest themselves in an unholy form in the proximity of a spiritual master; and a continued living with him – for years together, for instance – may make it so impossible for the desires to reveal themselves outside that they have no other alternative than to give up all hope. Not only that, the proximity with a great sage or a spiritual master produces a positive effect of its own. It is like the light and warmth of the sun, which destroys all infectious germs and purifies the whole atmosphere outside. We feel, sometimes, as if everything is all right in the presence of a great man. Well, when we are away from him, all things may look to be at sixes and sevens; but in the presence of that great man, our questions are answered, emotions are subdued, desires are silent, and holy aspirations manifest themselves in his presence – as it sometimes happens inside a temple, even. When we witness a grand worship in sacred temple, we are roused into a holy emotion at that moment. We strike our cheeks, prostrate before the deity, sing songs in ecstasy. For the time being, we forget everything that is earthly, carnal, physical, and undesirable.

A spiritual emotion is roused in the presence of a deity in a temple or in the presence of a spiritual master. While this is, perhaps, a very desirable method that can be suggested in the case of everyone, it may not be practicable for all people to be always witnessing holy worships in temples, or to be in the presence of a master. They have various difficulties of their own in their personal lives. The alternative method then suggested is to take to holy study for a protracted period – as, for example, Bhagavata saptaha or a purascharana of a mantra, which takes all our time so that we have no time to think anything else. Our desires are kept in subjugation for such a long time that they become very weak, and the positive influence exerted on them by the purascharana of the mantra or the holy reading, called the svadhyaya, may sublimate them, may liquefy them and rarefy them to such an extent that they get either tuned to our holy aspirations or are made to vanish altogether.

People who cannot always be under the direct guidance of a spiritual master would do well to take to mantra purascharana or holy study for a few hours of the day – not merely for a few minutes – so that the thoughts that are generated in the mind at that time would have the influence of a check upon undesirable emotions rising up, and purify the emotions gradually, though this process may take a very, very long time. But when there is no other alternative, this has to be done.

Study of such great scriptures like the Srimad Bhagavata, the Bhagavadgita, the Ramayana of Valmiki or Tulsidas, whatever it be, as a regular sadhana – not merely a random reading as in a library – would also create internal conditions by which the grace or blessings of these holy authors of these scriptures also would descend upon the seeker. When we read the Srimad Bhagavata, we are in a subtle internal contact with the great author Krishna Dvaipayana Vyasa. After all, the thoughts are inseparable from the personality who has projected these thoughts. We are in communion with Vyasa himself in some way when we study the glorious recitations of the Mahabharata or the Srimad Bhagavata. We are in communion with the great sublime feelings of Valmiki when we read the Sundara Kanda of the Ramayana, for example. We are in tune with Christ’s tremendous spiritual force when we read the New Testament, Sermon on the Mount, etc. When we read such holy texts like The Imitation of Christ by Thomas Kempis, we are in tune with that forceful love of God which the holy author enshrined in his own heart.

Study of these scriptures, therefore, is not merely a means of gathering information on spiritual matters, but a positive technique of transmuting one’s emotions into those conditions of thought and life, of which these authors of the scriptures were embodiments. And when we do purascharana of a mantra, a similar effect takes place. The blessing of the rishi who discovered the mantra is upon us, the grace of the devata who is the deity of that mantra is upon us, and the alchemic effect produced by the chandas of the mantra which we are reciting also is a highly contributory factor. Rishi, chandas and devata are associated with a mantra. Thus, svadhyaya of scriptures and japa of mantras, resorted to in a very consistent, austere manner as a sadhana, would be a safeguard against possible difficulties on the spiritual path.