True Spiritual Living

by Swami Krishnananda

Thus, in silent seclusion, in a calm atmosphere, we deliberate and ponder over these problems of life, and inwardly compose ourselves for the purpose of this arduous task that is before us. It is necessary that – as is the case with a scientist working in a laboratory – we have to find time to be alone, to work with our own inner laboratory. We should not be busybodies. A scientist cannot be running about in the marketplace throughout the day and achieve what he wants to achieve through his observations and experiments in a laboratory. It requires complete isolation. When a physicist studies things through a powerful microscope, he will not be thinking of the world outside. He will not be even aware of things around him. Such will be his concentration, because such is his interest; such is the intensity of the problem before him, because it is very complex.

It is imperative that the seeker of truth, the practicant of yoga, should find time to be alone for a few hours of the day for the purpose of this analytic effort – which is yoga, precisely. For this, we have to be seated in a comfortable posture. We cannot practice yoga walking on the road, just as we cannot have our lunch or dinner walking on the streets; we have to be seated at a table or comfortably in a posture. Well, we can eat our food even walking on the road, but the body will not receive that food because it has not been taken in a manner that is acceptable to the human system. While we can chant the divine name and do japa even walking on the road – and it is quite good, as far as it goes – that will not be sufficient because its intensity is inadequate. Inasmuch as this is a very serious practice, it requires a seated posture and utter isolation, wherein the body and the mind come together in collaboration for a single purpose.

Now, all this is, no doubt, a difficult thing for the busy industrialist or the commercialist, the office-goer or the labourer. All this is accepted. But it all depends upon the value that we give to what we regard as the aim of our life. Where there is no interest, there cannot be consistent effort; and we cannot have interest in anything unless we recognise value in that thing. So, it all depends finally upon what we regard as our primary value in life. If it is making money that is our value, well, we make money and spend our life in amassing wealth. There are people who amass gold and silver, and die without enjoying it. There are people who have other sets of values – name, fame, power, authority. After their death, they would like to have a tablet fixed on their tomb: “Here is a hero!” He has gone, nobody knows where, but even after death he wants name and fame.

Thus, it is essential to recognise what is the ultimate value of our life, and not be confused in our mind. A confused mind cannot practice yoga. What is it that we want? That will determine the program of our life, which is nothing but a chain of efforts that we make towards the achievement of that ultimate value of our life. We have already decided that this is the final aim of life, and everything that we do should be consistent with the achievement of it – a preparation for its achievement – and our daily routine will only be a link in this long chain of our life’s program. What do we do from morning to evening? That is a small link in this long chain. Many links make a chain, and our daily routine, therefore, should be naturally consistent with the achievement of our ultimate aim. How can we have a daily routine which is inconsistent with the purpose of our life? All this has to be clarified in the mind. Everything that we do should be brought into relationship with the aim of our life. This is what we can call the healthy attitude of the mind. Anything that we are obliged to do, any attitude that we are compelled to put forth in our life, has to be brought into relation with the purpose of our existence. This is an integration of values.

Then, the mind will concentrate. It will not get distracted. Why does the mind get distracted?  It feels a disconnection between the aim of life that we have set before ourselves, and the activities in which it is engaged in its daily life. My aim of life is one thing, and what I do every day is another thing. There is a tension, and the mind cannot concentrate on the aim of life because it is engaged in something else. But is it really something else? This is what is to be decided first. If it is something else, how would we be engaged in it?

Here again, we lack proper analysis and understanding. We are confused always, from beginning to end. We are muddle-headed people. Clarity is unknown to us. How can we say that we are engaged in doing something which is unconnected with what we regard as good for us? This is very strange. Are we going to kill ourselves deliberately? We will find that we will not engage ourselves in any activity which is not going to bring to us some good or the other. There is something valuable in that particular direction of work in which we are engaged; otherwise, we will not engage in that work. But it is very difficult to see this meaning in our attitudes and activities.

Often we are fired up with a tremendous idealism of spirit, but the idealism is so tremendous, so high-soaring, that it may not be able to properly assess the immediate values of the circumstances in which we are placed and the activities in which we are engaged. Wisdom of life is a difficult thing to achieve. The values of our immediate surroundings have to be reconciled with the characteristic of the ultimate aim of life. This is precisely the thing that we have to do in our seated posture before we start meditating, because what are we going to meditate upon unless things are clear before the mind? There will be a perpetual struggle within, a revolt from the mind against irreconcilable attitudes which are harassing us from inside as well as from outside; and when there is such a pressure exerted upon us, how can there be meditation? So, it is essential that there should be a very harmonious bringing together of our values of life, and it should be clear to us before we sit for meditation that, “Everything is well. All is fine. I have understood what is around me, what is ahead of me, and what the connection between these two is.” If this is not clear, we will fail.

There is that essential tension – the subject with which I commenced today – between our inward nature and our outward conditions of life, which is the cause of desire; and all difficulties can be said to arise from desire. Inasmuch as desire is such a difficult thing to understand on account of its peculiar character, our difficulties are also something difficult to understand. So we cannot solve our difficulties. Everything is difficult because, basically, there is a mix-up of values. This confused relation between the outer conditions of life and the object of the inward aspiration should be clarified completely.

This is the main task of philosophy, or philosophical analysis. Sankhya precedes yoga, knowledge precedes all effort, and philosophy is the basis of all ethical endeavour and psychological analysis. This is the philosophy and the ethical background of the actual practice of yoga, which will immediately take effect if the preparation that has been made is sufficient. If the gunpowder is dry enough, immediately it will catch fire. If it is wet, it will not. Likewise, if the preparation is adequate, if the understanding is clear, if we have no complaints to make, and if our adjustments are properly made, then meditation – which is the real meaning of yoga – will not be difficult for us. Like an arrow running towards its target, the mind will go to the object of meditation. There will be no distraction. Distraction is caused by the feeling that there are valuable particular objects outside, irrespective of the fact that our aim of life is something else – on which we are trying to meditate. So, we have not brought about a reconciliation between the outer objects of sense discretely present in the world and our aim of life, which we say is God, the Absolute, and so on.

There is a philosophical misconception in our minds; and as long as this misconception is there, yoga cannot be practiced. This is part of the reason why the Bhagavadgita warns us that yoga has to be based on Sankhya – which is called Buddhi Yoga in the language of the Bhagavadgita, which means the yoga of understanding.

Now we come to the actual essence of yoga practice, which is the final stroke that we deal upon the problem of life as a whole, and that is the outward preparations for meditation and the inward processes of meditation – both of which later on become a single effort of a total harmony of ourselves with the entire existence.