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Excerpts from the book: |
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He explained this by saying: 'The place from which breathing comes is in fact identical with the place from which thoughts come. The important thing is to hold yourself in this place which is the source of your being, and to keep careful watch to see that its silence and parity are never contaminated, and that you never allow yourself to be diverted or drawn away from it. Then when thoughts make their appearance-as they never cease to do-, in order to avoid being carried away by them, you only have to follow each one to its source, plunging into the very heart of the wave which is taking you to the shore, to find who is thinking this, for that is the fundamental thought at the source of all thought. In this way you come back to the place of your origin, the place in which all place has disappeared, the Self in which all self(ego) has vanished. Concentration on breathing helps towards interiorization. When you follow your breath as it returns to its source, you are also returning to your own source. There where the I springs up, springs up the breath
Among the day's visitors there was a seeker after wisdom who had already 'done' a good number of ashrams and swamis. He was absolutely sincere and also had an absolute faith in the teaching of his present guru. However when this guru insisted that he should make a final decision to devote himself at least for several years to meditation in silence and solitude, it was too much for him. Would it not be much simpler if the guru were to introduce him directly, as if by waving a magic wand, to that place of the heart of which he so much, by using those marvellous powers (siddhi) which a guru must surely possess? After all, as an Indian example, there was the case of Vivekananda to whom Ramakrishna gave illumination in a single moment; and in his own tradition (he was originally a Christian) there was the case of Paul of Tarsus who was overmastered by the grace at the gates of Damascus. But of course with them, it was a case of being already totally surrendered to God in the depth of their souls, so that they were not held back by pride or sloth; once the veil was removed which alone hid reality from their eyes, then with all the force of their being they sped towards the Real. That disciple, gradually brought the conversation round to the grace of Isvara, the Lord, and of his representative the guru. Very readily Gnanananda took him up: The guru appears when the place of the heart has been found. In order to reach it personal effort and perseverance are needed. Underlying this effort there has to be one single intention which focuses all the strength of your being in a single direction. Singleness of intention, singleness of aim, the, single-minded search for the atman- this is the one essential condition of spiritual realisation. 'You must have seen those young divers at the sea-ports who wait for the passengers to throw down small coins from the deck. The atman is like a coin which has fallen to the bottom of the sea. In order to recover it, you have to dive straight down, holding your breath, and with your body held straight as an arrow. The sea is the mind, manas. The waves are the vritti, the ceaseless movements of our mind, the eddies of our thoughts. To see where to dive, you have to still the waves.. To discover the place of the atman, you have to still your thoughts. To still the waves you have to find what is causing them, to know where they are coming from. In the same way we have to seek within ourselves the place in which our thoughts are born and from which they fly out in all directions. When the water has become calm and clear, it is a simple matter to find the coin. And he added with a smile, the mind can even become so calm and motionless that it is as if the water had been frozen solid! 'The grace of the guru, the grace of the Lord, is the seed sown in the ground. No one, whoever he be, is ever deprived of this seed. But is it enough simply to place the seed in the ground? Does not the soil have to be prepared, manured and watered? Otherwise, what is the use of sowing the seed? And once the seed has germinated don't you have to continue watering, hoeing, pulling out the weeds? All that is the effort, which no one can shirk and without which grace cannot do its work in you.' 'Do you make a fire with green wood? You have to cut down the branch and let it dry. Only After that it will burn. So the fire is grace; the preparation of the wood is the sadhana, the effort made by one who really wants to succeed.' 'You should have only one goal You. make inquiries about the goals but once it is sighted, you don't waste your time in inquiring all over again. You go straight ahead in the direction that you have decided to go.' 'What is the use of running about from master to master? What good does it do to spend your time reading and inquiring about different methods? Reading and making inquiries are like studying the map and the timetable. If you want to arrive at the place shown on the map and in the timetable, you have eventually to decide to take the train. It is the train that will take you to Madras or Bombay, not the timetable. A plan has to be put into operation, otherwise it is useless. When you go to the station or the market, do you ask the way from every passer-by? Do you stop at every signpost to find which way to go? If you do, you are likely to reach the station after the train has left, or the market, after the shops are closed.' 'Whoever truly desires something, desires it with his whole being and gives up everything in order to obtain it. You know the parable in the Vedanta: If your clothes catch fire and there is a pond nearby, you rush towards it without stopping to think, and plunge head first into the water. The same is true of anyone who really wants to discover the pearl hidden in the depth of his heart He does not waste time talking about it.' 'What is the use of feeling all the fruit on a tree? This one is too ripe, that one is not ripe enough. This teaching appeals to me, but there is one point in it that bothers me. That teaching does not have that drawback, but there is something else... Anyone who is really hungry does not take long to choose one of the mangoes one the mangoes on the tree and get his teeth into it.' The disciple at whom this was aimed, reacted with: 'It sometimes happens that people who devote themselves to mental concentration go off their heads!' 'If my neighbour's child has died, is that a reason for me not to get married?' was Gnanananda's pointed reply. I have a field. I need a well to irrigate it. I start digging one, and come to solid rock. Am I going to stop and fold my arms? If I want to eat, I need rice, and so a field in which to grow it, and so water with which to irrigate it. In one way or another I shall take no rest until I have found water.' The disciple continued to argue 'Could not one not simply wait for "that" to happen? When you put fruit in the sun, it ripens on its own.' The guru was quick to reply: 'There is still the need to put it in the sun. That precisely is your sadhana' Another time someone asked: 'What value is there in ritual and prayer-in hymns, or in the repetition of the divine name, japa? Are they necessary or even useful, for attaining to spiritual realisation?' , 'Far from being useful or necessary, they are on the contrary obstacles for anyone who is following the way of jnana. They should be firmly put aside. Dhyana is the one thing necessary, and it is absolutely essential. Puja, japa, ritual, litanies and the rest, they all fall within the sphere of externals, they belong to the world of appearances and have nothing to do with the ReaL To be attached to them and delight in them, to practice them assiduously with the idea that they are an effective way of coming to spiritual realisation is a fundamental mistake, which will prevent the sadhaka from reaching his goal. Their only value is for beginners, for those who have not yet heard the call of what is within, for those who are married, who have responsibilities in the world and are incapable of persevering in meditation. Remember the biting irony of the Mundaka Upanishad on the subject of those who multiply prayers and sacrifices with the object of reaching "heaven". They no doubt do go there, but sooner or later they have to return to earth, so that finally they may find brahman, who has nothing to do with any heaven whatever.' 'But supposing I have to perform them,' went on the inquirer, 'for example, on account of my social or professional duties?' 'Then do so, simply and without being attached to them, as the Gita teaches. You are doing them for other people, not for yourself. For you, they are part of the world of appearance, but people ask you for them, and those who ask for them really need them because of their spiritual and material condition. Perform all the rites that they desire, offer all the pujas and chant all the mantras that will make them happy. But you yourself should not be personally involved; and in any case, that would surely be quite impossible for you. Is the magician taken in by his tricks? He very well knows that there is nothing in them and that all his turns are pure deception. And so, when you are with people who live at the level of appearance, you have to speak to them in their own language. Anyone who dreams that he is hungry has to eat in his dream, even if he went to bed with a full stomach. See how children play in the street; they build houses, buy and sell, cook, hold weddings. But once they enter the school, they forget all about their house, their business, their wedding. A picture is shown on a screen; does the screen afterwards retain any trace or memory of it? So it is with one who knows, when he has to act at the level of appearance and has to help, according to their capacity, those who are bound to that level and have not yet received the revelation of what is Real. 'Only dhyana matters. When once the call of what is within, the call of the real, has made itself heard, every possible moment should be kept for the practice of meditation. Only when you are firmly established within is it safe for you to come back into daily contact with the world.' Someone else raised another question: 'Should one fast or do without sleep?' Gnanananda once again replied that it did not matter in the least. 'In spiritual practice nothing has any value in itself. You simply have to see what in fact helps or hinders your meditation. Adjust your food and your sleep solely with that in view, though it is certainly true that the night hours are the best for contemplation.' He was asked about the different kinds of samadhi. According to the Indian spiritual tradition, samadhi is the final stage of the practice of dhyana-ecstasy which is enstasis, and enstasis which is ecstasy; for, at that level, there is no 'outer' (ek-stasis) which is not fulfilled and completed in what is 'inward', and no 'inward' (en-stasis) whose inwardness does not include the whole of being. Gnanananda explained that there are three kinds of samadhi: 'The first is savikalpa samadhi, in which there remains a certain awareness of oneself as distinct, some "memory" of oneself'. 'The second is nirvikalpa samadhi. In this there no longer remains either outward or inward, either self or other. Nothing any more makes an impact on either the physical senses or the mind. You can longer think or feel. People can touch you, move you about, lift you up, but you remain totally unaware of it. It is fullness, it is bliss; fullness of joy, fullness and joy inseparably, encompassing everything; the bliss of brahman, the bliss of the Self, the bliss of the atman; utterly pure bliss and joy, total bliss and joy - purnam, anandam, purnanandam, atmanandam, brahmanandam, akhandanandam... ' You should have seen how the Swami mimed his words, beating time with his whole body, as his voice stressed each 'anandam'! Even more exalted, however, is sahaja samadhi, when finally you have reached the original state, or rather original point of the self-original, because born-with-the-self (connate, saha-ja), or better still, "not-born", for in truth does 'being' have an origin? Here you have passed beyond both enstasis and ecstasy. Differences are no longer perceived anywhere. The jnani lives in the world Iike every one else; he eats, drinks, sleeps and walks about, just like everyone else. However, while others are primarily aware of the diversity of things, the jnani sees them in their unity. In finding the Self, he finds himself and the self in everything. The ego has disappeared, which formerly came between "him", "himself", and the other people, indeed, between his awareness of himself and his real being. Nothing henceforth obstructs the perception reality in itself.' The jnani strides across the waters, 'Bring me a fig, Svetaketu.' 'Here you are, Swami.'
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