Sahaj Marg
I am opening today the greatest wonder of our system of Raj Yoga in the light of SAHAJ MARG. Very few people could realise the efficacy of this system. We think of one thing and one alone-the Super-human nature. We call It either Guru(Master) or the object of concentration.* We have but one thought and that of a certain personality super-human in form; and very soon we find ourselves attached to the form so much that other things begin to look secondary.
*The process of taking the Master as an object of concentration is no doubt very efficacious, but only when the master is really one of the highest calibre, merged in the Infinite or transformed as Nature personified. If it is otherwise the effect produced upon the abhyasi will be the reverse and highly detrimental to his ultimate
purpose.
We attach importance to one and the same thing. If we pump out water straight into a channel it will flow by its own force to some extent and at the same time with the help of the machinery attached at the end of the butt. Similarly we proceed in the channel of Almighty with the thread of thought, attaching our will-force at its butt end, i.e., from the starting point. The will-force comes from the individual mind which makes our way clear. We keep the idea of pumping out a certain thing from its proper place called the individual mind. The force increases day by day; and our individual mind too, having the idea of going above, becomes stronger and thus begins to lose the effect of bad training. It serves a double purpose. It cleans the individual mind and also brings the goal of human life within reach.
When you reach this stage, you find yourself soon jumping into the ocean of eternal peace and sublimity, and when your thought becomes so strong that it begins to dwell permanently in the midst of the waves of the ocean, every other thing downward then seems to be fading away. You have no other thought but that which you have made already. The result is that the things you see down below look like objects in a deep valley when observed from a high peak. When you do not see the things below, you feel no attachment with them. In the long run the goal becomes quite vivid to the eye, and there remains nothing but the object you have really and correctly made. Now you are free from worldly attachments, I mean to say you see things, but attach no weight to them. This thing continues for some time as long as you have the idea of the same nature. As time goes on you feel yourself to be as free and forgetful as a sleeping person who satisfies his itching sensation in a perfectly unconscious state during sleep. A man, far away from the place where a band of music is being played, does not hear its sound, while another man standing nearby feels it, but little if he is deeply absorbed in his own thought. He does not find himself with music but feels himself dwelling in his own pious thought. How does he acquire this state of mind? The reply, as already said above, is that he finds himself absorbed in some thing of the most important nature. Then naturally the unimportant things will have no effect on him. This is the condition of Vairagya* or renunciation. The inattention that he feels towards worldly objects does not allow his heart to be impressed by things other than those of important nature-the pious thought of realisation he now has. For an abhyasi the only important thing is to seek his goal within his own self. Many people are striving hard for vairagya or renunciation. How easily it is gained ! He has no idea but of his own goal and due to that he has lost all that is not worth having.
Vairagya as it is commonly understood today is only an outward show of asceticism, detachment from all world-relations and the total disregard of the duties of life. Really speaking it is neither the forced physical detachment nor aversion to, or hatred for, worldly objects required in life, nor any other thing of kind. It is simply an inner feeling which turns our heart away from all that is superfluous for our normal living. Thus even an ordinary man, leading a Worldly life looking to all worldly affairs and possessing and claiming things for his requirements, can well acquire the state of vairagya in his ordinary worldly life.
You have gained vairagya or renunciation by elementary practice of Raj Yoga. Your individual mind is, in a way, now connected with the plane of everlasting peace and happiness. In other words you have made the way from your individual mind towards that high region. The gentle waves of the calm in the region of Almighty begin to flow direct to it (i.e. individual mind) and so in the long run you become one with it.
We thought of one thing and one alone, attaching ourselves to the thing far above our conception. The idea of greatness is now in our heart. Naturally we feel ourselves as its part, or a trifling thing in comparison to that. We do it over and over again. Now we have made the passage by connecting our thought with that high region for realization. As we practise this, clouds of darkness begin to disperse and vacuum is created by the force of the will. The power then begins to rush in, in higher degree, with the result that individuality goes away and mind remains. When mind separates itself from Godly Mind, it begins to call itself as an individual one. Why do we feel it separated? It is because, the functions of the Big Mind on it cease to exist on account of our doings, and our going on the wrong path. It gets saturated with these things so much that we feel nothing of reality, but feel only the impressions which these things have already made.
The impressions grow so powerful that they begin to over-rule our senses. The surroundings, no doubt, leave impressions on it. Now, when we give place to that important idea-the pious one on the mind of ours-the impressions we had made begin to lose their density and in course of time we are free from these things. The effect of what is prevailing in that Big Mind is felt as well. If you go on practicing you will feel the same thing in your individual mind as there is above it. When you feel these things permanently in your individual mind, think that you have lost its individuality. When the time of creation came, the latent motion beneath the Centre grew stronger, causing a stirring movement which later led to the formation of the universe. That may be called the First, or Super-Mind of the Almighty. We owe our origin to that mind which we call the First Mind. On the back side of the First Mind there is Centre or the state of Tam (Hindi) which is clearly explained in my book “Commentary on the Ten Commandments of SAHAJ MARG". If you have brought your individual mind to the level of First Mind, then you have only to jump above the First Mind whereto there is Centre or Almighty. When you realize yourself to become one with that state, you have realised the true Reality. There you swim and swim. Nobody knows its end. When this thing comes to you, you feel everywhere plain-ness, simplicity and calmness. When you begin to live in that state without break even these three things seem to be lost. That means you have no impression of even these things in you. One-ness is reigning now. This is the thing we gain by our elementary practice. See the efficacy of the system and put yourself to work.
We generally lay stress upon meditation, apparently on human form. The critics may perhaps consider it suicidal to the spiritual feelings. The case is not so, provided the person meditated upon is one of special calibre, who has come down from the Immaterial Absolute for spiritual training, or has attained the spiritual standard of evolution required for the purpose by supreme self-exertion. We take the example of our master, Samarth Guru Mahatma Shri Ram Chandraji Maharaj of Fatehgarh, U.P. The thing will soon come to light, and the world will remember him ever after. He was one with Nature. If we meditate upon such a big soul, the substance we are seeking for will come by itself. Mathematically, if A is equal to B and C gets equal to A, then ultimately C becomes equal to B. If you have selected such a Master as your guide, the problem of life will be easily solved. I quote an example. “Those who worship you and those who worship the Absolute, of these, which are the greater yogis ?” Arjuna asked Shri Krishna. Lord Krishna answered, “Those who worship me with the highest faith and constancy are the greatest yogis. Those who worship and devote themselves to the unmanifested Absolute, the Omnipresent, the Omniscient and the Omnipotent, their difficulty is greater in the struggle, for in fact this path is trodden with great difficulty by an embodied soul by self effort.” When we begin to love such a soul, which becomes the object of our concentration, Nature's power then begins to run through us, for the great soul is endowed with such powers. Our emotions and feelings, made worse by our wrong-doings, begin now to come to their original form and attain the highest excellence. By original form I mean that condition in which they were at the time when they took the human form for the first time. Our functions and work being unregulated, and the mind undisciplined, we seek the shelter of such a great soul or the Master.