HOW TO ACHIEVE HARMONY?
THROUGH OUR SPIRITUAL PRACTICES, WE ACHIEVE HARMONY WITHIN OURSELVES
Achieving self-realisation means that self-integration has to take place within ourselves. By self-integration, we could say that there are three aspects to every human being: the physical, the mental, and the spiritual. In today’s world, we find that these three aspects of man do not function harmoniously, and because they do not, people do not live very happy lives.
The purpose of meditation is to achieve harmony within ourselves, and by completing this harmony through meditational practices, one can experience that integration within us. It is a gradual process, but it is very successful, as thousands of people worldwide have experienced now.
The process of meditation is scientifically based. It has no religious background regarding dogmatic religion, but it is a scientific process that sages have discovered through direct perception and experience. The proper way to understand something is to experience something, and self-realisation is one aspect that every person can achieve because each man is born with Divinity within him, and each person is potentially divine. We have to find spiritual unfoldment and not spiritual development because the very nature of man is divine. To achieve this state, we do these practices to achieve harmony within ourselves where body, mind and the Spirit work together. In daily life, a person says something, thinks and does something else. Such a person could not be called an integrated person.
Self-integration and self-realisation could be synonymous, and self-realisation could also be synonymous with God-realisation because, through these scientific methods, we are diving deep within ourselves. By diving deep within ourselves, we are bringing all the Divinity and the strength from that deep-lying reservoir into our daily life, firstly through the subtle mind and then through the grosser body. So, this is the purpose of achieving self-integration, which is synonymous with self-realisation.
THE REALM OF THE SPIRITUAL SELF OF MAN IS BEYOND BODY AND MIND
The scientific background of this would be that everything in this universe is nothing but vibration, and vibration can exist in many different forms. Vibration can exist in a subtle form as well as in a grosser form. The analogy I usually use is of vapour, which is very fine and subtle. The same subtle vapour could become grosser in the form of water, which can still become grosser in ice. The only difference there would be that the ice would be composed of the same vibrations in the vapour but in a more compacted or congealed form. Wherever there is vibration, there has to be motion because vibration can never remain static; wherever there is motion, a sound is emitted.
Our meditation practices are based upon sound, and a true guru can go into deep meditation and hear the sound of every particular object. Everything that he sees in that state of meditation, it could be this table, this glass, or anyone sitting here, these chairs emit a vibration, and that vibration is heard as a sound. This sound is taken, the sound is evaluated, and the sound is assessed. On that assessment and analysis, a practice is given that might take the form of a mantra.
A mantra means a collection of syllables, a sound which can be used to dive deep within our minds. We all know that we only use ten per cent of the mind. Ninety percent of the human mind is dormant, and through these practices, we dive deeper and deeper into our minds and discover for ourselves. We penetrate for ourselves the deeper layers that, up to now, were dormant. That is not the only thing we do; we even go beyond the mind. We transcend the mind because the realm of the spiritual self of man is beyond body and mind.
MAN CAN EXPERIENCE A MORE JOYOUS LIFE BY A COMBINATION OF THE MIND AND THE HEART
As we go into the deeper layers of the mind, we will find that our minds find greater awareness and more excellent perception. You look at this flower now as it is standing there, and after a few months of meditation, you will see the same flower, but it will be seen in greater depth. This has been proven by all our meditators who meditate regularly as they are taught to meditate on whichever meditational practice is given to them according to their specific need. Like that, perception grows, but at the same time, as the perception grows, one begins to realise the deeper levels of existence of which we are a part, and one also expands one’s heart. So here is a simultaneous expansion of mind and heart, so the thinking power is enhanced, and the heart being expanded can feel more freely and fully.
In the fullness and the combination of the mind and the heart, man can experience a more joyous life, and as he progresses, the joy increases day by day, leading to absolute and complete self-fulfilment. In the relative field of life, we will find a certain measure of fulfilment that the body and the mind could govern, and these pleasures could be, and most times, very momentary. The capacity to experience pleasure also leads one to have the capacity to experience pain; if you can see white, you will see black, too. There are laws of opposites which govern the entire relative field of existence. But, if a man is taught to go beyond the relative field of existence through meditational practices, he can operate or live this relative existence in totality. There would be totality in all his conceptions, in his perceptions, and practically in his actions in life. Thoughts are only on the mind level. What man has to achieve is to go beyond the limited level of thought because if man is essentially divine and Divinity is infinite, the finite mind can never fully comprehend the infinite. So, by exploring the deeper levels of the mind, he will be able to appreciate more and more things of the relative, but by combining the expansion of the heart, he will experience that which is infinite.
THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN LIES WITHIN
Infinity or eternity can only be experienced. It has its experiential value, and that value penetrates every action. It would permeate every cell of our bodies and our minds. There is not very much difference between mind and body. The body exists on the grosser level, and the composition of the mind also matters, such as the body, but the mind is subtler. So, from a grosser form, we reach the subtler and subtler and the subtlest level of the mind, and we go beyond the mind, where we find that infinitude, that beauty, that joy. There, we see the Kingdom of Heaven within us.
The Bible says, “Find ye first the Kingdom of Heaven, and all else shall be added unto thee,” which is very accurate. Man tries to find happiness in life through external means. By all means, this could be useful to a certain extent. Still, when man starts diving within himself, there he will find the most incredible beauty, for the Kingdom of Heaven lies within. Once that realisation, self-realisation, dawns, all the externalities of life assume a more profound meaning. The relationships with the environment improve. Life becomes more joyous with the combined qualities of expanded awareness and the expansion of the heart.
“TWO MEN BEHIND PRISON BARS; ONE SAW MUD, THE OTHER SAW STARS”
I have a very favourite stanza, which I like very much, and it says, “Two men behind prison bars; one saw mud, the other saw stars.” They are both in the same circumstances. Both are in the same prison cell, and both are behind bars, but one can see gloom, and the other sees glory. The question would be, why? It is the birthright of every man to experience this happiness. It is the birthright of every man, woman, and child to know his innermost self because that innermost self is closest to us. Why should we try to find it outside when we can find it within ourselves, which is the closest to ourselves? And by seeing that, we will find an identification, an integration in ourselves and with that integration, with that self-integration, we can become identified with each and everything outside of ourselves.
THE HEART OF THE SELF-REALISED EXPANDS TO THE EXTENT OF THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE
When the Bible says, “Love thy neighbour as thyself,” this could only be an injunction. It could be subjected to mental analysis, and by subjecting it to all kinds of analysis, most of us fail to love our neighbours as we love ourselves. The natural way to put this injunction into practice is to find ourselves first, to create harmony within ourselves and by creating harmony within ourselves, we find harmony in the environment, firstly in the family, then in work, then in society, from society to our country, from our country to the world and then to the whole universe. Because being identified, having realised that which lies within, one realises the entirety, one discovers the entire universe, and the realisation of the universe is self-realisation and that eternity is experienced in a moment. That is the purpose of meditational practices.
That is why we should gain self-realisation and the character of the man who is self-realised experiences the identity with every living creature. His heart expands, and to him, his love for the meanest insect crawling on the floor is just as divine as his love for the highest-evolved man that he sees around him. When we find that which is within, that which is within is automatically translated and interpreted in our daily actions in practical life to find the same within-ness in the without-ness of daily living. So, man’s duty is to improve himself, and if he fails to improve himself or finds this divine harmony within himself, he can never say, “Life is well lived.” That is why we teach meditation worldwide, whereby man can find himself. Something beautiful happens.
A flower grows, and it is the nature of the flower to be beautiful, but it does something else as well. As the flower grows beautiful, it also enhances the garden’s beauty. So, to improve society, to uplift mankind, and to uplift the environment, we start with the individual because society is nothing else but a collection of individual units. So, we begin with the particular unit by giving him the required kind of practice to find the self-integration within himself and interpret that integration within the entire universe. Those are the characteristics, and that would be the behaviour, and that would be the mode of life, of the self-realised man where his whole heart expands to the extent of the entire universe.
… Gururaj Ananda Yogi, Satsang UK 1976 – 08