Meditation Know-How. Sri Swami Sivananda 271p_8170522242

IMTPODACnOnt O my dear aspirants! I send you the thought-currents of peace from the peaceful atmosphere of the sacred Himalayas, the abode of Rishis. The goal of life is the attainment of final beatitude or Moksha. Moksha can be attained by constant meditation. Reality or Brahman can be realised by man. Many have attained Self-realisation. Many have enjoyed the Nirvikalpa Samadhi. Sankara, Dattatreya, Mansoor, Shams Tabriez, Jesus, Buddha were all realised souls who had direct perception of the Truth. The Ultimate Truth or Brahman or the Absolute can be experienced by all persons by regular practice of meditation with a pure heart. Mere abstract reasoning and study of books will not do. What is wanted is direct experience. The direct experience is the source for higher intuitional knowledge or divine wisdom. This experience is superconscious or transcendental. There is neither the play of the senses nor the intellect here. This is not an emotional experience. The senses, mind and intellect are at perfect rest. They do not function a bit. This experience is not an imaginary experience of a visionary dreamer. It is not a reverie- It is not a hypnotic trance. It is solid living Truth like the Amalaka fruit on the palm of your hand. The third eye or the eye of wisdom is opened in the experiencer. The extraordinary experience comes from cognition through the spiritual eye or the eye of intuition. This eye of wisdom can be opened when the senses, mind and intellect cease functioning. Samadhi or blissful divine experience arises when the ego and the mind are dissolved. It is a state to be attained by one's own effort. It is limitless, divisionless and infinite, an experience of being and of pure consciousness. When this experience is realised, the mind, desires, actions, and feelings of joy and sorrow vanish into a void. He who has controlled his mind is really happy and free. Physical freedom is no freedom at all. Ifyou are easily carried away by surging emotions and impulses, if you are under the grip of moods, cravings and passions, how can you be really happy, O sweet beloved child! You are like a rudderless boat. You are tossed about hither and thither like a piece of straw in the vast expanse on the ocean. You laugh for five minutes and weep for five hours. What can wife, son, friends, money, fame and power do for you when you are under the sway of the impulses ofyour own mind? He is the true hero who has controlled his mind. There is an adage: "He who has controlled his mind has controlled the world." True victory is over the mind. That is real freedom. Thorough rigorous discipline and self-imposed restrictiohs will eventually eradicate all desires, thoughts, impulses, cravings and passions. Only then, and not until then, can you expect to be free from the thralldom of the mind. You should not give any leniency to the mind. The mind is mischievous imp. Curb it by drastic measures. Become a perfect Yogi. Money canriot give you freedom. Freedom is not a commodity that can be purchased in the Crawford Market. It is a rare, hidden treasure guarded by a five-hooded serpent. Unless you kill or tame this serpent, you cannot have access to that treasure. That treasure is Spiritual Wealth, that is Freedom, that is Bliss. The serpent is your mind. The five hoods are the five senses through which the mind-serpent hisses. People are immersed in worldliness. They madly run after money and women. They have no time to think of God and higher spiritual things. The sun dawns and the mind runs again in its old, usual, sensual grooves of eating, drinking, amusing and sleeping. The day has passed. In this way the whole life passes away. There is neither moral development nor spiritual progress. Really, there is no pleasure in objects. Atma gives a push to the mind and sets it in motion. AVritti or thought-wave arises in the mind on account of the force of a Vasana or latent subtle