“Life is a long chain of pleasure and pain,
success and failure,
gain and loss.
Transcending these pairs of opposites and
reaching a state of inner equanimity
is the essence of the spiritual quest.”
--Pandit Rajmani Tigunait
Many of us human beings are not interested in the spiritual journey or the
spiritual quest of unity with the Divine Creator of Life. That interest peaks greatly
when some disaster happens in our lives or as we get closer to our death. But
otherwise, our lives are so busy that we really don’t want to think about or even
work at our spiritual journey.
Instead of becoming spiritual seekers, many, if not most, of us humans are
interested in reducing our life’s stress and stilling our overactive monkey minds.
Our thoughts seem to move all over the place and don’t seem to give us any
peace and quiet, even when we want them to. When we take a few moments of
rest, our mind continues to travel from the worries of the past and present to the
plans for the future. It is rarely still, especially when we want to go to sleep.
We long for peace inside. That longing is a spiritual desire, not just a physical
and mental craving. That longing is our Divine Spirit calling us to develop a
relationship with our core selves, in Sanskrit, with our “atman.”
Yoga says that “mastering the roaming tendencies of the mind” (YS 1.2) is the
path to spiritual fulfillment and peace. It is the path to peace and tranquility.
Developing a “perfectly still, pristine state of mind,” (Pandit Rajmani) one that is
aware only of itself focused on peace and joy, is the path to our Spirit, our Divine
Source of Life. Sitting in this stillness is our avenue to “samadhi,” which is
considered to be union with and absorption in God.
However, this peaceful, tranquil mind is often derailed by nine obstacles: disease,
mental inertia, doubt, carelessness, sloth, the inability to withdraw from sense
cravings, the clinging to a false perception of self, the frustration about the
inability to reach the goal of a peaceful mind, and the suffering involved in our
inability to retain that tranquility. All of these are obstacles because they draw
us away from our inner world. That external world is the world that we know and
have settled into.
Most of us don’t let those obstacles bother us much because we are so familiar
with the external world that we are not even aware of these interior conditions.
We don’t think that the inner world is valuable enough to spend the time and
energy working on. Our inner life often is too confusing and does take some
effort to explore and master. We have so many other things to do in our daily
lives. We often don’t even think that we are missing anything.
However, yoga says that when we begin to experience pain, depression,
nervousness, especially shaking in the legs and hands, and choppy, irregular
breathing, we have developed the physical symptoms of a stupefied and
disturbed mind, not a peaceful mind.
All we need to do, says yoga, is begin the process of breathing in a seamless and
effortless manner by relaxing ourselves by laying on our backs on the floor for
just 10 minutes twice a day—once after we rise in the morning out of the bed and
once in the evening before we go back to bed. Then, during the day we bring the
awareness of our breath coming in and out of our nostrils as often as possible.
Doing this for 40 days in a row will give us the joy and peace for which all of us
long.
When we do these simple practices, without even knowing it, and maybe without
even wanting it, we will be entering into our spiritual journey. We will begin to
thrive as we begin to realize our life’s purpose and meaning.
I bow to the divinity within you!
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