Meditation 8
How do we develop dispassion? One way is to consider this world as a hell, with all its sufferings and miseries and thereby long for a reprieve, a kind of escape from the mundane and gross reality. However, that is pessimistic approach. A far better way is to cultivate love, love for a better life, love for peace, love for the divinity inside and a strong belief that the divinity can be realized. Everybody in this world strives for a better life, for improvement in the living conditions. The purpose of natural evolution is improvement in living conditions, progressing from a lower to a higher and better form of life, from amoeba to human being with consciousness, from man to divinity, the seat of consciousness. The evolution happens over physical, mental and spiritual plain, when we change forms, when we mature and when we grow inwards. Meditation is a way of connecting to the divinity, of achieving this higher state, of being and becoming divine. Love is one of the ways of manifesting the divinity. Love expands the heart and brings about the purification which is needed in this journey. Love and peace are intrinsically related, but this love is unlike materialistic love where there is always a give and take involved. This love is unrequited; love for the sake of love, without expecting anything in return, even the urge to get love in exchange. The worldly love can be a cause of sorrow and unhappiness, but not the love residing in the inner consciousness. The worldly love is selfish, possessive, whereas this love is pure, equal towards everybody and every being. Even a small percentage of this love cultivated while doing meditation helps in getting the much needed inner peace. All selfish thoughts and miseries go away and are replaced by an unfathomable joy. The yearning for this love and peace is one of the purposes of meditation and if that is achieved, one can be sure of the progress made.
Concluding this with an example – Swami Turiyananda, a direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, while travelling as a wandering monk got depressed by seeing people working everywhere. He felt that he was worthless, merely idling away his time while people all around were productive. When he again sat for meditation he had a unique feeling, as if he was expanding and becoming larger and larger, till he filled up the entire universe. The realization dawned on him that by realizing the self through meditation one becomes merged in the universal consciousness, therefore all the work around was his work and he was present in all work, even though he himself was not working. That’s what is aptly summarized in Gita –
Karmani akarma yah pashyed akarmani cha karma yah
Sah vudhhimaan manushyeshu sah yukta kritsnakarmakrit
The meaning of it is if somebody realizes inactivity in the midst of intense activity (i.e. realize peace and calmness associated with meditation) and work in the midst of inactivity (i.e. working for the whole universe in spite of being apparently engaged in inactivity), that person is truly intelligent among all, that person has realized work in its entirety.
One may question that how can one work in the middle of inactivity! This is something which cannot be understood unless one starts meditating oneself and progresses to some extent. Swami Vivekananda meditated upon a rock in Kanyakumari or Cape Comorin in the middle of a turbulent sea, not on God or Self or Enlightenment, but on the problems plaguing the vast country called India. The result was his subsequent works on the educational and social reforms, formation of the Ramakrishna Mission for carrying out philanthropic and charitable work and upliftment of poor and underprivileged, the establishment of Ramakrishna Math and Vedanta Societies for spreading the message of Vendanta across the globe, and inspiring thousands to leave their cozy nests and spread the wings with a vow to renounce everything for the country and its people. It will not be too dramatic to claim that this meditation was the origin from which came the dissemination of eastern philosophy and ideas to the West, the seed of Indian Nationalism, the awakening of a nation from a thousand year’s stupor and inertia and many other accomplishments. That’s the supreme culmination of work in inactivity.
Concluding this with an example – Swami Turiyananda, a direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, while travelling as a wandering monk got depressed by seeing people working everywhere. He felt that he was worthless, merely idling away his time while people all around were productive. When he again sat for meditation he had a unique feeling, as if he was expanding and becoming larger and larger, till he filled up the entire universe. The realization dawned on him that by realizing the self through meditation one becomes merged in the universal consciousness, therefore all the work around was his work and he was present in all work, even though he himself was not working. That’s what is aptly summarized in Gita –
Karmani akarma yah pashyed akarmani cha karma yah
Sah vudhhimaan manushyeshu sah yukta kritsnakarmakrit
The meaning of it is if somebody realizes inactivity in the midst of intense activity (i.e. realize peace and calmness associated with meditation) and work in the midst of inactivity (i.e. working for the whole universe in spite of being apparently engaged in inactivity), that person is truly intelligent among all, that person has realized work in its entirety.
One may question that how can one work in the middle of inactivity! This is something which cannot be understood unless one starts meditating oneself and progresses to some extent. Swami Vivekananda meditated upon a rock in Kanyakumari or Cape Comorin in the middle of a turbulent sea, not on God or Self or Enlightenment, but on the problems plaguing the vast country called India. The result was his subsequent works on the educational and social reforms, formation of the Ramakrishna Mission for carrying out philanthropic and charitable work and upliftment of poor and underprivileged, the establishment of Ramakrishna Math and Vedanta Societies for spreading the message of Vendanta across the globe, and inspiring thousands to leave their cozy nests and spread the wings with a vow to renounce everything for the country and its people. It will not be too dramatic to claim that this meditation was the origin from which came the dissemination of eastern philosophy and ideas to the West, the seed of Indian Nationalism, the awakening of a nation from a thousand year’s stupor and inertia and many other accomplishments. That’s the supreme culmination of work in inactivity.
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