Sadgurudev Shri Satpal Ji Maharaj
The Vedic Gayatri Mantra is most popular among the Hindus. Why this Mantra is given so much importance out of all other mantras in the Vedas? It is because this Mantra denotes about the technique of meditation in very beautiful words. The literal meaning of the Mantra is “ O God! Ruler of the Three Worlds, You are the Light of the Lights worth knowing, take my mind from all other objects and focus it with full attention on your self-effulgent Light.” This is type of a prayer but unless and until some enlightened person reveals you within yourself the technique of focusing of your mind on the Divine Light within in practice simply reciting the Mantra will be of not much use. Though even Mantra is a type of vibration which does raise the level of Consciousness but unless and until you know the technique the realization is not possible. Therefore, to have the basic experience within and it is possible for every human being if he is sincere, dedicated and approaches a Living Master with genuine thirst for experience, Jesus said, “Seek and you will find, knock and it shall be opened unto you.” But we forget to seek.
I'll give you an example of what meditation means. There goes a story in the Mahabharta -a great epic of ancient India . Acharya Dronacharya was very proficient at teaching archery. One day he called Pandvas and Kauravas together and said, “Look here, I want to test your ability. I want to see what you have learnt from me. So come here with your bows and arrows.”
They all came and stood in line. Then he said, “Now there's a tree in front of you and on a particular branch a bird is sitting. Aim at the bird.” So everyone started doing that; they aimed at the bird. He asked the first disciple, “What do you see?” The disciple replied, “Sir, I see the tree, I see you, the clouds, the sun. I see everything.” Then the teacher asked the second pupil, “What do you see?” He also replied in the same way.
Then in the last Acharya asked Arjuna who was there, “What do you see?” Now, Arjuna was focusing his vision on the bird and nowhere else. He said, “Master, all I see the bird. I don't see the clouds, you, or anything else. I simply see that bird.” So then the Acharya said, “Very well, now aim at the eye of the bird then shoot.” So he focused his attention on the eye of the bird and when the Acharya said, “Shoot!” he shot an arrow and the arrow pierced the bird's eye.
Now what is happening to us is that we are seeing the world, we are seeing so many things, yet we are also trying to meditate. But pure attention is only possible when we have fixed gaze, when with total surrender, total dedication, we attach ourselves to the target, the object of meditation.
Saint Brahmanand wrote in one of his devotional songs, “ O Saints! I saw a wonder of the wonder. In the higher realm of Consciousness there is beautiful Music going on automatically. It is called Anhadnad - the unstruck Music. This Music can be heard by a deaf person. Anhad nad or unstruck Music is the one which is not created by striking anything but happening continously by itself within us.
When a radio is on, we cannot hear subtle sounds. The commotion caused by traffic outside on the road also stops us from hearing natural sounds. At night, when the cars and buses stop running and the road is deserted, you can hear even the sounds of crickets and other insects clearly and you realise that even insects produce amazing sounds. But you can hear those natural sounds only when the noise of artificial sounds ceases. Similarly, when we close our ears to external sounds, we can experience the subtle sounds of the inner world.
Then St Brahmanand says that a person who is alive, dies and after that he is resurrected, which means that when we meditate, we forget ourselves. We are totally cut off from the world. We merge ourselves into the Word of God, and then, when we come out of meditation, we are resurrected. We come back to life and relate the experience that we had in meditation.
We go to a temple, and what do we see there? A big bell. When they pull the rope up and down, the bell chimes. In the same way, when a person meditates on his life breath, the breath goes up and down, it's like pulling on a rope. This is a box of light, music and nectar and when you pull that rope up and down, the bell chimes. So you should know how to pull that rope. The saints have done that and they have experienced that all permeating the Puranic energy and Music.
People may say, “He's talking about Music, Light, Nectar and so many other things. Maybe it's complicated; may be it's tough.” No! I think it's the easiest thing, because you are breathing constantly. There is never a time when you don't breathe. When you are sleeping, you breathe and when you are dreaming, you breathe. If you concentrate your mind in this breath, you can actually take energy from it; you can have this divine experience forever because that celestial Music is existing right within you. Nobody can lock up his breath in his house and then come here. Nobody can do that. Wherever you go, the breath stays with you. And it is not imagination. Right from childhood we had this experience of Light, Music, Nectar and Vibration with us. It's right within you.
When you go home, you don't want a fine lecture about food – you want food! But for the experience of God, we don't feel the need for a practical experience. We say that we want a good lecture and then we become very emotional. I think that is fruitful only if we have practical experience of Light and Music..
Suppose I have a beaker and a flask and I want to boil something so I say, “Please, flask, help me boil this water” - it's useless. If it's right there it'll happen if you actually boil it otherwise it won't.
When you become emotional, you lose your intellect. If I make you angry, you'll want to kill me and then you take a gun or throw a bottle or do anything just to kill me. At that time you become so emotional that you lose your mental balance and you won't stop to think, ‘If I kill this man, I'll go to jail'. You won't stop to consider its consequences. You'll simply try to shoot me stirred by strong emotions.
In the same way, don't be emotional in spirituality. You have to keep your mind open. Spirituality is like studying science. You have to be very scientific and very, very rational. It's not praying or emotionalism. Praying is asking and meditation is receiving. When you meditate, you automatically receive.
So, if you want to experience that, it is something that you really can do. It's a practical thing. It's not just talk. I could talk about different philosophies and theories and people are doing this. They want to freeze the mind using words, but you cannot have the experience of the reality.
For example, someone asks, “Do you believe in God?” And if you say ‘Yes', he asks, “Do you believe that He is omnipotent?” You reply, “Yes, I believe that He is omnipotent.” Then he asks, “Okay, then tell me, can your omnipotent God create a mountain that He cannot lift?” And you say, “Wait, wait, there is something wrong here!” At that point you become confused. If He can create it but cannot lift it, then He's not omnipotent. And if He can't create such a mountain, He's not all-powerful either.
That becomes very complicated, and your mind is stuck there, but it can only freeze, it can only make the mind stationary for a while, and then, no matter what the answer is, the mind again flies about.
Zen masters have used the puzzles and questions which strike the mind immediately and stop it for a fraction of second, “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” And you say, “What, what?” Suddenly, for a split-second, your mind is caught. It stops, but then again it moves. The point is that the mind stays there for a while and then it moves and that's what happens when people try to meditate on physical things.
Physical things come and go. It's like a movie. There is so much action in a movie, but we know for sure that all those events are not happening to us. People are shooting bullets, but we are not getting hurt. If there is a fire on screen, we are not being burned. In the same way, we should understand that the world is like a film, and nothing is real in that.
Everything is temporary, everything changes, and there is only one thing that is stable behind all the changes. We know that something which revolves, revolves around something which is stationary. For example, the planets are revolving. They revolve around something that is not revolving – the sun.
In the same way, everything is changing around the unchangeable, which is calledatman , spirit, or soul. So we should meditate on that unchanging entity with faith and devotion in our hearts. That alone can give us tranquility and peace.
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