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You can be fully involved in the midst of intense worldly activities and yet be completely peaceful. This is what a good seeker should aim at, enquire and pursue.

30 July 2000

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Peace is an outcome of a good and noble life, a spirituo-religious and philosophical life. Similarly, contentment and knowledge- fulfillment can result only from such a dhaarmik (straightforward) life.

Now, peace can be had in two ways. When you have a comfortable sleep you are peaceful, undisturbed, unaffected. Also, when you are able to compose your mind in meditation or contemplation, the mind becomes free of thoughts and botherations – you are led to peacefulness, even though only for a short time.

Sleep lasts for longer hours. The meditative composure on the other hand, may last for a shorter spell. jaḍa -samaadhi is an unconscious condition, which, by its very nature requires stillness and withdrawal from physical activity as well as thoughts. You cannot always be in this condition. Maybe its effect can linger for sometime after you get up from meditation. But very soon, the mind will be caught up in the worldly thoughts leading to various agitations as before.

As a contrast to this, there is a second way of gaining peace which is more lasting and also enriching. In this second type, you shall have peace, contentment and joy without having to withdraw yourself from activities. You can be fully involved in the midst of intense worldly activities and yet be completely peaceful. This is what a good seeker should aim at, enquire and pursue.

For this, the mind has to become pure. A number of qualities are to be imbued into it. Goodness should become the very nature of such a mind. This pursuit of purity, goodness and virtues, which directly bring peace to the mind – no matter whether the mind is active or inactive – is the ultimate quest of all religions, philosophy, spirituality and yoga.

Whenever you feel a lack of peace, understand that there is a cause behind it and look for it. Our śāstras and tradition have identified the causes of lack of peace or mental agitations. These identifications and declarations are as good as any other discovery of natural laws in physics or chemistry or any other field of science.

With respect to your mind and psychology these laws and the sequences mentioned therein operate. You will find that most of the ancient findings are true even today because our mind has remained basically the same. Our senses are the same, mind and psychology are the same, intelligence and its propensities are no different.

One important quality that immediately bestows peace is anapekṣatā– non-expectation. The mind should have no expectation, no desire. The second is amānitvaṃ – lack of ego. The ego should not block the way to any kind of learning or improvement. You may have to incorporate a number of virtues; you may have to eliminate a number of vices. Either while incorporating virtuous notes, or while eliminating the vices, your ego should not give rise to undue resistance. Understand that the virtues lead to your own excellence, expansion and peace, and the vices cause only constriction and torments.

Our śāstras say: Whenever truth is spoken even by a child, we must sensitively receive and imbibe it, and if something unreasonable is uttered even by Brahmaa, the Creator, it has to be rejected like a blade of grass. So, ego should not stand in the way of either incorporating a virtue or eliminating a vice. This effacement of ego in the matter of steering your life, leading it to purity and enlightenment, is very important.

I thought you should remember these two points: Expectation and Ego. The desires will only disturb the mind, and ego will constantly irritate and pose problems in the matter of improvement.

If these two are kept away, being constantly watchful about their emergence, you will find a better, more permanent and enriching peace than what you would have through meditation. Your peace will then be co-existing with your activity and interaction.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.

(Prabhata Rashmih—Vicharasethu Oct 2004)