The Bhagavad Gita, India’s best-known scripture, gives a very encouraging presentation of how we can grow to our full stature as human beings. This cannot be done by wishful thinking, or by playing games with our appearance, or by changing our name or home or job. What we have to change is our way of thinking. As the Compassionate Buddha would put it, we are not what our salary is, or our reputation, or our position in life, or our bank balance. “All that we are,” he says, “is the result of what we have thought.” Our lives are like a tree that has grown out of this seed of thinking, and until we are able to reach the taproot of this tree – until we have sovereignty over our thinking process and can regulate it as we want – it is not possible for us to become what we desire to be.
The Gita is a very understanding scripture. It doesn’t sit in judgment upon us; it accepts all of us where we stand, with our difficulties, problems, and conditioning. In my early years I committed many mistakes in my ignorance; that is the human condition. Instead of repining over the past and regretting our lapses, it is much more beneficial to change the ways of thinking that led us to commit those mistakes.
Spiritual evolution
The Gita describes spiritual growth as an evolution from darkness to light – from ignorance to full awareness of our unity with the rest of life. Darkness is self-will, ignorance of the needs of others, preoccupation with our own private concerns and prejudices. Being angry, being greedy, being afraid is living in darkness. In this state we cannot see those around us, cannot see life as it is.
Yet, the Gita says, we don’t have to stay where we are. We don’t have to say, “Well, I am just what my cells and chromosomes are, what my conditioning is, what my parents or my school made me to be.” We can emerge out of this darkness, through our own endeavor, by drawing upon our deepest resources within. Through the practice of meditation and allied disciplines, we can slowly push ourselves from darkness into light.
This brings certain on going challenges, and no matter how long a person has been meditating, everyone can benefit from keeping some simple guidelines in mind every day.
Selfless work
One of the surest signs of progress in meditation is an increase in the amount of energy that flows into daily life. As you go deeper into consciousness, more resources flow into your life, which means more energy at your disposal.
This is a welcome development, but it brings its challenges also. The internal life has to balance with the external life. That is why I constantly emphasize the need for hard, selfless work for everyone who is practicing meditation sincerely and systematically.
Since so much of our daily activity goes into gaining a livelihood, it is very important on the spiritual path to choose a profession or occupation that is not at the expense of others. The Buddha, for example, makes it abundantly clear that anything that harms people is not “right occupation.” We can’t say it is just a job. Every one of us has to ask, “Is what I do at the expense of others?” If it is, then no matter how good a salary you get or how much status it brings, it is wrong occupation, and you will be able neither to grow nor to help others to grow.
On the other hand, we also have to be practical. We need to support ourselves and perhaps a family, and if possible, to support causes that benefit others too. These responsibilities are part of spiritual growth. We cannot wait for an ideal situation that is one hundred percent beneficial. I used to have an acquaintance who didn’t work for a long, long period. Whenever asked about it, he would shrug and say, “Right occupation, man.” Here we are expected to have a little common sense. Interestingly enough, opportunities for greater service often open up unexpectedly as meditation deepens.
After making sure that you have a suitable job, it is very helpful to give part of your time and resources to beneficial causes without expecting anything in return. That itself is the return: the opportunity to serve, to give something back to life on a regular basis. In other words, the increasing energy that meditation is bringing into our lives is not just for hard work, but for hard, selfless work for the benefit of others.
Angles & corners
Second, the more we go inwards, the more essential it is to associate with people – not just to be with two or three friends, but to be close to a number of people in order to rub off the angles and corners of personality in the give-and-take of daily life. People who lead lonely lives in the midst of others cannot make much progress on the spiritual path. Their solitude is a wall that locks them in and others out, and the whole point of spiritual evolution is to dissolve these walls so that we can discover our unity with the rest of life.
This is the message not only of the Bhagavad Gita, but of the Sermon on the Mount and every other major scripture. Learning to realize our unity with those around us has to include reconciliation with those from whom we have become estranged. This doesn’t mean we have to give up our spiritual convictions. It means making genuine, loving efforts not to let differences divide us from those around us. Differences are human, but they should not separate us. To grow spiritually, we have to learn gradually to bridge every gulf that may have formed between brother and sister, parent and child, partner and partner, race and race, even country and country.
Likes & dislikes
Third is the question of likes and dislikes. So often what holds us back is some old habit or attachment, and making progress means turning our back upon things that we have grown accustomed to – sometimes, in fact, things that we have been screaming for since we were two. All of us have a few of these old, conditioned childish attachments, however well we may have learned to disguise them as we grow.
Even when we are making good progress in undoing these old modes of behavior, we can expect to be surprised by occasional lapses. We shouldn’t be harsh with ourselves. This is another danger. It’s good to look always at the positive side, both of others and of ourselves. Of course we have weaknesses, but look at our capacity; look at our potential. That is the promise of the Bhagavad Gita: to help us realize our potential and come into our full heritage as human beings.
This goal need not be painted in otherworldly terms. It is completely practical. To be fully human, the Gita would say, means that when you don’t get what you want, you can still smile. When you get what you don’t want, you can still smile. If you have to work with people you don’t like or do jobs that you detest, you can be cheerful; if you can’t be with people whom you do like or don’t get a job for which you would give your eyeteeth, you can be cheerful.
Here the language the mystics use can be wonderful. “We are always free,” they say, “so we are free to enjoy.” Put them in a situation where most of us would be angry and they will face it cheerfully without losing their temper, because they are secure. Put them in situations where an ordinary person would retaliate and they will neither strike back nor retreat, because they know how to be patient, to forgive, and to win over opposition.
The mantram
Fourth is remembering to use the mantram at every possible opportunity. There are two basic tools for mastering the thinking process: meditation and the repetition of a mantram or mantra, a name or phrase with spiritual meaning and power. Meditation every morning slows down the thinking process. Then, during the day, the mantram keeps the mind from speeding up again. The mantram keeps the stream of concentrated thought flowing throughout the day.
When we repeat the mantram in our mind, we are reminding ourselves of the supreme reality enshrined in our hearts. The more we repeat the mantram, the deeper it sinks into our consciousness. It strengthens our will, heals old sources of conflict and turmoil, and gives us access to deeper sources of patience and love.
Follow instructions
Last, it is very important to review my instructions in meditation regularly and follow them carefully. They are the fruit of many years of teaching, offered for the sole purpose of making progress safe and sure.
On a country road near us is a board that says, “When everything else fails, follow directions.” I would say, follow directions first. When everything else fails, you are already off the road. So please read my instructions over and over again and follow them to the letter, because we are dealing with levels of consciousness of which the ordinary world knows nothing. This is very much like entering a new world. Just as a baby has to learn to walk, we have to learn to walk on a new stratum of awareness. The darkness will grow less and less as we make progress, and the increasing light can be dazzling until we learn to see anew.
Every year as Christmas approaches, I like to see how people are celebrating. Each season seems to bring more lights strung over homes and fences. But putting up hundreds of lights does not mean we are celebrating Christmas. One light is enough: one light, right inside, dispelling the darkness of anger, fear, and greed.
India has a great festival called Dipavali, from dipa, light, and avali, rows. Homes all over India will be lit by rows of lights. It’s a beautiful sight, but in every religion the real festival of lights is the display within: patience, sympathy, good will, security, selflessness, love, wisdom. What a long row! We can go in the midst of people and they will receive the benefit of this light. One person being patient brightens everything around. Being patient with those who differ from us, with those who oppose us, with those who aren’t patient with us – this is the real meaning of spiritual growth.
We can start doing this from today onward. We may not have much to offer at the outset: two cents’ worth of patience, three cents’ of good will, and when it comes to the capacity to return love for hatred, all we may have is an empty piggybank we hope to add to later. It doesn’t matter. Next year, instead of two pennies, we will have five. The year after, we may have a dime. A year or two later, the dime has become a dollar. It takes a lot of hard work, but over a long, long period these capacities grow.
The important thing is to keep trying, day in and day out, in every relationship, doing your very best. Be regular and systematic in your meditation, and sustain your enthusiasm whatever happens. It may not appear that you are making progress. Sometimes you may even feel that you are going backwards. But as long as you keep doing your best, the Gita promises, you will get where you are going: “On this path effort never goes to waste, and there is no failure. Even a little effort toward spiritual awareness will yield protection from the greatest fear.”
We need not be anxious about the results, the Gita assures us. We need have no doubts about the outcome. We make our own future – and whatever future we aspire for, the very best and brightest is to see the presence of the Lord in everyone around us, for this brings the resolution of all conflicts and all doubts.
