Divine World Family:
Well! I must be nearing the state of meditation, because I am concentrating more and more these days on less and less! (You know that classic definition of Meditation by the American Psychiatrist: Meditation is concentrating more and more on less and less!)
Not only that! I am becoming less and less! Quite soon, I feel I will become nobody at all! I am consoled by the fact that nobody is perfect so if I became nobody I will become perfect! My days are spent in perfecting the mundane details of life - making Swamiji’s grand children eat properly, sleep properly. That meals are on time! That Ashram classes run smoothly. That there is harmony in the rhythm of our lives together. Nothing is very grand or great! Just waking up and doing the duties that rise before me in the course of the day is a great joy! I feel inner Santosham! Inner Contentment! I no longer aspire to become the first Woman President of the USA (or Prime Minister of India) as I once did, long ago! I have no desire to be famous or rich, or powerful. I just desire - To Be! And To Know! For that, I must become Totally Still - I know that. So I try to become more still. The more still I become, the less thee is. I am back in basics - the pulsating polarities of upward rising and downward falling, of inward flowing and out outward going, of pushing and pulling, of Centering and finding that inner Bindu which does not move at all. The breath is a great pole to revolve around. To shorten the rope or range of thought day by day, till I am firmly anchored to that pole - then movement become neither desired nor possible!
Well! Ham Sah becomes a living reality and not an abstract conception of That Point - The Still Point - The lift of Prana, the lowering of Apana - Still, those dualities manifest. When the uni-polar force rises, then there will be no coming back. There will be no coming and going at all! It will be straight up! One-Pointedness will become All-Pointedness! But for now it is up / down, up / down, in / out, in / out! Perhaps the blast off will take some more incarnations. That does not matter much. Swamiji once told me when I complained that even though I had been with him ten years (in 1978) that I was still unenlightened! He said! Never mind! Once you have reached that state, how long it took you to get there becomes totally irrelevant!
It is like waking from a dream. Does it matter how long you slept, once you are awake? Does it matter even what you dreamt! Where you went in that dream? What you ate? What you wore? Moment to moment in living in glorious sadhana! Watching the play of Karmic forces, the thoughts and words and actions and their effects - the blessings of the Divine like sunshine peeking into dark corners radiate awareness and moments of bliss are brilliant gems sparkling!
The incredible miracles of Maya! What a splendid show the Creator has staged for us! The human sage is filled with beauty, irony, intricacy! Just it is impossible to conceive! Who has been able to devise all this!
No matter how deep we go, we cannot find the bottom! No matter how high we fly, we cannot find the top! What a marvel!
Well Today, June 14th, must be Cosmic Abstraction Day! Perhaps this is why this rendering is so filled with Abstraction - Pratyahara - extracting the sensual to find the essence. That is the meaning of the preceding exercise! Just playing around with the subtle play toys of mind!
I hope your life and Sadhana is rich and interest and that the profundity of your interest becomes your constant concentrated state of mind - every moment is then a Dharana - Dhyana and the ego evaporates in the heat of that intensity. That is Sadhana enough, don’t you think!
The Asanas, the Pranayam, the Mantras are all fuel to lift us and help us break the bonds of gravity - inertia - Tamas which glues us to the earth! The practices give a lightness to mind, body and emotions and we need that lightness, that buoyancy to fly!
Lest some of you feel that Amma has flown high as a kite and perhaps her grounding string has been out, let me assure you that it is not the case! My little grandchildren keep me well grounded in the basic necessities and realities of material common day life! They are so fresh, sweet, innocent and humourous. Perfect embodiments of Chitta Vritti, they represent the ridiculous Vrittis which flood our minds every second. The only difference - as adults, we have learned not to express them! Nevertheless, these agitate our minds, without going expressed! Perhaps that is why we suffer but little children are so joyous and cheerful. We laugh one second and cry the next and exalt one moment and despair the next, want one thing this minute, and something else the next! How childish it all is. It is very charming to see this in a three-year-old but it looks quite ridiculous on anyone over 18! It is so interesting to watch the play of raw human nature as it welds itself together into a coherent working form!
Watching all that has been a real lesson for me and keeps me well grounded in practical life. The abstractions are mine and mine alone in the early morning quiet times, when mind and breath do their dances the sun’s rays start to enliven and colour the sky over the Bay of Bengal. The children are the outer, the meditative sitting the inner. The outer and inner are one. Ssimply the experience is different. There is no conflict between the two!
We grow daily! I think so! I feel so! That is my immediate goal - just to grow better and better and not to make the mistakes in consciousness again which I made the day before. All this, as I noted at the beginning of all this rambling, appears to result in becoming less and less!
Someone praised me yesterday as possessing Supreme Contentment. It made me stop and think. Yes! It is true! Because of that Contentment, I do not desire to become bigger, but only to become better! Better at the work the Guru has given me, better as a human being! Cultivating my own garden, producing whatever lovely flowers it is my karma to behold!
May all of us experience that Santhosam - May we seek only quality, and not quantity. Quality is the inner wealth and quantity the outer!
Satsangha also refreshes, otherwise we lose sight of the goal! We look forward to great Satsangha during Swamiji’s Centenary Celebration Aug 16-21. We will all come together - such diverse souls - and just enjoy each other in Swamiji’s name! A refreshment! A cleansing! An enlightening! Coming and going till we reach that state when there is no more coming and going. Bodies coming in and bodies going out! But that Spiritual Oneness is totally constant! Be brave, stout hearts! Walk briskly but enjoy the Journey, for the Journey is the Destination!
Affectionately Yours in Yoga,
AMMA
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