The Practical aspect of Dhyan Yoga – II


The second part of this dhyana yoga involves meditating upon the light spot (of rising sun) in the center of our brain. The infusion of this light in our brain, in our mind, should inspire us to become a gyana yogi. The first sign of this progress is that – there should be nothing negative or illusive in our mind; our thoughts should be positive and constructive. In general, the human mind is flooded by strong currents of pell-mell thoughts and imaginations; the bedlam of passions and impulses keeps hovering around it like the fleas and mosquitoes around a drain. Sometimes our mind is boiling in anger; sometimes erotic thoughts perturb it; some moments we are thinking of a movie, soon we may begin to plan for the purchase of a lottery-ticket and dream about what we will do with the wealth gained thereby and what not! This way we keep recklessly wasting our mental energy in useless, purposeless and haphazard imaginations and thoughts. If we were alert and had focused our mind on constructive or analytical thinking and given a focused direction to our thoughts, we would have delved deeper in our selected field of knowledge; some of us would have become a Voltaire by now! If we had dived deeper in our psyche and given creative, enlightened direction to our imaginations, we might have been another Ravindranath Tagore.

Become a thinker. Focus on thinking faculty in specific directions, towards search for true knowledge. Controlled your thoughts and imaginations; never allow them fly randomly. Let them move in the self-chosen, sagacious directions. They generate and expand around noble ideals and motives. Block the entry of unnecessary, delusive or irrational thoughts. Do not allow any place in your mind casual thinking or uncontrolled imaginations

In the practice of gyana yoga, we must inculcate the insight and courage to eliminate and prevent the base elements that keep intruding in our minds. Instead, if we adopt the kind of thinking that is positive, sane and noble and nurture it firmly in our mental field, our mind could become a grand reservoir of knowledge. Precious pearls of deep knowledge, ideas and inspirations would then be discovered in its inner recesses. Like the Ganga emerging from the head of Lord Shiva, a spring of pure knowledge could gush out of our minds by the practice of gyana-yoga. Calmness and stability would then remain firm in our mind like the holy moon on the forehead of Lord Shiva. Our sixth sense – the extrasensory center of divine prudence would be activated like the opening of the Third Eye of Lord Shiva. This is the sadhana of gyana-yoga.

The light of the rising sun we meditate upon should illuminate our inner mind. It should refine our knowledge and focus our thoughts in constructive directions. If this spark of gyana kindles in our mind, it will be assumed that we have comprehended and assimilated the training of meditation, for which we have been guided. If we do not understand and adopt these teachings in practice, our dhyana will only remain a pleasant imagination and we will gain nothing worthwhile out of such shallow practices. Spirituality is not imagination; it is not a dreamy experience. It is real and experiential. It deals with every aspect of our life; it should be lived in our life today, every day. There is no place for dreams or myths in spirituality. God is not a creation of our dreams or imaginations. His presence should be reflected in all our daily activities.

Bhakti Yoga Included in Dhyana Yoga:

The third kind of light, which is to focus upon during this dhyana yoga is that of the inner self. It is the radiance of our intrinsic faith, our devotion, our sincerity, and our compassion, which sparkles all around in the form of pure love. Awakening of this love is the bhakti-yoga. We strengthen our body by practicing physical exercises and make use of the vigor thus gained in our routine chores and in the hard work required for transaction of our duties on multiple fronts. Similarly, when we begin with the devotion and love for God, the inner force of emotions we acquire through this bhakti (devotion) should also be utilized and expanded. We should love our gross body; if we love it, we must take good care of it; keep it neat and tidy; discipline it and maintain its health and harmony. This is a reflection of our love, our devotion for God’s creation. The same way our devotion should also extend towards our mind; we should look after it cautiously. We should not allow it to be disturbed or vitiated. It should be kept calm and serene. Thoughts stored in it should be bright and pristine like the glow of the sun.

We should also love our inner self, our soul. We have always neglected our soul. We have never experienced its presence. Ages have passed, but we have never heard its voice, or bothered about its aspirations. An old woman, entirely dependent upon us, keeps asking us to take her to the Himalayas for pilgrimage. We, engrossed in our selfish motives, won’t pay any attention. We might even reply rudely that – at this last phase of her life, why to worry about going here and there; she should just lie quietly wherever she is! It sounds strange, but this is how we have been treating our soul.

Our soul is a helpless captive in the smog of our ignorance. If we had loved it and taken proper care of it, it would have become so strong and active that its divine power would have transmuted us into angelic beings. But, this divine spark within us has practically been extinguished in our lives because of our misdeeds. If we can’t love our soul; then whom would we love? (Ask this question to yourself – whom do you love truly?). Do we love our wife? No, not really. We only long for the sensual pleasure and comforts she offers us. A leech sticks to the body and sucks the blood; most of us do the same with the lives of our wives. The youth of a wife is often ruined in satisfying the lust of her husband and in producing and taking care of the children. She gets prematurely aged and becomes a victim of varieties of ailments. Still he does not understand her problems, doesn’t care for her sickness. All her potentials, all her resources, have been sacrificed in the thankless service of the husband and his family. If we had truly loved our wife, we should have lovingly taken care of her health; should have helped uplifting her educational and mental levels; should have encouraged development of her talents. On the contrary, we have practically killed her future.

Do we have the noble sentiments of love and devotion? No! If these had a place in our heart, we would have looked after our old parents and other dependents with greater affection; we would have happily offered our altruistic services to the needy. We usually think that we have great love for our children. But, that also is a delusion. We mostly have attachment to them. We consider providing them with worldly comforts and worldly means as the best expression of love for them. We relentlessly endeavor to amass wealth and possessions that we could bequeath to our children as tokens of our love! But have we ever thought that wealth without virtues is a source of depravation? Thus by piling up comforts and pelf for our child, we simply make him a lustful, depraved and selfish person, who will spoil his own life and may become a burden for the society. How can we say that we truly love our child?

Do you know what love is? It is the sentiment of causeless joy derived from selflessly working for the welfare of beloved ones. It means giving; it means generosity, compassion, and selflessness. Bhakti-yoga aims at awakening of this divine sentiment; it means cultivation and expansion of compassion, kindness, altruism and love for sentient beings. This is what is true service and true devotion of God. Many of we think that worshipping a deity, bending the head at its feet, beseeching and crying before it, ringing the bells in a shrine, distributing some alms, etc is what serves the purpose of devotion. Is this what we call "navadha bhakti" (highest yoga of devotion)? No! This is only hypocrisy, mimicry and a caricature of devotion; it is far removed from real bhkati-yoga. It is self-deception. Well! Then, how will we practice bhakti-yoga? For this, we will have to understand its true meaning and adopt it with the help of the meditation on divine light. The feeling of "Tamaso Ma Jyotirgamaya" should emerge from the depths of our emotions while concentrating on the glow of rising sun in our heart. It implies emancipation of the soul, the inner self – from the darkness of ignorance into the eternal light of pure knowledge and divine love.

Deep and focused mental concentration is a major prerequisite for meditation. As small quantity of explosive material, condensed in a bullet and targeted through a gun, hits the focused aim. If we focus our potentials and efforts in a constructive direction, we would achieve the goal of our life. You must have heard about the glorious intrepidity and self-mastery of Arjuna in Mahabharat. He had perfected the art of focusing all his attention at the desired objective. This is why he was the only one who succeeded in piercing through the left eye of the rotating fish by his arrow just by looking at its image in the water below during the Swayamvara of Princess Draupadi. Hundreds of princes and kings had come to participate in this difficult contest of qualifying to marry Draupadi. Guru Dronacharya asked one common question from all his disciples during their training. When they stretched their bows and looked at the image of their target, he asked them – "What do you see?” someone replied "The entire fish", some said "Its head", etc. As predicted by Dronacharya, none of them could hit any part of the fish. Arjuna was the only one who saw nothing except the left eye of the fish. The Guru applauded his perfect mental concentration. Arjuna indeed hit the target and won Princess Draupadi’s hand. This is the secret of success in all walks of life. We do not accomplish anything significant, as our attention and interests are scattered in many directions. Control the agitation of your mind and focus it (as per the instructions) in the practice of dhyana yoga. Because of its wayward diversions, we are neither able to concentrate upon our studies nor to work for vigorous health; we are not able to do anything significant; there is always an instability in and scattering of our efforts. This haphazard state of our mind should be controlled with the help of meditation along with the devotional practices of japa. Our mind should be well organized and trained to imbibe the habit of "work while you work and play while you play". Be that a worldly task or spiritual practices, whatever we do should be done with full attentiveness. Deep mental concentration is a spiritual quality. Any effort carried out with one-pointed absorption of our mind leads to grand success.

We should try cultivating keen interest and focused approach, as the scientists have towards their fields of research. In terms of basic education or training, there may not be any difference between a scientist and someone who has merely passed a B.Sc. (first degree in science education). Who is a scientist? The one who is fully engrossed in his research and dives deeper and deeper, like a submarine in the ocean, to discover / invent the pearls of knowledge. Scientific achievements are the wonderful outcomes of rigorous mental concentration. This quality is essential for success in every walk of life. We need to apply it not only in our devotional practices but also in all the works we undertake.

People often think that they can’t engage their mind in devotional practices. It keeps jumping towards the worldly thoughts". "Does your mind ever get occupied in something with interest and attention?" Obviously, the answer will be "No; Not really". This is because we have not bothered to train our mind to focus. We do not recognize the potentials of a focused mind. We should train our mind to be alert and attentive and cultivate the tendency to enjoy the work at hand. In devotional or spiritual practices, we should have the deep mental absorption that emanates through the heart, like that of a yogi. If we sincerely practice the dhyana yoga, and learn to meditate upon light with deep fervor, our mental concentration will improve significantly. This depth of mental concentration together with our noble sentiments employed in this dhyana yoga will bless us with all that a great devotee of spirituality deserves.