When I close my eyes and try to silence my mind, negative thoughts set up a clamor. I get involved with them and I am entrapped. How many of us feel like this?

Swami Satyananda answers this question for us. He says that when one takes a purgative, there is diarrhea. In the same way when one meditates on God or your chosen deity, all the suppressed and hidden thoughts surface. One has to do nothing about it. One has to be indifferent to them as their objective is to entangle one again. One’s mind wanders ceaselessly in the hour one keeps aside for sadhana and one thinks that it is pointless to practice.

The positive energy of the Guru

However, one’s support is one’s Guru. The Guru is a human being, and he is imperfect like us all. When one places one’s faith in one’s Guru then one is lead to the deity within one. It is easy to carp at the Guru and find flaws in his/her personality. One finds flaws in even Rama, and Krishna. The Guru is not affected by the criticism. Only the disciple experiences a sense of loss. The word is Shraddha, which means positive energy which comes from deep within a person, shaping her/his life and world. This Shraddha guides us and it is the ultimate weapon of spirituality.

There is an ancient saying, “Why did the betel leaf get spoilt, why did the horse get stranded and why did the disciple get waylaid?” All this happened because they were not turned inside out and upside down. The Guru must keep prodding his/her disciples and the disciples must listen to the Guru.

Swamiji is my Guru and he is Polaris (North Star) in my life. Polaris is described as being in the same location, every night from dusk to dawn unlike other stars in the sky. It neither rises nor sets.

A Guru does not speak to his disciples, or advise them. He points the way. The path for us is the path of daily Sadhana with Shraddha.

Aim Hrim Klim

Photo by Ajay Karpur on Unsplash