Humans seeking progress towards the goal of life, need to engage in self-monitoring (or self audit) in order to engage in progressive steps to reach the goal. Some say “God graces me” and infer that this is all that is needed. Not true, spiritual progress requires spiritual effort: time, talents and resources have to be directed towards the goal.
- What was I doing before I met Baba?
- Is there any change in me, after I met Him?
- Have I sufficient spiritual knowledge imperative to stick to and or to adjust my path?
This subject of Divine Grace versus Personal Efforts has been a point of endless controversy in spiritual thought. But, this controversy remains unresolved only in its logical and intellectual formulation, like many other similar unsolved problems such as “Who created the Creator?” Such controversies are meant only for those interested in speculative philosophy and not in spirituality which is the art as well as science of true living. Even on the worldly plane, such questions confounding our logical thinking and intelligent reasoning are raised and discussed without coming to any convincing answer, such as, “Is the fruit first or the seed first?” To resolve the controversy whether Divine Grace brings in or awaits Personal Effort, we have only to live and practise spirituality and experience the results. Only experience will remove for us the apparent contradiction between Divine Grace and Personal Effort. In fact, a reconciliation between these two apparently contradictory forces is brought home thus by Bhagavan Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa with the help of graphic similes when he says
“The wind of God’s Grace is for ever blowing. Lazy sailors on the sea of life, however, take no advantage of it. But the shrewd and active sailors unfurl the sails of their minds and catch the favourable wind which takes them very soon to their destination.”
From this, we can conclude that our mind should aspire and be praying for Divine Grace but the great illusion of this world will break off itself only when we supplement this aspiration with perseverance. This perseverance, when put into practice, is called “Purushartha – Personal Effort“. And then, the Divine Grace starts descending on us in proportion to our exertion.
Now, one missing link here which we have to find out, is: What fills up the deficiencies and short-comings in the devotee’s personal efforts in Spiritual as well as day-to-day living and make him powerful enough to fructify Divine Grace? Here, we have to recall once again the blessings showered on us and the seed of ‘Faith’ given to us by the Human Form of Bhagavan Baba in our very first meeting and thereby building a spiritual link between us and Himself. In that “sowing of the seed” is what is needed by us to make our body, mind and intellect progressively move forward through our personal efforts and thus add more and more potential to our spiritual exercises or Sadhana. In other words. Divine Grace corrects as also strengthens our Personal Efforts, while Personal Efforts draw in more and more of Divine Grace on which ultimately depends the further growth and fruition of the plant of spirituality from the ‘seed’ of Bhagavan’s blessing. Thus, Personal Efforts and Divine Grace are complementary and contributory to each other, both, in turn, depending upon the intensity of our spiritual hunger to experience the inner peace of Divinity.
These personal efforts have to be two-fold; one is to draw Divine Grace through personal efforts for our spiritual progress and the other is to draw Divine Grace for our personal efforts in worldly pursuits which have a close connection with our ‘Peace’. The Divine Grace flows continuously everywhere and for everyone, irrespective of which God we worship, the religion we adopt or the Guru we follow. It is not limited only to devotees of Sri Sathya Sai Baba. But It descends only on those who exert themselves to fulfil their “Purushartha”. All the same we Sai devotees have the unique privilege of receiving the blessings and guidance from the Omniscient, Omnipresent and Omnipotent One for resolving our problems on both these planes, howsoever, imperfect our personal efforts may be. So naturally, when we contact His Omnipresent Form and pray for His Divine Grace, the Human Form plays its role of helping us in drawing the grace needed to perfect our plans and to make our personal efforts complete and wholesome.
The aspirant now feels that many of the ‘disturbing elements’ which deprived him of his inner peace and poise are eliminated or are losing their hold on him. He is now in a far better position to make use of his abilities, skills, intelligence and energy than he did before. Even on comparing himself with others in the same walk of life as his but who give little thought to spirituality or the higher laws of life, he finds that they are unable to grasp anything far-reaching, they work for small ends and achieve small results, however much glorified they may be on the worldly plane. The spiritual aspirant, on the other hand, whose activity is guided by higher ideals and ideology works for worthier ends and achieves commendable results in his own field of activity, howsoever humble it may be.
But then is there any worldly activity which is absolutely free from evil, harm, or loss to some one or the other? As it is rightly said : “One’s gain is someone else’s loss”. There is, therefore, no work or activity which is absolutely good for absolutely bad on the material plane. What, then, makes the difference and elevates the spiritual aspirant’s worldly activity? It is the motive behind it which determines the value of work. The criterion here is : “Is my activity free from causing any loss of pain to another and also capable of doing good or giving happiness to another, even if it be at some sacrifice on my part?”
The aspirant progressing in sadhana finds that the pent up energy in him is constantly seeking its outlet through thought, word and action. In using this energy he has not yet been able to completely eliminate the disturbing elements within because the Ego in him still continues to bind him to his petty self and, therefore, he is overcome by selfishness and dissatisfaction, resulting in anger. He is aware that this Ego and its selfishness will bring about his spiritual ruin, unless this energy is sublimated and moulded into goodness and service. In short, the Ego needs to be tamed and transformed through a process of “Self – expansion”.
How do we manage thoughts?’
There are two methods
1. Silent sitting
2. Self Audit.
1. What is Silent Sitting?
It does not mean just sitting silently because even when we sit silently, our mind is full of thoughts. The inner dialogue or chatter should stop, otherwise energy gets dissipated and the brain gets tired. From a hundred thoughts one should try and bring it down to a few and finally to one thought. Energy conserved this way can be stored in our system and used whenever we like with specific intervals during the day.
When and where to practice silent sitting? Any time of the day and at any place. However, the best time is early morning, before leaving for work and starting work for the day or before retiring to sleep at night. All members of the family should get involved in this exercise.
Advantages: The benefits that we can derive from silent siting are, first and foremost, the increase in the power of one-pointed concentration. With improved concentration, the work that we do, the service that we render will be better. Secondly, silent sitting bestows peace of mind and emotional equilibrium, composure and poise which are greatly needed by both students and teachers. Also, it increases the power of endurance, patience and forgiveness. It improves our memory, grasping power and receptivity. At a deeper level, it awakens our intuition i.e. helps to be in tune with the voice within and helps develop our creativity.
2.Self Audit
It is commonly experienced that without proper audit and accounting, no success can be achieved in any enterprise in this world. Right from running a simple kitchen in the household to management of a large Corporation, accounting and audit hold the key to success.
It is rather strange that man who gives so much importance to this accounting and audit in worldly matters is blissfully ignorant when it comes to accountability of his actions and the audit of his deeds. Man cannot ignore the importance of Self-Audit. To manage our thoughts effectively all of us should engage ourselves in self-audit before going to sleep. Ask yourself, have I done anything to make others happy? Am I today a better person than what I was yesterday? Self audit is accountability which helps in maintaining a balance. It helps us to realise our own faults and reinforce our good habits.
Today, we are prone to ignore our own faults and dwell on the faults of others. This needs to be corrected as competition means competing with one’s self rather than with another. In fact, the overall achievement of excellence does not depend on doing one thing a hundred percent better but doing a hundred things, one percent better everyday.
The Process
Sit up every night before you sleep and review all the actions of the day, segregate them into those which have helped us to improve and stay in tune with the voice of conscience and into those which have been adverse to this. Make a resolve not to repeat the deeds which have held us back in this process. Combine this process with Silent Sitting and surely you will find yourself empowered with immense strength, the following day.
Thus management of thought is of great help for everybody in everyday life.
Management of Time
“Time is God, don’t waste time.”
“Time waste is life waste.”
One cannot remedy the past, one is not sure of tomorrow, the only best thing is to make the today as useful as it can be. So the present alone is real, every moment is vitally important, we must use this precious wealth “Time” to our maximum advantage.
We often hear the refrain “I like to do many things but I do not seem to have the time“. What we really mean by that is, we do not have any more mental space to do anything more than what we are doing at this moment. The solution lies in creating mental space and not in blaming time. Let’s take an example. In a suitcase if we wish to pack a lot of things, we have to iron and fold them nicely so that the suitcase seems to take more capacity. The same applies to our mind and thoughts. The problem of no time gets solved by mental space being created. This can be achieved by practising management of thought and breath and time. This will help us to increase both the quality and quantity of our work.
Priorities: The secret of our success in any endeavour lies in the manner in which we determine our priorities. We must fix our priorities and develop our capacities to use time in an optimal manner. Otherwise our life would become chaotic and messy.
Finally, the number one enemy of time is anger. The greater our anger, the more the mis-management of time. But with these spiritual exercises of individual and family spiritual activities we will avoid anger as far as possible.
Good Company: We must use our spare time for reading both at home and at school. “A house without books is like a room without windows”. Satsang or company of good people helps in generating good thoughts. Whenever we read a good thought, we must pen it on a card of 6″x4″ and whenever we feel low and dejected, all that we have to do is just to pick up any one of such cards and read the thought and more often than not the solution will be before us. Thus, good friends, good books, good music and nature are congenial for generation of good thoughts.
Management of Breath
What is Breath?: The dictionary defines breath as the amount of air taken into and then expelled from the lungs. We all breathe the same air. So it is a common factor. We cannot live without breathing even for a short time. Suppose, we are told to close your nostrils and keep it tightly pressed for some time what will happen? We feel suffocation, we feel choked and we want to release our pressure on our nostrils and breathe again properly. In the same way, if we duck a person’s head under water for some time and try to hold him there, you will find that person trying his best to escape from that situation. That zest tor life, that instinct to survive is there in each one of us and breath is the symbol. Now comes the question: Why should we manage our breath?
Our human system has a rhythm of its own. Breathing is a continuous process and to enjoy continuity in any form it should be in rhythm. Ask a person who is suffering from asthma whether he or she is enjoying breathing, they will tell you that they do not enjoy it at all because for them it is sheer torture to breathe. So, we should try and put our breath into rhythm because all around us in nature there is an external rhythm. Everything in creation around us has a rhythm of its own. The echoes of the hills, the flutter of leaves, the whisper of men, the babble of children, everything has a rhythm of its own. We should try and tune ourselves to that external rhythm.
When man is at ease and peace, his breath is rhythmic, his heart beat is steady, his pulse is stable but the moment he gets worried or anxious or agitated, all these three factors become highly erratic. Your breathing goes out of rhythm and everything is upset. So rhythmic breathing is an indicator of peace, poise and confidence. In fact, a constant rhythmic breath keeps all negative emotions at bay.
When we are angry, distressed, upset, our breathing becomes erratic. Slowing down the breath and taking of deep breaths brings one back to calm. It has to be kept in mind that everything on earth flows with a natural rhythm, a natural poise. This rhythm reflects the oneness of the Universe.