6 December 2001, 02:18am IST
Swami Durgananda.
One of the greatest wrestlers of japan, o-nami, was unable to win a single fight. finally a priest advised him to contemplate his low confidence. after a whole night of contemplation, o-nami was able to overcome his fear, and never lost another flight. such is the power of contemplation. far from being a mere exercise, or a practice of passive introspection, contemplation has a limitless capacity to transform us. my guru, gurumayi chidvilasananda, the great siddha of gurudev siddha peeth, ganeshpuri, once said, “through contemplation i make every event of my life into a philosophy. through contemplation we make our mind and intellect merge into the truth”. her guru, baba muktananda, too had always maintained that awareness is the key to sadhana. to contemplate something is to hold it in our awareness till it reveals its essence. the natural result of contemplation — whether it is the contemplation of a person, an idea, or an image — is that at a certain point the mind merges in the object of contemplation, becoming one with it. once we lose ourselves in contemplation, there is a transformation in our being. the state of mind undergoes a change, and with it our whole reality. such creative contemplation, the practice of bhavana, is one of the strongest modes of sadhana in kashmir shaivism, much like in buddhism and vedanta. shaivism recognises the mind as the same as pure consciousness which has become the universe. the mind which focuses on the truth through wisdom and self-inquiry is ultimately restored to its original nature as pure consciousness. in short just as thoughts of pain and confusion make us experience pain and confusion, so do thoughts of god make us experience god. saints tell us that how many practices we do is not as important as the awareness with which we do them. once two advanced disciples were given a mantra to repeat. one of them did so ceaselessly, day and night, in the years allotted. the other started when only a few days were left, but he contemplated the mantra as an all pervading vibration emanating from himself and all other beings in the universe. he soon became one with the mantra, and with all beings. their teacher congratulated both equally for a matching achievement. the second disciple had reaped the fruits of years in a few days just by contemplative awareness. people find that repetition of the mantra, and conduct of daily activities, done with the awareness that “i am shiva” turns their contemplation into an actual experience. nothing has more power than contemplative self inquiry to deal with and clear away anger, misunderstanding, confusion, sorrow, anxiety, fear, discomfort, or other things which keep us trapped in negativity. self inquiry here implies observation of our inner tendencies without judging or trying to justify them, only then can change happen. accepting our experiences is the first step in self inquiry; it is the key to transformation. it enables us to observe and seek the source of our blocks, at the root of which is simple energy in the forms of the anger, love and so on. by observing the feelings without trying to suppress or change them, or fight them off, we realise that at the bottom of every thought and feeling is the same essential vibration of energy, the shakti. this enables us to cope with both pain and pleasure, and review the events of our lives every day. gurumayi once said that rather than look for attainments on the outside we can try to see the degree to which we can tolerate things; the degree of faith, patience, forbearance, and the degree to which we can love god under all circumstances. we have innumerable ways of contemplating. we can use the mantra, or focus on the breath, or on the heart, or on the space between two breaths; however the best is to focus on a great being who has risen above passion and attachments, as suggested by patanjali, for then we imbibe the shakti, qualities and characteristics of the great beings. contemplating small stuff will make us small. contemplating our actions gives us the will to transform, and by contemplating the highest reality, the self, we become that very truth. (swami durgananda is a monk under siddha yoga lineage of gurudev siddha peeth, ganeshpuri, whose current spiritual head is gurumayi swami chidvilasananda)
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