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Source: The Hindu (http://www.the-hindu.com)

 

Peace and joy must be found within

 

CHENNAI, JUNE 2. An aspirant in the advanced stages of spiritual

life finds his thought process slowing down on its own accord. It

is essential to understand the reason for this. As long as a

person is not aware of the true nature of the Self as the source

of eternal happiness and peace, which must be discovered within,

he will attribute his happiness to objects outside himself as,

for instance, his home, his family and other material objects.

 

He becomes dependent on them for sustaining his happiness and he

convinces himself that they are indispensable. Such a person when

he tries to meditate will find thoughts of these objects

disturbing his mind. The mind pursues these thoughts because it

feels comfortable with them, whereas, the moment the Self is

discovered as blissful this wrong notion gets dispelled and

thoughts slow down without any effort on his part to quell them

during meditation. As a consequence the aspirant has total

control over his thoughts and is not burdened by them. Awareness

of the Self accommodates all thoughts and hence such a person is

not imprisoned by his thoughts.

 

In his discourse, Swami Suddhananda said that happiness was the

true nature of oneself and one need not make any effort to be

happy, whereas, sustaining emotions and thoughts involved effort.

A Self-realised person has no urge in him to seek happiness and

so he is spontaneous in his actions and behaviour. It becomes

apparent then that one has to be just oneself to be at peace and

unhappiness results only when one engages in a thought or an

emotion. But it is crucial to understand that in these

engagements it is not the action per se which is the problem; it

is the doer, the ``I'' (ego) which creates difficulties. The man

who does not know that he is the source of peace tries in vain to

attain a state of peace. This is only artificial as it is only a

state of absence of mental agitations.

 

How does a man of Self-realisation live? The Ashtavakra Samhita

says, ``The wise who are free from mental imaginations, unbound

and liberated in intellect, sport sometimes and at other times

resort to the mountain-caves.'' Whether he lives in the lap of

luxury or in the spartan isolation of a cave, a Self-realised man

is happy. So one must not look down upon any lifestyle but must

accept it as it is. With equanimity a spiritual aspirant must

learn to accept both prosperity and poverty. This is possible

when every thought, object, relationship and emotion is

challenged and understood clearly that one's happiness is not

dependent on all these.

 

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