Help on the Quest for Self-realization-Reminders-25

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Help on the Quest for Self-realization-Reminders-25

 

>From Surging Joy

By Dr Sarada Nataragan

 

There is a canker, an insect family that eats away slowly at the

very roots of spiritual life. This canker is negativity, depression.

Depression visits the pursuer of self-enquiry in numerous guises. It

may take on the form of diffidence, a feeling that it is impossible

for one to attain the goal, that one is unfit for the practice of

self-enquiry. It may step in, unnoticed, in the form of listlessness

and disinterest. It grows as self-pity and sadness, one infected by

its presence sees the whole world clothed in dreary grey. Depression

does not bring the sharp, live distress of real sorrow, but the

dismal blur of pathos. It is a slow poison, spreading like cancer

through the mind. But unlike cancer it does not kill, it completely

paralyses its victim. It is a malady more dangerous than over-active

thought production by the mind. At least a profusion of thoughts can

be actively faced, so as they are constructive, there is always a

positive effort by the mind to combat them. But not so this.

Depression is not an absence of thoughts, it is the presence, the

continuous presence in fact, of negative thoughts. And often one is

more than half in love with depression, wallowing in it, getting

lost in its serpentine by-lanes. As thoughts feed on thoughts and

swell u=in numbers, so depression, amoeba-like, breeds itself. One

who is depressed gets more and more depressed.

 

Before one is totally eaten away by this disease of depression,

before one is drowned in its gloomy depths, one must somehow get a

hold on oneself and get back to the cheerful pursuit of self-

enquiry. Self-enquiry itself is medicine. When one is filled with

negative thoughts, whatsoever their nature, one should not succumb

to overwhelming feelings of guilt or negativity. Instead, the

depressing thoughts must be faced with the question, "For whom are

these thoughts?". The answer comes automatically, "For me". Pat

(137) must come the next question, "Who am I?". In a state of

depression it is all the more likely that this question may spring

forth habitually, as a mechanical repetition. But such mechanism

must be carefully destroyed. The question must be meaningful, very

real attitude of doubt. Do I know myself? Have I really experienced

who am I? Then how can I think that I am depressed and sad,

incapable and ineffective? How can I discern with such certainty the

gloomy depths of a stranger? I must know myself first in order to

know my depression (or happiness, or any other feeling of mine). So

let me first find out who I am.

 

With this awareness, attention changes tracks from the vicious

circle of depression to the purposive pursuit of self-enquiry. Yet

it may not be simple to wean the mind from its indulgence in

depression. Sometimes, if the canker has taken deep root in the

system, even spraying the medicine of self-enquiry may not suffice.

Then the very soil has to be changed. One must firmly excavate the

sick earth of depressive thoughts and re-plant one's spiritual life

in the soil of faith and cheer. For, faith alone can re-infuse

courage. Unshakable faith in the Master's constant affirmation that

self-enquiry will purify the mind and take one back to the source,

that self-enquiry can be pursued in every situation, in fact, that

it must be a constant companion, this faith alone will enable us to

shake off negativity with confidence. "What if I am unfit?" we will

then be able to ask of ourselves. "The pursuit of self-enquiry will

purify me. Bhagavan says it will, what greater assurance do I need?

May be I am even unaware that I am traveling and this vehicle given

by the Master would have carried me in its sure, unhurried pace and

suddenly I will awake and find myself, the Kingdom of Bliss. So let

me be of good cheer as He has bid me be and cling to the hope that

is self-enquiry.

 

And joy must be experienced not in the possibility of attaining a

distant goal, however exalted, but in every moment of the journey

itself.

 

"Take the black-gram, Ego-self,…

And grind it in the quern, (138)

The wisdom-quest of "Who am I?"

…In the heart-mortar place the dough,

And with mind-pestle inward turned,

Pound it hard with strokes of "I", "I",…

Work away, untiring, steady, cheerful."

 

-Appalam Song,

Sri Ramana Maharshi (139)