Recycling your Life

Sometime people express confusion about the methods of chanting a mantra, devotional song or a prayer. Actually there are three stages of chanting; all are correct:

 1. Chanting out loud

2. Just moving lips and tongue

3. Only with your breath. 

Although all methods are effective, focusing on your breath while repeating a mantra is especially helpful when the mind is disturbed. Loud chanting can actually help calm a disturbed mind. The repetitive sound will create vibrations within the mind and activate the energy in Sahasrara Chakra on the top of the head thereby triggering different energies in the body.

In India there is endless freedom to practice religious and spiritual rituals according to your understanding and choice – some may worship Siva, Krishna, Brahma, Durga, Hanuman - it is a very wide selection of choices.

There are also people who do not worship in form but choose the formless God – no one is bound to follow a particular discipline. Worship is conducted according to your own temperament and your own ability to relate to the subject of your devotion.  There is great freedom as well as great responsibility.  You try to use those energies to enhance your own growth and level of understanding.

Example: You are someone who is a devotee of Krishna and you want to attain Krishna Consciousness.  How do you achieve this?  How do you elevate yourself to that level?  Do you want to bring Krishna down to your level or do you want to uplift yourself?  Various methods and approaches are available - one of the effective ways is to have a Mansic Puja, a mental worship where your entire consciousness is focused on the mental image of the deity or the Master, thereby creating a connection to that Being. That is the process of creating a connection.

To clarify this principle on the very mundane level: if someone likes tea for instance, you may invite that person for tea. Again you have created a connection.  If you want to invite someone, you focus on that person’s interests.

Krishna devotees may sit in meditation, drawing an image in their minds whereby they visualize Krishna sitting in front of them.  A further step in the mansic puja is visualizing washing the feet of Krishna with water, taking flowers and fruit as offering, applying chandan to the feet and completing the puja with Arati. Thereafter people may ask for blessings, surrendering body and mind to Krishna.

Asking for His presence in your life through the practice of Mansic Puja – Inner meditation - is relatively easy because you are doing something; you are engaging in a particular act.  If you are not doing anything, that makes it much more difficult; you need to engage your mind in some form of interaction.  Having established that, meditation becomes easy.

If you are fortunate enough to come into contact with a living Master, this is the easiest and most effective meditation.  You do not have to create the scene; He/She is already there.  All you have to do is to replay in your mind that which has already been experienced.  It is the easiest form of meditative practice – it is very effective and it can be done at any time.

When you replay all that, what happens then?  Is it just a fantasy of mind?  Let me explain this principle once again:  let us say that you recall some incident in your life and some unpleasant thought is recalled. Instantly you become very angry.

Then you recall and replay the situation in your mind. Maybe you think that you should have acted or replied differently, or you may feel that you had been mistreated, unjustly criticized or insulted by somebody.  Which ever way, instantly there is a very strong emotional and even physical reaction: your blood pressure shoots up, you become tense, your heart is racing - your entire body is affected.

By the same principle, when you replay the nice and beautiful aspects of your life’s experiences, this is bound to create a positive outcome of thoughts, feelings and vibrations, making you feel wonderful.

Many people ask how they can be happy.  Actually, it is very easy to be happy; everybody has had happy events and moments in life. It is up to you to create and replay those instances.  You can re-visit those occasions and when you do, you will see the results. Yet as long as you focus on the happy, nice and positive aspects, the negative moments may also be lurking nearby. They are part of your life too.  In that case you need to learn to avoid those pitfalls and remain on your narrow, happy path.

The point is that your life has a lot of answers.  It can serve as your teacher, but you have to find the teachings.  It is a bit like going into the forest and learning to pick the right mushrooms, avoiding the inedible and poisonous ones.  Not everything that is ‘green’ is safe.  This is something you have to learn.

There is also a way of looking back to moments in your life and try to understand how you can recycle your unhappy experiences.    What was bad and what was good?  Something appearing as negative can actually be quite helpful.  How can you ‘recycle’ your mind so that you can benefit from all experiences?  Each incident you are presented with is an opportunity to examine yourself, the situation in question and the other person involved. Why did this happen to you, how can this benefit you or enrich your life?  Getting stuck in one particular incident can prevent you from being able to move further. 

All the rich experiences of your past should make you wiser; learn to let go of dislikes and emotions and of negative thought patterns. Instead, learn to look at the benefits of your experiences.  Learn to be your life’s accountant.  Set up a balance sheet for your life; analyze the costs and benefits of all experiences.

Take the example of a businessman in charge of a factory.  He would make a list of all the costs involved in running his company as well as a list of benefits he might reap.  If the costs should outweigh the benefits, it is reasonable to assume that he would think carefully, considering whether or not to close the business.

However, an exception to justify running at a loss could be if your efforts were to serve a higher purpose. Nowadays it is quite difficult to maintain traditions based on humanitarian and spiritual grounds. Yet sometimes you just have to do that for the greater good. In such circumstances cost and benefit factors do not really apply.

Another aspect to consider is the balance sheet of your your spiritual aspirations.  What benefits do you receive through your association with a spiritual Master and what does it cost you – seva, giving up bad habits of body and mind, controlling and balancing emotions and surrendering your ego?  Try to work on that balance sheet.

Essentially it is all a question of using your own resources which you do have within yourself, but you are not aware of your own inner bounty. You need to become aware of this gift.  If you do not make an effort to discover the real prize you actually have right there within you, how can you realize what you have?  You have what you need most readily available but you are denying the very gift you already have.