Raja Yoga: The Path of Meditation (Part 2) _ Swami Sarvapriyananda

Elephant to that side our intellect is like the mouth intellect Budi the intellect understanding you go to a seminar or a retreat on yoga and you get convinced meditation is great and I must start meditating get up early in the morning like this one he said 5 o'clock in the morning at 4:30 and we start meditating and morning when the alarm rings you have to get up you don't feel like getting up the body says no did you ask me did I sign up for your silly program no who signed up who was and who netted who was they interested in the seminar and in the we'll treat the intellect intellect says yes it's a great idea but the body did not say it's a great idea but the body is like the elephant the body does not respond to like the elephant it does not respond to talks and seminars and papers and TED talk no not interested the intellect gets very excited and decides I will do these things to change my life now what does the body what does the elephant respond to training training how do moths make the elephant listen to them elephants are wild creatures that trained they trained to respond to certain commands similarly to them to make it habitual and any kind of habitual any kind of training it requires repetition and time it does not it's not enough to listen to something and understand it and what he can be trained to get up at 4 o'clock or 4:30 in the morning and make it easy and effortless
I know I when I became a monk the first day I used to be an early lies riser in the hostel which is a different thing altogether the monk told me that from tomorrow onwards now you are a brahmacari that means you are part of the order from tomorrow onwards you must get up early I said yes
I am the earliest riser in the hostel now tell me when you want me to get up 7:37 because all my friends used to get up at nine and then the monk laughed and he said forget that 7:00 7:30 and to get up at four o'clock in the morning or 4:30 4:30 my god swami vivekananda made it a rule ring the bell the bell is still there in maine monastery it's it's rung at 3:40 in the morning and we have to get up and he will politely he bringing until you get up and there is somebody whose Duty it is to ring the bell once an enterprising I think annoyed monk hit the bell hit the bell
so the next morning the person whose duty it is the monk whose duty it is ring the bell wouldn't find the Bell so we could sleep little more but that person was even more enterprising he took his dish made of metal and a little Bowl made of metal we all get got a dish and a bowl

so he banged it may make him more awful clamor throughout and he walked around the whole ministry by banging it making everything of everybody up with that horrible noise training but once you do that for a week for a month for two months three months it's easy it becomes effortless and then you feel uneasy lying around in bed laying around in bed after that especially if you're in a group if you're in a group if 100 other young people are doing it you can't be the ninety nine people have gone away and were last hundred percent lying on the bed it's too much prep peer pressure you have to get up and be up and doing

so training body requires training the knowledge intellect in the body requires training why he has given very interesting points he says for example our the gut and certain other parts of the body they are almost an autonomous intelligence they have a bunches of nerves there and

so they have a kind of inner decision making regarding food and other sense pleasures that might override your intellect they might exert a pull and
so have to be trained 1 another reason why I like this book was he actually went to India to a small town Bhuvaneshwari where I grew up as a kid it rights there
I was surprised he said he went there to the temples the Linga Raj temple that a shiva temple there and he interviewed the Brahmin priests there before they performed the rituals and after is he's a psychologist before they perform the rituals and after they perform the rituals which are traditional Hindu temple rituals and the questions he asked a psychologist a battery of questions will be there that is like as scheduled they will give you the scores were widely different how a person feels after performing these rituals is a and response to situations in life questions is quite different from how the person responds before or at a distance from these rituals of course he goes on and says the rituals are deeply connected to the culture you take a bath and it's called Bindu Saga there in near the temple if they would take a bath there you feel chant the mantras then you feel sort of purified and holy
soft wake go to the temple to perform the rituals sir will it will it work if I go and take a dip in the Mississippi and then no you have to have that cultural background it has to have that Associated bunch of meanings for you then only it works
so but it does work it has an effect on the mind okay so

that's why be regular that's number one I had a friend I remember in the when
I was a student he was very spiritual and he used to live in the room next to mine and I got infact some good books from him he gave me some good books on spirituality you know you've heard of a cannot issue Aaron who lived in San Francisco wrote very nice books have you met him you have met him here books yes
so I was introduced to his books by this this boy now one thing which I noticed he would meditate when the mood took him

so days would go by his not meditating sometimes he would feel like meditating it he would meditate more than me but I had already taken month addiction one of the rules is daily after meditate morning and evening even if it is mechanical which is better you would say no this mechanical meditation is not a appeal to me if I don't feel like meditating how can I meditate when I feel like meditating I will meditate no big trick of the mind it's like the elephant saying
I will be trained when I feel like training but I don't feel like training you can't train me then the elephant will never be trained no amount of training will work if I say I will get up only then 4 o'clock somedays and I have the mood I will get up at 4 o clock that mood will become rarer and rarer and you will see
so regular meditation daily you must meditate then the second point he says have a fixed time for meditation not only daily but I have a fixed time as far as possible I know people are busy

so the schedules but as far as possible and swami ashoka recommends at least twice a day thrice if possible if not at least twice a day once of course but at least twice a day morning and evening and he says there are special times which are suitable for meditation best time is always booked you get up from bed fresh the previous day's impressions have been cleared of you are rested use that time for meditation when the world is quiet there are beautiful descriptions of Swami Vivekanand in New York how he would always be in a meditative mood sometimes he would sit quietly and become

so absorbed people would be waiting for him to give the talk they would sit for meditation they thought maybe 5 minutes 10 minutes 15 minutes 30 minutes 40 minutes one hour then they would slowly be that they would not dare to disturb him they slowly get up and walk up and he would open his eyes and find the room empty everybody is gone and he actually became embarrassed about these things he taught the American disciples just like Sri Ramakrishna you see the continuity there certain mantras that if you see me sitting in meditation like that repeat it into my ears and I will come back to awareness he would try to stop his mind from going into deep meditation just the opposite first we tried we tried to go into deep meditation you try to stop his mind from going into deep meditation at all hours but specially the beautiful description when the busy city even means Manhattan city that never sleeps when it it finally went to sleep very early in the morning everybody this whole city is quiet Vivekananda would be immersed in deep meditation at some times students would walk into a room and suddenly find his sitting there and they began to recognize that inward mood they would quietly walk out without disturbing him at as evening fell upon the city as night deepened on the city mrs. Vivekananda would remain immersed in Samadhi in the little room meditative mood if we cannot do that at least twice a day and early morning is good and evening in India the Brio Keys they felt that there are certain times in the day when night changes into morning dawn when noontime this is an inner inflection point
so to say they are called Sundy Sundy that Twilight when afternoon changes into evening and then midnight these are good times for meditation I remember when as in the hospital
I was once a patient as a young monk and there was another much much more old monk who had a cataract operation being done he was in the next bed and because
I was young and I was in the hospital for a pretty long time so you're lying down you don't feel like sleeping after some time

so sometimes I would stay awake whole night and I I watched when that monk thought everybody else has gone to sleep he would get up on his bed and then he had a little tin box I always wondered what was in it he would open the box at night when everybody was asleep and that box had pictures of Tukwila and Swamiji little pictures he would take it out and he'd put it and then in front and a bed him sit in meditation for hours and hours but well before dawn before anybody stirred in the hospital he would quietly close the box and go to bed
so I told him a few days later and Maharaja and Swami I know what you're doing at night and the Swami bursts out in laughter he said in Bengali Oh nobody what he said was oh I am a I am a rock shush a demon demons come out at night I mean Tony shudders this also means the one who walks in the night and a demon or night yes I don't know there's something about the time what a show kanji says is that generally what we read is that nature is quiet at that time there is a certain quietness that comes upon nature at times I don't know how true it is in modern cities in the world but definitely in a just imagine a small Indian town very early in the morning of course quiet and afternoon when it changes into the hot Indian afternoon it quite understand a little and then evening as the sky Redden's and the Sun sets and the darkness falls again a quietness comes on the world

so nature is quiet there's something in the patterns in the body also that at these times it is conducive to meditation conducive to inwardness so that's another thing there's Swami Brahma Hahn and they used to say in sri ramakrishna also different places specially holy places pilgrimage places at different times there is a special spiritual vibration so he identified different times balloon mutt much to my annoyance it's at four o'clock in the morning so itself if you want to catch that time the monks were uncompromising we would groan that it's hot and sweaty and you don't get hardly get enough sleep at night you have to get up at 3:40 in the morning I still remember our very senior swam your mentor saying no that one is we cannot compromise on that what do you feel sleeping the next day fine you can sleep but you have to get up at 3:40 in the morning and meditate at for 4 to 5 or almost till 6:00 sometimes you can meditate suppose I can't work properly after that and
so whatever you can do after that is acceptable to us that one is you have to get help we don't want your efficiency afterwards we want you to get up and meditated that
it's just way of pushing the mind because mind is tricky you know then I think he said poori is probably in afternoon Banaras is midnight I think midnight Brindavan also I think probably midnight the different spiritual centers have special vibration they have the vibration throughout the day but at special times also special times special puja times you will find or the holy days in the year which are regarded as sacred times at that time you will find a special vibration where large numbers of be human beings think of or at least they're supposed to there is a special vibration in the air and for centuries they're those days you know like we think of shiva rathri in bengal the Durga Puja five days and nights and there are special times like that in the year good times for meditation so time second thing is take advantage of time

I some of the monks I knew regularity time I've mentioned sometimes one monk who passed away in the ICU and the nurses there would see now ICU difficult to know where it's day or night because it's always neon litter not very sick patients are there but he would always struggle in his bed and get up he's dying he died a few days later but every day he would get up at just before 4 o'clock and who sit like this on the pillow my hands are moving the Japanese going on it's a lifetime practice time exactly at that time he gets up and although he may not be very much conscious of anything outside
so regular time make it a lifetime practice as much as possible if not possible we know lives are busy it's may not be always possible then do whatever you can but if not you see mind becomes trained in such a way Sri Ramakrishna said like the needle of a compass it normally points the polar axis not south axis if you spin it around like this what will happen in you go around and then again swing back to that
so the mind of the yogi should become like that compass our meditative habit should be such that when the world throws your mind into a spin problems come difficulties come mind gets upset annoyed unhappy anxious but very soon it will work around and come back to that problem is our minds are just the opposite always whirling around and takes effort to bring it back to that axis that reference pointing towards God but that part should be effortless whatever the world does it your mind will be thrown off balance for a while but it will come back again so that you have to train your mind like that and auspicious place number three

so I me Ashok Angie says have a place it also means if it could be a corner in your house it could be a room in your house a special meditation seat for yourself the moment and some people have special clothes don't do too much of it then it will not be possible and the danger of training yourself too much in this way is when you don't have that seat and when don't have those that set of clothes in your mind feels I am impure I can't meditate now it's because of those clothes no

so don't this should not become a weakness it should become a support for meditation
so a special place now there are auspicious places that's why churches somebody said I like this room it

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Raja Yoga: The Path of Meditation (Part 2) | Swami Sarvapriyananda

Raja Yoga: The Path of Meditation (Part 2) _ Swami Sarvapriyananda

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