by Sri Bimal Mohanty
VOL No. 53
July. 2005

MEASURING THE SPIRITUAL PROGRESS- Part 2.

"Based on the lectures by Sri Bimal Mohanty"

Our goal is to acquire gradually but steadily the true happiness. That is why we are in this spiritual journey. As the journey continues, subtle changes begin to happen in the very way our mind thinks, in every action of ours. It is very personal and can easily be tested by anyone by simply reflecting upon his or her own life. . Those who practice spiritualism, every one barring none, - repeat barring none - achieves this in small measure or large measure depending upon his intensity and truthfulness in approach.

There is also a great side benefit. The changes in you, are never confined to you alone. When you rise mentally, when you taste happiness, those around you, your near and dear ones, your family and friends, the community you live in, the world at large, all are affected for the better. One may notice or not. But the sense and feeling of positivity is very infectious. By simply being spiritual one also renders service to others and all. This is a fact not very well understood by many of us. Serving others does not necessarily have to be visible and demonstrated activities. Simply being spiritual yourself you also bring great benefits to others around you.

A true Yogi will never say that his yoga sadhana is over and done-with. As soon as we realize some gain at any level of consciousness, we also simultaneously realize the very inadequacy of that gain. That itself is a wonderful motivational force. Seeking more, seeking further, seeking farther and keeping alive the trust on an expanding horizon without limits, is not a shortcoming, but indeed the brilliance of thought that our seers- true scientists and psychologists as they were- have discovered in our very nature, the human svabhava.

If our nature were so cut and dry as to put down qualitative or quantitative measurements to our spiritual efforts, what would have stopped most of us in remaining contented to enjoy these small gains and possibly abandon any further forward movement? The world would have then slowly disintegrated and fallen like the Roman empire. So disregarding ‘how much we have traveled’ the sadhak is ever determined to push forward towards higher, further and greater.

One of the boldest statements that our scriptures have given us is:

Bhumeiva sukham nAlpe sukhamasti.

True achievement lies beyond the little gains, in the vastness beyond the horizons.

It is all a “process” and we are all a part of that divine process, the mahayajna, driven as if mounted on a machine- yantrArudhavat as the Lord explains to Arjuna.

Our participation in this Mahayajna is both voluntary as well as outside our control. Voluntary because at every step as we see the gains, we experience individual benefits. But individual gains soon fail to satisfy unless I seek more gains by looking outside of myself. I see that if I receive some assistance from outside I can further surpass myself. We say that we are driven beyond our control because, we are aware of that great concept that we have no individual existence outside the collective. Vyakti does not survive without samasti. Your gain is my gain. My well-being is your well-being. So collectively we can all excel. The significant quoting from the Bhagavad Gita is worth remembering here:

Parasparam bhAvayantah shreyah param avApsyatha.

The highest goal is achievable not in isolation but by collective enterprise, helping each other, by reaching out beyond yourself.

That is how the entire creation progresses forward. The entire creation is one single movement of unstoppable progress.

When will the journey end?

Do not try to seek this answer with your limited knowledge. You will realize when you come to it. Till such time, have trust and leave it to the Lord.

Till such time one should only try to experience the changes within oneself. Be an observer to the evolving awareness – the chetana- at the different levels of consciousness of one’s existence, from basic gross physical level to psychic level, sweeping through sheath after sheath of cognizance, from the annamay kosha to the anandamay kosha through prAna, mana and jnAna.

Here some explanation is necessary because many people hold different views as to how this multilevel consciousness works.

Let us take the example of a multilevel building. When one looks at the world from the ground floor, he has one horizon, as well as a particular angle of observation. You go to the first floor and your horizon as well as angle of perception changes and so on it goes. Perception at each level has its own significance. The total view of the outside world is the sum total or collective perception of all levels. View from one level is as misleading as from the other, but put together they make more sense.

Some people have this misconception that in order to rise to the higher(?) level, the lower(?) level has to be forcibly discarded or ignored. How misleading this is. The knowledge at one level is impossible unless it is in reference to the knowledge gathered from other levels. Each is complementary and supplementary to the other.

The total is true. The partial is untrue. People in their eagerness to achieve higher consciousness often forcibly shut out the experiences of other levels of consciousness.

This is the reason, why some sAdhaks often torture the body thinking to shut out body level experiences. They severely negate the mind, hoping to force the mind to subjugation. They even shut out the life breath thinking that this is the way to rise above prAnamay kosha. This is foolishness and severely criticized by the scriptures.

It is the sum total of all knowledge that reveals to us the very essence of knowledge.

When you are conscious of your body, analyse this consciousness in relation to its usefulness for your ultimate goal. The body exists for the real and not for the unreal. When the breath moves, or mind thinks or the intellect learns, all must be analysed in relation to the principal objective which is the supreme bliss (paramAnanda) of Brahman realisation. The same questions have to be asked and answers sought and used for that only purpose that we are after.

Ofcourse it is admitted that the individuals coming under the strong influence of demands of the world of maya do not always find this easy. What makes it even more complicated is the fact that, the pattern of experience of no two individuals are same. No one’s sadhana can be duplicated by another, not even that of the teacher and the disciple. The Guru at best is only a helpful guide.

So the observation made by our seers based on their own experiences confirms only one thing, which is ‘the final result’- not the exact pattern of the process but only the ‘final destination’.

That is why the sanatan philosophy has so many interpretations, so many explanations trying to encourage all aspirants to engage themselves- to be in yoga. Nana muni nana matah- there are as many opinions as there are seekers is indeed a practical reality.

Sri Aurobindo, in his own style also makes some observations, which one may find somewhat more practical and not so esoteric for easy understanding.

He speaks of ‘three results’ for the practitioner ‘that are of a central importance for our spiritual ideal’.

To begin with: “ An absorbing love for the Divine Presence to whom he feels an always more intimate closeness, grows upon the consecrated worker. And with it is born or in it is contained a universal love too for all these beings, living forms and creatures that are habitations of the Divine.”

In simple words, this means that you fall in love with God and then automatically fall in love with everything connected with God.

The love for the Divine is described as very ‘intimate’. Only those in love can understand and experience this intimacy. The feeling is with them ‘always’, sometimes accentuated, some times lying low. Yet it always ‘grows’ from strength to strength, day by day. It demands an attitude of ‘consecration’. The comfort that one derives from ‘total surrender’ is indescribable. Slowly and steadily this love embraces everything that is connected with the Divine, realising the presence of the Divine in everything around.

You may compare how this rings so true with that concept from the scriptures that we talked earlier. VAsudeva sarvamiti All are indeed the Lord manifested. If one is regularly practicing yoga he very soon develops a natural feeling of well-being and happiness whenever he is engaged in anything that is someway connected with God. The feeling of solace that one feels when being in a spiritual discussion, listening to devotional songs or simply meditating in a place of worship, comes very naturally and is never a forced one. It is strange how that happens. He also feels increasingly comfortable with people around. Even if he is not interacting with them, yet he is positive about people of all kinds. The behaviour shows itself.

These are telltale indications of benefits of yogasadhanA.

By this time, the blossoming of the ‘being’ from its inferior state to a state of ‘higher’ being has already become noticeable. Being spiritual becomes a way of living life. The turbulence of the mind is no more as disturbing as it used to be. The simile of the mountain stream slowly turning out to be the mighty river is getting to be a reality. As the flowing stream enters the plains, gone are the uncontrolled turmoil. The wideness and expanse of the mind that takes in the entire world and the universe in its fold is the beginning of the emergence of its true potential and character. As the river slows down with the realization of its immensity, so does the mind, on realization of the divine proximity and with that the divine purpose for which we are all created.

No sadhaka fails to recognize these changes in himself.

The next kind of experience takes the sadhaka into a still higher plane, which we shall discuss further.