Only God can give us
security
A talk given by Swami
Nirliptananda in London
Gaining a sense of security through
knowledge, self-control and faith in God.
Ignorance is the cause of our problem.
As a result of ignorance we suffer. Stress comes as a result of
ignorance. To the extent that our knowledge increases knowledge about
ourselves, the world and other things — our problems decrease, and
all the stress we have will be eliminated. So, ultimately, it is a
search for knowledge. Through faith in God and self-control —
control over the senses — we get knowledge, and soon after we get
knowledge we attain to supreme peace. In peace there is no stress. In
peace, all stresses of the body are dissolved. So it is very important
to develop within ourselves a particular type of culture, a culture
which is physical, mental and spiritual.
The physical culture is called ‘asana’.
Asana means to sit in a posture. In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna
tells us that subtler than the body are the senses, subtler than the
senses is the mind and subtler than the mind is the intellect, meaning
that it is more difficult to control the senses than the body. If we
cannot control our body, how can we control our mind?
Attachment
It is good to sit in one posture, to be
very calm, quiet, peaceful, and to be aware that we are sitting in
that posture. And to the extent that we become aware, something will
happen within us. If we try to concentrate on a particular thing, the
mind will wander all over the place, but if we try to sit in a
particular posture, being aware that we are sitting in that posture,
we will find — without consciously knowing what we are doing —
that the mind will become detached from this world, from other things.
And our problem lies in the world, because we become attached to this
and that, to so many things. That attachment saps our inner core. The
inner will gets weakened. As a result of that weakening our problems
will come.
When stress develops within us and the
will is weakened, we do not have the power to withstand anything, for
stress overtakes us and we become helpless, we cannot do anything, we
cannot reverse it. It is necessary, therefore, that with this inner
core we maintain the particular posture we sit in and try to maintain
it without shaking a limb for as long as possible. When the senses
become detached from the world, concentration develops. When that
concentration develops within us, our inner will starts to reassert
itself.
The body has subtle sheaths or
different states of existence. Stress that develops within us causes
our consciousness to function at a very superficial level. As a result
of that, our mind — functioning at this level of consciousness —
creates a barrier between these different states of existence, the
subtle and the causal. There is no contact between them and as a
result of that all our other problems develop. Take faith-healing for
example. Faith-healing means going to the core of our being and trying
to establish our consciousness on that deeper level — the source of
our being. Being detached from that source is the cause of stress.
When we give our inner will a chance,
the freedom, to assert itself, we begin to experience a sense of
freedom. That sense of freedom is very important, because it is when
that sense of freedom comes to us that absolute relaxation develops
within us. When our mind functions at a pure level of consciousness,
things start to happen within us. So it is important for us to
understand ourselves a little bit. That little bit of understanding
ourselves will help us to overcome the problems of life.
In a life governed by a spiritual
outlook, stress factors should not be there. In ancient Vedic times it
was called ‘studentship’ when a child goes to the home of a guru
to start his mental training and discipline — brahmacharya, which
make his whole being integrated. When he enters the other stages of
life, being integrated with that physical and mental discipline, he
can enter society with the full understanding of a mature person,
understanding himself and society. But when he grows up in society
without that kind of spiritual upbringing, he becomes
materialistically orientated. As a result of that material
orientation, stress develops, because material life has no stability,
material life undergoes changes all the time. So we live all the time
in a world of uncertainty, of insecurity. This combination brings
about anxiety, and stress develops within us.
We cannot get rid of stress unless we
turn to God, to religion. For nothing else can give us security but
God. Look, for example, at an insurance company that has another
insurance company to protect it, that insurance company has another
company to protect it, and so on. Take, for example, a rich and
powerful country like America which is still developing arms. Is this
not a sense of insecurity? So, insecurity is the basis of material
life.
In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna
tells us that it is He Who gives us that security. He does not only
give us material things, He gives us the security of that as well. So
our pursuit, our whole dharma — righteousness, our culture — is
spiritually orientated. In that spiritual orientation we find an inner
integration and as a result of that we come nearer to God. Thus in our
thought God is unchangeable, God is the real, God is the source of
happiness, Sat-Chit-Ananda. Only in God can we find happiness, not in
this world. This world gives us one moment pleasure, another moment
pain. Because of this instability, anxiety develops within us. That is
why our rishis advised us to do our meditation in the morning so that
all negativity that develops during the night will be cleared, and to
do our meditation in the evening again to clear any negativity
developed during the day. In that way we establish a relaxed,
refreshed, sublime life. And when we go to sleep, we can sleep with a
relaxed frame of mind and body. We feel refreshed. It is in that state
of relaxation that the whole system gets rejuvenated. When there is
tension within us, we cannot sleep.
Drugs rob us of our inner power
In modern society, we take one drug to
keep us awake. We take another drug to put us to sleep, and drugs for
all sorts of pains. We live in a materialistic, a drug orientated
society. If we live the right type of life, eat the right type of
food, we do not need anything else. Our system is going to help. If we
take things that are not good for our system, it will revolt against
that particular kind of thing, and stress develops within us.
The good and the pleasant are quite
different. The wise man — after looking at every side — chooses
the good, but the ignorant man runs after the pleasant. In the
Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna tells us about the pleasant: in the
beginning it is like eternal nectar and joy, but in the end it is like
poison and destroys us. But the good is like poison in the beginning
and like nectar at the end. The implication is that we must be able to
look at things, to analyze things: we should accept what is good for
us, we must reject what is not good for us. If we follow this simple
principle in life, getting up early in the morning and the first thing
we do is to remember God, to think about Him, our day begins nicely
and our whole day will be happy. If we have a little brawl in the
morning, the whole day will be stressful.
Meditation gives us good vibrations. We
do not understand how important they are. Because when these
vibrations get within us nothing else can enter. Let us surrender
ourselves to God after we finish our work, after any mental type of
work. Let us try to surrender all these to the Lotus feet of God. If
we can be like that, stressful feelings will disappear. But if we are
hoping that drugs are going to get rid of our stress, we are wasting
our time because drugs create more problems than they solve. They rob
us of the inner power and of the body to overcome its own problem. So
let us have faith in dharma, in God, in prayer and meditation. With
faith in what we have, we will find that our life will become happy
and beautiful. Om Tat Sat Hari Om.
The Bhagavad Gita, or ‘Song of God’, one of the
sacred Hindu texts, recounts the dialogue between Krishna, an
incarnation of Vishnu, and Arjuna, His disciple.
Swami Nirliptananda is a
senior Swami in one of the temples of the Asian community in London,
deeply acquainted with the teaching of Maitreya,
the World Teacher
More articles by
Swami Nirliptandanda
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