Who is my best friend?
Should it not be me, myself?
For how can I befriend or love others when I cannot love or befriend myself?
How can I know the eternal, when I don't know myself?
But who am I?
I don't know.
My impressions or understanding of myself is what others have communicated to me. Even my name is given to me by someone else.
I am this and that and a thousand other things, but I always remain that being, who is defined by others.
Then who am I?
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To find out, I must ask none other than myself.
But how can I know myself?
Man the animal has his senses trained to handle the external world. The eyes, the nostrils, the ears etc, all are directed outwards.
Man the divine being, lies within us. We should journey inwards into our being, and that journey has to start with the mind.
But my mind is not one. There is always a crowd within my mind and all of them are clamouring for attention. I need to silence them all and still all thoughts, so that I can listen to and observe myself.
This listening and observation is meditation.
This is why it is imperative for me to spend some time alone with myself, to meditate. Concentration does not work, because the more I focus, the more I am strained.
When I try meditating, I find that sometime my body and most of the time my mind dominate my being. I tried to fight the thoughts but the more I battle them the stronger they bounced back.
This is why it is imperative for me to spend some time alone with myself, to meditate.
When I try meditating, I find that sometime my body and most of the time my mind dominate my being. I tried to fight the thoughts but the more I fought them the stronger they bounced back.
I try not to judge or fight my thoughts, I try just to observe them. Like clouds in the sky, they waft in and fade away, I am often swept away by the clouds or I go a chasing them.
The answer lies in performing yoga.
Yoga is not just contorted body postures, and exercise. It is an ancient and complete science. It has remained a gift from India to humanity for thousands of years.
The more I perform Yoga, the easier it is to meditate.
The more I meditate the more I discover the foolishness of being busy just for the sake of keeping myself uselessly occupied, trying to satisfy and keep entertained that insatiable factor, the human ego.
With each passing day, grows the harmony of my being. The less my mind strays, more healthy and alert I feel. I have traded useful action for useless activity.
Harmony cannot be explained it has to be experienced.
Yoga comes from the Sanskrit word 'Yuj', means to join. I prefer to describe yoga as a confluence, the coming together of the flow of the body, the mind and the spirit.
Yoga offers, possibly the simplest and best path for individuals and humanity to be to be truly holy*. Holy because the mind, body and spirit of the individual will be in harmony with each other. Blissful, aware, active and healthy people.
Could we ask for anything more?
*Holy comes from the same word, meaning, 'to be whole'
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