Decisive Effort
Whether an athlete competes against himself at a ‛personal best’ level, at a team level, a country level, or on the world stage, the athlete’s goal is to win the “gold.” To achieve this goal athletes must bring their bodies to peak performance, which they do through discipline. They watch their diet; irrespective of the weather, they get up early every day to train; they stick to a schedule; they wear suitable clothing. But the most effective aspect of their training is that they listen to their coach and practise what the coach says.
The similarities to our spiritual practice are obvious – the difference lies in the goals: ours is liberation. Whatever the goal, to achieve success requires discipline and effort – two words we don’t like. Discipline suggests clipping our wings. It is synonymous with self-control or self-restraint. We say that we want freedom, but we appear to be reluctant to apply the self-control and effort needed to achieve it.
Effort generally means the exertion of physical or mental energy, denoting a determined attempt. The result of effort is achievement. We are regularly asked by the Master to put in the effort to do our meditation, but the word effort may indicate to us that meditation is an unpleasant task.
The terminology we use can affect our attitude. For example: sitting in meditation has everything to do with our attitude – with our mental disposition towards sitting – and whether we see it as a chore or as a pleasure. When we see meditation as a chore it takes effort to sit, and the simran is boring and dry. When we see meditation as a pleasure, the rhythm of simran is pleasing and the experience is enjoyable.
The effort required for meditation not only refers to the physical act of sitting in the posture; it equally applies to the mental effort we must exert. We must clip the wings of our thoughts, which takes discipline and determination.
When we consider meditation a chore, how many of us ever get past just thinking about doing it? Or, perhaps we get stuck in the deception of promising ourselves we will do it: ‟I can’t do my meditation this morning, but from tomorrow, I am going to sit every morning!”
Then there’s the fantasy of dreaming about doing it. Athletes will never win gold by simply thinking or dreaming about the gold medal. Their desire for it is so focussed, so strong, that they are regularly at the track putting effort into their training. Likewise, we need a strong desire to get to the actual doing it stage of meditation. This, coupled with a positive approach and a willingness to please our Master, is a perfect recipe for attending to meditation.
However, exhausted by the challenges associated with our material lives, we appear to have little energy left with which to generate enthusiasm for meditation – and the physical overrides the spiritual. The decision to turn this around lies with us. We have to put in the effort to discipline ourselves.
The more effort we put into our simran and bhajan, the more it will grow – and with its growth will come the realization that what we thought was unachievable is in fact achievable. With the Master’s support, everything is achievable! But, how can we expect his support and his loving guidance if we are not doing our simran and bhajan? It is our effort to help ourselves that attracts his help and his grace.
We are caught in a net of worldly intrigue, which we ourselves have cast, and meditation is our opportunity to free ourselves. But first, we have to believe that there is a net, and that we are caught in it. This will determine the level of effort we put into fighting for our freedom.
As we struggle and flounder in our attempts to disentangle ourselves, the Master tirelessly guides us. He begs us to be still and allow him to slowly cut away the net, but our continued fascination and involvement with the world binds the net even tighter. At some stage, we will realize that if we follow his instructions – if we keep still and relinquish the world and our constant focus on it – we will be free.
Worldly thinking agitates the mind, which disturbs our meditation so that we cannot achieve the stillness and the required level of concentration that are so necessary. An essential part of our effort is to block these disruptive thoughts so that our repetition is able to continue uninterrupted. In Spiritual Heritage Hazur Maharaj Ji gives us the following advice:
With an absolutely relaxed mind, you should forget the whole world when you are sitting in meditation. Only you should exist and the Father should exist, and nothing else should exist between you.
This is the ideal, the perfect way to meditate. It is what we strive to achieve, and what makes all the effort worthwhile.
The basis of our meditation is repetition. Unstable and erratic repetition will cause our focus to oscillate, concentration will be minimal, and our meditation will not be successful.
There is a technique that could help here. Autosuggestion is a form of personal brain programming that uses positive thinking and repetition to achieve successful changes in one’s thinking and attitude. Baba Ji constantly tells us to be positive – to think positively.
So, if we are experiencing problems with our simran, bhajan, and the practice of meditation in general, perhaps we need to infuse our meditation with a positive belief in what we are doing. In Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. I, Hazur Maharaj Ji tells us: ‟You have to take a positive step to attend to your meditation.”
Positivity and repetition are important aspects of meditation, through which we learn to control the mind. When we force the mind to do simran, rather than accept the worldly alternatives it wants to force on us, we are compelling the mind to accept a condition that we choose.
However, when we constantly repeat negative suggestions to our mind, we embed negativity into our thinking. When we repeatedly tell ourselves that we can’t meditate; that it’s difficult; that we don’t like doing it; that we don’t see results – we are reinforcing negative brain patterns which impact on our meditation. The more we neglect our meditation, the more difficult it becomes to sit and the more discouraged we become.
The author of One Being One writes:
To find the One within, requires great effort.
Paradoxically, for life to become effortless, striving is essential.
A major problem we experience with meditation is that our effort fluctuates – we are neither regular nor constant in our effort. The more the mind pulls our attention out, the more difficult it is to get back into the rhythm of simran, so that we end up focusing on worldly issues during our practice. It may be time to supercharge our meditation with interest, enthusiasm, and a strong desire to want to do it. As Hazur Maharaj Ji says:
Every effort that we put in meditation is a step forward. Definitely we get its advantage, and we have its effect. Even if we devote five minutes, it is to our credit.
If our heart is in our meditation, we will put in the effort to do it – and do it correctly. While we may not like expending the effort to meditate, it is essential that we do, for as Sant Charandas tells us: ‟Effort is the true alchemy that turns an individual soul into the Supreme Being.”
No matter how much physical and mental effort athletes put into their sport, they will never win a prize of much value if they don’t believe in themselves. We should never underestimate the value of our effort, and we should never allow negativity to steal this wonderful opportunity from us. It is our effort that will earn us a place in the Master’s heart and turn our soul into the Supreme Being.