Just Do It!

A principal theme of Baba Ji’s answers in his question–and answer–sessions has been: meditate simply because it’s his will. Just do it – because our Master has asked us to, and we need to live in his will.

When we sit for meditation, he said, we shouldn’t expect any progress or any results; we shouldn’t even ask for it, or for anything else: not for sound or light, nor forgiveness for our karmas, nor even for him. We should just do it, because it’s his will.

And along with this, Baba Ji tells us, we should stop analyzing. And yet we do it all the time. We keep asking questions. We want to understand everything. However, the truth is that when it comes to Sant Mat, we can understand almost nothing.

It doesn’t occur to us that our habit of analyzing is damaging. We imagine that we’re being clever when we analyze everything. But as disciples who want union with him, we need to understand that analyzing immediately activates the mind. Whereas, all we should be doing is trying to quiet the mind and live in his will, because we love him and want to please him.

Baba Ji assures us that when we learn to stay in the Master’s will, it then becomes his responsibility to take us to where he wants us to be. Our meditation is nothing more than cleaning the vessel. We can’t fill the vessel – it’s his responsibility to fill it.

One of the main purposes of our seemingly useless meditation is to change us into better human beings, to transform us. We may feel that we’re getting nowhere with our meditation. But if we can see these changes happening, this is a clear sign of at least some progress. Maharaj Charan Singh said:

Through meditation our own attitude changes towards everybody.… That is the measurement we can make, by which we feel that we are progressing in meditation.
_{Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. II}

And then, a very important reason why the Masters insist that we meditate is that it helps to chip away at the huge mountains of karma that we’ve collected after so many lives. As long as our souls are still weighed down by all those karmas, they will not be able to rise. And the horrible truth is that at almost every minute, we could be collecting more karma. How can we possibly escape from here without the Master’s grace and forgiveness – invoked by our meditation?

Maharaj Charan Singh once told us that most of our meditation goes to destroying karmas. That’s very largely what he’s using our meditation for, not to give us experiences of ‘sound and light’. For the Master, destroying karma is far more important than showing us any results.

And let us be grateful that he’s allowing us to clear so much through meditation. If it were not for this, imagine how many more lives we would have to endure on this low plane before we could return home. In fact, we would never be able to return home, because in all those many more lives we would simply be creating more karma, which would then have to be paid off in future lives.

But we don’t think of that as we sit, struggling in the darkness. We often see this struggle as evidence that our meditation is a failure. But even our feeling of failure is a sign that we expect some kind of reward for meditation. Perhaps it shows that we want our meditation to please us, rather than please him.

The old judge Daryai Lal Kapur once told the story of how he spent his annual leave away from his family so that he could spend his time meditating. And every day his mind went crazy and kept thinking of anything except concentrating at the eye focus. Afterwards he went to the Dera, utterly disgusted with himself and quite upset to think that all this time he could have been with his family, enjoying being at the Dera in the presence of Great Master. But when he complained to Great Master about this, the Master actually congratulated him on his weeks of excellent meditation.

So, what was the point here? The point was that his struggle was his meditation. The question of succeeding in that meditation was irrelevant.

It’s our effort that our Master wants. Maharaj Charan Singh told us repeatedly that every minute, every second we give to meditation, is to our credit.

But because all the Masters have so consistently asked us to meditate, we start to think that it’s up to us to succeed at our meditation. The truth is that we can’t. It’s not within our power. Maharaj Charan Singh made this painfully clear:

If we think that with our effort we’ll be able to achieve anything, it is impossible. When we improve the quality of our sincerity, our honesty, then we invoke his grace to come to our help, which is never lacking. If sincerity is there, honesty is there – which bring longing in us and create real devotion in us – all these factors provoke his grace, to help us eliminate all that stands between us and the Father. Just by meditation, by effort, I don’t think anybody can ever reach back to him.
_{Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. II}

So actually, we can’t meditate to get the results we hope for. Still, our efforts will earn their rewards – when the Master judges that it’s the right time to give them to us. In Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. II, someone asks Maharaj Charan Singh if the Master sometimes withholds the results of meditation, and he admits that this may happen.

Sometimes it is not in our interest to have those results, but progress is always there. Every time we attend to meditation, progress is there.… He knows best when to give and how to give and how much to give.

So, let’s not get depressed if our meditation seems so utterly ineffective. And let’s be thankful that, in time, perhaps only at the time of our death, our Master will give us all the rewards he’s been holding back for us. In the third volume of With the Three Masters, Maharaj Jagat Singh is quoted as having said something extremely significant and revealing:

If the disciple’s veil is still not lifted, it does not mean that he should give up meditation or think that he has not made any progress. It is just that his pralabdh karmas [fate] are getting in the way.

Hazur [Maharaj Sawan Singh Ji] said that no effort is ever wasted. At the time of the disciple’s death, when his pralabdh karmas are exhausted, the Saints give him back the spiritual wealth he has earned and his veil is lifted.

So, it really doesn’t matter that we’re being kept in the darkness for so long. It doesn’t mean that our meditation is all in vain. It’s clearing and clearing millions of karmas that are blocking our way. Our difficulty is that we just can’t see that. But here we need to trust that our Master is doing what’s best for us. Let’s leave it to him to do his job while we do ours.

Everything depends on his grace. Without it nothing can happen. Do you think we would ever sit for a minute if he weren’t pulling us from within, if he weren’t making it happen? It’s not fun getting out of bed early on cold winter mornings, but we do it anyway – because he is forcing us to do it. He is the one who makes us long for him so that we keep trying and trying – regardless of seeing no light or hearing no sound. It’s all his grace.

And what is the proof of that grace? Not sound or light or any kind of results in meditation. It’s the pull we feel that makes us get up in the morning, while knowing that this meditation will be the same as all the others. Yet we do it anyway.

There’s grace in the heartache we feel when it seems we have failed him yet again. There’s grace in the guilt we feel when we haven’t done enough meditation or perhaps any meditation at all that day. That’s his pull from within. Our poor meditation is making us long for him.

That’s what it’s all about. He’s making us long for him. He’s also said that regardless of whether we succeed or not, the Master loves the attempts we make to succeed. He doesn’t demand success. He asks only that we try. Just that much effort is important. If we trust in anything, let’s trust in meditation.

And that means just doing it. It doesn’t have to be “successful” meditation; it just means showing up and doing it. That’s all he asks of us.