The One Guarantee

What is the single most important principle that applies to our personal lives? It is very simple: if we have a clear destination and we always orient ourselves towards it, provided that we keep moving forward, we will definitely reach our goal.

Imagine that you are on a ship in the middle of the ocean. There are no landmarks, just sea and sky, no matter in which direction you look. So you could be utterly lost and without any sense of direction. But then someone radios you the GPS coordinates of a safe harbour. You punch in the coordinates on your satellite navigation system and immediately the needle moves to a position on the dial. If your current direction is not correct, you’ll be able to see the difference on the dial and make corrections accordingly, as you move in the right direction.

Then perhaps the wind comes up and the ship starts drifting off course. Or you encounter ocean currents that pull the ship in the wrong direction. Again, you make appropriate course corrections. In this manner you will definitely reach the harbour. Similarly, if we are clear about where we want to be and we persistently head in that direction, we will definitely arrive at our destination. The only real variable in this will be time.

So, in our daily lives as disciples of a true spiritual master, we need to remain clear about our primary goal and how to move toward it. Our goal is to reach the eye centre and be in the presence of our Master’s Radiant Form within. This is our safe harbour, and the means by which we travel there is simran with our focus at the eye centre.

Many of us have difficulties with our spiritual practice. We sit with the intention of doing a couple of hours of good and proper simran. Instead, we find that our mind will not cooperate. We start off doing a few rounds of simran, and then suddenly we find that our mind has drifted off completely and is engaged in solving world hunger, or is imagining travelling to Mars, or wondering when the next service is due on our motor vehicle.

Immediately we remind ourselves that we’re supposed to be doing simran, with our attention at the third eye. This we do for a while, and then after some time we wake up to realize that we’ve been fast asleep for the last hour or so. Again, with a growing sense of frustration and disappointment, we direct our attention to doing our simran.

This kind of problem is not unusual. If we listen to our brothers and sisters on the path, many will recount their struggles with the mind and their difficulty in keeping it focused and doing simran properly. This level of frustration can get to the point where we are tempted to give up altogether, out of sheer exasperation. But is this response appropriate? What do we propose to do if we give up? How will we ever reach our destination?

If we really look at our situation in this world, if we examine our life and consider what options are open to us, then we have to realize that we have very few choices. In fact, if we’re honest, there are none. It’s at this point we need to ask ourselves how we came to the path in the first place. What drove us was a need within ourselves that was not being met by the world.

If someone asked what we were looking for at that time, it is doubtful that we could have answered with any degree of certainty. What we knew was that we were dissatisfied with our life, and nothing we encountered at that time had addressed the deep sense of need we felt. In truth, this need cannot be met by anything that the world can offer; it never has, it never will. And this is because the true nature of that need is not of this world; it is of the soul.

The thing that keeps us running around out here is the mind. It seems that mind and soul have different needs and unfortunately the mind seems to have the upper hand.

In fact, though, the mind is also unhappy. The mind, like the soul, also longs to return to its home, which is in the region of Trikuti. Unfortunately it is a slow learner, so we have to exercise considerable patience and perseverance to retrain it to direct its attention inward and upward, instead of downward and outward – as it has been doing since time immemorial.

There is no solution for either mind or soul in this world at all. We have spent a considerable portion of our time and our energy in developing our intellect to be a fine instrument to smoothen our passage through life in this world. We considered it necessary in order to earn a good living and enable us to solve the many problems that come our way.

But now, when we attempt to meditate, which is the only means that we have to progress towards our spiritual goals, the mind starts to become a problem – an obstacle instead of an asset. It is not a problem that is easily solved, because we have always regarded the mind as our primary asset, and it has always been through the medium of this mind that we have experienced and learned about life. Mind loves nothing more than stimulation. But our path is one of stillness and focus. If ever two concepts were inimical to each other, it is these.

It all comes back to the basic facts of life. We came to the path because we realized that there were no solutions to be found out there in the world. So when we were blessed with the awareness that there was such a being in this world as a true spiritual master, we were ready for the great truth that he had to share with us. We were ready to listen and to ingest the timeless teachings that he would impart to us.

Now, when we feel overcome with frustration, disappointment and despair, we must not succumb to helplessness and apathy. Nothing has changed about the situation in which we find ourselves. The destination remains the same. The method and direction for reaching there also remain the same. We just need to persevere. We need to remember that one fundamental principle that guarantees the outcome: if we have a clear destination and a method for travelling towards that destination, then all that remains is to apply that method correctly and consistently. Then, if we persevere, the outcome is certain.

Even if we are gravely disappointed at how feeble our meditation seems to be; even if we find it impossible to concentrate for longer than a few minutes at a time; even if it seems to us that our feeble efforts could not possibly get us anywhere, we just need to remember: If we are pointed in the right direction and we put one foot in front of another and keep doing this, we will definitely get to our destination. This is an inviolable law of the universe. And if that were not enough, we have been initiated by our Master, who stands surety for us, guaranteeing that he will one day see us to the Lord himself.

Do we need any further assurance? It is a done deal. All we need to do is keep on keeping on.