How to Please the Lord

The thirteenth-century mystic Dnyaneshwar tells us how best to please the Lord:

[B]e still, be peaceful, be patient.
Otherwise, you’ll exhaust yourself
with wasted efforts.
Day and night, you tire yourself
tending to the world – what is it
within you that keeps you
from devoting yourself to God?
Only by repeating God’s name, …
will you break the world’s hold on you.
_{Many Voices, One Song}

Human beings are born for the purpose of reuniting with God, but they are also born with a mind that has other plans. Unfortunately, the monkey mind is such a force, such a power, that it is virtually untamable. Hopes, fears, desires, worries, pleasures, and pains course through the mind endlessly, no matter how hard we try to control it. But mystics tell us that with the help of a master, one can overcome the mind and bring it into balance to be still, peaceful, and patient.

To please the Lord, be still
We are told that when our body is motionless in meditation and when our mind is quiet, centred, in balance and concentrated, the Lord is pleased.

In the book Zen in the Art of Archery, the author described his first meeting with Awa Kenzo, the man who would become his Master. While sharing tea and conversation, the author suddenly heard a low rumbling and felt heaving under his feet. The whole building swayed and creaked, objects crashed, and people called out in alarm. Many rushed for the stairs. The author jumped up to run for safety and turned to Awa Kenzo and urged him to hurry up. But Awa Kenzo sat unmoved, with hands folded, eyes nearly closed, as though nothing concerned him. The sight so astounded the author that he remained with Awa Kenzo. Throughout the earthquake Kenzo remained still and unperturbed. When the earthquake ended, Kenzo resumed the conversation at the exact point where he had left off, having remained completely concentrated and unaffected by what was going on around him. Throughout, he was calm and still despite the chaos.

In a similar way, those seeking God-realization are challenged to achieve stillness. This is no easy task. It is a lifelong struggle with the mind, which stimulates endless thoughts and actions. Seldom do we get a quiet moment, let alone achieve stillness. Only when we are quiet and still the mind do we get the full benefit of meditation.

Maharaj Charan Singh said in Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. II:

The mind is in the habit of always thinking about something or another. The purpose of simran is to eliminate all those thoughts … to achieve that silence where the mind can be absolutely still.… The moment that … you have been able to eliminate worldly thoughts, light and shabd will absolutely pull you, will catch you there. It will not let you remain in a vacuum.

Once we’re in touch with the Shabd, the game changes. The power of that inner sound subdues and quiets the mind, pulling it away from its desires and attachments. Only then is the veil lifted and the wall smashed that separates us from the Lord, allowing stillness to prevail. When that happens, the soul is able to meet the Lord in his Shabd form.

To please the Lord, be peaceful
Hazur Maharaj Ji used to quote Christ’s message: “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Matthew 5:9). Only when we find peace within will the soul be released from the mind, allowing us to attain self-realization. While the mind remains dominant, we are miserable and at war with ourselves. When we are at peace within ourselves, the whole world looks peaceful to us.

Those fortunate people who are living at peace with themselves can go beyond the mind and become one with God. Hazur Maharaj Ji writes in Light on Saint Matthew that they have “obtained peace within themselves by love and devotion for the Father, and by forgiving and having mercy on other people.… They radiate peace around them and share that peace with others.”

This ideal can be achieved only through working hard at our meditation and trying our utmost to do our simran whenever our mind is free during the day. The more we can concentrate our mind – the higher we can bring the attention – the more peace we will find, and the more pleased the Master will be with us. Being peaceful allows us to be loving, kind, and compassionate. As Hazur Maharaj Ji said, those who are at peace have no malice against anybody and are full of forgiveness.

To please the Lord, be patient
Seeking the Lord is the most important, difficult, deepest challenge a human being can undertake. We were created for this challenge, struggling with a strange mixture of angel and demon, the divine and the animal. For reasons only the Lord knows, we have two aspects: we are soul, always looking inward and upward, always yearning for the Father whom we feel we have lost. And we are mind and body, always looking downward and outward, always running after something, anything, to satisfy the mind’s addictions.

The task before us, with the Master’s assistance and guidance, is to realize our true self: soul. Are we trapped in this world forever, or do we have a way back home to the Lord? Once we question our existence, we begin to understand that our real purpose in life is to break this cycle of birth and death and go back home to the Lord. We realize that we have always been part of the Father and that through self-realization first, we can break the bonds of this world and achieve God-realization.

Samarth Ramdas, one of the Maharashtrian mystics, describes the scope and complexity of the work involved in the task the Master has assigned us. In Many Voices, One Song we read:

Whatever you can see, know it’s not real.
Whatever you can’t see, know that it’s real.
This knowing has grown as my mind
has digested the master’s teachings.
Try to understand what can’t be understood,
try to see what can’t be seen,
try to know what can’t be known –
think clearly and see that this is the way.
What is hidden, let it be revealed.
What is unattainable, try to attain it.
What is difficult to study, study it slowly.

What a picture! This path requires that we learn to understand what can’t be understood, see what can’t be seen, know what can’t be known, reveal what is hidden, attain what is unattainable, and slowly study that which is difficult to study. We are trying to undo patterns created over untold lifetimes. We need to be patient and let the Master do his work on us in his own time. As the mystic Attar said, “The Friend decides the when and how.”

So, what happens next? What can we do? Hazur Maharaj Ji sums up our plight when he tells us in Spiritual Discourses, Vol. II:

What is it … that brings us again and again to the prison of the body? Our love and attachments in the world. What created them? Simran and dhyan. What kind of simran and dhyan? The simran and dhyan of this world, which will perish and pass away.

Since we already have the habit of doing simran and dhyan, of thinking constantly and visualizing, saints tell us to take advantage of it. Only simran will release us from simran, only dhyan will release us from dhyan – but we must do the simran and dhyan of that which will never perish or pass away. And what is that? It is the absolute Lord.

Saint Tukaram tells us this when he urges us to focus on the Lord every moment through our daily practice:

Your Name is my penance, my charity, my austerity.
It’s my religion, my duty, my daily practice.
My only pilgrimage, my only vow,
your Name is my one virtuous deed.
Your Name is my path to union, my sacrifice –
it’s my remembrance, repetition and contemplation,
my family customs and duties.
My one daily practice is your Name –
it’s my thought, my conduct, my commitment.
I’ve no wealth nor possession worth mention,
says Tuka, other than that of your Name.
_{Many Voices, One Song}

As saints advise us, to please the Lord we must be still, peaceful, and patient. To achieve this, we must constantly repeat God’s name. Only then can we come in touch with the Shabd, Nam, or Name, merge with the Lord, and complete our journey home.