Passages from "Meditation and Spiritual Life" - 419 17th-June-2015

[Satwik Joglekar]

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17-June-2015 (Wednesday)

INTEGRATION OF PERSONALITY AND INNER POISE

Our centre of gravity – 1

 

As children we greatly admired a small metal ink-pot which the gypsies used to sell, having heavy weight at the bottom so that it could never tip over and spill the ink. That was a marvel we could not understand until we learned later that the ink-pot had its centre of gravity always secure within it so that it could not overturn and spill the ink. That was an instance of perfect equilibrium in relation to outside forces such as gravitation.

 

With reference to the emotions, this is like maintaining inner serenity in the midst of the disturbing events of life. This is poise. How can a human being acquire serenity and poise?

 

SWAMI YATISWARANANDA – Meditation and Spiritual Life – Ramakrishna Math, Bangalore India. Fourth Edition. 1998 p: 233

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May we follow the spiritual path shown by Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Sarada Devi and Swami Vivekananda to reach God, the goal of our lives, and by His power help others also in their struggle to reach Him.

 

Satwik..........

+91 98809-18153

Skype: satwikj

[ShastriX]

Thank you very much, Satwikji.  Very interesting.

Here's something i blogged a while back:

bit.ly/bsxEase

In the Gospel, we read:

The Master and Vijay Goswami
…
Regaining partial consciousness, the Master said: "Why is my spiritual feeling kindled at the sight of Rakhal? The more you advance toward God, the less you will see of His glories and grandeur. The aspirant at first has a vision of the Goddess with ten arms; there is a great display of power in that image. The next vision is that of the Deity with two arms; there are no longer ten arms holding various weapons and missiles. Then the aspirant has a vision of Gopala, in which there is no trace of power. It is the form of a tender child. Beyond that there are other visions also. The aspirant then sees only Light."

I think, on the spiritual path, there's something similar.  The fundas keep getting simpler and simpler, though we can't say the same about their implementation.

The other evening, on Venki's b'day, dropped over at his place.  He escorted me back home.

We talked of things such as being in the Now as expressed by Eckhart Tolle, of the dichotomy between work and spirituality: One of the things that i have not missed, since i stopped working in 2006, was putting on the garb(age) of a corporate guy.  I seriously feel that working life adds quite a bit of rajas to one's personality, which one can't shake off that easily later on in the evening.

For me the takeaway from that 40-minute walk was being at ease in the Now and how the extent of one's spirituality can be gauged by the ease with which you are in various situations that the Old Mother places you.  The more you are at ease the more you are spiritual.  I think that the original meaning of the word Dis-ease was used as an opposite to this.

This is a very simple idea that one can cross-check in a jiffy.  Are you at ease in the present moment?  If not, how do i get back to even keel?

Stable equilibrium is a good way to understand this:

the kind of equilibrium of a body so placed that if disturbed it returns to its former position, as in the case when the center of gravity is below the point or axis of support; - opposed to unstable equilibrium, in which the body if disturbed does not tend to return to its former position, but to move farther away from it, as in the case of a body supported at a point below the center of gravity.

Replace the "center of gravity" with "ego" and you get the drift as to what should be done.

Even though the grunge look is quite common for me of late, i rarely feel defensive about it.  Because of Ed Ricketts.  Steinbeck writes of his great friend:

All he had was a ratty tie when he met people, but he always made others appear overdressed. 

Because he was at ease with himself.

[Anita Sinha]

Thanks a lot for sharing this Mr Joglekar. Parables and anecdotes go a long way in helping us to understand Mother. She is our heart. Our centre of consciousness.

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