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The asaadhana portion has to be dropped. Then naturally saadhana will prevail and reign. Examine your own mind and remove the so-called untruthfulness, stealth, corruption, dishonesty, ego and the like. When you start dropping one after the other these non-Self elements, you will find that the Self goes on illumining your mind and intelligence more and more.

Saadhana is Elimination of Asaadhana

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Recently I was emphasizing a very important point relating to my introspections during the period of intense saadhana I did in Kolkata. One point I was stressing: when you approach the truth and you advance in your saadhana, the concepts and perceptions will inevitably change. It is not merely a question of changing, but becoming corrected, becoming true, becoming refined. One important landmark in the progress of one’s saadhana is understanding that it is not so much of saadhana that is to be done, but it is the asaadhana to be undone.

What is meant by that? We don’t have to acquire many qualities, rather we have to dispossess or drop the unwanted ones. In our very effort to dispense with unwanted qualities, we cultivate the opposite virtues.

A person practises truthfulness, primarily with the object of becoming ‘non- untruthful’. So it is untruthfulness that has to be dropped rather than truthfulness to be practised. Even in your meditational efforts, what you have to do is “drop the non-Self”. The Self is not to be attained or reached at. On the other hand, the influence that the non-Self has on you is to be removed.

How to make this point clear? People always say, “Swamiji, we are worldly people… we are worldly people. The world is too much with us… too much. Worldliness engulfs us.” Is it true?

What is it that you call or describe as the world? Is there any world different from God and godliness, which can possibly envelop you and stifle you? The very notion and idea that the world is non-godly is the worst of notions and perceptions. Should you struggle to get out of the worldly grip or should you understand that there is nothing that is non-godly and therefore, to think that I am stifled by worldliness is itself wrong? So, what you have to do is dissolve the worldliness attitude.

The world itself – the pāñca bhautik world itself – is an expression of the Supreme Reality. So, whatever is the expression of the Supreme, will it not have the brilliance of the Supreme itself? Then, where is this world that you consider to be opposite to God? Thus, the very idea of worldliness is wrong. You should drop the idea of worldliness and perceive everything to be godly. It is not the worldliness that stifles you; you do not have to escape from it. The very thought of worldliness is to be dropped and godliness is to be perceived. Perception of godliness necessarily depends upon dispensing with worldliness.

So, the asaadhana portion has to be dropped. Then naturally saadhana will prevail and reign. Examine your own mind and remove the so-called untruthfulness, stealth, corruption, dishonesty, ego and the like. When you start dropping one after the other these non-Self elements, you will find that the Self goes on illumining your mind and intelligence more and more.

Imagine a bulb covered by different layers of coloured clothes – one is blue, another is red, a third is yellow, another is white, and another is violet. Many different layers of cloth are wrapped over that luminous bulb. Finally, you find a little light, if at all, coming out. What do you have to do to get the full brilliance of the bulb? Remove one after the other these wraps, and you will find the bulb illumining in its pristine brilliance.

In the same manner, the asaadhana is to be detected, identified, and dropped. Then automatically, saadhana will prevail. Most of you are trying to think of something as saadhana and you are running after it, as if to possess it. While you run after the saadhana, the asaadhana prevails with all its strength, depth, and force. Therefore, the effort never succeeds.

Even in the hours of meditation, most of your time will be spent on introspection to find out what are the defects, insufficiencies, constrictions and the like which your mind, intelligence and ego are suffering from. When you are able to detect them, like darkness before torchlight, the very detection will remove them. Your detective ability should be sharp, very sharp, sensitive, and when you detect a defect, in the very detection, the defect will disappear. It is such subtlety and perceptive ability that all of you need to develop rather than looking at a goal like a Himalayan Self or a spatial Self.

We are already pervaded by the Self and the non-Self elements are the ones to be removed. Once they are removed you have to do nothing with the Self. It will automatically start shining forth. So, there is a lot of meaning in this statement – it is the asaadhana that is to be dispensed with or dropped and not saadhana to be done. It is ignorance and its effects that we have to remove, rather than gain Knowledge and Truth. So, drop untruthfulness, drop ignorance, drop asaadhana, then you will find the opposites reigning beautifully in your system.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.

– Aug 2005 Vicharasethu