Essential Philosophy: Divinity In Love
Raja Sharma
Copyright@2011 Raja Sharma
Smashwords Edition
All Rights Reserved.
Chapter One
Your knowledge, your experiences in life, and some other circumstantial causes may have compelled you to think that loneliness and peace are the essential things which you need the most at all cost. It happens to almost everyone, somewhere in the journey of life, but it is very difficult to cover the miles assigned to us without any company. You are surrounded with your relatives, your friends, and your close acquaintances but you feel that something is missing.
This something is very important and it can only be experienced in true company. In Hindu Vedic culture, there is a very beautiful word “Satsang”. It is derived from Sanskrit language. Sat means true and Sanga means company. Indian philosophy deals extensively with the virtues and values of Satsang.
To me Satsang has a wider meaning because I feel that without the presence of the master, Satsang is incomplete. I have already defined the word Satsang in the first paragraph but it can’t be described because it is an experience. In English there has never been such a thing as Satsang so it can’t be translated into English. It is something which can be experienced.
Satsang is a highly precious thing in Eastern world, especially in India and Nepal. You are there in the presence of the master; you are not doing anything, you are just being there, like the many others like you who are there in the company. The presence of the master is magical, just like a catalyst. Neither you nor the master is doing anything, or is going to do anything but things begin to happen, you feel something inexpressible happening to you. There is the meeting of the different energies and the result can’t be expressed through words.
This very Satsang can be your meditation, you Sadhana. You are surrounded by the energies emanating from the master and the others like you who are present there. You don’t do anything but something highly significant is happening to you. You are almost drowned in that feeling, it is like being in stupor, intoxicated, and you don’t want to come out of that state.
You might ask what will happen to you. I can’t explain it because there is no vocabulary in my possession which can explain it. You are confused, and you ought to be confused. Yes, this very confusion is essential. The more you go deeper into the mystery, the more you are confused. You find your answers somewhere and you feel that things are clearing a bit but this very clarity of the things is going to bring more confusion. I call it the blessed confusion. Have you ever experienced it? If you are confused by the subtle, you have closed your eyes to the physical world that confronts you; you are there but still you are away, your energies are the new spring of your joy and it results from the Satsang, the true company.
Deep meditation means a lot to me because I am physically present there but my eyes are closed and mind is not responding to the external digressions. You might say that you are disturbed if someone makes even a little noise. This is just the beginning of your new experience, and you are prone to be disturbed by the external noises. You are very sensitive in deep meditation but the more you meditate, the more insensitive you become to the external clamour. Then finally a time comes, you are present in the company of others but you are actually not present there. You are not even touched by the external forces. You have submerged yourself into infinite, the inexpressible, the subtle, the beautiful, the experience of the bliss which is your personal and you can’t share it with others.
When you have enabled yourself to touch the abysmal depth, the bottomless, the infinite, the depth of your existence, the depth of your being, you will not be disturbed, rather, you will be in such a blissful state that you will be existing physically but still you will not be feeling anything that disturbs you. Then disturbance or no disturbance are the same, sound and silence are the same. Then opposites are no longer opposites – they have become complementary. Then there is no contradiction in life, and you remain a witness of everything that happens. Much will happen and nothing will happen to you. It will always be happening somewhere else, and you will be a watcher.
There might be times in your life when you are disturbed by the noise, something which is annoying, and something which is really very disturbing. Don’t panic; just let it come to you. There will be little jolt but it will finally settle down.
My friend lived in a single room apartment in a tall building in Mumbai. Behind the building there were railway tracks and every night hundreds of trains passed by. I was surprised that he was sleeping soundly but I was highly disturbed by the noises made by the passing trains. I was not in love with the noise of the trains. He seemed to have been deeply in love with the noise made by the trains.
One evening, it was raining heavily and my blessed friend was in my house, a very peaceful house, away from the clamour of the big city. My little house overlooks the vast ocean and cool breeze continues to flow continuously.
That night my friend could not go back to his house so I arranged a bed for him to sleep in my room. Soon I was sound asleep but my friend was restless. At midnight I opened my eyes and found him standing in front of the window.
I smiled and went back to sleep. I understood that he was missing the noise of the trains. He had mastered the art of sleeping in the presence of noises. That was the incident which provided me with a method. It was essential for him to fall in love with the noises but everybody can’t do the same, but at least the very art can be practised.
Yes, I am telling you to fall in love with noises because you will never find a place in this world that guarantees you zero disturbance. Whenever a disturbance comes just accept it, allow it. If you try not to allow it then it really becomes a disturbance, but if a sound is there and you jerk, then the sound passes through you and you will fall deeper into silence than before. Then each disturbance becomes an opening of a new door.
It is an art and you will feel that you are gradually acquiring the art. You are beginning to be in love with even disturbances. It is a good indication, and you should feel grateful and blessed. And this is going to happen many times – this is just the beginning. It will settle after a few days and you will see that there is no problem. Then the new sensitivity is no longer new, and you are rooted in the new ground. It has become common to you, an ordinary reality – no longer a separate reality.
When you begin your meditation, even in the company of many others, it is a separate reality because your soul is going deep, and your body feels somewhere else, far away. Soon the body will follow. It is a little slow; it is a gross thing so it drags, lags behind. Soon it will come to the same point of sensitivity and things will settle. You will feel more capable of being. Many nuances will reveal themselves to you…you will see green as greener; you will see flowers more beautiful. The world will remain the same but as if vast, clean, as if your perceptivity has come to a different clarity, has become more transparent. You can see better, you can love better, you can be better.