A small group of us were sitting with Maharshi
in 1972, marveling at how graceful meditation is. We asked him, "Who
created the teaching that meditation requires effort, concentration,
control?"
Maharshi laughed and made up a little parable right on the spot: "The wave asked the sea: could I be like you? The sea replied: it's easy, just settle down!"
So much harm has been done in every religion by the teaching of
concentration, control, and effort to over-come the body with the mind.
This obsession with spiritual effort stems from a sense that there is
something wrong with me, an essential sinfulness, a journey I need to
take, some distance between me and my source.
But a wave does not need to go anywhere to merge with the sea.
No distance ever exists between the wave and the water. At its peak the wave may appear to be an individual, but at its base, every wave is already the whole ocean. Therefore, no energy is required for a wave to return to its resting state. As the wave returns, in fact, energy increases. The practice of meditation is not an effort to rise upward: it is a settling down to rest in the simplest state.
Meditation is not concentration, but de-concentration. When the wave settles into the sea, it does not become more concentrated, but gracefully expands into boundlessness.
*
Returning to the sea, a wave makes a gentle sound, sizzling cool, fresh over sand. As mind settles back into Source, there is
a faint whisper: the sound of the finite dissolving into the infinite, the sound of the mantra.
The Rig Veda declares: Adau bhagavan shabdha rasahih. "In the beginning, God manifested as sound." Likewise in Biblical tradition, God manifests through sound, through the Logos: "In the beginning was the Word." Modern quantum physics confirms the ancient vision. In the vacuum at the source of energy there is an internal vibration of "virtual electrons and photons." Physicists call this internal self-resonance "fluctuations of the vacuum."
The mantra, in its subtlest form, is this very resonance at the heart of creation. It is not an ordinary word. The mantra is part of that primordial sound through which the vacuum generates particles of matter, that primordial Word through whom the Creator speaks creation.
Real meditation is not an attempt to rise above the physical body. Meditation is listening to what the body actually is: infinite spiritual energy. For every photon and atom of the body is permeated with this same creative sound. The mantra given to us by the guru at initiation is just a vehicle for the mind to settle down into the cosmic Word that eternally pulsates in divine silence, waves merging with the sea. We
experience the mantra-wave in its subtle form by the grace of the ocean. As that grace draws the mantra's sound inward to silence, the individual mind merges with divine mind, and the body is infused with the energy at the source of creation.
The sea whispers in the wave: so the Almighty whispers in every particle of this body. Seen through the Eye of transcendental deep meditation, there is no distinction whatsoever between God and Man, Heaven and Earth, Consciousness and Matter. We taste the divine in every atom of creation.
In the words of Jesus, "If your Eye is single, your whole body will be full of light." (Luke 11:34)
*
When I was young, someone taught me that God is far above
and difficult to attain.
Someone taught me that I must leave my lowly flesh and journey upward until, at the last day, after
immeasurable striving, I will reach heaven. Someone told me that I can only be with God when I die. Someone told me the goal is to become like an angel, or an ascended master. Someone separated heaven and earth, higher and lower, spirit and body. Someone lied.
Whoever those teachers were, their time is over. Hierarchy is over. Spiritual striving is over. Now is the time to awaken a simpler truth: God is not the end but the beginning.
What yearning for God is made of, is God. I
am a wave in the ocean of divine love, and God dances in every ripple of
my being. God hums divine music in my body. God is my zero. Any number
of steps I climb only take me
further from Source, for Source is at the bottom of the
stairs.
A real Guru does not say, "Strive upward! Take a long journey, and you will one day reach the kingdom!" A real Guru says what Jesus said: "The kingdom of God is already within you... My yoke is easy, my burden is light."
Sink into God before you rise up. Kneel upon God before you take the first step. Then God will be
with you wherever you go, whether rising or falling. This is why we bow: to touch God below, at the bottom, in the beginning.
Jai Guru Dev.
2 comments:
Beautiful piece! Just what I need to hear (and remember) at this time in my life. I had the same realization at one point (yet forgotten) that there is no need for striving after, or efforting, or "pursuing" God (or enlightenment). It was recently realized again, and there was a great relaxation into the Ocean, through the rhythm of the breath, and a deep "comfort." Thank you for posting this! _/\_
I am blown away by this, the kingdom of god is at hand, it is within reach, like a light gently shining in the darkness that beckons to me - the darkness and light are one and the same. WoW!
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