Day 42
When the earth shakes for a few seconds, there is much disaster. You can exist on this planet because it is steady. Once in a while, it shakes and this throws the inhabitants off balance. A few seconds of this is enough to bring life to a standstill for many days.
There are natural calamities - flood, torrential rain, scorching heat. This disturbs life. You can be at peace only when the nature is at peace and is steady. At one time a couple of years ago there was snow fall in the Sahara desert in the middle of summer. In the same year, England was extremely hot during the winter months.
This had never happened before.
Nature trembles once in a while. But your senses are trembling every day. When the senses are shaky, it is unable to behold, or hold the Lord within. This disturbs the peace in you. Like nature, there is peace only when the senses are steady.
Meditation can happen when there is harmony in nature and in your senses. Your vision needs to be fixed. If not, then the mind is not in a meditative state. You should observe this when you sit for meditation. Are your eyes steady? Is your breath steady? Is the prana haphazard or is it smooth and normal?
When the senses are steady, the soul becomes peaceful. Your being and your spirit become steady. Your senses are shaken when they feel the joy which is the nature of the Self in the objects that are outside. The senses can be considered to be a bridge. On one side are the objects that give pleasure, and on the other side is the Self.
When the senses feel that more pleasure will come from the objects, they shake. Even when the senses shake for a few minutes, they become tired. Then, they are unable to enjoy or perceive the joy or experience it.
Recently, I had been to a blind school in India. There were 175 children who were blind. They sang bhajans for half an hour.
It was amazing the way they were singing the bhajans with all their heart. Our devotees felt that they had never experienced a bhajan session like that. The effect was so powerful. This was because they had sung with no distraction of sight. They did not look around while they were singing because they could not see. It was as if they were singing from a very deep, meditative state.
Their whole being was in the bhajans. These eyes which you think guide you and bring you light, bring you darkness too. This is because these eyes bring you all sorts of temptations - imagining that something is more beautiful than the other. The mind would be far more peaceful without the eyes.
The eyes are the greatest distraction for the steadiness in the Self. Evil does not tempt you. Your eyes are good enough to do so. Someone had prayed to God not to give him any temptations and that he would find his own. The eyes find their own temptation.
Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji
PATANJALI YOGA SUTRAS
