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TWELVE STEPS TO HEAVEN ON EARTH
Kinkar Vitthal Ramanuja
1) Regular Servicing for the Physical vehicle: Yoga
Even a humble vehicle like the bicycle requires regular servicing for smooth running. This human body is no exception; it is the most complex machine in existence! Yoga (Asana, Pranayama, etc.) is the best technique to provide total servicing to this physical system. Fast walking, jogging or skipping etc. (according to one’s liking) can also serve as a good warm-up or pre-course to Yoga.
No-Life posture (Shavasana) is also very effective to keep the body and mind free from exhaustion and tension. Sitting in seclusion, regularly looking peacefully at the waters of the lake, river or sea – is also an easy process to pacify the mind and intellect. This process also helps one to cure incurable insomnia.
2) The Supreme Power-House: Meditation
When we get an electrical connection with the powerhouse, we are able to enjoy so many benefits out of it instantly: Light, fan, T.V., computer etc. all gets energised or empowered in a moment. Likewise if we can establish a hotline with the Supreme Powerhouse (the Almighty or Divinity) through different spiritual endeavours – Yoga, recitation of the Holy Names of God, obeisance, prayer, meditation etc. – we become empowered in the physical, mental, intellectual, material and spiritual planes all at once. The mobile cell phone, thanks to which we can connect ourselves with the entire world, often requires some timely re-charging to recover fresh energy. Similarly the mobile set of our mind also demands some daily recharging through meditation, prayer etc.
3) The Holy Scriptures and Hymns
Reading from or listening to Holy Scriptures the Bhagawata, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Bible, the Koran, the Granth Sahib etc. help to dissolve our tension to a large extent. Reciting from the divine texts or hymns like Srimad Bhagawad Gita, Sri Sri Chandi, Sri Sri Guru Gita, Sri Sri Vishnu Sahasra Naam, Sri Sri Ram Raksha Kavach, Sri Sri Hanuman Chalisa, Sri Sri Durga Chalisa provide an immediate relief from our daily stresses and strains, absolves us of our sins, nullify the disturbing effects of adverse stars and lead us so easily to material as well as spiritual prosperity.
4) Sri Naam Writing
Writing of ‘Sri Rama Rama Rama’ or any Naam of your favorite God daily for sometime is an equally effective process to stop the diverse turbulent waves of the restless mind miraculously in no time. This is what the sages affirm:
Bharjanaam bhava bijaanaam arjanam sukha sampadam Tarjanam yama dutaanaam Sri Rama Rameti garjanam
If you want to end the cycle of life and death, if you want to attain to material pleasure as well as prosperity, if want to scare the emissary of God Yama (the god of death), carry on the rumbling of Sri Rama Rama Rama. Not only ‘Sri Rama Rama Rama’, this promise is applicable to any Holy Name of any faith.
5) Try to be a Manager, Never an Owner
Try your best to be a manger or a caretaker of all your possessions but never an owner – at least mentally or ideologically. The Almighty is all powerful; He is the Supreme Lord of the entire Universe, including your own sweet home. Through all your endeavours duties or activities try to love and serve the Supreme Master to the best of your capacity. This attitude of divine servitude will take you to the Kingdom of Heaven on this very earth beset with depression, frustration and all sorts of tension.
6) Regular Practice and an attitude of Detachment:
Abhyasena tu kounteya vairagyena cha grihyate - (Srimad Bhagawad Gita)
Through the regular, uninterrupted and sincere practice (abhyas) of Yoga, Karma Yoga, Prayer, Meditation etc you will be in a position to control your mind which is as fleeting as the most turbulent air. One thing more: A slow but steady detachment (vairagya) from the material pleasure and a similar attachment to the spiritual world is of imperative necessity to take all the practices to perfection.
7) The Greatest Happiness through Contentment
One of the easiest ways to freedom from tension is to adopt an attitude of contentment.
Santoshaat Anuttamah Sukhalabhah (Patanjali Yoga Sutra: 2/42)
You must try for the best in your material and spiritual pursuit but gracefully accept whatever God grants, according to you fate. This equanimity of mind in success and failure is the richest Yoga.
8) Cleanliness of the Mind (Antar Shoucha)
Cleanliness is next to Godliness. External cleanliness is understandable (bath etc) but internal cleanliness – the cleanliness of the mind is much more important. Internal cleanliness falls into four distinct categories:
- Maitree - (Friendliness): You must be friendly (without any feeling of rivalry) to those who enjoy the same status as you.
- Karuna - (compassion): You must be compassionate (without any superiority complex) to those who are inferior to you in status.
- Mudita - (Gladness): You must be happy (without any feeling of jealousy) with the prosperity of others.
- Upeksha - (Indifference): You must ignore (without any protest) those people who belong to a status lesser or inferior than you.
All these four psychological techniques will contribute enormously to maintain always the equanimity of your mind.
9) Infinite Target: Infinite Joy
Nalpe sukham asti bhumaiva sukham
There is no genuine joy in the short-living material fulfillment. It is all there in the infinite.
As you go on pouring melted butter (ghee) in the fire, the fire will never be satiated; it will hanker after more and much more. Similarly try however you may; you may never be able to satisfy your hankering for material pleasure. Therefore, with your search for material pleasure you must keep side by side a research for the Soul, the Supreme who alone is the fountainhead of joy infinite.
10) Remain Happy all The Time
Try to remain happy all the time. This is possible (a) only when you have through regular practice learnt well the art of emphasizing more on all the plus points of your life overlooking the negative ones. (b) This is possible especially when you are in a position through regular Yoga, Prayer, Meditation etc to enter into the spiritual realm full of abiding and abounding divine experiences.
11) Remain Busy all the Time
‘Empty mind is the devil’s workshop’. To get over unnecessary tension remain busy everyday and all the time with some work or other. Fix a routine of your daily duties and activities and try to follow the routine in right earnest. Only then will your always active mind find no leisure to fall a prey to tension, depression and all that.
12) Salutation: The grand Solution
Practice ‘salutation’ —at least mentally— to everybody, friend or foe, relative or unknown person, to every situation favourable or unfavourable, graceful or disgraceful. And salute if you like with the common Pranam Mantra ‘Aim Sri Gurave Namah’— salute with devotion to your personal Guru or favourite Deity. This salutation will simply work a miracle. You will realise your God as well as your Good in everything. Sri Bhagawan Ramana Maharshi used to say: Merge your will in the will of the Divinity.
Pray, ‘O God, Thy will be done, not mine.’
Through this repeated salutation you will reach a Tension-free sublime state:
There is only Peace, Peace, Abiding Peace!
Shanti, Shanti, Prashanti!
(Excerpted from Be Tension Free by Shri Shri Vitthal Ramanuj Maharaj. Copy of the book is available at Flipkart.com)
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