Voice : Hello
Me : Hi. Whatever it is..it wasn’t me.
Voice : Haha. Struggling with that mind, again ?
Me : Isn't everyone ? Since you are already in my head, how about offering me some solutions ?
Voice : I did. But you had your reasons to abandon it. So, I am working to pick another one you might like..
Me : Now, what did I reject ?
Voice : Daily practise of withdrawal from the senses and anchoring into infinite consciousness and also spending some time in silence repeating the Divine name.
Me : Oh, you mean meditation ?
Voice : If that is what you like to call it.
Me: I don’t want to do anything that seems like a ritual.
voice : Fair. And you don’t have to.
Voice : Did you brush your teeth, have a shower, eat your three meals a day, have that evening tea, exercise hard, do that office work, buy groceries and walk your dog yesterday ?
Me : Yes
Voice : And today ?
Me : Yes, I did all that today
Voice : And, you feel you are likely to do this, the day after ?
Me : ….Yes. What you getting at ?
Voice : Nothing. It’s a pretty ritualistic life you have there. I can roll the days back and forth and see that you have been doing the exact same thing for years. That reminds me..it is time to change your brush.
Me : These are not rituals. It’s something that has to be done to live normally. Everyone has to do it.
Voice : When you are already living a pre-prescribed life with repetitive and patterned behaviour and more often than not, you do this without being totally involved in the action by simply going through the motions …what can be more ritualistic than this ?
And the irony is that you have abandoned conscious act of meditation or repeating God’s name because it falls under your understanding of a ritual.
The one who is really free from all rites and rituals including prayers, chanting or meditation is also free from all the rituals of the worldly living. His absorption is whole and complete. This brings him natural detachment, freedom and joy. His thoughts, words and deeds flow from only the dictates of Inner Communion with God. His every moment is a natural and spontaneous expression of Divinity. His surrenderance is so complete that he experiences his life as not his own, but of God living though him. He does not strive, but just IS. Such connection is rare and for such a one, rituals have no place.
Do you have this experience ?
Me : No.
Voice : The one time during the day when you open your heart for communion with the Divine is discarded because it seemed ritualistic and you feel you want to be natural. How natural is your life in this world ? Does living with worry, anxiety and fears feel natural to you ? Your only natural state is being God.
It is perfect that you do not forsake the world, but live in it to the fullest. When you are living discarding nothing from the world, why choose to only discard a divine practice while living in the world ? You can do so, but do it with the right understanding.
Me : But, shouldn’t we live by the heart. I feel it to be another dogma ?
Voice : Yes, live by the heart. The deep feeling within you, is your guide. Be conscious when the mind masquerades as the heart. Let me give you an example..for the longest time, weren’t your workouts just a regime …another ritual ?
Me : I used to do my workouts based on a schedule I had set for myself.
Voice : But sometime back, you had discovered something that books and courses don’t teach you. You discarded your workout timetable and used your heightened awareness. You paused, felt the energy for the day and after a deep communion with your body, you let your heart dictate the physical activity for the day and this is what you do daily. The dry motions turned into body movements of joy and energetic upliftment. You begin your exercises with listening, feeling and connecting, not on a doctrine.
Me : Yeah and this has begun to work really well with me now. Having no pattern govern me, it’s opened something at an inner level and I feel renewed.
Voice : In the same way, what may begin as a ritual always has an opportunity to become a deeper experience and it always lies in your hands to change the way you do the same things. Nothing is a ritual when do it with your heart. And, over time you will know how the power of falseness can prompt you to embrace and discard beliefs through the mental trickery that you are going through.
If remembering God becomes a ritual - know that you have turned it so. If you are determined to seek something higher, you don’t discard the ritual, you transform it instead, by bringing love and higher wisdom.
Meditation, rituals, prayers, chanting - these are words. Your feeling about it gives them the meaning.
Me : So I can continue with what I abandoned as a ritualistic meditation ?
Voice : What is meditation ? Everyone meditates. When you making a sales pitch you are meditating on your client, if you are playing, you are meditating on the game, when you are cooking you are meditating on the food, when you are writing you are meditating on your content, but when the subject is God, meditations and prayers become rituals that a 'liberal aspirant’ can discard with very good reasoning.
Me : Hmm..
Voice : Anything done without love is a ritual and in the same way anything done with your heart is meditation in action.
Me : My logic was that God is beyond doctrines, rites and regimentation.
Voice : And that is true. If you have spontaneous, effortless and wholehearted remembrance of God each moment - who needs anything ? If not, maybe, you need to choose your so-called ‘rituals' wisely. Everything will depend on what you want desperately and your honest efforts towards it.
As meditation deepens, compulsions, cravings and fits of emotion begin to lose their power to dictate your behaviour. You can find profound liberation and live life intentionally and in freedom. A well tuned mind helps to conserve vital energy wasted in unserving emotions. This loss of vitality leads to illness.
When you know how to rightly handle any turmoil in the mind, your own power comes in your hands and you effortlessly become someone who can live with love and share this love with so many others. You have so much to give especially in times like right now - can you afford to waste your vital energy in just battling for your personal equipoise and mental equilibrium ?
Me : But chanting a Divine name is certainly mechanical and ritualistic, especially when the mind drifts everywhere. Isn’t it just a dry and mechanical process ?
Voice : Yes, chanting of a Divine name or repeating prayers may certainly seem mechanical and even trifling. If you try to use your intellect, you will fail to comprehend the most powerful secret. Do you know the ancient wisdom behind it ?
Me : What’s that ?
Voice : The chanting of a Divine name is a simple spiritual formula of tremendous power that has been transmitted from age to age. The Divine name has the potency to stamp and mould the consciousness. When repeated with such faith for long, the Divine name goes on creating vibrations which press upon the layers of the inner consciousness till one day there comes a sudden opening and the power hidden in the Divine Name reveals itself to the being. Even as fire is naturally endowed with the capacity to burn combustible substances, the Divine name has the natural capacity to burn away impressions that bind.
Me : Wow. But, one needs to have that kind of faith to chant ..
Voice : The factor of reverence is not essential. This seemingly mechanical exercise is the most potent ancient tool for any spiritual aspirant. It is no empty repetition, for each repetition has a new meaning carrying you near and nearer to God. This frequent service of lips imperceptibly becomes a genuine appeal of the heart and sinks down to an inward life, becomes a delight, becomes as it were, natural to the soul, bringing nourishment and fulfilment.
Just the way you have made an unconscious ritual to consume certain things everyday that weaken your body, why not choose another 'ritual’ if it helps you move from anguish to love ? Remember, your inner reserves of love and wisdom are infinite.
Me : The mind is tricky...
Voice : It’s an age old battle - between mind and the heart. Meditation on God and chanting the divine name itself can be the remedy. If remembrance of God is a ritual, I would say it’s a lofty choice amongst all the other rituals that interlace your life.
You have jettisoned the time that you would have spent on prayers, meditation or chanting. How have you been substituting that extra time ?
Me : Well, many things.....ahmm…..look, it’s not like I am absorbed in God every moment, but I get your point.
Voice : Whatever your way..deep absorption in divine consciousness fills your heart with what you seek. Then, what happens around you, or to you will become crystal clear and the false existence will loosen it’s grip on you. You are able to live with freedom, love, joy and importantly, this joy is your inner creation.
The heart goes by this inner feeling to pursue what it must. The mind draws it’s own conclusions. You are free to choose. But, do so in total awareness.
Even if you abandon God, you are ever assured of God’s love. You just decide how you want to feel each day, while on a divine sojourn.
And when your life becomes a divine example of God's love, truth and purity in the world, you don’t have to worry about meditating…you become a living meditation.
Here’s a tip - meditate on God, but be utterly oblivious to the idea that you are meditating.
Me : How the hell do I do that now ?
Voice : In time, you will know.
Me : Ok
Voice : Do you believe this world is an illusion and only God is real ? And that all that happens is divinely ordained ?
Me : Yes. But it’s not something I experience. But, I am convinced of that in theory.
Voice : Then, know that your entire living existence and all that you do is nothing but a ritual.
Me : Hmm
Voice : Prayers, Chants or Meditation on God is not about emptying your mind, but should be about filling it with God’s Love. Not a harmful ritual to choose, especially when your life is nothing but one big living ritual.
When you believe nothing and nobody is separate from you and everything in life is interconnected, you will realise you don’t meditate for yourself, but for the whole world.
