Self Awareness Through Meditation

Author(s): Ranjitsingh Kumat
Publisher: Ranjitsingh Kumat

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SELF AWARENESS-MODERN THINKERS VIS-A-VIS ANCIENT TEACHERS
Importance of ‘Present
"What gives present that 'stamp of reality?' I am real for I am always now, in the present and what is with me now shares in my reality. The past is in memory, the future in imagination." A thing focused in the now is with me, for I am ever present; it is my own reality that I impart to the present event. Just keep in mind the feeling ‘I am'.12 Merge in it, till your mind and feeling become one. By repeated attempts you will stumble on the right balance of attention and affection and your mind will be firmly established in the thought and feeling 'I am'. Correct your attitude to your body and leave it alone. Don't pamper, don't torture. Just keep it going most of the time below the threshold of conscious attention. The state of craving for anything blocks all deeper experience. Desirelessness is the highest bliss”13.
“To know one's real self is bliss, to forget-is sorrow. The real is beyond the mind. Seeing the false as false is meditation. This must go on all the time. Deliberate daily. Exercise in discrimination between the true and the false and renunciation of the false is meditation.14 Do not undervalue attention (Dhyana). It means interest and also love. To know, to discover or to create you must give your heart to it—which means attention. All the blessings flow from it!5. Self-remembrance and self-realization are two aspects of the same state. Self-remembrance is in the mind, self-realization is beyond the mind. The image in the mirror is of the face beyond the mirror. Life itself is the Supreme Guru; be attentive to its lessons and obedient to its commands. When you personalize their source, you have an outer Guru, when you take them from life directly, the Guru is within. 16 The greatest Guru is your inner self. Truly, he is the supreme teacher. He alone can take you to your goal and he alane meets vou at the end of the road. Confide in him and you need no he alone meets you at the end outer Guru.' Establish yourself firmly in the awareness of 'I am'. This is the beginning and also the end of all endeavour."18
Desire for pleasure and fear of pain
"The obstacles to clear perception of one's true being are desire for pleasure and fear of pain. It is the pleasure-pain motivation that stands in the way. The very freedom from all motivation, the state in which no desire arises is the natural state. Leave alone your desires and fears, give your entire attention to the subject to him who is behind the experience of desire and fear. Ask who desires? Let each desire bring you back to yourself.19 The end of pain lies not in pleasure. When you realize that you are beyond pain and