Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Art of Listening to Satsang

||  Shree Hari   ||
  (Satsang Sunneki Vidya)
 

continued ......
Some gentlemen keep asking the question that how to keep the mind concentrated?   There is one very easy tactic that is shown to concentrate the mind.   Sit silently and repeat the name of the Lord, and with the mind also count the number of times repeated.   Let there be no beads in the hand,  do not count either with the hands and neither speak out aloud, only count in the mind.  In this manner,  repeat the name of the Lord (naam Japa) minimally one "mala" (108 beads).  Do not overlook the counting.  If you skip or forget, then start again from the very beginning.   Try to do this and see! You will find immense gains.   Some people only ask questions as if it is entertaining, that how to concentrate the mind, but they do not follow through with the solution that is provided.   Some person asked a saint that Maharaj!  How to concentrate the mind?  The saint asked, have you asked this question of me only or have your asked this of others in the past?  He replied, that I don't remember.  The saint said,  then this will be the same situation with me!   By asking me for a solution, you will later disgrace me! 
Many brothers and sister,  are doing mala-japa while listening to satsang or they are repeatedly writing the name of the Lord on paper.   If you are promptly listening to satsang with a concentrated mind, and if japa is happening on its own due to the influence of past practices on your nature, then that will not be an obstacle.  However the attention will only be on one thing, not two.    He who sometimes pays attention to satsang and other times to japa, he does not know how to listen to satsang at all.  He whose mind wanders to other places at the time of satsang, such as remembering the home,   that person cannot ever listen to satsang properly.   At Swargashram, Rishikesh, on the banks of Gangaji, a saint was conducting a discourse during the summer months.   There I told the brothers and sisters, that if you concentrate and listen, then you will only be able to listen to one thing, not two.   I gave an example by asking - Gangaji's frolicking water is loud and vocal at present, isn't it?  They said,  yes,  it s vocal.  I asked,  that for all this time, have you been listening to Gangaji?  They said – no we were not listening.   Why were you not listening?   Or is it that the mind was concentrated on satsang.   You have ears and the water was also vocal, but due to the mind not being focused in that direction,  it could not be heard.   In the same way, if the listeners mind is at another place, then he will not be able to listen to satsang.  Just as while listening to satsang -  your breathing is going on, blood is flowing through your arteries, you do not need to concentrate the mind on these,  similarly if without concentrating the mind, if  japa is going on, on its own,  then satsang can be heard. But if while listening to satsang, if someone wishes to do japa, then it cannot be done, and writing cannot happen at all.   According to my thinking, if someone does not get time to write Ram Ram at home,  there is lot of work at home, and they think that we are sitting uselessly over here, there is no work here,  therefore let me write and complete a page of the Lord's Name!  The point that is inferred from all this is that he who regards satsang as useless, they are sitting there and filling pages of the Divine Name.  Such people cannot listen to satsang.  
By not listening attentively to satsang, the mind begins to think about the worldly things,  by which the propensities do not remain pure, rather they become rajasic (of the mode of passion and activity).  When rajasic tendencies come, then immediately thereafter tamasic tendencies follow suit, due to which the listener begins to feel sleepy.   The point is, by not concentrating and attentively listening to satsang,  the propensities do not go directly from sattvic to tamasic, rather they follow the order and go from sattvic, to rajasic and from rajasic to tamasic propensities arise.  (to be continued)  
        
From "Jit Dekhu Tit Tu" in Hindi by Swami Ramsukhdasji.
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Date : 24th January 2013      (Satsang Sunneki Vidya)

Ram Ram 
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