Courtesy: Times of India dt 3rd May 2019
According to the Taittiriya Upanishad, “Anandhaive khalvimani bhootani jayante, anandane jatani jeevanti, anandam pranyanybhisanvinshanti” – Out of bliss these beings are born, in bliss they are sustained, and to bliss they go and merge again.
When the Vedas and Upanishads say that life is bliss, how can it be untrue, Maharishi had asked his master, Swami Brahmanand Saraswati, also called Gurudev. And with Gurudev’s blessings and guidance began the journey to bring humankind out of the struggle of life… into the path of Ananda, and not in the path to search for ananda or bliss, but in the path to experience it as a living reality, and in the comfort of their familiar surroundings, irrespective of their culture, religion, education, socio-economic background, or personal habits.
“The philosophy of life is this: Life is not a struggle, not a tension. Life is bliss. It is eternal wisdom, eternal existence,” His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi often said in his lectures. This could baffle many people, as they find these mere words, unable to appreciate the reality of life amidst the chaos, confusion and scamper they are in. With the thick, dark fog of stress and ignorance all around, clear vision becomes unimaginable and starts seeming like something unreal or non-existent.
The apparent reality of life is what it is – far from Bliss or Ananda.
This happened through Transcendental Meditation (TM), a practical meditation technique that allows the mind to settle down naturally and effortlessly and experience inner calm, the transcendent self of the person, which is the source and storehouse of all happiness, creativity, intelligence and energy. Having learnt this technique, a person has a systematic and scientific means to experience what seems mystical and abstract and thus substantiates the Upanishads, too. The experiences of TM are very real and the benefits objective and verifiable, this has also been proven by numerous scientific researches across the globe.
The sweet inside of the orange cannot be known by tasting the bitter outer skin of the orange.
If our focus is always on the skin and its bitterness, we seldom are able to reach the sweetness or appreciate it fully. If our focus and attention is not on the inside, we get trapped in the superficial and lose out on the real taste of the orange, which cannot be known from the surface. In the same way, the true nature of life cannot be understood or determined by experiencing just the surface values. It cannot be known unless life is lived in fullness, in completeness, in its true dignity, which is Bliss. Pure and unbounded. And this pure bliss is brought out in our day-to-day life by accessing the source, the transcendent, inexhaustible reservoir of creative intelligence within us – our own latent and hidden self. The gates of which automatically open with the practice of Transcendental Meditation.
No belief, no effort, nothing complicated or suspicious, just innocent daily practice and the absolute starts to dwell in the relative. The transcendent comes near. Happiness and creativity naturally flow from the reservoir of nature into every aspect of our life, giving nourishment and fulfilment, with this the supreme intelligence of nature also begins to offer its unbounded support and life is no longer a struggle, no longer a burden. It becomes what it is meant to be: Bliss.
– The author is a certified teacher of Transcendental Meditation
Courtesy: Times of India dt 3rd May 2019
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