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Anyone who has been on a juice fast, or other kind of detox program knows there is a general period of uncomfortableness whilst the fast releases all the toxins and they make their way out through your bloodstream. you could say the process of meditation is a bit like a juice fast for the entire being, and sometimes the process brings up various mental and emotional toxins that had been lying dormant deep within, and it can be definitely a trying time as they come to the fore and swirl around your system for a bit befire making their way out.

The mistake many people make is to identify with all these thoughts and feelings, and to feel that these feelings are actually part of them, and start blaming themselves for being such a bad person - all this does is give the negative qualities added strength and increase your helplessness about being able to do anything about overcoming them. All of the great meditation teachers have instead encouraged their students to instead always bring the more positive side of their being to the fore, by either invoking the opposite quality of the negative quality they are currently feeling, or to invoke their higher Self that stands eternally beyond the pale of any petty day-to-day thoughts. The great spiritual master Sri Ramakrishna used to say: “If you say, ‘I am a sinner’, eternally, you will remain a sinner to all eternity. You ought rather to repeat, ‘I am not bound, I am not bound. Who can bind me ? I am the son of God, the king of kings.’”.

The feeling of unworthiness and usefulness is something that has to be banished from a spiritual seeker’s life. All people search for truth unconsciously, but how many people aspire consciously to realise who they really are and what their trup purpose on earth is? Not very many, and if you are one of those rare few people, you are a very special soul indeed. Here are a couple of quotes I like:

“There is beauty in the birds and in the animals. They too eat and drink like us, mate and multiply; but there is this difference: we can realize our true nature, the Atman. Having been born as human beings, we must not waste this opportunity. At least for a few seconds every day, we must enquire as to who we are. It is no use taking a return ticket over and over again. From birth to death, and death to birth is samsara. But really we have no birth and death. We must realize that.”

- Sri Anandamayi Ma

If you want to make the fastest progress,
At least seven times a day,
Perhaps for only five seconds,
But with a very strong inner intensity,
Be consciously aware of your spirituality.
You are on a very, very special path.
You are not an ordinary person.
You are a chosen instrument of the Supreme.

- Sri Chinmoy

For years, copying other people, I tried to know myself.
From within, I couldn’t decide what to do.
Unable to see, I heard my name being called.
Then I walked outside.

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.

(Jaaludin Rumi, translation by Coleman Barks)

I came across this gem on poetseers.org. I like poems like this that lay down the gauntlet and prod you out of any complacency you might be feeling. The mind can make everything seem mundane, even the spiritual life. And the spiritual life is the greatest adventure there is. Living at the limits of the possible, challenging your imperfections at any turn, witnessing little miracles of growth and transformation happen when you least expect them. It’s important to remember that.

(I read another poem on the same theme, if not quite in the same vein, yesterday - it was written by Vikramaditya, an American student of Sri Chinmoy. It was called ‘The Wrath of Vikramaditya’. The wrath was directed at anyone who had been practising meditation and had allowed the notion to creep into their minds that perhaps they can relax and let enlightenment come in the next incarnation or the one after that….there is indeed wrath in this poem, a lot of it, two pages worth to be exact, a big stick to Rumi’s little carrot - but perhaps both are needed, stick and carrot alike. Vikramaditya’s poem is available in the August 2005 edition of Panorama, a compilation of poetry prose and art created by Sri Chinmoy’s students from all around the world. Actually, I believe that is Prabhakar Street, one of the editors of Panorama, in the above photo, which was taken by Jowan Gauthier)