Summarized by Neelima Turaga:
The class started with the opening prayers and meditation.
We discussed the famous statement of motivational speaker Jim Rohn, “ We are the average of the five people we spend the most time with”. The people you spend time with, and the activities chosen to spend time on can have a great influence on a person. With the summer coming up and hopefully with some extra time on our hands, it’s time for us to ponder on this statement, and choose wisely the company we keep and activities we engage in.
We discussed the subjective analysis of shlokas 26-29. In an emotional condition, we are in an illusionary state. When we are free of emotions, we are in a relative reality state. Rarely, when we clear all our emotions, in a meditative state, we can be in absolute reality.
As an example, if a friend calls in the morning and tells you that he met an enemy of yours yesterday, and would give more details in the evening. You would be thinking about it all day and keep imagining all sorts of things and different unpleasant scenarios. This is unreal. When the friend meets you in the evening, and starts talking about several different topics, except for the enemy, you start thinking that maybe it wasn’t that bad after all. May be the enemy did not really say anything bad. This is relative reality. But suppose the friend tells you that in fact your enemy was all praise for you, and fondly remembered the time spent with you, which is the absolute reality.
Tip – Daily when you wake up, spend a few moments to thank the Supreme power for everything, and recall the true “you” and remind yourself that everything else is unreal or relatively real and impermanent.
Scientific studies have proven that people practicing meditation for a long time have more gamma waves, indicating high performance of the brain. They also have alpha waves when necessary, meaning they can be in an alert state whenever necessary.
One of the techniques of meditation, involves “japa”, taking the Lord’s name and pause a few times in between to experience total silence and continue with the japa. With practice, the periods of silence would become longer and easier to achieve.
There was a story about a monk who lived in India. He had renounced all the worldly possessions, and all he had was a begging bowl. The people nearby had great respect for him, and treated him like God. The queen of that kingdom heard about the monk and came to see him. She saw that he had nothing in his possession, but a begging bowl. Assuming that all his power and divinity came from that bowl, she asked him to give to her. She said that he could have a golden bowl studded with diamonds, in return. The monk was ready to give her what she wished for, without anything in return. He accepted the golden bowl on her insistence. A thief was watching all this from a distance. He felt that the monk would have no use for the golden bowl, and decided to steal it from him. As he approached the monk’s hermitage, he saw the monk throw the very bowl at him from the window. He picked it up. He could have quietly walked away, getting what he wanted, but his curiosity did not let him leave. He wondered why the monk threw the bowl out, and was determined to find out. He went in and asked the monk, why he threw away such a precious bowl. He wanted to know how that was possible, and if he could become his disciple. He said that he was a thief, and no matter how hard he tried, he could not give up. That was the only thing he knew. The monk said he had no problem if he was a thief and gave him a month’s time and told him that whenever he went to steal something, stop for few moments to focus on his breathing. And after a month, he can come back to be his disciple. A month passed by and the thief returned, very weak and frail. He told the monk that he could not steal at all in the past month, and every time he started focusing on his breathing, he somehow just walked away without stealing. He completely got rid of that habit and became the disciple of the monk.
This story tells us that however ignorant one may be, a time may come when a single moment can transform him by kindling the urge to know and acquire knowledge.
Since this was the last class for the year 2017-18, everyone was asked their feedback about the study group format and content. Study group plans for the year 2018-19 were discussed.
We ended the class with closing prayers.
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