By public life we mean more than mere social life as we intend to include all aspects of our life even as individuals. There should be constant interaction and balance between our individual and social lives. Arriving at harmony between the two is required for a healthy living physically, psychologically, intellectually and spiritually. At the root of our public life sustaining it is our hidden life as expounded in the previous section. Here we undertake to delineate certain fundamental themes that should permeate our public life leaving it to individuals to apply the same in specific situations. In this venture, the pride of place is taken by our prayer life, which is the connecting link between our hidden and public lives in as far as the spirit of prayer developed through our hidden life is meant to permeate and activate our public life. A constant vitality imbued by the undercurrents of the presence of God is an example of such a spirit of prayer. It need not be always and everywhere explicit in our daily routine, but should remain implicit that animates and controls every one of our actions. It is equivalent to watching and praying as per the injunctions of Jesus to his disciples so that they may not be led into temptation, meaning the final assault of the Tempter at the time of our death. This kind of constant reference to the presence of God in our daily lives in no way interferes with the efficiency of our mundane duties. An example from the Indian way of thinking should clarify this vital point of our personal life. A servant hired from far away by a wealthy businessman entrusts the care of his children to this servant. He takes care of the children as his own without compromising on anything that is required to be done for their welfare. At the same time, the whole undercurrent of his thinking and acting is for the benefit of his own children staying in his own village. He takes care of the master's children as if they were his own for the ultimate benefit of his real children by sending the money earned. Does the thought of his own children interfere with the efficiency of his work? On the contrary, in order to please his master he would be engaged in taking care of his children as if he had no other children of his own. This kind of devotion and dedication to his work in no way takes away his deep consciousness of the presence of his own children who live far away from him. Similarly, the remembrance of the presence of God can be and should be the hallmark of a true believer in God. That kind of an attitude is called the spirit of prayer essentially required for a prayer life.
Religions stress the need of the aid of the Spirit of God in maintaining a spirit of prayer and a prayer life. St. Paul elaborates on the workings of the Holy Spirit of God in our lives in his Letter to the Romans, chapter 8. St. Stephen admonished the Jews of his time, who were still heathen at heart and deaf to the truth, how they always fought against the Holy Spirit (See Acts, 7: 51). The Atharva Veda 7.52.2 prays that we may not fight against the divine spirit within us. It is important, therefore, to be in touch with the divine spirit and order our lives in harmony with the inscrutable workings of the Spirit. Finding our real Self and being rooted in it is essential for an efficient and successful engagement of the world by us. For this to happen we have to return to ourselves through prayer and meditation for reaching out to the world as real masters of the situations confronted by us. How this is to be achieved should be clear from our search in the rest of this section.
The human is a unit constituted by his or her body and soul, the external and the internal. There are 4 main sources of energy in the human, namely, the physical, the emotional, the intellectual and the spiritual. Their alignment and convergence should be the source of tremendous energy locked up in each of us. Opening up the locked in energy is achieved through physical exercises, mind control, education, i.e., the drawing out of the wealth hidden in all of us and activating the spirit within which the divine spirit dwells. Thus we see that all the four of these sources of energy may be summed up in two: the body and the mind on one hand and the intellect and the soul on the other. Activation of the spirit is to be cultivated through Jnana (knowledge), (Bhakti devotion), and vairagya (detachment), which are the three items of invocation at the beginning of all Indian Pujas (sacrificial offerings). Detachment is visibly practiced in our actions (karma) and thus karma (action) is not neglected in the above scheme of things. The ancient Indian Munis (Sages) resorted to Yoga practices for obtaining this vital alignment. Our mind occupies a central place in the activation of positive energies in us, if we are careful to curb the destructive negative thoughts that crop up constantly in our thinking. The means to achieve it is prescribed by the great Yoga Guru Patanjali in his Yogasutras (Rules of Yoga practices). To keep our minds positive and vibrant, Patanjali proposes the important Sutra (Rule): Chittavritti Nirodha(ha):yoga, i.e., stopping all the activities of the mind or stopping all thinking is yoga itself. What is primarily meant here is to cut out all negative thoughts that lead us to anger, jealousy, strife, lusts of all kinds, greed, attribution of motives to what others say and do and consequent anxieties etc. The positive thoughts spring up from the recesses of our mind where our spirit meets the divine spirit. True education wells up from this source where meditation and contemplation of the infinite possibilities in us lead us to true alignment and harmony. The difference between a composed person facing the world and a disturbed person doing the same tells upon his or her perspectives and quality of life leading to effective education.
The Bhagavad-Gita invites us to a perfect alignment of body and soul by our encounter with the Absolute as follows: "One gradually attains tranquility of mind by keeping the mind fully absorbed in the Self by means of a well-trained intellect, and thinking of nothing else." (Bhagavad-Gita 6.25). The Self with a capital 'S' stands for the Absolute or God Himself as He is present in us and is our real Self. When it is used with a small "s' the 'self' stands for our false self masquerading as our real self. The confusion between the two is the underlying source of all conflicts in human affairs. Hence we have the above-mentioned prescription in the Gita. In the Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions, the image of God in man stands for the real self and the false self is our Ego. Further in the Christian tradition, Jesus Christ is the perfect image of God to which image we have to conform ourselves to enhance our original image.
The tranquility of mind advocated by the Gita is not a call to inaction as is evident from the fact that it was the result of the advice given by Sri Krishna to Arjuna for resolute action in the face of indecisiveness caused by Arjuna's attachments. The very first line of the Gita identifies 'dhamakshetra' (righteousness) with 'kurukshetra' (concentrated action). It means that justice and righteousness cannot be divorced from purposeful action. The tranquility of mind, therefore, is only the outcome of a well -balanced and harmonious co-ordination of our body and soul. In the Bible, the equivalent idea is to enter into God's rest for which the Sabbath was devised in the Old Testament. In the New Testament Jesus Christ himself is constituted as the Sabbath on returning to his Father so that anyone who approaches him is already at rest in the profound meaning of tranquility of mind. It is expressed in everyday life when Jesus invited all those who labor and are under heavy burdens to approach him so that he could be their consolation and support (See Matthew, 11: 28-30). (To be Cont'd).
Religions stress the need of the aid of the Spirit of God in maintaining a spirit of prayer and a prayer life. St. Paul elaborates on the workings of the Holy Spirit of God in our lives in his Letter to the Romans, chapter 8. St. Stephen admonished the Jews of his time, who were still heathen at heart and deaf to the truth, how they always fought against the Holy Spirit (See Acts, 7: 51). The Atharva Veda 7.52.2 prays that we may not fight against the divine spirit within us. It is important, therefore, to be in touch with the divine spirit and order our lives in harmony with the inscrutable workings of the Spirit. Finding our real Self and being rooted in it is essential for an efficient and successful engagement of the world by us. For this to happen we have to return to ourselves through prayer and meditation for reaching out to the world as real masters of the situations confronted by us. How this is to be achieved should be clear from our search in the rest of this section.
The human is a unit constituted by his or her body and soul, the external and the internal. There are 4 main sources of energy in the human, namely, the physical, the emotional, the intellectual and the spiritual. Their alignment and convergence should be the source of tremendous energy locked up in each of us. Opening up the locked in energy is achieved through physical exercises, mind control, education, i.e., the drawing out of the wealth hidden in all of us and activating the spirit within which the divine spirit dwells. Thus we see that all the four of these sources of energy may be summed up in two: the body and the mind on one hand and the intellect and the soul on the other. Activation of the spirit is to be cultivated through Jnana (knowledge), (Bhakti devotion), and vairagya (detachment), which are the three items of invocation at the beginning of all Indian Pujas (sacrificial offerings). Detachment is visibly practiced in our actions (karma) and thus karma (action) is not neglected in the above scheme of things. The ancient Indian Munis (Sages) resorted to Yoga practices for obtaining this vital alignment. Our mind occupies a central place in the activation of positive energies in us, if we are careful to curb the destructive negative thoughts that crop up constantly in our thinking. The means to achieve it is prescribed by the great Yoga Guru Patanjali in his Yogasutras (Rules of Yoga practices). To keep our minds positive and vibrant, Patanjali proposes the important Sutra (Rule): Chittavritti Nirodha(ha):yoga, i.e., stopping all the activities of the mind or stopping all thinking is yoga itself. What is primarily meant here is to cut out all negative thoughts that lead us to anger, jealousy, strife, lusts of all kinds, greed, attribution of motives to what others say and do and consequent anxieties etc. The positive thoughts spring up from the recesses of our mind where our spirit meets the divine spirit. True education wells up from this source where meditation and contemplation of the infinite possibilities in us lead us to true alignment and harmony. The difference between a composed person facing the world and a disturbed person doing the same tells upon his or her perspectives and quality of life leading to effective education.
The Bhagavad-Gita invites us to a perfect alignment of body and soul by our encounter with the Absolute as follows: "One gradually attains tranquility of mind by keeping the mind fully absorbed in the Self by means of a well-trained intellect, and thinking of nothing else." (Bhagavad-Gita 6.25). The Self with a capital 'S' stands for the Absolute or God Himself as He is present in us and is our real Self. When it is used with a small "s' the 'self' stands for our false self masquerading as our real self. The confusion between the two is the underlying source of all conflicts in human affairs. Hence we have the above-mentioned prescription in the Gita. In the Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions, the image of God in man stands for the real self and the false self is our Ego. Further in the Christian tradition, Jesus Christ is the perfect image of God to which image we have to conform ourselves to enhance our original image.
The tranquility of mind advocated by the Gita is not a call to inaction as is evident from the fact that it was the result of the advice given by Sri Krishna to Arjuna for resolute action in the face of indecisiveness caused by Arjuna's attachments. The very first line of the Gita identifies 'dhamakshetra' (righteousness) with 'kurukshetra' (concentrated action). It means that justice and righteousness cannot be divorced from purposeful action. The tranquility of mind, therefore, is only the outcome of a well -balanced and harmonious co-ordination of our body and soul. In the Bible, the equivalent idea is to enter into God's rest for which the Sabbath was devised in the Old Testament. In the New Testament Jesus Christ himself is constituted as the Sabbath on returning to his Father so that anyone who approaches him is already at rest in the profound meaning of tranquility of mind. It is expressed in everyday life when Jesus invited all those who labor and are under heavy burdens to approach him so that he could be their consolation and support (See Matthew, 11: 28-30). (To be Cont'd).
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