Many of us, when we look at ourselves, tend to feel lonely and bored. Why? It is because we have not seen the deeper layers of our self.
We look at ourselves only in the realm of the mind, or at the level of the body and never look at the deeper layers.... If you don't look at the deeper layers of yourself, you find yourself empty and shallow and experience a sense of loneliness. When you experience a sense of loneliness, you find that your life is utterly boring.
However, if you are meditative with reference to your self, you will see that your body, mind and intellect are the periphery of your personality. In the deeper layers of yourself, there is the pure Saakshi Chaitanya.
When you understand the deeper layers of yourself, you will become content and blissful. In that state you experience not loneliness, but aloneness. And the moment you start experiencing aloneness you will find that the quality of your life becomes very different. Therefore, with reference to your own self, learn to be more meditative. What does it mean, to be meditative?
If you are not meditative, you will find your life to be in bondage, in shackles; the more you are meditative with reference to your self, the more will be the freedom of your life, the more liberated your life will be. Therefore, being non-meditative to one's self leads to bandhana or bondage, whereas meditativeness with reference to one's self leads to a state of nirvana or kaivalya or moksha . Therefore, it is a great responsibility on us, whether we are in grihasthashram or sanyasashram , to learn to be more meditative with reference to our self.
A king was looking for a suitable candidate for the post of prime minister. After several tests, three people were short-listed. The next day was the final test. There was a rumour that the king had a magic lock, created by a clever craftsman, which can be opened only with great skill and knowledge. And whoever unlocked it, would be the prime minister.
Hearing the rumour, two of the selected candidates acquired a lot of books on locks. They spent the whole night going through the mathematical equations relating to locks. The third person was very relaxed. The other two commented to each other that this fellow was a fool. Instead of making the best use of the time he is relaxing! The next morning, all three were taken to the palace. And the rumour turned out to be true. The king said whoever unlocks the lock created by a master craftsman will be prime minister.
These two people felt very happy thinking that it was good that they had referred to many books and then they went and looked at the lock. Once again they returned to the books and started referring to them to find out a solution to the problem, whereas the third person, looking relaxed, went there and looked at the lock and pulled it, and to his surprise, it opened. In fact, it was not locked at all. The other two were still busy referring to the books.
In the meantime, the king announced that the third person had been selected as prime minister. The other two asked him, "You never referred to any book on locks, how did you unlock it?" And the king said, "The very first thing that a prime minister should do is that he should know whether the problem really exists or not, before trying to solve it."
If you do not know whether the problem exists or not and if you try to solve it, the whole effort becomes futile. Here the problem was that the lock was not fastened. And these two persons assumed it was locked and with that assumption they tried to solve the problem. Therefore, they found that they had wasted their time.
We feel we are in bondage. We have to really start looking within. We'll find that our fears are imaginary; we imagine that we are bound.
Discourse: Swami Sukhabodhananda