How to attain purity living this life? Shall we all go to the forest caves? What good would it do? If the mind is not under control, it is no use living in a cave because the same mind will bring all the disturbances. We will find twenty devils in the cave because all the devils are in the mind. If the mind is under control, we can have the cave anywhere, wherever we are. Vivekananda
This is what Yoga teaches- the greatest goal is purity. With purity we stay open to Life because we are cleansed of all the samskara blockages that we closed to protect. This is what Michael Singer teaches. He often says that he won't teach people to meditate, won't recommend renouncing all our worldly possessions and running off to caves in order to gain purity.
Why? Because the real work occurs in everyday life. Life circumstance provides the greatest teachings about what is really important. Singer calls it "learning not to close" and Vivekanada in these passages, (as well as other yogis), refer to it as staying detached.
Yoga stresses that it isn't the world doing anything right or wrong...it is our mental reactivity that causes our suffering. Why do we have such grand mental reactivity? We have stuffed and stored our attachments.
It is our own mental attitude which makes the world what it is for us. Our thoughts make things beautiful, our thoughts make things ugly.
We close to Life with our mental reactivity, our judgements and assumptions as to how it should be for "us". Singer tells us we need to learn to stop closing. Vivekananda and Yoga teach us we need to stay detached. There is a way to do that.
Learn to see things in the proper light. First, believe in this world-that there is meaning behind everything. Everything in the world is good, is holy and beautiful. If you see something evil, think that you are not understanding it in the right light. Throw the burden on yourselves!
We are reminded that our stuffing and closing to the beauty and mystery which is Life is our doing. The burden is on us. Instead of opening to the "real" within us, we are attaching to the unreal out there, and expecting that to make us feel okay inside. It can't!
Attachment to the unreal will bring misery. There is only one Existence that is real, only one Life in which there is neither object nor subject...
When we learn to stop closing to this Existence. When we learn to stop attaching to that which is not real...we will stop closing and opening based on what is happening out there. We will then allow the samskaras to come up and out...we will be purified and we will understand the mystery of Life. That is true spirituality.
When we come to that non-attachment, then we can understand the marvellous mystery of the universe; how it is intense activity and vibration, and at the same time intensest peace and calm; how it is work every moment and rest every moment. That is the mystery of the universe-the impersonal and personal in one, the infinite and finite n one.
Hmmm! All is well in my life...all is well in Life!
Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe ( May 2, 2024) True Happiness-Staying Open to Life. https://tou.org/talks/
Swami Vivekanada ( n.d.) The Complete works of Swami Vivekananda . Volumes 1-8. 1.4 Lectures and discourses, page 220-221. Kindle Edition
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