We all want happiness.
Every day, we seek enjoyable experiences in various ways – with our families and friends,
at holiday resorts, through movies, dining out, music, and so on.
Yet, most of us would readily admit that the true source of happiness lies not in the world
of things and activities, but deep inside us all.
We intuitively know that joy and contentment come from within.
But in spite of knowing this, we habitually look outside for happiness, overlooking the
possibility of finding it within.
As we saw in the introduction to this course, the rishis of ancient India turned their attention
away from the world and looked within themselves.
They discovered the true source of happiness to be the inner self, atma, the divine essence
that dwells in us all.
One rishi said in the Katha Upanishad, "Wise ones, those who discover atma, the inner self,
gain shanti, eternal peace."
Yet, a really important question should be asked here.
If your true nature is divine, if your inner self, atma, is the source of eternal peace,
as the rishi said, then why don’t you feel peaceful all the time, every single day, and
in every situation?
Well, the rishis explained that all experience, including the experience of peace, takes place
in the mind.
And if your mind is filled to the brim with hurt, sadness, or anger, then there's no room,
so to speak, for peace to arise.
Even though the source of peace is always present, you can't experience it when it's
obstructed by negative thoughts or troubled emotions.
In other words, inner peace gets overpowered by disturbances in your mind.
Imagine standing in a crowded railway station echoing with the clamor of shouting voices,
roaring engines, and clattering cars.
If someone tries to speak to you from ten feet away, you'd see his mouth move, but you
wouldn't hear a word he said.
Even though the sound of his voice actually reaches your ears, it would get completely
drowned out by all the noise.
In a similar way, even though your true, inner self is the source of eternal peace, you can't
experience it when it's overwhelmed by noisy thoughts and blaring emotions.
This point is shown by the root meaning of shanti, the Sanskrit word for peace.
Shanti comes from the verbal root sham which means to be quiet or silent.
So, shanti literally means quietude or silence, although peace is a nice translation.
Now, consider this.
The quieter your mind becomes, the more peaceful you feel.
You already know this, and it becomes even more obvious in meditation.
Your mind doesn't have to be totally silent to feel peaceful, just quiet enough, just
like a railway station doesn't have to be totally silent to hear someone speak.
These observations lead to an amazing conclusion.
When there's less mental activity, shanti is experienced more.
Therefore, shanti isn't produced by mental activities, like your thoughts and emotions.
In fact, shanti isn't a thought or emotion or any other kind of mental activity; it's
the inherent nature of your inner self, atma.
Let me explain.
In Sanskrit, mental activities of any kind are called vrittis.
Vrittis are like waves moving across the surface of a pond.
Each wave represents a thought, emotion, or sensation, arising in your mind and fading
away.
When the wind blows, a pond’s surface can become so agitated by waves that you can't
see the fish below.
Likewise, when your mind is agitated by vrittis, especially by hurt, sadness or anger, you
can't experience inner peace.
But when the wind dies down and only a few small ripples remain on the pond, then fish
can easily be seen.
So too, when your mind becomes sufficiently quiet, you effortlessly experience inner peace.
Note that fish are always present in the pond, whether you can see them or not.
And in the same way, shanti is always present within yourself, because it's your true, inner
nature.
Meditation helps calm the waves of your mind; it decreases the vrittis that so often obstruct
your experience of inner peace.
Some meditation techniques can make your mind profoundly silent, enabling you to experience
immense peace arising from the divine source within.
Sri Krishna explains this in the Bhagavad Gita, "When the mind is silenced by meditation,
one discovers the true self, atma, and becomes content."
Not surprisingly, this same principle is taught by Patanjali in his Yoga Sutras.
At its very beginning, he states that inner peace is gained by quieting the mind.
He says, "Yogash citta-vritti-nirodhah, yoga is the cessation of all vrittis.
Tada drashtuh svarupe avasthanam, Then, the meditator abides in one’s true nature."
Here, the word yoga means the practice of meditation.
Later in his text, Patanjali describes various practices that result in the nirodha, cessation,
of all vrittis, activities, of your mind, citta.
When your mind becomes completely silent, you naturally abide in your true self, atma,
the inner divinity, the source of shanti.
But, we have to acknowledge here that it's not easy to make the mind profoundly silent.
You can't just turn off your thoughts or order your mind to stop thinking.
You mind seems to have its own agenda: you want to meditate but it might want to wander.
A traditional metaphor compares the mind to a
restless monkey, the kind you see throughout India.
Monkeys jump from tree to tree as quickly as your mind can jump from one thought to
another.
Monkeys are also very clever, like your mind.
They're smart enough to congregate at temples where they can pounce on unsuspecting worshipers
to steal the food being brought to offer in the temple.
Monkeys also seem to congregate near ashrams, as I learned when I visited an ashram in South
India with a friend who was a brahmachari, a novice monk.
Each morning, he washed his white robes by hand and hung them on a clothesline outside
to dry.
The ashram was surrounded by a jungle teeming with monkeys, and one day, a particularly
mischievous monkey pulled his clothes off the line and playfully dragged them around.
My friend faced a dilemma about how to retrieve his robes.
He could grab a stick and chase after the animal, but it would easily outrun him.
Instead, he went to our room and returned with some bananas.
The monkey ran to grab the bananas from him, leaving his clothes behind, which he quickly
retrieved.
This story illustrates the challenge of controlling your own mind.
Just as the monkey could easily outrun my friend armed with a stick, your mind can easily
resist your forceful, direct attempts to silence it.
But just as the monkey couldn't resist some tasty fruit, in the same way, your mind will
yield to methods that are gentle and pleasing.
The banana and stick represent two opposite tactics for controlling your mind.
These same tactics are referred to in the saying about metaphorically using a carrot
or stick to motivate a stubborn person.
Long ago, these were used to motivate stubborn donkeys.
Most of us have little contact with monkeys or donkeys, so here's a more familiar example.
Suppose you're caring for a baby who goes on crying loudly.
If you try to quiet him by shouting, "Stop it!" he'll only cry more loudly.
Any kind of harsh or forceful attempt to quiet him is doomed to failure.
But if you give him some milk to drink or a pacifier to suck on, he's much more likely
to settle down.
Let's apply these insights to the challenge of quieting the mind.
It's clear that aggressive efforts to force your mind into a state of silence are destined
to fail.
On the other hand, approaches that are gentle and pleasing are much more likely to work.
Most meditation techniques employ this latter principle.
Gentle methods like the calming repetition of a mantra or breathing exercises that soothe
your nerves are extremely effective for quieting the mind.
As we saw before, breathing exercises, pranayama, is the fourth anga or limb of yoga in Patanjali's
Yoga Sutras.
In the next lesson, we'll discuss Patanjali's teachings on pranayama and learn an important
breath control technique.