The final goal

Be one-pointed. 

Have you ever seen a film clip of a parachutist landing in a circle on the ground? Sometimes they film it from top, with his feet showing on screen and the circle wavering beyond. During the travel down, beautiful sceneries pass beneath his feet -- rolling mountains, wandering rivers; birds fly around him and the billowing parachute is so colourful against the sky. The parachutist loves it all -- it is why he goes skydiving. 

But he never loses sight of that circle on the ground. While enjoying all this, he ensures that the aim of his feet keep coming back to that circle drawn far away, but getting bigger all the time. 

 The only truth of life is death. The only purpose of life is managing death well. Life is there to distract and to give enjoyment. But death, like gravity, has its inexorable pull. The single-pointed mind, intensely focussed on retaining poise and landing with light feet in the circle, is ever ready to pass through death.

Live for death

The most important state of mind is that which happens at the point of death. 

That is the the only travelling-case that is carried from this life to the next one, and the contents are very important. The serenity, peace or calmness that we so desire to achieve should actually be a constant state. As if, if I were to die now, I should be able to do so without regrets. 

But how many of us can say that right now? It is difficult to keep cleaning the house all the time expecting a surprise visit from your mother-in-law. 

So do it once a day, thoroughly and honestly, and not just shoving the dirty things out of sight into drawers, but also throwing them out altogether. Look at yourself in the mirror. Are there black marks on the serenity? Wash your face during meditation. Use prayers and gratitude as soap. If every morning the house is clean, your mother-in-law can never find much dirt, no? 

Preparing for death is not an old man's job. The purpose of life is to prepare for death. So the earlier we start preparing, the better prepared we are.

A desire is never new

When a desire appears in the mind, it has already been enjoyed. 

Is there any way I can desire for a sweet without knowing how it tastes? Something totally unknown can never be desired. Either I have enjoyed it earlier, or someone else has told me about it and I have tasted the possible enjoyment by comparing it with something similar, or by knowing what the components taste like. 

For example, if I have never had a rasgullah, and someone says that it is sweet-tasting, it is spongy, it has lots of syrup, then I know how it tastes because I know how the components taste. There can never be a desire for something totally new. 

Something is desirable because the image of my or someone else's enjoyment has arisen in my mind. In MY mind. So my mind has already enjoyed it. What is the point of repeating the sensory enjoyment? 

Anything desirable has already been enjoyed. Let us be happy with the feeling and watch the desire diminish.

Meditation is like popcorn and coke

You know, when there is an interval in a movie and the lights come on again, and you pull yourself out of the story and the characters of the movie you were so engrossed in till now, and look around and feel the hardness of the seat again and see the people around and maybe buy a popcorn and coke .......... get back to the real world from the unreal. 

Meditation takes us back to the real Self from the unreal world around us. This is also nothing but a 3-D film show. Meditation provides the break or relief from the fantasy that exercises our minds and emotions all the time.

The nature of need

Worse than having a need unfulfilled is to leave it unrecognised. 

Recognising the need forces us to give the need a shape and size and define the depth of its cavity. It defines the amount of energy that the need has a potential to consume. It enables us to look at that need with the background of all other needs and to unconciously decide whether the gratification is worth the energy that will be spent. 

All this thought in fact reduces the energy-potential of the need and it may finally consume far less energy for gratification. Even leaving it unfulfilled finally may not result in a very big energy leakage.