Inner serenity is a matter of slow growth, as all issues of greatness happen to be. Patient and consistent reflections on the esoteric matters of life can bring about that serenity. The ensuing confidence helps us lead a well-ordered and useful life.
Life on this planet is hard. So people turn to religion to help them find composure. It does provide them with some confidence. The atheists and the agnostics do not take that route but have their own way of finding the balance. The above approaches are the familiar ones and human beings generally have a tendency to follow the well-trodden paths. However, those ways cannot bring about the radical transformation whereby the fundamental cause of mental disturbance gets dissolved. This is because they sustain the “I”, the source from which all troubles begin. When we apply ourselves to the esoteric pointers, there is the possibility of undermining the root of the “I”. It is easier said than done, but the very movement in that direction brings about mental serenity that has the tendency to further itself.
Responses to esoteric pointers cannot be contained in words. They are sensed non-verbally, as a matter of gut feeling. Like the light of the dawn, they flower slowly from inside into the outer consciousness and progressively increase in intensity.
Now, we look into five esoteric pointers.
Eckhart Tolle’s Pointer: “Suffering is necessary to understand that it is unnecessary.” This is an involuted sentence and that is what makes it interesting. Reflection on the contents of this pointer paves the way for the non-verbal understanding of life’s hidden truths.
Ramana Maharishi’s Pointer: The Maharishi exhorts us to dwell on the question of ‘Who am I?” in order to discover the nature of the True Self. After some periods of reflection, this question may undergo metamorphosis - from “Who am I?” to “Who is this I?” and then on to “How does this I emanate?”. When one’s awareness is impacted by this question, the inward journey begins.
J. Krishnamurti’s Pointer: “The thinker is the thought.” This is an important issue that the general human psychology is unaware of. It makes us understand the trick that thought plays upon itself, creating an illusion of there being an entity who thinks thoughts. To sense the fact that the thinker and the thought are a simultaneous occurrence is not easy. Again, quiet self-awareness can reveal the truth behind this pointer.
Nisargadatta Maharaj’s Pointer: “The lust for heaven is no different from the lust for the mundane pleasures.” It is not easily perceived that all desires, be they mundane or spiritual, arise from the same ego.
Scott Rogo’s Pointer: In his book “Leaving the Body”, Scott Rogo writes the following lines:
“The universe and its various dimensions cannot be studied merely by the cold art of scientific measurements and statistics. It can be studied only by those who have experienced the various domains of the cosmos at first hand.”
This is where messages from NDE and OBE become relevant.
When we encounter the above pointers, we become very pensive and the attention is directed inward. The habitually noisy mind falls quiet. The beauty of that quietude is experienced first hand. Mental serenity follows.
Those who see the meaningfulness of reflecting on esoteric pointers will soon find their outer life too taking a turn to the better, because the inner significantly influences the outer. The readers will find more along these lines in the website http://spirituality.yolasite.com
Gopalakrishnan T. Chandrasekaran received his doctoral degree in Coastal Engineering from the North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA in 1978. He served on the research and teaching faculty of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India, the North Carolina State University and the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, Kuwait. Aside from his professional involvements, he was interested in the philosophic issues of life for the last forty years or so. This led him to the messages of Ramana Maharishi, Lao Tzu, J Krishnamurthy, UG Krishnamurthy, Nisargadatta Maharaj, Eckhart Tolle, Marcus Aurelius and similar Masters. His book "In Quest of the Deeper Self" is the outcome of his reflections on those and his wish to share the outcome with others. Gopalakrishnan is a member of the International Association for Near Death Studies, Durham, NC, USA. He lives with his family in Kodaikanal, a hill town in South India.
Blog: http://nde-thedeeperself.blogspot.com