Monday, October 24, 2016

LAZINESS / INERTIA / SELF-JUSTIFICATION / EXTROVERSION ~ Atman Nityananda


LAZINESS / INERTIA / SELF-JUSTIFICATION /  EXTROVERSION

The first ‘things’ to overcome in the spiritual path is laziness and inertia.

If we cannot succeed to this, we will never be able to apply consistently and systematically our daily spiritual program; and without regular daily practice there cannot be any real progress and transformation.

The second one we have to overcome is self-justification. We have to abandon this destructive habit to invent justifications for our negligence, inconsistency and lack of discipline in implementing our daily program.

Most people fail to achieve a deep transformation or abandon the spiritual path, due to inertia and constant self-justification.

The third and crucial one is to manage to overcome the extroversion of the mind. The rajasic mind  by nature is extroverted and continually, compulsively and mechanically seeks sensory experiences and pleasures. This makes the mind hyperactive, distracted, restless and the attention is turned outwards.

But in order to do meditation and be aware of our true nature we need a calm, still, focused introverted mind.

Our effort to conquer our senses and mind and turn our mind within towards its source is the great inner battle. It is a battle  between the external sensory mind and ego and the inner sattvic intellect or intelligence which is the charioteer that has the capacity (when is trained and used properly) to tame the mind and senses and drive the attention inward, towards  our true nature.

Without to overcome laziness, inertia and self-justification will not even get to start a genuine effort to tame the mind and become its master. And without the conquest of mind, self-realization is not possible.