"The Inner Adjustment"

Conference held by Jaya Yogācārya on May 17th, 2019 during meditation class

Last time, we talked about constant self-remembering which a spiritual searcher should practice at every moment.
This vigilance is not a fearful vigilance for threat, quite the opposite.
It enables to stay aware of yourself while being active and aware of what is going on outside of you.
It is a surrender enabling to become aware of what is real and not illusory.

Remembering the absolute in ourselves enables the absolute to remember us.

This vigilance, preceding discernment, enables to avoid tension build-up in us. It also enables us to observe this permanent duality we experience between what is real and the projections of our mind on this reality.

For this, we must be doubly vigilant.

First, we must be vigilant to constantly return to ourselves, but above all, we must identify our mental mechanism in front of the unique reality.

The mind is a screen that obstructs the vision of this absolute in us.

Becoming vigilant with a false perception of reality where we maintain duality is not the right path.
In Upaniṣad उपनिषद्, there is a Mahāvākya महावाक्य that says: "Sarvam Khalvidam Brahman सर्वं खल्विदं ब्रह्म - All this universe is Brahman".
In other words, "all this universe is the absolute".
This work consisting in going back from "two to One" means to stop giving an existence to our illusory world.
We very often live in two worlds.

There is the world that our mind makes up and has no existence and there is the real world. For the mind, the most important is not the real world and it permanently compares the real world to the world it creates. It covers up the real world with its mental and emotional projections.
You should understand this mechanism implemented by your mind in you and free yourself from it.

Here is a concrete example:

You are invited to a dinner where there will be an important person who could be useful to you. But then you have a lot of unexpected last-minute obligations before arriving to this dinner: you need someone to stay at home with your kid, your clothes are not ironed, the elevator or the car has a problem, your companion is not ready and asks something else from you, adding up to your preparation stress.
Another example would be that of a family getting ready for a flight.

In short, you have spent the whole day or several days preparing yourself with anticipation and mental projections so that the evening could flow perfectly. But the "can you get that for me" from your companion, the flat tire of your car, the sick child... This is your real world and not the perfect world your mind had created so that your preparations could perfectly take place.

Most people in this situation would undergo some pseudo suffering, due to emotions of rebellion, irritation, stress and tiredness. If he practices double vigilance, the spiritual searcher should notice that the mechanism of these two parallel worlds operates all the time in life.
Suffering comes from the creation by your mind of a pseudo second reality which often rejects reality itself.
Suffering increases when the world we create and the real world have nothing in common. So, you think that God is not with you, that you have no luck...

This does not mean remaining passive and never reacting in order to improve situations.
But first, we must accept them.

We must learn how to live in one single world! The one that is real.
Initiatory teachings talk about this, about this double vigilance, about this constant return to the inner and outer self, which enables to see the reality behind illusions or mental projections.

This ego which maintains these perfect projections of the mind prevents us from being unified and
from perceiving this absolute in us.
Going back from "two perceptions to one", from these "two states to one", from "two to one" as mentioned in Upaniṣad, requires an inner adjustment.

The mind creates this unreal world with great ease because it has got into this habit since childhood. It permanently does it, every second.
Life goes quickly.
There is no need for a long and sophisticated method to change this. Of course, you need to understand and ponder the teachings you have been receiving (for many years for some of you), but above all, you need to react quickly to these mind mechanisms.
Eliminating duality is a simple equation.
Make the two into one, and do it here and now.

The flat tire in front of you, or the scratch on the side of your car, this is the truth and it is One, it is without a second.
Yet, you reject this reality in the very moment.
What life asks from you is to not create a second, to not compare what is to what doesn’t exist.
Everything is there, here and now.

You need to make progress by means of this rigorous inner vigilance in every moment.
This is pure practice applied to each step of life.
This is called Sādhana साधन: Sādhana means "making efforts", "doing one’s best"; being more vigilant than the mind.

We cannot make progress if we want the real world to conform to our illusory world.

" Ekam eva advitiyam एकमेवाद्वितीयम्", Chāndogyopaniṣad छांदोग्योपनिषद् 6.2.1 , "the One without a second", this Vedantic Mahāvākya shouldn’t remain a metaphysical statement to us, far from our daily reality.
Thinking intellectually about non-duality without concretely working on it won’t help you to move forward in your life.

Let’s get back to your important dinner.
With all these last-minute hold-ups, your mind plays the movie that this dinner or this departure will be impossible for you.
The mind has set a trap for you and you fell into it emotionally.

When you are overwhelmed by emotion, it is harder for you to find effective and
immediate solutions. Your mind is disturbed by stress and worry. Your negative anticipation prevents you from having enough clear-thinking to remember that your friend has an available car, that your niece can look after your kid who won’t die from his small headache yet...

And even if you really can’t go to this dinner which is so important for your career, what else can you do?
Do you think your bitterness will change this truth?
The truth is the flat tire and no replacement car. Nothing else.
It is not: "if only I had been able to..."

Accept the truth of this unique reality without bitterness and don’t try to have the last word when the truth is stronger than you.

But never stop believing that everything is possible until you get to that point.
Your spiritual energy and the luminosity of your spirit are precious helps to act.
The energy and determination of a yogi are unwavering.
When we were at the side of our master, we could understand his strength.
His strength has become ours which, in its turn, has to become yours now.

How many times did we attain a positive result when we had to solve highly complex situations. You too, perhaps!
Icchā Śakti शक्ति इच्छा, the unshakable willpower, can move mountains.

If in the end reality decides differently, you should learn how to wave to the sky and smile.
If the situation is bad indeed, you should learn how to accept it within yourself.
The Truth of the world is already there.
Your Ātman आत्मन्, your soul is not worried, only your mind is worried.
Trying to stop one’s chronic worrying brings inner peace and fearlessness.

So, stop covering up the truth permanently, creating an illusory one in you and justifying it to your eyes. Stop making compromises with your mind thinking that the Divine is wrong.
You are wasting your time. You reduce the teachings to moral precepts which you will only use to have a complacent attitude on the surface whereas you feel rebellious inside.

If reality is white, why do you paint your inner walls in black or red?
There is no point in meditating and moving forward in yogic practice without this double vigilance about your mind’s mechanisms.

So, don’t wait too long before stopping this mental projection which permanently creates a second, imaginary and useless world in you.
This inner adjustment should be done at every moment, starting now.

Hari om tat sat
Jaya Yogācārya

Bibliography:
– "My Way: The Way of the White Clouds" by Osho Rajneesh, Le Voyage Intérieur Editions.
– "A la recherche du Soi -Tome 3" by Arnaud Desjardins, La Table ronde Editions.
– Jaya Yogācārya adaptation and comment.

Translated by Stépanie BOSC0

Jaya Yogācārya
©Centre Jaya de yoga Vedanta, Réunion Island