Close the Mind's Eye - Meditation

Sri Annamalai Swami

There was another occasion, also before my room was built, when I tried to live somewhere else. Feeling a desire to meditate in a cave on the mountain, I found one and made it habitable. I still slept in my hut. I just went to the cave during the day. I would wake up at 4 am, prepare food for the day and take it to the cave, I did this for about a week. It wasn't a great success because my meditation was frequently disturbed by visitors. A group of men and women used to come three times a day, sit outside the cave and talk in a very vulgar way. They even tried to beg food from me. They couldn't understand that I wanted to be left alone to meditate. I wanted solitude for my tapas but these people wanted to entertain themselves by disturbing me. Finally, I went to Bhagavan and told him what had happened. After describing all the various disturbances I had experienced I explained how I had come to find myself in this situation.

'I have this desire to live in a place where nobody visits. I feel another desire to get food without any effort. I also want to meditate constantly with my eyes closed, without seeing the world at all. These desires often come to me. Are they good or bad?'

'If you have desires such as these,' said B, 'you will have to take another birth to fulfil them. What does it matter where you stay? Keep your mind always in the Self. There is no solitary place apart from the Self. Wherever the mind is, the place is always crowded. It is not necessary to close the eyes when you meditate. It will be sufficient if you merely close the mind's eye. There is no world outside you which is not in the mind. One who leads a righteous life will never make plans of this sort. Why? Because God has already decided what will happen to us even before sending us into this world.'

I should have anticipated this answer because it was contained in one of the verses from Sivananda Lahari (verse 12) which he had asked me to memorize many years before:

One may practise austerities in a cave, or in a home, or in the open air or in a forest, or on top of a mountaine, or standing in water, or surrounded by fire, but what is the use? O Shambhu (Shiva)! Real yoga is the state in which one's mind constantly abides at your feet. One who has realized this state is a true yogi. He alone enjoys bliss.