YOU DECIDE THE DIRECTION THE MIND WILL TAKE

[Ms Tercy Lonan]

85. YOU DECIDE THE DIRECTION THE MIND WILL TAKE
Loving adorations to revered and beloved Gurudev who ever draws you near to him
morning after morning that you may begin your morning in a spiritual, sattvic, yogic way, that you

may enter the day through a period of silent, inner contemplation of the ever-present Divine. You
start the day with an advantage, not a handicap.
The moment you emerge from sleep into wakefulness, the mind starts its activity. It depends
upon you what direction this activity will take, whether it will be left to itself—cluttered up with
whatever dreams you might have had or whatever vasanas (subtle desires) may arise—or whether it
shall be given a noble, sublime upward direction. This is precisely what you are doing when you sit
here morning after morning.
You are the silent, inner witnessing Light of lights beyond all darkness. You are the silent
witness observing all the three states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep. Your consciousness
shines in all the three periods. It is for you to decide what you will make of this great instrument
called the mind, which is no other than the supreme power of the Divine, sakti. It is for you to decide
how you are going to apply that sakti today, and the decision takes place in the first part of the
waking consciousness, the waking hour.
Therefore, very significantly, when the half hour of inner prayer and meditation is over, you
open your eyes and the first thing you utter is the prayer: “namostv anantaya sahasra-murtaye
sahasra-padakshi-siroru-bahave; sahasra-namne purushaya sasvate sahasra-koti-yuga-dharine
namah.” You salute that Being who is endless; It is forever. It is He who appears before you in
innumerable forms. That means that all forms are His forms. As you open your eyes and behold the
day, everything you perceive is Divine and not mundane. It is Spirit, not material.
You move into a world which is one hundred per cent spiritual! In all directions, in and
through all forms, you perceive only the one, eternal, endless Reality. In this way you do not lose,
even for a split second, your contact with God. Inwardly you contact Him through concentration
and meditation. Outwardly you contemplate Him through vision, through divine awareness and
divine feeling. You behold Him in all things that move and move not. It is to invoke within you this
vision, this bhava, this approach, that the silent meditation ends with this chant.
In that Being you live, move and have your being. In that Being you are rooted and perform
all your vyavahara. Where are you? Are you in the Samadhi Hall? No, you are in God. Are you in
Rishikesh? No, you are in God. Are you in India? No, you are in God. Are you on the planet Earth?
No, you are in God. Are you in the solar universe? Even if your consciousness is this expanded, you
are rooted in God and God is rooted in you.
This is the truth about the spiritual seeker. He is one who is ever rooted in God, because this
Samadhi Hall, Rishikesh, India, Earth, this solar universe are all in God. It is this dimension that
should be awake in your heart. It is this perception that should animate your vision. Then no matter
where you are, what you are doing, you are in God and God is in you. You don’t live upon Earth,
you live in a divine realm.
And when you live in a divine realm, to be divine, to feel divinely, to act divinely becomes
natural and normal for you. It is not an artificial effort. It is not something you try to create within
yourself, bring into being. You spontaneously know that this is the truth, the fact of your life.

Therefore, whatever you chant when you emerge from your silent half hour of meditation or
inner prayer, let that pervade your heart and mind and entire consciousness. And let your entire day
be filled with that vision. May you know that wherever you are, even physically, you are in God. It
is not in bhava only, physically you are in God, because other than God nothing exists.
He is not only the hidden Spirit within. When He is in earth, water, fire, air and ether, He is
also in names and forms. A person who hasn’t this perception has to eliminate the name and form
and see the inner essence. But when one is filled with this perception, then He is everything; even
the names and forms are God and God alone.
It is this vision that is the secret of making all your life divine, all your life spiritual.
Everything automatically becomes yogic wherever you move. Wherever your mind moves, it
moves in God; it contacts God everywhere. Everything becomes a continuous process of yoga.
Whatever vision is enshrined in your heart, that alone you behold in the universe outside.
This is the key to spontaneous living in God. May this divine vision be granted to you by the
all-pervading, ever-present Divinity. And may you be successful in living a divine life, and thus
enter into the realm of eternal blessedness and bliss in this very body!