Meditation-It's a Monkey Business

People meditate for lots of reasons, one of the main reason is to have a peace of mind. When we have lots of thoughts during meditation, we say 'oh, today I did not have a good meditation'. But in meditation, sometimes we enjoy the experience, sometimes we don't enjoy the experience (a great resemblance to life, huh!). But somehow or other, as long as we meditate, we definitely get results (Guruji said that).

To illustrate the nature of our mind, Guruji told a Monkey story.

There was a farmer who went to a Saint and said 'Give me something, so that my life becomes wonderful, give me some mantra so that I must do the meditation and good things will start happening.'

 The Saint said 'Ok' and gave him a mantra and told him to chant it. The farmer was very happy and he was running down the stairs going back with his mantra. The Saint said 'Oh just a minute, I forgot to tell you something. Whenever you want to think of the mantra or when you sit for meditation, take care that the monkey doesn't come into your mind. You don't think of monkey. If you think about the monkey then the mantra would become useless, impotent. It won't be of use to you.'

The farmer said ,'Oh this is so easy. I have never thought about monkey all my life, there is no reason that I should think about it now. Mind is just a field, monkeys don't come there.  It is no botheration at all.'

So, he went home and sat for meditation. The first thing that comes to his mind was:

'Say Cheese!'

 He thought 'Oh, this is daytime. Maybe somewhere there is monkey vibrations around or maybe the monkeys wanted him to remember them. But in night time the monkeys will be asleep!'

So he tried to meditate during the night. But as soon as he sat to meditate the first thing that comes to his mind was:

Now not only in meditation in all other times even while standing, sitting, working, eating, he thought of monkeys. He even had nightmares about:

You're right! Monkeys!

In three days, he was so bothered about monkeys that on the fourth day he went back to the Saint and pleaded to him,'Please take away your mantra and your monkeys too! I don't want them. Relieve me of this monkey business. I have gone crazy. I can't do anything!'

So we have to understand the nature of our minds. Instead of being a slave to our minds, become the Master of our own minds.  Thus, our practices, sadhanas and meditation really help us to understand our monkey within us. Let us strive to tame the wild monkey within us!

Talking about monkeys, there was once I went to sit for meditation alone at the Sumeru Mantap at Bengalore Ashram.

I never had any thoughts about monkeys during meditation. I almost wished I had, because when I slowly opened my eyes, I was looking into the eyes of a monkey sitting opposite me. He confidently walked a few steps across towards me, headed to my bag, and calmly took the banana from the side pocket of my backpack.

'Hey!' I yelled at him. He gave a start and ran across the floor and climbed the steps. He stopped when he saw that I did not go after him. He unpeeled the banana and ate his prized possession right in front of me.

'#~*^~#!!'

by ZY