The Benefit Of Contemplation
H H Maa Purnananda
Founder Chairperson
Sree Guru Swami Chinmayananda Sewa Nidhi ®
In spite of being very much on the path of spirituality for a long time, do we experience much improvement in ourselves?
Not really! Though we do find a lot of peace and self- confidence due to the spiritual practises. People often say that it
is good to study the scriptures but it is even better to serve the needy. Let us understand that studying the scriptures and
practicing the scriptural injunctions are the means for self-evolution. Can there be a better service to the society than
improving oneself? Each evolved individual will anyway understand the needs of the fellow-beings and will surely work towards
their welfare too. To evolve, you need to work upon yourself.
Human mind is basically restless and it drives the man to activities; sometimes even such that are worthless! A quiet mind is capable of listening and thinking; and therefore is proactive. The restless mind has no patience to listen or read; it jumps onto conclusions and therefore is reactive. Extrovertedness of mind makes it restless. As much the body needs rest, even more so, the mind does. Do you give rest to your mind while awake? The mind needs to be given rest in our full awareness, hence it is not enough to have a good sleep. If sleep would have been sufficient to keep the mind calm, then such practises as contemplation and meditation were not required indeed. But it has been observed that even after a good sleep man gets up with a restless mind!
Now, let us understand about the benefit of contemplation so that you may get sufficiently inspired to practice the same on a daily basis for your own benefit. The very first step of this practice is to analyze your mind and for which, you have to be alert, agile and observant of your mind. This itself makes the mind comparatively less reactive even while being fully involved in various activities through the day. When you do not react to situations, your mind remains calm and therefore you can work more efficiently. Moreover, the quiet mind cooperates quickly and conveniently with the intellectual understanding and hence it becomes convenient to put the scriptural studies into practice. As soon as the mind-intellect equipment is thus well-tuned up, you begin to evolve to higher levels of your existence.
The practice to uplift your mind to the level of your intellectual understanding, which you have derived from the scriptural studies, is called contemplation. To conclude we can say that contemplation includes self-analysis, discrimination, dispassion and uplift of mind; the benefit – the reactive mind transforms into proactive mind. But, we have to be careful while studying the scriptures and to understand their import in the right way. Misinterpretation of the scriptures or misunderstanding them could be very harmful or misguiding. Therefore it is advisable to read the spiritual scriptures and do spiritual practises under the guidance of a Guru.
This “art of contemplation” can be well learnt in the serene & conducive environment of SISS, Noida.