Time is not for the sadhak

Krishna, my Ishta devata

Time is not for the sadhak

He eats and sleeps the Lord

His music is the primal Om

And truth his two-edged sword.

The sadhak wakes to ecstasy

And bathes in shores of bliss

His tongue tastes sweetness all the while

And happy worlds his wish.

Unattached to pleasure and pain

Breaking Maya's chains

He is one with everything

Released from time again.

The fourth poem in my book Little Flowers of the Heart is my favorite. The words have stayed with me as a prayer for over 40 years, and it is only today that I am coming to understand them. What does it mean to be released from time again?

I have been studying the Yoga sutras of Pantajali through the discourses of Swami Krishnananda, the scholarly devotee of Swami Sivananda of Rishikesh, my beloved satguru. In a two-volume set of over 1200 pages--I am a quarter way through the second volume--Swamiji discusses the way of liberation through a one-pointed fixing of the mind on an object of one's choosing. This is one's Ishta devata or chosen object upon which one returns the mind again and again. Along with renunciation of worldly life, this is the path called raja yoga.

Control of the mind is an arduous journey; it is not for the faint of heart. In the process of fixing the mind, we encounter its many layers of impressions or samskaras, seemingly infinite, groove upon groove of memories grown from the desires that have sought relief through our physical and more subtle bodies. We have literally grown our own bodies in order to satisfy our desires and then we reinforce these desires over and over again. Why? Because we're looking for pleasure in objects, outside of ourselves, and we will never find it. We are making the biggest mistake of our lives; we are mistaking pain for pleasure; we are mistaking the non-self for the Self. And sadly, we don't even know it; there's just this relentless drive to connect again and again through our senses, like a machine. The drive isn't wrong but rather the direction of the drive.

The sadhak, or spiritual aspirant, by fixing the mind on the chosen object, undergoes a gradual process by which he or she comes to see that the very substance of the object is identical to the substance of the Self; in fact, the very substance of all objects is the same as the Self. It is only space and time and the three ever-moving gunas or qualities of nature that make us so certain that there is an object and a subject, separate from one another. We think, I want that, I must possess it. But when we realize that there is only One Self, there is nothing left to desire. One is "released from time again" (kaivalya samadhi).

Bhakti yoga achieves the same result as raja yoga but through a path of devotional service to one's Ishta devata, treating it as a lover, friend, parent, or even a child. I am grateful to have come to a place in my sadhana or spiritual practice where all branches of yoga are intersecting in a grand synthesis that uses my body, my mind, my intellect, and my heart. Yoga means "union" and that is the goal of my life. 

Little Flowers of the Heart: Poems for Sathya Sai Baba from a 19-Year-Old Devotee in 1977 may be purchased through most international sites of Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1545373531

Swami Krishnananda: "Everything is everywhere all the time."