Let us examine our mental life to see how well established in the peace of our own subjectivity we are: For too many people the day is so crowded with one activity after another that there is little time given to realize pure self-reflection. Instead, they habitually establish themselves solely in their objective life, allowing their mind to be dominated by the sense-world. They fill weekly engagement calendars with minutiae of their social activities but do precious little to organize and direct their mental duties. During the day, when confronted with free time their unbridled mind instantly demands distraction: Call someone. Turn on television. Go to a game. Go eat. Get away.
Is this continuous distraction not an addiction? Or is it not virtual mental slavery—refusing the mind its own freedom or repose between morning and evening!
By nightfall one is so mentally enervated he just wants to escape in sleep. Yet when he wakes up the next morning he starts anew in the same old worldly habits. How sad! So much of life is destroyed, lost, missed, in the endless habit of sense-bound self-consciousness.
Do you know what happens to the mind that is unprepared, untrained, ignorant of its divine powers of pure self-reflection? It becomes afraid. Afraid to be alone. Afraid to be silent. Afraid to be calm. It is the greatest tragedy of life, because every person desires peace of mind. Every person craves self-composure and strength of calmness, yet few people know where they exist or how to find them. Few people are willing to devote even a few minutes of their day to find themselves in silence and solitude.
Yet we can free ourselves from the habits of worldliness and get into the peace of self-subjectivity in many beautiful, meditative, ways: For instance, some people enjoy absorbing themselves in the thought of being part of the all-pervasive beauty and peace of God. They walk alone, “losing themselves” in the company of God in nature, communing with the vastness of the heavens above them or answering the hypnotic invitation whispered from a woodland stream at their feet. Who wouldn't be blessed by the subjective adoration? A love of the “inner life” includes finding in the quietness and loveliness of the world surrounding us a self-revealing subjective calm. This comprehensive mood of inspiration is a prerequisite for meditation. The habits of quietness, reverie and reverence for nature are of themselves important components of meditation.
Meditation is the only way to self-enlightenment and peace, but unless one truly understands his subjective life he will encounter great difficulties when he attempts meditating. Promised the bliss and spiritual attainments of meditation the novice initially elects it with enthusiasm. But what happens if he is subjectively unprepared is sadly predictable: he either becomes bored with meditation or restless. The reason? So long has his consciousness been dominated by and engrossed in the outer, sensory world that his uncultivated inner realm seems empty to him. Or worse, left unattended it has become cluttered. It is just as if one has been outside all day and returned home to find everything inside his home in disarray. How discouraging! Entering our subjective abode that has been neglected and unattended day after day from morning till night, our mind would surely turn inward and feel, “I want out of this!” The novice, having initially chosen meditation with enthusiasm now rejects it summarily. His unexplored power of introspection is weak, too burdened by worldliness, and also too weak to withstand the demands of the world.
Without a subjective life the true self remains veiled, unknown.
Swami Kamalananda
The Mystic Cross