Real Tapas is always Effortless
This text was machine-transcribed from the printed book and may contain errors. Select the words and choose “Report a mistake”.
Usually, when people who have spent their whole life running after the material world decide to enter into spirituality, they will carry the same mental set-up in relation to spirituality also. In the same way as they were chasing wealth or success earlier, they now start chasing peace, chasing enlightenment. It becomes an ego game for them. Whether their tapas develops or not, they develop a huge spiritual ego! They feel they have done something extraordinary.
The moment you think that you are doing something extraordinary, that very act becomes a burden for you. That very achievement will stop you from making any further progress..! The moment you think you are doing extraordinary meditation, you will try to get up from your seat.
When you are sitting and doing japa (chanting), when you are counting your beads, the moment you think, ‘Oh, I think I have been meditating for a long time!’, what is the next thought that comes up? ‘It is enough for today! I can’t do anymore; my knees hurt, my back aches, let me get up!’
Just look at your own life. Whenever you have achieved something extraordinary, it has happened only when you did not feel it to be extraordinary at that time! You only realized that it was extraordinary after you did it.
One problem with spiritual seekers is, we don’t know the art of being ‘playfully sincere’. We don’t know how to approach our seeking. Somehow, we always feel that unless we act in an extreme manner, the goal cannot be achieved. We cannot believe that enlightenment can be had so easily, so we plan all kinds of ways in which we can torture ourselves, in order to prepare ourselves for enlightenment! It is the nature of the mind to make us feel that enlightenment is very far away, and we have to torture ourselves for it!
A small story:
During his years of performing tapas, even the Buddha made the mistake of falling into extremes. For many years, he performed all possible tapas
- exposing himself to the hot sun, starving himself, torturing his body.
Then, it is said, one day he came across a musician tuning his instrument. He saw how carefully the musician was doing this, because if he tuned the string too tight, it would snap, and if he kept it too loose, he could not play the instrument at all. Too tight or too loose - both don't work!
This was a revelation for the Buddha. When you are ready for it, even a small incident can be a revelation for you. When Buddha saw the musician, he immediately understood the truth, and he understood where he had gone wrong.
From the musician, Buddha learnt the importance of walking on the madhyapantha - the Middle Path, the path of balance. Later He shared this revelation with millions of His followers, 'In the same way as you tune the strings of your instrument, so you should hold your mind in meditation - not too tight and not too loose.'
This is tapas or 'intelligent effort'. When you add intelligence to your effort, your effort will become effortless. You will not be acting out of your ego, thinking that you are performing something extraordinary, nor will you be acting out of confusion, doing unwanted things that do not produce results.