With the proliferation of modern technological devices such as computers, smartphones, tablets etc., people are communicating more than ever through digital methods. Many people are talking to each other through emails or instant text messages when they cannot meet in person or speak by phone. Every invention has a positive benefit as well as a negative side effect. It is also true of such innovations such as email and text messaging. While we look forward to receiving communication from our loved ones, family, and friends, we also find that we are getting what is called “spam”, or unwanted messages. Much of the spam may be advertisements that fill up our email inbox on our computer or our smartphones. Some ads disguise themselves as friends, but only want to market us some service or product. Sometimes hackers send us emails disguised as people we know so they can put viruses on our computer. Others are just people we do not know who just keep circulating emails to people on the list of those they know. Whatever the source, it takes up a lot of time to sort through these messages to weed out those we want from those that are just spam or junk email. Sometimes we are frustrated because we thought we could spend a quick minute or two reading or sending an important email to someone but have to wade through dozens if not hundreds of spam messages instead. Sometimes our inbox is filled with these spam messages and we cannot receive any more of the messages that we really want. Then we have to spend hours deleting spam or unwanted messages, and our day is wasted.
This situation is similar to what happens to us on a spiritual path. God is trying to send us emails messages calling us back home. Instead, we are spending time on the spam that we receive from the world. The mind does not want us to return to God. It floods us with spam to keep our attention in the world rather than on God. God’s emails/messages are coming in the form of the inner Light and Sound. To access these emails; we need to sit in meditation. God’s email draws our soul into eternal bliss, joy and happiness. But we end up wasting a lot of time on thoughts, words, and deeds that do not help us find God. We know we have a physical body and have to feed it, take care of it, and work to meet our needs and those of our family. We know that we must spend time in school or training or a job to earn money to buy what we need to survive in the world. We also have to spend some time sleeping. Beyond the required time each human must spend to live, we have much free time available in which we can choose how to use it. Each day we focus on the spam emails of the world as we pursue one desire after another. These emails tempt our desire for more money, possessions, fame, glory, and attainments. But these desires can never make us happy. Whenever we attain one desire, our mind sends us another spam with another desire we want to be fulfilled. We are never content with anything we attain because desire’s nature is to lead us to want something else.
There is only one pursuit that can provide fulfilment to us. That is the attainment of what is spiritual. Finding our self and finding God is the only attainment that will truly satisfy us. To do so we have to focus on the emails of God in the form of Light and Sound we receive in meditation. Within each of us is a precious treasure. But few realise they have it. We are wildly searching for gifts outside, but do not realise that we carry them within. The secret to being blissful lies within us. We merely need to sit still in meditation in the silence of our soul to find it.
So let us pay attention to the emails from God rather than the spam from the world. In this way, we can find inner peace and fulfilment and can radiate it to all those we come in contact with. By learning meditation, we create a haven of peace within ourselves and radiate to others, making the world a peaceful place of divine love and bliss for all.
The author is the head of the Sawan Kirpal Ruhani Mission.