Mystic Mantra: Passion for meditation Out of conscious choice

In his The Book of Life, J. Krishnamurti shares his insight that we need a passionate mind, and the question is how to revive that passion. He says: Do not let us misunderstand each other. I mean passion in every sense, not merely sexual passion, which is a very small thing. And most of us are satisfied with that because every other passion has been destroyed — in the office, in the factory, through following a certain job, routine, learning techniques — so there is no passion left; there is no creative sense of urgency and release. Therefore sex becomes important to us, and there we get lost in the petty passion which becomes an enormous problem to the narrow, virtuous mind, or else it soon becomes a habit and dies.

Krishnamurti is using the word passion as a total thing. A passionate man who feels strongly is not satisfied merely with some little job — whether it be the job of a Prime Minister, or of a cook, or what you will. A mind that is passionate is inquiring, searching, looking, asking, demanding, not merely trying to find for its discontent some object in which it can fulfil itself and go to sleep. A passionate mind is groping, seeking, breaking through, not accepting any tradition; it is not a decided mind, not a mind that has arrived, but it is a young mind that is ever arriving.

This exploration is not something like Columbus going out in search of America, but an inner journey of the mysterious world within us. The day we lose the passion to explore within, our mind starts becoming dull and this dullness darkens our life. And most of us have become quite lethargic about this life — we have opted to be contented with the routine and settled in it. But sometimes, some shocking things do happen due to the ever-compassionate existence that shake us deeply, and we are forced to contemplate about our own life. A beloved friend dies or some other calamity, cancer or some disease happens to somebody whom we love most — that happening shakes us. We contemplate that the same could happen to us also. We wonder that before this happens, have we got the real taste of life? This is a big question which can lead to the awakening of passion and rekinde our quest. Although this something accidental — out of a certain helplessness — not our conscious choice.

The passion that happens out of our conscious choice is what meditation is all about. Osho devised a method of dynamic meditation and several other active meditations for the participants attending his meditation camps. He says: “Do the camp madly. Once you come to know which meditation goes deep inside and takes you like an arrow and reaches to the very core of your being, once you have known one meditation, then there is no problem. Then you can go on working on that meditation, and within three to six months much starts happening.”