Monkey Island
Maharaj Charan Singh lovingly explained that the teachings of the saints should make us better humans rather than pull us down to the level of animals. For initiates and seekers who still operate below the eye centre, we need to learn how to live less like animals. In particular, less like monkeys.
The American writer Anne Lamott calls our monkey-like behaviour “living on Monkey Island.” Monkeys, she observed in her book Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers, have three notable ways of behaving: (1) They live with constant chatter and distraction. (2) They live in a continual state of grievance, umbrage, and complaint. (3) When angry and unhappy, they throw their poop at one another.
These actions make up an all too accurate description of what goes on in our minds. First, we absorb the constant chatter and distractions from smart phones, computers, and TVs. Second, we live in a state of continual grievance. We ask the universe, why isn’t my life better, easier, happier? Some of our complaints are petty: Why does my hair look bad? Why don’t my packages come on time? Why is the weather not to my liking? Behind all our grievances are the shouts of the ego – I want more of what I think is rightfully mine! Third, throwing dung is the easiest trait to translate: We throw our worst judgments at our fellow human beings – we blame, condemn, criticize, and get angry.
Luckily, even those of us who have spent way too much time on Monkey Island can leave. The saints offer us clear directions on how to inhabit a completely different environment.
The alternative to a life of constant chatter and distraction is a life of focus and remembering our goal.
For a disciple of a Radha Soami master, that means doing simran. Baba Ji has told us to let go of our plans, worries, and daydreams and focus on God. We could occasionally turn off our cell phones, for example, or seek out and cherish moments of quiet and solitude.
What are those of us to do who have lived with the noise and the distraction on Monkey Island for a long time? Maharaj Sawan Singh explains in Spiritual Gems:
Just as a man, weary with the day’s work, resorts to his home to take rest, so we habituate our soul, on being tired with worldly work, to take rest in the holy Sound. The attention has to be brought inside, and when it likes to rest there, like the wanderer coming home, it will find peace within. This bringing in of the attention is done by repetition [simran], with the attention at the eye focus.
In Sar Bachan Poetry, Soami Ji tells us:
Attach yourself to the melody of Shabd, dear soul….
Lift up your soul to the higher regions,
where the melody of Shabd resounds day and night.
The aim of human life will be realized
and you will find rest in Shabd.
Bachan 19, Shabd 5
A satsangi who lived in a city where there was no satsang, and no satsangis, who spent all of her time joyfully meditating, put it this way in a letter to friends: “The thrill and joy of it all is having our beloved Master. Even moving to a distant place, there will be Love in every breath, as you well know.”
The true alternative to constant distraction and chatter is simran with every breath, sensing the Master’s presence with every breath, remembering love with every breath.
The second aspect of living on Monkey Island is when we find ourselves in a state of constant grievance, umbrage, and complaint. The word “grievance” comes from the same root as “gravity.” It actually means to make heavy and burdensome. In the book Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. III, someone asked Hazur what makes us hold on to grievances. He replied: “As long as we don’t forgive someone, we are actually punishing ourselves. The grudge we keep within ourselves, the malice we keep within – we are also punishing ourselves.”
How do we stop feeling entitled to getting what we think we want? The spiritual alternative is to attempt to live in God’s will – to want what God wants to give us, to surrender.
Baba Ji reminds us that all mystics come with the same message: Thy will be done. He explains that we don’t know anything about anything, so we should just relax, appreciate what the Lord gives us, and do our meditation. Hazur told us that we can’t change the events of our life, so we might as well accept them cheerfully. In Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. III, he tells us:
You have to face them, you have to swim along with the waves – then why not accept them smilingly? Why howl and cry, why have a sorrowful face? There’s nothing much to weep about, because the events of our life are not going to change…. Then why worry? Take them as the will of the Lord.
One version of a Zen Buddhist meditation describes surrender this way:
In this passing moment, karma ripens.
I vow to affirm what is:
If there is cost, I choose to pay.
If there is need, I choose to give.
If there is sorrow, I choose to grieve.
When calm, I choose peace.
When happy, I choose joy.
When it is my birth, I choose to live.
When death takes me, I choose to go.
This life is only as real as a dream.
In Appreciation of Shodo Harada, Roshi
Behind all the choices we make, saints promise us the Shabd, which is eternity, truth, and love. Our spiritual practice enables us to turn toward that power within. Our practice becomes our refuge. As the Master repeatedly tell us, the Lord’s will is that we do our bhajan and simran.
And the last aspect of Monkey Island? How do we stop throwing the worst in us on to others and at the world? How do we instead offer the best in us – our kindness, forgiveness, and understanding and our generosity of spirit?
We made a sacred promise to meditate for two and a half hours every day. We must make every effort to keep that promise. Meditation is a must, and being a good person is simply the foundation upon which our meditation rests.
Hazur tells us that meditation is nothing but seeking the Father’s forgiveness, and we learn to seek his forgiveness by first learning to forgive our fellow human beings.
He also said we must offer all sorts of goodness to one another, such as a kind and loving heart, a sympathetic and helpful heart.
It may sound like a miracle that we can leave Monkey Island for good – that we can become focused, kind, forgiving, and accepting of the Lord’s will. But the path of the saints offers us much greater miracles. They tell us we are destined for unimaginable joy, that the Shabd will focus our attention and silence the noise and chatter of our minds, and that our minds will gradually submit to God’s will. It seems that the goodness we have longed for has been within us all along, just perhaps in a part of our consciousness we haven’t yet been able to reach. The Master and our meditation practice will lead us to realize that we are truly the children of God, and that we are destined to be with our Master, not on Monkey Island but in our true home, Sach Khand.