Everyone is searching for a best friend. We long to share our life with another person, to have the shelter, intimacy, and happiness of a close loving friendship. And so we spend our lives searching for the perfect person, the perfect friend. This longing for a best friend – to be engaged in a deeply loving relationship with another person – is common to us all because it originates from our eternal spiritual nature.
Every bonafide scripture in the world tells us that we are not material beings – but, rather, that we are eternal spiritual beings temporarily living within the material body. Both the gross physical body and the mind (subtle body) are layers of material energy that cover us, like clothes. As spiritual beings, we remain always distinct, separate, from our material coverings. Although we can become so enamored by our external trappings that we may erroneously take our self to be the material mind and body we are wearing, we never actually become them. This is simply a case of mistaken identity. We are constitutionally, eternally, spiritual.
As eternal spiritual beings, we long for a friendship that is also eternal and spiritual in nature. Specifically, we long for a loving friendship with the very source and foundation of our existence – the Supreme Person. God, the Supreme Person, is our closest relative and eternally our most intimate Friend. In truth, no one can be closer to us than Him. We come from Him, are made of His energies, and our very existence rests upon His existence. Our eternal relationship with Him is compared to the sun globe and the particles of sunlight which emanate from the sun globe. The Supreme Person is like the sun globe and each of us is like one of the innumerable, infinitesimal particles of sunlight which emanate from Him. As individual spiritual sparks, we are distinct from the Supreme and He is distinct from us – yet we are eternally, intimately related with each other.
This intimacy of relatedness between ourselves and the Supreme Person actually goes far beyond what can be intellectually grasped from this metaphor. The relationship between the sun globe and the particles of light emanating from the sun globe is impersonal. But the relationship between the Supreme Person and each and every one of us is absolutely personal – and the foundation and essence of these relationships is love.
Constitutionally, we are so intimately related with, and dependent upon, the Supreme Person that we cannot actually be separated from Him. However, we can – and do – fall into the illusion that we can live separately, independently, from Him when we come into this material world. The separation that occurs is not a factual separation – rather, it is a separation of consciousness. We have the experience of being estranged from the Supreme Person due to the clouded condition of our consciousness.
When we come into this material realm, we are immediately covered by layers of material energy. Our spiritual form is covered by a material form – a material mind and body – and our consciousness, our awareness, is covered by a thick fog of forgetfulness (avidya). Immersed in such unnatural and bewildering circumstances, we forget our spiritual nature and what our life was like before coming into this material dimension. And thus divorced from our true identity, we fully believe we are the material bodies we are wearing and define our life in these very limited and misconceived terms. We forget everything about our spiritual origins, including our Supreme Friend.
Although the Supreme Person is our closest relative, dearmost Friend, and the very Source and foundation for our existence, we forget Him. Sometimes we are so bewildered by the influence of our material environment, that we do not even acknowledge His existence. And even if we do acknowledge His existence, we forget what He is like. We do not remember His qualities, what He looks like, the sound of His voice, the beauty of His smile, what it feels like to be loving Him and to feel the sublime sweetness of His love for us. He is eternally our dearmost beloved Best Friend and our most intimate companion, yet we do not remember even the smallest details about Him.
Not only do we forget everything we know about Him and our eternal relationship with Him, but we fail even to see or sense His presence in our lives, in our very hearts – even though He is always there. Each person experiences this clouded condition of consciousness to different degrees, but, in general, our memory of the Supreme Person – and the vivid details of His form, character, qualities, pastimes, relationships, and so on – become lost. This is the immensely powerful covering influence which material nature has upon us.
However, even though our awareness becomes so thoroughly subverted by the influence of our material environment that we forget our spiritual identity and relationship with the Supreme Person, our original spiritual qualities and tendencies remain. They are covered, hidden, suppressed, dormant, but they are permanently situated in the core of our heart. In our heart of our hearts, we experience an unquenchable longing for our forgotten relationship of loving intimacy with our Supreme Friend – and it is this innate spiritual longing that inspires us to continue searching for this lost love until we find it.
When we try to satisfy our innate spiritual longing for the Supreme Person through relationships with other embodied spiritual sparks, we are frustrated, disappointed, and heart-broken time and time again, lifetime after lifetime. This is not to say that we cannot have sweet and genuinely affectionate friendships with other living beings – but if we are looking for the supreme spiritual love that we are longing for in our heart of hearts with anyone other than the Supreme Person, we will be inevitably disappointed. Even the sweetest, most kind and caring friendships we may be so fortunate to find in this world with other embodied beings, cannot satisfy our innate spiritual longing for loving relationship with our Supreme Friend. It is an altogether entirely different category of love and friendship than is possible with ordinary living beings.
So how can we recover our memory of our spiritual origins and revive our lost relationship of loving friendship with the Supreme Person?
Fortunately, our Supreme Friend knows our predicament and gives us invaluable instruction in the bonafide scriptures of the world. In the ancient yoga scriptures (the Vedas), in particular, we are given very clear, detailed, and practical directions that we can immediately begin applying to our lives in order to rectify our situation. We are told exactly how we can consciously link up again with the Supreme Person, realize our true nature, and actively cultivate a very tangible, personal, intimate, sweet and loving friendship with Him.
The method prescribed by the yoga scriptures for this day and age is called Mantra Meditation. Mantra Meditation is the hearing and repeating of the transcendental Names of the Supreme Person. This simple yet immeasurably potent yogic practice is the essence of all yoga practice. And it is the only means necessary to achieve full spiritual self-realization and God-realization in this modern age. It is completely accessible to people of all ages and abilities – and if we earnestly, faithfully engage regularly in this yoga practice, we are assured by the Supreme Person Himself of ultimate success.
Although the Names of the Supreme Person may, at first, seem like ordinary material sound vibrations, they are not. Rather, they are the Supreme Person directly appearing in this world in the form of pure spiritual sound vibration. The Supreme appears in this world as His Names in order to allow the living beings in this world the opportunity to remember Him – to consciously reconnect with Him and reawaken to our natural condition of conscious loving relationship with Him.
Through regularly, daily, welcoming Him into our hearts by hearing and repeating His Names, our consciousness gradually becomes purified of material influence. As the coverings of material forgetfulness that cloud our hearts and minds are steadily dissipated, our original spiritual condition is revealed more and more. We begin to remember our dearmost Supreme Friend and experience the familiar sweet joy of His presence in our hearts.
With this growing remembrance, naturally, we become happy in affectionately relating with Him, and eager to have Him fully back in our lives. This happiness and eagerness continues to increase in intensity and eventually blossoms into the most blissful, sublime, and wondrous of friendships. Our hearts are at last able find the complete rest, joy, fulfillment, and perfect friendship we have been longing for in loving relationship with our eternal Friend.
Existing in a state of deep and abiding love for the Supreme Person is our most natural condition. It is upon this foundation of spiritual love with the Supreme that our entire life becomes an expression of unconditional love, and all relationships we have with others become expansions of this love. When we consciously know and love the Supreme Person as our Best Friend, then naturally, we relate with our spiritual siblings (all living beings) as friends. Thus, we gain, not only one lost Friend, but the ability to genuinely become a loving friend to all.
For more information on specific types of yoga Mantra Meditation, simply click on the links below: