How can I meditate and overcome my own injustice?
If I want something and I don’t get it immediately, I tend to behave like a child, indignant and aggressive.
Me being upset or even angry turns my husband into an aggressive mood and, the more we speak, the more he becomes stubborn. I hate to see him like this and sometimes I hate him. These destructive disputes do harm to our relationship and I want to learn to avoid such behaviour.
Can you help me with advice and exercises?
Thank you!
—Helaine, Belgium
Dear Helaine,
One of the most basic teachings of meditation philosophy is non-attachment and overcoming desires. All of us have unfulfilled desires and these cause us the greatest frustration and emotional upsets. The solution isn’t to become passive. The solution is to have desires that are healthy, positive and of a service to God and to other people!
Non-attachment refers to ego-motivated desires. A desire to help another person or to serve God and guru, or even to do a good job at work are desires, too, but they expand our hearts and minds to something or someone other than the little self.
I recommend the practice of affirmations. At this moment of writing, I cannot access my favorite book of affirmations, Affirmations for Self-Healing, by Swami Kriyananda. But the qualities you want to affirm include contentment and the attitude that “No one owes me anything.” Let me offer one example to repeat during the day, at the end of meditation, while falling asleep and upon waking:
“I am content in my Self; I am complete in my Self; all that I seek await discovery within my inner being.”
Patanjali, author of the Yoga Sutras, says that to one who has achieved perfect desirelessness all things that you need come to you without effort.
Pray for contentment; for inner happiness; learn to do without little things so that you are prepared for the strong desires for bigger things. Each day offer yourself, your possessions and your desires into an inner fire of simplicity, contentment and joy!
Blessings to you!
Nayaswami Hriman
