(Apr 7,2014) Spiritual Message for the Day – Svadhyaya – Its Practical Value by Swami Chidananda

 Svadhyaya: Its Practical Value

Divine Life Society Publication: God as Mother by Swami Chidananda

Mother Saraswati is actually an embodiment of the Vedas. Vedas mean transcendent knowledge of the Supreme Being. Upanishads are the highest reaches of the Vedas. We have been told how the very quintessence of these Upanishads was given to humanity in the form of the Bhagavad Gita. Therefore, Mother is present to the aspirant in the form of this unique universal scripture, Srimad Bhagavad Gita. Therefore, all great spiritual teachers, Acharyas, have enjoined upon the seekers to regularly, daily, study the Gita. We must always worship the Mother in Her form as the Gita, by unfailingly going to the Gita every day and trying to imbibe the gospel of the Gita gradually into our own lives. This instruction to read the Gita has been specially stressed in the Dinacharya which Gurudev has given to all aspirants living the divine life at his sacred feet. We also know that in the Niyama of the Patanjali Darshana, Svadhyaya is one of the important items. 

We have seen how Mother Saraswati the Parashabda or the Primal Sound is manifest in Her various progressive aspects as Dhvani, then the articulate sound or Vak, and the specific Vak in the form of letters of the alphabet, and combination of letters giving us the Nama or the name and the Artha of the Nama appearing before us in the form of Rupa. As Mother is thus embodied in and through the sacred letters of the scriptures, all spiritual books and also Dharma-Granthas and all scriptures are therefore a mass of Saraswati Tattva. She gives us the knowledge of the Transcendent Being in and through Her Form as the written letter and the word. Therefore, when we take up the spiritual scripture and study it as part of our daily routine, we actually come into contact of Saraswati and try to be instructed by Her directly as She is manifest in the word. 

Svadhyaya is an important Anga of daily Sadhana. Its importance to the spiritual aspirant is manifold; but at least one very significant part which Svadhyaya plays in the realm of Sadhana may just be touched upon, for it will show us how it helps to increase the Sattva and spiritual qualities in the thoughts, in the Bhava or consciousness of the seekers. 

We know the entire nature and the make-up of the spiritual Sadhana is decided by one’s Samskaras. The mind is everything; and the mind is but a bundle of Samskaras. These Samskaras are acquired by Vyavahara. Contact with external objects, moving with persons, the experience of these contacts, go to form more and more Samskaras in the being. If these Samskaras go on increasing day by day, they become a terrible downward pull, a force tending to externalize and making the mind more and more Vishayakara. But they cannot be completely avoided. It is impossible to completely cut off all Vyavahara for the vast majority of spiritual seekers. Therefore, as a supreme psychological method of counteracting these Samskaras, these spiritual ideas are made to get into the mind through daily study of elevating scriptures. For by daily, diligent and regular study of scriptures, every day the spiritual aspirant takes into himself a whole mass of sublime spiritualizing, life-transforming ideas; and they form powerful, positive, Sattvic, spiritual Samskaras in the mind of the seeker. Thus, they help to overcome the unfortunate unspiritual Samskaras that are gathered inevitably during the course of daily Vyavahara. They have got the power to give a fresh Bhava to the aspirant. They change the thoughts, the Samskaras and the very Bhava of the aspirant. This daily feeding of the nature of the seeker with spiritual and Sattvic food in the form of ideas is achieved by our contact with Mother Saraswati in Her form of sacred scriptures—the lives of Saints, Gita, Bhagavata, Ramayana, Bible, Quran, Zend Avesta, Dhammapada. 

Also, we find this creation of a set of powerful positive spiritual ideas in the mind help the aspirant during Dhyana, during the practice of concentration and inward meditation. We find that when an aspirant tries to do Dhyana, the mind wanders. In the beginning stages of Dhyana, this wandering is very powerful. The entire process becomes a see-saw, a sort of tug of war; the mind is brought to the Lakshya and it wanders again. There is one very undesirable thing here; when it wanders, the field of its idea in which this wandering takes place is all sensual, gross and worldly. This wandering cannot be arrested except by gradual practice and Vairagya. But in the meantime a change can be brought about; even if the mind wanders, provided that a whole set of powerful spiritual ideas are daily pushed into the mind through Svadhyaya, the field of ideas through which the mind wanders in its Vikshepa becomes gradually Sattvic. Instead of wandering in a vicious set of ideas, the mind has now a field of pure ideas, great ideas, elevating, Sattvic ideas through which it wanders. The wandering then becomes less harmful to the aspirant. The daily Svadhyaya is an invaluable asset to the aspirant.

Excerpts from:

Svadhyaya: Its Practical Value   - God as Mother by Swami Chidananda

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(Nov 9,2013 ) Spiritual Message for the Day – The Total Picture of Creation by Swami Krishnananda

The Total Picture of Creation

Divine Life Society Publication: Chapter 4  A Study of the Bhagavadgita by Swami Krishnananda

Sankhya is the knowledge of the placement of a person in this universe. Work, activity and any motion for that purpose – is guided by the circumstances prevailing at that given moment of time.

Now, your location in this universe can be known only by a study of the whole process of creation. Doctrines of creation are adumbrated in schools of thought such as the Sankhya and the Vedanta. In the context of the discussion of the nature of consciousness, I mentioned to you  that the primary principle is the pure ‘I-amness’, Pure Consciousness adapting and adjusting itself to its own Self, as it were. The Sankhya calls this indivisible absolute consciousness Purusha. You may call it by any other name – God, if you like, the Supreme Absolute. It is absolute because it is not related to anything outside. It is a non-related, indivisible omnipresence, conscious of itself alone, and there is no consciousness of anything else. ‘I am what I am’ – aham asmi. This is the consciousness of the Supreme Purusha.

The process of creation is supposed to start with the emergence of the activity of Prakriti, which is the cosmic impulsion of this Universal Consciousness to delimit itself in a certain fashion for the projection of this cosmos. This Prakriti, this cosmic impulsive objectivity, is made up of three forces called sattva, rajas and tamas – dynamis, statis and equilibration. Prakriti, so-called, is compared to a rope with strands. The rope is not different from the strands. You cannot say the strands are the qualities or the properties of the rope. The threefold operation of sattva, rajas, tamas is itself Prakriti.

Purusha consciousness is universal awareness minus activity or motion, and Prakriti is only motion or activity minus consciousness of Universality. So how can these two, inactive consciousness and active unconsciousness, be clubbed together?

The analogy of the Sankhya philosophy describes two persons, one who is blind but can walk, and another who is lame but can see. These two people join together because they both want to move in the same direction.  The lame person who sits on the shoulders of the blind walking person can see, and directs him where to go, and so it is a very good understanding between them. Universal Consciousness, which is inactive, operates in conjunction with the activity of Prakriti, which is unconscious. When these two processes are blended together and Purusha and Prakriti jointly act, what happens first is that Prakriti, in its sattva aspect, reflects the Universal Consciousness within itself, as light can be reflected in a glass. The glass here, which is sattva, is not perfectly clean where the light passes unaffected and undisturbed, but there is a little disturbance and the consciousness, which is universal Purusha, gets delimited to some extent, though in a very insignificant manner.

As space is a part of Prakriti, then Purusha, which is independent of Prakriti, cannot be said to be all-pervading in a strictly logical sense. It is just Being-as-such, Pure I-am, and cannot be called all-pervading. But it appears to be all-pervading on account of its reflection in the sattva guna of Prakriti, which also has other qualities – rajas and tamas. After Purusha there is Prakriti, and after Prakriti there is Mahat. Mahat is the third principle – Cosmic-consciousness, the Pure I-am, Be-ness-as-such. The Absolute Existence becomes conscious as all-pervading, omnipresent. This Mahat, or the Great Being Mahat-tattva, is omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent. This is the God of the universe, you may say if you like.

Pure God, by Himself, creates nothing. He is just All-in-All. Creativity is attributed to God on account of His so-called reflection in the sattva omnipresence of Prakriti, and God becomes Mahat-tattva, also known as Hiranyagarbha in Vedanta terminology. Mahat may be said to be Hiranyagarbha, the all-knowing creative principle, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent consciousness. When omnipresence becomes conscious of itself – I-am, omnipresent – it becomes cosmic Ahamkara. So first is Purusha, second is Prakriti, third is Mahat, fourth is Ahamkara. Ahamkara here is to be understood as Cosmic Self-awareness – the whole universe becoming conscious: ‘I am.’ It is not merely omnipresence as such; it is consciousness of one’s being omnipresent.

In the state of Ahamkara, Cosmic I-amness, or consciousness of one’s being omnipresent, a threefold activity is supposed to take place: the threefold division of the supreme Self-consciousness into the subjective perceiver adhyatma, the objective universe adhibhuta, and a third connecting link adhideva.

The adhibhuta prapancha, or the universe of material existence, we may say, is originally a space-time vibration complex. Space, time and motion – this is the beginning of creation. Space means a sudden vacuum, as it were, created before the omnipresence. In order that you may become something other than what you are, you have to cease to be what you are at present. If God has to become the object, He has to cease to be the subject. Now, He cannot cease to be the subject as He is the Pure Subject, so a sudden vacuous condition is created, as perhaps is done by a juggler who creates an illusion. Suddenly a thing which is not there will be projected before you. Your consciousness is interfered with by the juggler’s magic or his slight-of-hand. Immediately he creates a vacuous condition of your mind by his action so that you forget what you saw and you begin to see what is not there. God is sometimes called Mahamaya, which means the Great Juggler who can project a thing which is not there. God created the heaven and the Earth, says the Bible. Out of what substance did He create them? If there is nothing outside God, out of what substance did He create it?

You will find later on, by a deep analysis of the process of creation, that creation is a vacuous projection. It has no substance by itself because substance is God only, and if the universe also had a substance independently, there would be a conflict between the two substances.  

God seems to be creating a vacuous situation to create a universe that is also basically a vacuum. Hence, there is non-substantiality in the whole universe. Everyone, everything, including you and I, are basically vacuous. There is no substance in us. The substance is only a jugglery. It is a mix-up of space-time and certain elements. Thus, creation might have taken place, or creation might not have taken place. You may say the juggler has really created something because you can see it, and therefore God has created the world because you are seeing it. But the juggler has created nothing; he has only put you under the pressure of an influence. In the same way, God has created no world, but somehow or other some illusion has caught hold of you – this consciousness. You do not know how you are seeing what the juggler is doing, though he has done nothing. In the same way, God has done something like the greatest juggler, and you are seeing a world which is really not there. Finally you will see, if the curtain is lifted, God alone is permeating the whole thing (world). That is what you will realize afterwards.

So the objective universe, which is adhibhuta, starts with space, time and vibration. This vibration is fivefold in its nature. In Sanskrit, these five aspects of vibration are called shabda, which means the potential of sound, sparsha, the potential of touch, rupa, the potential of sight, rasa, the potential of taste, and gandha, the potential of smell. The whole universe of perception is constituted of these fivefold forces. What do you see in this world? What do you mean by ‘the world’? What is called ‘world’ is nothing but what you hear, touch, see, taste, and smell. Suppose you do not see anything, and you cannot touch or smell or taste; the world vanishes for you. So the world is nothing but a bundle of sensations; it looks like that.

Afterwards, these forces congeal into solidity in a particular permutation and combination process. These congealed forms of the five forces shabda, sparsha, rupa, rasa, gandha become space – or sky, as it is called – and air, fire, water, earth. In Sanskrit, sky or space is called akasha, air is vayu, agni is fire, apas is water, pritvi is earth. So this world of the physical elements of earth, water, fire, air, ether, space and sky – this world which you value so much, on which you are seated, which is attracting you and repelling you at the same time – is just the last concretization of these forces shabda, sparsha, rupa, rasa, gandha which are the vibrations of space and time, which is one aspect of this cosmic omnipresence, Ahamkara. Thus, the objective side has been explained.

Excerpts from:

The Picture of Creation - Chapter 4  A Study of the Bhagavadgita by Swami Krishnananda

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