(Apr 16,2014) Spiritual Message for the Day – The Majesty of God-Consciousness by Sri Swami Krishnananda

 The Majesty of God-Consciousness

Divine Life Society Publication:  -Chapter 9- The Teachings of the Bhagavadgita by Sri Swami Krishnananda

The whole universe is envisaged in various facets as adhideva, adhibhuta, adhyatma, adhiyajna etc., all which somehow maintain the position of a transcendent reality. Aksharam brahma paramam – the super-cosmic aspect of the Creator is subtly maintained and that there is a graduated relationship of the individual to all these cosmical.

Inwardization leads to Universalization

The last thought – the total thought, and not one among the many thoughts, decides the future. This complete thought would be the factor that determines the future of the soul. Whatever one aspires for, that one shall attain to. Yadbhavaiti tadbhava. Social conditions and many other factors prevent inward longings from manifesting themselves in outward form, and we live a repressed life. But this repression is something like burying a seed in the ground, which will sprout itself forth one day when there is rainfall and a conducive atmosphere is manifest.

The point that we may bear in mind is that we have to be very cautious in thinking, feeling, and willing. "Whoever contemplates the Supreme Being, God Himself, that soul will enter God." 

Nothing is there outside God, nothing is superior to God, nothing external. In the earlier stages it appears that God is far away – infinite is the distance between us and God. But this doubt is dispelled when the religious consciousness deepens, and it realizes that the very being of God is the being of infinitude, eternity, and therefore there is no distance between the soul and God. The language of the Eternal is the voice of our inner conscience, and our Atman is Brahman.

God, the distant being, is also the God who is the soul of the very seeking spirit which feels God as a distant being. Thus the inwardization leads to the universalization of this concept. He is not a secretly hidden light within an individual body, but a large presence which occupies all space and all time so that outside it nothing can be – not the universe, not the individual.

Total Surrender

Timeless is God's existence, and timeless, therefore, is God's action in His operation. Timeless is He because He is also spaceless. Hence, the grace of God is a non-spatial and non-temporal gift. Inasmuch as it is non-temporal, it is instantaneous – just here and now. So when the soul, the seeker, the yogin, the aspirant, the devotee timelessly, spacelessly unites itself with this timeless, spaceless Being, there is a timeless and spaceless consequence that follows. There is an immediate fulfilment of all that is essential. A single thought, which is the total surrender of the whole of one's personality to this God-Being, evokes a response which is eternal and non-spatial, and an abundance.

Everywhere He is present, sometimes more pronounced in His manifestations, sometimes not so manifest. Deluded man, totally oblivious to his glorious goal, foolish in his pursuits, regards himself as all-master in this world. A little bit of long rope is given by God Himself to every one of us, so we may live in our own fool's paradise for the time being and we may rule in the hell that we have created here. But when adharma, which is this egotism of man, goes to heights, to the breaking-point, then God Himself cannot tolerate it anymore and there is a dissolution of the cosmos. 

Total Consciousness 

An integral vision is necessary to behold this integrality of existence. The superficial, phenomenal eye sees diversity everywhere, but distinction between the seer and the seen is not the tool that you can employ in the vision of the Absolute. The third eye is an integral intuition, the total consciousness, the whole of our being welling up into action – the Atman beholding Brahman. 

There cannot be two kingdoms of God. If we establish our own kingdom here, on earth, vying with the eternal kingdom of the Absolute, then we may rule our kingdom well in the way we are having here in it; but this empire of ours cannot reach that divine empire.

God does not require anything from us. Nothing can be offered to God because everything belongs to Him. What can we offer to Him? Perhaps the last thing that we have is our own individuality, our egoism, our personality, our being. God asks that we may be offered to Him, and not anything that we may have. He does not want a temple to be built for Him, a house of brick and mortar, calling it a chapel or a church. He does not want any offering because we are offering to Him what does not belong to us – this is not a charity. But what we consider as our property is ourself only. The last thing that we can part with, the dearest and the nearest of our possessions, that object which we love most, it is our own self – let this love melt into God-love.

The bhakti, this devotion spoken of here, is not a little lip sympathy that we show to God. It is not a bowing of the head, it is not the folding of the hands – it is the melting of ourselves in the menstruum of God-Being.

Ananyashchintayanto mam ye janah paryupasate;

tesham nityabhiyuktanam yogakshemam vahamyaham.

Recite this sloka every day – contemplate its meaning. Nobody can harm us. There is nobody who is not under the subjection of God's rule, and therefore when we are in communion with this Great Master of the World, the whole army of God will protect us, provided we are honestly in fraternal relation with Him and we regard Him as All-in-All. God will offer Himself only when we offer ourselves to Him – not before. Thus it is that the Self-offering of God is an automatic, instantaneous occurrence as a response to the whole-souled offering of ourselves to Him. It is not jnana, it is not bhakti, it is not yoga – it is every blessed thing. To know It, to visualize It and to enter into It, are the duties of man. Finally. God-realization is the goal of life. Thus, yoga is an art of attaining to God-consciousness.

 Excerpts from:

The Majesty of God-Consciousness - Chapter 9- The Teachings of the Bhagavadgita by Sri Swami Krishnananda

The Spiritual (story) message of – The Great Master of the World

If you would like to purchase the print edition, visit:
http://www.dlshq.org/cgi-bin/store/commerce.cgi?

If you would like to contribute to the dissemination of spiritual knowledge please contact the General Secretary at:

generalsecretary@sivanandaonline.org

(Mar 2,2014) Spiritual Message for the Day – God Present Within Us by Swami Krishnananda

God Present Within Us

Divine Life Society Publication: - The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and theBhagavadgita by Swami Krishnananda

The Field of Comprehension

Our observations and perceptions are mostly partial, one-sided; and this defect or limitation that is imposed upon the process of perception gives us a wrong picture of the object—even if it be God Himself, the supreme object of knowledge. We may call it the field of comprehension.

The thought of God is the most difficult thought. As a matter of fact, any thought is difficult when it is attempted to be made comprehensive. The difficulty is not in the fact that the object here is God—the difficulty is in the structure of the mind itself. There is a common defect present in all perception. The object is looked upon as an object only and bereft of any other implication in its existence. That objects are simply located in a particular place is a fallacy, and this fallacy is at the root of all our knowledge.

We cannot think God. Our minds are not so made as to enable us to contemplate God as He is in Himself. But the Bhagavadgita insists that liberation is impossible until and unless meditation becomes practicable on the true God.

And who is this true God?

We are not merely mortals, individuals, but we have a superhuman element within us, and this is the deepest adhyatma in us. That is God present within us. The root of our personality is God Himself. The mind has to be united with God—this is called yoga. Ultimately yoga means union with God.

The Absolute or Brahman has to be comprehended in its integrality, totality, unity, in its blendedness and completeness—not merely in transcendence, but also in immanence and inclusiveness of everything. The adhyatma (subject) is not isolated from the adhibhuta (object) or the adhiyajna or the adhidaiva.  

The adhiyajna or the field of activity, service and relationship of any kind is one of the manifestations of God Himself, so that the concept of God includes the concept of human society, and it cannot exclude it. So social welfare, social thinking, the humanistic approach is incomplete without the introduction of the divine element into it.

“How then are we to contemplate the Supreme Being?”

The imperishable, eternal is called the Absolute—aksaram brahma paramam. Inasmuch as everything is perishable, the tendency of the whole universe is to overcome this perishable character of itself and attain the imperishable Brahman. The adhyatma is the essential nature of an individual. Your essential nature is naturally not what appears on the surface of your personality.

The innermost essence and the basic rock bottom of the individual is adhyatma, and it is inseparable from the imperishable Brahman. The atman is Brahman; kutasta is the same as the Absolute. Just as the root of the wave in the ocean is the ocean itself, the root of personality, the Overself, the kutastachaitanya, is Brahman, the Imperishable. All activity which forms part of the field of adhiyajna is called karma in a cosmical sense. There is only one activity ultimately, and that is the movement of the cosmos towards its ultimate end. All actions, the so-called activities of individuals, are facets of cosmic activity. This is the supreme yajna and is called adhiyajna—the transcendent purpose behind all activities.

The principle of karma gets transformed into yoga, known as karma yoga, when all actions are realized as expressions of cosmic activity. There is no such thing as my activity or your activity. They are only outer manifestations, through the individualities of persons, and there is only one agent behind action—God Himself—and neither are you the doer, nor am I the doer. If the actions do not belong to you, the fruits thereof also cannot belong to you. That is why the Gita again insists upon our abandonment of the fruits of action. If, by any kind of egotistic affirmation of yourself, you assert your agency in any kind of action, there would be a nemesis following from this false notion of action—a reaction set up by this individual notion of activity or personal agency. This nemesis or reaction is what is known as karma bandhana, or the bondage of karma, which becomes the source of sorrows of various types, including transmigration. So the creative impulse, which is the source of all forms of action in this world, is the ultimate karma. This alone can be called real karma, and all other karmas are included in this supreme karma.

The perishable form of the world, the objectness that is present in objects is called adhibhuta. There is a reality hidden in appearances, and this appearance aspect is called adhibhuta, while the reality that is responsible even for the appearance is the imperishable Brahman. Their essential nature is eternity and infinitude, but their name-form complex, which is in space and time, is the perishable aspect—this is called adhibhuta.

The adhidaiva is the presiding principle behind all individuals, the supreme consciousness that is at the base of all individualities—not the mind, but consciousness. The element within you, the superhuman principle, the divinity implanted in the heart of all individuals, ruling your destiny, guarding you, protecting you, directing you in the proper way is the adhidaiva.

The divine incarnation is the adhiyajna. The blessedness of humanity rests in the extent to which it is able to be guided by the divinity that is immanent in human society. Human individuals cannot achieve ultimate success merely with the power of their hands and feet. Success is a name that we give to an achievement which is of a permanent nature. That which is today, but shall pass away tomorrow, cannot be called a victory.

Today we are looking up with dazed eyes as to what is going to happen to us in the future, because we are always depending on the strength of our arms, the power of our understanding or intellect, the ratiocinating faculty minus the divine element in us. Man minus God is a corpse, and a corpse cannot be expected to win any victory or achieve success. God creates the world and also takes care of it. He is the Creator and also the Preserver, and He preserves the world that He has created by means of His incarnations. Anything in this world that is superb, magnificent and beyond the ordinary in power, in knowledge and in capacity of any kind should be regarded as a divine manifestation.

God incarnates Himself at every juncture or crucial moment, for the solidarity of mankind, for the establishment of righteousness and the abolition of unrighteousness. There is an eternal manifestation of God. As God is eternity, His manifestation also is timeless. God is the only friend of man, truly speaking, because perishable individuals cannot be regarded as true friends—they pass away. We must realize God as the true friend, as incarnate divinity, as a presence which is perpetually before us, guarding us and taking care of us in every respect, providing us with everything that is required at any moment of time. Contemplating God in this manner, we realize His presence even in society.

Hence the necessity to conceive God as a totality and comprehensiveness and not merely as an external object bereft of relationship with the subject and human society. Such yoga is supposed to be the means of the liberation of the spirit from this mortal tabernacle (residence, dwelling place).

Excerpts from:

God Present Within Us - The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and theBhagavadgita by Swami Krishnananda

If you would like to purchase the print edition, visit:
http://www.dlshq.org/cgi-bin/store/commerce.cgi?

If you would like to contribute to the dissemination of spiritual knowledge please contact the General Secretary at:

generalsecretary@sivanandaonline.org

(Oct 19,2013) Spiritual Message of the Day: The facets of Ultimate Reality

Ultimate Reality - Adhibhuta, Adhidaiva, Adhiyajna, Adhyatma and Karma

From Divine Life Society Publication: Chapter 13 - The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita by Swami Krishnananda



 

We are supposed to conceive the ultimate Reality in all its facets — the objective, the subjective as well as the universal phases of its manifestation; as adhibhuta, adhyatma, adhidaiva, param brahma, the Absolute-All. One who envisages the Supreme Being as inclusive of everything that is objective, inclusive also of everything that is personal and individual, as well as what is transcendent, and also what is relational, activistic and social — a person who can visualise the Supreme in this manner has really understood it and knows it perfectly.

The way in which we visualize any particular thing is the outlook we entertain in respect of that thing. Usually, we do not have a comprehensive idea of anything in this world. When we gaze at an object or think of any particular thing, we regard it with some sort of blinkers limiting our vision of that object, whereby we ignore certain other aspects which also go to constitute its existence. A mother will look upon her child in a particular manner though that child may be the king of a country. To the mother, the son is not merely a king, there is also some personal relationship there. This limitation that is automatically imposed upon the manner of knowing anything gets transferred also to our idea of God, the Absolute, Brahman, the Ultimate Reality, so that it is not infrequently that we look upon God as a father, a mother, a creator, a preserver, a destroyer, a loving friend, a merciful companion, the liberator, and so on. But God can really be none of these, though he is also, no doubt, the all, everyone and everything. The universe of external experience does not stand outside the existence of God. This world of our experience does not exhaust the being of God. The world cannot contain the whole of God within itself, because it is an effect, and He is the Cause. At the same time, it cannot exist outside Him, for it is inseparably related to Him.

The external world consists of the five elements which rarely attract our attention in our daily existence. The world of physical Nature is what is known here as the adhibhuta, the world of the elements, Nature in its completeness. But, to us, the world of experience is also something else, in addition to the physical elements only. We are not thinking of what the earth will do tomorrow or the water or the fire or the air or the sky will be intending to do the next day. The world of activity and the world of concern is the world of human relationship — adhiyajna. This is the world of action, the world of adhiyajna, where we sacrifice ourselves for a particular cause. The motive which drives us into activity of any kind and compels us to maintain relationships with other people is comprehended within this restless field of daily sacrifice and mutual adjustment in various ways.

For us, the world of experience is the world of human beings and human relationships, which is all that is important. But if we go a little deep into the details of what we have observed earlier on a different occasion we may remember that any kind of experience by the subject, the individual, of any atmosphere outside, is not possible without the presence of a transcendental element intervening. This Mystery of life is the adhidaiva, the Divinity that shapes our ends, which controls our destinies, which decides every factor everywhere, and which has a say in every matter. It has something to do with every little bit of thing in the world. There is no event taking place anywhere, at any time, without the intervention of this transcendent principle which mysteriously planks itself between the subject and the object, so that, as the great hymn in the Atharva-Veda, addressed to Varuna, says, there is always a secret observer of what transpires between two persons everywhere. It matters not where one is, one’s secret thoughts and transpirations and feelings will be observed by a subtle principle which is pursuing all things wherever anything be. That subtle being is the adhidaiva, God himself observing all in his own mysterious manner, by the very fact of his being. This is the great Divinity which superintends over all things and all events that happen inwardly as well as outwardly.

Our own self is the adhyatma, the deepest self in us, which, again, is inseparable, ultimately, from the Godhead. It is the essential essence of which everyone is constituted — you, and I, and everybody, and everything. As every little ripple or wave in the ocean is nothing but the vast ocean, the secret hidden at the recess of every individual occasion is the adhyatma, the Atman, the self in us, which is incapable of further reduction, beyond which one cannot go, and beneath which there is nothing. The deepest and bottom-most being of our personality is what is called the Atman. And even as the essence of the wave is the ocean, so is the essence of our own personality the Absolute.

Everyone is familiar with the word  karma, which is very much identified with action or the result of action. But here, in this Chapter of the Bhagavadgita, it is used in a special sense. The force which causes the emanation of beings is the karma spoken of here, the power which ejects all particulars, every evolute arising from the Central Cause. And all the little karmas that we perform here, your action and my action and anybody’s work, is a reverberation, a sympathetic motivation, a continuation, a reflection or a refraction of this Cosmic Impulse for the great universal purpose.  All action is, in the end, a universal action, and it is not ‘your’ action or ‘my’ action. There is, ultimately, no such thing as your activity or my activity. Every rumbling or little noise made by every wave in the ocean is a work of the bowels of the ocean itself. So does the Supreme Will operate through every bit of our actions and even the winking of our eyes. The little breath that we breathe is nothing but the Cosmic Breath pulsating through our individuality; our intelligence is a faint reflection of the Cosmic Intelligence; our very existence is a part of the Universal Existence.

Continue to read:

Cosmology and Eschatology: Chapter 13 - The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita by Swami Krishnananda

If you would like to purchase the print edition, visit:
http://www.dlshq.org/cgi-bin/store/commerce.cgi?

If you would like to contribute to the dissemination of spiritual knowledge please contact the General Secretary at:

generalsecretary@sivanandaonline.org