(Aug 5,2014) Spiritual Message for the Day – True Happiness by Sri Swami Sivananda

 True Happiness

Divine Life Society Publication: God-Realisation by Sri Swami Sivananda

True happiness lies in virtue and inner soul and not in earthly possessions. Man has to rise up above the world consciousness through daily meditation. He should ever attempt to enter the divine consciousness. He should manifest the divine through Sadhana or concentration. He should transform the human nature into divine nature by developing Daivi Sampat. He should cut asunder the network of desires which brings distress and misery in the end through Japa, prayer, meditation and Satsang.

Blessed householders! Remember that ignorance is always the root-cause of fear. Wherever there is duality, there is fear. In Adwaita alone, there is no fear. Who is to be afraid of whom, when one beholds oneness everywhere? The spiritual journey is long and weary. There is much to be done by way of spiritual Sadhana. Life is very short. Time is fleeting. There are many obstacles on the spiritual path. One should apply oneself diligently in spiritual practices and discipline the Indriyas, in the control of mind and lead the most regulated life. Concentration and meditation are the two essential wings of the spiritual Sadhak. With these, he can simply fly round the entire world. Realise this and rest in your Satchidananda Swaroopa. Know thy real Self and be ever free.

Beloved children of the Lord! Scrutinise your motives. Look before you leap. Don’t repent later on. Think very seriously. Remember Him always and attain immortality and eternal and lasting peace right now. Work unselfishly with redoubled force and energy. Universal love is the gateway to Moksha. Do not brood over the past. Live in the living present. Have intense faith. Aspire fervently. Surrender yourself at the Lotus Feet of the Lord. The Divine Grace is bound to descend upon you.

Feel the same Atman that is in you or in the temple, resides in the innermost recesses of the heart of those poverty-stricken ignorant masses also. Love them as you love your own Ishta Devata. Serve them with Atma Bhav. You may meet with apathy and even hostility in the beginning. But if you always entertain thoughts of love, you will surely win. Rest assured in this simple truth. Love is life and hatred is death. Expansion of heart is life, contraction is death. Man should die, but once. A miser dies a thousand times; a weak selfish man dies a million times; one filled with hatred dies every second of his lifetime. Ever have a broad heart. Feel the Atmic strength within yourself. Be ever perfectly selfless. Love all. Sarvam Khalvidam Brahma. All indeed is Brahman. These is naught else, naught else.

Blessed aspirants! You should always try to find out the defects in sensual object or sensual life. The cause of birth, death, or old age, disease, pain, etc., is only sensual desires. By entertaining Mithya Drishti (the unreal nature of worldly objects) and Dosha Drishti, the mind will not run towards worldly objects. Pratyahara will come by itself. Then only, the double withdrawal will be more effective and producing lasting results. Withdrawal of senses from objects can be done through the practice of devotion to the Lord also. When the subtle undercurrents of Vasanas die, when all Rajas is squeezed out, when the lurking appetites in the corners of your Antahkarana are destroyed, when the subtle pride or egoism is eradicated, then only, you will enjoy eternal lasting bliss. Therefore direct your efforts in purifying the mind first.

Do not worry about repeated failures in your Sadhana. Despair not. Do not give up the struggle or the Sadhana. Stand up and again fight the turbulent senses and the mind. Each failure is a stepping-stone to success. You are nearer to success every time. You should succeed in the long run. Make courage your rosary, desirelessness your holy thread, discrimination your deer-skin, dispassion your silk cloth and meditation your sacred Bhasma or the holy sacred ash. Burn the fire of lust and anger through purity and forgiveness. The body idea, lust and egoism are very deep-rooted in men. Hence, O Man! Struggle hard to eradicate these simple enemies of your body and mind. Continue the fight unceasingly. You will succeed eventually in their annihilation.

Never run away from your jobs. A man can afford to lead a well-regulated moral life in any plane he lives. Where there is will, there is a way. One should do all actions in a spirit of detachment. One should leave the world and the objects of the world, as everything is perishable. Love the Lord seated in all. It is the only Reality. Do not apply reasoning to what is unthinkable. For knowing what is beyond mind, one must not rely on logic, but on the sacred scriptures or Srutis or revelations. Do you know what are hatches, matches and despatches. Hatches are births, matches are marriages, and despatches are deaths. Find out that one Supreme undying Being who is above all these matches and despatches and live in the blissful for ever. Give the foremost place to religion and Sadhana and a very secondary place to domestic and social life.

Craving is an intense desire. Through repeated action, every habit has been deeply rooted in man’s nature. Do not give any kind of leniency to your weaker mind, which is deluding you every moment. Every evil habit can be easily eradicated, provided the eradication is taken up immediately as a solemn ideal. All evil habits can be eradicated by constant Abhyas and absolute Vairagya. Ever feel they are the impediments in the spiritual path. Develop a strong desire for God-realisation only. May the Divine light lighten your spiritual path! May you enter into the Kingdom of God where alone you can have true happiness. May the blessings of your Guru be upon you!

Excerpts from:

True Happiness – God-Realisation by Sri Swami Sivananda

 

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 8,2014) Spiritual Message for the Day – The Yoga of renunciation of Action by Sri Swami Sivananda

The Yoga of Renunciation of Action

Divine Life Society Publication: - Bhagavadgita – Summary of Fifth Discourse by Sri Swami Sivananda

In spite of Sri Krishna’s clear instructions, Arjuna still seems to be bewildered. He wants to know conclusively which is superior, the path of action or the path of renunciation of action.

The Lord says that both the paths lead to the highest goal of God-realization. In both cases the final realization of the Atman is the aim, but the path of Karma Yoga is superior. Actually there is no real difference between the two.

Krishna further asserts that perfection can be attained and one can be established in the Atman only after the mind has been purified through the performance of selfless action. The Karma Yogi who is aware of the Atman and who is constantly engaged in action knows that although the intellect, mind and senses are active, he does not do anything. He is a spectator of everything. He dedicates all his actions to the Lord and thus abandons attachment, ever remaining pure and unaffected. He surrenders himself completely to the Divine Shakti. Having completely rooted out all desires, attachments and the ego, he is not born again.

The sage who has realized Brahman and is always absorbed in It does not have any rebirth. Such a sage sees Brahman within and without—within as the static and transcendent Brahman, and without as the entire universe. He sees the one Self in all beings and creatures—in a cow, an elephant, and even in a dog and an outcaste. He is ever free from joy and grief and enjoys eternal peace and happiness. He does not depend upon the senses for his satisfaction. On the other hand the enjoyments of the senses are generators of pain. They are impermanent. Sri Krishna reminds Arjuna that desire is the main cause of pain and suffering. It is the cause of anger. Therefore, the aspirant should try to eradicate desire and anger if he is to reach the Supreme.

The Lord concludes by describing how to control the senses, mind and intellect by concentrating between the eyebrows and practicing Pranayama. One who has achieved perfect control of the outgoing senses and is freed from desire, anger and fear attains liberation and enjoys perfect peace.

Excerpts from:

The Yoga of Renunciation of Action - Bhagavadgita – Summary of Fifth Discourse by Sri Swami Sivananda

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

(Feb 4,2014) Spiritual Message for the Day – Force of Samskaras by Sri Swami Sivananda

Force of Samskaras

Divine Life Society Publication: God-Realisation by Sri Swami Sivananda

Some time ago, there lived in Karur, a big mercantile town, in Trichinopoly District, a fully developed Raja Yogi, by name Sadasiva Brahman. He was as famous as Trilinga Swami of Benares. He used to sit in Samadhi for six months. He was a great Titikshu and a Vairagi. He used to have a Kowpeen (loin cloth) only and sleep on bare ground. Once, there was a huge flood on the Cauveri River, and Sadasiva Brahman, who was in Samadhi, was carried away by the floods and deposited in some other place. One day, he was lying on the bare ground and had two pieces of bricks as his pillow. Some boys who were tending the cows mocked at him saying: "Look at this Mahatma; he has nothing except a Kowpeen and yet, he wants comforts. He wants a pillow. Can he not lie down without pillow?" This little word produced a sudden vibration in his mind and affected him a bit. He immediately threw away the bricks.

This goes to show that even great saints who can remain in Samadhi even for months together are liable to be affected by praise or censure. Such is the force of Samskaras. From time immemorial, praise and censure have produced their impressions of exhilaration and depression on the mind. Yajnavalkya also once cursed a man to death. It is said he had also minute traces of anger, subtle desire for money and cattle as was shown in the court of Janaka despite of his Brahma Jnana. There is a popular view that Jnanins also will have a slight trace of Raga, Dwesha, anger, etc. But this is Abhasamatra, for namesake only. Not real. The difference between a Jnani and a wordly man is that in the case of the former, it will be momentary as in the case of children, while in the latter it will be continuous. A Jnani will forget it immediately, but the worldly man will keep it in the heart for a very long time. The impression of anger that is produced in the mind of a Jnani may be compared to the impression produced in water by a stroke of a walking stick. It is not lasting. The wave dies instantaneously.

Most of the difficulties in our daily lives come from being unable to hold our minds in proper check. For instance, if a man does evil to us, instantly we want to react evil, to revenge, to pay him in the same coin, to extract tooth for tooth, tit for tat policy—to return anger for anger. Every reaction of evil, shows that, we are not able to hold the Chitta down. It comes out in waves towards the object and we lose our power. Every reaction in the form of hatred or evil is so much loss to the mind and every evil thought or deed of hatred, if it is controlled, will be laid in our favor. It is not that we lose by thus restraining ourselves but we gain infinitely. Each time we suppress hatred, or feelings of anger, it is so much good energy stored up in our favor and that energy will be converted into higher power. Anger, when controlled properly, becomes transmuted into an energy so powerful as to move the world.

The sum total of impressions always remains in the mind. Impressions, though they become latent for a time, remain in the mind all the same and as soon as they get the right kind of stimulus, manifest themselves. The vibrations of the Chitta subside externally, after each direct perception, but continue to go on in it like atomic vibrations, and when they get the right kind of impulse, come out again.

Only a word is uttered and we do not wait to consider its meaning, but jump to a conclusion immediately. It is a sign of weakness. The weaker the man is, the less he has the power of restraint. Measure yourself always with the standard of restraint.

When you are going to be angry or miserable on hearing some news, reason it out, for yourself and see how it has thrown your mind into such Vrittis. Restraint does not come in a day, but by long continued practice. Suppose, when you are passing through the bazar, a man comes and takes away forcibly your nice walking stick. That throws your Chitta immediately into the form of a wave, termed anger. Do not allow that wave to develop. If you can prevent the formation of that wave, you have strong will-power, renunciation and Vairagya.

Excerpts from:

Force of Samskaras – God-Realisation by Sri Swami Sivananda

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

(Dec 16,2013 ) Spiritual Message for the Day – A Very Important Sadhana by Swami Krishnananda

A Very Important Sadhana

Divine Life Society Publication: Chapter 53 The Study and Practice of Yoga by Swami Krishnananda

The great sage Patanjali says that the same goal can be reached, though with a greater effort and in a longer period of time, by milder techniques of sadhana if intense meditation is difficult. It is the pressure of the senses towards objects that prevents the mind from taking to exclusive spiritual meditations. The objects of sense are so real to the senses that they cannot easily be ignored or forgotten. The universality of Truth is denied by the senses, at every moment of time, in their activities towards sense gratification.

Patanjali points out that self-control – the control of the senses, austerity, or tapas – together with svadhyaya, or study of sacred scriptures, will consummate in the adoration of God as the All-reality.

The very restraint of the senses from their movement towards objects is a meditation by itself. This energy that is thus stored up and conserved will naturally find its way in the direction of a better aim than what is pointed out by the senses. This effort is called tapas, austerity. Literally, the word ‘tapas’ means heat – a heat that is generated by the preservation of energy in the system. The radiance will emanate from one’s face, from one’s eyes, from one’s personality. This is nothing but the very same energy finding its expression in other ways than the sensory indulgence in which it would have engaged itself if self-restraint had not been practiced.

All meditation is freedom from distraction by directing the energy in one specified manner, and it is also freedom from every other motive, purpose or incentive. If you cannot do japa or meditation, or cannot concentrate the mind in any way, then take to a daily practice of sacred study, or  svadhyaya – like the  moksha shastra, the study of which will generate aspiration in the mind towards the liberation of the soul. A daily recitation – with the understanding of the meaning – of such hymns as the Purusha Sukta and Satarudriya, from the Veda, for instance, is a great svadhyaya. They are highly purifying by being conducive to meditation or concentration of mind, and also in other purifying processes which will take place in the body and the whole system due to the chanting of these mantras.

There are various other methods of svadhyaya. The quality of the mind will determine the type of svadhyaya that one has to practice. If nothing else is possible, do parayana of holy scriptures. It has to be recited again and again, every day at a specific time, in a prescribed manner, so that this sadhana itself becomes a sort of meditation. There are people who recite the Ramayana or the Srimad Bhagavata 108 times. They conduct Bhagvat Saptaha. The purpose is to bring the mind around to a circumscribed form of function and not allow it to roam about on the objects of sense.

The goal of life in every stage of its manifestation is the vision of God, the experience of God, the realization of God – that God is the Supreme Doer and the Supreme Existence. If a continued or sustained study of such scriptures is practiced, it is purifying. It is a tapas by itself, and it is a study of the nature of one’s own Self, ultimately. The word ‘sva’ is used here to designate this process of study – svadhyaya. The purpose of every sadhana is only this much: to bring the mind back to its original source.

Sometimes it is held that japa of a mantra also is a part of svadhyaya. That is a more concentrated form of it, requiring greater willpower. It is not easy to do japa. We may study a book like the Srimad Bhagavata with an amount of concentration, but japa is a more difficult process because there we do not have variety. It is a single point at which the mind is made to move, with a single thought almost, with a single epithet or attribute to contemplate upon. It is almost like meditation, and is a higher step than the study of scriptures. Adepts in yoga often tell us that the chanting of a mantra like pranava is tantamount to svadhyaya. Take to regular study so that your day is filled with divine thoughts, philosophical ideas and moods which are spiritual in some way or the other.

The desire for objects of sense, subtly present in a very latent form in the subconscious level, becomes responsible for the doubt in the mind that perhaps there is no response from God. This is because our love is not for God – it is for objects of sense, and for status in society and enjoyments of various types in the world. And when, through austerity, or tapas, we have put the senses down with the force of our thumb, there is a temporary cessation of their activity.

Austerity, tapas, does not merely mean control of the senses by putting an end to their activity but also an end to even their tendency towards objects; otherwise, they will create a twofold difficulty. Firstly, they will find the least opportunity provided as an occasion for manifesting their force once again; secondly, they will shake us from the core of all the faith that we have in God and the power of spiritual practice.

Even a little good that we do in this direction has its own effect. There should not be a doubt whether it will yield fruit. The frustrated feelings are the subtle longings of the mind, deeper than the level of conscious activity, which create a sense of disquiet and displeasure in the mind. We have not withdrawn our senses from objects wantonly or deliberately, but we have withdrawn them due a pressure from scriptures, Guru, atmosphere, monastery, or other conditions.

Because the heart is absent there, naturally the feeling of happiness is also not there. That is why it is suggested that the sadhana of self-control, or control of the senses, should be coupled with a deep philosophical knowledge and spiritual aspiration, which is what is indicated by the term ‘svadhyaya’, and the other term ‘Ishvara pranidhana’, which is adoration of God as the ultimate goal of life.

Vijatiya vritti nirodha and sajatiya vritti pravah – these two processes constitute sadhana. Vijatiya vritti nirodha means putting an end to all incoming impressions from external objects and allowing only those impressions which are conducive to contemplation on the Reality of God. Vijati means that which does not belong to our category, genus, or species. Sajatiya vritti pravah is the movement like the flow of a river, or the pouring of oil continuously, without break, in a thread of such ideas which are of the character of the soul – which is universality.

This threefold effort – namely, a positive effort at the control and restraint of the senses from direct action in respect of objects outside, deep study of scriptures which are wholly devoted to the liberation of the spirit from the beginning to the end, and a constant remembrance in one’s mind that God is All with a surrender of oneself to His supremacy – constitute a very important sadhana by itself.

Excerpts from:

A Very Important Sadhana – Chapter 53 The Study and Practice of Yoga by Swami Krishnananda
Archives - Blog
 

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 10,2013) Spiritual Message for the Day – The Spirit of Sadhana by Swami Krishnananda

The Spirit of Sadhana

Divine Life Society Publication: Chapter 18 - The Ascent of the Spirit by Swami Krishnananda

 

The nature of Truth does not depend upon human thought and feeling. The human cannot become the divine merely because human history has passed through many centuries of temporal process. The divine is a qualitative transformation of the general attitude of consciousness and not a quantitative calculation of syllogistic conclusions. When Truth takes possession of us, we no more think it or judge it in our own way, but participate in its being, which is a different thing altogether from our definitions of truth, law and justice; goodness, virtue and rectitude.

It makes little difference whether one is a student on the path of devotion or the path of knowledge. The spirit of sadhana in the Inner Path is more important than the outward form with which most people usually busy themselves. One spends the whole day in counting beads, and thinks that his sadhana is over with that. Another attends the temple, rings the bell and does some exercises, reads a few books, so that the hours of the day are all filled up, which is all enough to make him think that he is busy with his sadhana. Now, all this is the outward form which sadhana may take, and a very necessary form. It loses its meaning only when it is deprived of the spirit and the purpose with which it is expected to be done. It is to be remembered that sadhana is not any kind of bodily action that is outwardly demonstrated in the world, but a state of mind, a condition of thinking, a consciousness in which one lives. Suppose one counts ten thousand beads on a particular day, with a heart filled with rancor and an emotion in a state of a ebullition caused by frustration, prejudice or jealousy, the beads are not going to do one any good. All actions are symbols of an inward mood of mind, and when the mood is absent, the action by itself has no significance. The majority of sadhanas are lost in the wilderness of erratic thoughts and confused ideologies. This is the precise reason why, very often, there is no success in sadhana, despite years of routines that are being followed, perhaps with great enthusiasm but bereft of the spirit needed.

It is difficult to make one understand that the spirit of sadhana is determined by the extent to which one aspires for God-realization. We have heard the words ‘God’ and ‘Realization’ so many times that they are likely to lose their meaning, due to their being glibly used every now and then in life. But gold does not become cheap just because we utter its name a thousand times a day. Its value is intrinsic. Unless our routine of sadhana is charged with the ideal of God-realization, it will turn out to be useless in the end, and mean nothing in substance. Maya works in various ways. In one it acts as a preventive against the very taking of the right step. It acts as a tremendous obstacle even at the commencement of the proposed effort. This happens when there is opposition from one’s relatives, from the state of one’s bodily health, or from want of creature comforts that are the minimum which one would need even to live on earth. But maya can also oppose the Sadhaka by making him take the wrong step and imagine that he is moving in the right direction. The latter predicament is worse than the former. For, there, one cannot even know that one is being befooled. Most people cannot avoid falling into this pit, which maya has dug for everyone. But the worst form which it can take is when people mistake an ethical dogma or a traditional routine of the socialized religion for the spiritual meaning of one’s approach to the Absolute.

The ideal of God-realization which is mentioned as the background of the spirit of sadhana is, it is to be reiterated, incapable of being maintained throughout one’s life with equanimity. Even great saints are said to have lost their patience and balance some time or the other in their, lives, in their attempts to maintain this spirit perpetually. Students who have honestly taken to the spiritual path in the beginning have been often misled into the ruts of a desire for such things as tantrik siddhis through mantras and rituals on the one side and a longing to pursue grammar and literature, or astronomy and palmistry, on the other side. It is not that there is anything intrinsically wrong with these sadhakas, for their trouble is that they have not found a suitable guru to guide them in these confused conditions when they feel lost in a sea of hopelessness.

Unfortunately, that God-realization is not going to offer us anything we want in the world is the feeling of many a seeker, because, as pre-conditions of this realization we are asked to renounce desires and want God alone. Now, how can one want God alone and nothing else that is of glory and beauty and splendor and joy in the world? What do we gain by reaching God and losing everything else which we would like to enjoy? Though theoretically, by the argument of the intellect, we may conclude the God is the sole objective to be aspired for, the heart with its feelings that are accustomed to see and hear of the pleasures of this creation cannot reconcile itself with the arid logic that sees no good in the tasty dishes which this splendid universe with its glorious heavens is ready to offer it. These are facts which everyone has to confront on the way to God-realization, and it is not easy to get over the temptations as long as the heart is not united with the understanding. In most cases the head and the heart are like a quarrelling couple who make a hell of the family. There cannot be peace unless the two have common aims and cooperate with each other in the fulfillment of a higher ideal.

The students of both the path of devotion and the path of knowledge should remember one very important point, for it is this point which decides whether their sadhana is successful or not. To the bhakta or devotee, God is everything, and he sees God in this manifestation as the world. This does not mean that the devotee should have reached, in the very beginning itself, the state of para-bhakti or the devotion which sees the whole world as God shining in various forms. Even in the initial stages of bhakti, when such a vision of God is very far, when one is busy with the worship of an image in the temple or in one’s own house, or when one is engaged in purascharana of a sacred mantra, or in svadhyaya or sacred study, the important prerequisite is exclusive devotion to one’s sadhana  and not with the affairs of the world outside. This exclusiveness of devotion saves one from falling into mental states of lust, anger, greed, jealousy, ambition, etc., for the sadhaka has no time to think such things. This is so even when the sadhana is in its beginning stages. What, then, should be the fortune of him who, in his rarefied devotion, sees God everywhere, in the high and the low alike?

To the student of knowledge, objects, as such, do not exist, for, to him, all objects or things are transformed into  the status of a Universal Seer or a Totality of Subjectness, where the ‘worldness’ of the world vanishes, thus leaving no scope for him to get caught in the passions and ambitions which flood what we called the world. There is only a ‘Seer’ who is everywhere and nothing that is ‘seen’, for the ‘seen’ is also the ‘Seer’ himself appearing, as dream-objects are nothing but the thinking of the mind which is unified into a single whole in waking. Where, then, is a chance for prejudice, anger, craving and egotistic expressions?

This is the spirit of sadhana, whether in devotion (bhakti) or knowledge (jnana), which is to animate the daily routine of the sadhaka. It is this that gives meaning to sadhana. It is this, again, that decides one’s success or failure in spiritual practice—to what extent and in what proportion the God-element in sadhana preponderates over other aims and objectives.

Excerpts from:

The Spirit of Sadhana - Chapter 18 - The Ascent of the Spirit 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

(Apr 27, 2013) Spirituality is the Expansion of Being

Spirituality is the Expansion of Being

From Divine Life Society Publication: “True Spiritual Living” by Swami Krishnananda

Spirituality is not a way of living in the sense of conducting oneself outwardly in relationship to other people, but it is a state of being. We have heard from many people that spirituality also implies intense unselfish activity. Then, how do we say that spirituality is a state of being, rather than doing? This peculiar notion has arisen because you have a distinction between yourself and other people in the world. Inasmuch as my existence – which is called ‘my being’ – is different from the being of other people, I have a necessity to develop a relationship with other people. This is called ‘doing’. So, the necessity of doing arises on account of my not being one with others, and others not being one with me.

You have a being of your own; you exist. And I have a being of my own; I exist. But my being is different from your being. So, the connection between my being and your being is called action. As long as we are different from one another, there shall be a difference between being and doing. This is also the reason for the philosophical distinction between knowledge and activity – or in Indian Sanskrit parlance, jnana and karma. Whether knowledge is superior, or action is superior arises from another question: whether I am one with you, or I am different from you. If I am different from you, really speaking, then action cannot be avoided; it is superior in its own way.

We have a compulsive feeling that there is some connection between ourselves and others but we cannot see any connection visibly. On one side we feel that we are an independent people, and that is the reason why we sometimes become selfish and exploit others. At times, we have a humanitarian feeling, a feeling of brotherhood and unity with people. This double attitude of our nature is the cause of our sorrow.

Distinction between being and doing has arisen out of the prejudice of our being in space, time, and a causal relationship of things. Space is a way of disconnecting one thing from another thing. It is because of space that you appear to be different from me. Space prevents us from merging, which has created this distinction of thought, feeling, action, etc. That we are in space, time and cause is an error of thought.

Thus, the whole of human life is a drama of two scenes – being and doing. Being is what we are. Doing is what we try to manifest in order that this being may become more and more complete. Thus, even our doing or our action is only a need felt for expanding our being by connecting ourself with others. Thus, ultimately, being is the truth, not doing, because our doing is only for the sake of being.

All our beings should join together into a single being, like a single ocean having all the drops within it. The whole ocean is one drop only, but it contains small drops. We cannot separate them. But, if we join many stones or sand particles together, we cannot call it a single unity. So, our joining together socially, politically, economically, and externally is something like trying to join millions of sand particles together, which are different from each other. They will never join.

Spirituality is the consciousness of being. And whatever we do as an action is meant for expanding being. That is why they say karma yoga is a yoga by itself for attaining God-realisation. Every kind of relationship with others is an attempt of the soul to come to a unity of being, in a largeness which expands to entire infinitude. We merge in the Supreme Being called God, as all drops merge in the ocean.

We bring a spatial distinction even between us and God. The concept of God, the real Being, transcends the idea of space, time, and cause, and is inseparable from our being. This consciousness of the totality of Being – not merely an aggregate of particulars, but the real merger of Being – is the aim of spirituality. This consciousness has to be manifest in our action, even when there is activity. It is very difficult, therefore, to even conceive what real spirituality is, let alone practice it. But once it becomes a part of our natural way of thinking, we become supermen from that very moment. This is the aim of our life.

Continue to read:

“Spirituality is the expansion of Being” by Swami Krishnananda

“The Doctrine of the Upanishads”  by Swami Krishnananda

“God Exists” by Sri Swami Sivananda

“Karma Yoga” by Swami Sivananda

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