(Jan 22,2014) Spiritual Message for the Day – Thinking as God Thinks by Swami Krishnananda

Thinking as God Thinks

Divine Life Society Publication: Thinking as God Thinks by Swami Krishnananda

(Spoken on May 10,1997)

Aloneness in this world… Even the state of liberation is called aloneness. Because of that term, it is called kaivalya moksha in Sanskrit. To be alone is to be in a state of liberation. That is called moksha.

But what is the meaning of being alone? Suppose a person has no relations, no father and mother, no children; that person may feel he or she is alone. They complain, “I have nobody. I am alone.” That is one kind of aloneness. There is another kind of aloneness. A person has lost all property; all his belongings have gone. There is nothing. He feels alone. Sannyasins who renounce everything go to Uttarkashi, to a mountain top, sit there and calmly meditate. They feel alone.

But there is a strange type of aloneness which is connected with our freedom. A limited aloneness and an unlimited aloneness are two kinds of aloneness. A perfectly free person has no limitations of any kind. He has got wealth, he has got family, he has got authority. Nobody interferes with that person. He is enjoying life alone.

There are some people who lose their sense of individuality and want to die immediately, to commit suicide. These are all tentative, empirical, pragmatic types of aloneness, through which practically everyone passes. If today it is one kind of aloneness, another day it is another kind of aloneness.

But why is moksha, liberation, called aloneness? It is something quite different from the other types of aloneness which I mentioned just now. Moksha means perfect freedom. Perfect freedom is not possible if there is another thing sitting near you. Two persons cannot have one hundred percent freedom.

We are a free society. Everybody is free to the extent that the free person gives equal freedom to other people also. So this also is not perfect freedom because it is limited by the freedom to be given to other people. But moksha is none of these things. It is the non-existence of another thing beside me. It is not that I am unaware of the existence of another thing beside me; it does not exist at all.

The Sankhya philosophy made a mistake in thinking that pure consciousness attains the liberation of its own existence if it is detached from the consciousness of another thing, outside which is called prakriti, or matter. But unconsciousness of the existence of something is not freedom. The snake is crawling, and you are unconscious of the existence of the snake. It is not a very happy thing. You must be conscious of the non-existence of the snake. They are two different things.

Sankhya imagines, that, when the detachment of consciousness from its awareness of another thing called matter, or prakriti, is achieved, it is free. It cannot be free because there is another thing. Just because you are unaware of a trouble, it does not mean the trouble does not exist. This kind of aloneness propounded by Sankhya is also not correct. It should be absolute aloneness.

There is a difficulty in understanding this. We have never had any experience of this kind of aloneness. If you are spiritually inclined and are doing meditation in an isolated place with nobody around you for five hundred miles, you may say, “I am alone.” But even the consciousness of space outside is a limitation to that aloneness. Our consciousness that we are existing is due to the limitation imposed upon us by space and time. They also should go.

Can anybody search one’s consciousness in such a way that space and time also are included in consciousness itself? “I am aware, not as one person among many other people, but as the only person.” You may say there is no such thing as ‘the only person’. This difficulty in knowing what can be in being the only person arises on account of an eternal limitation imposed upon us by the extension of space outside. This space outside is terrifying us. It divides everything. It creates distance. Even if no one is there around us, at least the stars are there. They also cause limitation. The sun and moon are there. The mountains and rivers are there. They also should not be there. There should not be even the utmost possibility of something being there outside us.

This great technique of meditation is the ultimate solution for our misery in this world. Our misery is not due to poverty of money, land, and all that. Our misery is due to the terrible, inextricable bondage of limitation created by space and time; that is all. Can you include space in your consciousness so that you will never feel that there is space outside you? Here, you have to exercise your will very powerfully.

Space is conscious of its being: I am space. If that unlimited expanse of being (space) becomes conscious of itself, what will be the experience at that time? Meditate like this: “I am not conscious of the space; I am myself space. And who is this ‘I’? It is space itself. Where is space? Unendingly expanded everywhere. So on what am I meditating?” A shocking answer will come.

It is said moksha is a shocking experience. It abolishes every kind of convention, every kind of logic. Any kind of calculation will not work there. Nothing that has any sense in this world has sense there. All the values of life are abolished at once. Everything that you consider as meaningful in this world ceases to exist there. Then you will say, “Oh, I will lose everything.” The mind is such a trickster. Whatever you do, it will put an obstacle.

This kind of thinking is actually God thinking. If you want to reach God, you have to think like God. You cannot go on thinking like a foolish person and then attain God. Only equals meet each other, unequals cannot meet each other; and if you are equal to God, you will meet God. You will be terrified: “How I will be equal to God?” because you forget that you are included in God. If God is everywhere, you are also inside Him.

Your whole body will tremble if you try to think like this. No virtue, no good work, no charitable deed, no philanthropy can equal this thought. This one thought is equal to all charity. All goodness and any service that you do will pale into insignificance before this tremendous earth-shaking thought. It will shake up all your karmas, all the sins that you committed in all the world, and the whole thing will be wiped out like the debt that you incur in the dream state gets wiped out in the waking condition.  By the very fact of waking, you have paid the debt.

No human being will be able to think like that. You cease to be a human being. Otherwise, this thought cannot arise. A human being’s thought cannot contact God-thought. It is only God-thought that can contact God-thought. Nobody can imagine such things. If this can continue, if you do not forget this idea and are drowned in this thought, in this birth itself you will get liberation. There is no need for japa, yatras or pilgrimages. The whole world will melt into you, and the doors of heaven will be opened instantaneously.

The body may continue due to the persisting old prarabdha, which has given birth to this body. Even a liberated soul cannot shed the body because liberation is a conscious condition. The body is the result of the karmas that you performed in the previous birth. That has to exist and continue until the time when the effect of those actions which have given birth to this body cease and the body is shed automatically. But you are liberated.

You will be overjoyed. You will sing and dance. You will smile. “Oh, wonderful!” The Upanishadic seers used to say, “Oh, wonderful! Oh, wonderful!” They had no words.

So here is the glory before us. We are not simply meaningless persons. There is a great heritage hidden inside us. God is calling us, and everything will be well. So be happy.

Excerpts from:

Thinking as God Thinks by Swami Krishnananda

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(Jan 18,2014) Spiritual Message for the Day – The Practice of Yoga by Swami Krishnananda

The Practice of Yoga

Divine Life Society Publication: Kathopanishad – The Science Of The Inner Life by Swami Krishnananda

This Atman is not seen through the eyes, nor is it perceived through any of the other senses, as it never becomes an object of itself. It is known only when the center of personality is dissolved through the absorption of the factors causing individuality, viz., the mind and the intellect, into the Atman. Equanimity of inner vision is the same as spiritual knowledge, and it cannot be had as long as the mind and the intellect function in their own fashion. The Atman cannot be sought in external conditions, but it can be known and realized through a reverting from externals to eternal being. It is this introversion that enables one to enter into the very substance of being. This state of spiritual equilibrium is attained when the five senses of knowledge rest together with the mind, and when the intellect does not perform its functions of objective knowledge.

Yoga consists in the withholding of all individual functions, beginning from the physical body and ending in the intellect, and the directing of the whole energy to the apperception of consciousness. It is, in other words, a steadying of the power of consciousness and making it rest in itself, in the state of perfection and motionlessness.

Yoga and Jnana differ from each other in the sense that the former is the negative process of the annihilation of personal consciousness, whereas the latter is the positive realization and experience of infinite consciousness. In a general sense, Yoga may include Jnana also, if Yoga is taken to mean the method of the attainment of the Brahman. In the practice of Yoga, one should become very vigilant, and not become proud or heedless. Yoga comes and goes. It does not rest for long, unless great care is taken in the maintenance of that consciousness of Oneness. Yoga is the separation from contact with pain. In this state, the powers working through the external senses and the internal senses are made to go back to their source, viz., the power of Self-consciousness, where they rest in perfect peace. The noise of the senses ceases, and, as a consequence of this, pain and sorrow also are negated.

Brahman should be conceived of as existence, between the two logical conceptions of existence and non-existence. Existence is the correlative of non-existence, and, hence, even non-existence may appear to have as much validity as existence. But the conception of non-existence, though logically deducible, is practically impossible, as the conception of Brahman as non-existence involves the negation of the consciousness of one's own existence, also. Therefore, Brahman should be known as existence, though from the highest standpoint this, too, is a limited conception. As far as the human being is concerned, the conception of existence is not limited in the ordinary way, because, it is not possible to set boundaries to existence. The idea of existence leads to the realization of the transcendental Truth which includes and goes beyond the ideas of existence and non-existence.

When all the desires that are lodged in the heart are cast off, the mortal experiences the Immortal, and one becomes Brahman, here itself. Moksha is the realization of that which exists always and everywhere. Therefore, it can be realized at any place, provided the obstructions to this realization are removed. These obstructions are desires for objective experience. Removal of desires is the same as the destruction of mind. The realization of the Self does not involve a movement towards any external condition, but it is the extinction and transcendence of personality in the Absolute. It is like a drop dissolving in the ocean, or rather, the ocean itself becoming aware that it is ocean.

The Yogavasishtha makes reference to two methods of overcoming and transcending the mind, which is the stuff of individuality – Yoga and Jnana. Vasishtha defines Yoga as Vrittinirodha or inhibition of psychological functions, and Jnana as Samyagavekshana or right perception. Generally, Yoga is to be understood in the sense of that Integral Method whereby the individual is attuned to the Supreme Being. It is neither a creed nor a tradition, but the law governing the universe, and made manifest in the conscious activity of the individual.

Yoga is the process of the evolution of the finite to the Infinite, consciously and deliberately systematized, and thus accelerated. In Yoga, the experiences of several future possible lives are compressed into those of one life or the least possible number of lives. Yoga is, therefore, nothing out-of-the-way or unconnected with the normal life of man. Truly, it is the only normal life, and a life bereft of the consciousness of Yoga, in some degree at least, may be said to be below the normal. To be forced to be something and to act in certain ways, instinctively, without the conscious and volitional activity of oneself, is not the glory of man. Yoga is to know the real relation which man bears to the universe as a whole, and to the Divine Being which is his Higher Self. Not to know this relation is to grope blindly in darkness and to be merely confined to the animal consciousness of subhuman beings. Yoga is not cutting oneself away from the reality of life in the world, but it is the understanding and realization of the real meaning of existence in order to live a life of the essential freedom and bliss of one's deepest consciousness. In other words, it is to be a friend and citizen of the whole universe, to feel oneself in all beings, to absorb into oneself the whole constitution of the universe, to be the Soul of the universe. This is the meaning of Yoga, understood in its general sense.

But Yoga has also a special and particularized meaning, as mentioned by Vasishtha and is identical with the technical Yoga system of Patanjali. In this system, the faculty which plays the most important part is the will, not so much the understanding or the feeling. By sheer dint of determination and decision based on faith in the holy tradition and the instructions of the teacher, one fixes one's consciousness on the ideal of one's attainment.

All Vrittis or psychoses are resolutely banished from consciousness by resort to various methods, such as thinking of the opposite of the obstructing psychosis, cultivation of virtuous qualities, practice of the abandonment of objects and enjoyments both seen and heard, complete restraint of the senses, fast, continence, positive love for all beings, truth-speaking, non-covetousness, cleanliness of body and of internal motive, contentment. with what one obtains independent of effort, austerity, study of sacred scriptures, recitation of the Name of God, prayer, self-surrender, steady posture of the body, harmonization of the vital energy, etc. By these methods the Yogi withdraws his senses from their respective objects, and concentrates his mind on the Supreme Being. Before the attainment of actual concentration on God, one may pass through various lower stages of concentration on grosser objects which are more easily comprehended and taken as means of steadying the activities of the mind. Thus, with a negative method of abstraction of the functions of individuality, one attains That which is at the background of all individual functions.

Jnana is Samyagavekshana, or right vision of things. It is to behold the world as it is really, not merely as it appears to the individual functions of knowledge. It is to fix the consciousness on the Universal Substance, of which all things are made. Jnana is the knowledge that the Self is the All, and that All is the Self. This Self is not the individual subject of knowledge, but the Self of the whole universe, the Consciousness to which the whole universe can be reduced. Jnana is to experience nothing objective, nothing external to one's consciousness, and to have the direct realization of Eternity and Infinity. Jnana is the constant awareness of the Immortal Brahman. This awareness has an empirical as well as an absolute aspect. Empirically, it is called Brahmabhavana or Brahmabhyasa, which consists in ceaselessly thinking of and feeling the presence of Brahman, speaking of Brahman, discoursing with one another on Brahman, and totally resting in the consciousness of Brahman, in all activities of life. In its absolute aspect, it is to be merged in Brahman, to be in the state of perpetual Samadhi or Kaivalya, to be perfectly free from the consciousness of a second to oneself, to glory in the Absolute, and to be supremely blessed. This latter stage follows the former logically, when all the impressions of past actions are experienced and destroyed, when the body drops, and the individual enters the Absolute, as a river enters the ocean. This 'entering the ocean' is, of course, an analogy from the human standpoint, for, really, there was never a river, never is, and never will be. There was, is and will be only the ocean, and the ocean has to know that it is. Only the Absolute can be, and is, and liberation is the consciousness of the Absolute. Yoga and Jnana aim at this supreme beatitude.

Excerpts from:

The Practice of Yoga - Kathopanishad – The Science Of The Inner Life by Swami Krishnananda

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(Sep 16,2013) Spiritual Message for the Day – The Atman as the Pranava (OM)

The Atman as the Pranava (OM)

Divine Life Society Publication: Section7 The Mandukya Upanishad by Swami Krishnananda

 

The three syllables, A, U, M, may be compared with the three states described of the Atman – Jagarita (waking), Svapna (dream), Sushupti (sleep). And, also, just as there is a fourth transcendent state beyond the three states of the Atman, there is a transcendent state of Om, too, beyond the three syllables, A, U, M. As there are four states of consciousness, there are four states of Omkara, each one, respectively, comparable with its corresponding counterpart. All these comparisons are symbolic, and we should not take them literally. All meditations are symbolic; all Vidyas of the Upanishads are symbolic.

What is the first state of the Atman? The Jagaritasthana, or the waking condition of the Atman, called the Visva, or Vaisvanara, is the first syllable of Om – Akara. From the point of view of the Jiva – not from the point of view of Isvara – the waking condition is the cause, and dream and sleep may be regarded as its effects. Ya evam veda: One who knows this secret of meditation on the harmony between Akara and the waking state of the Atman, becomes a master over all things, a perfected Siddha does he become, and he is an adept in Yoga.

Ukara is the second syllable of Om, which can be compared with the second Pada or foot of the Atman. Taijasa or dream-consciousness comes as an effect of the waking experience; proceeding from the waking experience, existing midway between waking and sleep. One who meditates in this manner, rises in his status of knowledge and becomes an equalizing factor in society and in all creation. One has peace within oneself, and creates peace outside, too, on account of the radiance of peace emanating from oneself.

Makara is the third Matra of Om, and it is comparable with Prajna (deep sleep state of consciousness), the third state, causal, of the Atman. It is the measure of all things, and it is the dissolver of all things. When we chant Om, Akara and Ukara merge in Makara, as all the impressions of waking and dream merge in Prajna, deep sleep, the causal state. Deep sleep is the cause, and all experiences in waking and dream are its effects. As Isvara is the cause of all things, the deep sleep state seems to be the cause of our waking and dreaming, in one sense, namely, that we wake up from sleep on account of unfulfilled desires. If all our desires are fulfilled, we would not be waking up from sleep, at all. 'A' and 'U', merge themselves in 'M'. One, who meditates thus, has the capacity to measure all things, that is, to know everything – he becomes Sarvajna. He becomes Isvara Himself. Everything merges in him; as the verse in the second chapter of the Bhagavad-Gita says, everything enters into him, as rivers enter the ocean. Isvara is the Merger of all creation, and when you become Isvara, the whole creation merges in you. You realize this state by this meditation on the unity of Makara and Prajna, the causal state of Pranava and the causal state of Consciousness, both individually and cosmically.

Now, as there are three relative conditions of the Atman, Jagrat, Svapna and Sushupti – waking, dream and deep sleep – Akara, Ukara, and Makara of Pranava, or Omkara, may be regarded as its relative conditions. But, just as there is a transcendent state of the Atman, there is a transcendent condition of Pranava, or Omkara, which is not constituted of Matras or syllables, but is Amatra, without any measure or syllable. Even as we cannot designate the Atman as either this or that, so we cannot specify this Amatra condition of Om as either this or that. It is a vibration of being, and not a state of sound, and there is no material content in this vibration. It transcends the physical, the subtle and the causal states, and it is not even merely the vibration which sets creation in motion. It is subtler than even the causal vibration with which creation commenced. The only word the Upanishad uses to name this state is Amatra, immeasurable. As the Atman is ungraspable, unrelatable, indescribable, unthinkable, so is this Amatra condition of Omkara measureless in every way.



Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva within OM

This Om, in its fourth or transcendent state, is Atman itself. There is a soundless state of Pranava that is Existence itself. All sounds and vibrations merge into Existence, and Existence is One. We may call it Pranava in its Amatra state or as Atman in its indescribable state of Being. Pure Existence is the merging together of Pranava and the Atman. The fourth state of Pranava is that with which we cannot have any dealings, as with objects, words or sounds, such as in connection with usages in language. All the world of sound ceases here in this soundless state of Pranava. It is most auspicious, blessed and non-dual like the Atman, because it is The Atman. This Omkara which is soundless and transcendent is the Atman itself. Creation and the Creator become one here. The merger of Om in the Atman is the merger of creation in the Absolute. There is no creatorship also, because there is no created. There is no sound that is supposed to be the first vibration of creation. Sound reaches the soundless state. It becomes, then, relationless. One, who knows this secret, by deep meditation, enters the Atman by the Atman. Sounds merge in Pranava; it becomes the Atman.

The Atman alone is. When the Atman becomes the Atman through the Atman, it is called Atma-sakshatkara – realization of the Atman. It is also Brahma-sakshatkara – realization of Brahman. From the point of view of the Atman animating the individual states, we call this achievement Atma-sakshatkara. From the standpoint of this very same Atman animating the whole cosmos, we call it Brahma-sakshatkara. It is Self-realization and God-realization at one and the same time. It is Existence, it is Consciousness, it is Power, it is Bliss, it is Perfection, it is Immortality, it is Moksha, it is Kaivalya. This is the Goal of life, the path to which is beautifully described in the Mandukya Upanishad.

Excerpts from:

The Atman as the Pranava - Section7 The Mandukya Upanishad by Swami Krishnananda

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(May 13,2013) The Indian Concept of the Divine Mother (Mother’s Day Message)

The Indian Concept of the Divine Mother by Swami Sivananda

Divine Life Society Publication: God as Mother

Since the dawn of civilisation, when the primitive man lived in a matriarchal society, the worship of the Divine Mother came into practice. Later on, as civilisation progressed, the matriarchal pattern gradually faded out, and the father became the head of the family unit, where he was treated as the man in authority and to whom everyone looked for guidance and approval. Consequently, there was a change in the concept of God as such; the Fatherhood of God was established. But Mother worship persisted simultaneously, since this concept was psychologically more appealing to the devotee, the mother being nearest in filial affection to the child. Subsequently, a synthetic harmony between the Motherhood and Fatherhood of God was developed by the Hindu religion; the people worshipped Sita and Rama, or Radha and Krishna together.

The concept of the human mind is based on relative experience. Subjective idealism, therefore, in its initial stages, takes the aid of objective and relative analogies. God is neither limited to abstract or concrete concepts. But it is easier to establish a conscious relationship with the Providence in terms of benevolent fatherhood or affectionate, kindly motherhood than by the concept of an unfathomable void. God is devoid of qualities, in reality, but a relative superimposition of the positive ideals of goodness and virtue is essential for self-culture and spiritual progress of the aspirant.

Mother is very kind to her child. You are more free with your mother than with anybody else. It is the mother who protects you, nourishes you, consoles you, cheers you and nurses you. She is your first preceptor. She sacrifices her all for the sake of her children. In the spiritual field also, the aspirant has very intimate relationship with the Divine Mother.

The Upasana or the worship of the Universal Mother leads to the attainment of knowledge of the Self. The Yaksha Prasna in Kenopanishad supports this view. Approach Her with an open heart. Lay bare your mind with frankness and humility. Lay your thoughts be pure and sublime. Become as simple as a child. Pulverise your individual entity, the egoistic nature, cunningness, selfishness and crookedness. Make a total, unreserved, ungrudging self-surrender to Her. Chant Her Mantras. Worship Her with faith and devotion.

Intense Sadhana and worship leads to the victory of the higher, divine forces over the lower, negative qualities that find their expression in injustice, oppression, aggrandisement, greed, selfishness, hatred and a host of other undivine forces that add to the suffering of man.

Worship the Mother in all Her manifestations. She is the creative aspect of the Absolute. She is symbolised as Cosmic Energy. Energy is the physical ultimate of all forms of matter and the sustaining force of the Spirit. Energy and Spirit are inseparable. They are essentially one. The five elements and their combinations are the external manifestations of the Mother. Intelligence, discrimination, psychic power and will are Her internal manifestations. Humanity is Her visible form. Service of humanity is, therefore, the worship of the Divine Mother.

Feel that the Mother sees through your eyes, hears through your ears, and works through your hands. Feel that the body, mind, Prana, intellect and all their functions are Her manifestations. The one, universal life throbs in the heart of all. How can there be any room for hatred and selfishness, when by hating another you are but hating the Mother, when by being selfish to another you are but denying your own self. Drive deep this consciousness within your heart. Always meditate and practise this ideal of divine oneness.

Mother’s grace is boundless. Her mercy is illimitable. She is pleased with a little purity of heart. Make a definite and sincere attempt to obtain the grace Of the Mother. She will transform your entire life, and bless you with the milk of divine wisdom, spiritual insight and Kaivalya!

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The Indian Concept of The Divine Mother by Swami Sivananda (Navarathri Durga Pooja)

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