(Jan 8,2014) Spiritual Message for the Day – The Primary Mission by Swami Chidananda

The Primary Mission

Divine Life Society Publication: The Ultimate Success - An Instrument of Thy Peace by Swami Chidananda

The primary mission of man is to make this earth life into a part of this evolutionary process--if possible, right up to the very top! As unfoldment proceeds, you become more and more a self-conquered person. The concept of inner unfoldment was that you should become a king within your body dominion and not a slave. Self-mastery becomes a progressive conquest of the different levels of your being. That is the true inner unfoldment, and this conquest was indispensable if you were to become established in a life of idealism.

Buddha once posed a question: "Who is the greater being--a king who has defeated another kingdom or one who has conquered his own mind?" He himself gave the answer: the greater one is not he who has conquered with armies, but he who has subdued his own passions and mind. The conqueror of kingdoms may still be the slave of his desires; he may be miserable and have no peace of mind or happiness. But the one who has conquered his mind will shine in virtue, as he will have liberated himself from the net of desires. Therefore, trying to be a success in your outer life is perfectly legitimate, but if you only do this, it would not be sufficient.

The great master Ramakrishna once told a story about farmers who leave some inferior grain lying out in the granaries in order to keep the rats satisfied so that they don’t try to eat the better quality grain. In a similar way, maya has put many attractive things in front of you as "inferior grain" so that you will nibble it and bypass the highest attainment. You may think you have been very clever, but you have in fact been foolish. Fully occupied by cleverness, you have managed to become an effective personality, and then what--you die and then maybe you get two lines in the obituary column of the Washington Post!

But, instead of this foolishness, you can attain divine perfection. Any process of unfoldment you launch upon will ultimately take you there. If you strongly will it, it is possible. "Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven." That is why, in the context of Eastern religious tradition, when they gave the fourfold values (artha, kama, dharma, moksha) for an individual to strive after, they gave liberation through divine perfection (moksha) as the highest supreme value. Artha would provide for the secular value--to accumulate honestly earned wealth to acquire the necessities of life. Through kama you fulfil the legitimate desires and longings of your heart, taking care that this process does not deprive you of that ultimate goal. Through dharma you base your life upon the firm foundation of moral and ethical principles that the masters gave.

Liberation will not come by itself. You must know that it is important, you must have a desire for it, and you must work diligently for it. On the basis of your secular life, work hard to acquire the money to lead a comfortable life, but then let the quality of your efforts in making a success of your secular life not be divorced from the ethical element. Otherwise, you will succeed, but at the same time you will fail, and forever you will be the loser in the highest sense. To succeed in life, our vision should always be fixed upon that great goal, and our concepts of inner unfoldment should be oriented in that way.

In none of this have I meant to say that we should not make effort to improve ourselves or get greater intellectual abilities or learn new skills. No, by all means make use of these, but don’t stop short. When you employ self-improvement techniques, let there be simultaneously improvement of yourself as a person; otherwise, you may be putting them to the wrong use. You will win battles but lose the war. Everybody wants shortcuts, but there are dangers, because the mind is very tricky. You may throw a boomerang out thinking it will come right back to you, but if you don’t throw it correctly you might lose it.

The Eastern approach to this entire subject of inner unfoldment was first and foremost based upon the vision of ultimate fulfilment, and an awakened being with an awareness of consciousness can fulfil the mission of man on earth. May Master’s benedictions always abide with you and give you a real inner unfoldment leading to the supreme attainment.

Excerpts from:

The Primary Mission - The Ultimate Success - An Instrument of Thy Peace by Swami Chidananda

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(Sep 4,2013) Spiritual Message for the Day – The Stature of the Spirit of Swami Sivananda

 The Stature of the Spirit of Swami Sivananda

Divine Life Society Publication: The Stature of the Spirit of Swami Sivananda by Swami Krishnananda



Worshipful Sri Gurudev Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj, was a great combination, a great blending of apparent contradictions.  On the one hand, He was a renunciate par excellence, and on the other hand, He was rooted in God and thought of nothing else. He was a lover of all, but a friend of none. The world and the spirit came together in his personality. Such great souls are described in the scriptures as Mahakartas, Mahabhoktas, and Mahatyagis.

Mahakartas are stationed in the spirit of God and can do anything, in any manner they like, without adhering to the common norms of human conduct and thinking. Mahabhoktas can enjoy anything, and Mahatyagis can renounce anything in utter abandonment; even relinquishment of the notion of belonging to anything is abandoned. We cannot conceive such persons in our stereotyped human minds.

He maintained no connection with anybody in this Ashram, though he maintained an intimate connection with everybody and looked after everyone, as his own children. But it took only a moment for him to renounce everybody and to consider that he had nothing to do with any person.

His meditations were his strength and were based on the great Vedic cosmological hymn known as the Purusha Sukta.

In the morning he used to place a few flowers on the head of each of his attendants, one by one, with a mantra meaning, “One of the heads of the Cosmic Being has come.”  It is difficult for untrained minds to imagine that the heads of everyone are the heads of God only and all the eyes are His eyes. These ears with which we are listening now, this mind with which we are able to think, these feet with which we have walked up to this place and these hands of ours are the ears, mind, feet and hands of God, respectively.  It is God that pulsates in our hearts, breathes through our lungs, speaks through our mouths, and understands through our intelligence.

But this will never enter the mind of any person. The ego, the human nature does not permit the entry of any nobility or greatness that is external to itself. Everywhere this “I am” comes in and because of that affirmation which is so very unfortunate, the great ‘I’ of the Absolute God does not enter us.

We are told that there are three kinds of disciples. Even before the Guru speaks, the first type of disciple knows what the Guru is intending in his mind; the Guru’s very existence, being and demeanor become an instruction. The second type of disciple is one who has to be told, “Do this.” If he is not told anything, he will not do anything. The third kind of disciple will not do anything even if he is told to do something. He will have his own way. This is the attitude we develop towards God also. Even if instructions come that this has to be done, we shall not follow them because we believe that our way of living will continue for a long time, and we can easily be comfortable with all the mechanisms that we have created for prolonging our life and keeping ourselves happy.

Does it even matter when some just follow the letter of the instruction as given in the scriptures like the Gita, the Bible and the Upanishad, when the import has not been comprehended properly?

Gurudev was a Godman, and some call such great beings Mangods. All the gods are within them. Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa Deva was also called a Mangod. Sri Gurudev Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj used to say, “Do you know who I am? I can be Vishnu, and I can be Rudra, both. Lovingly I will take care of all of you, protect you, love you, and caress you as your father and mother. But I can be Rudra and I will not even look at your face.” He could be highly creative like Brahma, protective like Vishnu, and dispassionate like Rudra.

Many years have passed since he became invisible to this world, and he is remembered more now. His work seems to be getting more and more accelerated, much more than when he was physically available to us. The discarnate spirit of his universal presence seems to be operating in a more vigorous and expanded manner than the comparatively limited way that the work was going on earlier.

The liberated soul, a Jivanmukta, even while living, can maintain the connection with this world and with God, the Ultimate Reality, simultaneously. There are others who can be discarnate Jivanmuktas and yet maintain this relationship between the higher and the lower. The incarnate ones are usually called the Jivanmukta Purushas.

 

There are seven stages of knowledge and Self-realization. The first three stages are the stages of aspiration, spiritual effort and struggle in Sadhana, to which category the people of the world may be said to belong. But there is a fourth stage where the spirit ascends above the world and attains a state called sattvapatti. Flashes of the light of God become the light of day for that perception. This flash illuminates their own vision as well as the world below, so they can see themselves clearly, as well as the Reality that flashes the light, and the world below. That is the condition where we can contact them directly, even in our meditations. They will descend into our hearts, into our work life, and operate by their very thought. Such great Masters are many who can act for us and work for us, and do things for us by the very thought of them. Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj has been operating in this way.

This Purusha, the great mighty Being, is connected with this world, as well as not connected with this world. So are the great Masters, having enveloped the whole world of perceptibility, they stand above it to a large extent, uncontaminated, untouched, unrelated in any manner whatsoever. The greatest service that one can do is, to contemplate and meditate in this manner and to invoke them in their true spirit into our own hearts.

True service arises from the thought of the mind. We are told that there were great Masters who came to this world whose names are not known to everybody. They leave their thoughts behind when they go. These thoughts that they leave are the protective forces of this world. They are energies operating in the form of what we may call invisible incarnations of divinity.

Do not say, “I have done so much. I have been serving so much.” This counts little in the eyes of the higher values of life. Tell me what you are thinking in your mind. The whole day, from morning to night, what have you been thinking? What are the ideas that arose in your mind? That is the service that you have done, not the running about here and there, and seeing and doing many things.

Such is the series of thoughts that occur to my mind at this moment when I recollect my association with the great Master, Gurudev Sri Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj. I offer my humble obeisance to him, and request you to offer your obeisance to him in his great masterly stature of spirit.

Excerpts from:

The Stature of the Spirit of Swami Sivananda by Swami Krishnananda

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(June 7,2013) The Glory of Contentment

The Glory of Contentment

Divine Life Society Publication:  “Yoga as a Universal Science” by Swami Krishnananda

When one is pure in mind, pure in speech and pure in body, there is a contentment arising from oneself. There is Santosha. It is very essential that one should be happy under any circumstance. This is very important. If a person is weighed down heavily with some grief or sorrow, and he becomes melancholy and moody, and gets into a state of weeping and crying, and is not able to sleep because of the sorrow that is eating into his vitals, how could he do any meditation? How is it possible for him to practise Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara? Though it is well said and easily said that one has to be happy, it is not easy for people to be always happy. But, there is a way whereby we can keep ourselves happy. That way is to keep the goal before our eyes. Finally, in the end, in the last resort, we shall succeed. We may now appear to be suffering, sorrow-ridden, and feeling helpless in every manner, but a day must come in the life of every one of us when we must succeed. Failure is not the goal of any person. The ultimate goal of life is success only. The whole universe is moving towards a great Cosmic Success. Any individual is a part of this cosmos, and therefore, he is also moving towards the achievement of a success par excellence, though it may appear that he may have to bear the brunt of tentatively confronting sorrows, and those sorrows have to be taken in their true spirit and judged against their true worth.

There is a story recounted by Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa in a humorous way. Narada was passing one day by the side of a garden, and the gardener asked the sage Narada: "Master, where are you going?" The great sage said, "I am going to Vaikuntha, the Lord's Heaven, to have His Darshan". "Oh! You are going to have Darshan of the Lord! Please ask Him when I shall attain liberation." He was a gardener planting various fruit trees. Narada said, "I shall certainly ask the Lord, and when I come back, I shall let you know what His answer is". So, Narada proceeded further and on the way, he met a farmer. The farmer put the same question: "Lord, O great sage, master, where are you going?" The sage said, "I am going to Vaikuntha, the Lord's abode". And the farmer also made a request similar to the gardener's: "Please ask the Lord when I shall attain liberation". Narada gave the same reply as before: "Yes. I shall come back to you with the Lord's answer". So, after several days or so Narada returned from Vaikuntha and he met this farmer. Immediately, the farmer asked very eagerly. "Did you meet the Lord?" "Yes, I met the Lord" replied Narada. "Did you ask Him about my liberation?" "Yes, I asked." "Did He give you the reply?" "Yes, He gave the reply." "What was the reply?" "You will take another fifty years to attain liberation." The farmer was very sorry to hear this. "I have been chanting God's Name, I have been doing prayer, I have been meditating, I have been practising Yoga, day and night I am absorbed in God's thought. Still I have to wait for fifty years! What a wretched thing!" He cursed himself. Narada passed on and met the gardener. The gardener asked, "What is the reply from the Lord?" "You will take as many thousands of years to reach God as there are leaves in this tree." And Narada pointed to a nearby tree. The gardener's joy knew no bounds. He was so happy. He jumped in ecstasy. "So, after all, I am fit!" His way of thinking was quite different from that of the farmer's. The farmer cried because he had to wait for fifty years more, and this gardener was in joy, in ecstasy, was bursting with the love of God, because he got the reply from the great Master, the Supreme Being, that he was after all fit to gain salvation even if that salvation was to come after as many thousands of years as there were leaves in the nearby tree. The story goes that his ecstasy of joy was such that it burnt all his sins in an instant, and he had divine vision at that very moment, whereas that poor farmer with fifty years' sorrows had no experience of the kind.

This is just an illustration given by Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa to explain the human situation in general in regard to the love of God, practice of Yoga, and the way in which one can be contented even under conditions which may appear to be very poor, unsatisfying and terrific. Truth triumphs – Satyameva jayate. And if we tread the path of truth even in a minute measure, to the extent that we do so, we are bound to succeed in this world. And if there be anyone who has a little bit of honest devotion directed to God-realisation, and the practice of Yoga in its essentiality, surely he is treading the path of truth, and therefore, he is bound to succeed to that extent. Nobody is destined to go to hell for ever and ever. Everybody is destined to reach the Supreme Absolute finally. The little sorrows, the pin-pricks, the skirmishes through which we pass in life, are the effects of our previous actions. We have done something in the past, and the reactions come as thorns under our feet when we walk on the ground today. So, we should not be unnecessarily worrying over the little difficulties that we have in our life. They shall pass away, because they are reactions to our own actions. And when they exhaust themselves in their momentum, we will be free. So, we have reason to be happy, to be content, to be satisfied. Yadrischa-labha-santushtah, as the Bhagavad Gita puts it. Let us be satisfied with whatever circumstances we are in. Let us be happy under any condition. Otherwise, we will be brooding over unnecessary things; the mind will be distracted, and we cannot concentrate. Yoga will not be for us afterwards. Inasmuch as one is a student of Yoga, contentment is necessary; one must be satisfied inside and one should not be a complaint-master. The Yoga student must not complain about anything. This is another Niyama or discipline, an observance which is enjoined upon all students of Yoga, by Patanjali in his system.

Continue to read:

Yoga as a Universal Science by Swami Krishnananda

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