(Sep 1,2014) Spiritual Message for the Day – Sri Swami Sivananda’s Favourite Formula by Sri Swami Sadananda

 Sri Swami Sivananda’s Favourite Formula

Divine Life Society Publication: Philosophy and Teachings of Swami Sivananda by Sri Swami Sadananda

The best way in which we can benefit ourselves whether we are near Swami Sivananda or away from him, is by carrying out his advice, and because there are so many things which he has written about in more than 250 books, it may be impossible for us, ordinary people, to understand everything, even if we have time to read everything. Therefore, he has been so kind as to condense all his teaching into a few words which constitute what may be called the Mantra that he is uttering everyday in our hearing, so that it might sink deep in our minds and enable us to meditate upon its meaning. I am referring to what he always says at the end of the Sat Sang, "Serve, Love, Give, Purify, Meditate, Realise, Be good, Do good, Be kind, Be compassionate, Enquire, ‘Who am I?’, Know the Self and Be free." I consider that this is his favourite formula, the Mantras that he is giving as Upadesh not in the formal way, but in the really valuable way to all people, who come and visit him here and this is a Mantra that has also spread in all parts of the world. If we are to benefit ourselves by the Grace that God has shown to us by giving us this Guru, so that we may improve, the best way is to think about its meaning and act according to it in the best manner possible for us.

Just think about the meaning of these words, "Serve, Love, Give, Purify, Meditate, Realise." Each one of these words has been specially chosen and the word coming after the previous one comes with a purpose. It is not placed without any thought. Even a person in the lowest stage of spiritual evolution can enter into the path of progress, or evolution, only by serving others. That is the first thing that we have to do. Serve everybody as much as you can in the manner in which you are fitted to serve. Now, spiritual service, is selfless service. When you remember that you are part of the universe, that you cannot live independently of the universe, that you partake of the blessing that God is conferring upon you only through others who are living in this universe, your sense of duty will tell you that you have to serve others. Otherwise you will be selfish. Nobody in this universe can live independently. He lives only because there are others who help him in some fashion or other. Therefore, service is only a return for the obligation that we have received and are continuing to receive from others in the world. So, that is the first thing. Whenever you do anything, remember that you are doing it as a sort of repayment of the debt that you have received from other people. Then if you want to have a little better position in the spiritual field than you are having, you must invest a little more in the form of service to mankind. If you have put money in the bank you can take that money from the bank. But if you want to have more credit, do not take away all the money you have put there; but go on increasing your investment. Therefore, serve the world a little more than you have a claim to receive from the world. So, that is the first thing, Karma Yoga. So, then, in this Mantra, the first thing that is taught is Karma Yoga.

Naturally, when you have developed this feeling that you are part of this universe and it is your duty to do something for the universe, the next stage is reached that you should love the universe. Here also we are only returning the love that we are receiving from other people. Love has been shown to us by the parents from the day on which we were born. In our childhood, the whole world loved us. Who does not love a child? Therefore, even in returning, we have to return much more than what we have received. And unless there is love in the world, there cannot be any kind of harmony even in our own little family or community even in the immediate neighbourhood where we live, unless we received love and give love there cannot be any happiness, and mind you, love is the life of Bhakti Yoga. If you love in the manner in which you ought to, you are loving the world, recognising that every person has got in him the all-pervading Atman and that every person functions on account of the presence of God in him. When you recognise that you are able to talk intelligently to other people, only because God gives you that intelligence, when you recognise God everywhere, automatically, you love everyone.

Then, ‘Give’. That is a very important advice that has to be given to a man. In the Upanishads there is a story that once thunder was heard as "Da Da Da" by Asuras, Devas and men. Those who heard the three words, Da Da Da, understood them in their own respective ways. The Devas said, ‘This is the teaching God has given us, because we do not have Dama (restraint).’ Devas are known for their want of restraint, and therefore they felt, ‘We must have restraint. We are running towards the enjoyment of pleasures. We must have a little more control.’ And the advice was taken by men as Dana (charity). The tendency for human beings is to receive and not to give. Asuras have no Daya. Dana is very important for men. If you search your heart, you will find that out of necessity you will pay something, give something and even supposing you had given very willingly, you will be thinking about it and taking pride in your heart of hearts for having given something, though you may not show the pride you feel. When you have given charity, you have done something which is quite abnormal for an ordinary being. Therefore, the teaching that is given us is, "Remember you are a human being. Rise above the average human being. Become divine. Give." This is the teaching there.

Then when all these are practised, the true preparation is made. When you have done selfless service, have decided to rise above the average human being so that you can make your life divine, then you become fit to proceed further. Therefore, serve, love, give, purify. There you have to think of cleansing your mind. Swamiji has got another set of phrases: "Purify your mind, simplify your life and intensify your Sadhana." Why should you purify your mind? So that later on you will not fall a victim to the temptations of your mind. Therefore, purification is for keeping the mind filled with good thoughts. They should stick themselves permanently to the mind, and when you have done that by the practice of Yama and Niyama, by controlling yourself completely, by not allowing yourself to be led away by temptations, by not taking advantage of the simplicity of others in business matters or other matters, when you are avoiding all these bad things you will have purified yourself.

Therefore, serve, love, give, purify. ‘Then you will be fit for meditation. Suppose you are inviting a friend to your house. You will first of all keep your room clean. You will not keep your room dirty. Ordinary courtesy requires that you clean a room before you receive an honoured guest. Now, if you are inviting the most honoured guest, God, to take His seat in your mind, you cannot keep your mind dirty. He will sit only in a place which is clean. Therefore, purify. Then meditation will be possible. Meditation means that you will be able to keep God inside you. When once you have cleaned your mind in the way that it is fit for God to dwell in, then Realisation comes quickly. That is why Swamiji says, "Serve, love, give, purify, meditate and realise."

When you have developed yourself into the position of some divine personality, then it becomes your duty to be positively good. Be good. Till then all the virtuous qualities are only to perfect yourself. Afterwards you are qualified not only to receive power-vibrations from God, but also to transfer your power and godliness to other people. Therefore, you are asked to be good. Perfect goodness is perfect ‘Godliness’. Therefore, "Be good, Do good, Be kind’. "Be compassionate" comes naturally.

Because, you are no longer selfish, you will begin to live only for others’ good. Then, "Be kind and Be compassionate." Then you will be able to understand how other people are to be benefited by the level you have reached. Then enquire, ‘Who am I?’ Be conscious of your identity with the Paramatman, and "Be free".

This is the Mantra which we are receiving every day from Swamiji. Even the person who is very low in the spiritual evolution can practise, "service". The person who is a little advanced, can practise Bhakti Yoga. So, it is possible to practise all these virtues one after another. I would request you to keep this Mantra running in your mind always, concentrate on the meaning of it, when you have time, and work out the ideas, always. That is the way in which you can benefit from the thought vibrations that are always emanating from Swamiji. Now, I am not qualified to describe him to you, but still I can give you this secret that saints like our Swamiji can never be keeping quiet at any moment of their life without radiating vibrations of a spiritual nature. They are always there, and the result is that when we have attuned our mental radio to the appropriate meter to receive those vibrations by simplifying our life, by purifying our mind, by meditating on our inner Self, we shall be able to receive those vibrations and transform ourselves into divine beings, which we are called upon to become, having been born in the world and especially in India, where we have preserved the spiritual heritage of our ancestors. Let us become worthy of them. 

Excerpts from:

Sri Swami Sivananda’s Favourite Formula – Philosophy and Teachings of Swami Sivananda by Sri Swami Sadananda

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http://www.dlshq.org/cgi-bin/store/commerce.cgi?

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(June 20,2014) Spiritual Message for the Day – Duty and Cosmic Will by Swami Sadananda

 Duty and Cosmic Will

Divine Life Society Publication: Duty and Cosmic Will by Swami Sadananda

There are different notions about duty, not only in different countries, but also in the same country, among different grades of society. We may say that duty comes up only when society has been formed. There is a danger of the strong attacking the weak, and, therefore, civilized man requires that some control should be exercised by the strong over themselves lest they should do harm to the weak.

Basic Principles

We may, therefore, say that duty varies from time to time according to the stage of development reached by society. Yet, there are certain fundamental principles which do not get changed. For instance, the idea that one should love another as oneself is a duty which underlies all other forms of duty. In short, we can say that there are one’s duty to the community and one’s duty to oneself.

What should one do to make oneself happy and what should one do to see that he does not create unhappiness to his neighbours? That is the essence of real duty. When one thinks of oneself, one has to ask the question of what one is. Though one is not the body, or the mind, or the dweller in the body only, one is all these as long as one is in the world and alive. Therefore, one has a duty to one’s body, a duty to one’s mind, and a duty to the indweller.

Aspects of Duty

As long as a person refrains from causing any injury to another person’s body, and as long as he refrains also from causing trouble to another’s mind, he may be said to have performed a part of his duty. This is a negative aspect of one’s duty to one’s neighbours, but there is also the positive aspect.

One should do as much as one can to promote real happiness in one’s neighbours. Giving solace to the afflicted and serving the sick, etc., constitute some of the positive aspects of one’s duty. Now it may be asked why one should help another. The answer is that one has already received help from many others from childhood and that at least for the purpose of returning the obligation one should help the others as much as one can.

Obligations

The obligation which he has already received is a debt which has to be discharged. Beyond the help received from the neighbours, or human beings, there is the help received from nature itself.

In our scriptures they speak about the Devas, or the gods, that are responsible for the benefits conferred upon man in the form of rains, etc. Therefore, it is said in the Bhagavad Gita that if one does not discharge one’s duties to the Devas but lives only for himself, he is like a thief, because he gets something for which he does not pay anything at all.

Discrimination

We are often in a condition in which different duties come into conflict. This refers obviously to our duty to the world. The conflict really arises because one sometimes is unable to find out which duty is to be emphasised more than the other.

For instance, to take an ordinary example, we speak of Ahimsa or non-injury. Suppose a tiger is attacking a man. Is it the duty of an onlooker to kill the tiger, or to let the tiger attack the man? The principle of Ahimsa might be interpreted to mean Ahimsa or non-injury to the tiger as well. In that case the man would die. If he kills the tiger and saves the man, he will be saving one soul at the expense of another. Can he be sure that the soul of a man is superior to the soul of a tiger? In such cases what is the answer to be given? The answer must come from within oneself. If according to the best of the onlooker’s intelligence, as it has been given to him, he thinks that saving the soul of a man at the expense of the soul of a tiger is better, he must save the man. It is therefore, ultimately a solution reached by himself.

There are in the world innumerable instances of conflicts of duties, all of which can be solved only by the exercise of one’s own intellect. He is saved from the liability of sin if his conscience is clear, and if he has made a genuine effort. God will approve of every solution coming from any individual, provided there has been a genuine, sincere effort made by him, without any selfish motive, for the purpose of being helpful to another. Thus, ultimately, it is the conscience that decides in each case the duty that one has to perform.

Cosmic Will

God’s Will is Cosmic Will. Otherwise, since cosmos is only a practically dead thing without intelligence in it, it will be difficult to understand how it can have a will of its own. Without belief in God, belief in Cosmic Will or Cosmic Momentum becomes superfluous. One can be in harmony with God’s Will only if one knows what it is. The question, therefore, arises whether it is possible at all to know the Will of God.

To know anything we must have some kind of relationship between the object and ourselves; especially in the case of God’s Will or the mind there must be a kind of sameness between our will or mind and God’s Will or God’s Mind. Is there anything like that? The Upanishads declare that we are only part and parcel of the Ultimate Reality, or God. That is the reason why it is possible for us to have some kind of conception relating to what God wills.

The question arises only when situations arise requiring us to decide what we should do and what we should not do. Till then we act more or less like automatons as impulses guide us. But during critical periods we are not quite clear what should be done and what should not. We have no clear means to know what we can do to understand the Will of God. It is possible to get the right solution by a careful examination of ourselves.

Aspects of Mind

We will notice that anything that we do has to be previously thought about. Thinking is the function of the mind. In the mind arise ideas. Ideas express either something relating to knowledge, or to feeling, or to willpower. Every one of us is guided by one’s feeling. The feeling might be good or bad. The man who wants to avoid the bad and allow only good ideas to arise in his mind exercises that part of his mind which is called intellect. He decides by right thinking that bad feeling should not be allowed to predominate and that only good feelings ought to be allowed to rule over oneself.

Even after this, man finds it necessary to exercise his will, which is another aspect of his mind, to act according to the decision arrived at by the intellectual aspect of his mind. When he does that he may be said to have used all the powers of his mind for doing any particular act. There is no further responsibility for him. He has done his best because he has exercised both his intellect and his will for the avoidance of the evil thought and the promotion of the good thought. Ultimately, therefore, it is the feeling aspect of the mind that has to undergo proper scrutiny.

When we examine the feeling, as and when it arises in the mind, we get the clue to what we have been accustomed for a very long time to do, either in our past life or in this life itself. Suppose a person finds a 100-rupee note lying on the road without anybody apparently observing it, what will be the reaction in his mind? If he has been accustomed to grab things, with or without any justification, his mind will first tell him, "Take the money for yourself." But if his mind has been trained in the past lives, or in this life itself, not to grab things which are not his, he will go away without caring for the money that lies on the road, or hand it over to the nearest police station. It does not belong to him, and he does not want it.

It is on such an occasion that he has to examine the reaction, and, from the reaction, judge about his past life. If the reaction is to grab, he can come to the conclusion that he has been a greedy person in his previous life, and it is this tendency to be greedy that shows itself in the present life also. It becomes all the more necessary, therefore, for him to see that he does not allow this impulse to predominate, and he should make the best effort he can by the exercise of his intellect and will-power to wipe out that tendency to be greedy. If he does that, he acts in such a way as would give the greatest satisfaction to God. That is God’s Will, and that is the way in which he can perform a duty which is in harmony with God’s Will. Therefore, the solution to the question of knowing God’s Will consists in this. Analyse your own impulses. If they happen to be bad impulses, involving injury to others, untruthfulness, incontinence, avarice and dishonesty, avoid all these; they are not God’s Will. If contrary, they are the Will of God, which have to be judged by a motiveless, pure conscience. This is the fundamental duty that everyone has to keep before one’s mind for all time.

Excerpts from:

Duty and Cosmic Will by Swami Sadananda

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