(July 19,2014) Spiritual Message for the Day – You are That! by Sri Swami Chidananda

 You are That!

Divine Life Society Publication: - Divine Life by Sri Swami Chidananda

Beloved spiritual aspirants! You are seeking something, you are devoted to something, you are practising something all with one single ultimate objective. The inner motivation is the same. It is the attainment of Divine-experience, God-experience, the realisation of the Absolute, the realisation of what you are.

Classical philosophy and all the great mandaleshwars say that this world is an obstacle to that achievement. Sense objects are tempting snares. The unwise jivatma is caught and enslaved by his own desires, and these temptations draw him out and catch him in their coils. The jivatma is helpless, caught by maya. 

All this may be said in books and scriptures and by mandaleshwars giving discourses, but we must know better. And the better truth has been expounded to us, revealed to us. But you will know this only if you make right enquiry, vichara. Right enquiry will suddenly bring you light, reveal to you many things that you did not know. It will bring you so many truths.

And then suddenly you will develop a new skill, a new qualification, a new ability to know what it is that stands in your way and what it is that can be favourable to you in moving towards the supreme goal. You will know what you must gladly accept and make part of your life and what you must uproot and throw away, eradicate, even if it is part of your present life: "No, no, now I know better. I am not going to allow this to remain. It is an obstacle that is within myself. I will throw it out."

So this skill of discrimination, viveka, and the ability to know what is helpful to your spiritual life and what is not helpful and constantly discriminating between these two, then at every step rejecting that which is not favourable to your spiritual life and cultivating and augmenting that which is helpful, becomes a constant exercise of a wise and awakened seeker. So right enquiry and discrimination help move you towards the truth that you are seeking. 

And at one stroke, in one declaration-a grand declaration, a great declaration-the whole problem has been solved by a super being. He declared to us that all these things that we think constitute our great obstacle, our great problem, which we constantly have to battle with, are a mere non-existing myth, a nothing. We make it formidable by our lack of right enquiry and discrimination. We have given it importance by endowing it with a strength it does not have: "Do away with this foolishness. It is not formidable. You are always immune to it, above it, unaffected by it."

The great teacher taught a super devise: "No barrier exists, nothing exists. You are already That which you are seeking to make yourself. Remove this delusion that you are not yet That. You are the divine perfection that you are seeking. The goal is right here-not to be reached, not to be attained, but to be known."

'Brahma satyam jagan-mithya jivo-brahmaiva naparah.' This so-called universe that you are endowing with a reality is a non-existent myth. One alone is real. One alone is the solid truth and fact, and that is satchidananda Brahman, the non-dual Reality, the ever-present, eternal, never-changing Reality. That alone is the Reality, and you are no other than that great Reality, with some imagined accretions that have been added on to your ever-present, all-perfect Divine Reality-something added on.

"Get rid of these accretions. The moment you get rid of these accretions, you are what you are. You don't have to become something. You are already That." And to emphasise it: "You are That and That alone, and you are no other!" What a great truth! What a liberating truth! What a wonderfully strengthening truth!

So this is something you have right in your hand. It is yours. Apply this formula and obstacles will be no obstacles, bondage will be no bondage. You will revel, you will rejoice in your eternally liberated, ever-free state. Brahma satyam jagan-mithya jivo-brahmaiva naparah. This is the truth, this is the fact. And this truth is an immediately liberating fact to which you have immediate access. Realise this and be free!

Excerpts from:

You are That! – Divine Life by Sri Swami Chidananda

  

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

(June 17,2013) Spiritual Message for the Day –The Indwelling Spirit – Illustration of the Banyan Tree and Its Seed

The Indwelling Spirit – Illustration of the Banyan Tree and Its Seed

Divine Life Society Publication: The Chandogya Upanishad – Uddalaka’s teaching by Swami Krishnananda

Banyan tree image - Courtesy Google

There was a banyan tree in front of the kutir. All know that the banyan tree is very large but the fruit is so small and the seed is atomic. "Bring one fruit," says the father to the son. The boy runs and brings a small fruit of that huge expanse of the tree called banyan, and says, "Here is the fruit, my father."

"Split it, break the fruit into pieces," says the father. "I have broken it," replies Svetaketu. "now what do you see inside it?" asks the father. The boy says, "I see small granules."

All must have seen the fruit of a banyan tree. How many fruits are there in the tree? How many seeds are there in each fruit? Innumerable, countless, very tiny, atomic seeds are there. How small they are! And you can contrast the smallness of the seeds with the largeness of the tree which is the banyan.

"Very small seeds I see inside the fruit, very tiny, atomic seeds are there," says the son. "Now you split one small seed," says the father.

It is very difficult to split it. You cannot take it by the hand. It will escape your grip. Somehow the boy split that little atomic seed.

"Yes, I have split it," he says. "Now inside that very little atomic seed, what do you see?" the father asks. "I do not see anything," says the boy.

Our naked eyes cannot see what is inside that little seed. There is a small jelly-like, very tiny, invisible essence inside that seed. It is very small, a semi-liquid-like substance. We may be able to see it with our powerful microscope. There is no solid hard substance there inside that little seed.

"What do you see in it?" asks the father, and the son replies, "I cannot see anything."

The father now explains: "Do you know, my dear boy, what is inside the seed? It is a great wonder. You say that you cannot see anything there. It is practically invisible and non-existent, as it were, from your point of view. Thin, apparently non-existent something, the very little, subtle essence there inside that little seed, has become this vast tree in front of you. Do you know this? How is this possible? Is it not a miracle that a terribly large tree grows from this little speck of jelly which cannot even be seen with the eyes? Now look at this miracle. Please have faith in what I say and go into the deeper profundity of this analogy of mine."

This little so-called subtle essence is pervading the entire tree. How is it possible? How can an atomic little speck pervade the large expanse of the tree? Yet, there is nothing in this tree which is not in this little speck of jelly. The so-called large tree that you see there is nothing but whatever was contained in the invisible speck inside the seed. So is this vast universe. We say this universe is so large, so big or so unmanageable, so gross, so weighty. This is exactly like saying this tree is so big. But from where has it come? It has come from a very small, atomic, subtle Seed. That is the Being, the essence of the vast tree of this universe. So this Being, the essence of this whole universe, is the Self of the whole universe. This little jelly-like substance inside the little seed is the Self of this whole tree. It is the Atman of this banyan, because that has become all this, and outside it the tree does not exist. So it is the being of this tree.

Even so is the Being of the whole universe including one's own self. "Tat-tvam-asi-you are that," says the father. We can tell every branch of the tree, "You are that essence," we can tell every leaf in the tree, "You are that essence," every fruit and flower in the tree, "You are that." And you will not be committing a mistake in saying that, because it is true. Even so we can say to every individual, "You are That," because all individuals have come from that indistinguishable, homogeneous Reality.

Continue to read:

The Chandogya Upanishad – Uddalaka’s teaching 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

(March 15,2013) Atman is Brahman by Swami Krishnananda

The teachings of the Bhagavadgita Chapter 5: Life as a Yagna or Sacrifice

by Swami Krishnananda

The world of sense-perception is conditioned by space-time and the various categories of the psychological process; while the thing, the person, the being, the substance as it is in itself, is behind this curtain of space-time. Our real being also is behind this curtain of the psycho-physical individuality. Thus we are living in a phenomenal world, both subjectively and objectively. The thing-in-itself, as they say, the substance as such, eludes the grasp of this phenomenal process - thus no man can see God, and the intellect of man is not fit enough to contact reality. Unless we develop a mechanism within our own selves to go deeper into this large area of phenomenality – subjectively as well as objectively – the plumbing into one's own self is also the plumbing through space and time. Modern science says the inward, subjective, subatomic philosophy of quantum theory is identical with the spatio-temporal theory of relativity – Tat tvam asi: That is this and this is That. The inward depth is also the outward plumbing of the abyss of space and time. The deeper we go inwardly, simultaneously there is a going deep into the outer cosmos – and vice-versa, the plumbing into the cosmos objectively would also imply a going deep into one's own self. Knowledge of the self is the knowledge of the universe, and the knowledge of the universe is the knowledge of the self. Atman is Brahman. (From The teachings of the Bhagavad-Gita by Swami Krishnananda – Chapter5: Life as a Yagna or Sacrifice)

Continue to read:

The teachings of the Bhagavadgita Chapter 5: Life as a Yagna or Sacrifice by Swami Krishnananda

 inspiring messages from Swami Sivananda, Divine Life Society, Sivananda Ashram, Rishikesh, India