(June 26,2014) Spiritual Message for the Day – The One Appearing as Many by Swami Krishnananda

 The One Appearing as Many

Divine Life Society Publication: The Great Drama of Creation by Swami Krishnananda

(Spoken on June 22, 1997)

Visitor: Swamiji, last time you told us about Lord Siva showing the Vishwarupa wherein a number of Krishnas were coming out of him, and in the same Mahabharata Krishna showed the Vishwarupa with a number of Rudras coming out of him.

Swamiji: It is only one being appearing as two things. There is no Siva and there is no Krishna; there is only one being appearing as this and that. He can put on any dress and manifest himself. There are no two Gods. There is only one, and you can call Him by any name. It is the Supreme Being. On this side it is Siva, on that side it is Krishna, and on another side it is also Devi. In the Devi Mahatmya, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, Indra, everybody started coming out from her body, so He can manifest from anything.

Visitor: But there have been times when these gods have been confronting each other.

Swamiji: They do not confront each other. You do not understand them properly.

So much heat the sun is creating, and so many floods he will create afterwards. Now, why is he doing two contradictory things? There is such a burning heat, and then there is such a flood that everything is destroyed. They are not conflicting; they are two interconnected things.

The whole complex of space, time and causation as God has created is operating systematically, like an organism of the body. So where is the vainglorious importance of a human individual? The universe is operating, not me, not anybody else. If this consciousness can be maintained by us, the world shall be our friend. If the body is not a friend of the finger, it will not lift. I do not say my body is lifting the finger but “ I am lifting the finger”.  

This cooperation between the physical organism and its parts is to be seen everywhere in the universe. The world operation is a mystery and the basic controller of even our breath. Can anybody answer the question of why the heart is not sleeping when we are sleeping? There is a cosmic force which keeps the individual intact for a purpose which is beyond the understanding of human nature. 

This is high psychology, cosmology, and creational philosophy, which is simply stunning if you think over it. You will hold your breath in admiration. You are an official in the government of the universe which orders the local governments to operate in a particular way. All operations in the world are internally connected.

These little things that I am saying are like a healing balm to the troubled mind of a person. It will calm your heart, and make your mind peaceful. You will be confident that after all, things are not so bad as they appear. There is some benefactory influence operating in the universe. There are friends in the universe. It is not true that all are enemies only. The sun and the moon and the stars and the breath and the Ganga and the Himalayas, they are our friends.

There were great saints who could speak to the trees and to the leaves. There was a saint in Italy, called Saint Francis of Assisi. Birds, wolves and jackals would gather at his feet when he gave a sermon. He was speaking to Jesus Christ, he was speaking to God, but all these came from the forest.

Sri Krishna blew the flute. That flute drew all the cattle and all the people. Men, women, children ran, because it was the flute of the cosmos – God calling. When God calls, everybody runs like rivers running to the ocean.

Visitor: We do not find in our actual life all these gods, flute, and…

Swamiji: How will you see it when you are not opening your eyes?

Visitor: My eyes are wide open.

Swamiji: You are opening the physical eyes, but the inner eye is not opening. Your intellectual eye, emotional eye, spiritual eye should open. You are not seeing yourself with your eyes.

Visitor: I may not be of that level, but…

Swamiji: Now that you are able to understand what I am saying, it shows that you are also in that level. You are intelligent enough to understand what it means. The only thing is, you are unable to coordinate your daily life with the universal life. You are creating segments, a separation between the secular and the spiritual. There is no such thing. There is no secular, and there is no spiritual. They are one organic whole. Life is one. You cannot separate them. It requires a little bit of meditation, deep thinking.

There is a need for every person to be alone to oneself for a few minutes every day. You cannot be so busy that you forget your own self. When you get up in the morning, you should think, “Who am I? From where I have come? What kind of person am I? Before I became a very important official, what was I? When I retire, what am I going to be? Who took care of me when I was a little child in the cradle? Now who is going to take care of me when I am old and unable to walk? How in the middle I have become very important?”

These forces which are playing a great drama of this creation are utilising us for their purposes. We are the ambassadors of God. We have been sent here for a purpose. The purpose is not to violate the law of the universe and assert an independence on our own. The ambassador is beholden to the government which sends him, and if the government calls him, he has to go back. Though he is stationed in one country, he belongs to another country altogether. 

So we are on the Earth, but we belong to high heaven, which is another realm from which we have come. There are levels of existence: earthly, astral, celestial, cosmical, causal, the Absolute. There are many levels of being, just as there are molecules, atoms, electrons, magnetic forces, and then powers which are commensurate with all things. If you go on diving deep into the material objects in the world, you will find basically they are one. Though millions of bubbles may be there in the ocean, at the root they are one ocean. So all these individualities of ours – animate, inanimate, whatever – are like bubbles in the sea of cosmic existence, which is ruled by a Supreme Intelligence. 

You are intelligent, I am intelligent; we have intelligence in us. This intelligence is a drop of cosmic intelligence. Just as a drop of water is a part of the ocean, our intelligence, our intellectuality, our rationality, whatever it is, is a drop in the sea of the universal intelligence. We are called jivas, individuals, because of the droplet of intelligence that we have got; and the universal intelligence is God.

Without the organic cooperative activity of the body, no limb can operate, and whatever we are today is due to a blessing we have received due to the good karma that we did in the past. If we are enjoying life today with status, with finance, with power, with good health, and everything is okay, it is because we have done some good deeds in the past. We cannot deserve comfort which we have not given to other people. There is no such thing as free service. All of you are great people today because you have done great deeds in the previous birth, though you may not remember what deeds you have done. Now, if you want to become still greater in the next birth, in this birth you must do good deeds because you are exhausting all your virtuous deeds of the previous birth by enjoying them this birth. What about the next birth? Whatever you have done now will come there. So you should not imagine from your individual point of view that everything is okay in one second. 

The whole universe is the kingdom of heaven, and we are living inside it. The joys of life, the happiness we feel in our own heart is the pura punya phala, the result of good actions that we have performed. We have done great charities, great good deeds, and great services in the previous life. Therefore, now we are like a king. And if we want to become a greater king in our next birth, we must do some more work now in this birth.

What can be a greater service than prayer to the Almighty God? Be grateful. We have to show our gratitude to the Creator of the universe, and He will show us His willingness to serve us. It is difficult to get a thing in the world; it takes time. But to contact God it takes one second because eternity does not require time to come here. That is the blessing.

Excerpts from:

The One Appearing as Many - The Great Drama of Creation by Swami Krishnananda 

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(June 28,2014) Weekly Svadhyaya - Surrender by Swami Chidananda

  Weekly Spiritual Satsang

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Svadhyaya for June 28, 2014

Surrender

The Gurudvaras (temples) of our Sikh Brethren do not enshrine a Murti, a statue, but a great book, “Granth Sahib.” The Granth enshrines the teachings and compositions of all ten Sikh Gurus. Every morning, the Sikh devotees go to pay reverence and bow before it, as though they were bowing before a great being.

Similarly, when you are before Srimad Bhagavad Gita, you are not before a book; you are in the presence of the great World Teacher, Lord Krishna, the Supreme Being. And we should be like Arjuna saying; “I am at Your feet; I take shelter, I surrender. Take me as Your disciple; teach me, I shall follow Your teachings.” Then alone the wisdom teachings of Lord Krishna are evoked. When we put ourselves before his Presence and say, “I surrender myself, guide me” it means we must follow these ideals, these great principles, this supreme way of life that He taught.

However, after having surrendered and invoked the blessings, Arjuna begins to argue, to contradict. It is the normal behaviour of the mind. It always wants the highest truth, but when it is confronted with the truth, it does not want to accept it; it wants to argue. You should not yield to the promptings of the lower mind; the higher factor must be your guide. Your mind will argue, but at every step you must say as Arjuna ultimately did: “I put myself under Your guidance. I will do what you say – Karishye Vachanam Tava” [Gita 18.73]. This should be the established state of our mind and heart within. If we are still not established in that state. If we are still doubting, vacillating or questioning, we are the losers. We must say: “I hand over the reins of my chariot to You. You carry on.” „My‟ gives place to „Your‟. That is the essence of dynamism based on Surrender.

We should have that type of surrender. Surrender is not incompatible with activity. It is our ego sense that we surrender, we surrender the idea “I am doing.” We surrender our self-will, the desire nature, the activities of the senses, and put ourselves into His hands, so that we act as He dictates, as He teaches. When you put yourself under the will of God and His wisdom teachings, then you are a self-controlled person. You will not allow the senses or the mind to do whatever they wish. You will do that which is in accordance with the will of God, the teachings of God and the saints. May God grant you the success in your life of dynamic surrender and surrender-guided dynamism! This is divine life.

Additional Reading:

Secret of Surrender By Swami Sivananda

Doctrine of Prapatti By Swami Sivananda

Surrender By Swami Chidananda

The Yoga of the Liberation of the Spirit By Swami Krishnananda

Surrender to God By Swami Krishnananda

Forms of Sacrifices and Concentration By Swami Krishnananda

Commentary on the Bhagavadgita (chap 18) By Swami Krishnananda

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Understanding the Mahavakyas

Who is a brahmin?

Brahmin is one who believes in the Vedas and follows its tenets.

What do the Vedas reveal? 

Vedas reveal the attributes of brahman and how to attain it. 

What is brahman(m)?

 Pragnanam Brahma! The highest form of knowledge is brahmam.

 When I want to know of brahmam, you are introducing another concept Knowledge?

Well, the easiest way to identify braman is "Aham Brahmasmi" - I am brahman! 

 But you are my Guru and you have a name which is not brahmam.

It is not that I am alone brahmam. 

"Tat Tvam Asi" - You are also that brahmam!!.

Now is it clear?

How can it be clear? 

When I ask about brahmam, you have simplified it by saying that you are brahmam and so am I. 

Oh., what I actually meant is that the ATMAN  in each one of us is the brahmam,

"Ayam Atma Brahman"!! 

(Contributed by Shri. K.R.S.Raman)

(June 25,2014) Spiritual Message for the Day – The Importance of Understanding by Swami Atmaswarupananda

 The Importance of Understanding

Divine Life Society Publication: Early Morning Meditation Talks by Swami Atmaswarupananda

When Gurudev formed his forest university, he called it the Yoga-Vedanta Forest University. He wanted both Yoga and Vedanta to be taught—Vedanta primarily being the philosophy, Yoga primarily being the practice. However, in his teachings, Gurudev concentrated primarily on practice or doing. Indeed, he didn’t have too much patience with those who spent too much time on philosophy; sometimes he referred to them as dry-Vedantins. 

So too with us. The important thing is to practice, not spend too much time on philosophy. And yet Gurudev did call it Yoga-Vedanta, because there is also an importance in developing our understanding, even if it seems somewhat esoteric and unnecessary compared to our normal practices. Because the truth is, unless we develop some understanding of what we’re seeking, even if we discover it, we won’t likely be able to recognise it. 

Therefore, every morning when he comes here, while Pujya Swami Chidanandaji always ends up by telling us to do some practical Yoga, he always begins by offering worshipful homage to the Supreme Reality. In other words, he lifts our minds up to That which is beyond our minds. And frequently in offering worshipful homage he describes the Supreme as unknowable and unthinkable. Therefore, our first understanding must be that what we are is, in the final analysis, unknowable, ungraspable to the mind. 

What is it then that we can know about God? Brahman is described as Existence-Consciousness-Bliss. God we cannot know, but we can be aware of our existence. We know that we exist, or we say "I am." And Swamiji has told us that there is no harm in "I am." Hold on to your existence. It is only after "I am" that we get into trouble. The problem is when we identify with lower forms and forget our sense of pure existence. 

This unfortunately is our plight. We who are ultimately unknowable, we who can know ourselves as Existence-Consciousness-Bliss, have lost ourselves in identification with a body and mind. What is the purpose of understanding this? It is to recognise that the purpose of all our spiritual practices is to lead us back to that sense of existence, that sense of pure "I am" or the conscious presence. 

Therefore, we should ask ourselves the question, "When I am repeating God’s name, am I getting that sense of Pure Existence?" We probably are, but it is not recognised, and so we just repeat God’s name mechanically without recognising that its purpose is to lead us back to our sense of existence. 

This is the purpose of all our spiritual practices. When we’re studying Vedanta, it isn’t just to add more information to our brain, but rather to recognise the pure existence that it is trying to show us. Ramana Maharshi said that the enquiry of Who am I? is a direct route back to our sense of existence, our sense of "I am." 

Therefore, while both Gurudev and Swamiji want us to concentrate on doing, on our practices, it is important to recognise what their purpose is, which is to lead us back to our sense of existence, our sense of "I am." And it is from that point that we can ultimately recognise our true source, which is beyond words, beyond thoughts, but is the Reality.

Excerpts from:

The Importance of Understanding - Early Morning Meditation Talks by Swami Atmaswarupananda

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(June 24,2014) Spiritual Message for the Day – All Life is One by Sri Swami Chidananda

 All Life is One

Divine Life Society Publication: Life is One by Sri Swami Chidananda

There was a poet who once wrote, "You cannot pluck a little flower without the shaking of a star." All life is one. There is one common consciousness which links the life of all beings into one great cosmic unity. 

There was once a Sufi mystic who was established in this state of cosmic consciousness. He was a gardener. One day a friend of his came to visit him. In the conversation that they were having he was distracted and the sharp gardening tool which he was using hit his leg. His friend was startled , for he saw, oozing out of the wound in his leg, not red blood but a thin, pale fluid. It was the sap of plants. This Sufi mystic was in an absolute rapport, a perfect harmony with all life. He was at one with the plants, He had entered into their very consciousness. His life and their life was entirely one.

Many other stories could be told about mystics who have attained this state of absolute consciousness with all life. One such cosmic being was sitting in that state one day in the courtyard of a great temple situated on the bank of a river. A ferryboat was carrying passengers across the river. One disembarking passenger queried the ferryman regarding the cost of the fare. First there was a discussion. Then hot words. Then a lively argument. Suddenly the passenger lunged forward and hit the ferryman. And this mystic sitting nearby was so sensitive that the blow caused him to fall over unconscious. It was as though the passenger has delivered the blow on him.

There is another poem in which the poet says, "One touch of nature makes all life kin." The poet here refers to the original nature in which all forms of life are related to the One. Vedanta proclaims the oneness of all existence. Vedanta declares that there is one divine principle present in all things. The first Sloka of the first Upanishad says, "Whatever exists is pervaded by the one great Cosmic Being. That Being permeates, saturates and pervades all things in the universe." Even modern science is now confirming this great truth. At the back of all this diversity the back of all this multifariousness, there is something common to all life. If you touch it, you experience cosmic consciousness.

The Vedantic method is deductive; the scientific method is inductive. The Vedantic method starts with the one and proceeds to the many. The scientific method starts with the many and proceeds to the one. Now it seems almost as though modern science, especially modern physical science, is proposing a theory which corroborates nearly verbatim the central thesis of the ancient Sakta school of philosophy in India. The Sakta philosophy states that energy or force is the very nature of pure Consciousness. Man borrows light from another Source of intelligence. Without this light the intellect would be inert, for it is that light which illumines the intellect and enables it to function. Man borrows it from pure Consciousness. It is, therefore, pure Consciousness which lies behind man’s intellect. Pure Consciousness alone is real.

The intellect is conscious when man is in the waking state, semiconscious when he is in the dream state and unconscious when he is in the deep sleep state. This consciousness is not continuous. The consciousness of ‘I am’ , on the other hand , is always present even in the deep sleep state. "I slept well," you say on waking up in the morning. So the consciousness is continuous. You affirm the existence of an ‘I’ at all times: waking, dreaming and sleeping. The ‘I’ principle is the substratum upon which all the three states of your consciousness are supported. This ‘I’ principle is common to all sentient beings . It is a mysterious factor which binds life into one great cosmic unity. Ponder upon it. For eventually you must know everything about it.

Excerpts from:

All Life is One - Life is One by Sri Swami Chidananda

 

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