Welcome to The Baba Times
Your Window to the World of Philosophy, Religion and Spirituality!
This website is devoted to Philosophy, Religion, Spirituality and Science. We bring in articles on teachings by Great Saints like Sri Shirdi Sai Baba, Adi Shankara, Swami Sivananda, Swami Krishnananda, Aurobindo, Mother of Auroville and others.
LATEST NEWS We are conducting 'Guided Meditation Session' every Saturday at 5.30 PM EST from New York.
This will include discussions on various topics like Upanishads, Philosophy, Spirituality & Meditation through Skype. Please send 'Add Request' to 'DLSNewYork' from your skype account so that you can participate in this Satsang. These sessions are part of Divine Life Society from Rishikesh
Hari Om. The Baba Times Team, Contact thebabatimes@gmail.com
The Power of Counterforces
Spiritual Message for the Day – The Power of Counterforces by Sri Swami Krishnananda
| **Baba Times Digest© | 12 November 2015 17**.12 EST | New York Edition** |
The Power of Counterforces
Divine Life Society Publication: Living The Divine Life by Sri Swami Krishnananda
The belief in God with which we associate ourselves somehow or the other may make us feel that we are thoroughly religious people and spiritual stalwarts, but the world today requires a new weapon to launch forth the energy of divine living.
Unless we are fully equipped with the power of counterforces in this world, our efforts would not be of much avail. Your imagination that you are a student of the Bhagavadgita or that you are a devotee of God may be worth its while and genuine, no doubt, but your knowledge of the circumstances of the world may be very poor, due to which the strength that you have in yourself may not be up to the mark.
If you read the Ramayana of Valmiki or Tulsidas, or read the Mahabharata or epics of this type, you will find that the counterforces to divine aims were terrific. The epics such as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata are great examples before us to demonstrate that these opposing forces were not of a meagre nature. They were strong enough.
The strength of counterforces arises due to a conviction which goes deep into the soul of the person or the group of people concerned, and the force becomes inseparable from the soul of the person. The strength of the enemy or the strength of anything that is invincible lies in the conviction of that person, or the organisation of persons, that they remain inseparable from their source. The more your conviction becomes a part of your soul, the more is your strength to implement it, and that strength does not lie in the practice of any religion in an official sense. Your energies, your powers, your capacities are not in the length of time which you have spent in the study of the Gita or the rolling of the beads, but your strength depends upon the extent to which your concept or notion of divinity has been driven into the bottom of your soul.
Today the counterforce can be called materialism. The strong opponent of a divine power is called the material power. That which goads you to hold Divine Life conferences and sets your mind to thinking along these lines of conferences of religion and spirituality is stipulated by the presence of material powers. If it does not exist, these conferences would not be necessary.
Now, we may all be under the impression that we are religious people or spiritual seekers, and are not materialists, of course. But to come to a conclusion whether we are materialists or not is difficult because you have to know, first of all, what materialism means in order to come to a decision as to whether you are that, or you are something else.
We have been experiencing a perpetual harassment in our lives in spite of our religion and so-called spirituality. This harassment comes from material forces, as has been mentioned already. We are not wholly nonmaterial. We may not be paying tribute to Charvaka or the materialist philosophers of ancient Greece, etc., but we may be materialists in a different and more important sense.
Materialism is a belief that life is impossible without depending on something outside us; and if we have such a belief, we are certainly materialists. Who among us can have the guts to feel from the bottom of oneself that one can live totally independently without hanging on external powers, which are certainly material? You cannot hang on material powers as your support unless you believe in the reality of those powers, and the one who believes it is a materialist. Therefore, you can judge for yourself whether we are all materialists or something else.
You must be able to diagnose the inner structure of your own psychological life in a very honest and sincere manner, believing that you are doing this analysis in the face of God, in the presence of the Almighty, in the court of the Universal Judge of the cosmos, not having a subtle diffidence caused by a simultaneous unfortunate feeling that God may not be seen.
Friends, I tell you once again, it is not easy to be lovers of God, and we should not have any kind of foolhardy notion that we are already that. If we had been that, we would not be shedding tears. The problem is that we have not been able to convince ourselves as to the supremacy of God’s existence, what to speak of our learning, our philosophies and our religions. The religion of God has not been our way of living. We have a social and political religion, to put it properly, which we have been following in our outward life, but we have a secret materialist living in our own hearts because it is not true that we are always working through our souls. We work through the body and through the senses. We have a great affection for the friends of the senses and the body, and though it is true that the soul can take care of us if we entirely depend on it, we are not in a position to lay full trust in it.
The trust in God or the trust in soul cannot arise so easily because of the suspicion that our wishes may not be fulfilled by such a kind of total surrender to the Self, or what we call God. We have immediate requirements, and these immediate requirements are of such a pressing nature that we have a suspicion whether that wish, that requirement, can be fulfilled by a remote so-called Creator. This is the truth of things, and you will see if you touch your own hearts that this is a fact which you cannot deny.
Divine life is not something that you have to do and then forget it. As a matter of fact, it is not something that you have to do at all; it is something that has to be yourself. Divine living is living – underline the word living – and it is not merely an external expression or a social demonstration for the purpose of receiving encomiums or certificates from people.
To be conscious that you are in the presence of God perpetually would be a true divine living, and you can know very well what would be your feelings and attitudes if you are always to be conscious of your proximity to the great Creator of the universe.
The very conviction of your being a true Divine Lifer in the light in which I have tried to explain would create a wealth of satisfaction from inside you. You would be an unbounded source of happiness even if you are absolutely alone in a corner of this earth, and you would not be seeking a friend to speak to or an audience to address yourself to. You would be immensely feeling a flood of joy within you on account of an indescribable immanence and proximity of an invisible something.
God is the greatest giver, and He takes the least. Perhaps He takes nothing. And in my humble opinion, Sri Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj was a replica of this oceanic flood of giving.
The world, the creation that is before us is itself our support, and God is our support. God is never away from us, and if our connection with Him is spiritual, which means to say, indivisible, then the help that comes from Him is perpetual, and so it comes without asking. If this gospel can be planted in our hearts, even in the heart of a single person here, God will be immensely satisfied and the blessings of Sri Gurudev will be abundant.
I have spoken very much, and I beg your pardon for having spoken so strongly, but I have spoken with an intense feeling for the grand aim which Gurudev lived and the purpose for which, I believe, God has created this world itself.
The Power of Counterforces - Living The Divine Life by Sri Swami Krishnananda
If you would like to purchase the print edition, visit: The Divine Life Society E-Bookstore
If you would like to contribute to the dissemination of spiritual knowledge please contact the General Secretary at: generalsecretary@sivanandaonline.org
SEND FEED BACK ON THIS ARTICLE \\ Email to BT Digest Editor( dlsusa.org@gmail.com)
If you would like to purchase the print edition, visit: The Divine Life Society E-Bookstore
If you would like to contribute to the dissemination of spiritual knowledge please contact the General Secretary at: generalsecretary@sivanandaonline.org
SEND FEED BACK ON THIS ARTICLE \** **Email to BT Digest Editor** **( dlsusa.org@gmail.com)
The Significance of Dipavali
Spiritual Message for the Day – The Significance of Dipavali by Sri Swami Krishnananda
| **Baba Times Digest© | 11 November 2015 17**.13 EST | New York Edition** |
The Significance of Dipavali
Divine Life Society Publication: The Significance of Dipavali by Sri Swami Krishnananda
The Dipavali festival is regarded as an occasion particularly associated with an ancient event of Sri Krishna overcoming the demoniacal force known as Narakasura, recorded in the Epics and Puranas. After the great victory over Narakasura in a battle which appears to have lasted for long, long days, Sri Krishna with his consort Satyabhama returned to his abode in Dwaraka. The residents of Dwaraka were very anxious about the delay caused in Sri Krishna’s returning, and it is said that they were worshipping Bhagavati Lakshmi for the prosperity and welfare of everyone and the quick return of Bhagavan Sri Krishna and Satyabhama. After Sri Krishna returned, the story goes that he took a bath after applying oil over his body, to cleanse himself subsequent to the very hectic work he had to do in the war that ensued earlier. This oil bath connected with Sri Krishna’s ritual is also one of the reasons for people necessarily remembering to take an oil bath on the day known as Naraka Chaturdasi, prior to the Amavasya when Lakshmi Puja is conducted. Everyone in India remembers to take an oil bath on Naraka Chaturdasi in memory of, in honour of, Bhagavan Sri Krishna’s doing that after the demise of Narakasura. Having taken the bath, they all joined together in great delight in the grand worship of Maha Lakshmi for the general prosperity of everyone in Dwaraka. This is the traditional background, as is told to us, of the rites and the worships connected with Naraka Chaturdasi and Dipavali Amavasya.
There is a third aspect of it which is called Bali Padya, the day following Amavasya. It does not look that the Bali Padya festival is directly connected with Lakshmi Puja or Naraka Chaturdasi. But it has another background altogether – namely, the blessing Narayana, in His incarnation as Vamana, bestowed upon the demon-king Bali Chakravarti, whom He subdued when He took a Cosmic Form in the Yajnasala of Bali Chakravarti, the details of which we can read in the Srimad Bhagavata Mahapurana.
Bali Chakravarti was himself a great devotee, an ideal king and ruler, and having submitted himself to being thrown into the nether regions by the pressure of the foot of Narayana in the Cosmic Form, it appears he begged of Him to have some occasion to come up to the surface of the earth and then be recognised as a devotee of Bhagavan Narayana Himself. This recognition, this hallowed memory of Bali Chakravarti, is celebrated on the first day of the bright fortnight following the Amavasya. Bali Puja, Bali Padya are some of the terms used to designate this occasion, the day next to Amavasya.
So, the sum and substance of the message connected with Dipavali is that it is a three-day festival, beginning with Naraka Chaturdasi, a day prior to Amavasya; then the main Lakshmi worship day, which is Amavasya itself; and the third day is Bali Padya, connected with the honour bestowed upon Bali Chakravarti as a devotee of Bhagavan Narayana. It is also an occasion for spiritual exhilaration, a lighting up of all darkness, socially as well as personally, outwardly and inwardly, for the purpose of allowing an entry of the Supreme Light of God into the hearts of all people.
Dipavali means ‘the line of lights’. ‘Dipa’ is light; and ‘Avali’ means line. So, Dipavali or the festival of the line of lights is the celebration of the rise of Knowledge. It is also the celebration of the victory of the Sattvic or divine elements in us over the Rajasic and Tamasic or baser elements which are the real Asuras, the Rakshasas, Narakasura and others. The whole world is within us. The whole cosmos can be found in a microscopic form in our own body. Rama-Ravana-Yuddha and Narakasura-Vadha, and all such Epic wars – everything is going on inside us. This Dipavali is thus also a psychological context, wherein we contemplate in our own selves the holy occasion of self-mastery, self-subjugation and self-abnegation leading to the rise of all spiritual virtues, which are regarded as lustre or radiance emanating from Self-Knowledge.
Bhagavati Mahalakshmi, the Goddess of prosperity, does not merely mean the Goddess of wealth in a material sense. Lakshmi does not mean only gold and silver. Lakshmi means prosperity in general, positive growth in the right direction, a rise into the higher stages of evolution. This is the advent of Lakshmi. Progress and prosperity are Lakshmi. In the Vishnu Purana we are told if Narayana is like the sun, Lakshmi is like the radiance of the sun. They are inseparable. Wherever Narayana is, there is Lakshmi. Wherever is divinity, there is prosperity. So on this day of Dipavali we worship the Supreme God who is the source of all conceivable virtues, goodness and prosperity, which is symbolised in illumination, lighting and worship in the form of Arati and a joyous attitude and feeling in every respect. So, in short, this is a day of rejoicing over the victory of Sattva over the lower Gunas, the victory of God Himself over the binding fetters of the soul.
Excerpts from: The Significance of Dipavali by Sri Swami Krishnananda
If you would like to purchase the print edition, visit: The Divine Life Society E-Bookstore
If you would like to contribute to the dissemination of spiritual knowledge please contact the General Secretary at: generalsecretary@sivanandaonline.org
SEND FEED BACK ON THIS ARTICLE \\ Email to BT Digest Editor( dlsusa.org@gmail.com)
If you would like to purchase the print edition, visit: The Divine Life Society E-Bookstore
If you would like to contribute to the dissemination of spiritual knowledge please contact the General Secretary at: generalsecretary@sivanandaonline.org
SEND FEED BACK ON THIS ARTICLE \** **Email to BT Digest Editor** **( dlsusa.org@gmail.com)
The Indestructible Divine Seed
Spiritual (Festival) Message for the Day – The Indestructible Divine Seed by Gurudev Sri Swami Sivananda
| **Baba Times Digest© | 10 November 2015 13**.29 EST | New York Edition** |
The Indestructible Divine Seed
Divine Life Society Publication: Deepavali Message,1949 by Gurudev Sri Swami Sivananda
Light, light, dazzling light everywhere! May our obeisance be to the Light of Lights, Brahman of God!
Deepavali is one of the numerous celebration to which we are heir and which take us at once back to the thought of our own Godhead. This particular festivity has a deep significance in several directions.
I have myself always been a staunch advocate of early rising. Waking up in Brahmamuhurta (about 4 A.M.) is a great blessing from the standpoints of health, ethical discipline, efficiency in work, and spiritual advancement. It is on Deepavali day that every one wakes up early in the morning. The Sage who instituted this custom must have cherished the hope that their descendents would realise its benefits and make it a regular daily habit.
Every one wears new clothes. (Often, for the poor, this is the manly new cloth for the year.) Masters present new clothes to their servants those who can afford distribute clothes freely to the poor and the needy. Charity, especially in the matter of distribution of clothes, is freely resorted to; the heart expands. Here, again, the Rishis have hidden a divine seed which, given the favourable circumstances, would sprout forth into an all-pervading tree of Universal Love and Charity.
In a happy mood of great rejoicing the village folk move about freely, mix with one another without reserve; all enmity is buried deep under the earth; people embrace each other in fond love Deepavali is a great unifying factor. Those with keen ‘inner ears’ will clearly hear the Ancients’ Voice: “Children of God! Unite; Love all.” The vibrations produced by the greetings of love which fill the atmosphere are powerful enough to bring about a change of heart in every man and woman in the world. Alas! This heart has considerably hardened; and only a continuous celebration of Deepavali in this holy land can re-awaken humanity to the urgent need of turning away from the path to ruin.
India has to do it. That is her duty and privilege in this New Age. Her liberation from foreign political yoke is but the first step in that direction.
Ram’s Rajya can first be established in India alone. It will be India’s duty, then, to spread the Message of Rama Rajya throughout the world. Deepavali is just a day’s reminder of Rama Rajya. Mythology has it that it is on this sacred day that Sri Rama returned to Ayodhya after destroying the Rakshasas and established Rama Rajya.
In our Rama Rajya (which is brought to our mind’s eye by Deepavali) there will be a complete absence of hatred, ill-will or self-aggrandisement. People’s hearts will be filled with thoughts of Love, charity, and selfless service. When these come to stay in the Indian heart, I call that a perpetual celebration of Deepavali! India alone can do it at the present time. For it is in her soil alone that this seed has been left unscorched.
Merchants turn over a few leaf on this day. They close their accounts and open fresh books. How I wish every Indian ‘turned over a few leaf’: close the previous year’s account of recriminations, reprisals, retaliatory schemes, of hatred, ill-will and rancour, and open a fresh Book of Love! A New Year, and with that will dawn a New Era of Peace.
Sri Lakshmi, the Goddess of all Auspicious Qualities, is worshipped. All the Daivi Sampatti (Divine, Virtuous qualities) have their origin in Her alone. She is the Source of Peace, Love and Joy. She is the Mother of all, who preserves and protects every one. On Deepavali day Goddess Lakshmi is invoked and the devotee prays to Her to bestow on all Her choicest blessings, in the shape of Peace and Goodwill. He surrenders himself at Her Lotus Feet and seeks protection there. He gives up the little ego and drinks the sweet nectar of wisdom and love that drips from the lotuses She holds in her hands. Lakshmi alone can root out the evil qualities that lurk in the man’s lower self. Oh Man! Invite Her to occupy the lotus of your heart on this great day, so that She can awaken in you the latent Every household is illuminated on this day. Everywhere you look there is Light. This is intended to remind man that his essential nature is Light: that the Atman, his own real Self, is the Light of all lights, the Light that lends luminosity to countless suns, moons and stars in the infinite universes. It is Avidya that produces a semblance of darkness!
This Avidya consists of Nama-Rupa, name and form, characteristics of the organs of sight and hearing. In Reality there is nothing but one Infinite Consciousness—Akhanda Ekarasa Satchidananda Swarupa Para Brahman. Even as the same sulphur is made into a variety of fireworks—with differences only in name and form, in the sound that they make and the spectacle they produce—even so, Brahman, the Reality, is the same: Avidya has manufactured names and forms, sounds and spectacles, out of It for the amusement of children! No man, however erudite a scholar he may be, whatever be his age, learning, or wealth can call himself other than an ignorant child, till he actually perceives this Unity in diversity.
Oh Man! Awake! Arise! It is Brahmamuhurtha now. Sing the Names of the Lord now. Worship Goddess Lakshmi, the Abode of all virtues. Love all. Be charitable. Turn a new leaf in the book of your life. Light the lamp of wisdom in your heart and dispel the darkness of ignorance or the perception of name and form! Behold now the Light of lights—the Atman, within yourself!
That is the Message which the Seers of India intended to convey through the Deepavali celebration. That is the true message of Peace and Love. That is the Message which India will have to broadcast to the world.
The Western Scientists’ Brains Trust, working at a furious rate for the past many centuries, has not been able to bring about that peace and freedom from evil which every one seems to seek. It has, on the other hand, striven to lead civilisation astray. I must say that in spite again of their gigantic endeavours, the scientists have not been able to disturb the fundamentals of Indian culture, thanks to the many apparently superstitious rites and ceremonies that our wise ancients have left for us as a precious legacy.
The rational mind calls these ceremonies superstitions. The bogey of superstition which they bring up is itself a superstition! The modern scientific mind revels in the superstitious belief that all that the ancients have left us is a bundle of superstitions: for man’s intellect, deprived of its purity by continuous rusting, is incapable of transcending itself into the realms of Pure Reason (not to speak of the realms of Intuitive Perception) and perceiving, the Truth through a maze of apparent superstitious beliefs.
No nation, not even a village or a household, has ever produced individuals of exactly the same faculties, temperaments and spiritual evolution. The Indian Seer who had to cater for entire humanity, for all generations, was evidently farsighted enough to synthesise in every bequest he has left behind, food enough for the soul of all human beings—intellectual, rational, emotional, credulous and sceptic!
Thus, we find that Deepavali has a message for one and all!
May all men’s heart be illumined with wisdom!
Excerpts from: The Indestructible Divine Seed - Deepavali Message,1949 by Gurudev Sri Swami Sivananda
If you would like to purchase the print edition, visit: The Divine Life Society E-Bookstore
If you would like to contribute to the dissemination of spiritual knowledge please contact the General Secretary at: generalsecretary@sivanandaonline.org
SEND FEED BACK ON THIS ARTICLE \\ Email to BT Digest Editor( dlsusa.org@gmail.com)
If you would like to purchase the print edition, visit: The Divine Life Society E-Bookstore
If you would like to contribute to the dissemination of spiritual knowledge please contact the General Secretary at: generalsecretary@sivanandaonline.org
SEND FEED BACK ON THIS ARTICLE \** **Email to BT Digest Editor** **( dlsusa.org@gmail.com)
Parable of The Man Who Washed Mud with Mud
Spiritual (Story) Message for the Day – Parable of The Man Who Washed Mud with Mud by Gurudev Sri Swami Sivananda
| **Baba Times Digest© | 9 November 2015 19**.22 EST | New York Edition** |
Parable of The Man who Washed Mud With Mud
Divine Life Society Publication: Parables of Sivananda by Gurudev Sri Swami Sivananda
Om Sri Sadguru Paramatmane Namah
A young man had heard it said: “Ushnam Ushnena Shamyati.” One day he was walking along the road, when he found he had to cross a muddy canal. On reaching the other side of the canal, he found that his feet were covered with mud up to the knee. He at once began to apply more mud, up to the waist. A wise man passing by asked the young man what he was doing. He replied: “I am trying to remove the mud.” “But you are adding to it!” “That is in accordance with the rule that like cures like.” “O fool,” said the wise man, “that rule does not apply to this. By adding dirt to dirt, you will only become more dirty. Remove the mud by washing it with water and soap.” The young man did so, and was clean.
Similarly, the Jiva which is thrown into this pool of mud, called Samsara, revels in it and adds more mud to it by performing all kinds of Kamya Karmas (actions with desire). It is led to believe that through such actions it will reap a rich harvest of happiness. But, as a matter of fact, the result is just the reverse. The Jiva is bound more and more strongly to the wheel of birth and death by these chords of Avidya, Kama and Karma. The Guru comes and enlightens the Jiva. He says: “O man, this is not the way to attain eternal bliss or salvation. Wash the dirt of Karma that has given you this birth here, with the water of Bhakti to God, and with the soap of desirelessness. Spiritualise all your actions. Then will the dirt that has covered your soul be washed away and you will shine in your pristine glory.” The disciple thereupon practices Bhakti and Nishkama-Seva, and is finally liberated.
Om Tat Sat Brahmaparnamastu
Excerpts from: Parable of The Man who Washed Mud with Mud - Parables of Sivananda by Gurudev Sri Swami Sivananda
If you would like to purchase the print edition, visit: The Divine Life Society E-Bookstore
If you would like to contribute to the dissemination of spiritual knowledge please contact the General Secretary at: generalsecretary@sivanandaonline.org
SEND FEED BACK ON THIS ARTICLE \\ Email to BT Digest Editor( dlsusa.org@gmail.com)
If you would like to purchase the print edition, visit: The Divine Life Society E-Bookstore
If you would like to contribute to the dissemination of spiritual knowledge please contact the General Secretary at: generalsecretary@sivanandaonline.org
SEND FEED BACK ON THIS ARTICLE \** **Email to BT Digest Editor** **( dlsusa.org@gmail.com)
The Universal and the Particular
Spiritual Message for the Day – The Universal and the Particular by Sri Swami Krishnananda
| **Baba Times Digest© | 8 November 2015 16**.22 EST | New York Edition** |
The Universal and the Particular
Divine Life Society Publication: Metaphysical Foundations by Sri Swami Krishnananda
The human body, the family, the community, the province, the nation, or the world as a whole stands before us as an example of the operation of the Universal in different degrees of particularity. Human individuality, physically speaking, is a combination of physical and chemical properties cohering into the pattern of a whole, vitality pervading the whole system, so that the human being is not just bone and flesh and it transcends the diversity of the physical limbs. This is common knowledge, and it becomes clear when one investigates into the fact of man remaining a whole as a self-identical entity even if some limbs of the body are to be taken away by medical operation. Here is an immediately available instance of the consciousness of oneself transcending the particulars of the bodily limbs as a basic element of the universal rising above particularised parts. So is the case with the family, which is a name that is used to indicate an integrating awareness of a total whole of which the members of the family are inseparable parts. But the family can remain a whole even if some member thereof is to die.
The family is a whole, whether the members are larger in number or smaller. The quantity of the particulars does not affect the quantitative integration of the whole. Thus also is the case with the wholeness and particularising aspects associated with a community, a part of a country or the nation as a whole. The Universal can exist even if none of the particulars exists. This is so because the Universal is an ideal and a consciousness that acts as an integrating cohesive force among particulars and itself does not need for its existence the existence of the particulars. We come back here to our earlier illustration, that the wholeness of a human individual can continue to be there even if some fifty per cent of the physical limbs of the body were not to be there. This unconsciously lands us, in the end, in the conviction that the Absolute can exist without the relative, and God can exist even if the world of creation were not to exist.
Philosophers, many a time, have found it difficult to imagine the existence of a universal independent of particulars. This difficulty arises because it is wrongly assumed that the universal is an abstraction, a conceptual generalisation arising from some common features seen in particulars, such as the universal principle of horseness seen to be present in each individual case of a horse. But the universal ‘need not be a quality depending upon an isolated individual as a substance. The Universal is not like the greenness seen in all leaves or the redness seen in roses. That is to say, the universal is not a quality of a substance other than itself. Such a nominalism of outlook in the definition of the universal can arise only if one is completely oblivious of the fact that even the awareness of there being such things as particulars would not be possible unless there is a prior element of consciousness-grasp which knows all 1he particulars in a single act of attention, proving thereby that such a consciousness is larger in dimension than the particulars, is immanent in them, by which immanence it knows them, and is also transcendent to them due to which it is none of the particulars.
Our observations made above will suffice to illustrate the priority and antecedence of the universal to particulars of any kind.
The meditation of life, then, is the gradual establishment of wholeness in the midst of particulars, in every level, in every stage, in every degree of evolution. Grandly has it been proclaimed by the Bhagavadgita, that the Universal, designated as Brahman, has hands and feet everywhere, has eyes, faces and heads everywhere, and it exists enveloping everything. It is the illuminator of all the sense-organs, but in itself it is none of them. It is the support behind all diversity, but it cannot be identified with anyone of these. It is the reality behind appearances. Being above substances and qualities, relations and modifications, it cannot be said to have any attributes; though no quality or attribute can subsist without it being there as the basic substratum. It is inside and outside all things; but it has itself no inside and outside. Being the foundation for all movement and activity, it cannot be characterised by any movement or activity. Being the very Seer and Knower, as the basic Subject, it cannot be seen, heard or even thought by the mind. Being endless and infinite, it is everywhere like a limitless expanse, but as the Self of everything nothing can be nearer than its presence. Among beings that are divided it may look divided as their substratum, but by itself it is not divided, as it is the very awareness behind all possible division. Everything is absorbed into it, everything is consumed into it, as it were, and it stands unparalleled as a blend of Eternity and infinity, as the Light of all lights, glorying in its radiance beyond the darkness of ignorance.
The Universal and the Particular - Metaphysical Foundations by Sri Swami Krishnananda
If you would like to purchase the print edition, visit: The Divine Life Society E-Bookstore
If you would like to contribute to the dissemination of spiritual knowledge please contact the General Secretary at: generalsecretary@sivanandaonline.org
SEND FEED BACK ON THIS ARTICLE \\ Email to BT Digest Editor( dlsusa.org@gmail.com)
If you would like to purchase the print edition, visit: The Divine Life Society E-Bookstore
If you would like to contribute to the dissemination of spiritual knowledge please contact the General Secretary at: generalsecretary@sivanandaonline.org
SEND FEED BACK ON THIS ARTICLE \** **Email to BT Digest Editor** **( dlsusa.org@gmail.com)
The Spirit of Renunciation (Vairagya)
Spiritual Message for the Day – The Spirit of Renunciation (Vairagya) by Sri Swami Krishnananda
| **Baba Times Digest© | 7 November 2015 19**.37 EST | New York Edition** |
The Spirit of Renunciation (Vairagya)
Divine Life Society Publication: Attaining Desirelessness – True Spiritual Living by Sri Swami Krishnananda
The yoga process is a process of education, which means to say, a gradual enlightenment, an awakening into the daylight of knowledge, and not merely groping in the night of darkness, though it may be that we are moving from one place to another place in that dark night. Any amount of movement in the dark night is not going to give us light. Shifting of the position of the body in darkness is not a solution. The solution is the rising of the sun.
And so, in the sutra in Patanjali’s aphorisms, he says: drsta anusravika visaya vitrsnasya vasikarasamjna vairagyam (Y.S. 1.15). Vairagya, or the spirit of renunciation, is a mastery that we gain over the objects of sense, and is not merely a forgetful attitude of the mind in respect of objects of sense. What are the objects of sense? Drishta and anusravika are the words used: that which is seen, and that which is heard – both these are objects. We can cling to objects which are seen with the eyes, and also cling to things which are only heard by our mind. When we see a thing directly, physically, of course the mind will begin to read a tremendous gorgeous significance in the object, and jump upon it. Not merely that, even by hearing of the glories of an object of sense, the mind can become restless and ask for its possession – like the joys of heaven, for instance.
What is vairagya then, which the yoga speaks of? It is a vitrshnata, or a feeling of inward desirelessness, towards everything that is seen or capable of being seen, and everything that is heard of, even through the scriptures or by other sources. In one of the writings of Acharya Sankara, he says: abrahma stambha paryantam vairagyam vishayeshvanu yathaiva kakavishthayam vairagyam tat nirmalam. His definition of vairagya is terrifying. What does he say? Even the pleasures of Brahmaloka are to be despised by a desireless mind, as they are mere dirt which have no essence in them. They are far superior to even Indra’s pleasure, because that is the description of the subtlest condition of sattvic enjoyment. Even this is only an enjoyment, though this enjoyment is effected not through the physical senses, not even by an ordinary psychological process, but by a subtle instrument called the anandamaya kosa. They say that in Brahmaloka the physical body is not there, and not even the ordinary subtle body is there; there is a subtler-still body which is comparable only with what we call the causal body in us. Sanaka, Sanandana, Sanatkumara, Sanatsujata, Narada, and such others, are supposed to be living there. They are all unthinkable things. These pleasures also are not to be coveted in comparison with a greater joy still, which is identical with the Self.
The joy of the Atman, the Supreme Self, reflects itself in all these manifestations – right from the delight of Brahma, or creator, down to the grossest physical object of sense – in various degrees. What is giving us joy, pleasure, is this Atman present in things. We are happy wherever the Atman is manifest. Where the Atman is not manifest, we cannot feel joy. Even in the grossest object of sense, the Atman is manifest. That is why it attracts us. It is a great wonder how the Atman can manifest itself in an object of sense. Is it possible? Yes, it is possible, and it is because of this mystery that is revealed through the objects, that the senses run after the objects. The Atman is not an object, of course, and yet it is capable of getting revealed in some degree through the objects.
The Atman is a symmetry of perfection, a well-arranged pattern which reflects completeness; and wherever this arrangement of completeness or pattern or symmetry is visible, the mind begins to feel that its object is present. Anything that is symmetrical attracts us. Anything that is confused or chaotic does not attract us. Symmetry is also a very difficult thing to understand. It is not merely geometrical symmetry that we are speaking of here, though that also is there as an element of this superior form of symmetry.
Completeness, or an absence of any kind of want, is the character of the Atman. Many features are there in the Atman, not merely symmetry. It is difficult to explain what are the qualities that are discoverable in the Atman. Exuberance and buoyancy, force and symmetry, of course perfection, and a freshness. The object of sense looks fresher and fresher every day. Every day we would like to see it as many times as possible, because freshness is one of the characters of the Atman. We cannot know what this freshness is. It is not the freshness of a ripe fruit, like an apple. It is something that pulls our whole being. Every day, the sun rises in a beautiful manner. We are happy to see the rise of the sun. We never feel that it is a dull sun that has been rising for centuries. Every day it is fresh, invigorating, and exciting. The capacity to excite us into a tremendous activity through every part of our body, the senses and the mind, is the capacity of the Atman; and wherever such inordinate capacity to stir the total personality is seen, upon that the mind jumps, and it goes towards it.
But, it forgets that what attracts it is not this vehicle called the physical object, but something that is revealed through it due to a peculiar placement of that object in a certain atmosphere, in comparison with a peculiar and particular condition of our own mind in a certain stage of evolution. Attraction is impossible unless both cooperate – the object and our own mind. The object has to be placed in a proper context, it must reveal certain characters, and those characters and that context should be the very same thing that our mind is lacking at that particular time. Then we are attracted by it. That is why we cannot be attracted by the same thing always, because the mind changes when we advance in age or in experience.
Knowing all these things, the viveki, or the man of discrimination, gets disillusioned: “Oh! This is the state of affairs. I am very sorry. I was totally mistaken.” Parinama tapa samskara duhkaih gunavrtti virodhat ca duhkham eva sarvam vivekinah (Y.S. 2.15). For certain reasons which are to be explained, the whole world is full of pain only. It is not a place of beautiful enjoyment or an occasion for exciting pleasures. There is something very terrible about things. This sutra that I quoted just now tells us what it is.
The Spirit of Renunciation (Vairagya) - Attaining Desirelessness – True Spiritual Living by Sri Swami Krishnananda
If you would like to purchase the print edition, visit: The Divine Life Society E-Bookstore
If you would like to contribute to the dissemination of spiritual knowledge please contact the General Secretary at: generalsecretary@sivanandaonline.org
SEND FEED BACK ON THIS ARTICLE \\ Email to BT Digest Editor( dlsusa.org@gmail.com)
If you would like to purchase the print edition, visit: The Divine Life Society E-Bookstore
If you would like to contribute to the dissemination of spiritual knowledge please contact the General Secretary at: generalsecretary@sivanandaonline.org
SEND FEED BACK ON THIS ARTICLE \** **Email to BT Digest Editor** **( dlsusa.org@gmail.com)
Every Moment of Our Life is Yoga
Spiritual Message for the Day – Every Moment of Our Life is Yoga by Sri Swami Krishnananda
| **Baba Times Digest© | 6 November 2015 13**.33 EST | New York Edition** |
Every Moment of Our Life is Yoga
Divine Life Society Publication: Sri Krishna as Revealed in All Levels of Reality by Sri Swami Krishnananda
Ātmaiva hyātmano bandhur ātmaiva ripur ātmanaḥ (Gita 6.5). Our environment is our friend, and our environment is also our enemy. The inimical character which seems to be manifest in our environment is the opposition that we are facing in our life. This happens because the environment, the atmosphere in which we are placed, which is our so-called chariot, is constituted of such characteristics as are not easily reconcilable with the vehement affirmations of our egoistic personality. The assertions of our egoism stand in the way of this coming into a blend or union with that which stands outside as our opponent. It is Sri Krishna himself that is opposing you. Your larger personality stands outside you as the atmosphere outside. It is not really outside; it is a larger expansion of your own being, and so when you fight with the world you are fighting with your own self. And this larger being is the Sri Krishna who includes Arjuna also within himself because the particular is swallowed up by the universal, as it includes the universal. As the individual is in the universal, the environment should not stand outside you. You have to be in union with that atmosphere.
Now, what is the atmosphere we are speaking of? It is nothing but the particular level in which you find yourself. And what are these levels? We are, at the present moment, in the political, social, and physical levels of existence. We are overly concerned with our political associations, requirements and involvements. Whatever be our spiritual, moral or philosophical longing in our leisure hours, there is no gainsaying that as a citizen of a particular nation a person is conscious of his or her involvement in what is called the national setup. So right from the outward social involvement which is a location in which we find ourselves, we have to raise our spirits gradually to the higher dimensions thereof until we scale the ladder of evolution inwardly through the practice of yoga and reap that perfect unanimity and uniformity of being where the supreme Krishna, the eternal universality, engulfs the individuality of Arjuna. And in the Viratsvarupa, Arjuna himself finds himself vanishing, as it were.
Thus, the yoga of the Bhagavadgita is a cosmic performance expected of every individual, every human being in every walk of life, in every profession, in every undertaking, and at every moment of time. Thus, there is no moment in our life when it cannot be a yoga. There is no outside atmosphere which we are confronting with which we cannot attune ourselves if only we have a mind to do that.
Here is a point of view which may require our further consideration and meditation, a point of view which seems to emanate spontaneously from the well-known meaning of the last verse of the Bhagavadgita: yatra yogeśvaraḥ kṛṣṇo yatra pārtho dhanurdharaḥ, tatra śrīr vijayo bhūtir dhruvā nītir matir mama. Perfection is the goal of life, and we have to be perfect in every one of our undertakings. Our every thought, every speech and every mode of conduct should be a specimen of a perfect attitude. Yoga is perfection, yoga is communion, and yoga is the conversation, the discourse between Krishna and Arjuna, śrīkṛṣṇārjunasaṁvāde. It is the confluence of the mortal and the immortal, Arjuna and Krishna. This confluence is the yoga of the Bhagavadgita, and this is the yoga of all life, of every kind of life, intended for everyone under every circumstance, and it stands supreme as the perfect prescription for every one of us for the problems we face in our day-to-day existence.
Every Moment of Our Life is Yoga - Sri Krishna as Revealed in All Levels of Reality by Sri Swami Krishnananda
If you would like to purchase the print edition, visit: The Divine Life Society E-Bookstore
If you would like to contribute to the dissemination of spiritual knowledge please contact the General Secretary at: generalsecretary@sivanandaonline.org
SEND FEED BACK ON THIS ARTICLE \\ Email to BT Digest Editor( dlsusa.org@gmail.com)
If you would like to purchase the print edition, visit: The Divine Life Society E-Bookstore
If you would like to contribute to the dissemination of spiritual knowledge please contact the General Secretary at: generalsecretary@sivanandaonline.org
SEND FEED BACK ON THIS ARTICLE \** **Email to BT Digest Editor** **( dlsusa.org@gmail.com)
The Right Understanding (Samkhya)
Spiritual Message for the Day – The Right Understanding (Samkhya) by Sri Swami Krishnananda
| **Baba Times Digest© | 5 November 2015 12**.01 EST | New York Edition** |
The Right Understanding
(Samkhya)
Divine Life Society Publication: The Teachings of The Bhagavadgita by Sri Swami Krishnananda
The second chapter of the Bhagavadgita deals with what is known as Samkhya Yoga, which is the yoga of understanding – an understanding which was not adequately present in the mind of Arjuna at the time when he was very much confused as to the duty to which he was obliged under the circumstance in which he was placed.
One cannot know what one has to do unless one’s position in this world is known to one’s self. Your duty, your attitude, the functions that you have to perform – all these are determined by the location of your personality in a given atmosphere. Thus, the concept of duty may be regarded as something relative, and not absolute. Our duty in this world, what the world expects from us, is dependent upon what we are, what we know, what we are capable of – and again, all these things depend upon where we are placed.
One of the problems that arose in the mind of Arjuna was the limiting of his notions to his social relations, which means to say, the relations with other people.
Even to be a little good, and charitable in our feelings, we must be considerate enough to accept that the world contains more things than man. However, the effect or the impact of human relationship upon the human mind is such that it will not permit the operation of higher laws in the present state of human thinking. This was the point made out by Bhagavan Sri Krishna when he said, “Arjuna, you lack samkhya – right understanding.”
“What do you mean by this right understanding? I cannot know what you are speaking,” cried out Arjuna at the beginning of the third chapter. “You have confused me completely by telling so many things, nothing of which is clear to me.” Here is a troubled mind speaking once again, at the very beginning of the commencement of the third chapter. “Is my relationship to the world a total unity, in which case I have to do nothing? Or, is it total separation, in which case also I have to do nothing? The question of duty does not arise in this world if I have a relationship which is totally organic or totally isolated. So my mind is confused about what you are speaking. Be more explicit, please,” so speaks Arjuna. “What is it that you are expecting me to do by asking me to have samkhya, right understanding, poised mind, calm attitude, expertness in action? I cannot understand the meaning behind these terms you are using.”
The third chapter is a very important section of the Bhagavadgita. It is perhaps the whole gospel of human action. There is no necessity for me to dilate upon this theme in a very large measure inasmuch as I endeavoured to explain this theme in the text called The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita. The third chapter of the Bhagavadgita is called Karma Yoga – the yoga of right action, or action as such in the light of correct understanding.
Now, I come to the point of cosmology, which explains our relationship with the world with everything that is around us. From this narration of the story of the descent of man from the higher realms, right from mahat and ahamkara, we learn that our personality – this individuality – is constitutionally not separate from the structure of the world or the universe outside. The substance out of which our individuality is made is not different from the substance of which the world outside is made. There is the mulaprakriti, the original material out of which the whole cosmos was formed, something like the space-time of modern physics – or something subtler even than that – from which descended the tanmatras: sabda, sparsa, rupa, rasa, gandha – the principles of sound, touch, colour, taste and smell, which concretised themselves into a greater density of substance by a sort of permutation and combination, and became the solid substances you see here as the five elements: earth, water, fire, air and ether. These things are the building bricks of the cosmos, physically speaking – everything material is nothing but a formation of the five elements: earth, water, fire, air, ether – this body, this building, this tree, this everything.
Now, here is an introduction given to right understanding. The mulaprakriti that I mentioned is constituted of three forces called sattva, rajas and tamas. We have heard in modern science words like ‘ statics’ and ‘kinetics’, ‘inertia’ and ‘action’. What you call ‘ statics’ is something like inertia; we may equate it with tamas, non-action – and kinetics is rajas, movement, distraction, etc. But there is no such thing as sattva in the scientific language of modern times. There is either statics or kinetics – there is nothing else. But there is a third thing which is the balancing of the two. That is called sattva in the language of Indian philosophy; the condition of true being is called sattva. In Sanskrit, ‘sat’ means existence, being; and the condition of being is called sattva. The characteristic of being is sattva, and the characteristic of being is equanimity – not isolation, distraction and separation.
So, the nature of reality or true being is neither inert existence and loss or absence of consciousness, nor is it activity in the sense of distraction. Pure being, sattvaguna, is not rajas; it is not also tamas. This sattva is a power that connects the two extremes of inertia and activity – rajas and tamas; and the whole of the world is nothing but this threefold activity of nature – sattva, rajas and tamas – which is the structure, the constitution, the basic substance of the tanmatras, the five elements, this body, and all things in the world. This means that our body, this prana, the senses, the mind, the intellect, etc. are all somehow or the other manufactured, in some way, by an admixture of these forces – sattva, rajas, and tamas in some proportion – and by another admixture, in another way, the world outside is made. We are made as the final substance, as subjects, as individuals perceiving the world, identical with the substance of the world outside. When the senses perceive the world, the gunas move among gunas, prakriti contacts prakriti – it is the right hand touching the left hand, as it were, of the same body, perhaps more intimately and vitally than merely a contact of one limb of the body with another limb of the body. In the third chapter, this point is brought out. In all perception, the individual is not contacting a foreign element like the world outside, but ‘one’s own mother’ is embraced by the child – not an ordinary embrace but a longing for union with ‘That’ from which it has been isolated, from which it has fallen. So, in all sense-perception there is an internal craving to unite with things on account of the fact being that the substance of the perceiver is the same as the substance of that which is perceived – so there is a philosophy behind desire, and there is also an error involved in the desire.
The justification and the philosophical implication of the manifestation or the working of human desire in the form of sense activity and perception is that we are basically one with all things. This is the reason we are impetuously pulled in the direction of the things of the world. The error of our desires is that they insist on convincing themselves that the world is a foreigner, it is outside. There is a double activity going on in our mind in every perception. On the one hand, a love for things is impossible unless we are united with things. You cannot desire a thing which is totally isolated from you. All desire implies a basic unity with all things, and also at the same time, all desire implies that the world is outside of oneself. Thus every desire is a contradiction, a psychic schizophrenia in a philosophical sense at least. There is a morbidity, there is an un-justification finally, an inscrutability in the activity of every desire which acts on one side as an indication of the basic unity of things, and on the other side performs the opposite function of insisting on the duality, the separation, and the isolation of the subject from the object. So we are living in a world of contradiction, psychologically speaking, and every desire is a psychic contradiction. This is the reason why great questions of life cannot be answered by an intellect which is subservient to the emotions, which again work in the light of the knowledge received through the senses, which, to repeat again, are not reliable for reasons already mentioned.
The Right Understanding (Samkhya) - The Teachings of The Bhagavadgita by Sri Swami Krishnananda
|
If you would like to purchase the print edition, visit: The Divine Life Society E-Bookstore
If you would like to contribute to the dissemination of spiritual knowledge please contact the General Secretary at: generalsecretary@sivanandaonline.org
SEND FEED BACK ON THIS ARTICLE \\ Email to BT Digest Editor( dlsusa.org@gmail.com)
If you would like to purchase the print edition, visit: The Divine Life Society E-Bookstore
If you would like to contribute to the dissemination of spiritual knowledge please contact the General Secretary at: generalsecretary@sivanandaonline.org
SEND FEED BACK ON THIS ARTICLE \** **Email to BT Digest Editor** **( dlsusa.org@gmail.com)
Rise above Desire and Anger (Kama and Krodha)
Spiritual Message for the Day – Rise above Desire and Anger (Kama and Krodha) by Sri Swami Krishnananda
| **Baba Times Digest© | 4 November 2015 12**.49 EST | New York Edition** |
Rise above Desire and Anger
(Kama and Krodha)
Divine Life Society Publication: Commentary on The Bhagavadgita by Sri Swami Krishnananda
Knowingly, as it were, people commit mistakes. Though they are learned and have an insight into the knowledge of the scriptures, they are likely to take the erroneous path. What is the reason behind this mistake that human beings are subjected to?”
Kāma eṣa krodha eṣa rajoguṇa samudbhavaḥ, mahāśano mahāpāpmā viddhyenam iha vairiṇam (3.37). Our enemy is our own self, the lower self, which is conditioned entirely with the sentiments of love and hatred. In the verses of the Second Chapter, which we have already studied, it is mentioned how desire arises in terms of objects, and when a desire arises in terms of objects there is simultaneous anger in regard to that which is likely to be a hindrance in the fulfilment of the desire. Therefore, when there is a desire, there is anger, either potential or manifest. Even if it is not manifest, there is a susceptibility to anger in regard to a possible hindrance that may arise in the fulfilment of a desire. Hence, love and hatred go together. Kama and krodha go together.
Kāma eṣa krodha eṣa rajoguṇa samudbhavaḥ. Born of the intense agitation of prakriti’s nature, due to the agitation of the rajasic quality of the mind and the intense disturbance on the surface of the psyche, there is the impetuous activity of the sense organs in the direction of other people and other things in the world, with whom we deal in a manner which is always partial and never wholesome. It is always partial because of the fact that we can never have a judicious understanding of the total structure of anything in this world. Our knowledge is fractional. We are not tattvavit; we do not know the relation between the gunas of prakriti and action. So we are pulled in the direction of self-destruction. As a moth flies into the blazing flame under the impression that it is beautiful, and is reduced to ashes, the flames of desire which burn through the sense organs compel the individual soul to fly to the objects of sense, thereby losing its understanding and, sometimes, its very existence itself.
This impulse has to be restrained. We should not get angry. Actually, anger is a sign of absence of even culture, let alone spiritual insight. An uncultured person gets agitated over silly things. Anger is the worst of enemies. Let it not take possession of you.
Hanuman got very angry in Lanka. Sita’s predicament roused his anger to such an extent that he thought, “I should go from here only after teaching a lesson to Ravana.” So he rose up into a mountainous shape, and destroyed the whole of Lanka by setting fire to it. Afterwards he cooled down a bit. He began to feel, “What a wretched act I have done! Anger is the worst of enemies. How is it that I got into a rage of this kind and set fire everywhere, not thinking that perhaps Sita may also be burned? If this has happened, I shall not go back to Rama. I shall stay here itself, do prayopavesha and end my life.”
He is a hero who, knowing that fire-like anger is rising up, subdues it with the power of the will. Such a person is a hero, and not merely one who carries a weapon in his hand. Kama and krodha are the worst of enemies. They are hindrances in the spiritual advancement of the spirit because their main activity is to violate the very consciousness of universality through the sense organs that work on the basis of kama and krodha, desire and anger. How are we going to subdue these forces?
If we want to get a license or a permit, we can apply to the government in two ways. There is a method of approaching through the proper channels. The nearest official is approached and the application is submitted; and that person endorses it and gives to the next official, until finally the supreme authority endorses it and the permit is granted. The other method is to go directly to the supreme authority, if it is practicable and possible for us, and then an immediate order is issued and is communicated to all the subordinate officials automatically, spontaneously, instead of the routine, stereotyped method of rising gradually over a period of time.
So is the instruction of Bhagavan Sri Krishna in the manner of controlling these impulses of kama and krodha. We can go gradually from the lower level of restraint to the higher level, or we can touch the top and put the whole force down with one action. A person who is subject to intense passions and anger may do well to fast one day in a week. Or if he is more sincere and honest, he may miss a meal every day because then his impulses will know that if they start creating too much havoc, they will miss a meal, so they will be cautious in manifesting themselves. Restrain yourself through habits of food. Have only a sattvic diet, and not rajasic and tamasic diets. Fast one day in a week, or miss a meal every day. That is one method.
The other method is, as far as possible, to try to avoid the company of people who are not in any way going to be of help to you or are going to be a disturbance to you. Atheists and materialists or opponents of any kind may not be good company for you. Be alone to yourself. Try to be alone to yourself as much as possible, and be in the midst of people only to that extent as would be necessitated by the work that you perform. You may be a teacher, you may be a factory manager, you may be a medical person, or you may be professor, etc. You may be in the midst of society only to the extent to which you have to fulfil your obligations—not more, not less. Reduce your contact with people to the minimum by a judicious analysis of the requirements of human society. Thus, diet is one method, and social contact is another.
The third is the study of spiritual books such as the Bhagavata, the Bhagavadgita, the Upanishads, etc. This should be done every day, in the early morning, so that you start the day with the noble thoughts of Vyasa or Valmiki or Bhagavan Sri Krishna or Jesus Christ or whoever it is. The intense nobility and the profundity of these spiritual teachings which have gone into your mind due to your svadhyaya in the morning will, to some extent, restrain your behaviour throughout the day.
Lastly, there is meditation and japa. As much time as possible must be devoted to meditation and japa. The sense organs are weakened by these methods, and weak minds cannot wreak as much havoc and are not as rapacious as they are when they have strength.
Indriyāṇi mano buddhir asyādhiṣṭhānam ucyate (3.40). The forces of kama and krodha have a location in your body. They are the sense organs, the manas and the buddhi. Your reason, your mind and your sense organs are the instruments which are harnessed by the forces of kama and krodha to achieve their purpose. So the lower category may be controlled first, and the higher category afterwards. The sense organs may be restrained first by the means that I mentioned in brief. Then you can control the mind gradually by japa sadhana. As direct meditation is very difficult, the mind can be restrained by japa sadhana, purascharana, etc. Then the buddhi is restrained by higher meditation.
This is a procedural method of the application from the lower orders to the higher orders. But there is a direct method of subjugating the sense organs, which is the rousing of the aspiration of the soul for establishing itself in Universal Consciousness. This is called the rousing of the brahmakara vritti in the mind. A vritti is a modification of the mind. Ordinarily there is a visayakara vritti in your mind. A modification of the mind in terms of the objects of sense is called visayakara vritti, but the modification of the mind in terms of Universal Existence is called brahmakara vritti. When you try to analyse the interrelationships of the circumstances of life, you will notice that everything is connected to everything else. Therefore, any particular passion or anger in regard to an object is not permitted. This kind of meditation, which is your attempt to locate or fix your consciousness on a universal concept, will immediately put a check on the instinctive activities of the mind and, secondarily, on the impetuous activities of the sense organs.
indriyāṇi parāṇyāhur indriyebhyaḥ paraṁ manaḥ
manasas tu parā buddhir yo buddheḥ paratas tu saḥ (3.42)
evaṁ buddheḥ paraṁ buddhvā saṁstabhyātmānam ātmanā
jahi śatruṁ mahābāho kāmarūpaṁ durāsadam (3.43)
These last verses of the Third Chapter are like medicine, a prescription by a doctor, which you may repeat every day. The indriyas are strong, no doubt, but the sense organs being strong does not mean that they are the only authorities in the world. The mind is stronger than the sense organs. The intellect, or the higher reason, is stronger than the instinctive mind. Higher than the reason is the strength of this Universal Spirit, which you really are. So try to root yourself gradually by the process of self-analysis, through which you realise the interconnection of all things, on account of which particular love and hatred cannot be sanctioned in this world. There cannot be desire for something or hatred for something. Kama and krodha can be subjugated in this way by a direct push that you give from the top, from the Atman that is universal. When the order from the universal Atman is communicated to the buddhi, it communicates that order into the mind, and the mind communicates the order to the sense organs, and puts a check on their activities. Kama and krodha cease. This is how you may control these hindrances to spiritual practice. So concludes the Third Chapter of the Bhagavadgita.
Rise Above Desire and Anger (Kama and Krodha) - Commentary on The Bhagavadgita by Sri Swami Krishnananda
|
If you would like to purchase the print edition, visit: The Divine Life Society E-Bookstore
If you would like to contribute to the dissemination of spiritual knowledge please contact the General Secretary at: generalsecretary@sivanandaonline.org
SEND FEED BACK ON THIS ARTICLE \\ Email to BT Digest Editor( dlsusa.org@gmail.com)
If you would like to purchase the print edition, visit: The Divine Life Society E-Bookstore
If you would like to contribute to the dissemination of spiritual knowledge please contact the General Secretary at: generalsecretary@sivanandaonline.org
SEND FEED BACK ON THIS ARTICLE \** **Email to BT Digest Editor** **( dlsusa.org@gmail.com)
Desire is Not an Unspiritual Activity of The Mind
Spiritual Message for the Day – Desire is Not an Unspiritual Activity of The Mind by Sri Swami Krishnananda
| **Baba Times Digest© | 3 November 2015 16**.10 EST | New York Edition** |
Desire is Not an Unspiritual Activity of The Mind
Divine Life Society Publication: The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad by Sri Swami Krishnananda
The object of desire, in the language of the Upaniṣhad, is generally called ‘food’. ‘Anna’ is the word that is used in the Upaniṣhad. Anna means food, or a diet of the senses. So, the diet of the sense is the object of desire. All objects of desire are the food of the senses and the mind. The whole world of manifestation may be regarded as the food of consciousness. All that is material is a food for the spiritual contemplating principle. Prakṛiti is the ‘food’ of Puruṣha, you may say. Now, what is this food? What is an object, and how many kinds of objects are there towards which the desire moves?
The Supreme Being created food for the Spirit, which is this vast world of creation. Anything that you cognise; anything that you perceive; anything that you can sense and think through the mind, is the food thereof. That food is of various kinds.
The Supreme Father created food, when He manifested Himself as this universe. The spirit, contemplating the Cosmos, is actually consciousness contemplating its own food. What are these? There are seven kinds of food, says the Upaniṣhad. The seven objects of satisfaction are the seven types of food manifested in the process of creation. One food is the common food of all. Two foods were allotted for the celestials, or the gods. Three foods were appropriated to one’s own self. One food was kept aside for the animals. So, you have got seven types of food. Everything is rooted in this sevenfold form of food. Whether one is animate or otherwise, everything can be said to be dependent on the existence of these types of food. How is it that food is not exhausted? If anyone knows the reason why food is not exhausted in spite of its being consumed endlessly, such a person is provided with immeasurable food. He goes to the gods and partakes of the immortality, or ambrosia of the gods. He rejoices in the nectarine realm of the celestials.
What is this sevenfold food that you mention, and how is it connected with the consumers or eaters of food question?
It is by contemplation of consciousness that food is created. It has got a tremendous meaning. The food that you can think of, is an object of consciousness. In order that the Supreme Subject, God, may appear as the object which is the universe, the Consciousness which is the Supreme Subject has to perform a Tapas of contemplation, as it were, in order that It may become alien to Itself, an ‘another’ to its own Self. So, the Supreme Father contemplated, by means of a tremendous austerity, the universe which we behold in front of us as the food of all creatures.
First of all we are told that there is one type of food which is common to all – the ordinary food that you take, the meal that you consume. Food, which is the common property of all, has to be proportionately distributed among the consumers of food, and cannot be exceptually appropriated by anyone. No one can hoard foodstuff. Everyone can partake of food to the extent it is necessary for the maintenance of each. To keep for oneself what is in excess of one’s need is prohibited, and the Upaniṣhad tells us that one who commits that mistake cannot be free from the sin of appropriation. You cannot own anything. You have not produced anything. You would be interfering with the lives of other creatures by depriving them of their needs, on account of the greed by which you hold things which are not necessary for you.
You have also to consider two other aspects of food which are allotted to the celestials, apart from the common food of the human and the subhuman creatures. These foods for the gods are the oblations offered in the sacrifices. There are two important oblations, Darśha and Purnāmaśha, according to ancient tradition. These are offered on the full moon and the new moon day, and the manner in which they are offered, by the recitation of Mantras and contemplation accompanying them, determine the effect produced by these sacrifices. May it be a sacrifice, really speaking. It is a charity, it is an offering, it is a sacrifice which has a purpose beyond itself. Then only it becomes divine. Then only it becomes an act of virtue. Therefore, do not perform any sacrifice for selfish purposes, says the Upaniṣhad.
There is one food which is allocated to the animals, and that is the milk of animals. By milk, is meant the essence of the articles of diet. You know very well, says the Upaniṣhad, that milk sustains people right from childhood onwards, even up to adult age and old age, and even a calf of a cow is maintained by the milk of the cow.
There are some people who imagine that offering ghee and milk, etc. into the sacred fire can free them from rebirth, make them immortal. It is not true, says the Upaniṣhad. You cannot become immortal merely by offering these articles of diet into the holy fire, because it is the knowledge that is connected with the production of this food which is the cause of the future prosperity of an individual, not the literal interpretation of it as an object which is purely physical and material in nature. Though every article of diet, every foodstuff is conceived as if it is an outside object unconnected with oneself, it has a spiritual connection with oneself. The contemplation of the connection of the object, which is the food, with the subject who is the consumer, is the source of that particular event which can bring about the immortality of the soul. In the Chhāndogya Upanishad, we have more detailed descriptions of this type of meditation, where all objects are taken together as a single object of contemplation – e.g., the Vaiśvānara-Vidyā. So, the Upaniṣhad tells us that immortality is not the fruit of any kind of physical action on the part of a person, not even the result of an oblation materially offered into the sacred fire, but the result of a knowledge which is far superior.
Now the question, why foodstuff is not exhausted, is answered. It cannot be exhausted because the desire of the human mind, or any mind for the matter of that, is inexhaustible. As long as a desire is present, its object also will be present. You cannot exhaust the object of your desire as long as the desire itself is not exhausted. The presence of an object of desire is implied in the presence of the desire itself. So, as long as there is an inexhaustible reservoir of desire in people, there would be an inexhaustible reservoir of supply also. So, no food in this world can be exhausted as long as there is a need for food. When the need is there, fulfilment has to be there, in one form or the other. It is the presence of desire, or longing, or requirement, that is the cause of the presence of the counterparts of these requirements in the form of objects of desire, or foodstuff, etc. The individual person is an inexhaustible source of desire, and therefore the universe of objects will not be exhausted for that person with such desires.
Again and again you create the objects of desire by the intensification of your desires. By your actions you create circumstances for fulfilment of desires; and actions are nothing but manifestation of desires in the other world. It is desire operating in the form of action, and action is the movement of desire, in one way or the other, towards this object of fulfilment. So, by actions which are propelled by desire, the objects of desire are sustained. One who knows this truth will not be bound by the sting of desires.
If the desire is not to be propelled in this manner, the objects would exhaust themselves. In other words, if desire is to be absent, the world itself would become absent. The world in front of you exists because of your desires. If the desires of all created beings get absorbed into their own sources, the universe will vanish in one second. It cannot exist. So, if the desires are not present, there will be no objects of desire and the world would have immediately extinguished itself – kṣīyeta ha.
This whole passage is a very complicated structure, the meaning of which is manifold. It has an outward literal meaning which is called the Adhibhautika meaning; it has an individualistic meaning which is called the Adhyātmika meaning; and it has a spiritual meaning which is called the Adhidaivika meaning. As a matter of fact, every passage in the Veda and the Upaniṣhad has a threefold meaning. So, I have tried to give you all the three aspects of the meaning of this passage – all of which point ultimately to the fact that a desire is not an unspiritual activity of the mind, when its meaning is properly understood and its purposes are directed towards the Supreme Fulfilment which is its aim. But it becomes a binding factor if its meaning is not understood, and if one merely hangs on to the literal meaning of desire, without knowing its spiritual implication.
Excerpts from:** Desire is Not an Unspiritual Activity of The Mind -**The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad**by **** **Sri Swami Krishnananda
|
If you would like to purchase the print edition, visit: The Divine Life Society E-Bookstore
If you would like to contribute to the dissemination of spiritual knowledge please contact the General Secretary at: generalsecretary@sivanandaonline.org
SEND FEED BACK ON THIS ARTICLE \\ Email to BT Digest Editor( dlsusa.org@gmail.com)
If you would like to purchase the print edition, visit: The Divine Life Society E-Bookstore
If you would like to contribute to the dissemination of spiritual knowledge please contact the General Secretary at: generalsecretary@sivanandaonline.org
SEND FEED BACK ON THIS ARTICLE \** **Email to BT Digest Editor** **( dlsusa.org@gmail.com)