Swami teaches... From duality towards non-duality. Part 1

[Guest guest]

Sai Ram

 

Light and Love

 

Swami teaches...

From Duality Towards Non-duality. Part 1

 

The motto:

People look for short cuts in everything, even in spirituality. But, surprisingly, spirituality does have a short cut. There is no need to wander here and there. God is residing in your heart. Turn your vision inward. Have full faith that Divinity resides in you.

 

From the microcosm to the macrocosm, the entire Universe is pervaded by Divinity. This Viswa

(cosmos) is the form of Divinity. All that your eyes see are forms of the Divine. All the sounds you hear are similarly pervaded by Divinity. Even the thoughts in your mind are forms of the Divine. The bliss that emanates from the heart is also Divine.

Once you understand that Viswam Vishnu Swarupam (the Universe is the form of Vishnu), you will certainly be able to see the world as God, who is the embodiment of sweetness, manifests Himself in many forms. The Upanishads have declared: "Raso vai Sah" (He is sweetness itself). He invests that sweetness with infinite variety.

The Omnipresent God has, according to the Vedic hymn, "a thousand heads, a thousand eyes, a thousand feet." This is to say, that the Effulgent Cosmic Person, God, the Vishwa Virat, is the individual multiplied by infinity.. The individual mind multiplied by infinity becomes the Cosmic Mind, Hiranyagarbha, the Universal Consciousness. 'I' merges in 'they' and 'we', friend and foe, known and unknown, of all races, creeds and lands, and all become ONE, the Vishwa Virat (the Cosmic Form of God). The Atma Principle, the God Principle and the Brahma Principle are but synonyms for the One.

You create the world of your choice. You see many, because you seek the many, not the One. Try to subsume the many in the One; the physical bodies of yourselves and others, the family, the village, the community, the state, the nation, the world. Thus progressively march on towards more and more inclusive loyalities and reach the stage of Unity, in thought, word and deed. This is the sadhana of Love for, Love is expansion, inclusion, mutualisation. The individual has to be universalised, expanded into Viswa Swarupa (Viswa - totality, whole creation; Swarupa - true nature of Being).

 

Adopting this path and progressing in it is genuine bhakthi or devotion, which discards selfish

narrowness. What is the meaning of devotion? Devotion is that which enables the unmanifested Divine principle to manifest itself in the inner vision of the devotee. Then for that devotee nothing else will exist other than He. To reach that stage you must discharge your duties keeping the permanent entity constantly in mind. You can cross the vast, deep ocean of worldly existence and enjoy the infinite Divinity that is its reality, with the help of a small boat. That boat is the Name of God.

In the beginning of the spiritual journey the name is the basis for progress, but it should not become life-long support, depending entirely on it alone.

All sadhanas (spiritual efforts) are not pursued for realising the Atma (Divine Self). There is no

need to seek the Atma, which is all pervasive and present everywhere. Sadhanas are performed

to get rid of the anatma (that which bars the vision of the Atma).

(God cannot be experienced through the ostentatious observance of rituals and worship. Where

there is pomp and show there can be no Divinity. As a seed will not sprout on the rocky ground, the bliss of Divine cannot be realised by worship devoid of humility and sincerity).

 

To realise the Divine, the more easy method for anyone is chanting the Divine Name. People today act on the basis of names and forms. True, that these names and forms are artificial. Sound has the quality of permanence. If the name of the Lord is chanted with due regard to the sound, the name acquires spiritual power. The Chinmaya (higher consciousness) can be experienced in the utterance of the Divine Name. (There are, of course, many great ones who chant the name of the Lord incessantly. There are many others who recite the Name for days, months and years, but this effects no change in them. What is the reason for this? All their sense organs function with the feeling: "I am the body." Those who utter the name of the Lord while being immersed in the body consciousness cannot realise the Divine, however long their penance may last).

 

It is the name that leads you to the form. That is why the ancient sages and seers started Namachinthana (continuous contemplation on the Divine Name) to have the vision of God. Names and forms are all projections of the mind and have an existence only as long as the mind and body remain. Ancients undertook various spiritual practices with total devotion and earnestness. Spiritual practices should confer the awareness that Divinity is all-pervasive. Just as fire is needed till the rice is cooked, so also spiritual practices are needed till you realise the innate Divinity.

 

In the initial stages, human has a need to worship portraits or idols of God in all the sixteen forms of reverential homage. (Preliminary concentration, invocation, offering seat, washing feet, offering hospitality, ablution, offering vestments, sacredotal thread-wear, sandal paste. flowers, incense, lamp, food, paan, camphor flame waving, circumambulation and prostration).

The sixteen items are good for the first stage of development. But, one should progress from this stage to the awareness of the Atma.

Flowers fade and rot soon. What God loves more are the flowers blossoming on the tree of human's own life, fed and fostered by skill and sincerity. They are the flowers grown in the garden of heart.

The flower of Ahimsa, the virtue of nonviolence, is the very first. One should not entertain even any idea of hurting another, or humiliating another.

The second flower is Indhriya Nigraham, mastery of the senses.

The third flower is Dhaya. Sarva bhootha-dhaya (compassion towards all beings and all things), for, "All this is God." It is said," homage paid to any God reaches the Supreme."

The fourth flower is Kshama, tolerance, fortitude. Kshama is identified by the scriptures with truth, righteousness, knowledge, sacrifice and joy. It promotes divine qualities. It reveals inner Divinity.

The fifth flower is Shanthi - inner peace. Shanthi does not mean that a person should not react

at all, whatever others may say or however they may abuse him. It does not mean that a person must be silent as a rock. It involves mastery of all the senses and all the passions, inner peace must

become one's nature. Shanthi has detachment as the basic quality. Shanthi endows human with an unruffled mind and steady vision. The prayer for Shanthi is usually repeated thrice. "Om, Shanthi, Shanthi, Shanthi." Peace is prayed for, in the physical, mental and spiritual planes.

The sixth flower is Thapas - austerity. Thapas does not mean-forsaking family and children and

escaping into the loneliness of the forest. The real austerity is the exact co-ordination between

one's thought, word and deed. When human succeeds in this thapas, the words will have such power that what he/she says will be transformed into mantras.

The seventh flower is Dhyana - meditation. Today, there are in vogue as many systems and methods of dhyana as there are hairs on Swami's head. Sitting quiet and transferring their emotions and feelings to God is no dhyana.. True Dhyana should not bring God down to persons level; persons must raise themselves to the level of God.

The eighth flower is Sathyam - truth, that which is unmodified by the passage of time. The

Divine alone persists unchanged from the past, through the present into the future. When this

flower blossoms in your heart it will reward you with eternal fragrance.

 

Those who perform japa, dhyana or puja (reciting God's name, meditation, worship), conceiving God as separate from themselves have a dual insight. Duality is an obvious fact of every day life. There is no life without duality. All sastras, puranas and ithihasas (spiritual sciences, epics and ancient legends) have recognised this duality and sought to regulate peoples lives on that basis. As long as people are engaged in activity in the phenomenal world in any capacity, the dualistic attitude is inescapable. All scriptural injunctions are designed to regulate humans' conduct in the phenomenal and the temporal world.

How do we expound the Unity Principle (adwaitha)? There are three forms of this Principle of Oneness:

1. unity of substance,

2. unity of matter,

3. unity of action.

While the names and forms are different, the elements (pancha bhutas) of all bodies are the same. All are suffused with the same sensory perceptions and the same life principles.

Before the body perishes, make all effort to experience the Divinity within. It is only through body that one can experience Divinity.

Human has to progress every moment. The spiritual aspirant too should not stagnate in one sadhana. From the master-servant relationship with God the seeker has to reach the stage of merging in the All-inclusive One - from dualism, through conditioned non-dualism to monism or non-dualism (adwaitha).

 

The Grace of God cannot be won through the gymnastics of reason, the contortions of Yoga or the denials of asceticism. Love alone can win it, Love that needs no requital, Love that knows no

bargaining, Love that is paid gladly, as tribute to the All Loving, Love that is unwavering as flowers of the heart, offered to God. The body is mortal, but the Life Principle is imperishable. If you have to attain this level of immortality, extend total Love to God. This should be unconditional Love.

Spiritual practices done without the Principle of Love are useless. Some people sit for hours together in meditation but are unable to experience Divinity because their mind is unsteady. Instead of wasting time in this manner, it is better to do some useful work. (Human's mind is a bundle of wishes; turned hither and thither by the dictates of each wish. Human slaves own conscience believing that he/she is acting right).

However many scriptures you may read and however many spiritual exercises you may do, if you do not allow your heart to melt with compassion your life will be a sheer waste. All practices have to be directed towards softening your heart so that it will flow with kindness and love. Develop this feeling of compassion and allow it to flow fully and spread among all the peoples of the world. That is the essential spiritual exercise you need to perform.

 

Every cell in your body contains the details of your whole being. In fact, every cell in your body holds your whole form. There are billions of cells in your body. While your form is immanent in each cell and in each limb in the microcosm, your body is your own macrocosmic form. In the same manner, each one of you is the Cosmic Divine Form (Viswa Virat Swarupa). You must make efforts to fully appreciate this reality.

 

Do not limit God to a particular name and form. He exists in all beings and in all forms as Atmic Principle. In fact, it is the power of the Divine that makes you see, hear, talk, experience, and enjoy. In that case, you may ask whether difficulties, worries, and misfortunes are also Divine? Yes indeed! They too are forms of the Divine. Even the most evil people have some good in them. This goodness is the aspect of Divinity in them. It is present in theists and also in atheists.

While God is omnipresent and can be recognised in the Divine manifestations of Nature, the body consciousness prevents people from experiencing oneness with the Divine. (You cannot see your image, without a mirror to reflect you. How, then can you see your Reality without reflection through knowledge)?

Years ago during the Round Table Conference a person suddenly asked Gandhi: "Where is God?" Gandhi replied, "God is that mysterious power from which the worlds around me originated, through which they disintegrate, which is the base on which all creation rests and moves." This power is so mysterious that, as the Vedas declare, "Words which attempt to describe It turns back defeated; even the mind with all its imaginative power cannot reach It.."

 

Things which are not definable, which cannot be delineated, are usually dismissed as false. Only those things which can be perceived by the senses are accepted as true. We assert that we have minds but have we ever been able to see it in us. Has joy or bliss any form? They are experience-based not sense-based. God is not seen with these eyes but the vision is possible if one can earn the eye of jnana, of clarified and purified knowledge. (Reet's compilation from, Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol. 15. "The faith and the ideal," Chapter 7, "Prema saadhana," Chapter 23 and "The garden of the heart," Chapter 25; Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol. 20. "Who am I ?" Chapter 6; Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol. 22. "The One and the Many," Chapter 14; Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol. 32, part 2. "Complete surrender confers Bliss," Chapter 16).

Namaste - Reet