Fwd: Advices to the year 2006 as spiritual passport

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spend time in contemplation of God. When you tread this path, you can achieve

anything. What we encounter depends on our thoughts. Good thoughts are like

radio waves. These waves should spread through love, not through publicity.

God’s grace destroys mountains of sins and confers peace. Many people

expect the new year to confer happiness and prosperity on them. But in fact,

new year onlyconfers on you the results of your past actions. In order to atone

your past sins, you have to cultivate sacredqualities and involve yourself in

sacred activities more and more in the new year. Bliss is within, it originates

from your sacred feelings. None can take away the bliss from you and you cannot

obtain it from outside. With purity of heart, steadiness of mind and

selfless actions, one can become the recipient of Divine grace,which

will remove any amount of sufferings in a trice. People are deluded thinking

that they get pain and pleasure from the external world. In fact, they result

from own feelings. Today human is changing, but not human's mind. Years are

rolling by, but feelings have not become pure. Due to the impact of the Kali

Age, human’s thoughts, words and deeds are not in harmony with each other.

Sankalpamoolam Idam Jagat (thoughts form the basis of the entire world). Some

people feel their expectations are not fructifying in spite of their best

efforts. This is mainly due to absence of purity in their feelings and

intentions and due to the lack of will power. Today human wavers every moment.

Only God’s grace can help human to overcome it. God dwells inside and outside

every living thing. Hence nothing can be hidden from Him. God dwells in all

beings in one and the same form. God is One and indivisible. God manifests on

the basis of the

feelings of the devotee. If you pray to God with purity of heart and love, you

will experience God.Bhakthi (devotion) will force God to give you Himself as

the gift. New year does not bring happiness or sorrow with it. Destiny

does not change with the change in year. Along with the change in year, your

actions too should change for the better. Years come and go, so also pleasure

and pain. Nothing confers permanent bliss except the experience of the Atma.

The Sun shines over the water in the lake, in a well, in a vessel, in a river

or over the ocean. Although the Sun is one, he is reflected in different ways.

When a strong wind blows, the clouds are dispelled and the Sun is visible.

Similarly, when the winds of love and faith blow, the clouds

of doubt and egoism are scattered and God reveals Himself. To get rid of this

disbelief and egoism, certain spiritual disciplines have to be observed.

In the Kali Yuga, one is asked to rely more on Namasmarana (repeated remembrance

of God) for liberation. Why is it considered enough for the people of this Kali

Age? For, other sadhanas are fraught with difficulties. They need rigorous

discipline and much preliminary effort. Again, there is another advantage in

Namasmarana: as soon as the Name is uttered, the owner of the Name comes into

view. When you think of the Form, the Name may not always accompany; you may

not be able to identify. But take the Name, and the Form automatically appears

before the mental eye. Just consider this - the form changes from age to

age, from one appearance to another. Rama and Krishna were different in form;

even their deeds were distinct. But still, people agree when you say that both

are identical. The Name has the association of all the special fragrance of the

Leela (Divine play) and the Mahima (Power) and the Upadhesha (spiritual

instruction). Each one has a special attachment to one Name out of many, suited

to the temperament and the Samskara, the inherited instincts and tendencies

shaped in previous births. Keep the Name lit on the tongue; it will

illumine your interior and also the exterior. It will cleanse your mind, as

well as minds of those who hear the Name when you recite it. Keeping it on the

tongue is like keeping a lamp lit on the door-step at the entrance to your

house. Choose the Name that captivates your heart, that pleases you. Why

run after riches when all the pleasure and satisfaction that riches can offer

and even a hundredfold, can be got by

dwelling on the Name? The Lord has said that where His Name is sung, "thathra

thish-tthaami," ("there I sit"). So, the tongue is enough to win Him, the

tongue that speaks the language of the pure mind. Namasmarana is the best

sadhana (spiritual effort). That is the highest japam, the most profitable

thapas. Fill the Name with your Love, whenever you repeat it; saturate it with

devotion. That is the easiest path for all of you. A mere five-minute

inquiry will convince you that you are not the body, or the senses, the mind or

the intelligence, the name or the form, but that you are the Atma Itself, the

same Atma that appears as all this variety. The Name is enough to give

you all the results of every type of sadhana. This is accepted by

all the Sastras and all the sadhakas (spiritual aspirants) who have left

accounts of their struggle and success. Moreover, the Name is capable of being

recited and meditated upon by all, equally. Of course, the Name is a limitation

of the Universal; it identifies the un-identifiable, through one of its aspects.

Take the Upadhi (disguise) as a means of saving yourself; take it as a boat that

will take you across the sea of birth and death. Reduce the luggage you

carry about, when on the journey of life. Remember, all that is not 'you' is

luggage. Learn this lesson watching the great, who are humble and simple. Offer

to God the clear calm Manasa lake; or even if the mind is wayward and freakish

like the monkey, offer it to God. Love your religion, so that you may

practise it with greater faith, and, when each one practises his/her religion

with faith, there can be no hatred in the world.

Human being is the Divine poured into the human mould, just as everything

else, alive or inert, is; but, it is the privilege of human alone, to be able

to become aware of this precious truth. This is the message of the Upanishads.

This message is echoed by the scriptures, and in the declarations of countless

saints. Human can derive Ananda (Divine Bliss) through the contemplation of his

Divinity, or the Divine as represented by all that he sees, hears, tastes,

touches or smells outside himself. Recognising the immanence of the Divine,

one has to dedicate all acts to the Divine. What is the act, when you analyse it

deeply? It is the manipulation of the Divine by the Divine, for the sake of the

Divine through the skill endowed by the Divine; there is no I or mine in it,

except the Universal 'I' and the Divine 'My'. Dedication is to be carried

out in various ways. Take the food that we consume. Offer it to God, before you

partake of it. Then it is rendered pure and potent. Any act done for the

glorification of God is thereby rendered pure and potent. It is incapable of

harming the doer, the beneficiary, or society, for, it is saturated with Love,

which is God. God is the director of this puppet show, the manipulator of the

strings. Go behind the screen and see Him. It is now hiding Him; you have only

to peep behind a flower, peer behind a cloud, to see Him pulling the string, to

show us the beauty, to show us the darkness of heavy moisture. So also, you have

only to peep behind your thoughts, to peer behind your feelings; you will find

there the Inner Motivator. In this context, three concepts have to be

understood: Jnanam, Jneyam and Jnanagamyam (knowledge,

that which is to be known, and the fruit of knowledge). These have been

expounded under different names in Vedantic parlance. The primary requisite in

the quest for Jnana (supreme knowledge) is intense yearning. The second

requisite is the undertaking of spiritual exercises. Thereby one achieves the

fitness for acquiring the knowledge. When one discharges one's duties properly,

observes the prescribed rules, engages himself in selfless activities, does the

work with discipline and devotion and, on reaching superannuation one is bound

to experience peace and happiness. In the spiritual field, the acquisition of

intense interest represents the stage of studentship. (But interest alone is

not enough. Efforts to realise the spiritual objective have to be made. Only

then the fruit of Jnana, in the form of Realisation of the Divine, is secured.

The pursuit of Jnana calls for Bhakti) . Jneya (the object to be known)

corresponds to the office to be

occupied. Pension corresponds to Jnanaphala (the fruit or fulfilment of

knowledge). These three stages can be compared to Sat-Chit-Ananda. Bliss is the

fulfilment of what began with studentship. The person who accepts God as a

friend and is guided by His advice can understand the full meaning of Divine

friendship. Seek to acquire the friendship of God, than whom there is no

greater friend in the world.Faith of this nature alone constitutes true Jnana.

You have to make friendship with Sath, the eternal truth. Sath means Being,

the ever-existent God. Theworldly friends and enemies change with the passage

of time, but Sath is the true and eternal friend. There is nothing great in

going round the world and getting accolades. Life bereft of sacrifice is

inhuman. The Vedas said: "One can attain immortality neither by rituals nor by

progeny nor

wealth; only sacrifice confers immortality.” Human needs a healthy body for

a healthy mind, filled with good thoughts. Thoughts are the permanent asset of

human. Thoughts are based on feelings and feelings on the mind. As the

thoughts, so the mind. Sacred thoughts, good words, and noble deeds are

the true human values. In this ephemeral and transient world, human always

aspires for peace and security. But money, education, position of authority and

physical comforts cannot confer peace and security. Ancient Indian seers used

to partake of food with the feeling that food is Brahma, the essence is Vishnu,

and the one who partakes of it is Siva. Such a feeling would foster pure and

sacred thoughts in us. A true human being is one with a good mind.

The qualities of a good mind are: it has the brightness of the Sun and coolness

of the moon; it makes one utter sacred words and confers peace on society. Human

has originated from Nature. Earth sustains life. Sun gives light. Trees give

oxygen. Water quenches our thirst and air helps us (and other living beings

included plants) to live. Having been born as a human being, why it is so

difficult to practice human values? Every human being has the evil

tendencies of kama (lust), krodha (anger), lobha (greed), etc. in him. The

great epics, Ramayana, Bhagavata, and Mahabharata, teach good lessons to

control lust, greed and anger. Ravana, who had mastered all sixty-four

branches of knowledge and was a great scholar and a mighty warrior, lost his

life and caused the

ruination of his entire clan because of lust. It is not enough if you merely

read the Ramayana; you should grasp its real significance. Hiranyakasipu was

a great scientist. He had control over all five elements, but he became a victim

of his anger. His anger was directed at God Himself. Ultimately, what happened?

He ruined himself. He subjected his son to all sorts of trials and tribulations

and sought to kill him by many means, like throwing him from the hilltop,

casting him into the sea, putting him in a pit of poisonous snakes and making

elephants trample upon him. Because Prahlada was chanting the name of Narayana

(God) ceaselessly, all the obstacles became Narayana for him and he came out

unscathed. Human leads a life of delusion because he/she sees diversity in

unity and has lost the sense of discrimination. Hunman faces many hardships to

carry on with the sojourn of own life. But life

is transient. To lead such an ephemeral life, why should one take to wrong path

and get deluded? So long as one is alive, one should make proper use of the

Mathi (mind), Gathi (destiny), Stithi (position) and Sampatthi (wealth) that

God has bestowed on him/her. Namaste - Reet

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