Swami teaches... The golden, eternal and timeless rules of life.Part 1

[Guest guest]

Sai Ram

 

Light and Love

 

Swami teaches... 6 - 8 June 2006

The Golden, Eternal and Timeless Rules of Life. Part 1

 

An individual has to bear in mind three things.

One is that which, after it goes, will not come back.

The second one is that which, after it comes will not leave.

The third is the one that neither comes nor goes.

Ignorance is the thing which, once it is gone, will not return. (If it returns, it is "ignorance piled on

ignorance." This has been described in Vedantic parlance as Mithya in Mithya delusion within a

delusion).

That which, when it comes, will not go back is jnana (spiritual wisdom).. When this sublime knowledge comes to one, it would not leave him. Knowledge of Supreme Reality, when once it is acquired, will never go away.

That which does not come and does not leave is Atma Thathwa (the Atmic Principle). That which is omnipresent, where can it go? There is no place where the Divine is not present. Where, then, can the Divine come or go?

Radha (Bhagavad Gita) observed:

When the whole Universe is the mansion of the Lord,

Where is the need for a street or a door?

When the cosmic Lord is shining within,

Where is the need for a door?

For the Divine, there is no coming or going. God transcends such conceptions. He is the Lord of what is called the Kingdom of God. Each one has to acquire the qualification to enter that Kingdom. All are not entitled to enter it. But every human being should aspire to achieve that right.

 

Human's nature is to achieve jnana (wisdom). Love is the bloodstream that sustains jnana; peace is the vision that guides and directs human. Human is Atmaswarupa (of the nature of Atma), which is Truth, Beauty, Goodness, Peace and Love. (But human craves against own nature, for the false, the fleeting, the crude, the inert and the chaotic. Human must always have in view God, of whom he/she is an expression).

In the Gita, Krishna declares that among the mountains, He is Himagiri, the Himalayas. From this, you should not infer that Krishna was a patriot who spoke about a physical feature of His mother-country. To reach the Himalayas, the abode of the pure, white, cool, snow (symbol of the sathwic virtues) you have to pass through Haridhwar (the gate way of God-awareness) and through Hrishikesha (control of the senses). Then only can you be the liberated soul, which is of the same essence as He and to achieve jnana.

 

The Vedanta Sastras (holy scriptures; sacred texts; in general scriptures of spiritual science) are the basic science for the happiness of the individual and of the community of human. Three texts are considered authoritative by the seekers of this Bharath: the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita and the Brahma Sutras (spiritual text of Vedantic teachings in short maxims, attributed to sages Badharayana or Vyasa).These three teach the essentials for the higher life of the spirit.

In order to make these texts clear to the uninitiated, three great commentators, one after the other, wrote elaborate interpretations of these texts, and since each of them had one particular viewpoint, three saw in the selfsame texts three different but not divergent paths to the goal of liberation. Sankaracharya (one of the greatest philosophers and savants of Bharat, lived probably 788 - 820 A.D) elucidated them from the adwaithic (non-dualistic) point of view, Ramanujacharya (11th cent. spiritual teacher believed in a personal God reached by devotion and faith and the everlasting self-identity of the individual soul in communion with God as the goal of life) from the visishthadwaithic (qualified dualistic) and Madhwacharya (13th cent. exponent of dualist philosophy; lived in the South Indian court of Vijayanagar; founder of a sect of Vaishnavas) from the dwaithic (dualistic) point of view.

 

The Adhwaitha school of philosophy declares that there is only one entity (Deva) and that the Jivi is a false improvisation which ignorance conceives, because it is not able to realise the Universal which alone exists.There are no two; Adwaitha means 'No-two.'

Visishthadwaitha, special or peculiar 'no-two-ness,' declares that jivi is a limb of the Universal, a component, but a distinct component of the One.

The Dwaitha philosophy or the dualistic point of view declares that the Jivi (individual) is Jivi

and Deva (Universal) is Deva and the twain shall ever be only two.

 

All three are genuine paths to the same goal; and, those who follow one cannot change over to another all of a sudden. A car cannot change over to another all of a sudden. A car cannot fly in the air, nor can a plane taxi along the road to the destination. As one's vision gets clearer and sharper, one's knowledge of oneself and the Universal in which individual is involved becomes clearer, sharper and truer, until it becomes the very breath, the very core of own existence.

 

The Kannakanda of the Vedas which prescribes yagas and yajnas (Vedic rituals of sacrifice) is designed to secure for human the Grace of God and not, as is often assumed, a happy life in Paradise. The prompting should arise not from desire for Paradise, but from desire to obtain Grace, to dedicate the Yoga to God, leaving the benefits therefrom to the will of the Bestower. The emphasis must be not merely on ritual correctness, but unconditional surrender to the God who is invoked and propitiated in these rituals.

 

A celebrated sage once advised an aspirant that he could get God-realisation, in thirty days, if he

spent all the twenty-four hours in the contemplation of God. He went to his place, did as he was

told and after thirty-six days (he continued for six more days) he hurried to the sage, in great

rage, for he was sadly disappointed. The sage asked him for an account of his daily schedule of

activity during the thirty-six days. The disciple said, "Well, I rise from bed at four o'clock wash

and get ready for dhyana by five, meditate until six, move about until eight, have something to

eat, doze off for a few minutes, read a few pages, converse with friends for a while on the

happenings in the world, bathe and drink something hot afterwards, etc., etc., with Ramanaama

now and then, in the intervals."

The sage answered, "Wonderful indeed. I did not anticipate you will behave so crudely. I directed you to use all the twenty-four hours in the contemplation of God, without wasting a single moment. I did not lay down any other schedule. Spend as much time as there is in thirty days, in the unalloyed contemplation of God; you will attain liberation."

 

The best method of carrying out the sage's direction is to believe that this body is the residence of God; that the food you take is the offering you make to Him; your act of bathing is the ceremonial bathing of Him who is in you; the ground you walk on is his domain; the joy you gain is his gift; the grief you experience is His lesson. Remember Him ever, in sun and rain. day and night, asleep and awake. That is the unalloyed contemplation the sage advised the pupil to do.

 

The consequence of avoiding the knowledge and practice of Vedanta is the increase of three

tragedies: papam, thapam, ajnanam (evil deed, suffering and ignorance).

Without spiritual knowledge life is as a jungle, where there is a great ideal of dry wood which harbours worms and insects. No one cleans the floor of the forest, or cuts away the undergrowth of bush and bramble. To wade through the thorns and the leech-ridden floor of the jungle, one has to wear boots. So too, one has to wear the boots of sense-regulation if one has to pass through the jungle of life, without harming oneself.

 

Reflect and put into practice what you recognise as beneficial in what you have listened to.Practice gives the golden harvest of blissful experience. If you spend all your time in erecting the fence, when are you to raise the crop? When you spend all your time in reading about agriculture and of the excellent crops that can be got by using high yielding strains of seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, etc., but do not plough, or sow, or spray or dig or pull out the weeds, how can the granary be full? Reading, reciting, listening - these are not enough; practise is what is needed.

When all who listen to or read spiritual discourses, put into practice a tenth of what they hear or read the spiritual illumination will increase over the world. This must happen, this shall happen.

Meanwhile, without losing heart, you should determine your path and pursue it unwaveringly.

(An example. You have seen hundreds of funerals; but no lesson has been learned. Buddha saw but one. It changed the course of his life and opened a new chapter in the history of the world. The renunciation of the sanyasins, the suffering of the sick, the pitiable condition of the aged - these made profound impression on Buddha. He left his palace, his wife and new born child to seek the remedy for the miseries of life).

Human being has travelled long enough on the wrong road; it is time now to turn back and move steadily towards the goal. The love that human has cultivated for people and things has to be sublimated into pure, Divine worship. Convince yourself that the Lord is in you,as the inner nature, as the charioteer, holding the reins of the five horses (the senses) and giving you constant counsel, as the Lord Krishna did when Arjuna prayed to Him, to lead and guide. Then, it becomes easy for you to convince yourself that the self-same charioteer is leading and guiding all other people and even all other beings. When you are established in this faith firmly, you become free of hate and malice, greed and envy, anger and attachment. Do Namasmarana (repeated remembrance of the Lord); taste the sweetness that is in the heart of every one; dwell on His Glory, His Compassion, which those names summarise. Then, it will be easier for you to visualise Him in all, to love Him in all, to adore Him in all.

 

 

Pray to the Lord to strengthen this conviction and this faith; He will open your eyes to the Truth

and reveal to you that He is the Sanathana Sarathi, in all. That revelation will confer on you incomparable Ananda, and grant you kinship with Creation's manifoldness. Know Him as your strength, your breath, your intelligence, your joy. Have faith in God, and in the correctness of moral living. He will direct you all towards the highest Goal; the senses, the mind, the subconscious, the unconscious, the intelligence - all. Grace will confer all you need.

 

Once a mother-in-law was complaining against the new daughter-in-law that she consumed stealthily quantities of milk, curds, cream, butter and ghee. The girl's brother who heard this story from the lips of the old lady, called her into the presence, and after reprimanding her for her malfeasance, advised her to give up stealing all the items, except milk. "Milk, you can drink any, quantity you like; but, why steal these other by-products?" The mother-in-law, it is needless to say, was not very pleased with advice. So, seek the Lord's Grace, that is enough; it confers all else and leads to the source of innate nature.

 

All beings (animated and unanimated) have an inner nature. Contemplation of a heremit probably helps to spiritual seeker to stick own innate nature.

 

A hermit was one day bathing in the Ganga, when he saw floating downstream on a piece of

wood a scorpion. This is God encased in the scorpion form and name, he felt; he wanted to save

the scorpion. So, he took it on his palm; but, when it stung him, he dropped it on the waters.

Then he was stricken with remorse and so, he lifted it up again. Thus is stung him five or six

times; but, he persisted in his mission of mercy and at last, managed to drop it on dry land so that

it could go its way, alive and happy. Many people watched his efforts and laughed at him for his

stupidly exaggerated sympathy. The hermit told them that the scorpion had taught him a lesson

and he was thankful for it. They asked him what it was. He said: "Stick to your innate nature,

whatever may happen - that is what it has taught me." Its nature is to sting; it stung, regardless of

whom or when.

Human's innate nature is to be aware of own and all other humans' Divinity and to practice its powers for the benefit of society regardless of whatsoever circumstances. (Reet's compilation from, Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol. 7. "The journey in the jungle," Chapter 19 and "Sweetness invisible," Chapter 27; Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol. 12. "Know the Knower," Chapter 13; Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol. 17. "Who is the greatest?" Chapter 10; Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol. 19. "The Mantra round your wrist," Chapter 3; Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol. 25. "Divinise Every Moment," Chapter 1).

 

Namaste - Reet