Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Swami Krishnananda

Do you aspire for God Realization?

(A talk by Swami Krishnanada)

Image result for swami krishnanandaDo you aspire for God realization? What is your aim? Do you aspire for God realization? Do you want to enter into the bosom of the creator of the cosmos? What is it that you are thinking? What are you keeping in your mind? Suppose the Absolute calls you, saying, "Come on, I want you." Will you go? 

The Absolute calls every atom of the universe. This is what you call evolution, as scientists would say. Every atom is moving in some direction. This is the evolutionary process. It is a call from the almighty supreme that the world has refused.

We are restless; nobody has peace of mind. This restlessness is caused by the finitude of the personality. You feel limited. You are limited physically, intellectually, emotionally, socially, politically, and finally your span of life is also limited. So there is nothing unlimited in this world.

But there is a longing from inside to break this limitation, to break the limitation of space and time itself. You do not like to be confined to a little space. You would like to conquer the whole of space. You want to go to the sun and the moon and the stars and beyond even the limits of space itself. 


What you really want is to have the longest duration of existence, endless permission to live, together with the greatest of intelligence, not like a tree or a stone or a pig. And the greatest of intelligence implies the highest power also. 

The greater the knowledge, the greater the power. So omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence is what you want. Here is the essence of the whole matter. 

Now, briefly, they say this is God. One word. It is impossible to describe what it means. It is a word connoting something which is indescribable and yet impossible to avoid. You are searching for that. In that you will never be cut off by the time process and you will not be limited to a little space. 

There will be all space and all time and all knowledge. This is attributed to what people generally call the Supreme Absolute. 

What do you call this condition? At all times everywhere everything. Can you contain this thought? If you can contain this you are a super-person, you are not a human being. And you will not be a human being after all. You are something different. The whole world will be reflected in you. 


The power of the universe is vibrating through every cell of our bodies. But through egoism, self-assertiveness, pride, foolishness, idiocywhatever you call itwe repel the entry of the cosmic force into us. We have closed the windows of our house, and therefore the breeze of the cosmos does not enter. 

We're an organism. So there is some sense in people saying, "God only is." Many people say, "God only is; nothing else is." What does this mean actually? This whole universe is animated by one consciousness in which you are also included because you are not outside the universe. What exists finally? Neither I, nor you, nor anybody. But everybody still is. 

Millions of cells are operating in this body and many cells put together make one human being. But when I say, "Who is coming?" you don't say, "Many bundles of cells are coming." You don't say that. So likewise the multitudes of the universe, the trees and mountains and rivers, the sun, moon, stars, galaxies, whatever you can think of, are only part and parcel of the limbs of this cosmic organism which is animated by a supreme intelligence. 

That alone is, that's all. And nothing else can be, because everything is a part of the universal process. You cannot stand outside the cosmos. And that whole cosmic intelligence includes your intelligence, and your destiny is in its hands. And the more you love it, the more blessed you are. Here is the whole of religion, all philosophy, all bhakti [devotion], all yoga, or whatever you call it. Without using words like that, in simple language I told you what the truth of the matter is. 

Your heart will throb by hearing all this. 

God bless you.
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Author's note

(Dear Readers, It was an herculean task for the author to reduce this talk, to remove many paragraph to bring the talk to the above , which itself may seem longer for few.

In Kaliyuga, in between 1900 to 2010, Swami Krishnananda is one of the VERY FEW saints who has not compromised in his writing/ works, who has not come down to the level of a normal human being. He roars from the sky, beckoning a sincere aspirant to fly and reach him, rather than coming down to the level of a jiva and trying to pull him to the level of sky. Salutations to this Saint who attained Self realization under the feet of Swami Sivananda of Hrishikesh)

Love



Monday, July 24, 2017

Swami Shivapadananada


Swami Shivapadananada

There's a stage when you take the Lord, singular, and meditate on him. Then it must [also] be in universal form - Vishwaroop. Your deity, whether it is Shiva, Kali, Krishnabecause Krishna showed it practically. 
People only go for Krishna as a deity - but it's not just Krishna. [It's the same with] Any deity. First you meditate on the form. Then that form must be meditated on in universal form - Vishwaroop – and then it must become formless, nameless [Brahman]. Krishna gives you the three stages in the [Bhagavad] Gita. So that's how you reach the highest truth. 
First the formless, when the whole universe becomes God. You see it pulsating, then you find the universe has come out of something formless, nameless. It's not extracting anything but it's merging. Like a drop of water merges into the river and the river merges with the ocean. 
It's a wonderful meditation. Read between the lines in the scriptures and you'll see what I mean. Some people, when you tell them to meditate on the deity, they get so fed up [irritated], they think, "what this – this deity is not taking me any higher." 
But when you sit, inside here, you will know straight away, "no, it needs another step now, so it will push slowly." Until then, just get the intense yearning to know a little more truth and then the yearning will push you a little bit. 

Like Indra [king of the Hindu gods] came [to Prajapati] for the first time , Vairocana [king of the demons] came the first time. He made a mistake, He thought the body was everything. So he told his gang, "eat, drink and be merry." But Indra said, "wait a minute, that's not it, that doesn't die - this body dies." 
He came back to ask again. So intense yearning to know the truth [is essential]…and he came again…and each time he came to know a little bit more. Like that. I don't know how many times he came, three or four times or six times. And pushed and pushed until he got it. 
People make a mistake to think that ordinary people just touch and it happens like that. It won't happen. An Incarnation  will say, like Christ said, "behold!," and you could see it. Ramakrishna just touched – "wake up, Mother!" and the person got into samadhi [superconsciousness]. It can't happen to everybody. Others must go – pushing gear [working, struggling]


Essence of Vedanta - Part 24

Dear All,

Let us now proceed to the 2nd expression of THAT GOD, which is Jnanam.

Let us analyze the subject-object relationship in perception. When I see a flower, I (subject) am the body, including the eye. The flower is the object. Form and color of the flower are properties. When I want to judge the properties of the eye like myopia or color-blindness, I put one step back. The eye is the object. I, including the mind, is the subject. 
Extending this further, the real “I” is the ultimate subject, which can never become an object of perception by the senses or conception by the mind.  This ultimate subject is called Chit or Jnaanam.
In any subject-object relationship, properties always belong to the object. To judge the property of anything, it has to be given the status of an object. I need to extend myself to the edge of the instrument that is in contact with the object (internal or external) to experience and evaluate the properties of the object. Thus, I, the Chit, being the ultimate subject, cannot have any properties.
Applying the same logic that we applied to Sat, Chit also is One, Infinite, All-pervading, Eternal, Changeless, Partless, Property-less, Absolute Existence. So, Sat and Chit are not different. They are the same entity.
Thus, real I, the Consciousness is the fundamental entity from which the whole universe has emerged. This is conveyed in innumerable statements in the various Upanishads belonging to various Vedas. 
Love.