Swami Sivananda- Seven culture

Sadhana Tattva

( By Swami Sivananda)

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INTRODUCTION

(a) An ounce of practice is better than tons of theory. Practice Yoga, Religion and Philosophy in daily life and attain Self-realization. 

(b)These thirty-two instructions give the essence of the Eternal Religion (Sanatana Dharma) in its purest form. 

They are suitable for modern busy householders with fixed hours of work. Modify them to suit your convenience and increase the period gradually. 

(c) In the beginning take only a few practicable resolves which form a small but definite advance over your present habits and character. In case of ill-health, pressure of work or unavoidable engagements replace your active Sadhana (spiritual practice) by frequent remembrance of God. 

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HEALTH CULTURE

1. Eat moderately. Take light and simple food. Offer it to God before you eat. Have a balanced diet. 

2. Avoid spicy and hot foods, like chilies, garlic, onions, tamarind, etc., as far as possible. Give up tea, coffee, smoking, betels, meat and wine entirely.

3. Fast on Ekadasi days or once in a fortnight. Take milk, fruits or roots only. 

4. Practice Yoga Asana (Hatha Yoga exercises) or physical exercises for 15 to 30 minutes every day. Take a long walk or play some vigorous games daily. 

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ENERGY CULTURE

5. Observe silence (Mouna) for 2 hours daily and 4 to 8 hours on Sundays. 

6. Observe celibacy according to your age and circumstances. Restrict the indulgence to once a month. Decrease it gradually to once a year. Finally take a vow of abstinence for whole life. 

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ETHICAL CULTURE

7. Speak the TRUTH. Speak little. Speak kindly. Speak sweetly. 

8. Do not injure anyone in thought, word or deed. Be kind to all. 

9. Be sincere, straightforward and open-hearted in your talks and dealings. 

10. Be honest. Earn by the sweat of your brow. Do not accept any money, things or favour unless earned lawfully. Develop nobility and integrity. 

11. Control fits of anger by serenity, patience, love, mercy and tolerance. Forget and forgive. Adapt yourself to men and events. 

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WILL CULTURE

12. Live without sugar for a week or month. Give up salt on Sundays. 

13. Give up cards, novels, cinemas and clubs. Fly from evil company. Avoid discussions with materialists. Do not mix with persons who have no faith in God or who criticize your Sadhana (spiritual practices). 

14. Curtail your wants. Reduce your possessions. Have plain living and high thinking. 

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HEART CULTURE

15. Doing good to others is the highest religion. Do some selfless service for a few hours every week, without egoism or expectation of reward. Do your worldly duties in the same spirit. Work is worship. Dedicate it to God. 

16. Give 2 to 10 percent of your income in charity every month. Share what you have with others. Let the world be your family. Remove selfishness. 

17. Be humble and prostrate yourself to all beings mentally. Feel the Divine Presence everywhere. Give up vanity, pride and hypocrisy. 

18. Have unwavering faith in God, the Bhagavad-Gita and your Guru. Make a total self-surrender to God and pray: "Thy Will be done; I want nothing." Submit to the Divine Will in all events and happenings with equanimity. 

19. See God in all beings and love them as your own Self. Do not hate anyone. 

20. Remember God at all times or, at least, on rising from bed, during a pause in work and before going to bed. Keep a Mala (rosary) in your pocket. 

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PSYCHIC CULTURE

21. Study one chapter or ten to twenty-five verses of the Gita or your scriptures with meaning, daily. Learn the original language of your scripture, at least sufficient to understand it in original. 

22. Memorize important and inspiring portions of your sacred scripture according to your capacity. Memorize also any inspiring quotations from other spiritual books. Keep a pocket version your scripture with you at all times. 

23. Read the Ramayana, the Bible, the Quran, the Bhagavata, the Upanishads, the Yogavasishtha or other religious books daily without fail. Study more during holidays. 

24. Attend religious meetings and seek Satsanga (company) with saints at every opportunity. If not, create opportunities. Listen to spiritual discourses from learned and holy people. If possible, organize such functions on Sundays or holidays. 

25. Visit a temple or place of worship daily. Preferably before you leave and upon your return from work, even if only for 5 or 10 minutes. 

26. Spend holidays and leave-periods, when possible, in the company of saints or practice Sadhana at holy places in seclusion. 

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SPIRITUAL CULTURE

27. Go to bed early. Get up at four o'clock. Answer calls of nature, clean your mouth and take a bath. 

28. Recite some prayers and Kirtan Dhvanis (devotional songs). Practice Pranayama (breathing exercises), Japa (repetition of the Divine Name of God) and meditation in the early morning. Sit on Padma, Siddha, or Sukha Asana throughout, without movement, by gradual practice. While you meditate, forget the outside world totally. Gradually increase the period of meditation. 

29. Perform the daily prayers of your religion. Do not fail to fulfil your obligatory duties. 

30. Write your favourite Mantra or Name of God in a notebook for ten to thirty minutes, daily. 

31. Sing the Names of God (Kirtan) and pray for half to one hour at night with family and friends. 

32. Make annual resolves on the above lines. Regularity, tenacity and fixity are essential. Record your Sadhana in a spiritual diary daily. Review it every month and correct your failures. 

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NOTE FROM AUTHOR

Divyatman,

 Taking the 1st line of the article "An ounce of practice is better than tons of theory", Please take  1 or 2 points from each of the 7 culture and resolve to practice them for a mont continuously and ensure that they are imbibed in your life permanently in your life.

Only when the 2 points per culture are imbibed totally, take up the  1 or 2 more points from each culture.

Regarding celibacy, in case of youngsters or newly married , celibacy may be taken in larger sense. 

Celibacy in larger sense will include control of thoughts, control of anger, control of emotions, control on food and in short  control on any excessive desires at large, restraining from seeking pleasure outside one's own home etc. 

Love

Essence of Vedanta - Part 38

Dear All,

For all the questions posed from various theme posts on WHAT IS GOD REALISATION, the author leaves you with the Existence of God which he covered once in the creation of universe post, answering to the question- HOW GOD CREATED UNIVERSE and then again He covered in this current theme.

This was also explained in one of the Tuesday talks on a samarpan bhajan, 3 years before.

Author would leave those very few sincere readers with atleast 2 days to contemplate on the expressions that follow in this post. 

Questions

What is the God existence to be realized by a Jiva as culmination of Sadhana?

Does God exist in universe after creating universe??

What is God consciousness or Brahman actually???

An answer, an expression, A secret

"The Isavasya Upanishad says that the whole Universe is pervaded by Isvara or God, who is both within and without it. He is the moving and the unmoving, He is far and near, He is within all these and without all these."

Now, let us devote time in reading and then absorbing the same in early morning hours, in total silence, with pure mind, on one portion of the above expression "WITHIN"!!

Author is recapitulating the following part from a post under the theme "Creation of Universe".

"Suppose there is a big boulder, a stone. You see the stone; it is very hard and heavy, and you can touch it as a solid object. 

Bring a sufficiently powerful microscope and look at this stone. You will find that the stone is a heap of very minute, fly-like, insect-like entities called molecules. It is a heap of certain things, and not one solid object.

Bring another, more powerful microscope, more powerful than the earlier one. Even the molecules will not be seen there. There will be still finer elements looking like almost non-cognisable particles which are called atoms.

Bring a still more powerful microscope. You will find that even these little particles melt into a continuum of energy, or force, which impinges on the energy centres which are other atoms. It looks as if there is one sea of force everywhere, an indistinguishable continuum.

What has happened to the stone?

Can you say that this sea of force, these atoms, one day thought: “Let us become a stone”? 

If the atoms have really become the stone, they will not be there for you to see through the microscope. 

You will conclude that they have never become the stone. It is only your vision that presents the perception of a solid object.

These so-called ‘things’ – molecules, atoms, energy centres, etc. – never became the stone. They were never transformed into the stone. They did not create the stone. They exist and have always existed in the same condition as they were when you perceived them through a powerful perception.

The stone has not been created, though it is solidly perceivable. In the same way, the world has not been created, though it is visible to the eyes.

CONCLUSION FOR TODAY

Similar to the stone which was never created, which is actually only a continuum of energy if one reaches to its subtlest existence, we the Jivas , exist  with our body at gross level, just as the stone is also visible at a gross level, but exactly like the continuum of energy explained in the case of stone, we the jivas are also actually not the physical form that we are, but we are actually THE SPIRIT / THE SOURCE / THE PURE CONSCIOUSNESS !!!!

Hari Aum Tatsat

And, God realization is actually to realize that we are THAT PURE AWARENESS / SPIRIT which WE ALWAYS ARE, WHICH IS NEVER BORN AND HENCE, WHICH NEVER DIES!!!!

Essence of Vedanta - Part 37

Dear All,

We will now sum up with the recap of questions posed in a post in the current theme on WHAT IS THAT WHICH IS REALIZED at the end/ culmination of spiritual sadhana and also, we will reproduce the answer to the same given in a current theme post itself, though, if the author refers to all the posts from December 2016 onwards, the answer would be found in more than 50 posts.

The questions posed were as follows:-

Theme	Questions
Purpose of Human Birth	How and what is the divine experience that we attain??
	How do we experience God without a name, form and without attributes??
Karma	How is the divine experience/ the state of existence with no karmas left as balance and we have transcended all actions/ all thoughts/ all karmas?
Surrender	What is our state of existence in that absolute self surrender??
	How do we experience God/Divinity within and without, with no thoughts, when we have merged into the ocean of Love that God's essence is!!!
MBCA	In the flow shown, the final culmination is shown as “Purpose of life, God realization, is fulfilled”.
	That is the final culmination of the all the efforts taken up in one's spiritual sadhana, with unshakable conviction (mumukshatva).
	However, when it is said, God realization, what is it exactly all about?? Which God is realized?? Where??? And what is the experience, if there is any experience at all, upon realizing the God??
	How any realized Master, upon God realization, can possibly explain THE GOD that has been realized by the Master???
Creation	“Upon retracing from the gross body and mind and senses as per sankhya flow and reaching up to the state of Purusha” or “Upon retracing from the drawings (our gross existence with body mind and intellect) and reaching up to the state of Purusha which is explained as unmanifest Iswara in the panchadasi learning”, What would be the actual experience of the PURUSHA or the UNMANIFEST ISWARA or the PURUSHOTTAMA explained in Bhagwad Gita???
	How and what is this God realization???
	What is that God who is realized as Purusha/ Purushottama/ Unmanifest Iswara??
	Can that God, who is otherwise inexplicable, be explained somehow???
Three Bodies	Is there anything, any existence which activates the three bodies, which sustains the three bodies but still, it is beyond the description off the three bodies????
Three States of Consciousness	In all the three states, on introspecting, we can observe one common thing.
	In the waking state, there is one factor which is fetching us all the experience through our senses and intellect but that one factor is above our senses and intellect. This can be said so because, that factor is only using the senses and intellect to fetch your experience. A king who uses the service of his ministers has to be obviously above the state of his ministers. Thus, the single factor which is using the ministers of its senses and intellect has to be above the senses / intellect!!
	In the dream state, again, that same single factor exists, which retrieves our impressions and bananas and then through our intellect, is fetching us the experience of what happened in the dream. Again, here also, the same explanation applies. The king, that single factor, using the vasanas / impressions and then the intellect, has to be above all of them!!!
	In the deep sleep, when neither senses are working, nor our impressions or vasanas are working, still, That single factor is definitely present, otherwise, without body, mind and intellect working, who was present while the King had deep sleep, who fetches the experience that “I had a deep sleep without any experience” when the king wakes up on the next day??
Panchakoshas	“If the 5 koshas are like the 5 lampshades or the 5 layers, then what is that which is the real Light which shines forth in and through all the 5 lampshades or all the 5 koshas?”
	Is Ananda Maya kosha the ultimate or there is any other subtler source which actually makes one feel that “I AM IN BLISS”, like an imaginary concluding scene explained in an earlier post when King Janaka wakes up and experiences that he had a very deep sleep the previous night.
	If his body, mind, intellect were not active  while he was sleeping, then what was THAT which was witnessing his deep sleep which prompts him on the next day and makes him say that he had deep sleep??
Introduction to Veda and vedanta (Posts on sadhana chatushthaya)	If Mumuksatva is all about intense craving for God realization, WHAT is understood by the fired up mumukshu sadhaka as GOD??
	What is the God realization he is turning to??
	What is the experience that the sadhaka aspires to attain upon the fructification of his mumukshatva??

We will perhaps end this theme tomorrow or day after tomorrow with the answer. 

Love