Sathya Sai Vahini - Post 18

Do not allow anyone to divert you away from your innate nature. Be immersed in your God, in your own imaginings and feelings, in the bliss that springs from your own heart, and in the delight derived from your spiritual exercises (sadhana).

When others try to prevent you from doing this, whatever plans they weave and whatever contrivances they employ, resist them at the cost of your own lives. Do not deny yourself that divine awareness, that divine ecstasy. This exhortation echoes through the stream of spiritual values of the Indians (Bharathiyas).

Pull down the barriers that stand in the way and obstruct the free flow of the culture of this land, which confers such sweetness and strength. Clear the channels through which it flows and cleanse them. Then it can follow its course, unimpeded.

Sai’s resolve and the message of God’s love

Sai has willed that this country, India (Bharath), has this spiritual discipline (sadhana). For too long a time the theistic dharma of this land has stopped moving. For too long a time its characteristic has been static. Now, it has to be made dynamic. It must vitalize the daily life of every human being. It must enter and fructify the palatial king’s dwelling and the lowly huts of the poorest in the land.

The theistic dharma is the treasure of everyone; everyone has the right to inherit it and benefit by it; having been born as a human, one has a valid claim to share it. For this reason, Indians have to take it before every door and welcome everyone in every home to share it.

Just as the air that we breathe in God’s creation is available to all, the dharma of the awareness of God and His power and mercy has to be available to all.  Indians must hold on to this wide outlook and the universality and unity of this message.

The conflicts between disparate faiths and beliefs will disappear of themselves and peace and love will be restored on earth. Imagine a house full of darkness for centuries. You may enter the house and pray to the darkness to leave the premises, or shower abuse on it for days, or frighten it by threatening force.

The darkness will stay; it cannot be diminished at all. It will not yield to your tactics. It cannot be scared out. But light a lamp, and it will flee that instant. The lamp of wisdom can save a person from age-long darkness.

One must recognize this truth and, once it is recognized, shape life accordingly. People have an immensity in them; this is the core of Indian (Bharathiya) thought. It is really a mystery how anyone came to regard themselves as condemned to fall! A person might strike us as demonic or divine; in both, the Atma is the reality to the same extent.

You can’t say the Atma is less in one and more in the other. When faults are found in someone, you have to conclude that there are deficiencies in behavior, that is all. Don’t conclude that there is no divine Atma in that person.

As a result of the company one keeps or the inefficiency of the society in which one grew, faults have grown. They are not native to one’s nature, which is Atmic. You have to provide the person with good company and beneficial surroundings and persuade them to enter them. On no account should you condemn the person as a born incorrigible and keep them apart.

 

Essence

 

In the first part, Swami insists on facing all challenges which surface in the spiritual path.

Swami Sivananda Maharaj writes on obstacle in Spiritual sadhana,

 

 

“On the spiritual path you must be prepared to meet with hundreds of failures. In the beginning it may appear to be very hard, thorny, precipitous and slippery. It is the razor path. You will fall down many times, but if you are sincere and earnest in your practice, you will rise up quickly and walk again with more zeal, boldness and cheerfulness.

Ever stumbling block will become a stepping stone to success or ascent on the hill of spiritual knowledge. Every fall will give you additional strength to rise up to a greater height on the ladder of yoga. Do not lose sight of the goal. Do not miss the ideal. Do not be discouraged. You will soon get spiritual strength from within. The indweller will guide you and push you up.

Trials are to strengthen aspirants. You will grow quickly if you can adapt yourself to any kind of environment and circumstance. If God gives trials, side by side He also gives new strength, patience and fortitude to bear the trials. There is no reason to lament. Say once more, “Thy will be done.” All the saints and sages, prophets and seers had to pass through tremendous struggles and severe ordeals before they reached the goal.

Your spiritual growth is gauged by the extent of your victory over external circumstances and environments, troubles and difficulties, adverse conditions and antagonistic influences. A yogi always keeps a balanced mind in all conditions of life and at every moment. He is adamantine because he stands on a firm basis – the eternal, unchanging, immortal soul – and so he is called steadfast.

Doubts or uncertainties are great obstacles on the path of self-realization, even for an advanced student. Be firm and unshakeable in your faith and conviction to transform yourself. Face these passing obstacles and allow nothing to disturb you. Again and again the battle must be won.

To grow in yoga is not an easy matter. Sadhakas must take to the path sincerely. Always feel that you are just a beginner and strive diligently to acquire the primary virtues of kindness, charitableness, patience and forbearance. Be ready to serve others with humility and put up with provocation and abuse without retaliation.

Remove harshness and rudeness from your nature. Courtesy and politeness must become part of your very essence. Then alone the hardened heart becomes softened and good sentiments and spiritual energy arise in it. Where there is kindness, humility and purity, spirituality springs up, saintliness shines, divinity descends and perfection manifests itself.”

We will focus on the second part of Swami’s writing in the next post.

 

Love.

 

 

Anandamayi Ma

 

  

Either melt by devotion the sense of separateness, or burn it by knowledge-for what is it that melts or burns? Only that which by its nature can be melted or burnt; namely the idea that something other than your Self exists. What will happen then? You come to know your Self.

 

Anandamayi Ma

Sathya Sai Vahini - Post 17

 

Children of immortality

 

Children of India (Bharath)! Teach your children this life-preserving, glorious, and heart-expanding truth from the early days of life. The sanctifying vision that Indians secured is this: the Atma is full and free. It is a wonderful discovery, a thrilling thought!

The Atma is by its very nature full; fullness need not be attained or accomplished and added to it. If fullness could be added to it, it could also be subtracted by the passage of time; what is built up must disintegrate.

If one is impure by nature, even though one may succeed in achieving purity for five minutes, one has to wallow later in impurity, for the purity that comes in the middle will be easily swept away by circumstances. So, all Indian spiritual thinkers declared that purity is our nature and that fullness is our genuine reality.

They said that we are never really “wanting”. This is the lesson that Indians taught the world. This is the stream of spiritual strength that flowed from India and fertilized the world.

At the end of life, one should bring to consciousness the great thoughts one has attained in life, the high feelings one entertained; this was the directive of the sages of India. They did not demand that one should bring to memory the faults and errors one committed in life. These are inevitable and universal.

 

Essence

In today’s part of the SSV, when Swami writes, “The Atma is by its very nature full; fullness need not be attained or accomplished and added to it.”, Swami is taking us back to the shanti mantra of Isavasaya Upanishad.

Swami Krishnanada writes on this shanti mantra,

“That which is anantavavtu is spoken of as pūrṇam. It is that to which there is no limit; beyond which there can be nothing. If there is something outside it, it becomes an individualised object. But objects cannot be pūrṇam.

The śāstrik meaning of pūrṇam is, that more than which nothing can exist, i.e., it is the infinite. And creation has come from pūrṇam. And this creation too is pūrṇam.

This śloka is from the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad and forms the mangalā-carana mantra for this Īśāvāsya Upaniṣad.

The terms adaḥ and idam have often occurred in Kathopaniṣad also.  Adaḥ means the cause from which the effect comes. 

Idam means that which is manifest and here it means the world. The objects of the sense organs are spoken of as idam. That which is beyond the sense organs is adaḥ.

As the cause is, so is the effect. The effect exists within the cause in an unmanifested form. In the seed, the tree is not seen, but it is in an unmanifested state. In reality, the world is also limitless.

Wherever you go, you still will see it extending further. You find that ether, a subtle mani­festation of the Supreme is limitless, and wherever you go you cannot find its limit.

This is so, because it is a manifestation of that which is infinite. This mantra says that, that which has come from the Infinite is also Infinite from this point of view, even though it is comprehensible to the senses.

Really speaking, the world is not outside you, that is to say, outside the senses, but within you. This, the later mantras of the Upanishad is going to tell us. The world appears to exist outside you. And hence it is correct to say, ‘this world is pūrṇam.'

Pūrṇam evāvaśiṣyate—When the effect which is pūrṇam has been removed from the cause which is pūrṇam, what is left over is also pūrṇam. It remains undiminished.

That is why Sankaracharya says that īśvara is advitīya, that which has no second. It is not a mathematical calculation where one minus one leaves zero. 

Īśvara is not a numerical like 1. Īśvara who is infinite is beyond all numericals. This is a bit difficult to comprehend with our minds. We have neither seen the pūrṇam nor can go beyond numericals.

We can go on saying crores, a hundred crores, a hundred-thousand-crores and so on, that is all. But He is beyond countable numbers. Hence the word pūrṇam is used to indicate īśvara. There is no place where He is not. This is the essence of this verse.”

Since, we as Atman, are not different from Iswara, Swami has written that Atma is ever full, ever complete.

The purpose of our existence/our birth itself, is to realize that we are ever full, ever complete, ever whole Atman and as Atman, we are neither born, nor do we die.

 

Love.