June 2001

“Radiant Atman”

If you want to lead the divine life, your inner heart should be a place of aspiration and a fire of Yoga should burn in you inside always. This blaze should be there. You cannot completely change the outward mode of life, but inwardly there should be aspiration. This fire should burn day and night, when you are awake, when you are sleeping, when you are alone, when you are among men, when you are meditating and when you are engaged in work. This fire should not be put out. This aspiration should always form an integral part of your being. Then you are living the divine life.

THE OFFERING THAT WILL DELIGHT THE GURU

 H.H. SWAMI CHIDANANDA

 Worshipful homage unto that supreme Divine Presence, the eternal, all-pervading, immanent Reality, that is the one unchanging, immutable and imperishable Being behind and beyond this everchanging, temporary and perishable phenomenal flux, this universe that we regard as real but that is a fleeting phenomenon of vanishing names and forms.

We salute that Reality which is hidden behind outer appearance and supports it, even as the screen in a cinema theatre supports the fleeting shadows projected upon it. These shadows may seem to be very real, and they grip the audience who pay money to be deluded. But this fleeting shadow play has a beginning and an end and is ever changing while the screen forever remains the same. It was in the beginning, it is at the end and it continues to be the same, even when it is not seen by the audience who is lost in the projected shadows. To that great, immanent, all-pervading, ever-present Reality, worshipful homage!

Loving adorations to the spiritual presence of Gurudev Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj who makes us aware of our non-perception, who opens our inner eyes and makes us perceive the Reality. For that indeed is the great grace of the guru—to wake us from the slumber of ignorance and make us perceive the hidden Reality in the midst of changing appearances. The guru is one who intensely desires the highest welfare, the supreme good of the sincere sadhaka, jijnasu, mumukshu, yogi.

Guru Purnima is the sacred full moon day in the year when all over India disciples tend to travel to be present at the place of their guru, gurusthan. They fulfil their desire to sit before the guru, to offer their reverence and to receive from him a quickening impulse that will give them a fresh impetus in their journey beyond sorrow to the realm of eternal bliss, the realm of light beyond all darkness.

They also desire to show their reverence in a tangible manner, by making an offering as a symbol of their gratitude, their appreciation for what they have received from the guru. They call it guru dakshina, a special offering that they make to the guru. Now, what is the guru dakshina that is especially pleasing to the guru?

Being sincere and earnest in sadhana, rededicating themselves to the great ideals of spirituality—renunciation, dispassion, discrimination, abhyasa, spiritual sadhana—that indeed would be the guru dakshina desired by the guru. That each disciple shines as a centre of fiery aspiration, intense fervour and total dedication to the ideal, and has a resolute determination to follow the path, to pursue the ideal come what may, to adhere to the guru’s instructions, and to live by the lofty ideals placed before us by the ancient seers and sages of whom we are descendants—that would be the dakshina desired by the guru.

In this context we remember the ancient saying, "Physician, heal thyself." First and foremost start with your own good work. Where you are, within yourself, work for the emergence of a new being within you—a new mind, a new heart, a new person within.

Guru Purnima, therefore, has this significance: it is an occasion for a renewal. There is a fabled bird, known as the phoenix, connected with the worship of the sun especially in ancient Egypt. It is reputed that there is only one phoenix at a time and that it lives for at least five hundred years. To perpetuate itself, it does not build a nest to hatch an egg, but rather a nest made of aromic boughs and spices as a funeral pyre. It then sets the nest on fire and is consumed in the flames. It ceases to be, but lo! out of those ashes a shining new phoenix miraculously emerges.

This ancient belief about this bird is of deep significance to each and every spiritual aspirant. From out of the ashes of your old self—the unspiritual self, the self that is wedded to ignorance, to attachment to sense objects and their indulgence, which is also desire-ridden and thinking of itself as an embodied physical personality with physical features and impulses—emerge as a shiny new being. Having annihilated the previous personality, destroying it totally, ceasing to be, recreate yourself and begin your work here. Gurudev used to say: "Kill this little ‘I’. Die to live. Lead the divine life." That indeed is the great guru dakshina, more precious than the nine gems, more precious than silver and gold. The guru would rejoice in such a guru dakshina.

Therefore deeply reflect upon this. Ponder this vital, very significant and important idea. Start with yourself. Become a new being, even as the phoenix. Shine with this renewal, and may that be your guru dakshina. God will be pleased; the guru will be delighted, and the whole brotherhood will be benefited. And you, above all, will be most benefited by your offering.

May God and guru inspire you to contemplate this in all seriousness and sincerity. In all earnestness ponder this, and do it! God bless you!

FROM RITUALS TO REALIZATION

SWAMI VENKATESANANDA

 Bhakti Yoga or Love of God is basic to all religions that encourage their adherents to use icons and rituals in their spiritual practices: it is one of the main features of the Indian approach to God. This was regarded by the ancient spiritual teachers as so vital that they wove it into the fabric of the Indian's daily life.

It is often inevitable that the common man clings to the icon and the ritual and forgets the spirit underlying their use. Worship of the God-in-the-idol degenerates into mercenary idolatry which has nothing to do with religion but which is just another trade. However, whenever this has happened in India, it has immediately been arrested by saintly religious reformers who have restored to religions its pristine purity.

Man swings from one extreme to the other! People misinterpreet these reformers' utterances and use them to their own advantage. The words of Lord Krishna, the Biblical Prophets, Lord Jesus, Lord Buddha and Prophet Mohammed sprang from their realization or direct experience: it is good to hold them as "lamps unto our feet" in order that we, too, may reach that experience. But when we assume the role of their representatives here and quote their words in order to run the followers of other faiths down, then we present a grotesque picture thus described by a Tamil poet: "An ugly bird saw a peacock dance; and, feeling equally important, spread its own plumes and began to dance!" The mischief is completed by the atheistic, materialistic and worldly man who uses all this to shake the faith of the devout.

We got to a Temple, Synagogue, Church or Mosque not in obedience to what the priest says, but to commune with God. We should not stop going there on account of what the priest says within it, nor what the reformers says outside it. To judge God and to make our devotion to Him dependent on the thoughts, words and deeds of any man, is to blaspheme against Him. You will be the loser; don't forget that. You go to a restaurant to eat and appease your hunger. If you do not like a particular curry, you do not go away starving, but leave it and eat what you like. Understood and applied rightly idol-worship gradually leads the devotee to the realization of the Absolute. My Master, Sri Swami Sivananda was devoteed to idol-worship till the end of his life, though he was a monistic philosopher. He was regular in his daily ritualistic worship of his Deity. Thus he set an example for all of us to emulate. But, he, as Lord Krishna before him, reminded us that we should not stop there. We should practice constant remembrance of God. We should feel His (Omni)presence everywhere, in all.

It is very well to say so, but quite another thing to do so. Two factors are involved in this: (a) we should know what it is to feel the Presence of God - a "salesman's sample" of it-and (b) we should have a method by which we shall be able to remember Him. The first is provided by the ritual of idol-worship. The icon enables us to feel His Presence and at the same time look within and sample the feeling. Without it, it is quite possible for the novitiate to pay lip-homage to the wonderful idea of feeling His Omnipresence.

The second is provided in the Bhagavad-Gita, the tenth chapter. The technique is this: let everything that we see remind us of God. The light of the sun, moon, stars, fire and the electric lamp; the vast blue sky or ocean; the beautiful flower and the innocent face of a child; the gigantic tree and the strong arm of a gymnast; the image of God on the altar and the radiant face of a saint-let them all remind us of the existence of God in them. Side by side, our Master wanted us to practice constant Nama-Smarana (repetition of the Name of God). One helps the other. When they are combined, we grow God-conscious very soon.

How does idol-worship fit into this ? What is an idol but a piece of matter, from the point of view of an ignorant man, whatever may be his wealth, position or titles ? Yet, the devotee feels the Presence of God within-that material substance (clay, stone, metal or wood). The wise sage allowed him to "play" (pray) with it as a child might play with a doll. The child gets its training in mothercraft; the devotee gets to know that God indeed does dwell in even that piece of matter. Then, he turns around and sees the sun, moon, etc., and realizes that even as God is the Indweller of the idol, He is the indweller of the sun, moon, etc. This looks apparently simple: but in practice it is difficult.

Why did not the sage advocate such a practice of the Presence of God, without prescribing idol-worship as a preliminary ? For the simple reason that the simple human mind is more ready to associate Divinity, pure and untainted by prejudice, with the idol (on account of tradition) than to see God in the face of a child. In the case of the latter, immediately your eyes behold it, your mind says, "It is my child", etc., etc., and you have to overcome a good deal of thoughts and counter-thoughts before arriving at the ideal thought, "God is shining through its eyes." But, in the case of an idol, on account of the age-old association of ideas, this difficulty does not arise. And, with a little practice, it becomes easy to extend the practice of the Presence of God to everything in this world.

There is another important angle to this spiritual exercise. Idol-worship should lead us on to meditation on the Absolute. Without the first step of idol-worship, meditation on the Absolute is almost impossible. And, if we do not extend the frontiers of divinity beyond the idol, we may get stuck there. Hence, even in the method of worshipping idols, our ancient seers had introduced elements of adoration of the Nameless and the Formless Being-in fact, they emphasized that we should superimpose the qualities of the Absolute on the idol.

In the 'Mantras' they provided for the worship, they wove expressions like, "I bow to the All-pervading," "I bow to the Eternal" which are obviously irrelevant to the personalized form of God (e.g. Rama, Krishna who are historical personalities) the devotee worships. Again, they declared that mental worship of the chosen deity was superior (when we are ready for it, of course!) to gross external worship, and that Para Puja (a way of adorning the Omnipresent God through all our thoughts, words and deeds) was superior to all other forms of worship.

The sincere spiritual aspirant realized always that he could not get anywhere on this path without the help of an image to fix his mind on. The idol also provided a concrete Form of God on which he could pour out the devotion of his heart, to which he could pray, and on which he could lean in times of stress and strain, trials and difficulties. He found great relief from tension, worries and anxieties when he had a 'tangible God' to whom he could talk. The Omnipresent Divinity which was, of course, present in that idol, too, heard his prayer and granted it.

When the concentration grew intense, the power latent in the idol was revealed; and thus we have stories of great mystics who could 'see' God in and through the idols. Let us not forget that God who is Omnipresent is in the idol, too: and He who is Omnipotent can reveal Himself in any Form to the devotee. And, it is in this respect that the idol is different from the child's doll. Whereas the doll would for ever remain a doll, because it is lifeless, the idol will reveal the hidden Godhead in response to the devotee's prayer and concentration. The concentrated beam of the devotee's consciousness will one day be powerful enough to burn the gross 'matter' of the idol and liberate and reveal the hidden God in it, even as the rays of sunlight, when focussed through a lens, are able to burn a piece of cotton and make it burst into flame. But, let us not forget that it was not the idol that they saw in the vision, but the Divinity in the idol- the Divinity that is in all, for that matter.

When this principle is not understood, people unwisely should not say, "We do not want to worship a stone." Of course, they should not. But first answer these questions: "Who is worshipping the stone ?" 'I'. What idea have you of this 'I' ? The first one is of the body. It is the body that actually performs the worship. What is the body ? Predominantly water, with some other chemical elements. After all, what harm is there in water and matter worshipping a stone: was it ignorance or superstition ? Of course, you exclaim, I am not only the body, but I have a soul in it. Then, let the body worship the stone, let the heart, mind and soul in you realize the Lord in the stone.

Secondly, will you worship all stones ? No. Only a particular stone which has been given a shape. Who worships it ? If this 'I' is also chiselled and sculptured into a divine shape, it is divine. The stone image of God reminds you of this "When this was stone, you stood upon it. When those chips of the stone which did not belong to this divine form were chiselled away, and the stone assumed the divine form, you worship it. In the same way, there are a lot of undivine elements in you. Chisel them away. You will become a divinity on earth, adorable by mankind." That, incidentally, is the argument underlying the adoration of the Guru or the spiritual preceptor.

If idol-worship thus leads us step by step to divinization and God-realization through the worshipful service and recognition of the Omnipresence of God, it is ideal worship. Else, it degenerates into idle worship.

VISIT OF SWAMI JIVANMUKTANANDA

Swami Jivanmuktanandaji Maharaj from Divine Life Society (Rishikesh) had visited Australia and New Zealand over a period of two weeks. Swamiji arrived in Sydney on 14 May and visited Brisbane, Melbourne, Canberra, Auckland, Perth, Adelaide and Sydney. "Swami Jivanmuktananda is a master of Yoga and Vedanta, an exquisite and dynamic speaker.  He was recently appointed by Pujya Swami Chidananda Maharaj as Chairman of the Second Global International Divine Life Society Conference at Cuttack, Orissa in December 2001.  Swami Jivanmuktananda is now undertaking a world tour to invite the devotees and disciples of Gurudev Sivananda to participate in this conference and also raise sufficient funds to make this global conference a grand success."

The Divine Life Society of Australia would like to express their thanks and love, for the heartwarming response that was extended to Swamiji on his recent visit to Australia and New Zealand. The programs and visits were necessarily short, due to time constraints, since Swamiji has to visit several countries in a limited period of time, prior to the Divine Life Society Global Conference. Nevertheless, it highlighted the devotion, allegiance and love that devotees and well wishers demonstrated towards the Divine Life Society, Gurudev and His mission.

Swamiji’s message to the devotees was very clear in its content and comprised of strict virtues that had to be adhered to, for a serious aspirant on the spiritual path and also for one being associated with a spiritual organisation that included the Divine Life Society. Each individual, Swamiji said, has to understand the requirements and follow the precepts as laid out by the Guru and the scriptures. Leading such an exemplary life should make others want to join the Divine Life Society. Gurudev has categorically reiterated that a spiritual aspirant should bear insult, bear injury and that should also include bearing injustice. Swamiji pointed out on several occasions within his short stay, that we have to remain aware at all times and in all conditions. Awareness from moment to moment would bring about a systematic shedding away of the accumulated past along with the fantastic forays into the unknown future. Swamiji encouraged everyone to work together as a team to serve humanity and in turn dissolve the little ‘I’, just like the little wave, into the vast ocean of consciousness.

During his talks Swamiji gave very easy to grasp, and graphic, examples to help the layman spiritual seeker understand the sometimes complex sounding principles in Yoga and Vedanta. Swamiji's insightful references to Hamlet's "To be, or not be" speech by William Shakespere captivated the surprised but inspired audience. From the works of the English bard he moved to Vyasa's Gita to explain the relationship between Arjuna (individual soul) and Krishna (universal soul) on the battle ground of Kurukshetra (life).

Swami Jivanmuktanandaji Maharaj has personally expressed His thanks to all devotees and well wishers. It is a golden opportunity for devotees and all alike to be present at the Global Conference to soak themselves in spiritual company and have Satsangs with all the senior saints of the Divine Life Society.

Value of paid service (Sivananda’s Gospel of Divine Life)

Two Ashram inmates quarreled and one of them decided to leave the place and take up paid service elsewhere.

The Master summoned the person and poured forth a torrent of spiritual advice, "Oh! You want to go? You want to take up a job? What will you get out if it that makes you think of leaving this wonderful environment? For what reason after all? Just because of a little ill-treatment and insult! If it is honour that you want I will give you a royal salute every day. I will also make others salute you and bow down to you if you want. Will that do? I only wish that you should not, for a trivial reason lose the opportunity of a lifetime of living the life of Sadhana and divine glory. Can there be greater folly?

What is abuse and insult to the spiritual aspirant? Some words are uttered and some sounds made, which are really nothing but vibrations in the air. They upset you at once. They upset you so much that you even throw away the blessings of Divine Life and prefer to go and become a slave for a monthly pittance. Is this a sign of discrimination and intelligence? The true aspirant never cares for honour. He cares only for God. If a man utters abuses, in what way does it affect you? If he calls you an ass, do you develop four legs and long ears? If he calls you a dog, do you grow a tail? Certainly not. Then why do you behave in this foolish manner?"

The aspirants eyes were opened. He stayed.