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Spiritual knowledge is the only thing that can destroy our m
Toward the end of the Master's life, he experienced a prolonged illness. One afternoon, when he had begun to come out of his quarters again, he was getting into his car. I and another monk were helping him. "You are getting better, Sir!" I exclaimed gratefully.
"Who is getting better?" The Master's tone was impersonal.
"I meant your body, Sir," I replied. I knew, of course, that he had no attachment to it.
To him, however, the very distinction was superficial. "What's the difference?" he asked. "The wave belongs entirely to the ocean from which it protrudes. This is God's body. If He wants to make it well, all right. If He wants to keep it unwell, all right.
It is wisest to be impartial. If you have health, but are attached to it, you will always be afraid of losing it. And if you fear that loss, but become ill, you will suffer. Why not remain forever joyful in the Self?
Man's greatest problem is his ego – his consciousness of individuality. Whatever happens to him, he thinks it affects him, personally. Why be affected? You are not this body: You are He! Everything is He: All is Spirit.
Unfortunately, mankind sees everything as separate and individual. The Lord had to create that appearance. Ask yourself, however: Why? Why is this a tree, and you, a human being? The answer is simple: Without that variety, there would be no play! It wouldn't interest you.
If people saw that there was only one essence in everything – painting all the scenes, directing all the action, and acting all the parts – they would quickly tire of it. For 'the show to go on' there has to be activity, interest. It all has to seem real. Hence this appearance of individuality.
As long as man enjoys the play for its own sake, he will go on birth after birth, experiencing life's pleasures and pains. The Bhagavad Gita describes it as a wheel, constantly turning. To get off the wheel, you have to desire freedom very intensely. Then only will God release you.
Your longing has to be fervent. If it is, and if you are determined no more to want to play, the Lord has to release you. He tries to keep you here with tests, but in His higher aspect, as the Cosmic Lover, He wants you out of this show (illusions). Why shouldn't He release you, once He sees that you really want Him alone, and not His show: that you want only freedom in Him?
The same essence – conscious life – is in you and in that tree over there. The tree, however, was put there, whereas some free will on your part made you who and what you are. Only the wise know just where predestination ends and free will begins.
Meanwhile, you must keep on doing your best, according to your own clearest understanding. You must long for freedom as the drowning man longs for air. Without sincere longing, you will never find God. Desire Him above everything else. Desire Him that you may share Him with all: That is the greatest wish.
And try, meanwhile, to rise above the pairs of opposites: pleasure and pain, heat and cold, sickness and health. Free yourself from the consciousness of individuality, of being separate from everyone and everything else. Keep your mind fixed steadfastly on Him.
Remain inwardly as unaffected as the motionless Spirit you want to become. He alone is what you really are. His bliss alone is your true nature."
(From 'Conversations with Yogananda' - Recorded, with Reflections, by his disciple Swami Kriyananda)
"I know one whom the world used to call mad, and this was his answer:
'My friends, the whole world is a lunatic asylum. Some are mad after worldly love, some after name, some after fame, some after money, some after salvation and going to heaven. In this big lunatic asylum I am also mad, I am mad after God. If you are mad after money, I am mad after God. You are mad; so am I. I think my madness is after all the best.'
The true Bhakta's love is this burning madness before which everything else vanishes for him. The whole universe is to him full of love and love alone; that is how it seems to the lover. So when a man has this love in him, he becomes eternally blessed, eternally happy. This blessed madness of divine love alone can cure for ever the disease of the world that is in us."
(Swami Vivekananda; Complete Works. Vol 3, Para-Bhakti or Supreme Devotion)
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"The sum and substance of the whole matter is that a man must love God, must be restless for Him. It doesn't matter whether you believe in God with form or in God without form. You may or may not believe that God incarnates Himself as man. But you will realize Him if you have that yearning. Then He Himself will let you know what He is like. If you must be mad, why should you be mad for the things of the world? If you must be mad, be mad for God alone."
(Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa; Gospel, chapter 23)
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Referring to the Master, a well-known Brahmo missionary once said that the Paramahamsa was a mad man, and that too much cogitation over one and the same subject had unsettled his mind, as it had happened with many European thinkers.
The Master afterwards said, addressing this missionary, "You say that even in Europe learned men become mad by continuously thinking of one subject. But is the subject of their thought matter or Spirit (consciousness)? If it is matter, what wonder that a man should become mad by constantly thinking of it? But how can a man lose his intelligence by thinking on that Intelligence whose light enlightens the whole universe? Is this what your scriptures teach you?"
(Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna, 661)
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Become mad with an idea (be intense): https://youtu.be/YAIRZnNuHLI
Baba is Vedamata; He cannot tolerate a Vedic scholar toiling with the sweat of agony on his brow. Except, of course, when He is set on teaching a lesson! For, He is a hard task-master, intent on maintaining the moral standard of those, who claim to be masters of the ancient scripture.
For example, a pundit from the East Godavari district was so desperate financially that in his despair, he denied Baba’s grace! He denied his wife permission to write to Baba asking for succour. Two days later, he was amazed to receive a letter from Baba, who was at Prasanthi Nilayam, 400 miles away, in which He severely reprimanded him for it.
“Why did you tell her, ‘You have no permission’? Do I not know? Can I know only when she writes or anyone writes? Do I not know, for example, that you went to Ramachandrapuram, expecting to collect some little money through discourses on the Gita and that you returned home having incurred loss?
Do I not know that you then started condemning yourself that all your learning was a waste, that all your experience was of no value? For Me, who is providing for all this world, it is no burden to provide for you and your family. I am placing all these hardships on you only to teach you a few lessons.”
The following extract from the letter, which the pundit placed in my hands at Amalapuram, indicates the lessons:
“When life flows merrily on, people claim that it is due to their own effort and they forget the Lord. When failure resists the flow, they start cursing and losing faith. When you grow desperate, you are insulting the Atma-tatva (true nature of the Self), the Atma principle which you really are, that knows no pain or joy.
You have become erudite in many subjects, but you do not try to derive the fruits thereof by putting them into practice. If only you have the faith that nothing can hinder the Atmananda (Self-bliss), which is the live spring in every heart, how happy you can be! Just imagine how calm and collected you can be then.”
“In your lectures, you dilate on the Atma and the Ananda derivable by men, who drill deep down into it. It is easy to advise others; when it comes to practicing what you recommend, you feel it an awful bother. Carrying all the Vedas, Shastras, Puranas, Ithihasas, and Upanishads stuffed in your brain, all this wailing and anger do not befit you. Instead of resorting to the most effective specific for all anxiety, namely, the Name of the Lord, why do you waste time recapitulating and lamenting over pain, fear, loss, and grief?”
“Engage yourself in that, which is enjoined as your duty, the duty which your status demands. Do it courageously and gladly. Strive to gain the four Purusharthas (moral, economic, relationship, and spiritual values); then, you can certainly experience the Highest Truth. Practice and earn the Highest Bliss.
Do not decry the rich; no, not only the rich, do not decry anyone, in any manner. For, remember, God is in every person. So, when you decry another, you are decrying God Himself.”
After this paternal but firm admonition, Baba closed the letter with the revealing colophon: "Nee Hridayanivasi, Sai" (He who resides in your heart, Sai). This vigilant supervision of the workings of the inner consciousness of the pundits, who have come within His orbit, is another of the many ways in which this Vedamata (Providence, which revealed the Vedas) seeks to promote Sanathana Dharma (Eternal Laws which govern life), for, unless we have a brave band of Vedic scholars, who live the Vedic life, the world cannot be enthused to honour and accept the Vedic teaching of Fundamental Oneness.
(From 'Sathyam Sivam Sundaram (Vol. 2)' by Prof. N. Kasturi)
"When we see our Self there is no world, and when we lose sight of the Self we get ourselves bound in the world."
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi (1)
"Our life in this world is a dream that is occurring in our long sleep of Self-forgetfulness – forgetfulness or ignorance of our true state of pure non-dual Self-consciousness. Until we wake from this sleep of Self-forgetfulness by regaining our true and natural state of Self-knowledge, dreams such as our present life will continue recurring one after another.
When our present body ‘dies’, that is, when we cease to identify ourself with this body, which by our wonderful power of imagination we have now projected as ‘I’ and through which we see the present world, we will subside temporarily in the sleep of Self-forgetfulness, but will sooner or later rise again to project another dream body as ourself and see through it another dream world. This process of passing from one dream to another in the long sleep of Self-forgetfulness is what is called ‘rebirth’.
As we thus pass through one dream life after another, we undergo many experiences that gradually enkindle within us a clarity of spiritual discrimination, by means of which we come to understand that our life as a separate individual is a constantly fluctuating flow of pleasurable and painful experiences, and that we can therefore experience true and perfect happiness only by knowing our real Self and thereby destroying the delusion that makes us feel ourself to be a separate individual. Thus the truth of non-duality is the ultimate truth that each and every one of us will eventually come to understand and accept."
~ Sri Michael James (2)
[From 'Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talk 556' (1), 'Happiness and The Art of Being - An introduction to the philosophy and practice of the spiritual teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana' (2)]
"Whatever comes first in your life, that's what you become. In the end you're going to have to leave your body, your thoughts, your possessions, your loved ones. Everything is going to be left, in the end. So the wise person searches for truth now, and tries to become free now." (1)
"Therefore when you begin to work on yourself, and you begin to realize that everything comes from your mind, you stop fearing, and you stop worrying, for you realize it's of the mind. And as you begin to change your mind, transcend your mind, annihilate your mind, bliss, happiness, peace, love, joy, truth, comes all by itself. It is the mind that is your enemy.
What is your mind? It is a conglomeration of thoughts about the past and the future. You worry about the past and you worry about the future. That's all your mind is. It is not your friend, therefore, ignore your mind. Do not believe what it says. Simply watch it, behold it, become the witness to it. But just to realize that everything is an emanation of your mind, that alone sets you free." (2)
~ Sri Robert Adams
(From 'The Collected Works of Robert Adams'; T6 - The Three Vehicles of Self-Realization)
Whatsoever a man has renounced, from the sorrow born of that he has freed himself.
The greatest gladness in the world comes after renunciation. Let men desiring that rapture renounce early in life.
The five senses must be subdued, and every desire simultaneously surrendered.
The ascetic's austerity permits not a single possession, for possessions draw him back into delusion.
What are life's petty attachments to the man who seeks severance from future births, when even his body is a burden?
One who slays the conceit that clamors "I" and "mine" will reach a realm above the celestials' world.
If one clings to his attachments, refusing to let go, sorrows will not let go their grip on him.
Those who perfectly renounce attain the highest peak; the rest remain ensnared in delusion's net.
Birth ceases when all attachments are severed; until then, one only sees life's impermanence.
Attach yourself to Him (God or the higher Self) who is free from all attachments. Bind yourself to that bond so all other bonds may be broken.
~ Saint Thiruvalluvar
[From 'The Thirukkural' (Kural 341 - 350) by Saint Thiruvalluvar]
"The guru instructs the disciple to perform certain works and refrain from others. Again, he advises the pupil to perform action without desiring the result (i.e., not worrying about the outcome). The impurity of the mind is destroyed through the performance of duty (without any selfish motive). It is like getting rid of a disease by means of medicine, under the instruction of a competent physician."
~ Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (from 'The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna' by Mahendranath Gupta)
Follow the path shown by your Guru, success will surely come to you. Wish you a very happy Guru Purnima! 🙏
"It is a great folly not to realize the supreme goal in our life and waste away this precious gift of God, this human status in merely running after passing perishable things."
~ Swami Chidananda
Divine Life Sivananda: bit.ly/3LpQbZn
"Without killing the body, but by killing, with the glance of His eyes, the ego which poses as if it were really existing, the Guru in no time exposes the entire fiction [from the body to the whole universe] as non-existent, and reveals the shining of the one Supreme Self as the only real existence." (Sri Ramana Maharshi, 281)
Note by Sadhu Om: Just as the bright sunlight exposes the non-existence of the snake, which appeared on a rope in the dim twilight, so the Light of the Guru’s clear Self-Knowledge exposes the non-existence of the entire universe, which appeared in the dim light of the jiva’s mind (ego-consciousness).
When a river merges into the ocean, all its attributes, such as its speed, current and shape, are destroyed, yet not one drop of its substance, the water, is lost. Similarly, when a jiva, “I am so-and-so”, meets the glance of the Guru’s eyes, all his attributes, such as “so-and-so”, are destroyed, yet his substance, the Self-Consciousness [Sat-Chit] “I am”, shines unaffected and alone; therefore it is said that the Guru “kills without killing”.
(From 'Guru Vachaka Kovai - The Collection of Guru's Sayings' by Sadhu Om and Michael James)
"The yogi who has realised the true Self, who has been trained to integrate his mind and see the oneness of the Self everywhere, who has effaced his lower nature and learnt to live in harmony with the higher in him, whose mind and intellect are well controlled without their disturbing pull towards the outer world of objects – that Mahātman or Man of Wisdom sees the entire world as the manifestation of his own Self, and experiences the Self in him to be the Self everywhere.
He is convinced that there is no separate enlivening factor for the world outside, for the Self in him and for the different experiences in him. When the eye of Wisdom is opened, just as the oneness of gold is realised in all the ornaments, the supreme Reality alone is experienced to be all-pervading – within, without, here, there and everywhere.
When the ego which kept him in bondage – the 'jivātman' which seemed to be labouring under limitations – is blasted to smithereens with the current of the Self-knowledge in him, he becomes a man of total and absolute fulfilment, the purpose of his life is achieved. The Truth of his existence is realised. The Reality in him is experienced."
~ Swami Chinmayananda
(From 'Atmabodha - Commentary by Swami Chinmayananda')
Spiritual knowledge is the only thing that can destroy our miseries for ever; any other knowledge satisfies wants only for a time. (Words such as 'Spirit', 'Self', 'God' or 'Source of creation' are one and the same as they represent the same Truth.) It is only with the knowledge of the Spirit that the faculty of want is annihilated for ever; so helping man spiritually is the highest help that can be given to him. ~ Swami Vivekananda
Therefore, this channel is a humble attempt to help people by sharing some of the most valuable spiritual teachings of India's great yogis, monks, saints and sages who've attained the Supreme goal of Self-realization. These ancient spiritual teachings will surely spread light on your path wherever you're in life. So please go through these videos, subscribe and stay inspired!
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