Insights Inspirations - December

December 1

Dividing Walls

Again and again light streams into our life.
Krishna declared himself to be that Light; Buddha was referred to as the 'Enlightened One'; Jesus said, "I am the Light".
But the light hurts so we erect walls around us for protection.
Protection from whom?
The only enemy we have is ourself.
In the Gita Krishna said: "You are your own friend and you are your own enemy."
But it is painful to see oneself as one is, so we look outside.
However, all relationships reveal oneself.
So, whether I am an ascetic sitting inside a cave keen on discovering the Self, or whether I am a busy-body trying to uplift and save all humanity, if the light is within me, I soon discover that the world is nothing but a mirror in which I am able to see myself.
Every wall you and I have erected, sooner or later becomes a dividing wall.
We believe these fences and hedges are necessary - a child needs protection.
Perhaps they are, but they are imprisoning us, endangering our life and our whole existence.
We even erect walls around the divine beings who came to enlighten us, and are thereby dividing ourselves, our society - he is my friend and you are my enemy - and every one of us indulges in some visual thinking that those vicious people will be killed.
Not me, I belong to the right side of the throne of God!
Hindus believe that the next incarnation, Kalki, is imminent.
Buddhists believe that Maitreya Buddha is to be expected very soon.
Christians believe in the second coming of Christ.
Moslems believe that the Messiah is coming and Jewish people are very eagerly expecting the arrival of the Messiah.
Krishna, in the Bhagavad Gita, reminds us again and again: "The Light of all lights, this Consciousness, this awareness, which illumines and is the highest kind of knowledge - not knowledge of an object, but knowledge in itself - is within you. Find it there!"
Probably that is what the next incarnation of God might be: not an individual floating down from the sky, or a nuclear illumination, but an enlightenment of the human heart, an evolution of consciousness in the human being.
It is towards that Light that the light streaming in is leading us.
May this Light shine in our hearts forever and ever.

December 2

Mind, Matter, Time and Space

How did the mind ever become aware of the outside material world?
Through the body, through the avenues of the body.
I am able to see you because of the eyes.
I am able to hear you because of my ears.
When these have stopped functioning there is no apprehension of the external material world.
That's quite simple, isn't it?
You and I know that it is possible to build a world of our own in sleep - that faculty is still there - don't call it mind, we don't know what it is all about.
We go only on things you and I are clearly aware of.
You are not clearly aware of the thing called mind, but you are clearly aware of the thing called body and how it is sustained - how it builds itself, does the repair work, elimination and all the rest of it.
You are aware of that, so go on with that.
This body may not need another 58 years to disintegrate, but it will still take some time.
If it is not burnt, buried or thrown to the dogs it will take some time because decomposition needs some time. A composition needs some time and decomposition needs some time; and then slowly it disintegrates.
But nothing comes and nothing goes - that means the faculty which was associated with this fellow called Swami Venkatesananda which was able to dream up the whole of itself within itself.
Now that the body has gone the contact with the external world of matter is also gone.
(External means external to the skin.)
So the world does not exist, but not quite ... just as, when he was in this body, he was able to go to sleep and dream ('go to sleep' means disconnect the senses from apprehending the world of matter outside) and then create a dream world of his own; in exactly the same way, at that point too (of death), now that the world has been disconnected by the cessation of the functioning of the senses, this Venkatesananda starts dreaming.
And that becomes a new world!
In that world that fellow functions.
For how long?
What is time, what is space?
So, nothing has come, nothing has gone.

December 3

Nothing Comes, Nothing Goes

In this space, whatever is called Swami Venkatesananda sits and talks to you: and then the body stops breathing, that's all.
But nothing leaves.
Nothing comes and nothing goes, right?
Death does not come from somewhere, and life doesn't go from here.
Nothing leaves the body, nothing comes into the body.
The body disintegrates, decomposes, because that's the normal thing to do.
It's doing that even now.
Since it's not able to get any nutrition from outside there's no building up anymore so there's breaking down.
The mind is breaking down too?
It doesn't seem to.
There's no breaking down at all for the mind.
But you don't even know what the mind is.
Go step by step, if you jump even two steps you miss out.
This thing called Swami Venkatesananda sits and talks to you.
But if I don't eat for the next few days, the building powers of the body are slackened, correct?
And since the body ceases even to breathe, the building process comes to a complete standstill.
Since neither the building nor coherent force (which keeps the limbs together, cells together, molecules together) are functioning, they begin to fall apart.
It's the most sensible thing to do!
But nothing has gone, and nothing has come in.
This must be repeated as a formula every half a minute - nothing goes out and nothing comes in.
And what is is, and what stays stays.
And what stays is now unrelated to the outside material world.

December 4

The Unchanging Equilibrium

What is adharma or unrighteousness?
Something which dominates something else and thus disturbs the balance.
The spirit of domination is evil and invariably tries to influence another, and to influence another is to violate your dharma.
The pull between dharma and adharma is there constantly, and the thing called 'avatara' or manifestation of God is also constant.
The disturbance of the equilibrium as well as the restoration of the equilibrium are actions, but who are the actors in this drama?
What you think is action may not be so and what you think is non-action may be the real action.
Don't try to understand this at all with your brain or with your ego.
When the equilibrium is disturbed, the intelligence that becomes aware of this disturbance restores the equilibrium.
If the attention is focussed on the equilibrium, the disturbance does not last.
It still continues to be, it still continues to arise in you because life is life; but the equilibrium is restored in a split second and that is called 'avatara'.
By intense inner awareness or by the attention being directed all the time at the equilibrium itself, immediate restoration of the balance is possible.
Let your attention be on the unchanging equilibrium.
Constant awareness of this unchanging equilibrium is what is called jnana tapas, i.e. the austerity of wisdom.
This austerity of wisdom is all-purifying.
It purifies all the disturbances that take place in your life because that is the light in which the shadow-play is enlightened.
The shadow is still there, but it is not seen.
As long as life lasts, the swinging between balance and imbalance, tension and non-tension, light and darkness, go on; but in the light of this inner intelligence that shadow play is not seen.
One who understands this is instantly freed from doubt and also from intention, attachment to action (or the feeling: 'I do this') and from longing for the results of the action.
His is the natural life.

December 5

Desire for God

A correspondent mentions the apparent contradiction in the teaching that one should be contented at heart and yet have a burning desire for God.
The trick lies in the answer to the question, "What is God?"
If God is treated as some kind of an external object or person, the desire for God is as good or as bad as a desire for a car.
But if God is understood as the very self of oneself, as the reality of one's being, then the whole position changes.
Then desire for God only means a keen aspiration to understand oneself.
This Self-knowledge does not arise if the mind is distracted and the heart disturbed by discontent and desire.
Again, if one is able to observe oneself in the midst of distraction and desire, to find out the content and reality of such distraction and desire, the discontent ceases and tranquility prevails.
One is able to see clearly the difference between desire for an external object (which is accompanied by restlessness of the mind) and the desire or aspiration for Self-knowledge (which tranquilises the mind and leads to clearer perception).

December 6

Transcending Sorrow

The question of God's existence does not seem to be relevant to our daily life.
Yet the great ones have somehow thought fit to introduce this inexplicable and extraneous concept called God into our lives. Why?
It is not difficult to see that our fundamental problems arise from the 'me'.
God does not seem to enter our lives either to cause happiness or unhappiness.
If the 'me' that creates endless problems could be understood, we could transcend sorrow, for that which both causes and experiences sorrow is the 'me', or the mind.
Perhaps mind is only a word, yet it creates - not sorrow, but the thought of sorrow.
This sorrow is merely a thought, yet having projected it, the mind feeds on it becoming more and more unhappy.
This is the most undignified way for a human being to live.
Though sorrow is just a thought, can we wipe it out?
Unless we can find its source, we cannot deal with it.
Can we manipulate it?
With what?
Can we drown it in drugs or alcohol?
It will only come up stronger.
If it is masked, it will only smell worse.
We seem to be trapped.
When drowning in quicksand, it is impossible to kick oneself out.
When that fact is realised, we begin to look for something that transcends.
In the lives of each of us there are occasions when thought is transcended.
One is the simple phenomenon of deep sleep.
In deep sleep everything seems to function except the 'me'.
We wonder, is it not possible to transcend the 'me' without falling asleep?
What is it that is awake during sleep?
Can we not live on that plane, not caught in the world created by the 'me'?
The state beyond the 'me', beyond thought process, which is awake during sleep, is given the name 'God'.
That God which is beyond sorrow is not in the clouds, but in us.
That which is deep within yet unaffected by sorrow, transcending the me, transcending all that causes unhappiness in our lives, is called God.
By rising up to that point within ourselves, we transcend sorrow.
The great ones have suggested that if we can find our way to that centre of our being, it is possible to live in this world without being subject to sorrow.

December 7

Is Life a Battlefield?

Is life a battlefield of problems, unhappiness, sorrow?
Has whoever created this made it inevitable that we should all be born here to suffer?
It doesn't sound logical to me at all - I don't know if it does to you.
There is another way of looking at it - maybe a little unorthodox, but it helps.
Is life here miserable or not miserable, or possibly a mixture of both?
If it is not miserable there is no problem, so forget it.
Now there are these two possibilities: one, that life is inevitably miserable; or two, it's a mixture - sometimes misery, sometimes joy.
Let's look at the first possibility.
If you accept that life is miserable, instantly you become happy.
If you realise that this world is one of incessant and unending misery, then living in this world you are not miserable - you have understood that this is indeed the nature of the world, so why be unhappy about it?
Once you know this you do not expect anything other than that - which means that all your unhappiness springs from expectation of something that is not.
Why does the mind expect to gain something that the world does not possess?
If that expectation is dropped there is happiness, joy, bliss.
Now the second possibility: either life is a mixture of happiness or unhappiness, or it depends upon how you approach it.
Both these things are possible - you can be happy here and you can be miserable.
If you go on repeating this a few times, suddenly you realise, "My God, it depends upon me!"

December 8

The Embodiment of Wisdom

Raga-dvesha means attraction and repulsion, love and hate, like and dislike.
This necessarily depends upon the feeling 'I am this body' or 'I am this personality'.
You cannot say that raga-dvesa is independent of the 'I am the body' idea - the cause is in the effect, the effect is in the cause.
When the 'I am the body' idea is absent, for instance in sleep, there is no raga-dvesa.
So, this unwisdom or non-philosophy gives rise to the ignorant feeling 'I am the body'; that extends itself into 'I like this, I don't like that' - and all that it involves.
One of Swami Sivananda's oft repeated declarations was: "The world is nothing but raga-dvesa. Remove raga-dvesa, there is no world."
When He said this, there was light.
All this seems to be very simple and very easy if you merely listen to the words and indulge in hallucination; or it seems to be impossible if you suddenly become too serious and visualise the application of these truths and their consequences.
This is because we tend to pus the cart before the horse.
It is impossible for us to realise that these things are possible unless we come face to face with someone who is an embodiment of this wisdom we are talking about.
Such a one was Swami Sivananda.
If you had lived with Him it is quite possible that you might even have misunderstood that ambition, hope, was His driving force, that He was always working towards a goal that He hoped to reach - to have a huge ashram, to be known throughout the world, and so on.
But if you knew Him intimately, if you were able to observe Him without projecting your own infantile philosophy upon Him, then you could see that His action was pure action.
It was not motivated by fear and therefore there was no hope at all.
He wasn't afraid to fail, He was not afraid that His mission would fail.
There was no fear in Him at all.
Fear leaves you if there is no hope.
Hope does not arise if there is no fear (they go together).
He had no fear and therefore did not hope that this would happen or that would happen.
In Him there was no fear and no hope, no hate and its counterpart of love.
His love was something quite different.
His love arose in the supreme wisdom of the recognition of universal oneness.

December 9

The Touchstone of Enlightenment

The touchstone or the characteristic of enlightenment itself is that it never sleeps, it is never taken unawares.
The price of freedom is this unwinking vigilance - in the words of my guru Swami Sivananda, 'eternal vigilance'.
Eternal vigilance, in the beginning, looks like a discipline.
But, once you have found the key to this whole spiritual movement, eternal vigilance is natural.
Until this freedom from the tyranny of the mind becomes natural, one needs company of saints and holy ones, which is regarded as supreme blessing.
If you and I could appreciate this blessing that has been showered upon us, I am quite sure that we would instantly transform ourselves into so many bees and imbibe the nectar - and become honey.
The body, the mind, the emotions, the senses and the life-force seem to impose a whole lot of limitations upon us.
They seem to draw our energies and enslave us.
One has to experience as a fact that we are being enslaved by some unknown forces, maybe within ourselves, maybe outside.
The mind cannot be seen and yet this thing called 'mind' enslaves us so thoroughly it is disgraceful.
How to be free from the tyranny of the mind?
It is this question that is considered to be 'longing for liberation'.
Liberation is liberation from the mind.
When we come into this field of finding freedom from this mind, or the ego (both mean exactly the same thing), how do we go about it?
In other words, who is seeking this freedom from whom?
Is the seeker also the mind?
Does the mind want to gain freedom from the mind?
What does it mean?
In answer to this question philosophers have invented all sorts of theories.
We are not concerned with whether all these theories are true or not.
All that we are concerned about is: are we getting any closer to clarity?

December 10

Ever Alert, Ever Aware

What sort of awakened intelligence is it that can derive inspiration from the scripture or the guru?
The awakened intelligence that is sattvic knows what is bondage and what is freedom; what are one's limitations and to what extent one is free.
It needs great humility and almost impossible courage to understand this.
When one says egoistically, "I don't feel this cold," (though inwardly he is shivering), that is arrogance.
Another person says, "This cold is terrible. I can't bear it."
He is weak.
Where do these meet?
How to distinguish one from the other?
Once again you have to see it manifest in a great being like Swami Sivananda.
If it was cold he put on an overcoat.
He did not indulge the body, but gave it what it needed, and made it work.
If one is able to see through all this, then one can recognise that that intelligence is awake, and it is pure and sattvic.
Such a person is capable of deriving wisdom from everything in this world.
All beings become his guru.
When he talks there is perfect communication, when he looks into a scripture it becomes immediately clear - to him, and when he talks to an enlightened person there is perfect communication.

The insight or the inner light lifts the veil.
No evil, no sin, can challenge this light.
The densest darkness has no power to challenge the light of a small candle!
And, there is no other way to get rid of the darkness: nothing but light (the inner light or insight) will do.
In this spiritual or inner adventure we may help one another.
We of course need a guru or spiritual preceptor, but more than everything else, we need grace of God (for God is the inner light).
But self-effort is of supreme importance.
However, when you reach perfection, the mission of the guru or the avatara is fulfilled and you suddenly realise that the Lord (and his avatara), guru, and the innermost being, are (and have always been) of one substance.
The inner equilibrium is restored; harmony with the environment is restored; and nature is returned to its natural state, to remain ever alert, ever awake and intelligent.

December 11

Enlightened Living 1

The life of a yogi (or enlightened living) is not something unusual, strange, unnatural or supernatural.
It is the most natural life.
Unnatural life is when I want it to be otherwise.
When doubt (samsayam) arises as to whether I am doing what I am meant to do or whether I must do something else, then there is something unnatural.
When doubt enters our life it seems to interfere with the natural flow of life, because we are hesitating and therefore interfering with the natural flow of life.
In a life free from doubt, there is jnana, natural intelligence or supreme consciousness.
In Nature everything seems to flow constantly - even time cannot be altered.
Doubt disturbs this constant flow by foolishly endeavouring to halt it.
This causes indecision and vacillation and then we tend to blame others for our failures.
Can you justify your foul temper, saying it is natural to you? No.
If it is your nature, then you will be so twenty-four hours of the day, even during your sleep!
So if there is an aberration like anger, fear, etc., one must enquire within oneself and see whether it is one's nature or another extraneous factor interfering in the natural flow of life.
Duty should not bind you.
Duty should free you.
When I say "I am duty-bound," I am not happy, I am miserable.
Why does the sun shine?
Because it has no because!
Can our life also be like that?
Can I live, work, function and participate in all aspects of this life without a because arising?
This is the first lesson taught by the sun.
The second lesson is that the sun has no partiality and therefore no motivation to win somebody's admiration!
Can I shine like the sun because there is no 'because' and shine equally upon all because there is no 'because'?
Such a life is very tough.
And in such a life, where am I looking?
In myself, into my own heart and mind.
Such a life involves an unwinking, unblinking observation of oneself, knowing that the only thing that disturbs the equilibrium or clouds the inner light is yourself, motivated by fear, love and hate.
When these three are completely and totally absent, your life is enlightened living.
Such a life is itself a great blessing.
In such a life there is delight, joy, bliss.
What is painful the body will naturally avoid.
Suffering is automatically, almost by reflex action, kept out of life; and therefore in enlightened living there is perpetual delight.

December 12

Enlightened Living 2

Perhaps there are methods, but it is only after trying out some techniques that one realises that no method or technique is really necessary or that the discovery of Truth is not the end-product of every practice.
But one should not go to sleep saying "There is no method, since the Truth alone exists," then you will be a fool all your life.
The other attitude that most people adopt is also risky - that of merely adopting a technique.
You are caught in the technique: you are so busy doing, that there is no time, energy or inclination to wonder "Why am I doing all this?"
Mere blind action is labour.
According to the Bhagavatam, if you go on doing the most wonderful, glorious, religious or social action without devotion to God, your life is a real waste.
But, on the other hand, one also has to realise that that Truth has to be discovered and the discovery means some kind of movement.
I have to discover it and that discovery itself may be seen as an action. Why?
Because life involves action.
Is it possible while living to discover the Truth and to keep it in sharp focus?
If you see it very clearly and cleverly, then you see that action and knowledge are coexistent.
Does action lead you to knowledge or enlightenment, or does knowledge guide your action?
Action being life and the very meaning of life being the discovery of that meaning of life, enlightened living suggests some kind of a base for the other: 'I must have enlightenment in order to guide me in my life, or I must live in such a way that I may reach enlightenment'.
How to see the two as one without necessarily denying the existence of one in favour of the other?
That's the important thing.
In Sanskrit, 'sannyasa' means 'placing very well', not necessarily 'becoming a swami'.
How to place this knowledge in such a way that every action is enlightened action?
If this Truth is discovered, you are never again subject to delusion.
You are ignorant now: that ignorance will go, but the actions will remain exactly as they were before.
When the misunderstanding is removed, Truth remains Truth.
Don't try to guess what Truth is before you remove the misunderstanding, because that is the misunderstanding.
Discover the Truth.
If for this discovery you have to adopt some technique, do so.
Life being action, the life dedicated to the discovery of Truth will necessarily be flavoured by that dedication; and such a life will follow a certain course of action which will suggest a method.

December 13

Enlightened Living and Dharma

What is dharma or righteousness?
What is unrighteous?
This question can never be conclusively answered by anybody though this problem has been discussed from the dawn of creation till today and will probably go on for a long time.
Dharma may not mean what you and I, or our ancients, or those who are coming after, or they who rule the nations of the world, determine as righteous action.
Dharma, especially in Buddhist scriptures, is what makes a flower a flower, as distinct from what makes cloth, cloth.
Why is wind wind and why is water water?
The answer is dharma.
The essential characteristic of each object is its dharma.
But we see that the universe does not consist of only one object.
There are different substances with different dharmas and since these different substances co-exist in this universe and this coexistence involves constant interaction, and since such interaction is bound to bring about some disturbance somewhere, each disturbance is immediately followed by a balancing action.
Basically and fundamentally, nature is in a state of balance.
It does not allow any disturbance to get out of hand.
That power that is released to restore the balance is divine.
Nature is composed of day and night.
In the same way, the jiva comprises jnana (wisdom) and ajnana (ignorance).
In each substance there is something which is stable, which does not alter and something which can be influenced and pulled.
And it is because of this that a disturbance is possible.
Our body contains a stable element called life and also an unstable element called health.
You can disturb that health, but the stable element life, as long as it exists, is able to overcome that ill-health and bring back health.
I have to live and live an enlightened life.
I have to see that what I call day is also composed of night.
These two forces, light and darkness, exist in each one of us and there is a constant tug-of-war between the two.
Nature in a state of balance maintains a certain tension and that is life, livingness.
If that much of tension is not there, you would collapse like a rag doll.
When that tension is in a state of balance there is absence of tension.
For example, when you find your own centre of gravity while sitting or standing, the body feels extremely light.
So, when all the substances in this universe with their different characteristics are in their natural state, there is perfect balance.
When that balance is disturbed, the Divine manifests itself.

December 14

The Animal in Man

There are any number of meanings in which the word 'animal' is used.
Technically, 'anima' means the soul.
The animal is fairly pure; it is man who is grossly perverted.
So, the animal in man may very well be the purity of the soul itself, the purity of being.
However, in common discussion, when we talk of the animal in man we talk of human perversion; that is, when a human being imitates the nature and behaviour of other beings which we call animals.
In order to be able to understand this, one has to understand the proper role of a human being in this creation.
The animal and the tree always do what they have to do, what nature meant them to do.
But the human being tries to do what he wants to do.
There is a desire motivation here.
Very soon he discovers that he cannot always do that and immediately there is conflict, because he does not know whether he should do something or whether he should even wish to do it, wish not to do it, or wish to do something else.
So he chooses between the path of wisdom and that of non-wisdom.
That is where the problem lies.
In animal existence there is no choice, but in human existence there is an illusion that there is choice.
It is the ego that thinks it has the choice and that it has to make choices.
At that moment the motivation enters into the thought and action, and there is confusion.
The action is deliberately directed towards a result and if you succeed you are excited, if you don't you are frustrated.
Excitement is one type of confusion, frustration is another.
One who seeks enlightenment should see that the motivation springs from an erroneous understanding that 'I' have a choice, and whatever choice 'I' make is stupid.
Then there is a sudden suspension of the choice-maker.
Nature has already endowed the objects of creation with their specific properties.
The very nature of clay is that when moulded in a certain way it can give the feeling that it is a wall.
You can't mould water.
So, whether a man is saintly or sinful, he does nothing more than utilize nature's properties in a certain way.
When the choice-maker, called the ego, is suspended or eventually dispelled, then we become absolutely pure.
It is then that we become what a human being was supposed to be according to the Bible: "Made in the image of God."

December 15

Consciousness Dreams and the Infinite Arises

When sleep comes to an end in the morning, what is the first thing that happens to you?
Have you experienced this, or asked this question?
You say you woke up, but what does it mean to wake up?
Do I become aware of myself, or do I become aware of the bed, the pillow, or do I become aware of you, the other, or all these simultaneously?
Sages who have examined this phenomenon have said that first the 'I' thought arises: 'I am'.
That consciousness was there, even when you were asleep, so that if you were sleeping and I tickled your foot, the foot would withdraw.
You were not conscious, but there was consciousness.
This consciousness was homogenous, undivided within itself and therefore there was no awareness of itself.
When you woke up - which means when sleep came to an end - the first thing that happened was that this consciousness began to be aware of itself am'.

The whole thing happens so fast that you don't notice it.
'I am', then suddenly you feel the pillow under your head, so 'I am sleeping on this bed', or, 'There is somebody sleeping next to me, my husband or wife'.
So the feeling, the awareness 'I am' comes, and at the same time almost, 'You are' and 'They are' arises, and the world arises in the same consciousness.
It is not my consciousness and therefore I cannot manipulate this world.
People have tried this, especially during the days of LSD experimentation.
This world is not the creation of your consciousness, or perhaps there is nothing called your consciousness.
This is the work of consciousness.
Consciousness dreams here.
Consciousness becoming aware of itself as all this, is the universe; and since that consciousness is infinite, it is infinite in every way.
Why are there such a variety of faces, colour of hair, skin, size?
What a mysterious thing it is.
If you have taken a walk in the bush you might begin to wonder, why are there such a variety of leaves?
Who is interested in that variety, that diversity?
This is merely the work of infinite consciousness expressing itself infinitely without desire.

December 16

The True Nature of the World

When the Infinite becomes aware of itself there is infinity everywhere in infinite ways, without any rhyme or reason.
This is what the master points out again and again.
Awareness, becoming aware of itself, creates an apparent division within itself.
The division is not real, because it is apparently created within itself when consciousness becomes aware of itself.
That is the world.
Since it is not your consciousness that has created this, or since you do not have any consciousness independent of the totality, you cannot create a world.
You can only dream up something and become involved in that dream.
You think you are - 'I am'.
And that 'I am', being repeated again and again, seems to be the truth.
This is quite simple, and this is what happens to our relationships.
For example, take a young man and woman.
This man travels on this side of the road and that girl travels on the other side.
They don't even know each other.
Then they look at each other, that's all.
The next day they say 'Hi'.
That's all, nothing more.
Slowly they begin to think of each other as boy-friend and girl-friend.
The thought becomes more and more firmly established and very soon they become lovers, and husband and wife.
Has anything changed?
Nothing has changed, except that the original thought has been repeatedly thought over and over again.
By merely being repeatedly thought over and over again, that which was merely a thought, a concept, has somehow become the truth.
Our whole life is like that.
If one sees this as truth, then those depressing thoughts with which we start an analysis of the world disappear.
The world and life may still be exactly the same, but something that was haunting us has stopped haunting us.
It's a beautiful thing if we can undertake the journey and not merely try to grasp the final product of the truth.
If you undertake the journey, if you look at the world and become disgruntled with it, become desperate, then you begin to understand the true nature of the self, the true nature of the world.
Then you arrive at the understanding that neither I nor the world can exist independent of one another.
The world is I, I am the world.

December 17

Direct Experience

Scriptures and teachers, fasts and festivals, discourses and dramas serve a very useful purpose.
They sow seeds of virtue which even the vicious people occasionally pick up, though they participate in the festivities or handle scriptures for several disparate reasons.
The seeds germinate into 'the other point of view' with which the wicked do not easily and readily agree.
Wise ones do not argue.
Argument only begets more argument, not understanding.
But the initial encounter is not entirely futile. Gathering knowledge becomes a sort of hobby with some of these worldly people - they are no longer so wicked.
They are often not persuaded to act on that knowledge - that is a frightening prospect to them.
There is no loss however.
The germinated plant has to grow..... in God's good time.
The next is a rather interesting, ironical and paradoxical phenomenon.
The young tree may yet produce some blossoms and may provide some shelter.
At some stage he who has some knowledge of spiritual 'ideas' is eager to share these with others.
They are ideas not experiences.
The sharing may have its own unspiritual motivation.
Yet, it is a movement in the right direction.
Sooner or later, the 'truth' of the teaching is brought home - life has its own magic cure (pain!) for the blindness of stupidity.
Everything and everyone matures - and maturity instantly transforms 'ideas' entertained into 'truths' to be lived.
On the other hand, even unselfish religious men may find themselves in a strange predicament.
Unavoidable reasons may prevent them from acting according to their own teachings.
Yet, they realise that the truth is true - even if it is not reflected in their own lives.
They are not reluctant to proclaim the truth, even if it is 'against' themselves.
For instance, during a winter in Rishikesh Swami Sivananda addressed a gathering of spiritual aspirants.
It was cold and his body was ailing.
He was clad in an overcoat.
Yet he roared: "Blessed are they that are clad only in a loin cloth."
However, it is when one has had direct experience of a truth that his or her words have the power to bring about a radical transformation in the hearts of his students.
Such was Swami Sivananda.
His teachings move the responsive heart, transcending time and space, and without the need for a personal encounter.

December 18

Freedom! But Who Enslaves?

'Freedom' is not free!
It is twisted and distorted by everyone that has approached it.
It is conceived by limited and narrow human intellect.
That is torture enough.
But then it has to be expressed, squeezed out, expelled and thrown away - freedom is thrown away by those who wish to express it.
He who demonstrates this freedom becomes a demon, and the freedom becomes a travesty.
Is there a freedom completely free of this conception and expression, this distortion and perversion?
Such freedom cannot be described, for what is described is not freedom.
Freedom is a spiritual quality inherent in every being.
Freedom is 'being'.
Freedom is inherent not only in the human being, but in every being.
To be free, therefore, is everyone's inalienable right; and no one can possibly take it away.
However, saying it is quite different from seeing it.
Saying it causes confusion; seeing it brings about a fusion of our consciousness with the Truth.
When thus the being is seen, bondage falls.
That bondage was a futile negation of being.
That bondage was born of insecurity, of a feeling that my being is threatened by your being and of a desire to protect my being against such a contingency.
The whole of this is based on want of insight - sight in its literal sense, an inward vision, the third eye.
In the darkness that prevails in the absence of this insight, insecurity, fear, desire and the activities created by these appear.
This darkness is our real oppressor.
The sense of insecurity, fear and desire are the fetters that we have forged with which to shackle our own freedom.
No one else is responsible.
No one else can free us either.
It is because we have wilfully forfeited this freedom that we do not look in the right direction to regain it!
We look for a remedy outside ourselves, imagining that the cause is outside, also.
Yet since darkness is not real, all these factors are not real either.
Thank God!
Therefore look within to see who is bound and what is bondage.
In the words of my Gurudev Swami Sivananda, "Die to live."
Look at the dead man: he has no anxiety, no fear, no desire, no disease, no doctors, no creditors, no enemies and no friends.
If while living we are as free, we have found the freedom that alone has any significance.

December 19

Immortality

Man is immortal.
And you do not have to believe in any mythical individual soul to know this!
It is possible that immortality is not only on the physical-material level.
The sperm or seed is not just physical matter but is also the abode of energy and of consciousness.
So, the energy alone is transmitted in some cases.
A man who has not married and thus reproduced himself might transmit his energy in other ways.
For instance, by serving his fellowman in such a way that the spirit of service is awakened in the other.
Or, one's consciousness may be transmitted to another in numerous ways.
Artists, scientists and poets transmit their consciousness, which fertilises the receptive mind, and thus reproduce or perpetuate or immortalise the 'donor'.
This fertilisation, therefore, may take place by physical contact, by a mere look, or even by intense focussing of attention - by sight and by sound - by sensory channels or extra-sensory channels verbally or non-verbally.

December 20

Past, Present, Future

As long as you are trapped in the belief in time, there will be problems and tensions.
To say that there is a past is even grammatically wrong - there was a past.
Can you live in the past?
You can't. It's gone.
Past is vaguely carried over as memory.
Vaguely, because I do not remember all that happened.
There is a tremendous lot of distortion.
Things that did not happen can also be remembered as if they did happen.
So there is no past, only memory.
Is there a thing called the future?
Again, grammatically, there will be a future.
There is no future.
We hope there will be a future; we hope for continuation of 'me'; we hope, because there is a fear that it may not be so.
Where there is no fear, there is no hope.
If there is certainty, there is neither fear nor hope.
Where there is fear, hope arises to mask that fear.
And these two - hope and fear - together conspire to create a thing called the future.
It doesn't exist.
And ... to live in the present - before I say the word 'present', it is past.
There is no such time called present.
Does life need this trichotomy called past, present, and future?
Is life not complete unto itself?
Memory may be there, but the past is totally irrelevant to our lives.
Therefore, can I not look at myself now, and see if it is possible to bring about a radical and instant change?
Directly to see what makes me do what I do?
If so, there is an end to it, instantly, and I arrive at the core of my being.
When you touch this core you don't need memory, hope or fear.
You enter a timelessness which is life.
When you see that life is timeless, consciousness is timeless - life flows in consciousness, that is sufficient unto itself.
You are once and for all free from haunting memories, hopes and fears.
Let life proceed and there is no problem because life is rooted in that which was, is and will be - which is God.
That which is, that which was, will be able to handle any situation in the will-be!

December 21

The Fundamental Questions

What does the teacher do when the student has placed before him a beautiful analysis of life, such as Rama does in the Yoga Vasistha?
He would probably be tempted to appreciate and reward him.
The master does, but says, "Not yet. A
ll that you have said is true, but there is one element which is missing.
That is, you have not investigated and discovered who it is who entertains all these ideas."
What is the difference between an intelligent understanding concerning life on earth, and despair and depression?
What is the role of intelligence in this game?
You have seen that life is passing, you have seen that everything that is built is destroyed, all that has a beginning must have an end.
All this is clear.
But who is examining all this, who is analysing this life?
And what is your motivation, what are you going to do about it?
In simple words, you have seen that life is so terrible, but what are you going to do about it?
Can you change it, or are you going into the closet to sit and weep there?
Is it possible for you to withdraw from life?
What is the world and what is your relationship with the world?
Who are you, and how do you withdraw from life?
These are the fundamental questions which the master asks.
Before I can really and truly solve the problem of sorrow on this earth, I must find the answer to the more fundamental question, 'What am I?'.
What is this world and what is our relationship?
Who am I?
When I ask that question, why do I point to this shirt?
Don't tell me that I am the shirt.
Nor am I this body.
This body was obviously made of potatoes.
Why does everybody point to me here and not there?
This is a big question.
Why do I consider this a hall and not a pumpkin?
Why do I consider that this is evening and not midnight?
What is time, what is space, what is thought?
Why do I think the way I think?
Or, much worse, why do I think?
Even that is not certain.
If these questions arise in our hearts, if these thoughts concerning life haunt our very dreams, then the beauty of the Supreme Yoga is realised.
We have to come to the end of the tether, we have to experience despair, we have to go right down to the edge of the precipice, ready to be knocked over.
Then you know what danger is, then you know what grace is, then you know what lies beyond what is called life.

December 22

The Light of Truth

Cosmic consciousness is like brilliant light, like the sun.
It shines, and when it shines it illumines everything in the world.
It does not need another light to illumine itself.
It is pure light in which there is no shadow.
That which is consciousness cannot be said to be unconscious.
Awareness being awareness is aware - not of itself, not of others, but aware.
Unfortunately, the awareness in our case has descended into a subject-object relationship and a consequent fragmentation.
So, the path lies through observation or enquiry, but it is important to bear in mind that any object is objectionable.
An object is an object, but as truth it is objectionable.
And so we must push it aside and try to look deeper within to see that I have turned the subject into an object.
Truth is true.
One should not be satisfied with anything that presents itself as the truth.
Anything to which someone may point out as true should not be accepted.
Even if the mind suggests, or a thought suggests - which means 'I think this is true' - even that is suspect.
If it is possible to think of it, it is a thing - what you think is a thing; that is, an object and not the subject.
And all objects are projections of a subject or parts of a belief system - ideas, opinions, fragmentation of some sort of knowledge.
Since it is not unfragmented whole truth, it is not true.
It is like a bucket of seawater you can bring here.
It is of course water from the Indian Ocean, but it is not the Indian Ocean.
If you believe in it there is no harm, but that is not true.
If you believe that something is the ultimate truth, OK, go ahead.
But can the ultimate truth be known? No. Is the ultimate truth unknowable? No.
We are aware of an awareness which is not divided into subject-object.
Even in the darkest chamber you know that you are alive. How?
How do you know that your head is still on your shoulders?
There is an awareness at that point which is incontrovertible, you cannot argue about it.
That sort of awareness is there even in our ignorant day-to-day life.
On the basis of this, it is reasonable to assume that even the ultimate truth is not unknowable.
You know you exist? How?
By the same token the ultimate truth knows that it exists.

December 23

Is There a Purpose?

How can a simple thing be made complex?
Did you ever think of that?
You are here and we are here too, and perhaps the purpose of our getting together - if there is a purpose at all - might be served beautifully if we just look at each other, smile and go away.
Yet there is first a suggestion (I wanted to say 'illusion') that there is a purpose, and then I have to decide how best this purpose can be achieved.
Because I think quite a number of possibilities exist.
An extremely simple thing is getting more and more complicated.
There is a purpose and, to serve that purpose, quite a number of possibilities exist and someone has to make a decision.
What we have never bothered to ask is, 'Is there a purpose at all?'
(It sounds a bit primitive to enquire into this fundamental thing.)
Have we gathered together for a purpose?
If so, who determines this?
If there are 50 people, there are at least 75 purposes - because some of us have two or three!
Each one has a different purpose, a different attitude, a completely different outlook.
Once we have assumed that there is a purpose (because the complicated mind refuses to see, or ask itself, 'Is there a purpose to it?') we assume that there is a purpose for which we have been delivered into this world.
If you will forgive my being light-hearted, the only purpose is that I was a burden to my mother.
She wanted to get rid of this thing!
It could have been as simple as that - and once the delivery has taken place her problem is solved.
My problem need not arise.
I am here.

The art of 'awareness' is very much like the awareness of a thorn that has entered your foot and cannot be removed.
You are extremely vigilant not to aggravate the trouble and while you do your work, you are ever careful not to let the thorn go deeper into the foot, to hurt you.
For how long?
For a whole life time!
This art of continuous self-watchfulness can be learnt and mastered.
If however there is self-condemnation or self-pity, the mind will refuse to watch; and if there is self-justification the whole purpose is defeated.

December 24

A Greeting: A Prayer

It is customary during Christmas and New Year to wish one another all happiness and joy.
We might even feel nice about it since we have been wished it by so many of our friends, it should be so.
But that is wishful thinking!
Christmas comes again and with it, thoughts of Jesus Christ.
But deeds have fallen into disuse and a lot of words are poor substitute for good works.
All over the world, people are eager to keep Jesus out of Christmas: it is a time to enjoy life, and Truth is a thorn in the flesh of most people, even as it was in that of Pilate.
"What is Truth?" asked Pilate.
It was framed perhaps as a question; that was the original mistake.
It should be used as a statement: What is Truth.
A genuine spirit of enquiry, search and research, a seeking, a knocking and an asking.
We have replaced these with ready-made packages of dogmas and doctrines, lids and labels, prejudices and privileges.
Says Dr. Radhakrishnan in his highly inspiring work Eastern Religion and Western Thought: "Jesus had an abhorrence of dogma and never encouraged the metaphysical and theological complications which are responsible for a good deal of casuistry, intolerance and obscurantism; and also explains that "The teaching of Jesus had for its aim the making of spiritual souls who are above the battle of creeds and of nations".
May we be reborn as spiritual souls this Christmas!
Jesus was the 'Word made flesh', Truth made flesh.
Yet, what is truth? What, What, What?
Let us keep asking "What?" and answering "What" till we find the Christ in our heart.

December 25

Yoga and Christianity

Christmas comes once a year.
A year is long enough for us to forget its significance.
In fact, every morning the average man is subjected to a landslide of irreligious debris which effectively submerges any little religious thought he might have striven to plant in his heart earlier in the day or the night before.
The newspaper, the radio, the journals, the television and the telephone bring these irreligious influences right to his bedside.
Lord Jesus cautioned: "The kingdom of heaven will not give entrance to every man who calls me 'Master, Master'; only to the man that does the will of my Father who is in heaven."
How does one know what the will of the Father is?
On some general principles the Holy Bible is forthright and it states that will in the most unmistakable terms - for instance, 'Love thy neighbour' (and the parable of the Good Samaritan reveals that the neighbour need not belong to your faith or community).
But there are other questions where a correct interpretation of the Biblical guidelines may be needed.
Whose interpretation?
And how does the interpreter himself arrive at the Lord's will?
Of course, prayer is the answer.
Lord Jesus cautions again:
"But when thou art praying, go into thy inner room and shut the door upon thyself and so pray to thy Father in secret.
When you are at prayer, do not use many phrases."
Prayer is not what often goes by that name in most religious traditions, but in fact it is meditation, communion with the Lord.
This is what 'yoga' means: communion, not as a ritual, but as a spiritual exercise.
To be holy one has to achieve 'wholeness'.
To achieve 'wholeness' means resolution of all conflicts and all duality.
In fact, that is communion!
Hence communion is holy; and if you are holy, you are in perpetual communion.
This is possible only if you 'see' Jesus in your heart, if He is 'born' in your heart, and if, in the words of Krishna's Bhagavad Gita, you do total self-surrender so that He and He alone will be the reality in your heart - He who is the Universal Being, in whose love we are all linked and made one Whole.
May Christmas witness this miracle in your heart and in your life!

December 26

Love Your God With All Your Being

With the approach of Christmas and New Year, people's minds and hearts turn to Jesus Christ.
We recollect his exhortation to love one another, and to 'love your enemy'.
We look around - there is no love even among friends!
We look within - in our hearts there is everything but love.
Yet, we think we love.
During a week-end Yoga seminar in Stellenbosch (held in a Roman Catholic monastery) a friend suggested that the talks should be on 'love'.
We think we can talk of love.
We think love is physical and we endeavour to make love metaphysical.
But love eludes us!
Narada in his Bhakti Sutras defines love vaguely as 'supreme love for That'.
(That stands for God.)
We do not know what God is, but we know what 'others' are.
We are aware of our 'love' for others.
Narada tells us to 'love God with a love that far excels all other loves'.
When confronted with this exhortation, we begin to look within and discover that our earthly relationships are all polluted, corrupted and tainted by lust, greed, selfishness, vanity and possessiveness (jealousy), and that we have associated love with all these base emotions.
We realise that our love of God should be totally free of all these.
Since we have no such relationship with God, it is possible to free our love of God from all this.
Of course, we pollute our love of God with our petitions, but He has His own ways of weaning us away from this weakness.
We are made to realise that what we need has already been provided by Him, and that He does not always respond to our foolish prayers.
This realisation frees prayer from the petitioning spirit.
In pure, supreme love, we pray: "Thy will be done."
A miracle takes place.
When this 'supreme love of God' comes to dwell in our hearts, all contrary feelings are banished from it. Neither hate nor fear can dwell in the heart which is filled with supreme love of God.
Unbeknown to ourselves we find ourselves in a position where we love all: there is no other emotion in our heart.
May that supreme love be awakened in your heart in the New Year.

December 27

Kaivalya (Freedom)

'Kaivalya' means 'one alone', independent of everything else.
What is liberation?
In aiming at freedom, how do I relate to others?
Can I go on oppressing someone else?
As long as there are these two - dominator and dominated - freedom is nebulous.
What is meant by freedom?
Some call it 'nirvana', which is literally 'blowing out the flame'.
While the flame is burning, there are two things: the oil and the flame.
It is the oil that makes the flame.
When the flame is extinguished, the fire (the energy), the burning potential, is still there in the oil.
But now instead of two, there is one: one alone (kaivalya).
If I watch carefully what goes on in my life, I see that the feeling of happiness results from someone's kind actions (words or deeds) towards me.
When, on the other hand, I receive insults, I am unhappy.
There is pleasure on the one side, pain at the other.
What have I got to do with it?
Am I involved in this?
Whether you erect a 'beautiful' building or an 'ugly' structure, space is still space, omnipresent, independent of what is, was or will be in it.
Watching myself I note that I am happy when a hope, a wish is fulfilled.
When frustrated I am unhappy.
Where are happiness and unhappiness?
They are directly related to hope.
As long as there is hope, there must be disappointment, suffering.
As long as there is desire to be happy, there must be unhappiness.
As one goes on seeing all these polarities, one realises one's freedom.
When I have no hope, I have no despair; once I am free from the desire to be happy, there is no more unhappiness for me.
As long as there is still duality: 'I' and 'another', this 'I' is subject to happiness, and its opposite.
Therefore the yogi goes deeper into his consciousness in order to understand what this 'I' is.
He keeps on asking.
Then, by the grace of God and by serious practice of yoga, one realises that perhaps the thing I have been calling 'I' is like the room.
Within the room, outside the room and through the walls of the room only space exists.
And yet in that one space, somehow I imagine the existence of a partition, a small room.
What is this room?
Nothing but imagination, an idea.
What is 'I'?
Nothing but imagination or an idea.
When this knowledge arises, then the idea of 'I' as a finite being disappears.
With the realisation of the indivisibility of one Cosmic Being, there is total freedom or kaivalya, because then there is consciousness of only One.
There is no other.
That alone exists neither I nor you.
There is oneness, freedom.

December 28

Thoughts on Tantra

That the sexual act is associated with places and forms of worship is open to several interpretations.
It is quite possible that the period when this happened was characterised by super affluence and associated with vulgarity which had such a pervasive influence that it invaded religious sanctuaries, too; or that religion was so neglected that only sexual exhibition would attract people to resort to religious practices; or that sexuality was regarded as an integral part of life (to be given no less, and of course, no more value than as such); or, at the other extreme, the act of union - not only of the human male-female but union on a cosmic level - is the power manifestation of the divine, forever veiling and unveiling itself (like day and night), forever splitting and uniting (like the atomic particles and cells of the body), such separation and unity being the divine play and the inevitable preliminary to the creative process in which Being and Becoming themselves are inseparable.
We might have completely lost nature's message.
Something that nature wishes to prevent us from experiencing is naturally endowed with a sharp sensation.
The pure reaction of the intelligence to this is hardly ever seen - except perhaps in a little baby.
But, later on, thought invents its own code, overriding nature's message, and suggests that it is something of an obstacle to overcome and builds an image of heroism around this concept.
The experience is still painful, but thought intervenes every time and hallows it - till it becomes a deadly habit.
Tantra may even be a 'return journey'.
By re-interpreting these habits as neither pleasure nor pain, it tries to elevate them to the neutral state where it is possible to experience them with the pure unbiased intelligence.
It may also be that, recognising the impossibility of conveying the pure spiritual truth of oneness to the sophisticated intellectuals, the sages presented the truth in symbolism which would immediately revolt the intellectuals and would appeal to the simple, pure-minded.
(I have often resorted to humour while addressing a mixed crowd of eager-young and rigid-aged, so that the latter rejects the whole thing as buffoonery and the former gets the message.)
This may even be the best approach, as otherwise if the message is rationally presented the intellectuals sprint to the defence of this ignorance, and a lot of energy is wasted in pointless polemics.

December 29

Spiritual Awakening

When does one spiritually awaken, and how does this happen?
There is a big difference between being aware and thinking one is aware.
What does it mean to be awake to the truth, to the reality?
How does one know what reality is?
And, even when you think you know the reality, is that the reality or is it your own concoction?
Some scriptures give vague characteristics of this inner awakening, but no definite clue to the question: how is it brought about?
It is brought about when you contemplate the truth concerning life.
However, right from childhood you are told that you are a girl or a boy, a Belgian, an American or whatever, and therefore you don't feel any need to investigate life's meaning.
Swami Sivananda often said, "When you get knocks and blows in the daily battle of life, then your mind is duly turned toward the spiritual path."
This is true in the case of some but not all (otherwise there would be millions of seekers!).
So, what is it that turns a person's attention upon himself so that this investigation may commence?
To this question there is no answer.
A spiritual awakening has to happen.
One does not know how it happens and therefore we say, "God's" grace.
We don't know the origin but we know the characteristics.
Once this inner awakening has taken place one cherishes it like a priceless gift, and once it has taken place it is insatiable, burning everything it touches; which means it has absolutely no obstacles.
Any obstacles become fuel making the investigation burn more furiously.
That is perhaps one of the reasons why our guru Swami Sivananda once remarked that he had no obstacles at all in his spiritual practice.
This inner awakening is able to digest, assimilate and utilise everything - good, bad or indifferent.
They who complain of obstacles on their spiritual path are not awake.
This inner awakening has a two-fold thrust.
There is great enthusiasm which arises because of what you call faith, and there is also tremendous doubt, so you do not blindly accept anything that can be verbalised or intellectually grasped.
Thus you cannot abandon the search for truth nor accept anything as the final or ultimate reality.
From there on you may lead your own life.
Your religion, family relationships or social status do not matter.
Once this inner spiritual awakening has taken place there is no mistaking it and it leads you inevitably towards enlightenment.

December 30

Immortal Self I Am

This is the ABC of truth in relation to the body: This is A body. Let it B body. Then you C body - but not 'my' body.
"I am neither mind nor body. Immortal self I am."
Mortal life is a straw caught in a gale and yet its immortal essence is the space unaffected by the gale.
Mortal life is bounded by life and death, but the immortal is unborn and deathless.
A glimpse of the immortal makes you fearless, and realisation that all life is mortal makes you equally fearless.
We are dying all the time.
There is a lovely couplet in the Bhagavatam: "You have only one constant companion. He was born with you - Death."
Whatever is born must die.
Our body is dying constantly, but 'I' cannot die.
O Life! What are you?
With the ticking of the clock, the rising and setting of the sun, the changing of the calendar, where are you leading me, unborn, deathless, immortal soul?
You are unbearably exacting in your demands, yet those who have eyes can see that eating is not to appease hunger (hunger is never appeased), but to rediscover the Self which is beyond hunger and thirst, sin and suffering.
Life is for Self-realisation, the antithesis of selfishness and self-aggrandisement.
Life's goal is immortality, beyond the world.
Be good, do good are the way of preparation; serve, love, meditate, realise, are the steps.
Cosmic love is the key.
This is the truth, this is the Self.
This will make you free, here and now.

December 31

My Prayer For You

Bhagavad Gita:
I am the Self seated in the hearts of all beings; I am the beginning, the middle and also the end of all beings. (X:20)

Bible:
In Him we live, and move, and have our being. (Acts 17: Vs. 28.)

May God bless you all with health, long life, peace, prosperity and spiritual enlightenment.

May you all walk in the Light of God, with God, with your hand in His, with the whole of you in His palm.
Live in God; love in God; serve God in all beings.
May that Supreme Being dwell in your eyes and in your heart, seeing His own Self in all; seeing God Himself in all.
May we thus swim in the ocean of bliss.
May that peace that passeth all understanding dwell in your heart, radiate from every pore of your skin, bathing everyone who comes within the circle of your aura with that inexpressible peace.
May harmony radiate from you, dispelling the darkness of disharmony wherever it is found.
May bliss radiate from you, dispelling the gloom of suffering, misery and pain - physical, mental, moral and spiritual.
May God lead us from the unreal to the Real, from darkness to Light, from mortality to Immortality.

Assert every moment of your life:
"I am the immortal Self.
I am not the body.
I am not this finite, limited mind.
I am the immortal Self."

May you be established in that Self-realisation right now.