ARSHA VIDYA BHUSHAN

ACKNOWLEDGING HELPLESSNESS

2009-03-31T02:13:00.003-07:00

The basis for any form of prayer is not one's helplessness; it is the acknowledgment of one's helplessness. Prayer is born naturally when I realize my helplessness and also recognize the source of all power, all knowledge. When I am helpless, I seek help from any person I can. When the helplessness is in terms of my incapacity to let go of my past or to let the future happen without my being apprehensive, then outside help from a person like myself is of no use. I go to the source from where such help is possible. I invoke the Lord in prayer.
Realizing that I am a victim of my own past, I cannot but be apprehensive about the future. I become worried and frightened. If everything is in order, I need not pray. All prayers have their fulfillment in keeping everything in order. When I surrender to the Lord, I actually deliver myself to the order that is the Lord. My past then becomes a part of the meaningful order of my personal life. The future unfolds itself in keeping with the same order, an order that includes my previous karma.
All's well that ends well. Past mistakes become meaningful as long as they have made me wiser. To acknowledge my helplessness is itself a great step towards recognizing the order. I acknowledge my past and neutralize it in my present life.
As a child I had no will of my own. I was in the hands of my parents, teachers and other adult members of the society. As a child, my knowledge was limited, my perception was vague, I was helpless and insecure. The conclusions I made then about the world and myself formed the basis for my interpretation of the events to come, which, in turn, tend to confirm my old conclusions. Thus, I become a victim of my own past. Whom should I blame for this perpetual helplessness of mine? I should blame neither the world nor myself, for to blame is to retain the past. If I was a victim of the behavior of my elders, by blaming them now I continue to be a victim. I understand that I have to eliminate all forms of blaming in order to be free of my past. But I find it very difficult to do without the Lord's help.
O Lord, help me. Help me accept gracefully what I cannot change. Let me be free of blaming anyone, including myself. I cannot blame myself for what happened to me. Nor can I blame others because they themselves have others to blame.
Blaming means that I want to change the past. But the past cannot be changed; it must be accepted as it was. I let go of my resentment, anger, and dissatisfaction about the past. O Lord, perhaps what I went through was meant to happen. Perhaps it was all in order as it has led me to prayer.
All the years of pain, struggle and groping seem to have paid off, because I pray and by this prayer everything has become meaningful. My pain, my past, has resulted in my coming to you to seek help, your intervention, to make me accept what I cannot change.
I do not want to bury the past, nor do I want to forget the past. I just want to accept the past, gracefully. I even begin to see an order in all of this. So, Lord, please help me accept gracefully what I cannot change.

--Swami Dayananda

ACCOMMODATING OTHERS

2009-03-21T02:09:00.004-07:00

(contd. from previous post...)
Practicing accommodation you come to terms with yourself psychologically-with yourself as a personality. That is what we call yoga-sadhana. It is not an exhaustion of impressions (vasanas) but an understanding of certain realities that are there. Look back at the situations, the people and events, which disturbed you in your life. They are not mere memories but remnants of reactions. A reaction is not something you do consciously. You cannot consciously get angry, for anger is not an action but a reaction that takes place, something you have no control over. Reactions create a great impact on you and become part of your psyche. They are aspects of the personality of a person. In fact, they are false, born of a lack of alertness on your part. Memory itself is not unpleasant. Unpleasantness is there in your mind because of lingering reactions and emotions which have become as though real. Therefore recall those people and moments that caused you pain. Or perhaps you carry guilt because of some hurt you caused another. In the seat of meditation recall them all and let them be as they are. With patience you free yourself from all residuals of the reactions.
When you look at the blue sky and the stars, or the birds and mountains, you have no complaints about them; and you are happy. You see the rocks on the riverbed; they did not do anything to please you. Yet you are happy because you accept them as they are, and therefore you are pleased. The river flows in its own way; it does not bother you. You do not expect its fullness to be greater or to flow in a different direction. In fact, you seek out natural spots because they do not invoke the displeased person, the angry, hard-to-please person that you seem to be. The demanding cord in you is not struck by them. You are one with the situation, an accommodating self, without the need of the world doing anything to please you.
Thus, you are a pleased person with reference to a few things. That is the wedge you have to create in yourself. When you go to the mountains, the mountains do nothing to please you; but you find you are pleasing to yourself. See how pleased you can be, and bring that pleased person to bear on all situations and people who had displeased you and whom you had displeased at one time or another. Then look at yourself just as you would when you look at nature. Accept others as you accept the stars. Pray for a change if you think you or they need a change, and do what you can promote change. But accept others first. Only in this way can you really change. Accept others totally and you are free; then you discover love, which is yourself.

Swami Dayananda

ACCOMMODATING OTHERS

2009-03-19T02:10:00.008-07:00

Vedanta is a teaching about oneself. Vedanta is an inquiry wherein one discovers that the real meaning of the word 'I' is the self who remains unchanged from childhood to youth to old age, whose nature is pure awareness that is absolute contentment and love, and who is free from any sense of limitation. To appreciate yourself as that limitless wholeness you require a mind that is prepared to assimilate that knowledge. For the one with an unprepared mind, Vedanta is like calculus for a person who is learning basic mathematics. In Vedanta the preparation required is a mind that has, in relative measure, that which it seeks to discover in the absolute sense. If the self is absolute contentment, then the mind of the seeker must be relatively content. If the self is absolute love, then the seeker must be a relatively loving person, a person who happily accepts people and things as they are.
To gain such a mind means to develop certain values and attitudes and to be clear about them as far as understanding their importance. Accommodating others is such a value. In fact, anger is due to lack of accommodation. If you expect the world to conform to your desires, then it is your own expectation that brings anger to you. Accommodation is an understanding that the other person behaves as he does because he cannot act contrary to his nature. You have no right to expect something different from him just because it suits your needs. If you think you have a right to ask him to change, then he has the right to ask you to let him live as he does.
In fact, only by accommodating others, allowing them to be what they are, do you gain a relative freedom in your day to day life. In many ways, everyone interferes in everyone else's life. Everyone creates a global effect by his or her actions. Ordinarily you just look at things from a small perspective, and you find the person you are angry with looming large before you. In face, you are never free from anyone's influence or from all the forces of the universe. Nor can you perform an action without affecting everyone else. Even your statements will affect others. Therefore our freedom needs to include the fact that we are all interrelated.
Even the swami is not free. A couple of people passed when I was at a zoo. One said to the other, "Did you check out the new one?" People often make such comments. I try not to disturb people, but it seems that my clothes, the traditional robes of a renunciate do cause them to react. I have made a decision, and it will definitely affect others. If I am disturbed by other's comments, then I gain only that much freedom that they grant me. But if I reverse the process, if I give freedom to others to be what they are, to that extent I am free. So I do not argue with them. My freedom is the freedom that I give to them to have any opinion they want about me, even though it may be wrong.
Thus, there are benefits to accommodating people as they are. If someone makes a comment about you, allow him to do so. If the comment is not true, you usually try to justify your actions and prove him wrong. If you are objective, you can see if there is any validity in his criticism of you. If he has put you down for his own security, give him that freedom and then you are free. What tightening can you do to a bolt when the threads are not there? Similarly the world can disturb you only to the extent you allow the world to disturb you. And you do not allow the world to disturb you if you give the world the freedom to do what it wants within the rule of society. By changing yourself totally in this way, you gain according to your value for accommodation, relatively abiding contentment and freedom.

Swami Dayananda
(to be contd..)

Question And Answer(effects of the credit crunch)

2009-03-18T02:29:00.006-07:00

Q: All of a sudden, we find very educated and smart people having a tough time coping with the effects of the credit crunch. What guidance would be the most appropriate to those who are hit by the crisis, and to those on the fringes?

A: This underscores the fact that to be educated and smart is not the same as being intelligent. To be intelligent is to be intimately alive to certain realities.
In life, loss is inevitable. Everyone knows this, yet in the core of most people it remains deeply denied- 'This should not happen to me.' It is for this reason that loss is the most difficult challenge one has to face as a human being.
So the first step in coping with loss is to accept that it has happened. How? We have to start with the facts. If the fact is that I cannot accept it, I first accept that I cannot accept it. This is where prayer will help; eventually, being kind to oneself and being prayerful, one will be able to accept the fact.
Grief will follow, naturally, since one is human. Being human is a matter for celebration, so we need to respect that grief, even, I would say, welcome it. It is as much a part of the natural order of things as loss. This acceptance of loss and the attendant grief involves so many things, but one of the most important things is not to waste energy blaming, either oneself or others, even when there are perceived injustices.
Here, our understanding of karma is a great blessing to us, and we can press it into service to help us move on. Then we are free to focus our energies on finding solutions to this new problem.
And above all, we are free to ask, "What do I learn from this situation?" What is crucial in dealing with loss, is not to lose the lesson. That makes you a winner in the most profound sense.
None of this is easy; there can be a certain helplessness at any stage, right from accepting the loss. But here we can help ourselves a lot with prayer. Prayer in any form is efficacious, because it is an action. It will, therefore, have a result. That is the law of this universe in which we find ourselves.

greed and global economic crisis - V

2009-03-13T23:17:00.006-07:00

(...contd. from previous post...)
We invoke the grace of Isvara on this day in order for people to see that for God's sake one cannot go against God because dharma itself is another manifestation, a critical manifestation, of God for human beings. So you cannot say I am doing this for God's sake. The end is God; Dharma is God. If you want to make somebody's life holy, make that person recognize that is holy because it is a manifestation of Isvara. So you not only make your life holy but you make another person's life holy if you can make that person see that the values are a manifestation of Isvara. We don't create values. They are there. We pick them up in terms of knowledge. It is centered on the urge to live. Ahimsa is our own urge to survive. As a human being, I recognize that attempt to survive on the part of every living being, including a mushroom. Every one of them wants to survive, and as a human being I know that. Animals do not know that, but they want to survive. If a cow finds that it is in danger, it will attack; and if somebody that it was afraid of dies, it is not going to have any guilt or regret. It just goes away. Nor can you take it to court, even in this country; but the owner of the cow, of course, will be taken to court, and there will be a jury trial. This is the truth about a human being. You know that you want to survive, and you know that everybody else wants to survive. With that knowledge is born a universal value. A universal value is inborn.
There are many ways of harming or of hurting another person. That is Himsa. If you deceive a person, that is harming that person. How can you deceive? When you want to start a school, you should simply say, "I am starting a school," and there should be nothing more that educating the children, period. If you are doing it for a profit, please say that. If you are doing it to bring people to your religion, then please say that. Then the Hindu parents have the privilege of choosing you. Tell that; otherwise, don't start school. Why should you start a school? This is a very important thing on this day. We recognize that values are universal and that values are the same whether a Muslim, a Hindu, or a Christian. Even if one doesn't follow any religion, values are the same; and values are Isvara, one critical manifestation of Isvara. This is the message that should go to everybody. This is also the message that should rule our lives, and we should help others understand this. Then it is easy. Any system will work, even autocracy will work. If that autocrat is automatically dharmic, then there will be no problem. It will work. Dharma should rule us, and we should help others recognize that. If everyone makes one or two other people recognize that, then it will be a great contribution for the well being of humanity. AUM

greed and global economic crisis - IV

2009-03-12T23:13:00.004-07:00

(...Contd. from previous post...)
Did I tell you about the missionary who went to India to do some missionary work? On the way he wanted to take pictures so that he could produce a book on old cathedrals with all their stained glass windows and their chandeliers. It would be a wonderful book. There are lots of cathedrals in Southeast Asia. So he went to Peking and other places. In the Peking cathedral, he was taking pictures when he saw in the corner one huge golden telephone. He asked the priest, "Is it a real telephone?" The priest said, "Yes, it is a real telephone to God, a hot line. You can talk to God." "Really!? Can I talk to him now?" "You can talk to him for ten thousand dollars." He couldn't afford ten thousand dollars. He left and went to Indonesia where there again in one of the cathedrals he saw this golden telephone costing ten thousand dollars. Every church he went a golden telephone was there, and to place a call to God it was always ten thousand dollars. He couldn't talk to God for want of money. Then he came to India, Chennai. He told the taxi driver, "Take me around before you take me to St.Thomas church." He took him to Mylapore temple. He saw the temple and said, "What is this?" It is a Hindu temple!?" "Yes, it's a Hindu temple." This missionary was there to save the souls of Hindus because he thought these Hindus were godless people, but they have such huge temples. They must have some concept of God. Then he went inside with his camera to take pictures. There also he saw this telephone. That was a shock. Hindus can also talk to God!? He thought that Hindus couldn't talk to God. He asked the person standing there, "Is this a telephone?" "Yes, sir, you can talk to God." "What will be the cost?" "One rupee, sir." "One rupee? Those people said ten thousand dollars." "Sir, that is a long distance call; this is a local call."
People have to learn that God is not small. He is free. It is our mind that is small. According to us, all that is here is God. Even your false perceptions are because of the order that is here, the order of knowledge; and if you don't fulfill the criteria to gain knowledge, then in its place there will be wrong thinking. That is all within the order of Isvara. There is no wrong perception without Isvara, and that you can correct those perceptions is a blessing that you have. That you can commit an error is a possibility, and that you can correct that error is also a possibility, a blessing; and we invoke that blessing on this day when we again begin. Perhaps we can understand that the values are universal and that they are common for all and that they are another manifestation of Isvara. Therefore, there are no double standards.

(to be contd....)

greed and global economic crisis - III

2009-03-11T23:41:00.005-07:00

contd. from previous post......
Human beings have knowledge of what is right and what is wrong. It is God given knowledge. There is Isvara in this. The whole humanity has to recognize that values are universal. It is not that believers have one set of values and nonbelievers have another set of values. If that were so that would mean you could cheat; you need not be objective; you need not be transparent. So in order to accomplish your ambitions, in order to promote your religion, your God, you can promote or pretend yourself to be an altruistic person interested in the welfare of others. But the motive is to bring them to the flock. You can go to the internet and see what is under the Vatican research. There is a kind of a message or advice to the Indian bishops. They say that the rsis of the Upanishads, of the Vedas, are very sincere people and they pray to God asking God to bless them and to lead them from untruth to truth. Asato ma sad gamaya. MaA means mam. From untruth (unreal) please help us reach the truth (the real), lead us to truth from darkness (ignorance) to light (knowledge). Tamaso ma jyotirgamaya. Mrtyorma amrtam gamaya. From the hands of death (any sense of limitation), lead us to freedom from time, freedom from death. This is a mantra in the Brhadaranyaka upanisad. The advise to the bishops quotes this mantra. It says that the Vedic rsis did not know what was truth, what was right, and what was freedom from death, immortality, they didn't know; therefore, they are afraid. As an answer to the prayer came Jesus. Look at that. Deception! The person who quotes that knows very well that we have a definition of satyam, which they cannot stand. They cannot argue against it for one minute. "That which is not subject to negation is satyam." How are you going to negate it? "That which is not subject to negation in all the three periods of time (abaadhitam satyam trikale), and that satyam you are (tat tvam asi)." And they say we don't know. Not only do we know but we teach. We are not mystic people. Like math, we teach. It is an equation. We teach that you are the satyam. We have a live teaching tradition which is why we have survived; whereas, other cultures have been wiped out. We have survived because of our teaching tradition. They can abuse and use means like this because, according to them, the end is good. That is because of double standards.
Values are universal. Recently the Vatican and others have signed a document accepting universal values and mutual respect. How much they have committed themselves in order to sign that document I do not know, but they have signed it. We are all witnesses. I have signed it also. Mutual respect means you respect me as I am, and I respect you as you are. I don't try to change you overtly, covertly. I don't want to change you; I enjoy you as you are. You enjoy me as I am. It is a loss to lose a colourful person like me. So you have mutual respect and universal values.
We celebrate different types of New Years. Tamilnadu has its own New Year. In the Zodiac, when the Sun enters into Aries on the fourteenth of April that is the New Year. It is very definite. Here we have January first, which we also celebrate. We don't have problem with all of this. We want them to celebrate our Deepavali also. They should celebrate so that we can all live in harmony. But for that they need to know that God is bigger than our mind.

(to be contd...)

greed and global economic crisis - II

2009-03-09T15:48:00.009-07:00

(continued from previous post)----
Suppose somebody owns a corporation and wants to own another corporation,is it greed? No it is desire.It is not even ambition.One corporation is not enough. In fact, the corporation owners rally do not know where the corporation is.A person buys byes a new corporation and sells it piecemeal and makes some money.This is what they have been doing in America.Just like this, piecemeal,a person sells and makes some money.All the big people are making money that way.They buy a corporation and then sell it piecemeal.And the people who buy it also sell it afterwards. Both the buyer and the seller make money.This goes on.Nothing new produced.When one starts a company,one has an idea to sell it.It is called a startup company One starts a company with an idea to sell.It is entirely different approach. One builds up to a level(there are all the shares.options,and money) and then one sells,and one makes money.A lot of Indians earn money this way.I am not saying they shouldn't. I am saying they should,they should make use of the system.They should go by the system whatever they can do.But what I say is the commitment is elsewhere.The joy of building up something and seeing it through its growth doesn't seem to be the motivating force.Therefore, what is greed? one corporation? The one who is the CEO of this corporation wants to buy another corporation. That is not greed; it is desire.Whether one wants to have one ore corner shop or one more corporation,it is the same.There is no difference between the two.If one is legitimate,the other is equally legitimate.But what is greed? if one transgresses the norms of dharma and of fairness in order to get that corporation that is called greed.Any system cannot work its own.
(to be continued ---------)

greed and global economic crisis - I

2009-03-08T03:52:00.010-07:00

Swamiji says
"Look at the flea market.This country's economy is destroyed by imports.I am not a market man.I do not read,nor do I understand,the vertical lines in the New York Times business page.I am just looking at the situation objectively.The market always has its eye on the bottom line.Therefore, they don't mind outsourcing.The employers are medium and small industries who are providers of employment.A labor union does not exist in China;therefore,no country is able to compete with them.No country.All our textile industries are destroyed because of unions and also because of no unions.There is no fair play in global markets,and in global markets there should be fair play.The monetary system must have a certain paradigm between currencies and currencies,but there is no paradigm.Therefore,the world is not ready for a global-free market.There needs to be similar infrastructures or somebody is going to be exploiting somebody else.That is what happened to this country,plus there was extraordinary greed.
The greed of hedging doesn't produce anything.Billions of dollars of major economic activity in this country is just hedging. Hedging means whether the economy goes up or it goes down there is no problem,the investor will make money.I am not talking about right or wrong here.I am simply saying that hedging doesn't produce anything.The production there is nothing.Nothing is produced in agriculture.Hedging only produces green paper,and hedging is ruthless.One makes money out of money.Money brings money.It is supposed to bring money,but money also takes money away.Somebody looses and somebody gains.The whole world looses and the hedging people gain.What I am saying is there is no emphasis on production.The large and small industries are to be encouraged.They need to be protected.Other countries also need to follow the same norms and the same conditions as there are here.If there are some minimum wages here in this country,an equivalent needs to be there in other countries.There needs to be the same minimum wages and the same freedom to have labor unions.The people need to voice their demands,and they need to get their demands met.They need to have their freedom.In China the people cannot open their mouths.
Therefor,it is not wise to throw open the market.If it is going to be a real flea market,then every country must have a similar infrastructure in terms of power,in terms of transport,and in terms of communication.If every country has the same infrastructure,they can compete with each other.There can be equality.That would be beautiful. But in India there is no infrastructure;there is no power.if the power comes on,we do namaste.If the power doesn't come on, it is natural.I don't see any will to bring about a change.Here in this country the unions are very big.In India the communists have no unions,The argument is-it is the peoples government.Here this is what?Devatas government? Bluff! These folks are a danger to the world.Danger comes from these people.They are destroying our government,our national culture,and the global economy all because of greed for power.Deluded as they are,they say they are working for the people,but the people are suffering.Anything that is lasting they destroy.They are hobnobbing with the political parties in India.People don't understand.
There is so much disparity. In the monetary system there is disparity. The buying power of a dollar must be the buying power of a rupee. You can have forty or forty five rupees to a dollar,but that kind of money one should be able to earn. What does it take for an unskilled person to earn one dollar here in America? hat time does it take? Within that time that person in India should be able to earn that forty or forty five rupees,then that is called parity, but one cannot earn that in India. The minimum wage here is now about seven dollars. Let's say that a person in America earns one dollar for every eight minutes. A person in India would have to earn forty or forty five rupees every eight minutes, but sometimes it takes the whole day for him or her to earn that. He earns eighty rupees for four hours, earning two dollars for the whole day. see the difference. There is no parity; there is no justice. A global market means this is what will happen.
Assuming that there is parity, still a global market won't work. A free market is required. Freedom is required. The human being has to be free for artha kama, and the human being, he or she, has to follow dharma. It has to come from within. No matter who rules, which party comes to power, nobody has any clue what will work. People don't know. If a person knew, he or she could control the system, but it always goes haywire. A natural course must be allowed. When one tries to block this and tries to block that, something else happens afterwards, and there is another problem. This is a system, a defective system.
That greed must be kept under control. What is that greed? Suppose somebody has a corner shop. There are no corner shops anymore, you know, but suppose there is a corner shop and this person wants to have another one so that he can sit in one and his wife can sit in the other. So he opens another shop. Is it greed? I don't think it is greed. It is his desire, which is legitimate.He wants to have one more shop. And after two shops, suppose he wants to sell and buy a small supermarket where people walk in and pick up whatever they need. It is not like a corner shop, but he wants to buy it. It is a desire. Afterwards, he wants to buy a bigger place. He is an enterprising person. He doesn't get stuck. He keeps growing. That is a trick of survival. You have to keep growing. That is how you can survive in the market. So that is what he does. It is all natural.a
(courtesy avnl Jan-09. to be continued )

Bringing Iswara in one's life -video links

2009-03-04T23:50:00.014-08:00

Bringing Iswara in one's life-- Video 1

2009-03-01T02:39:00.003-08:00

hinduism

2009-02-25T08:38:00.001-08:00

A letter from Pujya Swamiji

2009-02-02T22:37:00.000-08:00

A letter from Pujya Swamiji

Dear Readers,

We are in for a change in the circulation format of the Newsletter. Now it will be available online - from January 2009 (www.arshavidya.in/newsletter.html) free of charge. With the help of the web copy Arsha Vidya News can now reach a much wider audience. You can share your e-copy with more people. You can give a print out to those who do not have the facility to access the e-copy.

Now, you will have more information to know, more articles to read and more audio and video to enjoy. You will have addition of more features like a regular question and answer section and so on. In course of time you will be able to access any past issue of the Newsletter from the archives.

You can send your views and suggestions about the online issue to the web team (avnlfeedback@arshavidya.in) for consideration and implementation.

Wish you a good time with the electronic issue.

Yours,
Swami Dayananda Saraswati

Pujya Swamiji will be holding 3 summer camps in April-May-June 2009 in Anaikatti. You can find details at www.arshavidya.in/summercamps.pdf.

Mahasivaratri will be celebrated at the Gurukulam on February 23, 2009. The invitation is available at www.arshavidya.in/mahasivaratri.jpg. You can participate by filling up the form available at www.arshavidya.in/temple.html. Please look for Mahasivaratri on the list of events.

**You can ask other interested people to subscribe to the Newsletter online at www.arshavidya.in.**

arsha vidya news letter

2009-01-21T23:27:00.000-08:00

Now Arsha Vidya News letter can be obtained as e-copy, free of cost.

To subscribe for the same, you have to send a mail to
list@arshavidya.in
saying 'SUBSCRIBE' in the subject area.
In the body of message, plz mention your
name, place of residence, & country.

rds

Arsha Vidya Bhushan

RAMA SETU-a letter from living planet foundation

2009-01-03T04:16:00.002-08:00

LivingPlanetFoundat ion wrote:
Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2008 01:51:00 UT
From: LivingPlanetFoundat ion
Subject: Good News: Our London Meeting a success - Gulf of Mannar nominated as International Sacred Site!

Greetings!

We are happy to report that some 200 ecologists, academics, scientists and religious leaders from around the world met on 25 and 26 November at the Linnean Society in London and sought to provide enough multi-disciplinary evidence to persuade the governments of India and Sri Lanka to ask UNESCO to designate the Gulf of Mannar a World Heritage Site.

We are delighted to inform you that the Alliance of Religions and Conservation (ARC) made the dramatic announcement at the London meeting that it would be seeking to have the Gulf of Mannar designated as one of the world's first internationally recognized 'Sacred Sites.'

Martin Palmer, Secretary General of ARC and religion and ecology advisor made the announcement of nomination for Sacred Site status to His Royal Highness the Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

Martin Palmer said, "Cosmologically and ecologically the Gulf of Mannar is about as sacred a site as you could get. Our suggestion is that it should be nominated as one of the very first internationally significant sacred sites, along with places such as the sacred mountains of China and other such hugely holy and ecologically significant places. I have every confidence the nomination will succeed."

Following agreements reached at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Barcelona last October, 'Sacred Site' is a now an international term of protection for sites that are spiritually, religiously, culturally and ecologically important. IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, is world's oldest and largest global environmental network - a democratic membership union with more than 1,000 government and NGO member organizations, and almost 11,000 volunteer scientists in more than 160 countries - it helps find pragmatic solutions to pressing environment and development challenges.

We, at Living Planet Foundation and the Gulf of Mannar World Heritage Site Campaign are delighted with this nomination, which is a historic first and boosts our Campaign with new energy and new momentum! We believe that the Sacred Site nomination by ARC can only advance the cause for which we have been campaigning for the past 4 years - protecting the Gulf of Mannar and those whose lives are threatened by the Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project.

Following the London meeting, on November 29, our delegate from Bali, Dr. I Gusti Ngurah Arya Wedakarna, Prince of Dalem Benculuh Tegeh Kori, personally handed the Resolution to Mrs. Pratibha Patil, India's President who was on an official visit to Bali.

The Resolution has also been delivered to Dr. R. K. Pachauri, head of the Committee of Experts appointed by the Government of India. (Click here for the Resolution)

That the London meeting was such a huge success was largely due to the pains-taking efforts put in by a number of people from the organizations involved, particularly by all the team members that traveled from various parts of the world to take part in the meeting. It also made a great difference that the ARC, Rainforest Concern, The Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development (FIELD), Romulus Whitaker and the UK office of ICOMOS made detailed and focused presentations at the meeting. It would only be appropriate here to thank all of them.

On behalf of Living Planet Foundation and the Gulf of Mannar World Heritage Site Campaign team, I would like to thank everyone whose support helped us reach an important milestone. While preparing for the London meeting this year and traveling to various cities across the U.S and Europe, I was similarly inspired by the passion and generosity of so many concerned people. In that spirit, I hope you'll continue to support the Gulf of Mannar World Heritage Site Campaign. Contribution of any size makes a very real difference.

Our campaign is not over, yet it is not endless. We do not know the day of final victory, but with the nomination from ARC, we have seen the turning of the tide. Now, we need your continued support if the Gulf of Mannar - and perhaps the planet - is to survive and thrive.

From my family and my Campaign team to yours, we hope you have a happy, healthy holiday season.

All the best for 2009,

Kusum Vyas
President, Living Planet Foundation
Founder, Gulf of Mannar World Heritage Site Campaign

Happy Holidays
from
Living Planet Foundation Meeting Report Meeting Resolution Reception Supporters

Excerpts from the interview

2008-11-30T23:41:00.002-08:00

Excerpts from the interview, in which Poojya Sri Swami Dayananda Saraswati reflects on what caused the current economic crisis, how to cope with it, and also which areas to focus on, going forward.
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/mentor/2008/11/24/stories/2008112450190700.htm

Freedom From Helplessness

2008-11-27T00:03:00.002-08:00

Freedom From Helplessness
Swami Dayananda Saraswati
There is a definite line that separates modern society from the ancient. In general,
I find, life is always modern. patanjali, who wrote the mahabhasya, states, in his
, how the modernists do not follow the old style of learning the phonetics. When I read that, I felt that an era we consider as ancient, was modern for patanjali. It is no different today. When an old person talks to you, he or she always says, “In my days it was wonderful.” When I was in school, the older people in the village used to say, “Our school days were definitely better, not like they are now.” Today, I see people of my age telling the modern students, “Oh! Everything has degenerated. Today’s students have lost their way.” I think the generation gap is not a new discovery. It was always there because a mother is usually 25 or 26 when the first child is born. There would be no generation gap if the child were born the same age as the mother, which is never going to happen. However, one thing is certain. When we say modern, what we really mean is that, unlike our forefathers, we have to respond to a wide variety of events every day. Definitely our forefathers, a few centuries ago, were better off in one way because they only had a few events to respond to. To the contemporary way of thinking such a situation would be impossible. This is also not true. You live one day at a time. The ‘one-day’ is always a today. You reach 16 or 61 living one day at a time. In the past also it was a new day when a person got up from sleep; it was always a good morning. It is amazing. It is again one day at a time when you sign off for the day, when you go to sleep. Sleep is a great leveler. Your experiences, your problems, your notions of individuality, your identity with religion, the concept of modern and ancient, even your understanding of Vedanta all these are leveled into one blanket experience of
‘not knowing anything’. The world including the concept of time and space dissolves in sleep. When you get up in the morning to a new day, it is like a new creation. It can be new or it can be a continuation of the old problems. You can live the day as a continuation of what happened before, the previous day, because the memories are there. The memories, perhaps, are meant to give a certain continuity. You carry forward what was experienced earlier and look at the day from the
previous day’s memory. I believe that a modern person looks at the day differently. His or her day needs to be packed to have a sense of achievement. A day packed with events need not move faster. In fact, with fewer events it is amazing how a day speeds by. You find you have no time for anything, even though the day is filled with events that are predictable. There are no surprises. One’s routine is predictable, the food and the eating time is predictable. Everything is well ordered; the whole day is predictable. In spite of the predictability you find a month just flits past.

Our forefathers also lived a predictable life but with fewer events. They did not have a television to watch, a newspaper to read or a radio to listen to. Such facilities were not available then. If there was an event of importance, such as a calamity in the nearby village, the news could not reach the person in the neighbouring village instantly. Probably, he would hear of it ten days later, when it was no longer a current event. It would be an old event, an already wept over

event, or an event to which people have already responded adequately. Sometimes, the news would not trickle down at all. Whereas, these days, in the crowded front page of a newspaper, you find there are so many events and to each one of them you have to respond: something happens somewhere in the world, Prince Charles has a fever, President Bush sneezes, somewhere an earthquake claims thousands of lives; somewhere a revolt and many die; somewhere an act of terrorism, many are taken hostages; every day you have to respond to the many varied events. The world is the same size as it was then, although if one views it from one of the satellites, one would see the poor earth as a small ball spinning on its own axis. In this small globe we find ourselves beset with so many problems. It looks as though the world has shrunk. Once, I flew from London at 11 A.M. by the British Airways Concorde flight and reached New York at 8 A.M. The people who were waiting at the New York airport asked me, “Swamiji, when did you leave?” I told them, “I have not yet left, for my flight leaves at 11 A.M.” I cannot use the past tense here; even grammar becomes a problem. One does not know which tense to use, and one gets tensed up in the process. Modern technology defies the rules of grammar.
Today, events crowd the entire twenty-four hour period. Unrelated to the events,
no doubt, my life is very simple. However, I cannot remain a mute witness to what is happening around me, whether I am a simple individual or a Swami. I cannot but be alive to the events. By what is ‘around me’ I do not mean the mountain or the river or the stars above. It is not the few trees and birds. The sky is the limit for the phrase ‘around me’. Even the black hole, whose gravitational influence is so strong that not even light can escape, is all ‘around me’. What is around me is what I know, and what I know is enough to trouble me. One either has to respond to every event or live one’s life holed up in a cave somewhere. I do not think that is a life worth living. Even if I live a simple life, it is better lived amidst the world. When I hear the news that two meteorites in the orbit collided, it creates a small fear in me; the debris may fall upon me. So, I find myself in a position where I have to respond to situations which are too numerous and varied. How should I respond to them?
More often than not you find yourself helpless. You read the morning newspaper
in the bathroom and you are fuming. You cannot do anything for you are helpless. This helplessness is the modern problem. Not that this is the only problem. Many problems may be there, but this one leads to varieties of other problems. You may have an answer for everything but nobody cares to consult you. That is another problem. You find yourself helpless, for no fault of yours.
You can live a very simple, clean life, where you care for people, without trampling upon others’ toes, but at the same time you see yourself helpless. You are helpless because you have to respond to every situation that you come to know. Further, as a member of contemporary society, you cannot avoid knowing.
How can we handle this helplessness? If it can be handled, it is no longer a
helpless situation. How does one look at situations and yet feel that one is not
helpless? Before we deal with that, let us see how each one lives his or her life.
We live in our own world. Even though there is a world available for public appreciation, public gaze, still each one lives a subjective life. When you see me,
the Swami, I am the only world for you at that time; there is no other world. In
fact, what you confront is the world. As I talk to you, if you think of something
else, then that something else becomes your world.
When you see me, how do you see me? Do you see me as I am? Physically if you
are not color blind and your eyes and ears can function well, then you can have
some objective idea about the Swami. However, the Swami is not just the physical body, much less the dress that he has; he is more than that. There is someone in this body who is now talking to you and responding to you. How do
you know this person? How do you respond to this person? It is always with
your scales of judgement. In today’s competitive society, each member seems to be out to get the other.
That is how it looks, if the behaviour of people is an indication. You are therefore
always wary. You are always ready to defend yourself. You are always ready to
fight. You pick up this attitude right from your childhood.
We start our life as a helpless but totally trusting baby. We do not know whether
we are with the mother or with some one else; we are helpless. We are helpless
when we face certain psychological situations that disturb us, that undermine
our trust. The distrust later becomes the core of the child’s personality. The
distrust is confirmed when we go to school because there are a lot of bullies
around who are out to get us. All these influence our response as an adult. When
we see people in the society, everybody seems to be out for the kill. Survival
itself becomes a challenge. It is not very different in an affluent society. When
there is competition, we are braced for any onslaught. We may be taken advantage of, exploited, taken for a ride, and we do not want to be taken for a
ride. Therefore, we are wary all the time. It is this cautious person who deals
with everybody else, deals with the Swami also. Our distrust and disbelief
towards others puts us in a vulnerable situation.
Everyone has a need for someone who is not judgmental, with whom one can
relax. It is very difficult to meet such a person in the world. This also makes you
vulnerable. It makes you ripe for exploitation. With all your fears, your needs,
distrust and disbelief, when you see the Swami, well, he is not going to be the
Swami that he is. He is the Swami that you think he is.
This is true of everything else. It is one of the main reasons why the human mind
loves nature. The ocean and the mountains, the sky and the stars become so
important to us because these are the only ones we can approach without our
prejudices. I ask you, “Are these alone considered nature? Is the human being
outside nature? Who said that a human being is not nature?” If animals, trees
and mountains are part of nature, how is it that such an eloquent species as a
human being is not part of nature? My nose, my breathing, my hunger, are they
not nature? My thinking, my anger, my love, are these not nature? They are all
Prakruti, nature. Who says they are outside nature? When human beings also form
nature, why do I run away from them to see a mountain? Why should I be under
such pressure, that I should seek mountains, valleys, trees and flowers? It is
because, other members of my species have hurt me and I can no longer trust
them or relax in their presence. It is because mountains and forests are the only
ones left for us, which we can look at without prejudice. There again, if you are
an environmentalist you have a problem. You would see the mountains and say,
“My god! What have they done to this mountain? This is outrageous. They have
made it completely bald.” Destruction of nature is another problem because of a
lack of environmental awareness in people. Thus, even the mountains can drive
you crazy these days. Then, you have to choose some special mountains. You can
see how the safe world is getting smaller and smaller for oneself. However, just
as we see nature without prejudices, we can also see the world that is available
for public perception without subjectivity.
When you look at a mountain, it does not demand or threaten you. You can be as
you are, at home with yourself. You accept yourself in the appreciation of the
beauty of the mountain. You do not want the mountain to be different, the
animals to be different, the location to be different, or the mountain peak to be
different. You take the mountain as it is. It seems to resolve all the demands of
the demanding person in you for the time being. You come to appreciate
yourself, which you had not done earlier. You say that the mountain is beautiful
and visit the mountain again and again. However, it is not the mountain that you
love, but rather, it is yourself you love when you see the mountain. In the
experience of the mountain you see yourself, relatively at least, a pleased person
whose demands are silenced and whose self-judgement is resolved for the time
being. The beauty is so captivating that there is no room for you to be
judgemental; the mountain does not let you have your smallness for the time
being. It is able to capture your imagination and you find yourself letting go of
all your notions; you see yourself as beautiful.
When you see yourself beautiful, you say that the mountain is beautiful. When
you say that the mountain is beautiful it is non-Vedanta. Vedanta says, “When
you say that the mountain is beautiful, it means that you are beautiful.” That is
Vedanta. When you express that the mountain is beautiful, then you become a
poet. You can write a poem about the mountain. Vedanta is not poetry. In poetry
there are some facts, but you need Vedanta to understand those facts.
In any captivating situation you see yourself as a non-judgmental person. It
means that you are capable of being non judgmental. You neither judge the
object of captivation nor yourself. If you judge the object, you also judge yourself.
Every judgement leads to self-judgment. When you are not judging the
mountain, when you let the mountain be as it is, then you are not judging
yourself also, at least for the moment.
When you see yourself as a non-judgmental person, you are in harmony with
what you face. It is something that is experientially known to you, but not
recognized immediately. When you can relate to the mountain like this, you can
also relate in the same way to any other person or situation. If it is possible in one
situation, it is also possible in any other situation. We have a basis now to
understand ourselves.
When you see yourself as a non-demanding person in spite of yourself, in spite of your prejudices, your likes and dislikes, your demands, then you have made it. This is what you seek in life, after all. What else are you trying to accomplish in life? If you do not need to prove yourself to be somebody, if you do not need to be always cautious and wary in different situations, then you have grown. As long as you have distrust and demands, you are yet to grow. People say ‘I walk on eggshells.’ You are not walking on eggshells, you are in an eggshell, and you
have to come out of the eggshell. Your own prejudices confine you, imprison you—they are the fetters.
Your life should be such that you understand facts and see what is in front of you as it is. You need not know the person you face, but you need not look at the person with your prejudices. Even if you come to know something about the person, why should you interpret anything? A person is what he or she is because of his or her background. Understanding and accepting a person as he or she is, helps you get out of the shell of your private world and into the public
world. The public world is very bright and beautiful; it is what is, whereas the
private world is not. Our struggles in life are mainly to get out of our own
private world and its prejudices.
We think like Indians, we think like Americans, Europeans, but we do not think like thinkers. This is our problem. One can dress like sadhus, like Indians. It is welcome; it is cultural. Every culture should be preserved as it is; we need not disturb it at all. Each culture has its own beauty, language, dialect, music and it should be preserved; it is the wealth of humanity. You may not understand it, but it does not matter; it must be preserved as it is. Culture implies language, dress, food, the way of eating food, the way of cooking, the manner of talking,
the way of greeting, the way of living in a family and so on. Even ornaments and hairstyle are culture, so they can be as they are. Therefore, everything is cultural. However, there is no Indian thinking, unless there is an Indian truth. There is no American thinking unless there is an American truth. If we are dealing with public truth, then, we should think like thinkers.
We need insight to understand our own prejudices, to know which are prejudices and which are not. To have that insight one needs to objectively look at oneself and the world. Having looked at yourself, look at the world and bring that knowledge to bear on situations that call for responses from you. There can be millions of situations. They need not make you feel helpless. What is required is understan ding and knowledge that is distinct from any kind of action.

Courage

2008-11-04T03:53:00.001-08:00

Satsang with Swami Dayananda Saraswati
Courage

Question

Swamiji, you have said that people require courage to face their problems and deal with their minds. Would you speak about how we gain this courage?

Answer

The courage I spoke of was with reference to the pain experienced because of our problems. We usually deny the problems themselves and undergo the pain. We don’t want to face the problems because to do so is very unpleasant. As children also, we denied our problems. This denial is kind of escape from something that is unpleasant and is the route we generally take to manage the problems. That is why diversions become so important to us.

In this society, diversions are not only very important, they are many and varied.

Entertainment and sports are nothing but diversions. If you analyze the

commitment of a normal person, it is not really a commitment to work with what is happening right now, but is a commitment to entertainment and recreation. And, in order to have entertainment and recreation, of course, you have to earn money.

Therefore, earning money becomes a secondary priority, which of course it should be, but work also becomes secondary, recreation and entertainment becoming the main objective. This is because recreation and entertainment are used as primary escape routes—and this has always been so.

Recreation can be either classical or non-classical. Classical recreation means that you have to stay with yourself and, if you can learn how to do this, perhaps then you can enjoy children, family, friendship, books, thinking, meditation, and so on.

There are variety of things to entertain yourself—and usefully, also.

To enjoy these various forms of recreation you need to be able to be with yourself to an extent. You need to be able to enjoy yourself. Otherwise, you require something unfamiliar, different, exciting, or bizarre to absorb yourself. This is the reason music becomes louder and louder—to drown out the mind because there isso much noise inside.

It takes a certain culture and depth to be with yourself. When this is not possible, recreation becomes very important. Holiday recreation is a case in point. If we just look at the psychology of people, it becomes very obvious how people commit themselves to various forms of recreation.

If you have a house on the waterfront, a boat, and perhaps a mobile home, then you made it! Then there is fishing, hunting, skiing, motor racing, football, baseball;

sports also being a kind of recreation. There is a whole economy built around

such activities. There is also lot of money involved in music—so many centers of

entertainment, theaters, cinemas, discos, and so on. It is a huge industry. These

numerous forms of recreation, along with holiday traveling may consume more

than half of the entire economy—all because of a commitment.

Recreation is not an ordinary thing; it is a commitment. You work the whole week and then, on the weekend, you do not want to stay at home. You want to go out because to be at home means that you have to be with yourself. Therefore, you have to go out. Any classical form of recreation such as literature or music can thrive in a culture where people can be at home. Only then does one have the inner leisure to listen to classical music and read. This absence of inner leisure is prevalent all over the world.

Not to escape is to face ourselves, which we are not used to doing. Facing

ourselves means that we have to have the patience, however painful at times, to

look into ourselves and see what is happening and what has happened. More often than not, what we see is very unpleasant.

Therefore, it takes courage in the sense of a certain commitment and a readiness to face this unpleasantness, which is not a big problem once I am willing to change.

The willingness to change is what requires the courage.

Freedom From Sadness

2008-11-04T03:51:00.001-08:00

Freedom From Sadness

Swami Dayananda Saraswati

THERE IS A TWO FOLD WORLD - ISVARA SRISTI AND JIVA SRISTI

One is the world as it is. The other is the world that we perceive. The creation as it is I hardly look at.

It takes simplicity to see things as they are. More often than not we all live in a world created by our own mind. There is a twofold world. One is the world as it is. The other is the world that we perceive. One’s perception is always vitiated, conditioned, modified by one’s own limited knowledge, by one’s own likes and dislikes, by one’s fears and anxieties, and by one’s opinions and prejudices. Therefore, one hardly lives in the world as it is. If there is a flower I happen to see, I can look at it as the flower is, or I can look at it with a longing to have the flower. Or when I look at it, I may associate the flower with a certain event. Therefore, I do not see the flower as the flower is. This projection on my part definitely denies me from seeing the world as the world is.

In Vedanta we explain this twofold world as Isvara sristi and jiva sristi. Sristi means a creation. Isvara sristi is the Lord’s creation of the world as it is, and jiva sristi is the creation as I look at it. The creation that I look at is mostly my own projection. The creation as it is I hardly look at. Whenever I look at the creation as it is, I am okay, even if it is something that is unpleasant. An unpleasant situation necessitates a certain action on my part. I should either withdraw from the unpleasant situation (that is an action), or I should tackle the unpleasant situation. It can cause some discomfort, but it need not cause sorrow.

IF YOU LOOK INTO THE NATURE OF SORROW IT IS NOT CAUSED BY THE WORLD NOR DOES THE SIMPLE PERSON CAUSE IT

The simple person, being simple not complex, is not a source of sorrow. The world itself is incapable of giving rise to sorrow.

The world can be uncomfortable. Nobody can feel comfortable when bitten by a thousand mosquitoes. The world that you live in can be uncomfortable, but that is purely an objective world, a world that you objectively appreciate as being uncomfortable.

Sadness or sorrow we generally think is caused by an event, which is the world. We think it is caused by a situation, implying a person, which is the world. What is the world? Whatever you happen to confront, either sensorially or inferentially, is the world. There is no other world. And that world does not cause sorrow. It can present itself only in terms of comfortable or uncomfortable, desirable or undesirable. But the undesirability does not constitute sorrow.

We have to understand the nature of sorrow as something different from pain. A physical pain is definitely not comfortable. If you have a fracture or any physical problem, it is a painful thing; but the painful thing itself is not sorrow. When I say, “Freedom from sorrow,” I do not mean freedom from pain; I do not mean freedom from an uncomfortable situation.

We cannot avoid uncomfortable situations in the world, and we cannot go about asking why. There may be reasons, but this is how it is. Now it is winter; now it is summer. We cannot go to the North Pole, Alaska, and then complain that it is all snow and very cold. That is how Alaska is. Unless you are an Eskimo, you cannot enjoy the snow there. If you have to be in Alaska, you had better have the attitude of an Eskimo. If you have the attitude of an Eskimo and also the capability to live in igloos and so on, perhaps then you will enjoy a life in the snow.

LIFE IS FRAUGHT WITH DESIRABLE AND UNDESIRABLE SITUATIONS - TO EXPLAIN IT SASTRICALLY EVERY HUMAN BEING IS A MIXTURE OF PUNYA AND PAPA

There are situations that are desirable and situations that are undesirable in daily life. When you say, “This is my karma,” it is clear that it is papa. When you say, “This is my creation,” it is clear that it is punya.

We cannot have a world that is always free from pain and undesirable situations. Life is fraught with desirable and undesirable situations. To explain it sastrically, every human being is a mixture of punya and papa. When you say, “This is my karma,” it is clear that it is papa. When you say, “This is my creation,” it is clear that it is punya.

There are situations that are desirable and situations that are undesirable in daily life. You can look at your life and say that the whole life was more or less okay. Then you can look at the different time periods in your life, and you can say these ten years were wonderful, and these eighteen years were very bad. Astrologers will say, “You now have a good period for the next fifteen or sixteen years.” And then again he will tell, “But during these three years in between you have to be very careful.” He can also tell, “This morning is good for you, but this evening is

not that great.” And during the morning also it can be said, “This hour is better for you than the next hour.” Every human being is a misra—a mixture of punya and papa. Karma consists of punya and papa—-comfortable and uncomfortable situations.

Therefore, we find that we may get up feeling well in the morning, but in the evening we may have a problem, a backache. Or we may go to bed feeling well (it was a wonderful day), and then in the morning we may get up with a catch in our back. Thus, the whole life is fraught with changing situations that are called punya and papa that were gathered in this life or in a previous life. If we overeat and get a stomachache, the pain is definitely a result of what we recently did and not due to our previous life.

Therefore, either due to the remote past or due to the immediate past, we encounter various comfortable or uncomfortable situations. Nobody can avoid this. Even kings had their headaches; and even ex-president Reagan, who held the highest office available in the world, as president of America, had to undergo surgery on his nose and had headaches and a variety of other problems. No one is spared.

IT IS WRONG THINKING THAT CAUSES COMPLEXITY AND MAKES ME MISS WHAT IS AND LIVE IN A WORLD OF MY OWN MAKING

The wrongly-edited world in my head causes me sorrow. I fashion out of this vast world a world of my own by a thought process. Thought by thought there is a buildup of sadness. The world is edited by my own fears and anxieties and projections. This edited world is the one in which we are all living.

Everybody has to undergo these vicissitudes, these shifting circumstances, these ups and downs that keep occurring in life, which are both desirable and undesirable. Unless we understand this, we are always going to smart. This psychological smarting on our part is a refusal to accept situations as they are. It is this refusal that is the cause for sorrow. In other words, it destroys the simple person that we are. There are a number of reasons why the simple person is inhibited and made into a complex person. It is due to a certain type of thinking, which can definitely be corrected. It is wrong thinking that causes complexity and makes me miss what is and live in a world of my own making, which I always complain about saying, “The world has caused me sorrow.”

In fact, it is not the world that is there that causes me sorrow. But it is a wrongly-edited world that is here in my head that causes me sorrow. The world is edited by my own fears and anxieties and projections. This edited world is the one in which we are all living.

Definitely, everyone lives in his own thought bubble. One good thing about this bubble is we can prick it. Each person fashions out of this vast world a world of his or her own making purely by a thought process, and this thought process makes you sad. Tell me, can anybody be sad without a process of thinking? You cannot say, “Thinking makes me sad.” That is not true. Now you are thinking. Are you sad?

Thinking does not make one sad, but in sadness there is always thinking. You can never become sad suddenly. Sadness does not come like a lightening flash. It does not happen in a moment, in a trice. Thought by thought there is a buildup of sadness. There is a particular way of thinking that makes a person sad. You think yourself into sadness.

WE THINK THAT DEATH MEANS SADNESS - BUT DEATH IS AN EVENT - DEATH ITSELF IS NOT SADNESS - IF DEATH IS SADNESS BIRTH ALSO SHOULD BE SADNESS BECAUSE A MAN IS BORN TO DIE

When you hear the news, there is no sadness immediately. But death is something that leaves a permanent void, an emptiness, a vacancy. You are not going to see the person again in the same form.

Sadness does not happen like an event. Death happens. But sadness is something that comes as a consequence of thinking about death. Death is something that universally creates sadness. We generally offer our condolences to the bereaved. This we all accept.

We think that death means sadness, but death is an event. If death is sadness, birth also should be sadness because a man is born to die. Death itself is not sadness. When you hear the news, there is no sadness immediately. But death is something that leaves a permanent void, an emptiness, a vacancy. You are not going to see the person again in the same form.

Even though you may believe in the continuity of the departed soul or in the permanence of the soul or in the eternal nature of the soul, the soul is not going to appear in the same form as it was available in flesh and blood responding to your call, ready to fight with you. That person is no longer there in that particular form. Therefore, a void has been created in this world. A person who was so much alive and kicking is no longer available in that form. It is this void that no human being is able to accept.

WHAT REALLY BOTHERS A PERSON IS KNOWLEDGE OF ONE’S OMISSIONS AND COMMISSIONS

“Why did I do this?” “I was harsh on this person.” “I should have perhaps obliged this person.” “When he asked for this, I should have given it.”

When I begin to see that in the entire future of my life I am not going to see the person again in the same form, there is a certain type of thinking. That thinking leaves me in a state of void—emptiness, helplessness and loneliness; and naturally, I begin to think about my omissions and commissions. “Kim aham sadhu na akaravam; kim aham papam akaravam iti: Why did I not do those things that I should have done; why did I do those things which I should not have done?” What really bothers a person is this knowledge of omissions and commissions: “I was harsh on this person.” “I should have perhaps obliged this person.” “When he asked for this, I should have given it.” “Why did I do this?” There is no human heart that is so hard that it will not melt in the face of the death of someone dear. Naturally, we begin to think of our omissions and commissions.

When the person was alive, we criticized the person so much. I learned this when I was a young boy in the village. We had a sastri in the village who was a simple person. Really, he was a papam sadhu, a simpleton. People did not understand him. In those days trains were introduced, and he loved to ride on those trains. He would go to Kumbakonam and ask the stationmaster: “When is the next train?” The stationmaster would say, “Four o’clock.” “Where does it go?” “It goes to Madura, Trichi,” whatever. And he would say, “Give me a ticket.” He didn’t care where it went. He just wanted to travel on the train. He would get on and sit in a corner seat facing the opposite direction of the way the train traveled and put his head out the window.

In those days the trains did not have bars on the windows. He would untie the knot that held his tuft of hair and let his hair fly in the wind as the train moved along. He was ecstatic. What opinion would these calculating, scheming, village-wise people have? These village-wise people are not ordinary people, I tell you. These village-wise people who can read the other’s cards by their face, what would they think of him? They would definitely think of him as papam--a simpleton. Not only they thought of him like that, but also they talked so much about him that we all as children thought of him the same way. We used to play pranks on him. In the night he would be lying down sleeping, and we would tie the fellow’s hair to the rafter with a rope. In the morning getting up, he would find it was a problem. All kinds of things we used to do.

DEATH SEEMS TO BE A GREAT HEALER OF ALL WOUNDS AND SEEMS TO MAKE US WISER – DEATH MAKES US SEE THINGS MORE CLEARLY

As long as the man was alive, everybody called him names. After death he was praised. If death has to come to make us understand a person, when are we going to understand him?

Then this man passed away. On the thirteenth day a pandatji read about his life and praised him. He told what a simple man he was. He never abused anybody’s goodness. He was someone who could pick up happiness from small things. He was a man who never told a lie; he did not cheat anybody; he did not deceive anybody. He was a man who knew the Vedas very well and who lived a clean, simple life. And he passed away. Alas! As long as the man was alive, everybody called him names and called him a sadhu papam. We all played pranks on him.

When the panditji was praising him, I thought, “My God! Death seems to be a great healer of all wounds and seems to make us wiser; makes us see things more clearly. My God! If death has to come to make us understand a person, when are we going to understand him?” Look at this situation: Unless the man dies, I cannot understand him. In our thinking, there is something drastically wrong.

Unless we understand the silliness of our thinking, I do not think that anybody can properly live his or her life. We only drag our lives. So “Kim aham papam akaravam; kim aham sadhu na akaravam: Why did I not do the right thing? Why did I do the wrong thing?” This kind of thinking happens, and this thinking slowly leaves us in a helpless situation. We are sad. Nobody becomes sad without thinking. It is the thinking that makes us sad. Therefore, one fellow said: “Knock off thinking!” That is what the doctors do. When we go to a doctor when we are sad or bereaved, he will treat us with tranquilizers or some sedatives so that thinking does not take place. Maybe that is the only way. Either we should knock off our thinking by getting into a state of semi-coma, or we should change our thinking. We can choose between the two. We can live like a zombie always under the spell of some drugs, or we can change our thinking and get rid of sorrow.

PLEASE UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PAIN AND SORROW, PAIN IS PART OF THE CREATION BUT ONE THINKS ONE’S WAY INTO ACCOMPLISHING SADNESS

Pain is a part of the creation, but sorrow is caused by a particular way of thinking. We can change our thinking and get rid of sorrow. Nobody wants to be sad; one thinks one’s way into accomplishing that state.

Please understand the difference between pain and sorrow. Pain is there; it is a part of the creation. When I pinch you, definitely there is pain. That is Isvara sristi. If you pinch Swamiji, Swamiji will also have pain. Do not think that swamis have no pain. Swamis also have pain.

A Swami had a heart attack, and one gentleman came and asked me: “Why did a swami have a heart attack?” That is because swamis have hearts. There is no other reason. There is no

heartless swami. In fact, swamis have more heart. I say a swami has a heart attack because he has a heart. Suppose I ask you to go on opening and closing your fingers for one hour, clasping and opening, clasping and opening, after five minutes you will be tired and you will look for something else to do.

Here is a heart that has been working for the whole lifetime (forty or fifty years) with no rest whatsoever. We can take some sedatives and put the mind to rest; we can fast the system for thirty days; we can rest the body on a cot; we can rest every organ in the body; but the heart cannot rest; and we do not want it to rest also. Suppose it takes a little rest, lub and after half a minute dub. Lub------dub, lub, dub, lub, dub. Sometimes it misses a beat also, lub---lub. Even good musicians and dancers miss a beat sometimes. Here also the heart goes lub, dub, lub, dub, lub---lub, dub. What is the big deal? It is very natural if it misses now and then.

It is very revealing to see how we work ourselves into a state that we do not want to have. What I do not want to have I work myself into. Nobody wants to be sad; one thinks one’s way into accomplishing that state. It looks as though Bhagavan is giving us sadness because we are helpless. We look at the Lord as the one who is shoka karanam [the cause of sorrow], or we look at the world as shoka karanam. If you appreciate something more than the world (the Lord), then the Lord becomes shoka karanam. In fact, the Lord is not shoka karanam, and the mind is not shoka karanam; but a particular way of thinking is shoka karanam.

THERE ARE MANY WAYS OF THINKING WHICH LEAD TO SADNESS ONE OF THEM IS REFUSAL TO ACCEPT A FACT

We work up to sadness. If I see a person behaving in a particular manner and a certain type of thinking is born, that thinking is due to my refusal to accept the person as the person is.

There are many ways of thinking which lead to sadness. One of them is refusal to accept a fact. We do not accept facts. We work up to sadness. Suppose someone is not behaving as the person should, according to you; but in fact, the other person thinks the same way about you. People do not understand this. You think the other fellow is bad; but if you consult him, he has a list of complaints about you. Both people go to the same court, and both people are convinced that they are right. “I am right! I have not done anything wrong.” And the other fellow says, “I am right! I have not done anything wrong.”

It is clear that there are two perceptions. That means both people fail to see the facts. Like it takes two hands to clap, there are two perceptions. Both of them are projections, more

often than not, unless someone is dishonest or something. Both people do not face facts. Thus, if I see a person behaving in a particular manner and a certain type of thinking is born, that thinking is due to my refusal to accept the person as the person is.

WE DO NOT ACCEPT THINGS AS THEY ARE – WE WANT TO CHANGE THEM

A woman was complaining of thirst on the train. Even after quenching her thirst, she continued to complain about having been ‘so thirsty’.

Similarly, with regard to other situations, we do not even accept the lines on our palms. I saw one fellow who was traveling on the plane next to me stretching his line of destiny with an ink pen. This fellow might have read some palmistry book or something. However, the fact that he was traveling on an airplane means that the fellow was okay. But he wanted his line of destiny to be stretched, which means that he did not accept the lines on his palms. He wanted to change them. We do not accept things as they are.

A woman was traveling on a train with her husband. The train was traveling through a desert, and she was thirsty. There was no water available, and the station was far away. She was complaining: “I am so thirsty, I am so thirsty, I am so thirsty,” and her husband said: “Come on, wait! Let the train come to the station, and then we will find water. Do not worry, at least I will get you some Limeca.” But the woman repeated: “I am so thirsty, I am so thirsty, I am so thirsty.” Then the station came, and she quenched her thirst, and she even got an extra bottle of water to take along on the train with her to avoid a similar situation. As soon as the train started, she began telling, “I was so thirsty, I was so thirsty, I was so thirsty.”

IF WE KNOW HOW TO PUT A PERIOD IN OUR THINKING, WE ARE ACCEPTING A FACT

Any fact that we face is Isvara sristi; it is Bhagavan’s creation. When we accept a fact, we can perhaps avoid sorrow. When we accept a fact, we can act. When we do not accept a fact, then the whole thinking process becomes a reaction.

What does this mean? This is a very important thing to know. This particular story definitely reveals something. “I am thirsty.” Period, full stop! “Yes, you are thirsty.” “I want water.” “Yes, you want water.” “But I do not have water here.” “Yes, you do not have water here.” “When will the water come?” “When the next station comes, then perhaps we will get some water.” “Suppose there is no water there?” “Well, we will go to the next station.” “If no water is there, we will die without drinking water; then what will happen?” “Oh, you will go to heaven.” “Suppose I do not go to heaven?” “You will go to hell.” “Hell will be very hot.”

Understand this: “I am thirsty” is a fact. It is Isvara sristi; it is Bhagavan’s creation; or you can call it nature’s creation.

That we have thirst is Isvara sristi; that the water or something equivalent to it will quench the thirst is again Isvara sristi; that we do not have water here is again Isvara sristi. That is a fact. Any fact that we face is Isvara sristi. When we accept a fact, we can perhaps avoid sorrow. When the person has already quenched the thirst, and the situation for complaint is no longer there, but still there is complaining, that is refusal to accept a fact.

When we accept a fact, we can act. When we do not accept a fact, we react. Then the whole thinking process becomes a reaction. If it is a reaction, what control do we have over that? We do not have any control over that because it is a happening.

A REACTION IS A HAPPENING – IT IS NOT WILL BASED

It is not born of our approval and signature. When I do not accept a fact, there is a certain type of thinking, and that thinking is a reaction.

A reaction is born because our will has already been taken care of. It is like when an electrical transformer gets tripped—a mechanical part is released. Here also there is a tripping of our will. The will is already tripped for the reaction has already started.

A machine is called a machine because its performance is purely mechanical. If it is set to perform like a piston with so many strokes, that many strokes will be there. Similarly, if a motor has a certain RPM—so many revolutions per minute—that many revolutions will be there because it is set that way. If the motor has a will of its own and you buy this motor, you have had it. This will-based motor will not have the same revolutions all the way. Now there will be a hundred revolutions, if it is supposed to do a hundred, and now fifty and now forty, and in between it will want coffee. A will-based motor is not a machine. It is no longer mechanical.

We are not totally programmed. If we were programmed, we would not require all this talking. That is why there are no swamis among the cows and buffaloes. They are programmed to behave. That is Isvara sristi. It is not their will. The Blue Cross people, who have an animal park, want to make cats and dogs vegetarians. That is interference. Those animals are carnivorous. In your own house if there is a cat or dog, that would be okay. But this is an animal park. They say you should not feed these animals with non-vegetarian stuff. Carnivores are carnivores! Let them be carnivorous. Let us not interfere with them. You decide about yourself. Do we want to be carnivorous, or do we want to be herbivorous? We can decide! I am told that

we are evolutes of monkeys; monkeys are vegetarians even today; and, if we are evolutes of monkeys, we should be even better vegetarians.

The animals behave as they are programmed to behave. We are not totally programmed. We have to perform actions using our will. Every action is born of us. It has to have our stamp of approval. And maybe our stamp is an ignorant stamp, or maybe it is an innocent stamp. Or it can be an informed stamp. If it is an ignorant stamp, definitely I can change when I am informed.

People repeat the same mistakes. Do you know why? If they perform an action consciously, they can change. But things happen to them. It seems that their wisdom is all in one corner, and the happening is entirely different. A reaction is totally mechanical.

THE PARTICULAR WAY OF THINKING WHICH BUILDS UP SADNESS AND SORROW IN US IS A HAPPENING - A REACTION

Any sad situation, whether frustration or despair, which you do not want to have, is definitely a reaction. It does not have our approval. It takes us along with it. Without our being there, there cannot be sadness. I become the very thought, and one thought leads to another. I work myself up to a situation of sad thinking; and, therefore, I become sad.

The I is very much in the midst of the whole thing. Our will is the I. That viveka (what is to be done and what is not to be done) is not there. I know that I do not want to be sad. But then that wise I is taken care of, and I think myself into sadness.

When I do not accept a fact, there is a certain type of thinking, and that thinking is a reaction. It is not an action. Thinking can be a conscious affair, or it can be mechanical. Any sad situation, whether it is frustration or despair or sorrow (all of these are sorrow), or whatever the situation is which you do not want to have, it is definitely a reaction. It is a happening. It is a particular way of thinking.

YOU NEED NOT STOP MECHANICAL THINKING – WHEN YOU SAY, “MY MIND HAS BEEN THINKING MECHANICALLY,” YOU HAVE ALREADY BECOME FREE FROM BEING MECHANICAL

I am not telling you that you should stop mechanical thinking. I am asking you, “Are you aware that the thinking is mechanical?” If you are aware that the thinking has been mechanical, are you mechanical?

Then how are we going to stop this mechanical thinking which is a happening? Well, you need not stop mechanical thinking. You only have to know that this thinking is mechanical. Please understand me well. I do not want you to stop mechanical thinking. Otherwise, you will have new problems. You will say, “Swamiji, I have a lot of mechanical thinking.” It will be a

new complex contributed by the Swami. You have enough problems. I do not want to contribute to your complexes a new basis for self-criticism.

I am not telling you that you should stop mechanical thinking. I am asking you: “Are you aware that the thinking is mechanical?” If you are aware that the thinking has been mechanical, are you mechanical? If a machine is revolving a hundred times per minute and suppose the motor knows “I am revolving a hundred times per minute,” then it is no longer a machine. Thus, when you say, “My mind has been thinking mechanically,” you have already become free from being mechanical.

spiritual problem and psychological problem

2008-11-04T03:48:00.002-08:00

Satsang with Swami Dayananda Saraswati

Difference between spiritual problem and

psychological problem

Question

Swamiji, how can we tell the difference between a deep spiritual problem and a

psychological problem?

Answer

An example of psychological problem, I would say, is finding that I am sad for no

reason. Or, suddenly, I find I am panicky. Or, if there is something a little strange

or overwhelming, I feel threatened. Perhaps I cannot be in crowds. I shy away

from people. Or I may be afraid of authority which may be connected to some

childhood problems or some parental problems. These are all psychological

problems.

A spiritual problem is seen in someone who has solved all these psychological

problems, for the most part, but who is still sad. He or she is considered to be

“normal,” can interact well with people and so on, but is subject to his or her own

yo-yo emotions—now high, now low. This is because down below, there is

always a self-image which is as good as the body-mind-sense complex.

How then are we going to solve the problem? There is a legitimate fear, legitimate

anger, legitimate sorrow—“legitimate” because society has accepted them as

legitimate. Modern psychology says that anger is normal and that one must be

angry if a particular situation warrants it. Similarly, there is “normal” jealousy and

“normal” sadness. Because they are “normal,” there is nothing wrong with them.

These we solve spiritually. Vedanta says there is no such thing as “normal”

sorrow. The use of the word “normal,” then, marks the difference between

psychological and a spiritual problem.

Vedanta can resolve a problem if the mind is more or less normal. But, if the mind

is abnormal, Vedanta cannot help because the person cannot handle the subject

matter. It will not take hold. If, however, the person is unable to grasp what

Vedanta is saying, but stays with it and follows all the attitudes and values

properly, then it can help.

Vedanta itself has its own approach to psychology, normal psychology, that is. It

is raga dwesha(likes and dislikes) psychology and includes prayer, meditation, and

an understanding of values. If a person stays with it, follows it all properly, it can

help. I consider this to be the best approach.

On the other hand, Vedanta has no answer for abnormal psychology. It cannot

help people who are schizophrenic, for example. It will only confuse them, in fact,

and is therefore detrimental. This is why, originally in India, and still today, there

are those who will not teach Vedanta to just anyone. Only when the guru is

satisfied that the mind is prepared will he teach the person.

It was a common practice, one that is still used today, that when a man with

unprepared mind came to a teacher in Rishikesh, in the north of India, the teacher

would send him on foot, to Rameswaram, which is in the deep south. He was told

to go and come back—without money. “Then I will teach you,“ the teacher would

say. The idea was that by the time he came back, he would be normal—if he came

back.

From the north to the south of India is some thousands of miles so that it takes

about five years for a man to return. And anything can happen to him on the way,

even marriage. That, too, is “normal,” especially if he does not have very much

detachment towards the world. Or he may become so abnormal that he ends up in

an institution. He may even try to find another guru who will teach him

immediately. Either way, the teacher who sent him on this journey is satisfied.

__________________

Freedom

2008-08-09T09:40:00.001-07:00

Freedom
SWAMI DAYANANDA
I define freedom in a two-fold way: freedom from the past and freedom from and freedom from the concept of past, present and future. These are two types of freedom. Freedom from the past refers to your own past life, meaning, this life, your childhood, and so on. Everyone’s past has its own problems and these problems affect the person in the present. What I face now, at this moment, is not viewed objectively. It is always stifled, conditioned, prejudiced, and distorted by my own past. Freedom from this past means freedom from my psychological past. Freedom from one’s psychological past is a relative freedom, described in Gita as freedom from the pressure of one’s own likes and dislikes. There is also an ultimate freedom, called liberation or moksha. Freedom is always something undesirable. To be under the influence of the past is not very desirable because you miss the present. All sorrow, hurt, and pain are due to the past. Because the present, which becomes the past, also causes pain, you become subject to further pain. So the hurt get becomes more hurt and sad become more sad. That is how it is. There is also freedom from being small, being an individual, being a mortal, one who is subject to disease and death. Here, too, there is bondage in that there is a sense of imperfection and inadequacy in terms of time, place, strength, and knowledge—all of which form the very core personality, essentially, since the body-mind-sense complex is taken to be the self, “I”. This bondage is the basic bondage and is something I want to be free from. Being in the form of pain and therefore undesirable, I do not accept it. Ultimate freedom must necessarily be centered on the “I”, since I am the one who is bound and also the one who has to be free. This freedom is either already intrinsic to the self or it is not there at all. If it is intrinsic to the self, then the bondage is born of self-ignorance or error. Removal of the ignorance and thereby the error, is freedom, moksha. Vedanta says that self is already free, here and now, and that it has always been free. Therefore,
the already free self is recognized as it really is, meaning, I am free. And being identical with Brahman, the cause of whole creation, I am everything, I am the whole. This particular knowledge is what is meant by freedom, moksha.
For one who has this knowledge, there is no further birth, which is an extension of the freedom that is knowledge. There is oneness between the individual and the Lord. That I am the whole is a fact; it is the truth of the individual. It is also truth of the Lord. The Lord can say, “I am the whole,” and the individual can say the same thing because both are Brahman. This vision, gained through knowledge, is the only real freedom.

Swami Dayananda Photos

2008-08-09T08:04:00.003-07:00

Reshaping the Mind

2008-08-08T09:45:00.003-07:00

Reshaping the Mind
Swami Dayananda Saraswati

Question& Answer
Swamiji, what are some ways to reshape a mind that is judgmental and critical, a mind that you have referred to as a proofreader’s mind?
Answer
The problem here is that everyone wants to operate in a controlled situation. We want to have every situation under control so that it is easy for us to operate. To control a situation is to make things predictable. Only then do we feel we can operate. If we think we have no control, we cannot act and we panic. This is a psychological problem for many people. For such people, every situation has to be edited and controlled, even love. And once that control is gone, they cannot operate. If their plans are disturbed, they become panicky because they do not know how to operate without some kind of framework. This is due to a childhood problem and causes them to deal with everyone in a judgmental way. When we judge people, it is easier to deal with them. Thus, the saying “Call a man a dog and then kick him.” We operate from a standpoint of judgment. We can always relate to a judgment. But if we do not judge people, dealing with them becomes very difficult because we remain open, a situation that makes us feel very vulnerable and therefore uncomfortable. Because we always want to be very sure, we judge people, categorize them, label them. Then it is easy to deal with them. In everyday situations, we may sometimes have to do this. But fundamentally, if we judge and then label people, we have a problem. A judgmental person is a person who is not very sure about how to handle people as they are and finds it very difficult to do so. Those who are judgmental are also highly judgmental about themselves. Therefore, they judge others and then behave accordingly. They usually fulfill their own projections and then project their opinions, their judgments, upon others. People who judge others are always very sure that they are correct, which is another problem because they will not revise their opinions. They fall in love with their own judgments, as it were, and therefore do not want to revise them. Only in this way they feel secure. Those who keep revising their judgments are not judgmental, really speaking. In certain situations where you have to do something, you act, but you do not judge the person for good. This means you are open. To people who are judgmental, this openness is vulnerability. So they keep on judging. Being critical of others is a problem caused by some kind of jealousy, some kind of intolerance. The whole problem is based on a particular way of looking at oneself. If I am very insecure with myself, then I always seek secure situations outside, some framework within which to operate. Criticizing others amounts to low self-esteem.

How do I correct this problem? By looking into my self-esteem. Why do I have such a low self-esteem? What is it that I don’t’ have? In this way, we have to conduct an inquiry on self-esteem itself. Instead of trying to improve the selfesteem,
we ask ourselves, “What is this low self-esteem?” There are certain things, of course, which will help develop self-esteem, but
first we must question the low self-esteem, “What is esteem, and on what basis do I estimate myself?” Upon analysis, the low self-esteem will simply fall apart. Therefore, this analysis must be done constantly. We can also begin to give the benefit of doubt to the other person and to allow that person to be what he or she is. A person is a dynamic person and, therefore, can always change. Also, our perception may be wrong. More often than not, it is our own projection. We simply project and judge from our own standpoint. We have definite ideas about what is right and wrong and these we project upon other people. If we understand these things, we have a certain basis upon which to deal with people as they are. People are not always the same; they are continually changing. If we are ready for surprises, we will not be surprised. Nor will we be
disappointed. The proofreading mind is one that is always trying to find some defect in the other person. This is what is meant by criticism. The other person may have some virtues, but the one who criticizes always tries to find his or her defects. In fact, one who criticizes finds only the defects. To correct this, we should look only for the virtues and then any criticism that arises is more balanced. There is no necessity whatsoever to criticize. Criticism is nothing but intolerance, stemming from our own problems.

Understanding the Unconscious

2008-08-03T02:46:00.002-07:00

Swami Dayananda Saraswati

To be objective is what I call intelligent living. I need to be objective in many areas. And it is not enough that I understand this in general, vaguely. I must look deeply into certain areas that need to be understood, ventilated, in order to live a life of objectivity. There is a world available for public appreciation, but I live in my own world of fears, anxieties and projections. Everybody is living in a bubble. We have to prick this bubble and breathe fresh air. Let us understand first the reason for this subjectivity; then we will look into what it takes to be objective. Ignorance can be one factor involved in subjectivity. Generally, that is the factor we address when we teach Vedanta. We teach ‘what is’ so that you get clear knowledge with reference to certain realities. This is one thing. There is another factor, which is psychological and cannot be dismissed. Anyone who does not wish to address his or her psychological issues because they are very painful, dismisses the psychological factor as merely psychological. Therefore, we are going to address it.
Addressing the psychological factor.
When one is born, there is total helplessness. A human child is not as simple as a calf. A calf is born, it struggles and stands on its four legs. A human baby, perhaps, was very safe and secure only when it was not yet born. The baby’s body, connected to the mother, having its own heart, happily moving and floating inside, was totally secure, perhaps for the only period of time in its entire life. It is born to start an independent life. What a start to an independent life! To live independently one must have everything that is necessary. At least one must be able to beg. The newborn baby cannot even beg, but it is starting an independent life. The baby was safe a minute before. It is unsafe now, helpless, totally, since the cord is already snapped. It has to start its journey, an independent journey. Nothing is known. The eyes are still closed, not yet open. It starts its life with absolute trust in the person whose hands pick it up. It is ones hundred percent trust. Maybe, vaguely, while prenatal, the baby had heard the voice of the mother. It hears the same voice now. Perhaps there is a small disturbance inside if the voice is different, because the baby is given to somebody else. Only a small disturbance, for it cannot afford to question the person who nourishes it. It has to completely deliver itself to this person because it does not have the wherewithal to survive. As an organism it is programmed to survive; it has got that instinct. It is the only goal in the beginning. There is no other goal. If you were to ask the baby, “What is the goal of life?” and if it could answer, it would say, “I want to survive.” It has no other goal. It is not going to say, “I want to become the president of this country.” Survival is the organism’s untold story. It is the story of every organism.
A child’s total trust
The baby is helpless. It cannot even turn, much less does it have any resources to survive. It delivers itself to what I call trust. Do you know what kind of trust? It is total trust. You can have total trust only in someone who is all-knowing. You cannot place absolute trust in a person who is fallible, bound by time, bound by ageing, bound by disease and death. You cannot totally trust that person who can create, but can create only small things, and who also says he cannot do anything else; much less can you trust a person who can create but cannot maintain what he creates. Perhaps a person can create, can keep it going, but cannot withdraw, cannot stop like some people who do not know when to stop talking. Well, that person you cannot trust. One hundred percent trust in such a person is not possible. You can only trust that person who does not have any limitation whatsoever, in terms of knowledge and in terms of sakti, power.
Whichever way you look at that person, he or she has to have total capacity; that person
alone you can totally trust.
However, innocence on the part of the child makes total trust possible. Total trust is
necessary for that baby. It cannot afford to distrust; it has got to trust and trust totally.
Total trust means trust that the trusted person will nourish, will take care. That person
becomes Iswara, God, for that child and on the lap of that person, it relaxes; it goes to
sleep. To the voice of the person who rocks the cradle, or on the moving lap, the child
goes to sleep because it is safe. In its awareness there is safety because of total trust.
Safety comes from trust.
Gradual erosion of the child’s total trust
A mother is trustworthy until her mobile rings. Once upon a time the door was knocked upon. Once upon a time the telephone rang. That was all ‘once upon a time’. Now the mobile rings and you are away from the child. The child feels deprived because there is inconsistency. You are not around all the time. I want you to understand this thoroughly. We cannot afford to be ignorant of a few things. We need to know. Inconsistency causes disturbance to the child. In its awareness, the mother has to be around. As the baby grows, it also recognizes the other familiar voice of a different frequency that was heard while it was pre-natal, sometimes in the morning and evening.
Sometimes it is heard after ten days. Even that is a soothing experience and gives a sense of security. Well, this consistency on the part of a mother makes the child feel secure. She may not be a working mother. This ‘working mother’ is a new expression, as though the other mothers do not work. They work in the kitchen, go to the market; they work at home. As long as the mother is not away in the child’s awareness, the child feels secure. As long as the mother does not fall ill, the child is secure. As long as the mother does not share the attention with another baby, the child is secure. As long as the mother does not raise her voice, the child is secure. As long as the mother does not argue with the other frequency-voiced person, the child is secure. You can understand now that as the child grows, the insecurity also grows. It begins to see the fallibility, the inconsistency. Where is the total trust? The total trust gets violated, gets eroded all the time.
In a joint family the child always had a lap, an empty lap. It sat on the empty lap of a grandmother or of an aunt. Now there are no empty laps; even if a lap is empty, there is
a laptop on it. Where is there an empty lap? There is no empty lap available, so the child grows insecure, and remains insecure, constantly seeking the same safety, the same security that it had experienced before it was born.
This particular experience of the child, which remains throughout its life, is what is called the unconscious. Every adult has the responsibility to process this insecurity with which one cannot live. To live intelligently, to live objectively, one has to understand this unconscious very thoroughly. The unconscious interprets everything. It vitiates every experience. It distorts everything. Nothing is seen as it is. We need to become conscious of this unconscious. We will.
We have an equivalent word “kashaya” in Sanskrit for the term unconscious. Kashaya controls one’s life; one has no control over it. The nature of kashaya, the unconscious, is such that you cannot have any say over it, inasmuch as it is something that you are not conscious of. Really speaking, our mechanical behavior comes from this unconscious.
Scriptures, such as the Bhagavad gita and the upanishads, also address the problems caused by the unconscious. The word ‘atmavan’ of the scriptures, means the one who has atma. Everybody has an atma. Atma here is the whole karya karana sanghata, our bodymind- sense complex. Atmavan is the one who has a say over the ways of one’s mind. It reveals our Sastra’s recognition that one needs to address one’s kashaya. In fact the whole Hindu samskriti culture recognises this as an issue to be addressed.
Let us understand this kashaya, the unconscious. The human child, the survivor, wants to have its gods always on its side. Obviously it does not want to lose them or their grace. The child expects the parents to be totally free from any form of limitation. Where is the possibility? Knowledge-wise, power-wise, health-wise, longevity-wise, consistency wise, the mother has to be free from limitation, but the fact is that the mother has limitations. As for the father, he has many more, not fewer. Therefore, as the child grows, the total trust that the child enjoyed gets violated. The helplessness of the child continues. The two-year-old is helpless. It has discovered its own ego, but begins to discover more and more limitations in the parents without verbalising them. The nonverbal recognition of the limitations that violate trust is deadly. This is the pain that forms the unconscious. The child cannot afford to have this pain. It will die of pain.
Therefore, in nature, let us call it ‘nature’ for the time being, there is a provision for the child to put this pain under the carpet, the carpet of the conscious mind. It is the flip side of the ego, the shadow part of oneself, which we call the unconscious. Impact of nursery school on the child
In these days of competition, we send the children to school even before they are two years old. I saw in a nursery school, in Bhavnagar (Gujarat), a child of just eighteen months old. I asked for its mother but the mother was not there. The person who runs this school, and who happened to be my host, was very happy, joyous, that in her school there was a child of one and one half years. She said, “You know, Swamiji, this child is only eighteen months old.” It was a complete and deadly violation of the child’s trust. It was blatant. Already, there are some violations that a parent cannot avoid. The mother has to go here and there; in between there are some quarrels, there is some headache, there is some shouting and so on. This is a mortal’s lot, which itself causes enough problems for the child. These are the normal problems of people. If a one and a half year old, a two-year old or a three-year old is sent to a school, separating it from the mother, it is the cause for neurosis.
In the awareness of the child there is no presence of the mother. In fact, the child feels banished when it is sent to the school; the mother has vanished from its awareness. The child feels that the all-knowing, almighty mother, the trusted one, cannot commit a mistake. So, it concludes, “Something is wrong with me; that is why I am being sent away.” People say that this neurosis is a contribution of the society. The sociologists talk about this. It is all ignorance, nothing but sheer ignorance. This contribution is only made by the parents. They have banished the child to the school.
The parents question, “How will they learn social etiquette, social skills?” What social skills? Do we not have social skills? Everybody has social skills. You can teach all about social skills in just two days; it does not take time. What we need are stable people. The parents also argue, “How will my child later compete in this competitive world if it does not go to nursery school? Further, these elementary schools will not give admission unless I have a nursery school certificate.” That is another problem. We need to change this.
These nursery schools destroy the stability, the sanity of the future generation. The current generation itself comes out of that. Later on, we push these children to score ninety-seven percent, ninety-eight percent, ninety-nine percent and so on. The father scored just seventy percent; the mother scored seventy two percent. If we go by the genetic average, this child should score only seventy one percent. How will he or she score that ninety-nine? Genetically it is illogical. Therefore you constantly push the children until they have a break down. If they do not have a break down, you will not know what they will do later on. Do not send the children to nursery school. You send the children to school from class one when the child is five year old. That is the correct thing to do. A need for a re-look at nursery schools If one sends the child to a nursery school, then someone must accompany the child from home. Therefore, I say, let us have nursery schools where the mother also comes to the school.
“Swamiji, every mother cannot come.”
“Then, why should she become a mother?”
“What Swamiji, she wants to be a mother.”
“But then let her be a mother.”
“No, she is a mother in the morning, a mother in the evening.”
“What is she in between?”
“She is a working woman.”
Even at the work place the feeling of a mother is always there. You cannot be a mother in the morning, a mother in the evening, and smother the mother in between. It is impossible. You are a mother always, even without the child. However, if the child is without the mother, it is not right.
We have started two schools now in Chennai where mothers accompany the children. In fact, we should start such a school in every locality. Ask the children to come with their mothers and start one school. Do away with all the nursery schools once and for all or make them do what they ought to do. It is important that they do this because nobody has the right to destroy a life. All evidence says that it is not good for the child, for the whole society, for our culture, for our country. When someone goes against the evidence, then that person has not really understood.
I appeal now to the sanity of the people. We need to be very gentle to our children, sensitive to their needs and never be responsible for separating a child from its mother, from its gods. Never come in between a child and its gods in the name of schooling. In our culture, you cannot come between a husband and his wife. You cannot even walk in between them when they are talking to each other. You cannot walk in between a mother and a child. You cannot walk in between a teacher and his student. You should never come in between the child and its gods. This is very important.
Vedic system of education
In ancient times, we did not have this kind of a situation. When we read the chandogya upanishad we find that Uddalaka, the father of swetaketu, sent swetaketu to a gurukulam when he was twelve years old. We have to learn from the Veda; a child is sent to a gurukulam only after it is twelve years old. Until then the child has to learn at home. It means that the teenage years are spent in the gurukulam. It is a wonderful arrangement for the parents because they are free from the children’s teenage problems. The teachers at the gurukulam will deal with the teenage problems. Until he or she is twelve years old, the child has to remain with the parents and study. It is a very sane arrangement. After all, Madam Montessori’s system came within the last few years. We can change it again within a few years. Ms. Montessori was a good woman. She thought she was contributing something to the growth of the child. She never knew that she was causing neurosis. This neurosis makes the child feel, “I am no good, that is why my mother sent me away.” The worst thing is the mother telling me, “Swamiji, my child is different; she
loves school. She comes back and tells me all about school and how she enjoyed it.” The more the child loves school, the more is the pain underneath. The child seems to be happy because she wants to win her mother back. The more the child expresses its great admiration for the parents, the greater is the pain underneath. The unconscious gets loaded day after day. By the age of four and a half the unconscious build-up is over, and then there is a conscious build-up. The conscious build-up confirms the unconscious anyway. So, during one’s entire life there is this feeling that ‘nobody likes me, nobody wants me’ and a sense of loneliness. In this crowded jagat, there is loneliness. Think this over. When you look up, there are stars. When you look around, there are people and people. If there are no people, you have enough bugs at least. You do not lack company at any time. How can anybody be lonely? It is only a sense. Besides this, the child also has an intrinsic sense of its own worth, its own goodness. So the child also feels that it is not understood. It thinks “I have not done anything wrong. Why should I be sent away? Why should I be banished, punished like this? It is not my mistake. And yet, because the parents are gods, “Maybe there is a mistake because I am banished. My parents cannot be wrong, but at the same time, I have not done anything wrong.” Thus, the innocent child is really confused. The confusion remains during the entire lifetime of the person; it makes his or her reaction to every situation subjective instead of objective.
One projects things that are not there. Simple things are converted into problems. For instance. somebody, who is very dear to you was trying to sneeze, and that was exactly the time you asked the person, “Do you still like me?” The person was trying to sneeze and was making such contortions that his face looked as though he was frowning. Since his face was ‘frowning’, it was taken to be an answer, a negative answer. Even body language becomes a very big problem.
Need for communication at home When there is no communication at home, people walk on eggshells. Parents tell me,
“Swamiji, we never quarrel in the presence of our children.” Do they really believe that the children do not know that they quarrel? Well, the children always sense that something has happened. Later, when the parents return laughing, the child sees something wrong in that extra laughter and walks on eggshells in the house. In the West, such a home is called dysfunctional. You can understand what a dysfunctional home is. Between the parents there is no understanding, no amity and there is no joy; so the child is always in a panic. This is before the child is four and a half years old and even after that the panic continues.
Structured society was a blessing
Long ago, the Indian mind was considered to be solid and secure because people lived in a highly structured and predictable society. If the father were a priest, the son also would be a priest. Therefore, there were no worries about what one would do in life. The son would be a priest. He may be a better priest, more informed, highly educated and a scholar. Thus, in the very profession itself excellence was accomplished. Because it was secure and structured, there was some sanity in the society. I do not want that kind of a social system to come back. I do not care for that, but I care for sanity and we cannot barter it away for anything. Why are we sacrificing emotional stability?
Happiness is accepting oneself totally as a person
A part of Indian society is the person who is happy just sitting under a tree. He does not have anything. This is something to tell the whole world. A person with a mere loincloth is blessed when he is happy and contented, “kaopeenavanta khalu bhagyavanta”. It is not that all loin-clothed people are blessed, but there are people who are happy being what they are, even if they do not have anything. After all, what is it that one wants to accomplish? You need to accept yourself as a person totally. If you have total acceptance inside and outside, you have made it. Until then, you seek the approval of others, approval of the society. You want to prove yourself to be somebody. It is a constant struggle.
Stability in a structured society and home
We say this is a progressive society. Honestly speaking, India had a sanity that everyone admired. Even today, there is a reality that we better recognize. I do not say it as a credit to us. What is that reality? Every one of the post-war independent countries, countries that became independent from the colonising countries, has had coups. Even in our neighbouring country, which was a part of this country, a country carved out of our country, there have been coups, one after another. Then, how come there has not been a single coup in India? Is there something wrong with us? Did not India have situations where there should have been a revolution? Were there no occasions for a coup? There were occasions, but then, a coup never took place. It is our culture; there is sanity and there is stability. I do not want to think that it is a left over of our past culture. It has not completely disappeared; it is still alive. In a structured society there is stability. In a structured home there is stability. When the home is not structured, when what happens today and what will happen tomorrow are not very clear, the home becomes ysfunctional. The children are always in a panic. The unconscious controls one’s life Everyone has an unconscious. That is why a lot of things happen to us, like krodha, anger. It is not that we are consciously getting angry. Anger is considered to be a mahapapma, the greatest enemy, sitting inside us. Anger is born of the unconscious. With reference to desire, there is a certain choice involved. With anger, the choice is surrendered. That is the reason why one cannot decide to be angry. You cannot consciously be angry even if I plead to you. I can ask you to clap, “Please clap.” You can either clap, or you need not clap, because freedom is literally in your hands. When I said, “Clap, come on, clap”, some of you clapped, some of you did not clap and perhaps thought, like typical Indians, “Others will clap, why should I clap?” In this clapping, there is complete freedom. It is centered on your will. You can either do it or you need not do it. Yet, when I tell you, “Be angry for half a minute”, it is different. Not being angry is one thing, but being incapable of being angry is quite another. Not doing adharma is one thing, but being incapable of doing adharma is quite another. It is entirely a different level of one’s growth. Are you incapable of being angry just for half a minute? Well, one does get angry but not consciously, which amounts to saying that one gets angry unconsciously.
“Swamiji, it is not that unconsciously I get angry. There is always somebody that makes me angry.” No, it is the unconscious. If somebody can make you angry, it is due to the unconscious. Nobody is capable of making you angry. You have given yourself to somebody for him or her to make you angry; this is the unconscious. It means that you live in a world of your own projection. There is no person or anything in the world that can make you angry. Anger is a symptom. It is an outcome and an expression of the pain that is there in the unconscious. Therefore, the unconscious is a child frozen in time.
Everyone has a child in himself or herself. The child has something beautiful; it has innocence, it has freshness. It gives you those curious looks, asks curious questions, the what, why, how and so on. They always have the same freshness whether they come from the child outside, the child within or from the adult.
If the adult ego and the child are one and the same, integrated, then one always looks at things afresh, always questions, always wants to know. We need that child, its freshness. Even now you have that. Yet, when anger takes over, jealousy takes over, hatred takes over, one feels possessed.
Processing the unconscious
Arjuna asked the question, “Why does one do things even when one does not want to?” It is an old question, nothing new. I have told you that the reason for this is the unconscious, the inner child. One’s life is controlled by the unconscious, so it has to be ventilated, to be brought out, to be expressed. In life it is expressing itself anyway, without your knowledge. If you do not have an insight into this, it will continue to express throughout your life. If you have knowledge, you can process the whole matter. You can welcome your fears; you can welcome your anxieties. Since you have the knowledge of what is going on, you can understand; you have the space provided by that knowledge. Knowledge is the only saving grace.
One-step and two-step response
The inner space is provided by a certain clarity and understanding of all that has happened to me. It gives me a beautiful frame of mind to deal with myself, and also, others. Not only have things happened to me, things have happened to others too. A person behaves in a particular way because there is a background. I recognise the person’s background in that behaviour. This recognition gives me space, so I will not immediately react to that person. This is what I call a two-step response to the world. A one-step response is, “How can you say that?” “How you can ever say that?” How dare you say that?” It is a mechanical response. With a two-step response, you say, “Oh, there is a background behind the person’s remark.” You have the space inside for that. You recognize that there is a background for his or her statement; otherwise this statement would be unacceptable. It is unbecoming of the person. You understand that there is something behind the person’s behavior, and you respond to the person, not the behavior. Thus, you make a two-step response. A two-step response gives you that inner leisure, the inner space to deal with people of different backgrounds without being ruffled, without being taken for a ride. You can just step back and look at them kindly. Here is where kindness comes, compassion comes
and understanding comes. If everyone had this two-step response then everybody would be saintly. All saintliness lies just one step away. Everybody has this saintliness one step away. To respond to the world consciously, you first need to respond to your own issues. You need to have the space to welcome your anger, your fear. Managing the anger “Swamiji, this seems to be something different. We are always told to control our anger.” If you control your anger, a few days later, you will have a tsunami. We do not control anger; we control the expression of anger. Please understand the difference. By not expressing your anger, you do not victimise your children; you do not victimise your spouse. Marriage does not mean having a sparring partner. You do not victimise anyone. ‘Control your anger’ is a loose statement. You cannot control anger, because anger does not seek your permission to come. It does not ask, “May I come? I have been waiting for some time. May I come now?” There is so much ignorance about anger that it has become a moneymaking topic. At some workshops on ‘how to control anger’, they say, “Whenever you are angry, think of this or of that. Divert yourself from anger.” If you divert your anger you will develop diverticulitis! Where will the anger go? You only control the expression of your anger. You can use your will for this, that too with the help of people. Intelligent living is to
seek help when you need help. Therefore, if you can use your will with some help, you can avoid victimising anyone. This is called dama; dama means "bahyendriya nigraha" control of the external organs. You do not victimise anyone, but since anger is inside you, smoke will come out of your ears. To avoid that, you write the anger out. Writing the anger out means getting rid of anger. You handle your own unconscious intelligently; you handle yourself intelligently. You
cannot be ignorant about this. When a New Year begins, you make a vow, “I am going to write a diary.” Recently you might have made one. Please check the diary now; check all the diaries from 1999 onwards at least. You may have entries on the first three pages. The rest will be blank and it may have been used as a scrapbook. Such is its fate. So, do not make these unintelligent vows. Why do you make them? Be intelligent. You know that you are not going to write a diary, so, why do you make the vow? In the same way, never say, “Hereafter, I am not going to get angry.” It is wrong. You say, “I welcome anger, but I am not going to victimise anyone. I will not victimise my own children. I am not going to victimise my spouse. I am not going to victimise my in-laws, or anyone; I am not going to victimise myself either.” It is clean as a whistle. It is not correct to victimise oneself either. We need to be intelligent. We need to handle this intelligently.
Welcome the anger
You welcome anger. When it comes, you do not victimise anyone, but you do not reject the anger either. It is easier with some help. You can help yourself and you can ask your own family for help, and thus convert a dysfunctional home into a functional one. Make it functional by telling everybody, “In this house, hereafter, nobody is going to victimise anyone because of his or her anger.” It means that when you are angry, you say, “I am angry now, I will talk to you later.” Tell the others also, “When you are angry, say that you will talk later.” Empower them by saying, “Whenever I am angry, please remind me that I am angry, so that I will not victimise others.” Tell this to your children; they will remind you before you get anywhere near anger. They know. “Dad, you are somewhere near getting angry.” They know; they can remind you. They also cannot victimise anyone. Make the home functional. You cannot hand over a better inheritance to your children than an honest home, a clean home where there is understanding. The growth, self-growth is in the home. What kind of a home is it where the self is crippled? What kind of a home is it where, the children scamper to their own rooms or wherever they
can hide themselves, because father is coming?” The ‘father’s coming’ is like a warning, like a tiger’s coming. Except the dog, everybody goes inside. There are some people from whom even the dogs go away. It is not right. This is not intelligent living. We need to be intelligent. I say, we need to be intelligent. The recognition of an unconscious is a breakthrough. Therefore you do not blame yourself. No child is responsible for all that has happened. It is absolutely innocent. It
does not mean, however, that the parents are to blame. They have their own unconscious to deal with. There is no need to blame anyone; if they had cared a little more, they would have done much better, but they did not know. The result is that you have pain and anger is the outcome. With this understanding, you can create a home, a functional home, without traces of the old problems. There is dialogue; there is fairness. Even a small hut becomes heaven when there is dialogue, when there is understanding. You can be honest only when there is no shame. You need not be ashamed of anger because you understand that it is not wrong; that it is the expression of the unconscious. This is how you change.

GURU PURNIMA

2008-07-21T04:46:00.001-07:00

Gurupoornima
Swami Dayananda Saraswati
As we have Father’s Day and Mothers Day, Gurus also have their own day. This day is Gurupoornima and it marks the anniversary of Veda Vyasa, who occupies an exalted place in the hierarchy of teachers. Although there were also gurus for Veda Vyasa, we look upon Vyasa as the one who forms a link between the teachers that we know and the teachers that we don’t know. On this particular day, Gurupoornima, the sanyasins make a vrata, a vow, to stay in one place and teach for two months. Gurupoornima occurs at the beginning of the rainy season in India, during which time one finds many small insects and other tiny creatures on the ground. Although sanyasins usually wander from place to place, during the rainy season they remain in one place. At the time of taking sanyasa, they took a vow of ahimsa, or non-injury to any living being, thus, the sanyasins do not travel during the rainy season, in order to avoid killing any of the small creatures that might be in their path. For two months, beginning on Gurupoornima day, they stay in one place and teach. Traditionally, the one place in which the sanyasins stay is located on land between two bodies of water—streams, rivers, or canals. If they need to walk, they confine their movement to that area.
The vow is called the “four-month vow”, chaturmasya vrata. How does four months become two? There is a version of this vow that requires remaining stationary only for two lunar months, because the month is defined as a fortnight “ paksha”, the fifteen-day period of waxing or waning of the moon—(paksho vy masa iti) “A month is indeed a paksha, thus, a four-month (4 paksha=4 months here.= 2months only). For the two months of August and September the sanyasins stay in one place and teach.
At the beginning of these two months, on this particular day called Gurupoornima, they invoke the lineage of teachers, Guruparampara. All the gurus in the tradition, parampara, especially in maddas(maths), traditional monastic places of learning, are invoked. There are many maddas, including the Sankara maddas. The head of each madda is like a pontiff, and has a certain following. Each one of these heads performs a daily puja to invoke the gurus in the hierarchy. There are at least 16 gurus in the parampara, and the grace of each is invoked in a water vessel. That is the ritual aspect of it. Just as we have Father’s Day and Mother’s Day, this day is Guru’s Day.
The word ‘guru’ has a number of meanings. The one who teaches is a guru; the one who helps somebody out of trouble is also a guru. These days, the word ‘guru’ is also used in the English language. In the American press we find ‘guru’ being used very widely by journalists. They say, for instance, “He is an automobile guru”, or “He is a stock market guru.” Even in India, it is used in that way. When I was a boy, I wanted to learn a very complex form of martial arts in which a stick is used. It is an excellent discipline that teaches coordination and other skills. One of our family’s agricultural workers was a teacher of this art. When I asked him to teach me, he said that first I had to give him the traditional offering to the teacher (guru dakshina). So I gave him a coconut, fruits, flowers, and a small amount of money. Only then would he begin teaching. His respect for his art was so great that he called himself a guru, and I respected him as such. When a person thinks of himself as a guru, the one who learns from him also feels that is true—he evokes in you the feeling of a disciple. In addition to martial arts teachers, classical dance masters and musicians also insist on being called gurus. Many teachers of art forms that must be taught directly are considered gurus.
While I have nothing against that, the word ‘guru’ really can be used only for a person who teaches spiritual knowledge. A guru is one who unfolds the knowledge that you are the whole, not separate from the Lord. A guru is the upadesaka—the one who is the teacher of the mahavakya, the equation revealing that you are the whole. The wholeness which you are seeking basically is not separate from you. The very fact that you are seeking that is because it is you—you want to be yourself. And the one who teaches that is called a guru. That is the final definition: mahavakya upadesha karta , the one who teaches the statement revealing the identity of the individual and the Lord, the whole.
The guru is a human being. When the guru is praised, however, Gurur Brahma Gurur Vishnu Gurur Devo Maheswaraha , “The guru is Brahma, the guru is Vishnu, the guru is Siva” the human element is not taken into account. Only the truth element is taken into account because the guru teaches that you are Brahman, you are limitless. When he teaches that you are limitless, he doesn’t mean, “I am limited; you are limitless.” You are limitless and he is limitless. And the limitless is Brahman; the limitless is Vishnu; the limitless is Rudra, or Siva, the limitless is you. Everything is this limitlessness. So, when we praise the guru, the human element is just completely absorbed in the total element. You relegate the human element to the background, or you absorb it into the total. It is the total that is worshipped. In that way, the guru, the person
with a human body who teaches, becomes a kind of an altar of worship. But what is being invoked is the Lord. Just as when you worship the ( murti) form of Dakshinamoorthii in the temple, it is not the murti you are worshipping, but the Lord. You invoke and worship the Lord in a particular form. Similarly, when you praise the person who teaches you and for whom you have sraddha, it is not the individual person you praise, but the teaching itself, for what he teaches is not separate from him.
"Gurur Brahma Gurur Vishnu Gurur Devo Maheswaraha
Guru Sakshat ParaBrahma tasmai sri gurave namaha"
The guru is Brahma, the guru is Vishnu the guru is Maheswara, the guru is the immediate limitless Brahman. Salutations to that revered guru.
Praise of the guru is praise for the truth of the teaching.
"Akhanda mandalakaram vyaptam yena characharam
Tatpadam darshitam yena tasmai sri gurave namaha"
yena- by whom; darshitam- was shown; tat padam - that end; yena- by whom; vyaptam – is pervaded; akhanda -mandala-akaram - this entire universe; chara-acharam – of living beings and inert things; tasmai sri gurave - unto that guru namaha - my salutations.
By whom was shown that end by whom this entire universe of living beings and inert things is pervaded, unto that guru my salutations.
unto that guru, my namaskara, my salutation;, by whom that, that end, that abode, was shown very clearly,. And what is that padam? yena padena chara-acharam vyaptam. Here, pada is Brahman. By which Brahman, by which reality, this entire universe of living beings and inert things are pervaded. To that teacher ,by whom that Lord, , that reality, who is in the form of this great universe, was shown, my namaskara.
The gaining of any knowledge is the greatest miracle. How is the mind able to grasp a totally new fact or concept? If you are ignorant by nature, you cannot know. If you are knowing by nature, you need not know. And you cannot see more than you know, yet you keep increasing your existing knowledge; you keep on shedding ignorance. That is because under certain conditions you are able to see. The teacher is the one who creates those conditions. He has to create the necessary inner conditions for knowledge to take place, and he does so by using reason and by citing your own experiences. In that way, he helps you see. In fact, the teacher creates a
condition from where you cannot but see. That’s what teaching is about. And it’s a miracle, an impossibility that happens. You cannot see more than you already know, yet you always do. That’s how you keep knowing more and more. How can that happen? The answer is very simple: you are all- knowing.
Your essence is pure knowledge. We say that the Lord is all-knowing, that all knowledge is in the Lord. Yet who is this Lord? If the Lord were to say, “I am the Lord,” that “I am” is not going to be any different from the meaning of the statement “I am” that you make. When you say, “I am,” that is exactly the same as the “I am” of the Lord. There is one limitless consciousness. Consciousness cannot be limited because it is one, and it is formless. The Lord is a conscious being, and the limitless consciousness is the same for the Lord and for you. I am limited only with reference to my body, mind and sense organs. As consciousness I am limitless. The Lord ‘also’ is limitless consciousness, for being limitless, there is only one consciousness. If the Lord is all-knowing, that all-knowledge rests in that consciousness. Which consciousness? The consciousness that is one, that is limitless, that is you. And that means all knowledge rests in you.
If all knowledge rests in me, why don’t I know everything? With reference to the individual, the knowledge is inhibited. With reference to the Lord, it is uninhibited. This inhibiting factor is what we call Avarana , something that covers knowledge. When we create the conditions for knowledge to take place, the Avarana goes. That Avarana, that ignorance, that veiling power goes, so that knowledge is unveiled. Interestingly, the English word that refers to any new finding is ‘dis-covery’—dispelling the cover, dismissing the cover. Whether intentionally coined in that way or not, the word is amazingly apt. The cover is the veil— Avarana. Knowledge need only be uncovered, discovered, because it is already there. You don’t really know anything on your own. All knowledge is only from the Lord, whether it is knowledge of how to make an enchilada or knowledge of physics. Every form of knowledge is in the all-knowledge. And the removal of the inhibiting factor is what we call knowing. Like a surgeon who removes cataracts so that you can see the world, the guru creates the conditions for ignorance to be dispelled, so that you can see the truth of yourself and the world.
There are two types of blindness. One is not repairable; the other is. This second type of blindness is pointed out in the following verse as an example.
Ajnana timirandasya jnananjana shalakaya
Chakshurunmeelitam yena tasmai sri gurave namaha
Tasmai sri gurave namaha – to that guru my salutations yena – by whom; chakshu – the eye ( of knowledge); unmeelitam - is opened; ajnana timirandasya - for the one who is blind due to ignorance; jnananjana shalakaya – by applying the ointment of knowledge.
My salutations to that guru by whom the eye ( of knowledge) is opened for the one who is blind due to ignorance by applying the ointment of knowledge.
Here the example is a blind person, andha. What is the cause of the blindness? Timira—cataracts. Due to cataracts, the person is not able to see; he is timira-andha. What is to be done? The surgeon removes the cataracts. In India, in the days in which this verse was composed, they seem to have had a remedy in the form of an ointment to remove cataracts anjana means ointment. Anjana shalakaya —by applying this ointment, the malady was removed. So too, here, even though you are a knowing person, essentially an all-knowing person, that knowledge is covered by ignorance. But, like a cataract, the ignorance can be removed. Therefore, everybody is ajnana timirandaha , blind due to the cataract of ignorance. Ignorance alone is the cataract; because of that cataract, one becomes blind, This ignorance alone is the timira, the cataract, because of which, knowledge is inhibited. That inhibiting factor is removed by whom? To that one (tasmai) by whom (yena) the inner eye of knowledge (chakshu) is opened (unmeelitam), my namaskËra (namaha). Therefore, the guru does not really ‘deliver’ anything. He is the one who removes; he is the surgeon who removes that inhibiting factor and helps you see. It is a highly responsible job and it can only be done by one who knows the truth and the method of teaching. If the teacher doesn’t know, he will only confuse others with his words.
A teaching method is required because the problem is a very peculiar one. In one book it is said that the guru must be a person with a little extra compassion. Ordinary compassion is not enough. An ordinarily compassionate human being will feel empathy when he sees a person who is really suffering, and may begin helping that person in whichever way he can. That is natural human compassion. But if he sees someone suffering for no reason at all, empathy-born compassion will not be evoked. It is through the gate of empathy that compassion and the desire to help are evoked. Since a person who suffers for no reason may not evoke empathy, it takes someone with extra compassion to choose to help that person. You can help a person who suffers for a reason by taking measures to remove the cause of the suffering, but how can you help a person who suffers for no reason? He is like the person who mistakenly believes he has been bitten by a snake. If he were really bitten by a snake, you could help him by
taking him to the hospital for an anti-venom injection. And perhaps you could administer first aid by tying a piece of cloth above the bite and making an opening for the poisoned blood to escape. These are the practical steps that you could take, all of which are induced by your empathy. But what can you do for the “ajnana sarpa dashta” when he screams, “Help! Help! I’ve been bitten by a snake!” When asked where he was bitten, he points in the direction of his foot, saying, “There!” He refuses to even look in the direction of what he feels to be a deadly wound. But when you look at his foot, you see only a thorn lodged there, which you remove. “Do you feel better now?” you ask. “No, no!” he cries. “I was bitten by a snake!” In fact, what had happened was that he stepped on a thorn and at the same time, he looked down near his foot and saw a water hose. In his panic, the hose became a snake, and the thorn became its deadly fangs. Now the fellow is showing all the effects of fear—he really is sweating, his heart is really pounding—and he may even die of fright, all due to his belief, “I was bitten by the snake!” True or not, since he thinks so, it is true for him. Yet knowing that he is not in danger, you can’t help but feel some amusement, rather than empathy. So, how will you help this person? Since there is no danger, you could walk away, but still, you see how he is suffering. That’s why an extra ounce of compassion is required. That compassion comes from the realization, “I was once like that; I went through that experience, too.” If I had gone through the same blessed thing, I can easily appreciate the person’s lot and I can be of help. That is why the guru is described as ahetuka daya sindhuh—an ocean of daya, compassion, without any reason. There is no reason. The student may ask, “Why you are so compassionate? Why should you teach me at all? What have I done?” Nothing. “What do you expect of me?” Nothing. You ask why I teach you. Why should I not teach you? You need to be taught, so I teach.
This knowledge is not like a discrete academic subject that you can learn simply by reading a textbook. It is a complete unfoldment and the teacher-student connection is necessary in order to make the knowledge work for the student. It is similar to a relationship with a therapist in which trust and a certain amount of time are necessary. The guru is more like a super-therapist. He must re-orient the student over a period of time, directly or indirectly, so the student sees through ingrained self-beliefs. But what makes the extraordinary difference is that the guru is also the one who opens up your heart and gives you an insight about yourself, a self that is totally acceptable. There is no other relationship that will do that.
In experiential love, you are given that kind of feeling, because when somebody says “I love you,” you feel totally, unconditionally accepted. Everything about you is accepted—your height, your nose, your mind. That experience gives you an inner opening to see that you are
acceptable, at least to one other person. But that is not real self- acceptance because it is based on the other’s approval of you. You think you are okay because the other person says, “I love you.” The approval does not come through your own eyes but from the eyes of the other. And later on, you both discover a lot of things about each other that are not acceptable at all. Then you find you are adding clauses to “I love you.” “I love you…even though”. “I’d be happy loving you if you could…get up a little earlier…if you stopped snoring…if you could think a little differently…if you were not a Republican.” Afterwards, we tack on conditions, and thus, the unconditional acceptance that I need is not gained through the eyes of others. Yet, since I do not feel totally acceptable in my own eyes, I go on seeking it in the eyes of others.
That is why it is so very important to have an insight about yourself as totally lovable and acceptable. That is what the guru does—he helps you see yourself as lovable. He frees you. Then that vision is yours, and you become a source of love to everyone else. That’s why the guru shisya relationship is entirely different from an ordinary relationship and why the guru is given so much praise in the Shastra and in the tradition.
So, Gurupoornima is a very important day for all seekers. On this Guru’s Day we seek the blessings of all the gurus in the parampara, in the tradition, remembering that the final guru is Lord Dakshina moorthi the source of all knowledge. And so, we praise him. We worship him, seeking the grace of the guru.