July 3rd, 2009 • By Swami Nirmalananda Giri
The Dhammapada’s Wisdom
“Journey over, sorrowless, freed in every way, and with all bonds broken–for such a man there is no more distress” (Dhammapada 90). (Other translators have either “fever” or “the fever of passion” rather than “distress.”)
Here Buddha gives us four fundamental traits of the one who has realized the third and fourth Aryan Truths: that suffering can be ended and there is a way to bring about that end. They merit a good, careful look.
There is an evolutionary path to be traversed which no amount of philosophizing and denial will abrogate. In his discourses Buddha tells about the great deal of time in his previous lives, as well as his “present” one, which was spent in spiritual practice–in meditation. Although our goal is transcendence, presently we–and all other aspirants–must move from the beginning point to the ending point. The universe is not haphazard, but a precision instrument of evolution which will enable us to reclaim our lost awareness and be so established therein that we can never again lose it. This is Nirvana.
Although each one’s journey is quite individual, at the same time there are points that will be common to each person. It is rather like the multitude of people that every day drive the same route from one city to another. Their vehicles will be different, and so will be their style of driving, as well as the number of stops they make–and where and why. So each trip is markedly personal and at the same absolutely the same. It is the same with the “journey” Buddha is speaking about. That is why in various texts he says that upon attaining enlightenment he said: “Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world”–and that others would say the same when they attained to Nirvana.
“The holy life fulfilled, the task done” is the journey that must be completed for all delusion and bondage to be ended forever.
All inner pain is ended permanently for those that have attained perfect freedom in Spirit.
No kind of limitation, inhibition, or binding remains for them. If in someone we see even the shadow of bondage or limitation, we should recognize the the goal has not yet been reached by them.
Nirvana literally means “no bonds.” Again, ALL bonds are broken for the truly enlightened.
All these are the symptoms of a consciousness freed forever from all compulsion, stress, and pain.
Further Reading:
Tags: Teachings of Buddha
June 29th, 2009 • By Paramhansa Yogananda
An article written by Paramhansa Yogananda in 1929
India is the epitome of the world in everything–a land of all kinds of climates, religions, commerce, arts, peoples, sceneries, stages of civilizations, languages.
Her civilization dates back many thousands of years. Her great seers, prophets and rulers left records behind them that prove the great antiquity of the Aryan civilization in India.
Many European travelers visit India, see a few of the street magicians, sword-swallowers or snake-charmers, and they think that is the highest India has to offer them. They do not realize that these men do not represent India. The real life and secret of India’s vitality is her spiritual culture, which has made her the motherland of religions since time immemorial. Although the West can teach India much about sanitation, business methods and development of resources–although India needs business missionaries like Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, yet the Western lands, too, are thirsty, consciously or unconsciously, for the practical spiritual lessons that India has specialized in for centuries.
In the Western cities, science has progressed so far that the physical man is usually well taken care of, fed and clothed and sheltered. Yet physical and material comfort without mental and spiritual peace and solace is not enough. India has been the unproclaimed reformer, the grand inspirer of human minds and souls. She has been the spiritual model of all religions. Her greatest and richest legacy to mankind has been the techniques discovered and handed down for centuries by her saints and seers for the scientific spiritual culture of man.
India is a land of mystery, but of mystery that reveals itself to the sympathetic inquirer and seeker. India has the grandest and highest mountains–the Himalayas–in the world. Darjeeling, in the north of India, is the Switzerland of that country. The unique ruins of ancient castles and vast palaces of princes in Delhi; the vast Ganges made sacred by the centuries of meditation near its banks by many God-realized saints; the sun-gilded teeth of the Himalaya mountain-ridges; the ancient places and caves of meditation where Yogis and Swamis saw the faggots of ignorance blaze with the wisdom of God; the Taj Mahal at Agra, the finest dream of architecture ever materialized in marble to symbolize the ideal of human love; the dark forests and jungles where the distant tigers roam, the blueness of the Indian skies and the bright sunshine, the innumerable varieties of Oriental fruits and vegetables; the many various types of people–all these tend to make India different, fascinating, romantic, never-to-be-forgotten.
A Land of Great Contrasts
India is a land of great contrasts–untold riches and utmost poverty, the highest mental purity and coarse, plain living, Rolls Royces and bullock carts, gaily-caparisoned elephants and quaint horse-wagons.
In the north, we find blue-eyed and blonde-haired Hindus, and in the hotter south, we find the dark sun-kissed skins of the tropics. From start to finish, India is a land of surprises, of contrasts and extremes. Life becomes prosaic with too much business, too many dull certainties; so in India one feels that life is a great adventure, a thing of mystery and surprise.
India may not have material skyscrapers and all the sometimes spiritually-enervating comforts of modern life–she has her faults, as all nations have–but India shelters many unassuming, Christ-like spiritual “skyscrapers” who could teach the Western brothers and sisters how to get the fullest spiritual joy out of any condition of life. Those scientific mystics and seers, who have known Truth by their own effort and experience, and not through ordinary, personally-unverified beliefs, can show others how to develop their own intuition and open the fountain of peace and satisfaction from beneath the soil of mysteries.
Though I have had the advantage of some Western education, yet I feel that in India alone I found the true solution to the mysteries of life. This feeling inspired the following poem to India, which I wrote recently:
My Mother India
Not where the musk of happiness blows,
Not in the land
Where darkness and fears never tread,
Not in the homes of perpetual smiles,
Not in the heaven or Land of Prosperity
Would I be born
If I have to put on a mortal garb again.
A thousand famines may prowl
And tear my flesh,
Yet would I love to be again
In my Hindustan.
A million thieves of disease
May try to steal the fleeting health of flesh,
Or the clouds of Fate
May shower scalding drops of searing sorrow,
Yet would I there
In India love to re-appear.
Is this, my love, a blind sentiment
Which beholds not the pathways of reason?
Ah no! I love India,
For I learned first to love God and all
beautiful things there.
Some teach to seize the fickle dew-drop–Life–
Sliding down the lotus leaf of Time.
Some build stubborn hopes
Around the gilded brittle body-bubble.
But India taught me to love
The soul of deathless beauty
In the dew-drop or the bubble,
Not their fragile frame.
Her sages taught me to find my Self
Buried beneath the ash heaps
Of incarnations and ignorance.
Through many a land
Of power, plenty and science,
My soul, garbed as an oriental
Or an occidental, traveled far and wide
Seeking Itself–
At last in India to find Itself.
If mortal fires blaze all her homes
And golden paddy fields
Yet to sleep on her ashes and dream immortality,
O, India, I will be there!
The guns of science and matter
Have boomed on her shores,
Yet she is unconquered,
Her soul is free evermore.
Her soldier saints are away
To rout with Realization’s ray
The bandits of Hate, Prejudice,
Patriotic Selfishness,
And burn the walls of Separation dark
Which lie ’tween children of the One,
One Father.
The Western brothers by matter’s might
Have conquered my land;
Blow, blow aloud her conch-shells all!
India now invades with love
to conquer their souls.
Better than Heaven or Arcadia.
I love Thee, O my Mother India,
And thy love I shall give
To every brother nation that lives.
God made the earth,
And man made his confining countries,
And their fancy-frozen boundaries.
But with the new found love I behold
The borderland of my India
Expand into the world.
Hail, mother of religions, lotus,
Scenic beauty and Sages,
Thy wide doors are open
Welcoming God’s true songs
Through all the ages.
Where Ganges, woods,
Himalayan caves and men dream God,
I am hallowed; my body touched that sod.*
Visions of India’s Life-Giving Philosophy
From time immemorial, India’s greatest minds have specialized in discovering and understanding the philosophy and mystery of life. One of the oft-disputed questions in philosophy is whether the goal of human life is service or selfishness. Once I had a great controversy with a European who repeatedly and blindly affirmed that the goal of life was service, while I maintained that it was higher selfishness. I asked him again and again for his reasons in believing in “service”, but instead of satisfying my discrimination, he kept on reiterating, “Service is the goal of life. It is blasphemous to doubt that.” Finding him so dogmatic, I asked him, “Is service the goal of life because the Scriptures have declared it?” “Yes,” he vehemently replied. “Do you believe everything literally in Scripture?” I questioned him. “Do you think Jonah was swallowed by a whale and came out alive after a few days? How do you account for it?” “No. I do not understand how he could do that,” my friend said. That was just the point. In order to really know the truth contained in Scriptural stories, and in order to understand what is erroneous, or right, literal or metaphorical, in Scriptural writings, one must use his own reason, discrimination and power of intuitional verification developed thru meditation.
Scriptures Not Always Infallible
Many people think that what is printed in black and white is right. Above all, most people believe that anything wearing the robe of Scriptural authority is absolutely beyond question. But putting on an outward garb cannot make one infallible. Writers of Scriptures can also make mistakes. In order to know the truth of a doctrine, we must live it and find out if it works or not–give it the acid test of experience. Let us get out into the world and compare our religious beliefs with the religious experiences of true teachers. Let us be iconoclastic of our own errors that need to be destroyed within us. We must not harbor an undigested mass of theology and thus suffer from chronic theological indigestion.
Service a Form of Selfishness
The law of service to others is secondary to, and born out of the law of self-interest and self-preservation and selfishness. Man never in his sane mind does anything without a reason. All religious doctrines and instructions are based either on blind superstition or on real religious experience. The real reason behind the Scriptural injunctions to “Serve thy fellow-men”, and “Love thy neighbor as thyself” is that the law of service to others is to be obeyed by all devotees who would, thru others, expand the limits of their own self.
No action is performed without reference to a direct or indirect thought of selfishness. Giving service is indispensable to receiving service. To serve others by financial, mental, or moral help is to find self-satisfaction. Besides, if any one knew beyond doubt that by service to others, his own soul would be lost, would he serve? If Jesus knew that by sacrificing his life on the altar of ignorance, He would displease God or lose His favor, would He have acted as he did? No, He knew that though he had to lose the body, He was gaining His Father’s favor and His own Soul. Such immortal sons of God and all the martyrs and saints, make a good investment–they spend the little mortal body to gain immortal life.
There is nothing worth-while gained without paying a price. Thus even the most self-sacrificing act of service to others can be shown to be done not without any thought of self. It is logical, therefore, to say that the higher selfishness, or the good of the Higher Self, is the motive of life instead of service to others without thought of self.
Must be Given Because Received
In giving service to others, a man knows also that otherwise he cannot rightly receive service from them. If the farmers give up agricultural work, and the business men give up their business of transportation and distribution, then how could even the renunciate maintain himself? Nowadays, with increased population and wealth, even forests are divided off and owned by big landowners, who placard the trees with signs warning the trespasser that he will be prosecuted for coming into another man’s property. So the renunciate cannot logically say, “I will not work or earn my living–I will live on the wild fruits of the forest”. Hence, services given and received have reference to the goal of a lower or higher selfishness.
Three Kinds–Evil, Good and Sacred Selfishness
We must, however, clearly distinguish between the three kinds of evil, good and sacred selfishness. The evil kind is that which actuates a man to seek his own comfort by destroying the comforts of others. To be rich at the cost of others’ loss is sin, and against the interests of the higher individual self of the person who does it. To delight in hurting others’ feelings by carping criticism is evil selfishness. This malignant pleasure is not conducive to any lasting good. True and good selfishness is the kind which makes a man seek his own comfort, prosperity and happiness by also making others more prosperous and happy. Evil selfishness hides its many destructive teeth of suffering beneath the apparently innocent looks of comfort-assurances. Evil selfishness shuts one in a small circle and shuts all humanity out beyond it. Good selfishness takes everybody, including one’s own self, into the circle of brotherhood. Good selfishness brings many harvests–return services from others, self-expansion, divine sympathy, lasting happiness and self-realization.
Good selfishness should be followed by the business man, who, by sincere, honest, wholesome, constructive actions and labors, enables himself to look after his own and his family’s needs. Such a business man is far superior to the business man who thinks and acts only for himself, thinking neither of the ones he serves or of those dependent on him for support. He is then acting against his own best selfish interests, for he will suffer in time. Many misers die, leaving their wealth to relatives who often squander it on wrong self-indulgences. Such selfishness helps neither the giver nor the receiver, in the end.
To avoid the pitfalls of evil selfishness, one should first follow and establish himself in the good forms of selfishness, where one thinks of his family and those whom he serves, as part of himself. From that attainment, one can then advance to a practice of the sacred selfishness, (or unselfishness, as ordinary understanding would term it), where one sees all the universe as himself.
Being Sacredly Selfish
Feeling the sorrows of others in order to make them free from further suffering, seeking happiness in the joy of others, and constantly trying to remove the wants of bigger and bigger groups of people is being sacredly selfish. The man of sacred selfishness counts all his earthly losses as deliberately brought about by himself for others’ good, and for his own great and ultimate gain. He lives to love his brethren, for he knows they are all children of the one God. His entire selfishness is sacred, for whenever he thinks of himself, he thinks, not of the small body and mind of ordinary understanding, but of the needs of all bodies and minds (within the range of his acquaintance or influence). His “self” then becomes the Self of all. He becomes the mind and feeling of all creatures. So when he does anything for himself, he can only do that which is good for all. He who considers himself as the one whose body and limbs consists of all humanity and all creatures–certainly finds the Universal, All-Pervading Spirit as Himself.
Act Without Expectation
He does not act with expectation but, with his best judgment and intuition, goes on helping himself as the many, with health, food, work, success and spiritual emancipation.
Working with good selfishness and sacred selfishness brings one in touch with God, resting on the altar of all-expanding goodness. One who realizes this, works conscientiously only to please the ever-directing God-peace within.
* The final lines of this poem were the last words spoken by the Master, who immediately after their utterance consciously left his body on March 7, 1952.
More by Yogananda:
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Tags: India · Yogananda
June 21st, 2009 • By Swami Nirmalananda Giri
Q: What is the purpose or mission of your religion?
Let us consider the basics of growth as it takes place on this earth. The sun shines and warms the earth and the seeds in the earth. This stimulates the life principle in the seeds and they grow upward into the light. It is a very natural thing. Here, too, we would think someone crazy who would sit out in a field and yell at the plants to grow, promising rewards if they do and threatening punishments if they do not.
When we are dealing with human beings we are dealing with potentially infinite consciousnesses, with gods in embryo. We consider that we are dealing with a spark of God’s own life, because we do not believe God created the spirit. We believe that each individual spirit has existed eternally within God. So we consider that we are dealing with a potential god, and act accordingly. Gods should not be poked, pinched, and pulled.
A real-life example
Maria Montessori came to see that children should not be coerced to learn any subject. She proved that a subject need only be presented to them and when they are ready for it they will respond–until then they will not, and should not. Our present system of education fails because it assumes that chronological age determines readiness for learning. Maria Montessori, being a believer in reincarnation (though a Roman Catholic) understood that this was a matter of evolution, and that everything would come to pass in its own good and right time. This is why no child goes through the Montessori system and comes out having not learned. It is successful because it is based on the evolutionary nature of things.
We follow the same procedure. We present. The response is up to the individual. And any response, Yes, No, or Maybe, is fine. Certainly there are those who at their present stage of evolution need what we offer. But they have to recognize that themselves; it is not for us to tell them. It is definitely our duty to be there for those who need us, and we should let ourselves be visible. Beyond that it is their hands.
I learned something very early in my first visit to India. The fake teachers were more than volunteering their “wisdom,” they were cornering people and forcing it on them. But the real teachers had to be asked for instruction. Otherwise they just conversed affably on unimportant matters. Their insight was that only when the question arises in the mind of the seeker is he ready for the answer. Until then the teacher can do nothing worthwhile.
Simply presenting the truth
Consider the material on our website: it is a matter of simple presentation, of visibility. If someone reads the material and says that they believe what is in them because they “convinced” them, we are not satisfied. That means they are simply spinning in the realm of the intellect and not in touch with their real inner self–something that has to be for conscious spiritual growth. Also, they should not be accepting our ideas. It should be a matter of their own conviction that arises from deep within. We cannot eat or digest for other people, and neither can we reveal wisdom to them. What we can do is present wisdom, and they can recognize it through their own inner response.
So what do we want people to say about the web material? We want them to say the truth. It they think it is nonsense, that is perfectly all right. For them it IS nonsense. We do like someone to say: “I had never thought of it before, but when I read what you wrote I realized that it was the truth and that I had always believed it somewhere in the back of my mind.” In other words, we did not convince them of the truth, they recognized it as already being part of their inner intuition that had not heretofore been verbalized.
The word “education” comes from the Latin, its literal meaning is “to lead out” That is, real education is the process of evoking the student’s innate knowledge, of bringing it out so he can consciously work with it. It is a reminding him of what he really already knows. Not many people are educated, then, nor are many people authentically religious or spiritual. And we cannot make them so. They have to grow into it. Then we can help further their growth by showing them how to pass from natural automatic evolution into intentional evolution.
Controlling evolution
From the lowest form of life up to and including a great deal of the human experience, evolution happens automatically with no intention or effort on our part. We just live and it happens. But a time must come–the real time of “conversion” or being “born again”–when the individual must take control of his own evolution and consciously direct and produce it. For at that point it will no longer come automatically. It is somewhat like a child who at a certain age must learn to dress himself and in time make his own living. He must finally do on his own, for himself, what others had heretofore done for him.
The earlier “child” evolution is natural or automatic. The “adult” evolution is completely in the purview of the individual. A religion that cannot show a person how to do this is not of much use to an awakening person. The wandering spirit has forgotten itself and its attendant realities. It does not need to be taught, it need only be reminded, profound as that experience is. That is the sole purpose of Sanatana Dharma.
Further reading:
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Tags: Practical Wisdom
June 13th, 2009 • By Atma Jyoti Ashram
A few months ago we added the Google Translation widget to the left sidebar of our blog. Since we were unsure of the accuracy of its translation efforts, we asked fans of the Atma Jyoti Blog and Website on various social media sites such as StumbleUpon to give the translator a try. Results were mixed, but mostly positive. Those who spoke Hindi and Spanish said that the Google Translator did a fairly accurate job. French was not as accurate, however, and Romanian was apparently abysmal.
We urge readers of the Atma Jyoti Blog to experiment with the translation widget, and if you are satisfied with the results, share them with friends who normally would not be reading an English language blog.
Tags: Web Resources
June 13th, 2009 • By Swami Nirmalananda Giri
In response to a Christian’s letter listing differences between “orthodox” Christianity and the beliefs presented on our website, and asking our explanation of those differences:
It has been our experience that when Christians write to us with a list of Biblical “what abouts?” and we take the time to answer, the response is simply another list of “what abouts?” As you yourself say in your email: “There will always be questions of course.” Therefore we hope you will permit us to answer in a straightforward manner, interpreting it as you will. (On previous occasions when we have been direct in our reply we have been accused of hostility, defensiveness, ignorance, or (horrors!) anger.)
Your questions should be asked of yourself, rather than your condescending comment that we have presented our views “with obvious good intentions.” If the principles espoused on our website are true, then why does the Bible contradict–or seem to contradict–them? That should be your concern, not ours. If the principles we present are not true, then what does it matter to you? (Hopefully you are not concerned for our souls.)
The members of our ashram all have a Christian background, and are not unaware of Protestant, Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox beliefs. We consider that we cannot in good conscience be Christians–Churchians, actually–and follow either Sanatana Dharma or Jesus. The essay The Christ of India presents our view about Jesus as a Sanatana Dharmi missionary–neither Jewish nor Christian. Further, our posting of The Aquarian Gospel text and extensive commentary on it underlines our beliefs on these matters.
As indicated on our website, we recommend the writings of Paramhansa Yogananda regarding the teachings of Jesus as a correct presentation of their meaning.
Tags: Teachings of Jesus
June 7th, 2009 • By Swami Nirmalananda Giri
Q: I understand that “Vedanta” is an accepted form of Indian philosophy. But what is it?
Vedanta means “end of the Vedas,” and usually refers to the Upanishads which are appended to the Vedas, thus coming at their end. On the other hand, the philosophy of the Upanishads may be called Vedanta because it speaks of spiritual realization that results from–comes at the end of–Vedic study and practice.
Vedanta has three forms, and all three have been declared “orthodox”–that is, in conformity with the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Brahma Sutra (a philosophical exposition by Vyasa, the codifier of the Vedas). These three forms are:
- Dvaita (Dualism),
- Vashishtadvaita (Qualified Non-Dualism), and
- Advaita (Non-Dualism).
Dvaita Vedanta says that God and the individual soul (as well as the creation) are absolutely separate and different from one another, although God pervades or encompasses all.
Vashistadvaita Vedanta says that there is an eternal distinction between God, the souls, and creation, but that at the same time there is a unity because God is the root, the ground, of everything. From the viewpoint of creation and the individual soul, there is a duality or distinction, but from the viewpoint of God–which the soul can ascend to spiritually–there is Oneness alone.
Advaita Vedanta says that duality or difference between God, souls, and creation absolutely does not exist at any time, and that any experience of difference is completely an illusion. Thus neither the individual souls nor the creation really exist in the ultimate sense, but there is only the One.
It is extremely important to understand that Advaita is not Monism. Monism means Oneness–that there is only One, and nothing else but the One. Advaita, however, only means “not two.” It does not mean “one.” So an Advaitist would say that there is no duality, but would not say there is only unity. He would simply say nothing except that there are not two. This is because the Real transcends both “two” and “one” and is ineffable and inexpressible. Therefore, as in Christian “apophatic theology” we can only say what is not, but cannot say what Is.
As already said, all three are true–are orthodox.
Various Trinities
The three forms of Vedanta correspond to the Trinity: Advaita corresponds to the transcendent Father, Vashistadvaita corresponds to the immanent Son, and Dvaita corresponds to the Holy Spirit, Mahashakti, the very basis of duality. They are three ways of seeing reality according to which aspect of the Trinity is dominant.
The three Vedantas also correspond to the three Gunas: Sattwa, Rajas, and Tamas. If Sattwa Guna predominates, the individual experiences the Advaitic, non-dual state. When Rajas predominates, then both duality and unity are preceived–the Vashishtadvaitic view. And when Tamas predominates, then duality is the only perception.
The Vedantic views also correspond to the three states of consciousness delineated in Indian thought: the waking (jagrat), dreaming (swapna), and dreamless (sushupti) sates. In the waking state only the duality of the world and spirit is perceived; in dreaming, their unity-diversity is experienced; and in dreamless sleep only unity is experienced. Jagrat=Dvaita. Swapna=Vashishtadvaita. Sushupti=Advaita.
But the Vedic sages tell us that there is a fourth state which transcends these three states of consciousness and is at the same time the substratum of the three. That state is called Turiya–Pure Consciousness. Those who attain that ultimate state perceive neither duality, semi-duality, or unity. What do they perceive? It is beyond words, and only those who have attained It know. So all three forms of Vedanta are eventually gone beyond as we enter that which is beyond all distinctions of views or states. Is not that state a state of unity–of Oneness? No, it is not, for it is no state at all. It is the true Nirvana in which these distinctions or labels simply cannot arise. That we must seek.
Further reading:
Tags: Q & A
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