Sri Sarada Notes

[Guest guest]

Interesting posting that may be suited for the Advaita List.....

jay Vivekananda Centre ....

 

"Jayanti" <jayanti

Tuesday, April 30, 2002 05:49

SRI SARADA NOTES

 

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TRUE PATIENCE: Meeting Life's challenges

 

Adapted from an article by Annapurna Sarada, of the Sarada

Ramakrishna Vivekananda Associations of Oregon, San Francisco and

Hawaii (SRV). It is the second in a series on Holy Mother's three

favorite teachings, Purity, Patience and Perserverence.

 

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What is the nature of patience? What does it consist of? Is it merely

"putting up with troubles?" Holy Mother's life of extreme patience

shows us that it certainly includes the quality of titiksha,

forbearance in disagreeable circumstances. However, her steadiness in

patience shows us that it is based upon something more than mere

passivity, resignation or submissiveness. Patience, in order to be

lasting, must be founded on viveka, discrimination between the real

and the unreal, and vairagya, detachment from the unreal. Holy Mother

consistently taught us to pursue this all-important perspective, a

practice that has been called "mano yoga," the yoga of mental

discernment and mindfulness.

 

Mother reminds us, "Even this body, the identification of the self

with the body, must go. What is this body, my darling? It is nothing

but three pounds of ash when it is cremated."

 

We may wonder what remains.

 

"It is the body alone that changes, the Atman remains the same,"

Mother answers.

 

By detaching our self-identity from the body, life-force, mind,

intellect, and ego -- and the false understanding that these are real

and capable of fulfilling us -- we nurture our identification with

the all-pervading Self. This Self, or Atman, is the deathless Witness

of all phenomena and is eternally free, pure Consciousness. This

identification revolutionizes one's experience of the world,

amounting to a transcendence based upon all-pervasiveness and

all-inclusiveness -- the very heart of the universal Motherhood we

see in Holy Mother. Such a being "sees as God sees," as Meister

Eckhart puts it. Thus, Mother affirms and encourages us,

 

"Therefore, forgetting your personality, try to realize your identity

with God."