some thoughts...

[Guest guest]

Jai Guru Datta!

 

After reading this email from Daria I was intrigued. I believe

personally that we may not know we need swamiji, but swamiji always

knows who needs him, even if we've never met him before. I've met

many devotees who met swamiji, only after he had gone in search of

these lucky folks. Take advantage of your opportunities to get to

know swamiji, and to understand his ways and his teachings. They in

themselves are of such great benefit, at least they have been to me,

that I cannot emphasize enough how useful they can be to us all. I

myself am slowly and continually growing each day, and learning new

things -- all because swamiji believes that I should learn those

things, or that I should be exposed to those things, or because those

things will somehow help me to advance in my spiritual progress. I

admire so many devotees who are able to devote their lives towards

these types of things. I for one, have not yet reached that level of

action or thought. But, slowly, in god's own way, I am also being

prepared I feel for some ultimate purpose. The same is true for

everyone, I am sure. We all follow our destiny's either through

peaceful submission to the will of the Almighty, or by kicking and

screaming. I have done my share of both, as have many of us in this

group. But ultimately, I believe that God's will is done.

 

God's plans, ways, and means are more imaginative and fascinating

than anything we can conceive. Trust in God / Guru always and do your

duty accordingly. He creates the situations, the people, and the

things that come into our lives at specific times as 'gurus' to teach

us useful things, IF we are open to them and are ready to learn them.

We can go through our whole lives blind and oblivious to the

teachings that occur everyday, every minute, and every second, or we

can open up and think "What significance did this event have? Why was

I made to get angry then? Why did I act the way I did?" and often we

find that these things are only meant to teach us small lessons. The

person who teaches the lesson unknowignly also is learning a lesson

at the same time. This is the great miracle of God's work. Everyone

learns something new from everything, IF they are ready to see past

their ego, and see things for what they really are, lessons in truth.

Everytime you find yourself sad or in a state of turmoil or even

extremely happy, reflect on what greater significance it has on your

life, and what did you learn. The hardest thing is to see yourself as

other's see you, to move away from self-centeredness and to see

yourself in another person's 'shoes' so to speak. One can learn a lot

simply by putting themselves in the other person's position. You

begin to see how other's percieve you and how your actions affect and

create the situations you put yourself into.

 

I read an email posting from one swamiji devotee a long time back

that said "some of us are still materialists, and have not yet

received viragya" -- it is my contention that one does not blindly

and purposelessly receive 'vairagya' -- it is something that comes

from practice, desire, and continual effort on the part of the

devotee. If you keep loading yourself with useless questions and

repeating that you do not have 'vairagya' you probably never will. It

is better to question yourself, and then seek out the answers in the

solace of your mind. Swamiji will answer everything in that silent

moment. Questions arise from the silence, and they dissolve back into

the very same silence. Silence is the subtratum of the universe. The

silence (static or non-movement) is the basis of waves, matter, and

all physical phenomena. The universe has two principles: the dynamic

(shakti, energy) and the static (siva, aka consciousness). Shakti

arises from the silence (shiva) and merges back into the silence.

This is the process of creation, evolution, and destruction that goes

on at all levels from the tiniest of quantum worlds, to the

macroscopic world of the cosmos. If we think of any event, it must

underlyingly have a non-event as its substratum, or its basis. From

nothing, arises everything (which really does not exist because it is

a temporary event), and into nothing we all merge. The nothing, is

really the only true something, while everything in-between (the

temporary thing we see as 'existence') is really non-existent.

Everything exists in a potential form (consciousness) until it is

actualized into kinetic form (shakti, energy) but eventually returns

to the potential state at the time of dissolution. Hiranyagarbha

(mentioned in the bhagavad gita) is nothing more than the potential

womb from which everything is created, the silence or consciousness

aspect -- if you will.

 

One cannot achieve anything useful if one does not practice it with

the INTENTION of achieving it. Life is a gift, but we must utilize it

for praticing and strengthening our spirituality and our

understanding, increasing our compassion, reducing our tensions,

improving our relations, and ultimately for seeing God. If that is

not the ultimate goal, then I don't see why we should be living

mindlessly and pointlessly running after things that we can't take

with us when we die anyway. It is alright to achieve great things, it

is perfectly within our dharma to do that which is part of our

nature, but ultimately, we must renounce our actions and our purpose

and our activities to the cosmic purpose, the real destiny, the true

essence of the universe, that is, God. Without God, is there a real

purpose then to be born, to live so shortly, to do the countless

things we do in a lifetime, and then to die, never to be seen again

or to progress further? Clearly then, realization of God must be the

highest goal of our lives.

 

If anyone has thoughts on these, please share them with the group.

 

Jai Guru Datta,

PradYumna

 

 

JAIGURUDATTA, "vze232dc" <vze232dc@v...> wrote:

> Jai Guru Datta Everyone,

>

> I have been thinking about our beloved Sadguru a lot these past few

days,

> and how he works in our lives. For many years, Sri Swamiji has been

asking

> me to complete a certain project....while I've made progress on that

> project, I have yet to complete it. Along the way, I had many other

> questions and things I wanted to learn and think about before

accepting what

> my sadguru wanted for me....I realized the other day, as Sri

Swamiji's

> project still stares me in the face, and I know that I must honor

his will

> for me, that he had lovingly answered all of my questions....for

each

> concern, he had brought someone into my life who could help me

answer my

> questions and learn more....as I thought about it, I also realized

that each

> of the teachers he had brought me had a dual nature...many very good

> spiritual things to teach, and on other levels corrupted in many

ways. ...it

> was an important lesson, and a reminder that we live in a world of

duality

> and that we should use our powers of discernment and take only that

which

> leads us to inner truth...As I thought about this, another line of

thinking

> began in my head...One of the wonderful things about now living in

New

> Jersey is that I am surrounded by loving Datta devotees and their

> children...it is a real joy to watch them raise their little ones

with

> Swamiji as an important part of their lives...Last week, I had the

wonderful

> opportunity to talk with one of the devotee's son about Sri Swamiji

and the

> mysteries of God....he is a really bright little ten year old, and

has a

> mind that is already asking important questions..I told him he was

very

> lucky that Sri Swamiji was already in his life...He told me that

Sri Swamiji

> had told him the same thing...that he was very lucky that Swamiji

had come

> to him at such a young age...A few days later I was to go to my

women's

> spirituality group..the theme of our meeting was childhood...we

were to

> bring something....a picture, story, whatever, that we wanted to

share about

> spirituality in our childhood....for the life of me, I couldn't

think about

> what I was going to say....I always have lots of stories, and for

once I was

> stumped....I thought and thought and thought and couldn't come up

with one

> thing I wanted to share with the group. In the meantime, I got sick

and

> decided not to go...and I figured maybe I wasn't supposed to go

anyway, and

> that was why I couldn't think of anything...Needless to say, my mind

> wandered back to my earlier conversation about having Swamiji in

your life

> as a child...hmmm....I didn't meet Sri Swamiji until I was 35, but

I wished

> that he had been with me when I was a child.. and that I had a

story to tell

> about my childhood that included Sri Swamiji. The next day I was

dusting my

> bookshelf. One of the daughter's of the devotee's here is a

freshman in high

> school. She recently had a reading assignment that she had asked me

to help

> her with. Much to my delight, she actually had read a couple of the

books I

> had recommended for her schoolwork and we had the opportunity to

talk about

> them...which I really enjoyed. As I was dusting I remembered a book

that I

> thought she might enjoy that had been like the bible to me when I

was her

> age in high school ---T.H.White's Once and Future King....one of

the things

> that I most loved about it was all of the stories of how the wizard

Merlin

> came to young King Arthur as a child and taught him about life

through the

> animals in the forest....I reread and reread that book as a young

teen, and

> even though Merlin gets imprisioned because of his desire in the

end, I

> wished that I had a Merlin in my life.....hmmm...I wondered, was

that Sri

> Swamiji teaching me in my youth? Wow! I really began to wonder if

he had

> been with me then....Yesterday I went to an Anagha vratam at one of

the

> devotee's homes. Another devotee was there reading a book aloud to

her

> little girl. I sidled up and sat next to them because she was

reading one of

> my favorite stories...The Wizard of Oz! I was happily listening to

the

> story, like a little girl again (and looking at the pictures) when

it dawned

> on me that one year of childhood hadn't passed that I hadn't

faithfully

> watched Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz....it was my favorite

movie....I

> always wanted to be Dorothy....off to find the great OZ.....Oh Boy!

Was that

> Sri Swamji in my childhood again preparing me to meet him? I

wondered....as

> I listened and thought, I was once again struck by the same lesson

I had

> been thinking about a few days earlier....once Dorothy reaches Oz

she finds

> out that there really isn't any great wizard, just a man behind the

curtain

> making lots of noise, but he is a real guru, because he teaches her

and tin

> man, and the lion and the scarecrow that they need to look

within...what

> they see outside is only maya....bells and whistles and lots of

noise...the

> truth is inside them, not in the wizard's palace.....Wow! So now I

finally

> have a story to tell about spirituality and my childhood and

Swamiji, but my

> women's group has already met, and we have a new theme for next

month, so I

> decided to share my little story with my Datta Family....

>

> Much love to you all, Jai Guru Datta,

>

> Daria