Swami Chidbhavananda

[Guest guest]

Hi All,

I just read the following written by Swami Chidbhavananda and quoted

in a 1986 Bhavan's journal:

" Self-perfection is the goal of life. Yoga is the means to it. Karma

yoga, Bhakti Yoga and Jnana Yoga get their due place in the Bhagavad

Gita. A bird requires two wings and a tale for its flight. The soul is

endowed with Bhakti and Jnana to serve as its two wings. Karma Yoga

serves as the tail that maintains balance. There are books which, while

giving all the attention to the hereafter, ignore our earthly existence

altogether. There are yet other books which aim at pressing all our

attention to life in this mundane world. But the Bhagavad Gita is

perfectly balanced in its outlook. It exhorts the aspirant to make the

best of the mundane world and also to prepare himself to draw

inspiration from what is beyond. The Gita further contends that proper

attunement with the mundane leads to Yoga or Union with the Super

mundane; the reverse of it equally holds good; in other words, a

spiritual man alone is best equipped to worldly life."

" It is customary with people to divide human activities into two

distinctive types -- the spiritual and the temporal, the sacred and the

secular. But the gita makes no such artificial distinction. Life

pertaining to this world is in no way different from the spiritual.

There is continuity and homogeneity in life in all stages. Man will be

in the hereafter none other than what he is here and now. Change of body

effects no more change in the personality than does a change of

clothings. Mode of action it is that makes a person what he is. But

action by itself is neither sacred or secular. The attitude with which

it is performed brings about a magical change in it. All actions become

sacred in the hands of a spiritual man. On the contrary, a man with a

material outlook drags down even a sacred act to the vulgar plane..."

Once in a long while I read something which distills most of what I

believe is important into a clear, concise statement. I wanted to share

this one. I hope it does not offend anyone.

Sat Nam,

Gary