Swami teaches... Step-by-step knowledge acquired by Dhyana

[Guest guest]

Sai Ram

 

Light and Love

 

Swami teaches.... (26-28 April 2005)

 

Step-by-Step Knowledge Acquired by Dhyana

 

Of all the workshops in the world, the workshop of the body is the most

wonderful, because it is the tabernacle of the Lord. By regulating diet and

avoiding certain bad habits, is possible to preserve health. Moderate food, and

food of the Saathwik type, will promote mental poise and physical happiness.

Moderation in food, moderation in talk, and in desires and pursuits;

contentment with what little can be got by honest labour, eagerness to serve

others and to impart joy to all - these are the most powerful of all the tonics

and health-preserves known to the science of health, the Sanathana

'Aayur-Vedha', the Vedha of the full life.

When the mind gets peace, the body also will have health. Who craves for

good health must pay attention to the emotions, feelings and motives that

animate the individual. Just as you give clothes for a wash, you have to wash

the mind free from dirt again and again. It should be a daily process; you

should see that no dirt settles upon the mind, you should move about in such

company that dirt is avoided. Falsehood, injustice, indiscipline, cruelty, hate

- these form the dirt, truth, righteousness, peace, love - these form the clean

elements. If you inhale the pure air of these latter, your mind will be free

from evil bacilli and you will be mentally sturdy and physically strong.

Your heart should be like glass, with the spiritual light inside

illuminating the world outside; the world outside reacting on the inner urges

and making them lean towards service, sympathy and mutual help.

In such body's factory the impulses are sublimated into vows, the impurities

are weeded out, beneficent desires are shaped and good imaginings are brought

about.

A legend tells that once, someone decided to worship the greatest. He fixed

upon the earth, but the sea erodes the earth; the sea too is not so great since

sage Agasthya drank it up; Agasthya is now a tiny star in the broad sky; but the

sky was just enough for one foot of the Thrivikrama form of the Lord; and the

Lord is enshrined in the heart of Bhaktha (devotee). So he concluded that the

Bhaktha was the greatest of them all.

In all effort, if you trust in a higher power which is ready to come to

your help, work is made easy. This comes out of Bhakthi, reliance on the Lord,

the source of all power. Have faith in the Lord and his grace. Try to earn it

by using the intelligence and the conscience with which He has endowed you.

 

Vedhaanthic texts are matters of careful well-timed regulated discipline; it

cannot be got by spurts and skips; it has to be climbed step-by-step, each step

being used as a foothold for the next. The virtues have to be cultivated in the

home; each member sharing in the joy with the rest, each one seeking for

opportunities for helping others.

The aim of Sadhana is to remove the motive, the wish, the Vasana or

attachment, (the yearning for the fruit).

Develop self-reliance; that is the best tonic. You have been born because

you did not pass in certain subjects; there is some balance of experience which

you must acquire to complete the course. If you get convinced that your true

nature is the Atma, then you have finished the course and 'passed'.

For reaching that stage, you should start with the cultivation of the

feeling of kinship with all beings. You can begin with little things; you can

avoid causing annoyance to others. Even if you are unable or unwilling to do

service to others, at least, if you desist from causing harm, that is

meritorious service indeed. For example, take the words you speak.

Purification of words leads to cleansing of the mind. That is why Swami insists

on quiet , sweet and little talk with no anger, no heat, no hate. Such talk will

cause no quarrel, no blood-pressure and no factions. Respect the sincerity of

the others; respect elders and persons with more experience than you.

Sadhakas, Yogis and Sanyasis have to climb a ladder, the steps of which are

Savitharka, Nirvitharka, Savichara, Nirvichara, Sammatha; etc., that is to say,

Argumentation, No-argumentation, Analysis, Non-analysis, Agreement, etc. The

knowledge of the world is not real knowledge. It is relative knowledge; the

knowledge of the non-real. The knowledge of the eternal Absolute is the Real

knowledge. That is acquired by Dhyana (meditation).

He who has subdued his mind will be the same, in good times and in bad. It

is only when the mind is associated with the senses and the body that it is

affected and agitated and modified. When one takes in an intoxicant, one is not

aware of pain, is it not? How does this happen? The mind is then detached from

the body and so it is not bothered by physical pain or discomfort. Similarly,

the Jnani too has immersed his mind in the Atma; he can establish mental peace

and quiet by disciplining the mind.

The Jnani gets full Bliss from own Atma and does not seek it anywhere

outside. In fact, he/she will have no desire or plan to find joy in anything

external and satisfies with the inner joy. Who has known Brahmam becomes

Brahmam Itself, who has attained the Brahmam Principle has become the Highest.

All bubbles are but the same water; so also, all the multiplicity of name and

form, all this created world, are but the same Brahmam. As all rivers flow

into the sea and get lost, so also all desires get lost in the effulgent

consciousness of the Realised soul. That is what is termed the Vision of the

Atma (Brahman). It is stable, unshakable, fixed, the witness of all change in

space and time, unaffected by the transformations. Atma belongs to neither sex,

has no mind, no senses, no form. Not only that; it has no Prana, even! It cannot

be said to be alive or dead. The Atma is in all living things, in the ant as

well as in the elephant. The whole world is enveloped and sustained by this

subtle Atma. In the heart and centre of every Jivi, Paramatma exists,

pictorially, minuter than the minutest molecule, larger than the largest

conceivable object, smaller than the smallest, greater than the greatest.

The Atman is not these five senses, nor buddhi (intellect), nor the Pranas nor

the life-force; it can only be described as what it is not, not by what it is.

No one can say It is thus etc. The Atman cannot be communicated by words; it is

impossible to describe.

 

Liberation from the tentacles of the mind can be got by the acquisition of

Brahmajnana, the knowledge of the Absolute. This type of liberation is the

genuine Swarajya, self-rule. This is the genuine Moksha. Whoever grasps the

reality behind all this passing show, he will be troubled by instinct or

impulse or any other urge; he will be the master of the real wisdom.

Jnani strives for Santhi what is the innate nature of human. Santhi is the

force, which comes to the aid of those who try to develop Viveka, Vairagya and

Vichakshana (Discrimination, Renunciation and Keenness of Intellect). It is but

a phase of the Atma itself. Just as the Atma, it too has no beginning or end; no

blemish can mar it; it is equaled only by itself; it cannot be compared with any

other. Ananda too is the human's innate nature. It is not something lifeless and

inactive. It is another name for purposeful living. Santhi is the authority

under which the rule of Ananda prevails. It lays down the limits and laws for

all activities. It can only be experienced, personally, through the natural

state of Jnana. He who grasps that which is deathless, that which can not be

destroyed, that which is not modified, he is the enjoyer of Santhi.

Santhi is a shoreless ocean: It is the Light that illumines the world.

Having it, is having all. It confers knowledge of both this world and that. It

leads to the understanding of Brahman, the very fulfillment of human life,

which Vedantha tries to teach.

Pure love can emanate only from a heart immersed in Santhi, for it is an

atmosphere that pervades and purifies. Santhi is not a conviction arrived at by

means of logic. It is the Discipline of all disciplined lives. The mind from the

prime aspect is as a blank sheet of white paper when human being is born. As

soon as thinking, feeling and acting starts, the process of tarnishing the mind

also starts, the body depends on Prana; it depends on the mind and the desires

that agitate the mind. Right and Truth are befogged by the needs of manners,

fashion, convention, custom etc. and the individual is thrown into a crowd. His

solitariness is invaded and taken away.

Impulses and desires have to be suppressed in order to get mastery over the

mind. Desires excite the mind and make it rush towards the senses, as a dog

runs behind its master. The Jiva falls into the meshes of Maya produced by the

illusion-creating senses and the pleasure-pursuing mind. By uninterrupted

attention and discipline and by the practice of renunciation, it is possible to

control mind only by Dhyanam (meditation, fixing of the buddhi on the Divine).

All other methods are as useless, as is the attempt to bind a wide elephant in

a rut by means of a thin and tiny thread. Dhyanam is essential to immerse the

mind in the Atma. Never lose heart. Be patient and persevering; final success

will be yours.

Sensual exultation and divine exhilaration might appear the same, in their

external manifestations, to the untrained eye. But, when the senses are

transcended, when the individual and the universal have merged into one thought

and consciousness, when all awareness of the body has been negated.

Swami explains: "A knife in the hands of a murderer is fraught with danger

to all. A knife in the hands of a surgeon confers freedom from pain, though in

both cases there is a hand that holds the knife. Also the acts of those whose

self is centred in the body are to be condemned; those of people whose self is

centred in the Atma or inner reality are highly beneficent and praiseworthy."

 

As a result of meditation on the Paramatma the mind will withdraw from

sense-objects and the sensory world. Just at that time, Buddhi must assert its

authority and command the Manas (mind) not to entertain any feeling except the

thought of the Fundamental Basis. When its basic truth is known, the mind will

not be deluded by the Evanescent, the Untrue, and the Unblissful. It will

welcome the blossoming of Joy, Happiness and Truth; it will not be affected by

sorrow and grief. Prakriti and Prana are indestructible. Everything which is

the product of the mingling of these two has a new value inherent in it.

Human's life also assumes a new splendour when one realises and visualises the

Satchidananda through mind and intellect purified and transformed by means of

Dhyanam (meditation).

Dhyanam should be performed enthusiastically, with full faith and care, and

strictly according to the disciplines laid down. If this is done, it will

bestow not only all happiness and all victory but even the vision of the Lord.

Dhyanam is bound to the science of Vedantha and also to the science of Nature

or Prakriti. These two are different only in one respect. The students of

Prakriti are immersed in the objects of Life; the students of Vedantha are

immersed in the basic truth of Life. If one desires to transform one's life,

internal as well as external, into one of Splendour, Dhyanam is the best

Sadhana that he can adopt.

The mind is so influenced by the passion for objective pleasure and delusion

of ignorance that it pursues with amazing quickness the fleeting objects of the

world; so it has to be again and again led on towards higher ideals. Of course,

this is difficult at first; but with persistent training the mind can be tamed;

then it will get fixed in the perpetual enjoyment of the Pranava, Om. The mind

can be trained by following the methods of quiet persuasion, the promise of

attractive inducements, the practice of withdrawing the senses from the outer

world, the endurance of pain and travail, the cultivation of sincerity and

constancy and the acquisition of mental equipoise.

Very often, with the progress of Dhyana, new desires and new resolutions

arise in the mind. But one need not despair: the mind can be broken, provided

one takes up the task in right earnest and follows a regular routine of

training. The final result of this training is Nirvikalpa Samadhi or the

Unlimited, Unmodified Bliss-Consciousness. For those established in this

real Jnana (awareness of Brahman, the Universal Absolute), there is no past,

there is no future; all ages are to them in the present, in the actual moment

of experience. Just as soap is necessary to make this external body clean, to

clean the interior Manas (mind), Japa, Dhyana, Smarana, etc., are needed. As

food and drink are needed to keep the body strong, the Contemplation of the

Lord, the meditation on the Atma, are needed to give strength to the Manas.

When the waves of desire agitate on the waters of the Manas, how can one see

the Atma? The tottering causes the waves. So feed the mind with the

contemplation of the Lord. Clean it with the meditation of the Atma. Dhyana and

Sadhana alone can clean the depths of the mind and give it strength. Without

purity and strength, the Atma recedes into the distance.

(Reet's compilation from, Sathya Sai Baba. Jnana Vahini. Pages 5 - 7;

Sathya Sai Baba. Prashanthi Vahini.

Page 4;

Sathya Sai Baba. Dhyana Vahini. Page

4 and 17 - 37;

Sathya Sai Baba-Bhagavatha Vahini.

Chapter XXXIV - Krishnavatara;

The Divine Discourse of Sathya Sai

Baba. "Grief and God." Prashanthi Nilayam, 26 November 1962;

The Divine Discourse of Sathya Sai Baba. "The best

Tonic." Sathya Sai Hospital, Prashanthi Nilayam, 21 September 1960).

 

Namaste - Reet