Wisdom of Chandra Swami

[Guest guest]

Wisdom of Chandra Swami

http://www.inner-quest.org/Chandra_Swami.htm

 

CS: I started observing silence about 45 years ago. I wanted to listen to

the voice of God. When you want to listen you have to be silent. Then

slowly and gradually I was taken up by the silence. I fell in love with

silence. The silence is motiveless. The more you become motiveless, the

more you are drawn into silence. Silence implies desirelessness. Silence

implies the choiceless awareness. It implies the emptiness and fullness at

the same time. It is the source of all that exists. Silence has no role at all.

 

Q : Just before we came to see you, a friend was going through a crisis.

Intellectually, she knew she should surrender and let things be, but her

emotions were going in another direction and prevented her from letting go.

So, the question is : how to reconciliate reason and emotions / feelings?

 

CS : You can reconciliate reason and emotions when you are above them. So

long as you are identified with reason or identified with emotion, you

cannot reconcile them. The intellect is only a part of your personality.

And any understanding which is confined only to the intellect does not

transform the life of a person. All the parts of the personality have to be

purified and enlightened. And it needs an integral approach of Sadhana, in

which all the parts of personality are touched. The integral approach

includes meditation, devotion, prayer, reflection, selfless service and

some breathing exercises.

 

Q : What does it mean to live the Truth? Does one need to qualify oneself

in any manner to realise the Truth? Are there external regulations that

need to be observed?

 

CS : To live the Truth is only possible after the realisation of the Truth.

To live the Truth there must be integrity and consistency in your words,

actions, thoughts and in intuition. Yes, there are qualifications for

realising the Truth. To sum up, it can be said that only a person whose

mind is silent and whose heart is pure and full of selfless love can

realise the Truth. But to make the mind silent and the heart pure one has

to undertake some path of sadhana which suits one's temperament and which

one has the capacity to follow. The body, the mind, the reason, the heart,

the vital energy - all these have to be tamed. You may read the book, 'The

Practical Approach to Divinity' or some other book to know the external and

internal discipline which is needed to realise the Truth.

 

Q : What are the main obstructions to living the Truth?

 

CS : The main obstacles in the path of realisation of the Truth and to

living the Truth are attachment and the ego.

 

Q : What is meditation? Is it a technique to accomplish something? If so what?

 

CS : Meditation can be described as an art of seeing without the

interference of one's conditioned mind. Many methods are used to develop

such seeing. This seeing enables the Seeker of Truth to see the Truth as it

is in itself, to realise the essential nature of Consciousness which is

divine, infinite and unconditioned by time, space and causality. Through

meditation one does not accomplish anything new. Through meditation one

only discovers one's essential Being, one's essential and true center.

 

Q : What do you see when you look at us? And the world?

 

CS : When I look at the world, I feel it as the Divine playing the game of

hide and seek with Himself. When I see you, I see the Divine playing the

role of a correspondent of a magazine.