Swami teaches... Part 1. The inner vision is important

[Guest guest]

Light and Love Swami teaches...

Part 1. The inner vision is important Foreword After more than bi-monthly break the serial "Swami Teaches..." proceeds. I am compiling this serial by some inner call what appears from nowhere and this spark is impossible to command. During the break this inner call has let me to know, that I myself would try to practice Swami's directions among teachers-specialists, co-workers, friends... This inner call also as has let me know, that I should not hurry up and should more deeply contemplate about each Swami's word because this serial (as seva) may be helpful at the first stage of development for those who have chosen a way of spiritual progress through Atmic Awareness by Swami's Teaching. (In reality Swami has a huge wings and aspects of teachings, advices and directions what I have generalized into one expression as the whole, reflection the Great One - "Swami's Teaching"). Below I try to express feelings based on my tiny experiences of Swami's directions through Swami's Works, modern scientific outlooks and my opinions. However, my words are too poor to share these feelings; but I try. Never is too late to learn and experience.

The seedling wants water and manure, to grow and yield rich harvest. The tiny sapling of spiritual yearning for liberation from bondage also needs these two. Krishna said, "Arjuna, you yourself must purify your heart and remove the veil of ignorance that is beclouding you. Take to the path of righteous action, work for the welfare of the world and dedicate your every act to Me, who am your very Self, residing in your heart." The body is the temple of the Lord; keep it in good and strong condition. (It is damaged by food and drink of the rajasic ad thamasic behavior). Who am I? Why am I here? What is death and when it happen? What is consciousness? How do I relate to the world, and to other people? What is right and what is wrong? What is happiness from different aspects, etc....? The spiritual development leads us to look at things and circumstances from a new perspective.

The highest wisdom is the awareness of the Unity, the One, which is all this. There is only One Brahman. When you are in bed, asleep, dreaming and wandering through varied escapades and experiences, what has happened to the body which you had fostered as you yourself? And while in deep sleep, where have all the levels of consciousness taken refuge? Sleep is short death: death is a long sleep. But, the Ananda is not known at the time of sleep. It is only after waking that you declare I enjoyed fine sleep. If only you were aware of the Ananda, sleep will be samadhi, for, it is Ananda unalloyed. So also, in the waking stage, you have knowledge, but, no Ananda.

 

If you can experience the knowledge of the waking stage and the Ananda of the sleepingstage, both at the same time and to the full, that is Moksha. That is true liberation. Then you have consciousness, knowledge and bliss, unalloyed; you are Sath-Chith-Ananda itself, pure and simple.

You must watch for the moment when the wakeful stage passes into the sleeping stage and concentrate on that moment purifying it of all the agitations and thought which mar the wisdom and the Ananda.

Of course it is difficult in the beginning. There is nothing that you cannot gain by practice. You have learnt the highly complicated and strange skills of walking erect, of writing scripts and reading them and interpreting them, all by practice, haven't you?

 

You realize this when you are in deep sleep, when all thought, feeling, emotion, passion, attachment, knowledge cease - only the I remaining, and the happiness of being only the I, experience of being “one with” everything.

 

The Cosmos has no duality. Divinity is the union of Prakrithi and Paramatma. The Divine manifests in human as an individual entity. We must recognize the Infinite in the individual. God must be seen in the infinity of the Cosmos - in the Omnipresence of the Divine. This stage is often spoken of as “enlightenment” or “self-realization.” (Few individuals experienced unity with everything in the Universe - a cosmic, outlook).

Let Swami's serious, illustrative and pictorial Teaching from heart to heart more largely enables devotees to obtain this Cosmic, Universal Atmic outlook. By modern neuroscience and psychology (see reference) there are many ways to slice the developmental steps. In general there are four basic divisions: preconventional, conventional, post conventional, and unitive. Each level represents a way of thinking, being and doing. Thinking would include how you think about your experience, how you structure it inside your mind, how you explain it and make sense of it – how you create a mental map of reality. Being would include how you feel about things, how you deal with your feelings, how wide your awareness is and what you choose to pay attention to, and how you experience and process whatever is going on around you – how you feel. Doing would include how you interact, what needs you act upon, what ends you try to achieve, how you see the purpose of your life, and what role others play in your life. Preconventional thinking, the first perspective, is very egocentric. It’s all about me. It’s very body oriented (as opposed to mind-oriented, as in the second perspective). The preconventional perspective is impulsive and opportunistic. It’s all about me, and my needs, now. The preconventional way of looking at time is narrow–it’s all about what happens now. There’s little or no ability to delay gratification, and little if any ability to take the role of others, to realize that other people have their own needs and their own agenda. It’s just me, looking out at the world and trying to get what I want or need. (Most people at this stage are children, but about 10% of adults are at this stage of development). At the next developmental level, the conventional perspective things are more about us, about our group. You’re either with us, like us…or you aren’t. The way we think is the right way, and the way others think is, well, wrong. A person at the conventional level is capable of introspection, of symbolic and abstract thinking, of the ability to follow the rules of the group and to assume a certain role in the group. This is the beginning of the creation of a true independent self. People at this level of development answer the existential questions the point of view of rationality, cause and effect, subject-object thinking, and materialism (if you can’t see it and measure it, it doesn’t exist). Metaphysical explanations, popular at the preconventional level, are seen as fluffy and irrational. Life is very concrete at this stage. (About 75% of adults are this stage). At the next stage, post conventional, it’s about all of us. The idea that all men and women are created equal. Another post conventional realization is that what something means depends on one’s personal perspective. At the post conventional stage what an object or an action means comes from the observer, and varies depending on who is doing the observing. There is an assumption that truth is relative rather than fixed. From this systems view of things, everything is interdependent. (About 14% of adults are at this post conventional level). The fourth stage, could be termed unitive. Those at this stage come to realize that all objects, including the Self, the ego, and even the idea of three-dimensional space and time - are human-made constructs, based on abstractions of human's level. There is an awareness that language presupposes many things that may not be true about reality. They are actually one thing, not two. In fact, all polarities created by the mind and arise together: up makes no sense without down, good makes no sense without bad, me makes no sense without not-me. At this stage of development allows the person to stand aside and be an observer. A person at this level realizes that the mental map we make of reality isn’t reality itself but illusion. (About 1% of adults are this stage). This standpoints modern neuroscience and psychology have reached quite close to Vedic and Swami's ones. "The integral knowledge is something that is already there in integral reality: it is not a new or still non-existing thing that has to be created, acquired, learned, invented or built up by the mind; it must rather be discovered or uncovered, it is a Truth that is self-revealed to a spiritual endeavor: for it is there veiled in our deeper and greater self; it is the very stuff of our own spiritual consciousness, and it is by awaking to it even in our surface self that we have to possess it" (Aurobindo, The Life Divine). The objective world is the illusion caused by ignorance, which makes one ignore the One that is only apparent as Many. Ignorance causes the identification with the Mine. So, when some one attached to us dies, we feel broken-hearted, whereas, when some one who is not in the circle of kith or kin dies, we are not affected at all. It is the sense of I and Mine that causes grief and fear. The Divine is the basis for everything. (Human, however, is filled with the conceit that he/she is the one who is doing everything). The ancient sages and savants offered all their knowledge and scholarship as an offering to God. They did not regard knowledge as a means of acquiring wealth. What is the proper offering to God? It is said, patram, pushpam, phalam, toyam (a leaf, a flower, a fruit and water). What are these? Your body is the leaf; your heart is the flower, your mind is the fruit and the tears of bliss is the water.

In the days of Rama everyone was filled with a spirit of sacrifice and faith. Before leaving for the forest, Rama gave away all his personal possessions as gifts. Sacrifice is the essence of the Rama Principle. To develop the spirit of sacrifice the first requisite is firm faith in God what is feeding through unconditional Love. There is no living being without the spark of love; even a mad person loves something or somebody intensely. But, you must recognize this love as but a reflection of the Embodiment of Love, that is your reality, of the God who is residing in your heart. Recognize that spring, rely on it more and more, develop its possibilities, try to irrigate the whole world with it, discard all touch of self from it, do not seek anything in return for it from those to whom you extend it.

One of the most important of all spiritual principles is service to others what finally leads the realizing God within and Unconditional Love.

What is Swami's directive? What is it that Swami desires? Only one thing: Love, Love, Love. Unconditional Service, is born out of unconditional Love and unconditional Faith and in the knowledge of Self, God within. In order to acquire true faith, we have to work at it. Not physical work, but true inner work realizing God within. True faith and peace in mind is an intimate connection with the Self what is within and through us as channels of expression and experience of Swami within. See the truth that will set you free. It is within you, feel it. Several people came to Swami asking for peace. Swami tells them, “Son, peace is not outside, what you find outside are only pieces.” You are the embodiment of peace, you are the embodiment of God, you are the embodiment of truth and you are the embodiment of dharma (righteousness). When you are yourself the personification of peace, why are you looking for it outside? Every individual is a part of the Great One. Humans are channels of expression and experience of Atma, of what humans are integral aspects, by modern science - holographic patterns. "Strange is our situation here upon Earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to Divine a purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know - that man is here for the sake of other men" (Albert Einstein).

Service is an energy in and of itself. So service for the sake of service, or in the hope of being rewarded by a benevolent deity is, as a rule, ineffective. It is not the physical action of service that matters - it is rather the feelings, emotions that are behind it. Today the mission of the masses is often to amass wealth and material possessions as a first priority, often even if it means adversely affecting others. The primary reason for this is the flawed thinking that the only way abundance and happiness may be attained is through physical effort and often manipulation of others. Most people of today believe in what they read in novels and newspapers, what they see in films, and even in the whimsical words of a passerby. But they have no trust to the words of the Veda Matha (Divine Vedic Mother), who has taught the four great truths: "Thath thwam asi, Prajnanam Brahma, Aham Brahmasmi, Ayam Atma Brahma" (Thou Art That, Consciousness is Brahman, I am Divine, This Self is the Omni-Self), which declare: "You are Brahman (Absolute Truth) itself." (Reet's compilation from, Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol. 11. "Liberation from bondage," Chapter 17; Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol. 17. " Divinity of Avathaar," Chapter 26 and "Uphold Sai ideals," Chapter 28; Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol. 20. "Developing the inner vision," Chapter 11; Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol. 27. "The Avathaar and the devotees," Chapter 31; Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol. 29. "Render unto God what is His," Chapter 19). References:

Anderson S.W., Bechara A., Damasio H., Tranel D., Damasio A.R. Impairment of social and moral behavior related to early damage in human prefrontal cortex. Nature Neuroscience, 1999, 2, 1032-1037. Adolps R., Tranel D., Damasio A.R. The human amygdala in social judgement. Nature 1998, 393, 470-473. The note:

In all serials USA English is used. The spelling of most names is by Glossary for the Vahinis

http://www.sathyasai.org/refs/vahiniglossary/aentries.htm

Namaste - Reet