Articles for Saadhana

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.

‘S’ was telling me "How to find, generate and preserve the inspiration and how to develop more and more of sincerity?" ‘N’ tells me that "Many of them have taken deeksha, initiation, so for the post-deeksha life and sādhana, Swamiji say something about it." Very Good. I don’t know how to bring this point home to you and how to make you interested in this.

I am going back in my life when I was about 20 years old or still less. I went to Calcutta, my brothers took me there. I also decided to go. Obviously it was for finding a job and entering into an unknown but prosperous professional life. It so happened that my Gurudev was brought home to our flat by my brother and very strangely he lived with us for maybe a month or so. Meeting him and observing him very closely and personally for such a significant period brought about so much of information, knowledge or enlightenment that it started influencing me, inspiring me, guiding me greatly.

I was religious and pious and devotional, but certainly I did not know anything about spirituality at all. But nevertheless, there was a strong note of dispassion in my mind. I did not know that it was dispassion. All these factors were behind, but I would like you to understand that seeing my Gurudev and knowing him in close quarters, observing him, how he sat, how he ate, how he had his bath, how did he spend his time, was he reading something, speaking something. Observing someone like him, he was a Godly person no doubt, I could understand. But observing him in close quarters brought a great illumination, inspiration, guidance and even compulsion in me.

In the same manner, every one of you should take to the contact with the Guru, seeing a Sadguru, it must have a remarkable influence in your life. We generally say there is an idol, a Śiva linga somewhere. It is an open place. It is not protected, covered with door etc. Suppose a dog passes that way, it will go there, smell, lift its hand and piss. It is the same Śiva linga that we worship with a lot of adoration. You tell me, what is the difference? The difference is merely in how you understand a subject or a person and how the mind reacts to it, takes to it, receives it, honors it, adores it, feels inspired by it. In the sphere of godliness, devotion, spirituality etc. after meeting my Gurudev, I never wanted to see anybody or anything including God. You tell me, how my mind started feeling in this manner?

Before long, I got initiated from him and the sādhana which I am giving you in my own way, I got it from him. After getting initiated, this sādhanaI took to with the fullness of my heart, faith, acceptance, reliance, refuge and succour. In the sphere of devotion, piety, spirituality and religion, I never wanted anything more or different.

It is a very sorrowful aspect that for some time my brother showed some aberrations in his seeking life. Being a brother and younger to him, I was keeping company with him but always feeling bad that this kind of an aberration was bothering him. I think, herein lies the difference. When you take deeksha, I always explain, this is the last thing in human life. Once you have got deeksha, you have to hold onto it wholesomely and fully. Look to nothing, want nothing, replace everything with your deeksha and sādhana. Wherever you go, the mantra or anusandhāna in your mind should be the same. You may go to a Goddess temple, God temple, Balarama temple, Krishna temple, Sri Rama temple, Devi temple. Any temple you may go to, in your mind you must have only the mantra that you have got. See everything as that, hear everything as that, rely upon it. What is it that you want? Things which are bad should be taken away from you and things which are good should be brought into you. So, for eliminating the bad and the undesirable and imbibing and incorporating the good and the desirable, this sādhana alone is the means as well as the end.

It is not something very simple that you see a good man, particularly a Knower of truth, a Sadguru. Once you see him, the whole life should change and the seeking should stop. There is no experimentation here. There is no unnecessary research into that person. You can research into your own mind. Equally so are our śāstrās. To have inspiration, you must read the śāstrās. Read the śāstrās. And every śāstra statement should be the biggest and the greatest God for you. They are godly words, godly revelations. Other than the śāstrās, you will never get anything from the mouth of God. God has no mouth and He is not going to speak. Even if He speaks, people will say that you are hearing your own mind. But the śāstrās are there written in black and white, and it has been preserved, tried, pursued, experimented for countless generations in our country. So you must have śāstrās.

I have almost prepared a moksha-sādhana literature to be distributed at the end of the Ātma Tattva Sameeksha. This time, we thought we will write something on Paurusha, self-effort. I asked ‘S’ to help me. Finally I also took the book Yoga Vasishtha Ramayana, and I said, “When I open the book, my eyes should directly go to what I want.” I opened the book, I turned one page. On the second page, what I wanted was there. I tell Mā that “This sloka you have to find out. Wish and will so. Keep me in your heart and then read.” And she will locate the verse.

So, we have taken a few verses on Paurusha. It is a very delicate subject. The word Paurusha means self-effort, and there is one shloka there where he says, "Daivam na vidyate" (Yoga Vasishtha Ramayanam 2.8.13), there is nothing called 'daiva'. It is man’s own effort which is called 'daiva'. So I am going to think and also discuss whether that verse should be put there. Now, I feel like accepting these verses and explaining them, on what basis? On the basis that it is in Yoga Vasishtha Ramayana, Vasishtha told Rama, so it is something very great and precious. See, that it carries the stamp of śāstrās, that is what makes it acceptable.

So, to keep your inspiration constantly on, stronger and stronger, deeper and deeper, learn some of the verses of the śāstrās and repeat them. Keep them as your ideal, watchword, value, goal. न वित्तेन तर्पणीयो मनुष्यो, na vittena tarpaṇīyo manushyo (Katopanishad I.1.27), man can never be satisfied with riches and money.

If you succeed in knowing the truth here, your life becomes meaningful and fruitful. Or else colossal is the loss. When I read these lines decades back, you should imagine, it became a watchword for me. This is how you keep up your inspiration. So far as deeksha and post-deeksha sādhana are concerned, you should understand that you have got something ultimate and final, the crowning fulfillment of human life. Having got it, tell me how much you owe yourself to it, cherish it, preserve it, rest upon it, rely upon it, depend upon it? What is it that you want? You want bad things to go away and good things to come in. Both will be ensured by your clinging to sādhana. Be connected, be connected with it. After all, what is it? It is something for the mind to remember, cherish, and pursue. So simple and so easy.

Consider your mind is responsible for everything. It makes the world beautiful, great, glorious. It makes your life meaningful, purposeful, good and beneficial. The same mind can draw another picture, everything gloomy it makes, and you feel, “I am useless, I am useless, I have nothing, I have nothing.” Your uselessness is your creation. Your usefulness is your achievement. Everybody in this world has only one body, one mind, one intelligence, one ego and the soul uniformly present. You also have them. Realize them, use them, be great in feeling that “I am full and complete by the very fact of my birth. I have to realize it.” And the Guru is a personification of this truth, this realization. Be close to him. Ask him whatever questions you have, whatever enquiries you have. You can go into his personal life and ask him, "What do you think? What is this? What is that?" etc. That is the way you must interact with the Guru and cling onto your sādhana and derive inspiration.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.