Articles for Saadhana

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.

Yesterday I was speaking about how meritorious, effective, sublime and rewarding, the life of Brahmacharya is. You know creation abounds in variety. Variety alone will enable us to compare and contrast matters and gain greater and greater degrees of knowledge. If the world consisted of only one product and one existence, I don’t think life will ever be possible. Our life is possible because things are various here. We are so many people seated in this hall. Suppose there is no hall and only one person occupies the whole universe, then do you think anything called life, interaction or otherwise would be possible? Why don’t you think about these matters?

When you say variety, in the variety, everything from best and super best, deluxe best, to the worst, super worst and deluxe worst will be there. Otherwise, it cannot be variety. Variety cannot be all good, better and best. Then what about bad, worse and worst? That is how in the whole world, we have an ample and astounding variety. Naturally the question of comparison arises. We try to find out what is good, what is still better and what is the best ultimately. When you start thinking in this manner - what is the way of life or way of pursuit which is the best for a human being in whom the mind and the intelligence are at work?

The animals do not have something called civilization. The most ancient animal and the present animal, mostly live in the same manner. The ancient man and the present man make a lot of difference. The manner in which we live, we dress, we grow our food and have our food, the type of travels we adopt and we are making use of, and various civilizational, technological and advancement steps that we are taking, all of them are still in progress. Such a progress you don’t find in the animal or sub-animal kingdoms. What is the reason? Because we have two distinct powers and potentials. One is the power of speech, the articulation, whereby we express our ideas inside. So, we have the power to think and know and the power to express our knowledge.

The entire world of variety is a great beckon for us. It is a challenge in modern language. I would like to say, it is not so much a challenge, but it is beckoning us from all directions. My dear man, you try to know more, understand more, evaluate more, assess more, and arrive at your own conclusion. What is this human life for? When will it be crowned with success? What is the best fulfillment? Etc.  In this matter, India has a distinction. Right from the prehistoric ages, this observation of the world, evaluation of our life, comparison and contrast about the goal of life, means for attaining it, these have been done.

I would like you to come along with me to the Upanishadic, Vedic level, that time in which,

This shloka has always struck me with a great wonder, admiration and evaluation. Vedānta-vijñāna-suniścitārthāh. Artha means the object of life or the object of pursuit in human life. What is the object for which human life should strive? That should be determined on the basis of Vedānta-vijñāna, the knowledge provided by Vedanta.

Vedanta literally means the end of knowledge. If you take knowledge to be a pursuit or a yatra, a journey, this is the end of the journey where it fulfills itself. According to the knowledge provided by Vedanta, determine the object of your life and then in order to fulfill it, sannyāsayogād yatayah śuddhasattvāh. Yesterday I spoke to you about celibacy, brahmacharya. Now, this is Sannyasa. What is Sannyasa? There are four stages of human life meant for all people. Don’t think that it is only for Sannyasins.

The first is life of education, brahmacharya. The second is the life, householder where one gets married to another and they rear a family so that the vamsa will continue, the lineage will continue, human beings will not become extinct. Then the third is entrusting the house administration to the grown up children and getting away from along with the wife preferably, but with a different way of life. There is nothing like earning, hoarding and all that. The life is of a different type of austerity. If one succeeds in that, then he can take up sannyasa, that is the crowning glory and fulfillment of human life. These are the four stages.

Now, in this particular shloka from Mundakopanishad it says, sannyāsayogād yatayah śuddhasattvāh.

Take up sannyasa and strive for attaining the supreme object of human life. What is that object and what will sannyasa give you or bestow on you?  śuddhasattvāh. I think these four letters should ring in your mind, particularly in our brahmacharis and brahmacharinis. ‘X’ should take care of this. śuddhasattvāh. Brahmacharya or sannyasa is meant only to make your whole being pure, resplendent, brilliant, splendorous and radiant, radiant, radiant.

Normally when I tell people, “What do you have?”

“I have a body.”

“In the body, don’t you feel something vibrant and radiant?”

“No, Swamiji, I don’t feel anything.”

Your body radiates heat, blood is circulating there. I don’t know whether I am… We have a doctor also luckily here. You know how much is the blood circulating? If all the blood vessels are put together, connected to make one vessel, then it will be something like one lakh kilometers, I was told. Maybe it is slightly different. One lakh kilometers in the whole of your body, so much of distance, the blood is circulating. Does it not require a force? Will it not produce heat?

Our body produces only heat and brilliance. Know! Just imagine what am I doing here? My lips are moving, tongue is moving, teeth are moving, the throat is moving, the entire sound box, the sound system, it is vibrant. And see how many different words and syllables I produce! Now every syllable contains idea, knowledge. So, my system not merely produces heat, magnetism and electricity, it also produces sound which means it is conveying knowledge. So, there is a cognitive function in the system and that is where the mind, the thoughtful mind and the knowing intelligence, they come to play. Now these things are all concurrently produced in our body, radiating. And you say that there is no source for it? Why is it that you are not aware of it? Are you merely the body? No, no, no, no, no!

Our body generates heat without any external help. It produces prāṇa, breath. It produces bellowing of the lungs, beating of the heart, circulation of the blood, preservation of the heat. Then it also produces sound, the expression of knowledge, emotions, ideas. It produces sleep, it produces wakefulness, it produces dream where the mind produces a parallel world. Tell me, is it a simple dynamo? Is it a simple source? Or the source of the entire creation?

Now, when you become a śuddhasattva, śuddhasattva, śuddhasattva, śuddha - pure, sattva - being. When you become a pure being, pure being, tell me, what is this purity? If you take good food, you will have very good hemoglobin, sodium, potassium, calcium, everything will be in good proportion, that’s all. That is not pure being. That is a healthy body. The pure being should be or will be only when the mind starts radiating, sublime, noble, great, spiritual, holy, resplendent thoughts. The intelligence also produces beautiful, sublime knowledge. Every thought and every knowledge that you have will radiate, delight, delight, ecstasy, ecstasy, sublimity, sublimity, expansion, expansion, loftiness, loftiness, loftiness, exalted level of thinking. This exaltedness, we will start feeling.

There is a radiance other than heat, other than mere energy, there is a radiance which will start making you feel, what? The presence of the body, the presence of the mind, the presence of the intelligence. This kind of a self-radiance, spiritual radiance is what is meant by śuddhasattvāh. So, the purpose of brahmacharya, the purpose of sannyasa is actually to bring about this wonderful, I don’t like to call it, nevertheless I have to say, inner purity, sublimity, loftiness. In the same manner, as thoughts are revealing in your system, you will also come to know wherefrom the thoughts come, the source of thought.

See, your mind produces good thoughts, bad thoughts, best thoughts, worst thoughts, a variety of thoughts. What is that source from where all this variety arises? You will be in touch with it and that touch will neither be merely purity nor impurity. It will be far beyond purity and impurity. That is why our upanishads say, it is neither darkness nor light. It is beyond darkness and transcending light. Why don’t you listen to these expressions and contemplate upon them? It is the end of darkness. It is equally, it is equally the transcendence of light.

Light and darkness are before the eyes, before the eyes, light and darkness. Our mind is the one which distinguishes between light and darkness. The mind produces thoughts, they are neither light nor dark, but nevertheless they are each different from the rest. So, there is a distinction possible without light and darkness. The intelligence produces knowledge as opposed to ignorance. But the source from which ignorance and knowledge are produced, that is neither ignorance nor knowledge. It is beyond both.

Your system will start radiating that source, that source, that source will not merely be the source within, it is the source of the entire creation outside. You become the center of the universe. You are not merely the center of your body. We carry a concenter from which not merely the thought circle, the knowledge circle, the emotional circle, the sensory circle, the bodily circle is drawn, you can extend it and draw a circle covering the entire universe and beyond. This is hundred percent fact, fact, not fiction. Now brahmacharya as well as sannyasa are the great means and pursuit for this.

I would like our brahmacharis and brahmacharinis to read and understand these statements. Let them be nursed in the cradle of these pronouncements. Unless you have them ringing in your minds, unless you have them beckoning your intelligence, unless you have them pulsating in your heart, in your mind, in your brain, you will not find your pursuit exhilarating, fulfilling, ecstatic, and enlightening. It is such a wonderful course. ‘X’, I would like you to think about it and evaluate it properly, it is a great thing and you don’t want. If the entire earth were to be converted into gold, this life is much greater than the total golden earth or the universe. That is why our people have been after this and this sannyasa and brahmacharya have remained in our life, in our country for countless millennia. You should understand it, countless millennia, with no publicity or recognition or nobel prize awarded for it.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.