Articles for Saadhana

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.

I don’t know how to put across this point to you, so that it will remain constantly in work giving you the necessary strength, assurance, relief, hope, confidence and what not. See, in our culture, the cultural documentations in the form of scriptures, that is what we call scriptures, they are nothing but documentations made by different people at different times on the same subject of culture. Our culture is actually a kind of a value enunciation relating the whole of human life, pursuit, goal and fulfillment. You will find human life, human personality analyzed properly, the world around equally analyzed, the interaction between the two, equally analyzed and evaluated. Even the so called God and religion are no other than the human mind’s own concept, compulsion and persuasions. So, the analysis of human life irresistibly brings the concept of God, religion and philosophy etc.

So, everything is analyzed in our culture. The analysis is such that it is enlightening on the one hand, evaluative on the other, giving sufficient inspiration and guidance to the readers and listeners at every point of time. The cultural enunciations are such that you will find it is always a personal narration. Those people who are devoted to God, God remains infinitely distant and invisible. So, you cannot have a bilateral transaction or relationship with God. But in our scriptures you will find, God is brought to the front, the devotee is brought to his front and there is a dialogue between God and devotee.  This is also authored by a human mind.

This kind of a cultural evaluation, it dates back to prehistoric times in the form of Vedas and the Upanishads. Coming down the ages, we have nearer creations like Ramayana, Mahabharata, Srimad Bhagavatam and the like. They are so copious, so much that if you take to reading them, that reading and trying to reflect upon them will themselves be a full fold pursuit for you. In India, no seeker need worry about, "What I shall do?" He can take to our scriptural reading. It is called svādhyāya.

Whenever you read the scriptural writings, you must always feel that it is somebody very close to you, speaking to you about his own experiences in the form of a narration. Suppose your mother or father tells you, “Come and sit. This is what I have to tell you about my own life experience and finding.” What will be the credibility and inspiration you will find in that? Much more should be the credibility you feel in our scriptural narration. These narrations are so protective, so inclusive, embracive that anybody who is given to them, he will be completely safe and comfortable in this world.

In my wandering days, soon after I came from Calcutta, decades back, I happened to go to a place called Chelakkara, a village. There was a Vedantic Scholar Ananthanarayana Sastri there. He was spending a lot of time in reading Yoga Vasishta and the like. So, he could understand us and appreciate what we said. So he was telling me one day with tearful eyes. His father was a great scholar and he was always given to reading our scriptures, Ramayana and the like. Being a scholar, he was not doing anything like a priest craft. The priests are at least appointed and called by people, they are given some dakshina - remuneration, but in the case of scholars, they will not be called and they will not be going for anything like a priest craft. So he says, “My father was finding it very difficult, there was nothing to eat. Suddenly, one man came in a bullock cart with a lot of materials, rice, vegetables, fruits, plantain and all that.” When he was narrating it to me, there were tears in his eyes full, blissful tears.

This is something that I am telling you from my personal account. A narration made by a person about his father for whom when there was a crisis for food in his family, from apparently nowhere appeared a man with a bullock cart full of materials for food. I don’t know how you will receive this information, knowledge.

In Bhagavad Gita Krishna says, that

What does it mean? "Anyone who is given unbrokenly to thinking about me, associated with me, contemplating upon me..." The worship is not by flowers, it is not by any material or ritualistic process. It is only by, in and through his heart and mind, thinks about God, thinks about many things about Godly accounts and narrations, but the thought of God, memory of the exploits made by God, all of them remain continuously in him. Nobody knows, but his mind is involved, involved, wedded to God. Now such people he says, “I look after them.” 

Bhagavad Gita uses two words. ‘Yoga’ and ‘kshema’. The word ‘kshema’ means looking after whatever you have. And Yoga means bringing and giving to you whatever you further need. I don’t think we have any scope for anything else. If it is health, your health should be preserved. If you have minimum resources to live, they will be preserved and whatever further is necessary will be brought in the case of a seeker.

This statement has to be interpreted or understood in a different manner. A seeker or a devotee always wants to progress further and further in his seeking and devotion. “Whatever is necessary to ensure the safety and welfare of whatever he has and whatever is required in the form of addition to intensify his seeking and devotion, I will bring about.” You tell me is, there any insurance policy like this? Can your father and mother do it? Can the married partner do it? You may be in different types of crises, confrontations, different challenges, many things may come in life in order to enable you to go ahead further and further. “Whatever is necessary to look after and ensure the facilities or otherwise you have and whatever are further needed to make you better, more and more reinforce you, both I shall look after.”, he says.

Yesterday I was answering a letter from a seeker who goes on doubting, doubting, doubting, “What shall I do?” God helps even dacoits, burglars, terrorists and the others. If not God, who else is behind them? I am saying about their heart beats, their lungs breathe, their blood circulates, their brain functions, all these are taking place. That is why they are able to flourish, at least to some extent in their profession. So, the great laws of nature which even look after these people who are mischievous, harmful and maleficent in their mission, will not God look after the seeker, the devotee? I think he will look after him to an infinite measure.

You have to look at these scriptures, their statements, read them, read them, find your inspiration and delight in them. Be nourished, nourished, nourished by them. Cherish them in your heart. If you start doing so, this itself is the greatest austerity. Austerity is not so much physical where you go to a mountainous area, live in privation, live in austerity physical, distanced from all people. No, No, No. That is physical austerity. The true austerity is mento-intellectual. The mind drowned by the thoughts of God, the intelligence contemplating upon the truths and principles governing the world and divinity. If your mind and the intelligence remain steeped in these, I think that itself is the greatest insurance for you. "Yoga-kṣemaṁ vahāmy-aham".

We have got Bhagavad Gita consisting of seven hundred verses. Go on reading them, reading them. A lifelong contemplation will not be excess in the matter of understanding and relating the Bhagavad Gita verses. If you want a still more elaborate scripture, then Srimad Bhagavata, very sweet and delicious is there. Please understand that scriptures are narrations made by the most beloved people that we can think of. It is like a friend speaking to you, your parents speaking to you, the teacher speaking to you, God addressing you, the most beloved person talking to you, narrating his own experiences, which are true of anyone including you.

I would like you to look at the scriptures as such a beautiful, beloved, splendid narration. It is for us to cherish it and be nourished by it. I don’t think there is anything, a greater treasure than the treasure of wisdom contained in our scriptural narrations. Money and wealth are used for buying and having sensory, gross external objects. The scriptures are a treasure that you buy and get, with and from your mind, from your intelligence, by your intelligence, and it is a treasure which the mind and the intelligence will collect, possess, cherish and rejoices in. There will be an answer in our scriptural narrations for every question in your life, for every need there will be fulfillment. It is a great thing to live in the scriptures and through the scriptural processes.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.