Q. Is there any mantra or repetition of the name (japa) that will give us this peaceful (santhi) state that you spoke about just now? If there is any, which is the important one?
A. Mantra and repetition of the name are essential for all types of people. What is a mantra? Ma means manana (reflection, understanding) and thra means saving, so mantra means that which can save you if you meditate on it.
A mantra will save you from being caught up in the coils of this worldly life, which is infested with death, grief, and pain. Of all mantras, the Om (pranava) is the highest and the best. It is the very head and crown of all of them.
Q. Suppose each one does repetition of the name of their chosen deity according to their own light. I believe it is not wrong. Or is it?
A. You mean that however savage or foolish people may be, they cannot but call on the Lord! Well, if the name is recited along with Om, it is bound to be beneficial. Just as the waters of the ocean are raised into the sky by t...
People refer to various duties, rights, and obligations, but these are not the basic dharmic truth (sathya dharma); they are only means and methods of regulating the complications of living. They are not fundamental.
All these moral codes and approved behaviours are prompted by the need to cater to two types of creatures and two types of natures, viz. masculine and feminine.
They connote creation (prakriti) and God (Paramatma), gross and subtle, inert and conscious, the all-pervading duet. All this creation came about by the interrelation of the inert and the conscious, didn’t it? So too, all the various morals have emerged on account of this bifurcation. All this ramification and elaboration of dharma is due to this: the masculine and the feminine.
The chief guides of living
Therefore, the chief dharma for the practical progress of the world is the moral conduct and behaviour of these two; whatever any great teacher might teach, it cannot go beyond these two distinct natures.
The dh...
Devotee: Swami, I have a few doubts concerning the subject of meditation (dhyana), which You are now writing about. Can I ask You?
Swami: Of course, you can ask and have your doubts removed. It is good for you and it gives Me joy.
Devotee: Some people practise meditation, but they are unable to know whether the mediation has progressed or not. What do You say about that?
Swami: Progress in meditation means attainment of concentration (ekagratha). Each one can judge for oneself, without doubt, how far one has been able to succeed in concentration, right?
Devotee: Some say that they see all sorts of things during meditation, and some hear all types of sounds. Do these indicate progress?
Swami: They are delusions. They handicap progress. They implant conceit and disperse concentration. The distraction of sights and sounds is no sign of meditation.
Devotee: Then what is to be done when such are seen?
Swami: Don’t allow the mind to wander on to them; never lose sight of the divine form th...
The seen is transitory; this is seen through meditation. When people wander helter-skelter in a strange land, not knowing the road, and when someone comes to direct them along the right path, it is not right to laugh at and dishonour them - it brings about only ruin and confusion! But today, it has become the habit of people to curdle the love (prema), these embodiments of love, into poison through ignorance of the role of helpfulness that these guides have come to play.
Note this! Love and destruction arise from the same native spot. The same sea that yielded gems, the moon, nectar, and the goddess of wealth also brought forth the world-destroying halahala poison. Under these conditions, one must, like Sri Narayana, accept the good and the auspicious; otherwise, one cannot have nectar and Lakshmi. The heroic and the adventurous, like Siva, can have the poison as their need.
The Lord’s grace is needed to cross the sea
This sea of life (samsara), turbulent with the waves of joy and mi...
Problems of the educational system
Today, the educational system, though very expensive and elaborate, has ignored instruction in morals. In the spiritual teacher’s homes (gurukulas) of the past, instruction was provided for right living, spiritual advancement, and moral conduct and behaviour. Students were trained to lead lives marked by humility, sense control, virtue, and discipline. Now, these qualities are not recognisable among students. Students are not aware of the means or meaning of sense-control. From childhood, they revel in following every whim and fancy; they find pleasure in the free play of the senses and believe only in materialism.
As a result, the situation in the colleges fills one with alarm. The head of the department of health in Calcutta found that 80 out of 100 students in the Calcutta University are afflicted with poor health. In the Bombay region, the condition is even worse, with 90 out of 100 affected. The reason is to be found in the fact that the studen...
Vedas: source of all-knowing wisdom
The Veda is the most ancient as well as the most lasting knowledge discovered by humanity. That is to say, people did not invent it; they only recollected it in the serene silence of the soul. So, the Veda can lead people into the vision of the truth, unreachable by the senses and unrelated to the material world. It is inaccessible to human reason because it is transcendent. So, it is described as the Great Protector (Paramam-vyoma) and as indestructible Truth (Thath). These words denote all four Vedas, beginning with the Rig-veda.
The term Veda was originally applied to the Supreme Lord (Parameswara), the All-Knowing (He who knows is Veda (Veththi ithi Vedah)). Then, it was applied to the principle of understanding (That which makes known is Veda (Vedayathi ithi Vedah)). The Rig-veda and the other Vedas have the all-knowing characteristic, so this meaning is also appropriate. Later, the word was applied to activities in consonance with the Vedas - a...
This Upanishad begins with an invocation, praying that the eye may see auspicious things, that the ear may hear auspicious sounds, and that life may be spent in contemplation of the Lord. The teaching of this Upanishad is referred to as knowledge of Brahman (Brahma-vidya), either because it describes first the message of Hiranyagarbha, the causal Brahman, or because the message relates the glory of Brahman. This Upanishad speaks of knowledge of Brahman as the mystery that only those with shaven heads and those who go through a rite of having fire on the shaven head can understand. So, it is called Shaven Head (Mundaka). This Upanishad is honoured as the crest of all, since it expounds the very essence of knowledge of Brahman (Brahma-jnana). It is assigned to the Fourth Veda, the Atharvana.
The transcendent and immanent aspects of Supreme Reality
This knowledge has been handed down from teacher to pupil by word of mouth, enriched and confirmed by experience. When it deals with the attri...
The world situation
World problems are now assuming stranger forms and larger proportions. They are no longer individual or local. They are global, affecting all mankind. On one side, science and technology are advancing with cosmic developments. Through plastics, electronics, and computer technologies, the wonder has reached even greater heights. On the other side, mankind is afflicted with recurring political and economic crises; national, provincial, religious, racial, and caste rivalries; narrow loyalties and outbursts of disturbance in student campuses.
These have spread indiscipline and licentiousness all over the world.
This is an unbalanced and mutually contradictory situation. What really is its cause? Does it lie in the frightening decline that religion and morals have sustained in the human mind? Mankind has within its reach many means and methods through which it can earn wisdom and peace! It can secure invaluable guidance from the Vedas and sacred texts (sastras), the Brah...
Q. Even those who proceed along the path of spiritual progress toward the goal of freedom (moksha) seem to have big obstacles, Swami.
A. Yes, the past, the present, and the future obstacles.
Q. What are they? What is the obstacle from the past?
A. Recollecting and remembering the past and getting affected by it.
Q. And the obstacle from the present?
A. That itself operates in four ways! Attending more to the peculiarities of textual criticism than the sense of the teaching, dullness of the intellect, which prevents one from grasping the words of the elders and the wise, crooked reasoning, and justifying one’s own statement as correct, through an exaggerated conceit.
Q. What is the nature of obstacles from the future?
A. The future creates obstacles because you anticipate troubles and worry about them even before they come.
Q. I have heard people speak of four types of beings, but I’m not quite clear what they are.
A. Egg-born, sweat-born, earth-born, and mammals, Birds are good exa...
Swami: If you dearly love a dog, that dog is also Brahman! The dog has a name and form. If you remove both your name and form and its name and form, then Brahman alone remains. Name and form are "past obstructions".
The absence of name and form is Brahman. Inherent in all the manifold names and forms is inherent just One, Brahman. You have to recognise that "is-ness" in all. The is-ness is being (asthi), the knowledge of the knower is effulgence, the shining splendour (bhathi). That is also Brahman.
There is a yearning, isn't there, to see it, experience it, to seek for it? That is due to the attraction (priya), the charm. These three are basically characteristic of Brahman, my dear boy!
Devotee: What is this being-awareness-bliss (satchidananda) they speak of?
Swami: Atma itself is known as being-awareness-bliss, because its nature is existence-effulgence-lovableness (asthi-bhathi-priya).
Devotee: Swami, since "lovableness (priya)" is also its nature, shouldn't everything be lovable? ...
