Sai Ram

Light and Love

Swami teaches.... (15 -18 August 2005)
Holy Vedic Declarations Reveal the Self and Cosmos

Religion is not constituted of human fancies; it is the call of the Spirit from which we have come. It is the sense of kinship one feels, when one sees other beings immersed in grief or joy. It is the exultation one feels when one experiences Truth, Beauty and Goodness. Person who denies religion has no discrimination, no heart, no feeling and no emotion.

Life has a beginning and an end; the beginning and the end are both governed by the law of cause and effect. Human is floored at the height of triumph by the stroke of some unseen hand. The cause for birth is the same as the cause for death fascination for sense-objects and the trail of activity that it involves. From Iham (this world) you proceed to Param (the world beyond); through the practice of the Dharma (code of virtuous conduct), pertaining to life in the world as a member of the human community, you transcend it and earn the right and the qualification to know about the Dharma of the beyond, the Nature and Glory of the Divine.

You must see Nature as filled with God, shaped by God, as God, in those shapes and smells and sounds. We see the image in the mirror because the light rays are reflected back from the surface of the mirror. You are the reflection of the rays of God from the mirror that is Nature. If that mirror were not there, the Jeevi (individual soul) does not exist as a separate entity. Remove the mirror, then 'you' merges in 'He,' and there remains We.

The riches that you should strive to amass are not fields or factories, bungalows or bank balances, but wisdom and experience of Oneness with grandeur of the Universe and the Force that runs it without a hitch. The method of winning these riches is saadhana. People hesitate to enter the field of saadhana, though they crave for the harvest of joy. However, they want Moksha (Liberation) to drop from the heavens in their laps. They would have the vision of God thrust painlessly into their brain.

When God assumes the human form and is behind, before and beside you, speaking to you and moving with you, and allows you to cultivate attachment of various kinds with Him, you do not recognise Him. The Divine cannot be easily recognised, when It is embodied. The Divine proclaims, "I am not a mass of flesh and blood; I am not a bundle of desires, which the mind is, I am not the heap of delusion which the imagination is; I am the Paramaathma (Supreme Soul), the Origin and the End."

God is the urge within you, the knowledge which you seek as a result of the urge, of own Self. However, it is not easy to acknowledge. Below is a pictorial story as an example.

A great yogi resolved to delve into the glory of the Divine Principle, retreated to the depth of a silent forest. His thapas (penance) continued for five long years. God willed to test his sincerity and his earnestness. He came before him as a young boy. At that time, his eyes were a little open. The boy asked him "Grandpa! Why have you shut your eyes thus? Whom are you praying to? Have you found out how God appears?" The yogi replied, "Boy! I have seen him only as much as my eye is open." Thereafter the yogi's eyes were half open. The boy returned again and asked him, "Grandpa! How much of God have you seen now?" He replied, "Boy! I have known half of Him." A year later the Boy came again. By that time, the yogi had his eyes fully open. "Grandpa! Have you seen and known God?" was the question and the answer was, "Yes! I have known." So the Boy demanded, "Tell me what you have understood." And the yogi said, "I have understood that He is beyond understanding." Now, God was before this yogi in human form but he could not identify Him and recognise Him.

In order to sublimate the low yearnings of human, to lead person along the path of holiness and to hold before the glorious destiny of his/her oneness with the Cosmic Consciousness, the identity of the Jeeva

(individual) and the Dheva (Universal), the Vedhas have laid down many lessons, in profound axioms summarising realisable Truths. Each Vedha has one central declaration. These declarations are the following.

1. Prajnaanam Brahma is the Holy Declaration of the Rig Vedha. Prajnaanam means constant integrated awareness. This is present and active, in all things, at all places, all the time. It energises the physical, mental and spiritual realms, the lower, middle and higher regions and the sub-human, human, and super-human beings. The three periods of Time - the nether, spatial and heavenly worlds, and the three modes of being - goodness, passion and inertia (Sathwa, Rajas and Thamas) are all pervaded and permeated by Prajnaanam (total awareness) or Chaithanya (pure consciousness).

2. Aham Brahmaasmi is the Holy Declaration of the Yajur Vedha. It is a component of three words Aham, Brahma and Asmi. Aham implies a total, a composite. Human is subjected to countless thoughts, desires and resolutions, called "Sankalpa". The very first Sankalpa that nestles in the mind of human is Aham or I-ness. Other ideas or thoughts leading to action can enter the mind only after Aham has struck root. Earlier than that event, no acceptance or rejection, no Sankalpa can find a place. The I-ness persists in the gross body of the waking stage, the subtle body of the dream stage and the causal body of the deep sleep stage. I is the universal response, the core of all.

Next, we have the expression Brahma-Asmi, (I am Brahman). This truth can be made clear by an example. To curdle milk and get curds for use, we add a small quantity of curd itself to the milk. Then all the milk turns into curds. Wherefrom did we get the curd, initially? From milk which was similarly treated. The years of life are the milk: the Divine Principle. Brahman is the curd, which, when it is welcome to pervade life, converts them into a Divine Saga. This is what the Upanishaths mean when they declare that he who knows Brahman becomes Brahman as it was several times mentioned in previous serial "Swami teaches..."

Asmi is the process of mixing, the consummation of adding, the merging, the union. When it happens, Aham becomes Brahman. When humanness is permeated by Godness, human becomes God and can experience Aanandha. It can be gained only through and from the Divine. Hence it is proclaimed that Aanandha is the core of all the Vedhas, the fruit of all the Shaasthras (the goal of all the scriptures). One must have faith in this truth. Very often Swami stresses the need for faith as one of the main's factor for spiritual consciousness...

"Ego" can appear in two states. The I or Ego should not be moulded or enclosed in an "ism"; then, it becomes harmful as egoism.

If the I is limited to the body and labelled on the form, it is harmful, it brings about pride and selfishness. The fog of egoism, hides the Universal and induces the belief in distinctness; it is a cloud of dust that smothers the truth. (People now love the fog and the cloud; they make no effort to remove them).

If the I or Ego it is identified with the Aathman (true Self), it is sanctified and it leads to the mergence with the Brahman (Divine Self).

3. Thath Thwam Asi is the Holy Declaration of the Saama Vedha - That thou art. Thath (That) was in existence before creation and subsequently is in existence now and in the future too. It is the Principle of Total Consciousness, the totality of Being and Becoming, encompassing and transcending the physical, mental and spiritual reaches, "beyond the horizon of expression and imagination" The Cosmos did not originate from God; It is God. There is nothing "Other"; there is no "Second." There is nothing in the Universe higher than God, different from God, distinct from God. He is the "Thath" (That). It is the Omnipresent (Eternal Awareness Chaithanya. It is referred to as Thath (That), since we now imagine It to be distant, far from your body, your senses, your mind, your reasoning faculty which are all equipped only with limited capabilities. But, once your intuitive consciousness is aroused, the "far" is "close."

The Vedhas announce It to be farther than the farthest, also closer than the closest. "Thwam" ("Thou") is the body-sense-mind-reason complex. This too is That, as confirmed by the verb, asi (art). This Holy Declaration is enshrined in the Saama Vedha, whose hymns are musical and have to be sung as part of holy rites. Music is an excellent medium for harmonising Thou and That, the Human with the Divine. The shower of Love-lit song can bring Thou and That together. Asi (art) can be consummated.

To realise the identity of the two, one has to resort to the saadhana (spiritual discipline) of meditation. Meditation is the process of sublimating concentration (which concerns itself with the realm of the senses), leading into contemplation (which concerns itself with the realm of mind and reason), resulting in real meditation (which concerns itself with the realm unreachable by logic or thought or even imagination).

(Usually today people wander far and wide, but neglect their home. They peep into the stars in space, but keep their inner sky unexplored. They peep into other's lives and pick faults, and talk ill of them; but, they do not care to peep into own thoughts, acts and emotions and judge whether they are good or bad. By meditation is possible to get immersed in the idea of the Universality and the Omnipotence of God).

4. Ayam Aathma Brahma is the Holy Declaration of the Atharva Vedha, the Fourth among the Vedhas. It means, "This Aathma is Brahman." It implies' 'that the Individual Self is the untarnished, unaffected Witness of the activities of the Body-Mind Complex. The lamp illumines the area around it. One person falsities accounts so that he can escape paying tax; another writes the Name of Raama as a saadhana; another person takes advantage of the light to lay his hands on articles to steal. The lamp is the witness.
The individual Self also as God as has no favourites or foes is not drawn into desire; He has no wants; He is full, free and ever content. He has no aversions or attractions. He has no bonds of kith or kin.

However, one poet has sung, "O Krishna! O Gopaala! I do not count on your being kind to me, or being moved by my appeals for mercy. Don't I know that you killed with your own hands your maternal uncle? You killed the very nurse who came endearingly to you in order to feed you at her breast. With no iota of compassion towards the father of your dearest devotee, you tortured him and killed him while the son, Prahlaadha, was looking on. You approached Bali as if for alms, and when he gladly placed all he had at your feet, you trampled on his head and pressed him down into the nether regions. How can a heart that has no tenderness, melt at my misery?"

Yes, God is above all attachments. (So the Self). You decide the distance between Him and yourselves. Moksha is the stage when attachment attains extinction. How, then, can the Grantor of Moksha be Himself abridged by attachment? God is like the postman, who is not concerned with the contents of the letters that he hands over to the addresses; one letter might communicate victory, another, defeat; you receive what you have worked for.

Swami always advises to control the senses and let them not draw you into the objective world. By this means, the mind can be made an instrument of illumination and not of delusion.

The education of the emotions and the control of passions are both included in the definition of Yoga, the spiritual discipline that purifies the intelligence. To penetrate the thick fog that ignorance spreads over Reality, the intelligence must be built on the basis of virtue. When Karma (action) is done as dedication and Upaasana (worship) is done as the essential for very life, the intelligence is clarified so much that the fog disappears and the truth is revealed. Karma, when engaged in as dedicated to God, loses its deleterious effects for the doer, leaves the consequence to God; moreover, he considers every act as an act of worship and so does it to the best of his ability. Karma thus becomes transmuted into Upaasana.

Upaasana starts with some concrete image or idol or Name and Form; then, as the significance of the Name and the Form sinks into the consciousness, all names are seen to be God's; all forms are felt to be God's. Gradually, the truth that the worshipper too is the same entity, deluding himself as separate, because of a separate name and a distinct form, labelling the upaadhi (the bodily encasement), becomes evident; this is the dawn of jnaana (spiritual wisdom). (Reet's compilation from, Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol. 7. "The wayside halt," Chapter 16 and "The Race and the Prize," Chapter 20; Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol. 9. "The spider in the same web," Chapter 17; Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol. 16. "Vedhic Declarations," Chapter 1 and "In Human Form," Chapter 16).

Namaste - Reet