Tuesday 16 September 2014

Spiritual Heroism

Extracted from 

The One Infinite Being:Teachings and Sayings of Swami Vivekananda


Let people say whatever they like, stick to your own convictions, and rest assured, the world will be at your feet. They say, “Have faith in this fellow or that fellow,” but I say, “have faith in yourself first,” that’s the way. Have faith in yourself – all power is in you – be conscious and bring it out. Say, “I can do everything.” (6, 274)

Be free; hope for nothing from anyone. I am sure if you look back upon your lives you will find that you were always vainly trying to get help from others which never came. All the help that has come was from within yourselves. (2, 324)

Those who are always downhearted and dispirited in this life can do no work; from life to life they come and go wailing and moaning. “the earth is enjoyed by heroes” – this is the unfailing truth. Be a hero. Always say, “I have no fear.” Tell this to everybody – “Have no fear.” Fear is death, fear is sin, fear is hell, fear is unrighteousness, fear is wrong life. All the negative thoughts and ideas that are in this world have proceeded from this evil spirit of fear. (7, 136)

The sign of vigor, the sign of life, the sign of hope, the sign of health, the sign of everything that is good, is strength. As long as the body lives, there must be strength in the body, strength in the mind, in the hand. (6, 62)

Freedom is never to be reached by the weak. Throw away all weakness. Tell your body that it is strong, tell your mind that it is strong, and have unbounded faith and hope in yourself. (1, 146)

No great idea can have a place in the heart unless one steps out of his little corner. (6, 331)

Blows are what awaken us and help to break the dream. They show us the insufficiency of this world and make us long to escape, to have freedom. (7, 79)

The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature. Have faith in yourselves! (1, 483)

Tuesday 20 May 2014

The One Infinite Being - A Book of Self-discovery

The one Infinite Being

Teachings and Sayings of Swami Vivekananda

Compiled and Edited by Swami Chidakarananda


Since the beginning of mankind there has been one quest that has continually employed the mind and heart of humanity: knowing who we are. The One Infinite Being brings a satisfying answer to that search from the very lips of true knower of the Self.

Swami Vivekananda is not only a renown and globally acclaimed master of the internal Truth, he is a master of modern times and therefore capable of transmitting his experiences in a language that echoes our own. His teachings provide an unencumbered path to the inner realm, bringing the light of clear and direct perception to our mind.
 
I have selected for this book a variety of his sayings with the intention to cover all the aspects of life, from which and through which we can apply Vivekananda’s wisdom to our greatest spiritual and intellectual profit.


Below is an extract from The One Infinite Being. Enjoy the power of its words.


Our sole concern is to know the highest truth. Our goal is the loftiest. We have said big words to ourselves – absolute realization and all that. Let us measure up to the words. Let us worship the spirit in spirit, standing on spirit. Let the foundation be spirit, the middle spirit, the culmination spirit. There will be no world anywhere. Let it go and whirl into space – who cares? Stand thou in the spirit! That is the goal. We know we cannot reach it yet. Never mind. Do not despair, and do not drag the ideal down. The important thing is: how much less you think of the body, of yourself as matter – as dead, dull, insentient matter; how much more you think of yourself as shining immortal being. The more you think of yourself as shining immortal spirit, the more eager you will be to be absolutely free of matter, body, and senses. This is the intense desire to be free. (8, 120)



If you think that you are bound, you remain bound; you make your own bondage. If you know that you are free, you are free this moment. This is knowledge, knowledge of freedom. Freedom is the goal of all nature. (2, 462)



We are ever free if we would only believe it, only have faith enough. You are the soul, free and eternal, ever free, ever blessed. Have faith enough and you will be free in a minute. . . . That which is bound is nature, not the soul. Therefore proclaim your freedom and be what you are – ever-free, ever-blessed. (6, 93)

Tuesday 10 September 2013

On the Wonderful Effect of Divine Love

Extracted from

MEDITATION ON THE IMITATION OF CHRIST: A VEDANTIC INTERPRETATION

by Swami Chidakarananda and Sister Jayanti.


1. The Learner: Father in heaven, Father of Jesus Christ my Lord, I bless you for deigning to remember me and my poverty. Father of mercies, God of all comfort, I thank you for refreshing me with your comfort, little though I deserve any comfort at all. To you and your only-begotten Son, together with the Holy-Ghost, the Comforter, I give blessing and glory always, both now and for ages without end. Ah, Lord God, you the holy one, you my lover, when you come into my heart, the whole of my inmost being will leap with joy. You are my glory, the comfort of my heart; my stronghold and my refuge in my hour of peril.

It is said that grace is when one receives much more than one deserves. Nowhere is this felt as intensely as in spiritual life.
When love touches the heart, all our previous troubles are forgotten, we feel an overwhelming gratitude engulfing us, and we thank God and the universe for this sweet and rare experience that so utterly exceeds anything we could have thought about it. Then we sing a million praises and rejoice in humble gratefulness; we feel and know that we are blessed.

2. As yet I am but weak in love, unsure in virtue; that is why I need your support, your comfort. So come to me, come to me often and teach me what is in your holy laws. Set me free from evil passions; heal my heart of all its ill regulated affections; so that, whole and pure in my inmost being, I may become ready to love, strong to endure suffering, steadfast to persevere.

The mind cannot stay all the time in the peaks of divine love. And if we have recently awakened to the realm of love, we may occasionally feel that our old habits and tendencies slip back into our life when love seems to depart or shines less brightly. We may feel, as Kempis says, “weak in love, unsure in virtue.” But there is no cause to be afraid; as we shall see in the coming verses, once we fall into the blazing furnace of love, it will purify all dross and rekindle our forgotten divine glory.


3. A mighty force it is, this thing love, mighty and altogether good; alone it takes the weight from every burden, alone it bears evenly the uneven load. It bears a burden as if no burden were there, makes the bitter things of life sweet and good to taste. To love Jesus is a wondrous thing; it urges men on to mighty deeds, stirs up in them the desire for a life ever more holy. Love must be ever mounting on high, unfettered by things below; love would ever be free, a stranger to every worldly desire; fearful least its inward vision grow clouded, least some worldly gain should encumber its advance, some worldly misfortune bring it headlong down. There is nothing sweeter than love, nothing stronger, nothing higher, nothing wider, nothing fuller, nothing better in heaven or earth; for love is born of God, and only in God, above all that he has created, can it find rest.

When man attains the highest degrees of divine love, it permeates our life entirely and it reshapes all our thoughts and actions, rendering us unable to do anything that may interrupt its blessed current. But in the initial stages love must be protected just as we protect a child from any kind of harm. Therefore Sri Ramakrishna used to advice to first develop and strengthen our love for God, to make it impervious to all external influences. Then we can live in the world without fear, for once love is established in our heart, everything we experience will simply bring us one more chance to feel the touch of love.
“If you enter the world without first cultivating love for God, you will be entangled more and more. You will be overwhelmed with its danger, its grief, its sorrows. And the more you think of worldly things, the more you will be attached to them.
  “First rub your hands with oil and then break open the jack-fruit; otherwise they will be smeared with its sticky milk. First secure the oil of divine love, and then set your hands to the duties of the world. [1]
There is a beautiful similarity in this verse between the way in which Vedanta describes the Absolute and the manner in which Kempis explains love. Vedanta describes God as Satchidananda, i.e. Existence, Knowledge and Bliss in an absolute degree. Similarly, Kempis tells us that “love is born of God, and only in God, above all that he has created, can it find rest.” This is so because God is that very love: perfect, immortal love. When this divine love is experienced through the selfish influence of the ego it manifests as passion, greed, etc., but when the ego begins to fade love starts to manifests its unselfish, all-pervading influence, and we begin to love all without distinction, for God is love, and he is all.


4. A man in love treads on air; he runs for very joy. He is a free man; nothing can hold him back. He gives all for all, finding his rest in one who is high above all else, the source and origin of all that is good. For gifts he has no regard, but turns to him who is their giver, who is above all good gifts. Love often knows no limits; its impetuous fire leaps across every boundary. Love feels no burden, makes light of toil, strives for things beyond its strength. Love never tries to make out that anything is impossible; everything, in the eyes of love, is both possible and lawful. Love, then, can do everything; many a task there is that love can fulfil and many a wish it can make effective, where the man who does no love is powerless and fails.

Real love is, in a certain way, a kind of madness. When we love, all the cares and considerations that we normally have in connection with the body are forgotten. When man is enraptured in the madness of divine love, his behaviour does not often follow any of the conventional patterns of reason or the norms of society. Sri Ramakrishna frequently said that in this world everybody is mad about something; some are mad after money, others after name and fame, etc., and there are some very fortunate ones who are mad after God.
This divine love can only be expressed in terms of human love and human relationships; so we find in the life of many saints and mystics that those who were possessed of this divine madness worshiped God in a very intimate way, without barriers – as friend, as child or even as lover. Swami Vivekananda describes the characteristics of this intense love thus:
“Often it so happens that divine lovers who sing of this divine love accept the language of human love in all its aspects as adequate to describe it. Fools do not understand this; they never will. They look at it only with the physical eye. They do not understand the mad throes of this spiritual love. How can they? ‘For one kiss of Thy lips, O Beloved! One who has been kissed by Thee, has his thirst for Thee increasing for ever, all his sorrows vanish, and he forgets all things except Thee alone.’ Aspire after that kiss of the Beloved, that touch of His lips which makes the Bhakta[2] mad, which makes a man a god. To him, who has been blessed with such a kiss, the whole of nature changes, worlds vanish, suns and moons die out, and the universe itself melts away into that one infinite ocean of love. That is the perfection of the madness of love.”[3]



[1] Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, 81-82.
[2] Devotee.
[3] Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Vol. III, 98.

Tuesday 11 June 2013

Understanding and Accepting Other People's Faults

Excerpt from

Meditation on the Imitation of Christ:

A Vedantic Interpretation

By Swami Chidakarananda and Sister Jayanti


1. There will always be faults in ourselves, faults in others, which defy correction; there is nothing for it but to put up with them, till God arranges things differently. After all, it may be the best possible way of testing your patience; and without patience a man’s good qualities go for very little. At the same time, you do well to pray about such inconveniences; ask God in his mercy to help you bear them calmly.

        Once we become conscious of our thoughts, nothing gives us greater pain than our own faults and imperfections. We should, of course, struggle to remove these; but discipline and will power alone cannot free us from them altogether. That is why it is vital to learn to accept ourselves as we are; not with a sense of fatalism, but with the understanding that there are things in us that take a long time to change. A cheerful acceptance of our limitations is actually a great virtue. By that simple mental attitude, their binding power is greatly reduced.
       

2. If you have spoken to a man once and again without bringing him to a better mind, it is a mistake to go on nagging at him; leave it all in God’s hands; let his will be done, his name be glorified, in the lives of all his servants – he knows how to bring good out of evil.
        Yes, you do well to cultivate patience in putting up with the shortcomings, the various disabilities of other people; only think how much they have to put up with in you! When you make such a failure of organizing your own life, how can you expect everybody else to come up to your own standards?

           Unsolicited advice is rarely listened to. We may, of course, speak our mind if we think it necessary; but if there is no response to our best intentions, then all we can do is to pray and remain silent, leaving everything in God’s hands. The fact is if we truly know ourselves, there will be nothing in the lives of others that will really shock or surprise us. When we fail so often to live the way we want, how can we expect others to be perfect?


3. We like to have everybody around us quite perfect, but our own faults – we never seem to correct them. Tom, Dick and Harry must be strictly called to order, but we aren’t fond of being called to order ourselves. It is always the other man that has too much rope given him – our wishes must not be thwarted; rules for everybody else, but our own liberties must not be abridged for a moment. My neighbour as myself – it is not often, is it, that we weight the scales equally?
        If we were all perfect, we should give one another no crosses to bear, and that is not what God wants.

           It is easier to look outside than to look inside our mind. It is easier to see the faults of others than our own. We hope to make the whole world perfect but fail to understand that it is not possible, that the only thing that we can change is ourselves. If the world looks to us like a wild field, full of thorns and broken glass, we cannot expect others to cover the whole surface of the planet with a carpet so that we can walk safely. The reasonable and only possible solution is to wear shoes ourselves.
           This understanding of our own weaknesses and failures will also bring a compassionate acceptance of other’s faults.


4. He will have us learn to bear the burden of one another’s faults. Nobody is faultless; each has his own burden to bear, without the strength or the wit to carry it by himself; and we have got to support one another, console, help, correct, advise one another, each in his turn.
         Meanwhile, there is no better test of a man’s quality than when he cannot have things his own way. The occasions of sin do not overpower us, they only prove our worth.

           Goodwill and sincerity are essential for a peaceful and happy interaction with others. Once Saint Martin of Porres and Saint Rose of Lima were separately given the task of decorating the altar of a certain church. They had never met before, and they didn’t know that both have been given the same task. So St. Rose decorated the altar with several flower vases and left to do some other chore. In the meantime, St. Martin came in through another door and started his own decoration, changing the order of the vases. When he had finished, he stepped aside to look at his work from a distance. At that precise moment St. Rose came in, and seeing that someone had moved the vases, put them back in the previous order. After doing that, she noticed the presence of St. Martin and asked him if he had changed the vases. When St. Martin said he had, she returned the vases to the order chosen by St. Martin, so St. Martin asked her:
           “Why did you do that? Do you like it better this way?” “No,” she answered, “but I have an ego to conquer.” Then ST. Martin immediately went and changed the vases to the order selected previously by St Rose. Now St. Rose asked him, “What happened? Do you like better my arrangement?” “No,” said St. Martin, “but I also have an ego to conquer.”

Tuesday 2 April 2013

Meditation on the Imitation of Christ - A Vedantic interpretation

This book brings together the Christian and Indian perspectives of spirituality and the general goals of humankind; it shows how they can enrich and complement each other, and that in spite of the great differences that time and space may forge between dissimilar cultures, when we come to the spiritual dimension and the higher values of life these differences begin to lead to a common point that ends on the immutable principles of Love and Truth.

It is the very first time that any author ventures to write a commentary on this classic Christian best seller from a Vedantic perspective.

This is a short preview of the book. 


Meditation on The Imitation of Christ

CONTENTS


Book I
Practical advice about the spiritual life


Book II
Considerations inviting us to live an interior life


Book III
On inward consolation


Book IV
About the blessed Sacrament
A devout encouragement to receive holy Communion



Book one

PRACTICAL ADVICE ABOUT THE SPIRITUAL LIFE


CHAPTER I

WE MUST TAKE CHRIST FOR OUR MODEL AND DESPISE THE SHAMS OF EARTH

1. He who follows me can never walk in darkness,[1] our Lord says. Here are words of Christ, words of warning; if we want to see our way truly, never a trace of blindness left in our hearts, it is his life, his character, we must take for our model. Clearly, then, we must make it our chief business to train our thoughts upon the life of Jesus Christ.

True to the very title of his book, Kempis begins by telling us that it is Christ whom we must follow, that it is Christ we must imitate in order to become Christ-like.
One of the most important characteristics of our mind is that it can, consciously and unconsciously, absorb the nature and qualities of any object on which it thinks with real intensity. We see this working in our daily lives. When a man and a woman fall in love, for instance, they gradually begin to absorb the good and even the bad qualities of the partner. This constant engrossment in each other tends to transform each one of them into the other. Such is the power of thought! And when the object of our meditation is a divine personage, or even a holy symbol, the result is a transformation of our life and character from the human to the divine.
“He who follows me can never walk in darkness.” Those are not only words of warning, as Kempis says, they are also words of great comfort and hope, because they assure us that if we follow the spirit of Christ’s teachings and make a sincere effort to emulate his life - however small that effort may be in the beginning - a gradual transformation is sure to come into our lives.


2. Christ’s teaching – how it overshadows all the Saints have to teach us! Could we but master its spirit, what a store of hidden manna we should find there! How is it that so many of us can hear the Gospel read out again and again, with so little emotion? Because they haven’t got the spirit of Christ; that is why. If a man wants to understand Christ’s words fully, and relish the flavour of them, he must be one who is trying to fashion his whole life on Christ’s model.

When we study the history of mankind, we find that the life and teachings of certain characters, like Buddha, Jesus and Ramakrishna, have made a tremendous impact on the course of human life, altering the thought current of millions with an impulse that lasts for thousands of years. In the Vedantic tradition, these luminaries are called Avataras, special manifestations of the Divine, the purest manifestations of God on earth.
The life and teachings of these Avataras are the models that humanity has followed for ages. They give the message that is fit for that particular place and time, and also for humanity at large; they make religion simple and accessible to all.
Yet, even though they come to make religion easily available to all, we won’t be able to derive much benefit from merely reading their teachings unless we are, as Kempis tells us, “one who is trying to fashion his whole life on Christ’s model.”


3. Talk as learnedly as you will about the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, it will get you no thanks from the holy Trinity if you aren’t humble about it. After all, it isn’t learned talk that saves a man or makes a saint of him; only a life well lived can claim God’s friendship. For myself, I would sooner know what contrition feels like, than how to define it. Why, if you had the whole of Scripture and all the maxims of the philosophers at your finger-tips, what would be the use of it all, without God’s love and God’s grace? A shadow’s shadow, a world of shadows[2] - nothing matters except loving God and giving him all your loyalty. And the height of wisdom is to set your face towards heaven by despising the world.

“Religion is realization,” said Swami Vivekananda. Theories are good to begin with, but they can never give us lasting satisfaction, nor the knowledge of God or the ultimate Reality. It is only when we have experienced at least a glimpse of God that we can claim to be truly religious. Before that we only speak about it.
Sri Ramakrishna used to say that an ounce of practice is better than tons of theory. In the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (hence GSR) we read the following story:
“Once several men were crossing the Ganges in a boat. One of them, a pundit, was making a great display of his erudition, saying that he had studied various books - the Vedas, the Vedanta, and the six systems of philosophy. He asked a fellow passenger, ‘Do you know the Vedanta?’ ‘No, revered sir.’ ‘The Samkhya and the Patanjala?’[3] ‘No, revered sir.’ ‘Have you read no philosophy whatsoever?’ ‘No, revered sir.’ The pundit was talking in this vain way and the passenger sitting in silence, when a great storm arose and the boat was about to sink. The passenger said to the pundit, ‘Sir, can you swim?’ ‘No,’ replied the pundit. The passenger said, ‘I don’t know the Samkhya or the Patanjala, but I can swim.’”[4]
So unless we are ready to be practical and follow the teachings of a particular religion and verify by direct experience its validity, we have no right to say whether they are true or false.


4. What folly, to hunt for riches that will not last, and put your trust in them! What folly, to set your heart on worldly honours, and scheme for your own advancement! What folly, to obey the promptings of sense, and covet the prizes that will soon cost you dear! What folly, to pray for a long life, without caring whether it is lived well or badly; to think only of your present existence, instead of making provision for the world to come; to fall in love with what passes in a moment, instead of hurrying on to the goal where eternal happiness awaits you!

           We are what we are inside. This life, which can be a wonderful opportunity for our spiritual development, would be simply wasted if we make money, fame, etc., the goal of our existence. This does not mean that they are evil things to be avoided at all cost. What we do need to understand is that they only provide a momentary comfort or thrill that has no chance to make us truly happy and bring us durable peace.
For those who have mastered their minds, for those who have learned to live consciously, these worldly goods can be wonderful tools that they can use for the good of society and for their own advancement in spiritual life, or, if they so wish it, they can live a perfectly contented life without them.
It is said that when Alexander the Great returned to Greece after one of his conquering campaigns, the whole city went to receive him and render him honour. Everyone but one was present. There was an old philosopher living on a nearby hill who didn’t bother to attend the celebration. When Alexander heard of this he was enraged, and went with a small retinue of soldiers to meet the old philosopher who dared to ignore him. When they reached his house, they found him outside, lying on a couch and enjoying the sunlight. Alexander approached him and asked why he had not gone to receive him, but the old man remained silent without even opening his eyes to look at him. The emperor became angry and threatened him in many ways, but got no response. Then changing his tactic Alexander told him, “I can give you anything you want, ask me anything.” Then the old man opened his eyes for the first time and told him, “Can you move aside, please? You are obstructing the sunlight.” Such is the difference between a life well-lived and one that is devoted to the search for power and fame.
Swami Brahmananda, a monastic disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, said to a young monk, “Give your body and mind to worldly enjoyments, and the world will destroy them both. Devote them to God and his service, and you will enjoy bodily health, peace of mind, and spiritual joy.”[5]


5. There is one proverb of which we cannot remind ourselves too often, Eye looks on unsatisfied; ear listens, ill content.[6] Make up your mind to detach your thoughts from the love of things seen, and let them find their centre in things invisible. Those who follow the call of sense only soil their consciences, and lose the help of God’s grace.

The mind is constantly searching for happiness, but permanent happiness cannot be found in the pleasures of the senses. When the enjoyment of the sensory world is experienced as a mere reaction, as a mere response to an impulse, we find that after a brief period of satisfaction the desire to enjoy returns, and only frustration remains.
So we must live our lives in such a way that it will make it possible for us to use the tendencies of our mind in our favour. And the easiest way to do that is by associating all our actions and enjoyments with God, or our spiritual ideal, whatever this might be. By offering, for instance, the fruit of our actions and pleasures to God, by feeling that all the things we enjoy are enjoyed by the Divine within us, we gradually sublimate the selfish and sensual tendencies of the mind, and our actions become a way to constantly keep in mind the presence of God in us and in all around us.


CHAPTER 2

ON TAKING A LOW VIEW OF ONESELF

1. As for knowledge, it comes natural to all of us to want it; but what can knowledge do for us, without the fear of God? Give me a plain, unpretentious farm-hand, content to serve God; there is more to be made of him than of some conceited University professor who forgets that he has a soul to save, because he is so busy watching the stars. To know yourself – that means feeling your own worthlessness, losing all taste for human praise. If my knowledge embraced the whole of creation, yet left me lacking in the love of God, what good would it do me in God’s sight? It is by my actions that he will judge me.

Sri Ramakrishna used to say:
“Vultures soar very high in the sky, but their eyes are fixed on rotten carrion on the ground. The book-learned are reputed to be wise, but they are attached to ‘woman and gold.’[7] Like the vultures, they are in search of carrion. They are attached to the world of ignorance. Compassion, love of God, and renunciation are the glories of true knowledge.”[8]
There are two types of knowledge: the knowledge of the world – the external knowledge, which allows us to understand and improve our physical, material life; and spiritual knowledge, which enables us to discern and manifest our real nature, our divine dimension, or as Jesus Christ explained it: the Kingdom of Heaven in us. This latter knowledge is the highest, for the former is the knowledge that relates to our perishable psychophysical personality; whereas the latter is the knowledge of our immortal, real Self.


2. Why not take a rest from this exaggerated craving for mere knowledge which only has the effect of distracting and deluding us! People are so fond of passing for learned men, and being congratulated on their wisdom – yes, but what a lot of knowledge there is that contributes nothing to our souls’ welfare! And there can be no wisdom in spending yourself on pursuits which are not going to promote your chances of salvation. All the talk in the world won’t satisfy the soul’s needs; nothing but a good conscience will help you to face God unashamed.

Similarly, Sri Ramakrishna said:
“Can one find God in the sacred books? By reading the scriptures one may feel at the most that God exists. But God does not reveal Himself to a man unless he himself dives deep. Only after such a plunge, after the revelation of God through His grace, is one’s doubt destroyed. You may read scriptures by the thousands and recite thousands of texts; but unless you plunge into God with yearning of heart, you will not comprehend Him. By mere scholarship you may fool man, but not God.”[9]
Real knowledge, spiritual knowledge, depends upon no book; after all, books are only an attempt to explain that knowledge. Intellectual knowledge is no proof of spirituality; no amount of theoretical knowledge can give us peace and happiness. When we are hungry, what we need is food, and no amount of conversation about food can satisfy our hunger. Religion is not in theories: it is realization, direct experience.  Intellectual knowledge gives only intellectual pleasure of short duration. When we experience that we are divine, that we are not limited by anything, then lasting peace and happiness are ours.


3. The wider, the more exact your learning, the more severe will be your judgement, if it has not taught you to live holily. No art, no science should make a man proud of possessing it; such gifts are a terrifying responsibility. Meanwhile, however well satisfied you are with your own skill or intelligence, never forget how much there is that remains unknown to you. Let us have no airs of learning; own up to your ignorance; what is the use of crowing over some rival, when you can point to any number of Doctors and Masters who can beat you at your own game? If you want to learn an art worth knowing, you must set out to be unknown, and to count for nothing.
 
         Once yudhisthira and Duryodhana were asked to judge four men that had commited murder. Duryodhana immediately said that they should all be sentenced to death, but Yudhisthira, who was much wiser, asked the men to what cast they belonged. He learned that all were of different casts: sudra (servant), vaishya (merchant), kshatriya (warrior) and brahmin (one who makes spirituality the goal of life). So he gave to each a different sentence, according to their degree of knowledge and responsibility. To the sudra he gave four years of prison, for he was illiterate and ignorant; to the vaishya eight years, for he had some education and understood better what he was doing; to the kshatriya he gave 15 years, for he was a warrior and his duty is to protect the people, not to murder them; and to the brahmin he gave the death sentence, for he was a learned man whose duty was to dedicate his life to God, and he knew fully well the sacredness of life.
        There is no doubt that the greater our knowledge, the greater is our responsibility, and the harder will be the account we must submit for its use. This does not mean that learning is bad in itself; it can be an asset to the spiritual aspirant who uses it to serve others unselfishly. Learning becomes a hindrance if it makes us proud and arrogant. If we are truly learned, it should make us humble.

4. There is no lesson so profound or so useful as this lesson of self-knowledge and of self-contempt. Claim nothing for yourself, think of others kindly and with admiration; that is the height of wisdom, and its masterpiece. Never think yourself better than the next man, however glaring his faults, however grievous his offences; you are in good disposition now, but how long will they last? Tell yourself, “We are frail, all of us, but none so frail as I.”

We should always remember that if we see faults in others it is because we have those faults in us. The person who has no evil inside, cannot see it outside. A child three years old cannot see wickedness in others, for his mind is still free from it. It is later, when he begins to develop the concept of wickedness within, that he starts to see it outside. So before judging our neighbour, we would do well to understand that we have ourselves that very fault we are about to judge.
In her last moments of life Sarada Devi gave this advice to one of her disciples: “If you want peace of mind, do not find fault with others. Rather see your own faults. Learn to make the whole world your own. No one is a stranger, my child; the whole world is your own.”[11]


CHAPTER 3

HOW TRUTH IS TO BE LEARNT

1. Oh to be one of those to whom truth communicates itself directly – not by means of symbols and words, whose meaning changes with time, but in its very nature! Our own estimate, our own way of looking at things, is always putting us in the wrong, by taking the short view. And here are we, splitting hairs about all sorts of mysterious problems which do not concern us – we shall not be blamed, at our judgement, for having failed to solve them. Strange creatures that we are, we forget the questions which really matter to us, matter vitally, and concentrate, of set purpose, on what is mere curiosity and waste of time. So clear-sighted we are, and so blind!

 “To see once, is better than to hear a hundred times,” says the Chinese popular wisdom. And how true it is! There is a big difference between reading and hearing about spiritual truths in books and sermons, and actually seeing them and experiencing them directly through spiritual intuition. When we read or hear about spirituality, it makes us feel nice and it may move us for a while to try to live a better life; but a direct perception of these truths, a real spiritual experience, is a life-transforming event. A complete revolution takes place in the inner life and understanding of that individual. Externally he or she may look just the same to others, but internally a rebirth has taken place, a lifelong transformation that no learning, however great, can achieve.
Sri Ramakrishna said:
“One should learn the contents of the scriptures and then act according to their injunctions. A man lost a letter. He couldn’t remember where he had left it. He began to search for it with a lamp. After two or three people had searched, the letter was at last found. The message in the letter was: ‘Please send us five seers of sandesh and a piece of wearing-cloth.’ The man read it and then threw the letter away. There was no further need of it; now all he had to do was to buy the five seers of sandesh and the piece of cloth.”[12]
When St. Thomas Aquinas was writing his greatest work, the Summa Theologica, he had a profound spiritual experience that totally changed his understanding, opening an altogether new reality previously unknown to him. The result was so impressive that he stopped writing. When others complained about it, telling him that he should continue, that it was a marvellous work he was doing, he simply said that during that experience that he had, what he saw and felt was something so superior to anything he previously knew, that whatever he had written seemed irrelevant prattle to him.

          
2. Why should we be concerned to divide up things into “classes” and “families?” We get away from all this tangle of guess-work, when once the Eternal Word speaks to us. From him alone all creation takes its origin, and therefore all creation has but one voice for us; he, who is its origin, is also its interpreter. Without him, nobody can understand it, or form a true judgement about it. Until all things become One for you, traced to One source and seen in One act of vision, you cannot find anchorage for the heart, or rest calmly in God. O God, you are the truth; unite me to yourself by an act of unfailing love! I am so tired of reading about this and that, being lectured to about this and that, when all that I want, all that I long for, is to be found in you. If only they would hold their tongues, these learned folk! If only the whole of creation would be silent in your presence, and you, and you alone, speak to me!

           In the Chandogya Upanishad[13] we read the story of a boy named Satyakama,  who was sent by his guru to the forest to look after 400 lean and weak cattle with the instruction not to return till they became 1000. After some years of devoted service, Satyakama heard the bull telling him that they were already 1000 and it was time to return to the guru. The bull further gave him instructions about Brahman (God,[14] the Self, the Absolute). Then the fire, a swan, and a diver-bird gave him further instructions about Brahman, till Satyakama realized that the whole universe is but a manifestation of God. That God is the One reality that we are experiencing all the time, though to our eyes it appears as the material universe.
           Kempis, like all the great mystics, is giving us a hint of that oneness of existence, that one truth, which we call God and by many other names. And God, being the omnipresent existence of the universe, can choose to teach us in any way he wants. As Jesus Christ said, when some Pharisees asked him to stop his disciples because they were praising him as the envoy of God, “I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.”[15]
           Too much talk distracts the mind, hence Kempis longs for that silence that calms the mind and fills the heart with God’s presence. Before the utterance of any word, there is silence, and after the word is spoken, there is still silence. Silence is the ever present voice of God from which divine revelations are heard, and in which the soul rejoices in God’s presence.


3. Once a man is integrated, once his inner life becomes simplified, all of a piece, he begins to attain a richer and deeper knowledge – quite effortlessly, because the intellectual light he receives comes from above. Freedom of heart is his, and simplicity of intention, and fixity of resolve, and he finds that he is no longer distracted by a variety of occupations; he acts, now only for God’s glory, and does his best to get rid of all self-seeking. There is no worse enemy to your freedom and your peace of mind than the undisciplined affections of your own heart. Really good and holy people plan out beforehand in their minds how they are to behave in given circumstances; the course of their lives does not sweep them away into following their lower instincts, they shape it for themselves, according to the dictates of right season. To be sure, the conquest of self demands the hardest struggle of all; but this has got to be our real business in life, the conquest of self – no day passed without beating our own record, without gaining fresh ground.

        This integration of the personality is a vital step in the life of a spiritual aspirant. In order to attain this it is necessary to unite all our actions, that is to say, what we think, what we speak and what we do must be the same. If we think one way but speak and act in different ways, that shows an immature and disintegrated personality.
           When the individual becomes integrated, concentration takes place; our inner and outer forces join together in a single purpose, and that leads to quick progress. Once this degree of sincerity is finally achieved, when there is no more hypocrisy in our effort, then the obstacles of self-seeking and self-assertion that were barring our way begin to crumble and spiritual progress becomes natural. A process of spontaneous growth starts to take place, and the personality finally surrenders to change; it embraces willingly the manifestations and promptings of the Divine.
           Meister Eckhart said that:
“Self-free is self-controlled, and self-controlled is self-possessed, and self-possessed is God-possession and possession of everything God ever made. This is known as self-mastery. He who for one instant wholly resigns self, unshaken and motionless in himself – that man is free.”[16]


4. We find no absolute perfection in this world; always there is a background of imperfection behind our achievement; and so it is that our guesses at the truth can never be more than light obscured by shadow. The humble man’s knowledge of himself is a surer way to God than any deep researches into truth. No reason why we should quarrel with learning, or with any straightforward pursuit of knowledge; it is all good as far as it goes, and part of God’s plan. But always what we should prize most is a clear conscience, and holiness of life. How is it that there are so many people who put knowledge first, instead of conduct? It means that they are constantly at fault, and achieve little – sometimes next to nothing. If only these people would take as much trouble to weed out their imperfections, and to cultivate good qualities, as they take over the learned theses they propound, we should hear less about sins and scandals, less about lax behaviour in religious houses. After all, when the day of judgement comes we shall be examined about what we have done, not about what we have read; whether we have lived conscientiously, not whether we have turned fine phrases. Where are they now, Doctor This and Professor That, whom you used to hear so much about when they were alive, and at the height of their reputation? They have handed over their chairs to other men, who probably never waste a thought on them; while they lived, they counted for something, now they are never mentioned.

We must keep in mind that Kempis is talking mainly to monks and to very sincere spiritual aspirants. So it should be understood that this advice, though it seems a bit radical at times and incompatible with practical daily life, it is meant for those who have made God-realization the goal of their lives.
Sri Ramakrishna also said:
“The one thing you need is to realize God. Why do you bother so much about the world, creation, science, and all that? Your business is to eat mangoes. What need have you to know how many hundreds of trees there are in the orchard, how many thousands of branches, and how many millions of leaves? You have come to the garden to eat mangoes. Go and eat them. Man is born in this world to realize God; it is not good to forget that and divert the mind to other things. You have come to eat mangoes. Eat the mangoes and be happy.”[17]
This can be practised not only in the monastery, but anywhere we are. It is not the place we live in that matters, or to what order of life we belong; it is our attitude to life that makes all the difference. As Jesus Christ said, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”[18] We could be living in a monastery and be full of selfish desires and attachments, or we could live in the world without feeling that we belong to it, making use of all the things the world provides, but knowing fully well that they do not belong to us, that they are God’s. If our heart is attached to God, we can make spiritual progress anywhere.
When Meister Eckhart was asked, “What is needful to attain love of God?” He answered, “Four things: first, a real dispassion toward creatures; second, the right sort of active life; third, the right sort of contemplative life; fourth, an aspiring heart.”[19]
     

5. So soon it passes, our earthly renown. Well for them, if they had practised what they taught; then indeed they would have studied to good purpose. How often the worldly pursuit of useless knowledge brings men to ruin, by distracting their attention from God’s service! They must play the great man, they will not be content with a humble part, and it only leads to frustration. True greatness can only be reckoned in terms of charity; the really great man is one who doesn’t think much of himself, and doesn’t think much of rank or precedence either. The only clear-sighted man is one who treats all earthly achievements as dirt, because he wants to win Christ; the only educated man is one who has learned to abandon his own will and do God’s will instead.

Once a wandering monk went to see King Janaka.[20] While they were walking outside the palace, they saw from a distance that the palace had caught fire and was burning fiercely. The monk immediately started lamenting, for he had left his only extra loin-cloth inside the palace. But the king, who had no attachment to anything in this world, was simply watching calmly, knowing full well that nothing of his was burning. His heart was at rest; his interest was wholly centred in the spirit. His treasure was not of this world.

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[1] John, 8. 12.
[2] Eccles, I. 2.
[3] Different systems of Indian philosophy.
[4] The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, translated by Swami Nikhilananda, 392.
[5] The Eternal Companion, by Swami Prabhavananda (1970 edition), 64.
[6] Eccles, I. 8.
[7] By “woman and gold” Sri Ramakrishna simply meant “sex and money.”
[8] GSR, 101.
[9] GSR, 625.
[10] Two princes in ancient India.
[11] The Gospel of Holy Mother, by Her Devotee Children, XXXVIII.
[12] GSR, 475-76.
[13] The Upanishads – A new Translation, by Swami Nikhilananda, 261-265.
[14] Generally, people think of God as a separate being, supremely powerful and wise that governs the universe. That is a valid and accepted concept of God within the field of multiplicity. But the saints and mystics of all faiths have also used the term to indicate a deeper dimension to that being; they meant perfect Oneness, the Ultimate Reality, the Absolute. In other words, there is nothing that is not God. God is the only existence. And it is in this sense that the word God is understood here. [Author]
[15] Luke, 19:40.
[16] The Spiritual Athlete, by Ray Berry, 264.
[17] GSR, 672.
[18] Matthew, 6:21.
[19] The Spiritual Athlete, by Ray Berry, 266.
[20] A famous king of ancient India who was a spiritually enlightened person.