Shankaracharya, the great sage of Advaita Vedanta, used to
call food everything that enters through the senses, besides the thoughts that
nurture our existence, and therefore he emphasized the path of renunciation.
How shall we understand then renunciation? Is it merely to close our eyes to everything, to starve the body and dry out our mind to get to something beyond
existence, unreachable by our bodies and minds? According with Vivekananda, it
is “to cover all that exists with the Lord, not with a false sort of optimism, not
by blinding our eyes to evil, but by really seeing God in everything. Thus we
have to give up the world. And when the world is given up, what remains? God. The
whole world is full of the Lord. Open your eyes and see Him.”
That makes much more sense, but how to
translate this in our day-to-day life? How to open the eyes? Or do we need a
different pair of eyes? Here is where Hinduism comes to lend a hand, by showing
us the feminine face of the Divine. Hinduism calls Mother to the Conscious
Existence, because it behaves very much like our mothers; it infuses life in
us, it nurtures us, it helps us to find our own strength, to have faith in ourselves
so we can finally see Reality as it is. She, of course, is Shakti, the Conscious Energy, manifesting Reality in innumerable
forms. To recognize her is to breath her in the air, to touch her in the earth,
to feel her in the vibration of the river, to listen to her in the very beats
of our heart… it means to live here and now, awake.
Each day, at every moment, at home, at
work, on the yoga mat, in the temple, walking on the street, travelling by bus,
everywhere, by simply remembering her existence in ours, we receive that breath
of grace which fills with spirit our body, our mind, our life, and which,
opening our eyes to something greater than ourselves, bids us see it.
Yanina Olmos (Sister Jayanti)
