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| AHYMSIN Newsletter, Issue - July 2013 | |||||
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Lecture #4by Swami Veda BharatiMarch 3, 2013 Om Akhaṇḍa-maṇḍalākaraṁ vyāptaṁ yena charācharam. Hiraṇya-garbhād ārabdhām śheṣha-vyāsādi-madhyamām. Om tat sat brahmārpaṇam astu. Is everybody happy in spite of any discomfort? It must be a bit hard for the people who have to stay off campus and have to go back late at night and come back early in the morning with no time to rest and not enough sleep. I don’t know what kind of breakfast you are getting over there and how you are managing with the food here. Sometimes it is a little too spicy or a little too salty. I have a principle of tasting the food every day. It is brought to me to check. And I eat a little of what you eat. So I imagine with your international taste it might be too salty or too spicy. But you are managing. Okay. So, thank you. Thank you for your tolerance and your patience. And maybe we should have one day where there no activity and there is total silence. What do you think? [Reply] Oh, you mean you get the rest and I don’t get the rest. I was trying to wriggle out of one lecture. [Laughter] You can figure it out; you can let your opinion be known. But on that day, then really resting and not going about chatting and socializing; just relaxing and resting, and staying put and meditating. Many, many years ago, maybe ten years ago, I taught a series called Signs or Marks of Spiritual Progress. I suggest you use that series to always check to see whether you are making progress. That is one step. Then read Swami Rama’s The Art of Joyful Living over and over and over, and see if you are truly applying the principles that he has go generously, so lovingly, so beautifully, and so effectively presented to us. And then comes this little book that has been presented to you: Sadhana in Applied Spirituality, in which I have given, hopefully, some practical suggestions on your thought patterns, which result in a change in your communication patterns, which result in a change in your relational patterns, not only in the family, but even in the workplace. And I would like these three to be your study, your contemplation, your discussion and especially your application over the next five years. I still have not managed to do the recording that I promised would go with it, but I will do it before you leave, within a day or two. I’m not getting the time. Don’t get trapped by the very captivating net that your imagination, arising out of your unconscious mind, weaves for you. Do not get captivated by that. Many people who are the arm-chair spiritualists, who sit there and let themselves be caught in this very captivating net of imaginings arising out of their rajasic and tamasic and very confused unconscious minds; that is not what we are talking about. Spiritual progress is the field of sattva, the brightest light, the purest, the clearest, the most luminous, the most pacific, the most benign; it leaves no confusion. Every now and then I receive a letter: “Swamiji, I am having this revelation. I am having this experience. So what do I do next?” And my reply is, “Well, if I am driving from here to Delhi or from New York to Los Angeles, what do I do next? Well, you were going to go to Los Angeles, weren’t you? Do you want to settle down in Chicago now? You don’t want to go any further? Well, so carry on in the same way as you have been driving.” What’s the problem? What’s the question? Okay? Today, and for however many number of days it takes, I will mark for you a few stations that you will pass through. You just need to recognize them when you are at that station; you don’t have to do anything about them. People write me: “I am at this station; what do I do about it?” You are to do nothing. Just look at the station: “That is what it looks like” and carry on. There are these stations in many different dimensions, not in just one dimension. A one-dimensional growth is incomplete. The multidimensional growth that I will describe for you, whether it takes thirty minutes or whether it takes three lectures, you will keep with you, and you will learn to recognize those stations. Some of them are very interesting stations. When we did here the study of the Shiva Sutras, we came across a phrase. A few of you were here; most of you were not. Can anyone remember that phrase that we popularized? Smera, smera stimita. Does anyone remember from that course? Can you say it? It has a very nice musical sound. Smera, smera stimita. Smera, smera stimita. Smera, smera stimita. And the commentator who is writing on the Shiva Sutras says that as you come to these stations, you smile in amazement; you smile and you will become stilled. It is not that you become all excited. It is not that you become a dancer. Stimita: you become stilled, stopped in amazement. That is, the effect of those stations at times in your spiritual progress is this smera, smera stimita. I can tell you, there is no journey more interesting than your spiritual journey. For your worldly journeys you need to pay for a sea cruise, you need to buy airline tickets, you need to service your car, but for this journey: free of charge. Everything is free of charge. The whole cosmos: free of charge. And I don’t know why people don’t take the offer. It’s a free lunch. The spiritual universe is a free lunch. Don’t you want to enjoy this transcendental free lunch? Learn to enjoy it, and wait for that smera, smera stimita. At every revelation a smile, your mind smiles and goes further – stilled. (Coughing) This daily speaking is not good for my body. My cardiac muscle gets tired. Please forgive me. So, enjoy whatever little smile of the mind that comes in your view, comes in your way, and every moment of whatever relative stillness and amazement that touches you. You know, sometimes you see that you are amazed and for a moment you are stopped still. That is the way it is in your spiritual journey. You are stopped still. And if one of those moments – Don’t ask me when; there is no clock; ask my guru – if it once happens and Mother Infinity reveals her glimpse and all her cosmic music pours into you, if even for a fraction of a second, even that fraction of a second, which is a fraction of a second by your worldly clock, feels like an infinity passed, because Infinity showed one of her multiple faces. These are not false promises. This is not a pep talk. That is the way it goes. And there begins to come in you gradually, gradually, gradually, a sense of fullness. And wherever there were empty quarters in your personality, in your heart and in your mind, they begin to fill and you begin to sense and fullness. Then what do you do with that fullness? It pours out of you to others, and you become a teacher; you become a healer. You don’t get a teacher by getting a teacher training certificate; you become a teacher because there is this fullness in you, and this stillness is overflowing and touching the hearts and minds of others, and you cannot help it; it’s just there. And the more you progress to the next smile, the more you progress to the next station in stillness, the more it pours into you and overflows from you. Don’t waste it; be creative with it; channel it. Don’t waste it; be creative with it; channel it. “Bahu-jana-hitaya, Bhau-jana-sukhaya.” When the Buddha sent his first batch of monks to go teach in the world, he said in the Pali language in which he spoke: “Charatha bhikkavo charikam bahu-jana-hitaya, Bhau-jana-sukhaya.” “Wander, O monks. Wander a great wandering for the benefit of the many, for the comfort of the many.” If your spirituality does not benefit many and if it does not comfort many, what is the difference between a worldly material, selfish life and a spiritual life? So: “for the benefit of the many, for the comfort of the many.” In your stations of progress, this will arise in you naturally. You don’t need to try. You are helpless. You cannot help it. If there is a space under a tree, you will sit under a tree and, like Socrates, people will gather around you, because they are thirsty and you have the potion of elixir, or water. That depends on how diluted your elixir is. Dilute it less and less over time. Dilute your elixir less and less over time and serve it in its purest forms. Many times I spoke to my master and I said, “Master, I am very jealous of all those great yogis who sit in the caves.” He said, “Tell me of what benefit are they to the world?” Of course, that is his way of answering. I know of what benefit they are. Sitting there, they are of greater benefit at times than shouting and yelling like me here. But something will happen in you. And if there is space under a tree, you will fill people there, or whether you sit under a tent, or you sit in a palace or an ashram or a monastery or wherever, this teaching will flow from you, healing will flow from you – healing of minds. One of the things that begins to happen is that the mysteries of the universe begin to unfold before you. You begin to understand the principles and the laws by which the whole universe operates. There is a meta-science about which I have indicated in one of my writings, the science of sciences by which all the sciences operate. The principles are the same. When I talk to an architect, I tell them to learn music if they want to improve their architecture. Have you heard that before? Because architecture is music. And music has its own architecture, so architecture has to have its own music too. So we had a musical performance by a master architect yesterday, and he could tell you what the structures are of that architecture – what are the pillars, what are the roofs, what are the floors, what are the spaces in it? So, this happens for you. You begin to understand the science of sciences in which all sciences become one science. It is not something multidisciplinary that you create – that you gather this discipline, this discipline, and this discipline, and you create a concoction. But there are some fundamental principles by which all the science and all the arts operate, included in your theology and your philosophy, and these begin to unveil themselves to you. And the next then, then you begin to understand the relationship of this cosmic science with yourself, with your entire being, with your interior being. You begin to understand the architecture of your internal music of which there is a whole orchestra in you. So, as the sciences reveal themselves, you learn to apply them. I know of a great yogi who studied only up to the fifth grade, and then went off to devote himself to the Grandmother of the Universe. And when his sādhana had reached its fructification, the Divine Mother ordered him to go to someplace which is all very rough-looking and establish himself there. So he went and he sat down under a tree outside a village in a very rough-looking area. Well, all he has to do is sit down, and next somebody put a tin shed over his head and the villagers started coming. Next, someone built a little room, a little chamber for him. And if you take a 30-minute drive from the Delhi airport to the Chattarpur Temple complex, what he created is a wonder of architecture by guiding the architects about how each pillar was to be adorned and decorated. And when my master and I went to see him, he said the same thing: “I have reading instruction only up through the first grade, but I have designed all this architecture.” And, you know, I will tell you something: I don’t know what people do in schools. I don’t know because I’ve never been to one. I have no idea. What do they do year after year after year? All you have to do is close your eyes, and the knowledge will reveal itself to you. Listen to a language once and you will speak it. But . . . that requires a mind that is free of all this green stuff that accumulates on the surface of the water. Your mind needs to be like clear water, sattvic and pure, so that the full moon can reflect in it unbroken and not in fragments. At present in your sciences you are studying only those fragments, and one who knows just one tiny fragment does not know the rest of the fragments. As your purification occurs, this happens naturally. I’ve been told to close at 5:50 today because my keepers, mothers are waiting to give you ten minutes of explanation over the other questions. I promise I’ll continue with these talks. So God bless you all.Editor’s Note:The Art of Joyful Living by Swami Rama can be purchased from from AHYMSIN Publishers (ahymsinpublishers@gmail.com), the online bookstore at The Meditation Center, Yogaineurope.eu, and other bookstores. The series Marks of Spiritual Progress is available as a CD from AHYMSIN Publishers (ahymsinpublishers@gmail.com), the online bookstore at The Meditation Center, and Yogaineurope.eu To read Marks of Spiritual Progress by Swami Veda: http://ahymsin.org/main/swami-veda-bharati/marks-of-spiritual-progress.html Sadhana in Applied Spirituality by Swami Veda can be found at: http://ahymsin.org/main/swami-veda-bharati/sadhana-in-applied-spirituality.html Recordings of Swami Veda’s lectures on the Shiva Sutras can be purchased through ahymsinpublishers@gmail.com or by searching for "Shiva Sutras" at: http://www.cdbaby.com/Search/c3dhbWkgdmVkYSBiaGFyYXRp/0 Note that there are (as of this date) two CDs available. There are many other titles as well. Enjoy! To read transcripts of these Swami Veda talks, please click on the title:
The Signs of Progress in Spirituality and in Meditation: During the 2013 Sangha Gathering, Ahymsin Publishers recorded Swami Veda’s lectures to help those on a spiritual path recognize the signs of progress. He also gave cautions and 'pitfalls' to watch out as one navigates their practice. This 9 part series is now available and is invaluable for all seekers wishing to enjoy the guidance of Swami Veda Bharati over the next years as he shifts deeper and deeper into silence. Contact AHYMSIN Publishers at ahymsinpublishers@gmail.com Upcoming Dates15th - 30th October 2014 (some days during this time period). There will be special teaching on Mahā-vākyas by Swami Veda Bharati in SRSG in October 2014 while he remains in silence. He will type on his computer and you will read on the wall screen. You may register from now. Concurrently 15th - 30th October, there will be teachings on Vijñāna-Bhairava at Swami Rama Sadhaka Grama with Bettina Baumer.
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