Month: November 2015

On the Second Maha-samadhi Anniversary of H.H. Swami Rama
Address by Swami Veda Bharati
Rishikesh, India
November 13, 1998

OM! OM! OM!

This is not a sad time of remembrance but a time of serene reunion, and that is how the anniversaries of sacred beings should be observed and celebrated. Many people are still under the impression that a great being leaving his body means he has died. That is because we do not understand the meaning of life and death. For me his last book, Sacred Journey, has become a bible for guidance.

When sacred beings of the stature of our Gurudev leave the body, we do not use the same words that we use for someone else’s death. We say he has taken samadhi. We say that he has entered nirvana, maha-para nirvana. Swamiji wrote this book, he wrote this book just a little while before leaving the body or had his disciple compile it, which is one and the same thing. It will remain a guidance to those of us who feel saddened and deprived as though left incomplete, as though left unfinished. I don’t know how to convince you. Some of us do not need any convincing. Some still need the convincing that such a presence is never withdrawn; it just changes the mode of his operation or activity. There are some things accomplished by being in the body. Some things they accomplish without being in the body because the body becomes a limitation, so they choose not to use that particular instrument. A blacksmith does not use his hammer all the time. He lays it aside. A jeweler or a sculptor does not use just one tool all the time. He lays one tool aside and uses a different tool, and that is why we talk of the sacred beings as taking samadhi and not of dying. Here is an example from the culture in India.

Traditionally when we go to a cremation, it is considered somewhat polluting because the particles from the funeral pyre and so on touch the body. So everyone comes home and bathes or bathes in a stream or a river or in a well on the way coming back. This is not so in the case of a great swami. There is no such requirement of purification after this cremation. This indicates some of the attitudes that have developed around this fact of the sanctity of that one who was walked among us and is no longer seen quite in that form.

Swamiji, writing in Sacred Journey on page 108 says: “There are two types of samadhi:” – this is well known – “savikalpa with form and nirvikalpa without form. During savikalpa samadhi the yogi looks at his own physical and mental states and processes . . . .” – now listen to this again – “During savikalpa the yogi looks at his own physical and mental states and processes as though they do not belong to him. He remains completely detached.” – Well, you could call that conscious death. This is my interpretation. Swamiji continues this by saying – “This is called savikalpa because the thinker, the object, and the means of the thinking are all present during this state. In nirvikalpa samadhi one is free from all attachments. In this deeper state the means and objects of thought do not exist; only the knower exists.” – So for one who has done this while embodied, is the end of the quote so I continue. One who has done this while embodied, for such a one leaving the body is nothing. Swamiji has written in his book Path of Fire and Light that the enlightened ones rejoice at the prospect of changing their bodies. On page 108 of Sacred Journey it says — “Those who have obtained this mastery are not subject to the whims of death. They cast off their bodies and die under their own control at their own time. They consciously pass through the eleventh gate, through brahmarandhra. It is said that the one who travels through this gate knows about life hereafter exactly as he knows life here. There is no longer any veil between the two.” – I would like to repeat the last to sentences – “It is said that the one who travels through this gate knows about life hereafter exactly as he knows life here. There is no longer any veil between the two.”

He goes on page 109 to “the technique of consciously letting go of the body which was described to Nachiketa in the Katha Upanishad. Yama explained to him that of the nadis or energy pathways in the body, the most important is sushumna.” The one who has understood this pathway of consciousness is not subscribe to the myth called death.

Now what relevance does this have to us? On one hand, its relevance is in continued grace. Those of us who even surrender a particle of ourselves realize that the Guru dwells in the guru chakra. How can such a large body that was more than six feet tall dwell in our Guru chakra – and that is where we fail to understand the meaning of the word Guru. The force that had enfleshed itself, the force that had embodied itself, the force that had become flesh and dwelt among us, that force can be reached through the gateway called the guru chakra and we, too, can become embodiments of that force. In fact, some people do for a short time in meditation. Some teachers also do for a short time when they are teaching, and the force is teaching through them. But then that wave passes and we become ordinary human mortals, and we forget the bliss, the ecstasy, the serene ecstasy that we experience in that state.

The message that I want to give you, that the Guru-force wants to give you, is that right in this life now you should begin the effort to understand not the myth but the mystery. Dedicate yourself to the goal of dying consciously. Dedicate yourself to the sadhana that leads to the goal of dying consciously. Only then you will be true disciples.

There are many ways to learn. The first one is detachment. You have to live the worldly life. You have to do your duty. There have been some great householders, who [while] leading a worldly life, have led the life also of enlightenment and have guided others. One example is Brahmachalahari(?) – an ancient name like Janaka comes to mind. Patanjali in his massive masterful work on grammar writes that, among the 84,000 rishis, only eight were brahamacharins. Only eight were celibate, lifelong celibates. It is such an intense sadhana to be living in the world and dedicating oneself, __________ that the indulgence of senses that you require for performing those duties all be done with a certain detachment, with an awareness that at every moment: “I am not this. I am not this. I am not this. Things that are happening around me are not happening to me. Things that are happening to the body are not happening to me. Things that are happening in the pranamaya kosha are not happening to me. Things that are happening in the mind are not happening to me – for I am not these.”

It is for this reason that the sanyasas at the time of their initiation are given maha-vakyas the great sentences for contemplation. Whatever you are doing in life, let that become a sadhana for you. This you have heard many times before, but we have not quiet learned the technique of doing that. We have not learned to control the volume of our identity involvement.

Here I am speaking to you at a certain level. I change the involvement for a moment and become less associated with the same speech that I am utilizing at this time – and your whole mien, your mudra, changes. I change the volume and come back to the way I was speaking a moment ago. This method cannot be taught by a technique. That is why the disciples used to be asked to live with the guru for a long time – because it is only through association that minute particles of energy pass and gradual subtle apparently slow change takes place.

Here right now in Rishikesh I am in the middle of a plan whereby more of the seekers can come and spend their retirement years. First a month or two a year, and later when they find that their major duties are done, to come and live nearby. So that we don’t die this time like the last time we died, we should do something new with this phenomenon. the phenomenon called death. One should keep progressing, including in the technique of dying. The so-called death of a great being leads us, shows us, inspires us, impels us, to make a decision, to make a decision now. I am at this time in the process of making it possible for many people to come and live here. Even if that is not possible, what I would like to do is to spend more time in one place and let people come and be there, not for a seminar, not for a lecture, not for a set fee, not with the expectation of a daily class, just to be there and hope that the Guru spirit will flow through us and touch us and a slight shift will take place in the spectrum of our awareness. That is what it amounts to: a slight shift in the spectrum of our awareness, as it has taken place over the last 27 years of our association with Gurudev. It continues to happen, will continue to happen.

I congratulate those of you who have managed to remain on the path in spite of all the discouragements. My congratulations to you, Nina, especially on your new center. Gurudev’s command to you was to teach and initiate, and you are continuing to teach and initiate. I have no doubt that those who are continuing to do that will remain a vehicle of his blessings. I cannot at this stage quite define and describe the technique because I, too, am a learner, or maybe one or two steps ahead of you, like those professors who stay one or two steps ahead of their students. We are all together on this journey, and let me assure you that the end product of spirituality, the penultimate of spirituality, is the art of dying consciously. Without passing that, you will not go to liberation, to moksha and the ultimate.

What is the ultimate in spirituality? – That when you have learned to liberate yourself, you seek to continue to use body after body for the benefit of others, for the elevation of others, for the enlightenment of others. To pull those out of the well of darkness who are still lying there at the bottom and wailing and crying and thrashing in sorrows and frustrations. The Guru never abandons. The Guru never leaves us incomplete. Whether embodied or disembodied, he will continue to grant his grace.

The first condition for us to be recipients of that grace is to be there and to make our minds our meditation seat. To make our mind our meditation seat at the same time daily. That is the key, and the other is remembrance. Mindfulness, awareness at all times that I am a spiritual being and all these other things that I identify with are not my true self. None of these am I. None of these am I. None of these am I. I am not other than these. I am not other than these. I am the one who permeates these through whose force they are operating. When you use your eyes in this way, your ears in this way, your voice in this way, your brain parts in this way, you will be getting closer and closer and closer to the goal of dying consciously and liberating yourself – and thereby, beginning to liberate others who are in ignorance and in suffering. It is this sadhana, the determination to attain this awareness that is the bouquet of flowers, that is the garland we can offer to that Guru-force as our homage. It is this we can burn as incense on that altar. It is this that we can light as a deepak, as a candle, as a flame on that altar. It is this that forms our meditation. Surrender to the grace that flows and continues to flow. I pray that all of us together reach this goal in this very life. Please plan your life to reach that goal. Please plan your life to reach that goal. This is my humble request as a fellow disciple. Only then we shall please the Guru spirit. May Guru’s grace continue to be showered upon us.

I will sit with you for a few minutes of silence. Let the mind go into the serenity of stillness. Let that stillness be your homage to the Guru. Not a grief, not a sense of loss but a sense of presence in that stillness. Whatever questions you will ask in that stillness will be answered. Let’s go and enjoy a moment of stillness. I am sitting with you for a few minutes.

God bless you.
OM! OM! OM!

The title is the principles of self-counseling. It will be more or less a summary of numerous courses over many years – courses like Emotions as Acts of Will [Volition], Uncovering the Secrets of a Lasting Relationship, and numerous other ones. And those who are listening to this subject for the first time may use the tapes of those previous courses as commentaries or explanations of what I will say here very briefly.

Why do we need counseling and why do we need self-counseling? Well, for one reason, self-counseling is a lot cheaper. Just as we like home-baked bread and home-cooked meals, there is nothing like home-done counseling, but, you see, you have to be at home with yourself. I shared these thoughts during our annual retreat. For a whole weekend we talked about how we bind ourselves, how we block ourselves, and how we may free ourselves. That is also one of the courses you can listen to for details.

Well, in a nutshell to give you all the principles of self-counseling, I’m afraid that’s a tall order, but we’ll try to fill a portion of it. Ordinarily if we feel the need for counsel in the face of a conflict, we realize that we have conflict with someone. Your personality, your choices, your inclinations, your approach is in conflict with someone else’s personality, someone else’s choice, someone else’s inclinations, someone else’s approach, and you wish you could win all the time, and that you could have your way all the time. And not only that, but when you have your way all the time, we think that the other party should feel happy about it all the time. It’s very easy to get your way all the time or half of the time or twenty percent of the time, but at the same time to see the other party feeling happy about the fact that he isn’t having his way – and that is the substance of a major number of our complaints against others: that they aren’t happy that you are having your way.

Or, then, we have a conflict in ourselves. We come to the crossroads, and we try to make a choice of some kind. In very few instances is the question of choice purely internal – that it has to do with your internal personality: “Should I be this way or should I be that way?” Most often some relationship is involved. So people try to help you by helping to sort out your relationship, or they go into the history of that relationship. And when you look closely at yourself, you find that what you really need to look at is the history of your development, the way your personality has developed, the way you are and the way you have come to be the way you are. “Well, everybody knows I’ve come to be this way because I had the misfortune of having all the wrong kinds of people in my relationships. I was just too naive. Everybody made use of me – poor me, the saintly martyr. If it wasn’t for all that world out there, I would be such a wonderful person. I actually am, but nobody really recognizes it.” Well, that is one thing to avoid in your self-counseling. Neither blame the world nor blame yourself. Do not try to place blame. If you blame the world, you’re not looking at yourself. If you blame yourself, you’re putting yourself down.

However, to be objective with oneself, to be neutral, to be a neutral observer of oneself is quite a delicate art, quite a balancing act – that you look at two conflicting sides of you, but the one who is doing the looking from inside you identifies with neither of them. There is a third one who is above those two sides – above, not below, not on par. There are two sides of you that are in conflict, but there is someone else within you, another, a neutral observer observing and not being involved with either one of those two, whether this one wins or that one loses. Find that neutral one in you who is doing the counseling inside of you.

In all of us there is the surface personality. This surface personality is the conditioned personality. It has been conditioned to be this way. Like Pavlov’s dogs, it drools at the sound of a bell or whatever. There is no doubt that such a conditioned personality exists, and most of our choices, acts, reactions, are all part of that conditioned personality. There are a million conditions that we have placed upon ourselves in this way. And there is nothing wrong with behaviorism. But if I sound somewhat patronizing toward behaviorism in saying so, I mean to be so because apart from the behavioristic conditioning or conditioned behavior, whichever way you will have it, there is another part of you that is ever-unconditioned. Look for that. It is that part that is the flexible part, it is that part that is not set, that is not blocked, that takes a fresh approach, that moves on to the new grounds, that turns away from the painful poisonous memories of the past, that looks to the future, that is creative, that finds a new way to create you.

We are constantly creating ourselves. Every moment we are in a state of flux. You’re not the same that you were yesterday. You’re not the same that you were a moment ago. A new thought has entered you, and it has immediately been amalgamated, it has immediately become part of your personality. Right now this minute, now this sound and now this sound has all be added to your personality. Moment to moment to moment to moment you are in a state of flux. Don’t sit down one place, move on.

Yesterday is not valid. Only what you are now is valid. Only what you create for the future out of that neutral and flexible observer – that alone is valid. Since that moment yesterday when something happened to now, a million curtains have been placed between that and the now. And ever so imperceptibly, ever so quietly, your perception of that event has changed. You think you recall everything the way it happened yesterday, but you don’t. You are now interpreting it in the light of your present experience and your present being. So don’t trust your memory of events.

Number one, be neutral. Number two, don’t trust your memory of emotional events. When I say “emotional events,” I don’t only mean the events that occurred between you and another person (the nice good you and the horrible terrible other) but the emotional events that occur in you. People have a very funny system of lying to themselves, of denying to themselves the way they felt at a given time, and they remember today the way they would have liked to have felt at that time. So don’t trust your memory of events that have occurred between you and the person with whom you had the relationship, nor do you trust the way you felt emotionally in your mind.

You would then ask, “How would I go about analyzing the past?” Sometimes, of course, in all of the counseling techniques, analyzing the past is very important and you have to remove the layer upon layer upon layer of events, the layer upon layer upon layer of mental events, you know, to really dig out that which is lying in the actual original memory. We constantly play the Telephone Game. One sentence is said. The next moment there is a slight change. You can change one letter in the spelling. The next time you change another letter. It looks about the same, right? And before you know, over one year the original sentence has vanished. It’s not there, as though it never was there. And reconstruction is a formidable task, and you never, never can actually decide whether you have really reconstructed the original language.

The conflicts that occur in your relationships are projections of the conflicts that exist within you. For example, let us take these conflicting areas of our personality. Sometimes they may not even be conflicting areas but simply many different areas which have not been recognized by other areas of our personality and have not been integrated. Take, for example, you have a certain temperament; you were born with that temperament. The traditions that believe in past incarnations say that you bring that temperament as a cumulative force from previous experiences. But you’re always adding to that temperament. You’re always modifying it. You’re always putting a trim and a lace or cutting corners and edges and shaping it and reshaping it and experimenting with it.

Now on top of that, you’re original temperament is your cultural conditioning. Together with the cultural conditioning are the experiences of this life. You’ve got your temperament, your natural innate temperament. You’ve got the experiences from various relationships – the way the mother was disturbed when you were in the womb, or the mother was happy when you were in the womb – starting from that. Now the question is which of those two is stronger, your temperament or your experiences in life?

Strength comes from awareness. Please remember this one point: In a human being, all existence is awareness, and there is nothing besides awareness. Whichever aspect you are more strongly aware of, that becomes stronger in you. If you are more aware of your temperament, then that temperament is stronger than all the ugly experiences that occur around you. But if you have a very peaceful temperament, a very loving temperament but you choose not to be aware of that temperament and you choose only to be aware of all the anger being thrown at you – the way your father shouted in anger, the way father and mother quarreled with each other, the way your mean elder sister always got the better of you – if you are more aware of that, if you are more intensely aware of that, then that becomes stronger in you.

So your choice of your personality is in your awareness. The entire secret of evolution is awareness. I said that in our last seminar on The Secrets of a Lasting Relationships. It’s by awareness that people evolve. It is by awareness that beings evolve. Whatever you become aware of, in that direction you grow.

And one principle of consciousness is will, choice of will. So your awareness is not something that you’re helpless with. You choose consciously, volitionally you choose what you are going to be aware of more and what you are going to be aware of less. Are you going to be aware of love, or are you going to be aware of hate? Are you going to be more aware of your peaceful and wiser part, or are you going to be more aware of your darker, harsher, more cruel part of your being? Whichever one you will center on, whichever one you will brood on, whichever one you will hang on to and hold on to, that part of you will become stronger. So you have a choice as to what to feed into your personality.

So you get a conflict between your natural temperament, with which you were born, and then the way the temperament is being shaped by your experiences and relationships. Then there’s the entire cultural conditioning that comes through those relationships. I see, for example, a great conflict at times in people. There is one part of them that says, “I want to give, I want to live, I want love, I want to share, I want to give it all out, I want nothing from the world.” There are urges in you in that direction – something akin to what some European Christian traditions called pious desires. Pious desires. There is such a thing as pious desires. The inclination towards piety is innate in a human being. If you become aware of it, it becomes stronger. If you deny it, it becomes weak – but the inclination is there.

I was saying a few weekends ago that the desire to commit oneself is a natural desire. Even the philanderer who has made love to a hundred women can he say that he has never said to a woman, “You and only you”? A part of his conviction may not believe in monogamy, but that is a part of external conditioning. But from within himself at times there arises the expression of this urge which makes him say, “You, only you.” When you recognize that and you become aware of that, you give strength to that. “Hey, I said that. That sentiment must be in me someplace, somewhere. Maybe I am capable of settling down someplace.”

So you have the conflict between natural urges; that’s one thing. When I speak of natural urges, I speak of these urges to give, to love – natural urges. Then there’s the temperament. Then there’s the external conditioning. Then also some of these innate, pure urges and pious desires find their echo in the teachings of the wise men and the saints and the sages and the philosophers. They find their echo. So people come to pray or people come to meditate because a natural urge within them is drawing them to this innate, inward experience. But, you see, what happens is that all of these remain apart from each other, so when you are responding to one, you are identifying with that one, and you say, “This is what I like. This is the way I am.” But when you shift your ground – something happens and you get into a different frame of mind – now you are responding to something else; then at that moment you say, “Maybe this is the way I am.” And you can’t make up your mind as to what way you really are and what you want in life.

So the conflicts will remain until you integrate all of these aspects of your being. And the next principle in integrating those is to counsel yourself from strength and not from weakness. To counsel yourself from strength and not from weakness – what does that mean? A large number of people that I come across have this conflict between their one part of their being and the other part of their being. One part of them, as I said before, says, “Give, love, share.” But the other part says, “But when I was in school in the sixties and the seventies, everybody said, ‘Take care of yourself. Let the other party take care of himself. Who are you to take care of the other?'” So there is that part. And now if your natural urge is to love and your natural temperament is to love but your cultural conditioning has been not to love, you have created a conflict. And this has happened.

So people are taking better care of themselves than they ever did, but they are more unhappy about it. Just like that philanderer who made love to a hundred women, but somewhere he blurted out, “You and only you,” in the same way that natural divine grace in you also blurts out, “I wish there was somebody taking care of me.” Whether you were in school in the sixties or in the seventies or the forties or the fifties where you were taught to take care of yourself, walk cock sure in life and be cynical with the world, there is another part of you that is not comfortable with it. Inside you there is this longing: “Let everybody take care of themselves for sure, but let somebody take care of me.” Do you deny that? Anybody here will deny that? Now this is a conflict between the natural urge and the cultural conditioning.

So when you sit down to solve your problem with your husband, you don’t know which one, which part of you to bring forth. So you’re tossed in between, and the other party is tossed in between, and the signals are all crossed. And when he says, “I wish there was somebody taking care of me,” she thinks, “Look at this selfish brat.” Right? But after a nice long, lovely, beautiful, outrageous fight and quarrel and that beautiful release of steam, there is still that urge to snuggle up. Do you deny that? So make up your mind as to which of these aspects, powers, that have been fed into you do you really consider choice worthy. You deny to yourself: “No, I don’t want anybody taking care of me. I can take care of myself.” But you go back to your lonely apartment, and you are too tired, so you plop down on the sofa, and you go hungry and you cry yourself to sleep. Do you deny that?

Then, as I said, “Awareness is strength.” Awareness alone is what strengthens any part, any aspect of your personality. Become aware of this. But when you become aware of this, then do unto others. It’s the same thing. You say, “I wish there was somebody taking care of me.” Then along with that, the reverse, the opposite side of that coin is, “I would like to take care of someone.” You can’t have it just one way and say, “Let somebody take care of me, but let them take care of themselves too.” You can’t have it both ways. See? So the principle of awareness is the first principle.

And then there’s neutrality: that you can look at yourself and you can look at all these aspects of you without denying this [particular trait] exists and then choose – choice through volition, through will – “What do I want to be? Where do I want to be?” See? Then you create that choice, and what you choose, that you cultivate through awareness.

I said earlier that the next principle is that you counsel yourself from strength and not from weakness. This is another way of saying the same thing that I have said here many times, for many, many years. There is a weak part in you. There is a strong part in you. There is a loving, giving part in you. There is a mean, selfish, cruel part in you. There is a part in you that is pessimistic. There is a part in you that is optimistic. Sometimes your glass is half full and you rejoice, and sometimes your glass is half empty and you cry. Sometimes you stand facing the east and you’re happy. Sometimes you stand with your back to the west, and you feel like you’re missing out everything that is in the west – one and the same thing, yet very different. There is that optimist in you. There is that pessimist in you. Which one you identify with makes you weak or strong, makes you a failure or a success.

So always remember the moments of your strength.

Which one of you is really the you that you will identify yourself with? Which one of you is really that which you will become aware of and strengthen in yourself? You make your choice. You make your choice willfully, and you strengthen that choice through awareness. And when you choose the stronger in you, put no conditions on it. Don’t dampen it with conditions: “I used to be such a nice fellow, but because of the way the world treated me, I got to be this way.” Just remember that part: “I used to be such a nice fellow.” Forget about the world and identify with that nice fellow again. Identify with that person who gave love, who did win, who did succeed, who did feel stable, who had illumination and light on her or his face. Cultivate your memory of that.

Now when you cultivate your memory of that, try to recapture that frame of mind that was so pleasant at that time. What was the sentiment in you at that time? What was the condition, what was the mood that you used to feel? What aliveness you felt! How elevated and light you felt! And try to go back to that frame, to that mood, to that state of mind. Just try to capture that. Speak from that frame. Speak from that mood. Make your choice again from that mood. You have liberated yourself from everything that happened in between.

My Master says to identify with the divine in you. Identify with the pure in you. Identify with that one that still has the longing to give, not merely the longing to receive. If you think that your true self is the selfish one but occasionally you have glimpses of unselfishness, then be untrue to yourself and be true to those glimpses. People sometimes say, “But how? I would like to very much, but I just don’t feel I can do it. I just don’t seem to be able to overcome this block. I come to the verge of it but the words don’t form. I just can’t get myself to say it.” That’s fine, okay. But keep becoming aware that you do come to the verge of it. Don’t only be aware of “Oh God, these blocks, they hold me back. I’ll never make it. I’ll never be able to love again. I’ll never be able to break these barriers that the world has constructed between me and them,” but think, “Yes, I do come to the verge of it.” Okay, then keep coming to the verge of it, and keep becoming aware that you do come to the verge of it. It’s like digging a new reservoir. It’s like building a dam. The river rises slowly. It rises an inch, a foot, a yard. It rises, rises, rises until it fills the entire dam, and if there is no one to control it, it bursts over the walls of the dam.

So through your awareness of the positive, the strong, the loving, the divine, the pure, the unselfish, the alive in you, overcome that which is selfish, the cruel and the dead in you. And let me tell you, the living are always stronger than the dead. Denial of your strengths is death. Awareness of your strength is the mark of aliveness. Know that you are capable, that you are creative, and keep coming to the verge. Keep coming to the verge of it. Keep coming. You don’t have to do anything more. One day it will have so built up, the strength behind that will be such it will be over powering. And before you know, the words will blurt out of you, will burst out of you. You will find yourself acting that way, and there will be a dramatic transformation, and people will look at you and say, “Hey, whatever came over her? Did you hear her say those things? Was that her?” “Was it him?” “Yeah, it’s me all right. I’ve been working at it for a long time.” And, you know, once you have done it, you’re in business. You are then all right. You’ll say, “Hey, I did it. It came out of me.”

But all of these things require a conscious choice. Cultivating an awareness and a certain discipline, a certain restraint. You say, “Well, I just don’t like restraints. If you do not like restraints, you know what you would be? You would be running naked and wild in the jungle. Sitting here requires restraint. You put on clothes the morning after your shower; that too is a restraint. And if you join a nudist colony, not putting on clothes is also a restraint. It depends on what you call restraint. What you are used to is no longer a restraint, and what you are not used to, you’re just getting used to, is restraint. You brush your teeth every morning – that’s a restraint. You speak politely to somebody – that is a restraint. You see? So imagine the enormous restraint that you have practiced. When you become aware of those restraints that you have already practiced to refine yourself and to culture yourself and to be reasonably civilized in your behavior, you recognize those. If you become aware of those again, through that awareness your strength to restrain yourself more will grow. It’s all there.

What would you be without any restraint at all? What would you be without any discipline at all? You’ve already accepted the principle of discipline or else you would not be what you are, and you have practiced such enormous disciplines in life that you have come this far. You wouldn’t have gone through school without that discipline. A little more and you will be even better.

People say, “Well, that’s all well and good, but what do I do when I really feel these dreadful urges to be destructive? Sometimes I throw all caution overboard – to heck with all this awareness! I just want to be angry.” That’s fine so long as you remain aware of that also in you which is non-angry. And through that awareness again, the strength to conquer anger will grow. Remember the times when you were not angry with that person and how you perceived that person, and even now, no matter how angry you are, there is a part in you that has a soft spot for him. Be aware of that soft spot also. Remain aware of that at the same time, and your acts, your emotions, your sentiments, your words, your expressions will be balanced. So through self-observation, through neutrality, through awareness, through conscious choice, through identification with the strong, the pure, the divine in you and through a certain restraint, you become a conqueror. You are then the one that the Book of Revelation says: “To him who has overcome shall be given wisdom.” You learn to overcome.

All right, enough? Go over this in your mind. Absorb it, assimilate it, find your own ways of implementing it. The basic principles are there. Find your own ways of implementing them, and as you implement them, you will gain experience, and you’ll become more and more and more skillful.

God bless you. Who knows, you might become a saint and never know it. That’s my wish for you. May you become a saint and never know it. Bless you all. Thank you.

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Editor’s Note

This is a transcript of a lecture given at The Meditation Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, in 1983.

To make inquiries about recordings of Swami Veda Bharati’s talks, contact Himalayan Yoga Publications Trust at info@yogapublications.org

Thank you to Michael Smith. We are also grateful to the members of the Transcription Team and the work they have been doing over the years.

 

SVB –

All teaching, like ancient silk and modern jackets, originated in China.

As you know, tea is a sacred plant in China.

The Chinese word for a book is ‘ching’.

They serve a lot of tea while teaching the sacred books.

So, the act became known as ‘tea-ching’ = teaching.

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No good always being serious. One is not a yogi if not joyful. Be happy!!

If your students leave your class in a joyful mood, your class was successful. If they leave the class with a serene feeling, your class was successful. If they leave your class feeling that they had been loved, your class was successful.

Do keep these sutras in mind in developing yourself as a teacher.

I repeat what I have always said; your certification is not a piece of paper. Your certification comes not from your teachers; it comes from your students.

You are not just a school teacher. You are YOGA teacher. You are not teacher of classes. You are teacher of people, teacher of individuals even if there are 100000 students in your class. Each should feel that (s)he was being taught personally. Your love needs to be felt by each individual among them.

This comes from personal spiritual practice.

Spirituality is not in holding a lot of conversations about spirituality. It is in your own personal practice.

(1) Personal practice of what you have learnt here; daily sadhana.

(2) Mastery of the technique. Always refining it.

(3) Ask your teachers here how I have defined ‘mastery’.

(4) Svadhyaya, continued study. I still, at the age of 80, no matter how busy or how tired, I do not go to bed without having learnt something new before going to sleep.

(5) Keep refining. Keep practicing.

I still see wrinkles on a lot of foreheads in this audience. WHAT are you worrying about? By worrying about it here in the class, are you solving whatever problem is worrying you? Why waste your neuro-muscular energy? Conserve it.

Give to yourself some time for silence, study, practice.

Your visit here was not for getting a teacher certificate. It was for changing your own life style.

Between tonight and tomorrow, in your room, sit down, write down, what will be the changes in your MENTAL life from now on? MENTAL life.

Those changes in your mental life will bring about changes, refinements in your daily external life.
Ask any questions now about teaching. …

You have all gone into silence? Congratulations!! Nowadays computers are programmed to answer all questions!!

JC asks – I have fear about being a teacher and rising to the caliber you ask of us. How can I overcome this fear so that I feel prepared and ready enough to teach?

SVB -Examine your fears. What is it the fear of?

My formula in my personal life has been to go confront my fears; just go do what I am afraid of doing.

All it requires—not always psychoanalysis and counseling by somebody but one’s own sankalpa. I strongly believe in sankalpa-shakti that you all have. Use it.

WHAT is it that I am afraid of? Is it something real? If it is unreal, just dismiss it. Sounds simple because it is indeed simple— I have tried it many times in life. It does work!

I have also taught a long affirmation mantra of abhayam. You may learn it; and shiva-sankalpam.

Abhayam to conquer fear. Shiva-sankalpam to strengthen sankalpa-shakti.

Just a few repetitions daily. AND whenever needed.

Remember that teaching is an act of love. Are you afraid to love? WHY?

The abhayam mantra ends with the sentence: may all directions be friends unto me; may I be friends unto all directions.

The Upanishad says: dviteeyaad vai bhayam bhavati. Fear arises from the concept “other”. If there is no “other”, it is all one atman, universal spiritual self, who shall fear whom?

As your spiritual realization of this universal reality grows, your fears will vanish. Spiritual realization of universal atman.

Sankalpa-shakti. Affirmation of universal amity. That is all.

When I approach an audience to teach I feel so loved. So what should I be afraid of from you?

KS asks – What is the best way when teaching to allow for spontaneous intuition to come forward to teach?

SVB –

(1) Deepen your meditation

(2) Clear the negative cobwebs of disturbing emotions that becloud the inner pathways through which intuition flows.

Nothing new. But practice it. People have too many negative emotions.

DO bear one thing in mind. I have seen it with many people. When some people practice a lot of meditations but do not understand and therefore do not practice emotional purifications, I have seen their negative emotions intensify. Read that last part again.

So, meditation and sattvic emotion go hand in hand; never alone. Thousands of people are teaching some kind of yoga! But they are not teaching sattvic emotions. Your teaching needs to be different. It will be different if YOU practice sattvic emotions.

PE asks – When teaching children how does one stay in the joyful happy childlike space which they are always in… how do you approach teaching children?

SVB – Can someone here describe how I teach children? Who would like to do that?

JS – When Swamiji gives a child blessing it as though he becomes smaller than the child. He and the child merge as one. Swamiji becomes one entity with the child.

SVB – (Demonstrates taking the child into your arms and sitting in a relaxed state to breath with the child while they are within your embrace.)

It is by being in a PURE state of mind and emotions yourself at the moment that you are communicating with the child, that you teach the children.

Hold the child in a hug, and breathe with a relaxed body. That is all. You do not need to teach the whole relaxation technique. DO IT while holding the child . Breathe through HIS body. Depends on your depth.

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Editor’s Note

“This article is what SVB ‘lectured’ (and typed up) for the TTP students on 5th April 2013.” – Maryon Maass.

Cannot stop my old habit of speaking.

Just a few words to share.

In the path of Yoga, there are two sides, you can say three. The state of deep serenity and silence, that is what true yoga is.

That is what our goal is. Not the path of excitation. Not the path of thrills. Not the path of advertising. Humble silence.

Then, there is the method. Scientific method.

From the changes that occur in your personality, in your mind through that scientific method: how they show themselves, how they express themselves in your behavior in your pattern of speech, in how you sit, in how you walk… How does one speak, how does one sit, how does one walk, how does one conduct himself in company, in relationships, in the society?

The three are integrated. Now when you are a teacher you are teaching all these three.

Not just the method.

But does your teaching of the method lead the student to serenity. To silence. Does it improve his relationship with his wife? Does it improve her relationship with her husband? Does it improve your interaction with the society? Do you take a little less from Nature than you used to take.

All of that is part of our teaching.

Bearing that in mind, think of your role as a teacher.

Not one who will go back from here and hang a certificate. I have a certificate from the Himalayas. I have no certificate

First time back in 1950’s when I first went to the west, I was taken to see a very modern yoga studio.

Yoga what? Studio? What is the connection between the two? I could not figure out. I thought yoga was sitting in silence practicing meditation. I had no idea that yoga had studios.

So I was taken to this yoga studio and for the first time I saw a certificate hanging behind the easy chair of the director. From the forest university of Rishikesh. I am looking. As a gentleman, I am looking at the certificate. Where is the yogi? I did not know yogis had certificates

It was a shock. One of the shocks that one gets, especially sixty years back.

Nowadays India is also flooded by thousands of these certified teachers.

That is the END of YOGA.

So please understand what the goal aim and purpose of yoga is.

Please understand what your role as a teacher is.

It is only and none other but leading suffering humanity to spiritual enlightenment.

Health, beauty, clear skin, the studio yoga – will come along by itself. It will happen for you without announcing, without pulling the yoga down to the level of your skin.

And you detect a slight anger in my voice in the last sentence; it is intentional.

You have brought the yoga down to the level of the skin.

If you have come to learn from the tradition of Swami Rama and all the sages of the past going back to Patañjali and you have learned something from these great teachers who have been serving you day and night, then you will go back and you will not teach yoga at the level of a certificate. You will not teach yoga on the strength of a certificate. You will teach yoga on the strength of your spiritual personality. Your magnetism that comes from meditation.

The meditative magnetism is far stronger than any other type of magnetism. It is because of that that you are drawn to this ashram. IT is the specialty of this ashram, that magical meditational magnetism.

And wherever you are your ashram is.

Wherever you are, people look at you and say, there is something about you- will you teach me. Then you are a yoga teacher. Not on the strength of your certificate. The only certificate that I recognize is the certificate your students give you. Not the certificate that your teachers give you. But the certificate that your students give you.

Oh, I went to this yoga class and I felt so loved. I went to this yoga class and I came back feeling serene and silent.

That is the only certificate you need.

Gurudeva Swami Rama taught us, made his body disappear. Went away. This body of 79 will not last forever. These teachers will continue, and I am hoping that they will be teaching and training the next line of teachers and that you will help them, in carrying out the mission that Gurudeva Swami Rama and his humble servant has established.

I am now withdrawn from all management, all teaching, all activity, as I’m contradicting myself obviously. And the only thing I will have to teach you is silence.

As you know 2013… in the meantime I have a few loose ends to tie.

And I need everybody’s help and these people, self sacrificing people are giving that help.

So bear this in mind: what you learn, let it become part of your personality, part of your magnetism.

Your presences should have a healing power on the mind of those who sit by your side in a train. Your mind should have the power to heal those wounded minds who you do not know who sit on the plane next to you on an airplane.

Then you are a yoga teacher

Aspire

Some of you will say at this time, “Who me? Well, if that is the standard required, then I better not teach.”

Teaching is the teacher’s best teacher. Teaching is a teachers best teacher.

It is by teaching that you learn. Because when you are teaching on the path of yoga you’re not teaching from your notebook, you are teaching not from a text book, you are teaching from your heart and soul.

And if you are teaching from your heart and soul, you will not claim to be a teacher. You will not say, “I am a teacher.” You will not advertise yourself tomorrow when you go back home freshly enlightened in the Himalayas.

There are people that are doing that. And they are doing it in my name! And I see their advertisements. And I see their websites. Please, don’t do that to me. Don’t do that to my Guru, ok?

When you teach, surrender.

Tasmai shri guruave namah.

Namah
Not mine
I surrender all my claims of ego

To that guru
Guru deva
Guru lineage

You please teach and let the holy spirit teach and you listen. That is how you learn.

All these teachers. What they learnt at the feet at Swami Rama. What they learnt from this humble self. More than that is what they learn by teaching in this way. What they learn by teaching in this spirit.

Continue that spirit.

And seek that your students give you the certificate. Not a written certificate. Not testimonial that you can put on your website. “Dear teacher, I came to your class very disturbed and I went away feeling very peaceful you are the greatest teacher.” You put that on the website. You don’t need to do that. You don’t need those testimonials.

Your presence is the testimonial

And let the student go back and say, “Yes I went to that yoga class I went to that yoga group and I came away feeling my mind touching the fringes of silence.”

If you can teach that silence to the people, you have taught everything.

God bless you all. Wish you success. Success in what? Wish you success in your self enlightenment. Wish you success in what? Wish you success in your obtaining Your inner serenity and silence. Wish you success in discovering your hidden lights so that it may come out and illuminate your presence and the whole world.

God bless you all

Wish you success

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Editor’s Note

Transcription from Swami Veda’s talk on 19th November 2011, done by Michelle Kinsey