Author: ahymsin

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

A matter seen or inferred by accomplished persons is taught in the form of words in order to transfer their knowledge into another. The vṛitti (वृत्ति) from that word, with its matter and meaning as the object, is the listener’s acquisition (āgama).

• Vyāsa introduces the sutra with one word, tatra: ‘there, among these’. Then comes the sutra proper. Some variants read tatra as part of the sutra proper.

An āptais someone who has ‘received, ‘accomplished’ and now wishes to transfer his knowledge into another mind. The knowledge of such a spiritually realised person is conveyed in the form of words. It is therewith transferred into the listener. He does so by way of meaningful words indicating a significatum (artha). The vritti that thus arises in the listener’s mind is the latter’s acquisition, agama, ‘that which has come’ to him. This becomes a vritti in his mind.

If the teacher himself is imperfect and in error, he is not to be trusted. Otherwise, untoward situations will overwhelm the pupil. Those who are not fully āpta are deficient teachers — they can be mistaken or mislead, but that is not the case with the original teacher, the First Guru, God, Īśhvara, who is infallible. The original teacher [see details on p. 141], who has seen and inferred the matter correctly, does not lead the disciple to such disturbance.

Āgama

Now to the third valid proof (āgama). Vyāsa says:

A matter seen or inferred by an accomplished person (āpta) is taught in the form of words to transfer his knowledge into another. The vritti from that word, with its matter and meaning as the object, is the listener’s acquisition (āgama).

Some of the original words in these sentences are important to understand:

An āpta is an accomplished one, he who has attained. The word āpta is derived from the verb root √āp to attain, accomplish, find: Attainment (āpti) in this sense is more technically defined as connecting together the following: (a) the realisation of reality (tattva-darhana), (b) compassion 1 (kāruṇya), that is, the motivation to eradicate the suffering of others,and c) strength of the senses and body and expertise in the use thereof (karaṇa-pāṭava). This defines the qualifications of a realised teacher. He has to be (VB) free of weaknesses and faults such as confusion, negligence, desire for personal gain, failure in control over the senses and inability to use the senses properly. One with such an attainment is an āpta, a noble teacher.

It is also said (HA) that one is an āpta to a student when through his words that particular student is able to reach a conclusion, determination or conviction to which the student’s own rational thought (vichra) had not yet led him. Vyāsa’s words,

A matter seen or inferred by an >āpta>…

mean that inference alone, that is, rational or logical processes of thought, does not make one an authority (āpta). First comes the fact of dṛiṣhṭa, having seen in yogi-pratyakṣha, i.e., realised in the state of samādhi ( Cf. the discussion on pratyakṣha). It is because of such an in-sight (a realisation within) that a school of philosophy is called a darśhana: ‘vision, insight, realisation’ (from the verb root √driśh ‘to see’). The matter thus seen, says Vyāsa,

… is taught in the form of words …

or (HA) by means of silent gestures, etc., as many yogis do. Śhabdena means ‘through words’, ‘in the form of words’ and ‘with the accompaniment of words’. All of these meanings are applicable here. The last one is especially significant because verbal guidance may often accompany an initiation in which a guru’s knowledge is transferred to another – often without words. This transfusion of knowledge is not emphasised here, but merely suggested to those who have gone through the experience and can therefore read between the lines.

The matter is taught in the form of words, says Vyāsa,

… to transfer one’s knowledge into another.

Not ‘to another (parasmai)’ but ‘into another (paratra)’. This means (VM, VB, NB, HA, RY) that the knowledge similar to that in the teacher’s own thought waves of the mind-field (chitta-vritti) should appear in the chitta-vritti of the listener (śhrotri), that is, a student. In the tradition, the first stage of the study is listening to the teaching. This teaching should be imparted with the intention (VM) that what is beneficial to the student should accrue, and what is not beneficial should be prevented. It is all of these qualifications and processes that constitute valid proof (āgama), which literally means ‘that which comes into’ the student. The vritti of the words, with their (a) intended and (b) inherent meanings arising in the student’s mind, is āgama. That is the noble authority, a revealed knowledge, conveyed into the student directly by the teacher into whom it was revealed, or through a lineage, or in the form of sacred texts.

Further, Vyāsa says:

That āgama overwhelms one whose teacher has not seen or inferred the matter correctly and whose presentation of the matter cannot be trusted.

On the other hand, there may be teachers who are trusted and accepted even though they have neither realised nor inferred the matter themselves, but are faithfully presenting the knowledge originally imparted by the founder of the lineage. Vyāsa says:

But the āgama is without such disturbance in the case of the original teacher.

These lines can be read both as (a) in the case of an original teacher, a human founder of the lineage, and (b)in the case of the original teacher (God), whose revealed knowledge (Veda) is conveyed through teachers who themselves may not have realised or inferred the contents thereof.¹

¹ For a deeper understanding of the ‘original teacher’, see I.26 and Rig-Veda 1.1.2.

The word āgama in general parlance is used for any scripture. For example, if one visits a library in Indonesia or Malaysia, the shelves containing the Holy Quran are marked āgama.

Thus āgama, revealed authority at many different levels is the third valid proof.

Cognitive reflexionism¹

Two more important lines of argument are followed by the commentators. For full details one will need to study the extensive statements of BG, NB, RY, SS.

One line of argument, very Vedantic, can be termed cognitive reflexionism1 (vṛtti-pratibimba-vāda). ln this trend of thought, direct perception (pratyakṣha) is a form of reflexion of knowledge that is innate to the perceiver. Here the information need not come to the perceiver only through the channels of senses but may, alternatively, be the result of a direct mental contact. The vrittis are uncountable rays of consciousness arising from within. Here vritti is the uppermost point of buddhi like that of a flame whereby the mind-field may become one-pointed (ekāgra).

The entire subject of praiyaksha is explained in terms of the direct experience of knowledge in samādhi, This barest summary does not do justice to the arguments and processes presented grantha-vistara-bhayāt. It will require a detailed paper perhaps titled ‘Pratyaksha and anumāna as states of consciousness’.

¹ Our neologism.

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Editor’s Note

The Blessing on TTP Certification Day, November 2013 by Swami Veda Bharati can be read at http://ahymsin.org/main/swami-veda-bharati/blessing-on-ttp-certification-day-november-2013.html

 This exerpt was given given to the students of the HYT-TTP November 2013 retreat at Swami Rama Sadhaka Grama.

We fail to erase “death” from our writings of our fate; we fail to delete it from the programs in our minds. The undying myth called death revives itself, raises its fearsome hood, as though a reality, each time a creature makes the (re-)appearance called birth.

Each time the Master Alchemist prepares, plans to alter our wrinkles into the freshness of a new infant’s smooth skin, we cry out, “Death!” Each time the Master Builder seeks to demolish an old decrepit chamber and make for us a new one with better amenities, we shout out, “Death!”

The theologians debate about the best means to kill the elephant who is not in the room, nor in the forest. They sharpen their word-darts, wishing somehow to be able to shoot them at the no-elephant so it would not pick us up with its only-in-myth-hanging long trunk and trample us with the shadow feet of fear. Sages and masters, prophets and saints, for a thousand generations, have sung to us the songs of our immortality, but we won’t listen, so enamoured are we of our favorite myth, the myth of death.

In the Katha Upanishad, Nachiketa demolished it. Bhishma asked, “What can death do to us (kim no mrtuh karishyati)?”

The sage Sanatsujata of the Mahabharata, blessed to remain a child perennially, stated categorically, “There is no such thing as death (na mrtyur astu).”

The Vedas, Upanishads, the Bible, other scriptures, Lao Tsu, and Socrates all showed us the key to press to delete the program called death from our minds. But we just refuse, and still run around in panic, crying and shouting all over the city streets, “The sky is falling. Death! Death! Death is on its way!”

Everyone prays, “May I not die,” but the Vedic sage prays:

May I not, O Lord of Universal Law,
Re-enter this house of clay.
(Mo shu varuna mrnmayam
Graham rajann aham gamam)

And when the Buddha opened his eyes upon reaching enlightenment, what were the first words that he uttered?

“I have seen you, O house-builder.
You shall build me no more a house!”

My own master, Swami Rama, before demolishing his old house so that he may live only in a house whose building blocks are Light, has tried to delete death from our minds in his book Sacred Journey, but, reading, we read it not.

May this book, herewith presented, help many to de-program the concept of the myth of death from their minds. May the non-natus, ever unborn (a-janma), non-geriatric, un-decaying, unwrinkled, never aging (ajara), non-mortal, never dying (a-mrtyu), in them come out yelling now, whispering then, silent again, “Here I am! Know me as it is I who is you, eternally immortal.” Death, that was not, never was, an entity, remains banished to be so. It was ever a vikalpa,¹ a verbal fantasy without an object.

Ron Valle and Mary Mohs, both longtime meditators, have chosen to share this wealth and give a selfless service to aid in every seeker’s contemplations. With all blessings that the re-cognition (praty-abhi-jna) of our non-mortality confers.

Swami Veda Bharati
(formerly Usharbudh Arya, Ph.D.)
Swami Rama Sadhaka Grama
Rishikesh, India, August, 2005

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The Yoga-sutras of Patanjali 1.9, Swami Veda Bharati’s Commentary.

The stock example of a vikalpa is given in the texts as:

Here goes the son of a barren woman.
He has worn a crown of sky-flowers.
Having bathed in the waters of a mirage,
He carries a bow made of a hare’s horns.

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Editor’s Note

Swami Veda Bharati wrote the Preface to the book and the above text is that preface. The book Opening to Dying and Grieving: A Sacred Journey by Ron Valle and Mary Mohs is available through Amazon.

Ron Valle, Ph.D. has served as a psychologist for over 25 years, specializing in clients with chronic pain and stress-related disorders, and with individuals facing a life-threatening diagnosis and their families. Professor, counselor, supervisor, and author, he currently serves as a director of Awakening: A Center for Exploring Living and Dying and is the senior editor of both Phenomenological Inquiry: Existential and Transpersonal Dimensions and Metaphors of Consciousness. Ron has worked with the dying and grieving on a volunteer basis since 1982. A long-time practitioner and teacher of meditation, Ron developed An Integrated Therapy Program for Transforming Stress and Pain while co-director of an outpatient university hospital pain clinic.

Mary Mohs, L.V.N., M.A., R.Y.T. has her Master’s degree in Transpersonal Counseling Psychology. Her life’s work has included being a nurse, working with the dying and grieving for over 20 years, and serving as a drug and alcohol counselor. Her extensive study of both Eastern and Western spiritual philosophies and approaches to life has deepened her understanding of her own spirituality, and reflects her interest in the commonalities in all of the world’s religions. Mary serves as a director and co-founder of Awakening: A Center for Exploring Living and Dying, and is the author of a number of papers addressing living, dying, and grieving with awareness.

I have taken, announced a vow of five years of silence on Shivaratri, 2013 when I got very ill – and I still am – with hospitalization, doctors, nurses. I have to break my vow – but I am starting again from the 10th, 11th of April and hoping that I will not have any interruptions. But I’ll still keep teaching. There are other ways to teach.

Attending a course is one thing; assimilating the teaching is something else. That takes many lifetimes. Do it. What is the secret of success? There are three secrets. The first secret is . . . practice. The second secret is . . . practice. The third secret is . . . practice.

Don’t make it just a holiday: “I went there. Yes, it was good. The ashram is very nice. The swami isn’t too bad.” And then go back and forget all the relaxations. No, absorb it until you go back, listen to the recordings, and do it again, and do it again, until such time that you don’t need any recordings and you remember the processes without somebody on the recording reminding you.

Then the second step comes: the kriya, the practice, the part, the segment of the practice that used to take you one hour, as you advance . . . . Remember this formula: As you absorb, as you assimilate, please understand that mind is not some one lumpy thing

Mind is more vast that a whole ocean, and all of that ocean is in the skull. There are two trillion neurons. If they were put on a string, the string would go beyond the moon. It’s all wrapped up here. [Swami Veda points to his head.] And the brain is not mind. The brain is an instrument of a small part of the mind. And there is more mind beyond the brain than there is acting through the brain. And a deep meditator goes to that mind.

So the mind has many energy layers, like the thermoclines in the ocean. Do you know “thermoclines”? Anybody here is a diver?

[A man raises his hand says, “Scuba.”]

You are a scuba diver?

[“Yes.”]

Oh! I’m a scuba diver, and I’ve done that for decades, except that I got ill. I have dived in many, many, many oceans.

[“We are going to Galapagos next year.”]

It was just two year ago… [Swami Veda turns to Tejas] Was it just two years ago that I was there?

But I was not diving at that time because I was not well. But I gave a series of lectures there at a retreat in Galapagos. Wonderful! Wonderful! Okay! Tell me about it when you come back. You are going through _?_ ? What is the route you are taking now.

[“We are going through Columbia and driving all the way down.”]

This man has taken his motorbike and started his motorbiking from the state of Arunachal, way northeast at the Tibetan border, and done his motorbiking to come here. I like that kind of a man! Motorbike through the mountains and go scuba diving in the Galapagos. And then . . . put that energy and that creativity with that energy, at some point, in scaling your spiritual life. At some time, just absorb it and then ascend. Okay?

So when you are diving, the diving teachers can tell you that there what are called thermoclines – the ocean has many layers. And at each layer, suddenly, half of your body is in warm water and half of your body is in cold water – and it changes, and then further and further and further. You have to watch out.

The mind has many, many layers. At present you are working with the thickest, slowest level of the mind’s turbulent surface of the ocean. So those who have seen only the ocean’s turbulent surface, they only think of this noisy, _?_ high waves place. But when you dive underneath, ten feet below, where is the storm? There? You only hear the sound of your breathing. That’s why I love diving. [_?_ in Hindi] So, learn to dive in the mind and go to the next level where the energy is a little more frequent-vibrating, the frequencies subtler, and your mantra becomes faster. Then you go subtler, to the next level, and the mantra becomes faster yet. And the same mala that used to take you fifteen minutes comes down to five minutes, or two minutes.

Does anyone have a watch with a second hand? Anybody here? Okay, listen, listen. I’ll do this sign [raising an index finger] and I’ll start and then I’ll do the same sign again. And you can count the seconds. Okay? [Swami Veda closes his eyes and begins to breathe. How many seconds? [Thirty seconds] I did Gayatri mantra fifteen times, because I don’t stay on that turbulent surface. I go to the place where the mind is more high frequency. But trying to go fast, nothing will work; you’ll only get all tensed up. You can learn it. You can do it if you have sankalpa [resolve], but it’s not a simple formula. So anyway.

Do you know what I used to do? Now I don’t teach personally. I haven’t taught a group for many years now, but I used to put people to sit in meditation and quietly say to somebody to go out the door, come back, and SLAM the door. [laughing] Everybody …everybody jumps! That’s not meditation.

[Question: “Swamiji, you said you did fifteen Gayatris. These people think you mean fifteen repetitions of Gayatri. I think you mean fifteen malas of Gayatri? No?”]

That’s fantastic. That’s too many. [Laughter]

Okay, so don’t just go back, hearing this and [saying], “Yes, very interesting. Well, I’m no swami. I can never make it.” Why can’t you make it? So many people have made it. Why can’t you make it? You can make it, too. I was a householder. I raised four kids in America, and I kept on doing this work. [People say,] “Oh, we are _?__, we are householders. We are busy.” I don’t take it. I don’t count [that statement]. I have done half my sadhana sitting at American airports. What do you do sitting at the airport? Look? You have seen that scene God knows how many times. Then it’s late. Okay. Oh, great, I have more time to meditate and be silent. You have so much time. You’re sitting in the car, somebody else is driving – what are you doing? You have time. You are falling asleep [making little circular movements upward] and you are in Los Angeles and you are in Beijing, and you are fighting with your neighbor and… You fall asleep and then you have all kinds of bad dreams. Why do you do that? Use that time. I use that time. Ask these people who watch me. Plenty of time. So learn to use the time if you have sankalpa because it’s all. Tan me manaḥ, śiva saṅkalpam astu.⁽¹⁾ __?__, __?__. Nobody does a few sankalpa?

[Answering a written question] Remember the definition of a teacher: Someone walks into your presence and says, “I felt loved.” Then you are a teacher. Someone walks into your presence disturbed and goes away at peace and smiling; then you are a yoga teacher.

[Answering a written question] What is the secret of success in asana?

[Answer from the audience: “Lightness and stillness?”]

Relaxation, breath rhythm, and coalescence with the infinite. Pra-yatna-shaithilyānanta-sam-ā-pattibhyām. Breath rhythm, relaxation, and coalescence with the awareness of the infinite.⁽²⁾ The three secrets of success in yoga. If you have these three, asana will come to you easily.

People in the West have very stiff necks, very stiff wrists, and very stiff ankles. They can’t loosen their hands. And they are trying to force the asana. That’s not the way.

Relaxation.

I’m talking to you for how long? I am very ill. I have six heart arteries 100% blocked – for the last five years during which I have traveled around the world and lectured and talked many times. I am sitting here with many other challenges in the body, but I have continued talking. And if you lift my hand while I’m talking and surprise me – don’t give me a warning – lift it and drop it, okay? – I’ll continue talking to you, and my body will remain relaxed with no tension in it. If you put a – Dr. Prabhu is not here – but if you put a myograph on my forehead, you will not find tension.

I’m eighty-two. Do you see wrinkles on my forehead? Any? Any wrinkles on my forehead? How come you have wrinkles? [Laughter] Why? [Swamiji whispers.] Stay beautiful. Stay beautiful. Okay. Stay beautiful. A secret Himalayan herbal lotion you put on your mind. [Laughter].

Does anybody want to ask anything?

[Question: “You were talking about deeper levels of the mind. You said that it was very easy to get deeper. Do you have a trick, an easy way to get deeper into the mind?”]

She asked me: “You have talked of diving through the layers of the mind. Is there an easy way to get there?” Do it beautifully. Don’t make it an effort. The sutra says,“Pra-yatna-shaithilyānanta . . .” – relaxing the effort. Relaxing the effort – and that relaxing, that loosens . . . . You see, mind is not just sitting in your skull. The mind and prana are through your whole body. And Swami Rama says, “All of the body is in the mind, but not all of the mind is in the body.” Now when you tense your emotions, when you tense you emotions, then you tense your body. That’s why I talk so much here about emotional purification, bhāva-saṁśuddhi.

I have them memorize one verse of the Gita. I don’t know how many of these people can recite it:

manaḥ-prasādaḥ saumyatvaṁ
maunam ātma-vinigrahaḥ
bhāva-saṁśuddhir ity etat
mānasam tapa ucyate (Verse 17.16) ⁽³⁾

Making the mind a pleasant place:

manaḥ-prasādaḥ saumyatvam: having a character like the moon – that somebody looks at you and feels something of the light, cool light emanating from the moon;
saumyatvaṁ maunam: silence;
ātma-vinigrahaḥ: holding oneself in restraint;
bhāva-saṁśuddhir: purification of emotions;
that is called manasa tapas, mental tapasya, mental austerity, mental asceticism.

So make the mind a pleasant place. If there is tension in your body, the block will put your energies through that tension, that stress, and it blocks your mind. And with that block you’re trying to do: “Oh quick! I’ve got to do..I promised that I had to do 125,000 in so many days.⁽⁴⁾ Am I getting it done?”

Come on! Relax. The more you relax, the deeper you will go. That is why we have all of these processes of yoga nidra and so on.

I don’t do any of these processes.

[Silence as Swami Veda goes into yoga nidra.]

I take two seconds of yoga nidra sleep. I am rested. Ask her [Tejaswini]. She takes my dictation. I don’t have the energy in my heart muscle to do it.

[Speaking to Tejaswini] Describe what we do.

[Tejaswini: “He does yoga nidra in a very, very, very complete way(?).” (not sure about Tejas’ last words)].

My Master [Swami Rama] dictated all his books lying down, like this. [Swamiji puts his elbow on the arm of his chair and puts head on his elbow, as if sleeping.] And somebody would be taking his dictation, and he would just keep on talking like this: “And when we were in the mountains, we lived on fruits and nuts.” Hours and hours he would stay in that state and he would dictate. When at present you are not finding your answers. God is whispering to you, but you have ten thousand TVs on at full blast and say, “I can’t hear God.” Turn them off. Then you will hear.

That is why we emphasize silence here so much. People come here for three days of silence, ten days of silence, forty days. Who is doing forty days now? Two or three people are doing that right now. Ninety days. We have a group of ten people doing ninety days from December.

But then we teach how to do the silence. Not keep the internal TV on. What to do during silence, or rather what to un-do during silence.

[Question: “Swami Ved, thank you very much for this lovely course we have had. But I wish to give you are little feedback as a student. When we learn from teachers like Stoma who have perfected this, we automatically get into that deep state. And we do the same things on ourselves _?_ benefit, so there is an element of grace that comes through this experience and that is what we get.]

[Question paraphrased by Tejaswini: “She comes for the course and learns through teachers like Stomaji. They experience the silence, but when they go home, it’s a different thing, and she attributes this to grace here.”]

What kind of grace? What is grace? What is the definition of grace? What is love? What is the definition of love? You and you and you [Swami Veda gestures to people in the audience.] and you, and I, we are waves in the ocean of universal consciousness. Now, can you take a piece of chalk and put a boundary line between one wave and another? That is what you are trying to do. That is what people are doing: “I am here, and you are over there.” The line is drawn. It doesn’t work. And when two waves remove that line, boundary line, then where does one wave end and where does the other wave begin? That is called love. And when the wave of the Guru mind puts the energy into your mind, that is called grace. And you can invite it anywhere, anytime, if you know to remove the blocks that you have put in your way for that wave to touch you. You have to remove the blocks. But you are keeping the blocks: Your angry habit, your jealous habit, your self-centeredness, your loud voice, sharp tone, stiff body, angular movements.

Flow! 70% of the human body is water. Ask anybody who knows very basic, elementary physiology. 70% of the human body is water, and people can’t flow?! Huh? What’s the matter? Do you understand? Learn to flow.

And when you go into silence, don’t just wait to come to the Ashram for silence; give yourself at least half a day of total silence every week. Okay, during that time, no TV, no reading; just calming the mind. Okay. Just calming the mind. But “Hey! I just had an annoying thought.” Okay. Calm down. “I had another annoying thought.” Okay. Calm down. And then in half a day: “Well, aren’t these thoughts ever going to end?” And when the half-day is over, you get on the phone and talk for hours. That’s not silence. Come on. Do something. Change that. Okay, then wisdom will come in that silence and peacefulness of your body, mind and speech will come from that silence.

Practice and then practice and then practice. Okay. God bless you. It’s getting late and you have to have dinner.

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Sadhakas chanting

Akhanda-mandalākāram
vyāptam yena carācaram,
tat-padam darśitam yena
tasmai śri-gurave namaha

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¹⁾ This is the refrain from the Siva-Sankalpa-Suktam, from the Evening Prayers, which Swami Veda lectured about in his last talk before going into Silence at the Sangha Gathering on March 9, 2013. Tan me manaḥ, śiva saṅkalpam astu has been translated as “May that my mind be filled with beautiful and benevolent resolves.” More on the Siva-Sankalpa-Suktam and Swami Veda’s lecture on it can be found on the AHYMSIN website: http://ahymsin.org/main/practice/practice-for-the-next-five-years-and-the-rest-of-your-life.html and http://ahymsin.org/main/misc/iva-sankalpa-sktam.html .

²⁾ Relevant sutras from Swami Veda Bharati’s Yoga-sūtras of Patañjali with the Exposition of Vyasa: A Translation and Commentary, Volume II – Sādhana Pāda (2001):

Sutra II.46 sthira-sukham āsanam
A posture [as a constituent of yoga] is that which is steady and easeful.

Sutra II.47 pra-yatna-shaithilyānanta-sam-ā-pattibhyām
[The posture is perfected, made steady and comfortable] through relaxing the effort and coalescence [of awareness] with the endless, or with endlessness.
pra-yatna = through efforts;
shaithilya = relaxing;
ānanta ānanta endlessness;
sam-ā-pattibhyām = through coalescence

Sutra II.48 tato dvandvānabhi-ghātah
Thereby one is no longer impeded by the pairs of opposites.
ānabhi-ghātah = not suffering or being impeded by

Sutra II.49 tasmin sati shvāsa-pra-svāsayor gati-vi-cchedah prānāyāmah
When that [posture] has been [accomplished], braking the force and uncontrolled movement of inhalation and exhalation is termed breath control and expansion of prāna.
tasmin = upon that
sati = having been [accomplished]
shvāsa = [of ] inhalation [and]
pra-svāsayoh = exhalation
gati = [of] force, uncontrolled movement
vi-cchedah = break, braking [is called]
prānāyāmah = pranayama, control of the breath, expansion of prāna.

³⁾ “Clarity and pleasantness of mind, peacefulness, silence, total control of one’s self, purification of sentiments – this is said to be mental asceticism.” (Bhagavad Gita, Verse 17:16)

⁴⁾ The number 125,000, or sometimes 150,000, is the standard purascharana for initiates in the Himalayan Yoga Tradition. A purascharana is the practice of repeating a mantra a certain number of times, sometimes in a certain period of time. One makes a resolution and then japa is done faithfully every day until the 125,000 is completed.

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Editor’s Note

A video of this lecture can be watched at https://vimeo.com/133511647

Michael Smith has transcribed this lecture.

We all begin in silence, pass through the music and the song of life, and return to silence. Silence is eternal, the underlying stream. Life, as we know it, as a process, is only from one short end to another short end – brief. The eternal life that we speak of is the life force ever in silence. In this, the state, up to birth and the state from the point of the so-called death, is one and the same – identical.I leave this room in which I was with you. I enter another room. For your eyes, I disappeared. That absence of appearance is a silence given to your sight. I go to the next room, and those who were there say a child is born and rejoice. Over the same event of my leaving one room and entering another room, you grieve, they rejoice. Thus it is that all the sages and the saints of the past have spoken of death contemptuously, have said that it is a myth, a figment of imagination. Something produced by our fears. Not something substantial that we fear, but something that our fear has produced. Those who have demolished the myth are the realized ones.

Many of you may have read a text called the Vidura-niti. It is the teaching of the wise elder named Vidura in the Mahabharata. After he has given his teachings to the blind king, Dhrtarashtra on life and its principles and folly, Dhrtarashtra has one remaining doubt. He asks Vidura about the meaning of death.

And Vidura says, “I’m afraid I’m not qualified to answer this question.”

“How would I have my question answered,” asks the blind king. “The greatest one who may guide you on this is a great sage known as Sanatsujata. You need to ask him.”

“Where will I find him?” asks Dhrtarashtra. “How will I know him?”

“There is not much effort required,” says Vidura. “Simply close your eyes and remember him. That is how the disembodied saints, the realized ones, who are beyond death, manifest themselves when someone truly deeply remembers them.”

The king closes his eyes and intently remembers the sage, and the sage manifests himself and appears before them. And the king asks him the question of death. Sanatsujata says there is no such thing as death. Like the Bhagavad Gita and the Vidura-niti I have just mentioned, there is a text which is part of the Mahabharata, one of most deeply philosophical text called Sanatsjatiya, the teachings of Sanatsujata, (someday we may study together), but the statement that appears again and again and again is that death is a myth.

Why is it we call it a myth? The question arises: What is it that dies? Who is it that dies? The body as we know it is a composition. A compound, a very complex compound of chemicals. There is nothing more to the body. A compound must discompose in time. No compound can last forever. It is a simple law of nature. When one goes through what you call the process of dying, says the Upanishad, the sage Uddalaka teaching his son Shvetaketu says that at that moment, the speech is withdrawn into prana. Prana is withdrawn into the mind. Mind is withdrawn into an inner light, the principle of tejas which is an emanation of the spiritual Self, Atman, and that tejas, the emanation, the corona of the rays of that spiritual Self, the Atman, is withdrawn into the Atman itself.

When people approach a dying person and ask him, do you recognize me? So long as his speech is not withdrawn into prana and prana is not withdrawn into the mind, he says I recognize you. Yes, I know you. But as his consciousness elevates itself, is withdrawn, he no longer recognizes you. As one goes through the dying process, something very sublime occurs. One loses the awareness of the body. Some principle of the speech remains. The speech is withdrawn, and then one’s consciousness is totally that of prana force, knows himself to be prana. From there, he rises to the next state of consciousness, knows only the mind. Rises from there, and knows only the rays of light that are emanating from the Self and is absorbed in the consciousness of those and then further into the Atman itself.

Not everyone may be aware of even this process going on but especially those who are blessed to be initiated by a great sage, great saint, those who have received a mantra, they are guided. Death, our Guru Dev Swami Rama says, is a habit of the body. When he was preparing to leave the body, he had his disciples compile his final work titled Sacred Journey. At that time, we did not realize he was speaking of his own forthcoming sacred journey, and it is in that he has said death is a habit of the body.

Elsewhere, in the book titled The Path of Fire and Light, he says those who are realized ones rejoice at the prospect of dropping their bodies. Then he has said repeatedly those who have been initiated with a sacred mantra within a genuine tradition that has an enlightened being as the Guru, then the consciousness of that mantra remains. As the process of death begins in such beings, the mantra comes on as though the entire cosmos, the entire universe, as though all the devis, rishis, saints, sages are, all are singing his mantra, and his awareness is absorbed and that mantra then gently leads him through these various stages that I have just described and the momentum of the past karma takes him to the next life, but the mantra guides him through.

Therefore, for those who are on the path of enlightenment, the experience of death is like that of Nachiketas in the Katha Upanishad. He goes into the realm of death seeks and finds him, finds out its secret, and comes back. And what he has told us of that secret is studied and read with keen awareness by all the yogis, all the practitioners of the spiritual science.

I’m not saying these things simply by way of giving solace. I’m not saying this only to console the grief-stricken. This is the reality. This is the truth. As to our worldly awareness, of the way we perceive life and death, you know in the great epic Ramayana, Bharata finds his way into the forest and falls at the feet of his elder brother, Rama. “Brother, our father has left this world, has died.” Rama who had cultivated himself speaks to his younger brother who is not so well cultivated and says some verses that are recorded in the Ramayana –

All things gathered end in being scattered. All risings end inevitably in falling. All unions have their natural end in separation. Not ends in dying, it does not end, but we perceive its end as dying. As a fruit ripe on the tree has no other fear and no other danger but the fear and danger of falling, so being once born has no other danger and fear but the danger and fear of dying. All our other fears are part of this fear. People rejoice as the sun rises, enjoy the sight of the sunset, celebrate the changes of seasons, and greet each other with the greeting of Happy New Year.

But with each sunrise and with each sunset, with each change of season with each year passing, they do not realize death day by day, sunrise to sunset, season to season, year to year, their karmically allotted life span is diminishing. As two logs of wood, oh, Bharata may fall from two different trees in two different forests and float down in two different tributaries and then come to come to the main river, and there, by a force of waves and wind, they may join together, floating down the river as companions. And then another wave, another gust of wind, and the two separate and go their way. Oh, Bharata, as a pedestrian walking on foot may greet someone who is going on a fast chariot with speedy steeds and says, you go along ahead. I, too, am coming behind you on the same path. So, oh, Bharata, the sons and friends and kinsmen and relatives and the treasures and wealth come together, and in due time, separate and go their way. So our father has gone on the same path as how many ancestors of ours have already gone and we too are going in the same direction.

Said the Buddha: In how many lifetimes from times almost eternal, in how many births have you cried for how many mothers and fathers and sons and brothers, and sisters, and relatives and kinsmen and other beloved ones? He said if you were to collect all those tears from those past lives, you would make a whole ocean. Now you are adding a few drops. Do you still grieve for those?

So, just as that grief has passed, let this grief also pass. Understand the law of karma. Our acts of the body, speech and mind, leave their cumulative imprints on the subtle body.

Now it takes three persons to have a birth: the mother, the father, and the soul to be born at the right time, and the right karma. The mother marries a father; the would-be mother marries the would-be father because that is how her karma will be fulfilled. He will marry her because through her his karma will be fulfilled. From the moment of that marriage, you pool your karma. From that moment, you cannot say who has given how much happiness, who has granted how much pleasure, who has caused how much pain. It is all pooled together and enjoyed or suffered jointly.

Then another soul whose karma can be fulfilled can ripen only in the presence of that chemistry which the mother and father have created karmically. So according to his karma, now he comes here and his karma will be fulfilled because of the temperament, choices, inclinations of the mother and the father and the sister who is not yet born and now comes the soul who is to be a sister. Whose karma is to be fulfilled by having such and such brother? Such and such mother? Such and such father?

And when the force of that momentum created at the moment of the last death which the Yoga Sutras has called mūrchana (moorchana), when that momentum is exhausted, there is not one single moment you can hold back that person. You will grab into the breezes and the wind. You will grope to catch hold of the empty sky but no. There is no way you can hold back that soul, and in any case, again the question arises who dies?

It is said that Atman, the spiritual Self is like akasha. Like this vast space indivisible, intangible, unlimited. Here I cup my two hands together. What have I done? Here I have made a clay pot. I’ve enclosed a piece of the sky inside. Have I really divided the sky when I take this clay pot from point A to point B, from one end of this room to the other end of this room? Is the sky, the spaced inside it moved? Does anything happen to that akasha? Nothing happens. That clay pot bursts. Shall we say that the akasha is now liberated or shall we say where is the akasha that was within that clay pot gone? So it is thus that you ask where did the soul go. Who dies? Does the shard of the clay pot die? This body. the clay pot that is referred to as ghata, containing within it the space. Space like spiritual Self , also that akasha. This ghata, this clay pot, does the clay pot die? Does a lump of clay die? Who dies? Does Atman die?

This shawl, this clothing I am wearing, does this clothing die? I take off this shawl. Then is the shawl dead or am I dead by removing that shawl, by removing that garment? Understand the reality. When you really analyze and then contemplate and then meditate and then realize you find that death is a myth. Those who understand this principle they say when you have seen the oneness of Atman what grief, what attachment, can there be? What attachment, what grief can there be? The Upanishads have said, therefore, realize that one. He who is inside the Earth, that is this Earthly body, is inside the Earth. Who knows this Earth from within, this Earthly being from within? Whom the Earthly being the Earth does not know. Know that one. In a very long passage the Upanishad goes on to say the same thing of the waters and the fires and the mind, and then says he who is inside that death the principle of mortality, inside that death whom the death itself does not know but who knows the death? That Atman, the Self of yours. The indwelling one is amrita, immortal.

The prayer that we have, the Mrityunjaya prayer, the prayer of the death conqueror, prayer of the death conquer, it is not a prayer to be removed from death. It is not a prayer to be released from death. It is a prayer for moksha. May I be released. May I be liberated. May I attain moksha from bondage that is death. Bondage is the death, the karmic bondage. It is for this reason that when a liberated being leaves the body, at least at that time, one is supposed to rejoice at his liberation. We don’t. That is our ignorance, but for him it is a moment of greatest pleasure. The greatest reunion – the entry into that mother silence from which he or she was born.

If you do not feel attuned to the process I have described of moving from the body consciousness and speech to prana, prana to mind and so forth, look at your sleeping process. What happens? The same thing happens. You withdraw from the body. Do you grieve? Do others grieve that you have fallen asleep because you have withdrawn from the body and are not answering?

The yogis take to the path of meditation. In the first half of this century was a great sage named Ramana Maharishi. Blessed are they who have seen him and those who have read his writings. You can go and make a pilgrimage to the town of Madurai. That room is still preserved where at the age of thirteen he said to himself this death, death, death, people are so afraid of, what exactly is this death? Let me die, and find out. Master of his life force and consciousness, he lies down and dies. Oh, ah, ha, this is what they call death. He, the being of light, is standing there watching the clay pot that is the body. Is this what they are afraid of? Well, I still have some use for this body. I better not die right now. Let me get back into the body again, and he gets up. A few years later he walks out of the house in time to be known as one of the greatest enlightened sages.

When we meditate we go through the same process voluntarily. You know there is a principle of life. What will be snatched away from you involuntarily, let that happen voluntarily. Before you wealth is snatched away and you suffer its loss, give it away and enjoy the act of having shared. So also with this physical life process. A meditator voluntarily dies every day. He goes through the same process. Withdraws his consciousness together with the mantra from the physical awareness to prana, from prana to mind and as he advances to the inner light which is an emanation of Atman and from that consciousness knows the Atman itself. This is daily vaccination of a small dose of death to realize our immortality.

The moments of separation called death especially of those who are initiated on the path should not be moments of grief but reminders of the principle of immortality. I pray that all of you realize in yourself this principle of immortality. Shanti. Shanti. Shanti.

October 1998