Rains, sun, flowers, moths, bird wings
determine not a change of year
Change of breath is new year
Each breath transition a celebration
Rejoice in the celebration of that new year
Happy New Year
Happy Each New Breath
Swami Veda Bharati
Prajanyo vivasvān kusuma – mañjaro’ layo vayo va
na nirdhārayanti nava – vatsaragamam
śvāsa – pari – vartta eva nava – vatsarāgamah
sa eva bhūyād bhavatām nava – samvatsarotsava – vilāsah
Dearest of Dear Luminous and Holy Souls,
‘Silent night, holy night’, Xmas hymn, means only the state of silence makes one holy; be made holy tonight through spiritual silence.
‘Happy Xmas’ means that Christ is born on Xmas night in the souls of those who are joyful. The Christ birth makes you further joyful.
Is it not interesting that the nativity of Christ and of Krishna, both are celebrated at midnight – the moment of total silence, equilibrium.
Is it not interesting that Christ is born in cattle shed or cave and Krishna in a prison. Both promise the world salvation through surrender.
Happy Christmas. Be joyful from today because Christ is now born in the manger or cave of your heart.
Swami Veda Bharati
2011
Recently I discovered some old writings and scribbles of mine in the attic of The Meditation Center in Minneapolis, USA. The scribbles, this one going back to 1967 in Holland, included the verse of Bhrtrhari (in Sanskrit) and the jottings for a poem. These have now been refined here to share.
Many in traditional India hold that Bhartrhari the scholar-king and Bhartrhari, the brother of Vikramaditya, the king of Ujjain, are one and the same. The scholars disagree on the identity of the two being the same. The former is mentioned by Yi-Zing, the Chinese pilgrim traveller to India in 7th century A.D., as a well known philosopher of grammar.
The one reputed to be the brother of Vikramaditya is known throughout North India as the saint Bharthari. His samadhi is still a sacred spot of pilgrimage near Sariska and Alwar in Rajashthan. He is known as the disciple of Jalandhar Natha or of Gorakhnatha himself. A variety of legends about his vairagya (the well known yoga ideal of dispassion and disinterest in the attractions of the world) and renouncing the kingdom to become a renowned yogi of great power and wisdom are sung throughout North India. Those who can read something other than mere English will be very familiar with these legends in all the North Indian languages from Bangla to Chattisgarhi to Rajasthani and Punjabi and so on.
Besides his classic work on the philosophy of grammar titled Vakyapadiya, he composed 300 verses of high poetic value, in three batches of approximately 100 verses each. The last of these collections is on vairagya. Of the 100 verses on vairagya, the one quoted below is the very last one, seems like the closing of the book of life, bidding farewell, to then enter into divine Union.
When I leave my body, I would like this verse sung (in original Sanskrit) together with the 63rd poem of the Gitanjali of Tagore, “Thou hast made me known to friends whom I knew not…”, sung in original Bangla (kot ojaanaare Jonaaile tumi…).
Maatar medini taata maaruta sakhe tejah subandho jala
Bhraatar vyoma ni-baddha eSha bahavataam antyah praNaamaanjalih
yuShmat-sanga-vashopa-jaata-sukRta-sphaara-sphuran-nirmala-
jnaanaapaasta-samasta-moha-mahimaa leeye para-brahmaNi.
My mother ever nourishing Earth; my father the Wind-god;
friend Fire; beautiful kin Water; brother Sky;
with hands clasped, here my last prostration to you.
By the power of association with you I have earned beautiful merit [good karma]
that has expanded into the vibrating immaculate knowledge
vanquishing all force of delusion and darkness,
and now
I dissolve into the Absolute Supreme.
— Bharthari’s Vairaagya-shataka verse 100
What adorable family I have.
Earth my mother,
Prana my father,
Noble mountains have I for strong sturdy brothers.
Ah so many rivers my loving sisters, ever pure virgins of our illustrious family. Night, thinly blue-clad with star sequins a-twinkle, long-dark-haired, with the moon face; she fans me all night, embraces all my limbs in her soothing caress, covers me with clean white sheet of moonlight, her kindly glance, watches over me lovingly all through her reign while I sleep with my head comfortably in her lap — how blessed am I.
Dawn, the Night’s rosy cheek child is my sibling and so is dusk.
I thank those among men who have smiled for me, and those who have burned with envy. Them I thank who have heaped the darkness of their ignorance around me and those who have bathed me with the luminous milk of their knowledge-ocean.
But to all these I can give nothing, for utterly destitute I, I have not even large sea shells to give and my pearls are invisibly puny.
So I have been abandoned and left alone, a blossom to bloom alone in a green wilderness, for futile attempts to meditate on you, my family of gods, as I sit on this sacred grass seat.
But my destitution hits me. I creak and break into fragments. Do you see the hither and thither scattered pieces of my mind?
Having wandered so long among men I have forgotten our family tongue and I can scarcely converse with you. But wherever I have gone in my wanderings, you, out of your deep love, have followed me, Oh Earth, Oh Sun, Oh Rivers and Mountains. Everywhere I have seen you quietly watching over me and guarding me ever since I was a lonesome child who might have easily gotten lost.
My sisters the rivers, ever so affectionate, have tied a (rakShaa-sutra) charm of protection around my wrists and have kept a hidden guard in every pool of water. Whenever I have slipped, I have been rescued and brought back to the shore of life.
But tired of my wanderings, of begging at the doors of men for a little love, of asking the puny miserly hands in vain for few grains to break my fast, I cry: Oh gods, my only kin, save! Save! Save!
You who were Kama’s father, and you the father of Hanuman, you Ganga who took Shiva’s burning seed from Agni, that brought forth the gods’ demon-destroying commander, ye I call upon for help and nourishment. Ganga, give this exile a drop of nourishment from your ample-flowing breast.
Come, oh cosmic maidens. Saraswati, do incarnate! I would wed you.
Akasha-ganga, come down to earth to be wrapped around me.
If I invite Lakshmi, the consort of Dwarf-incarnation, no trespasser shall I be, for, am I also not a dwarf reaching out for the moon on palm branch?
Having mistaken myself long for a man, I would live in company of the gods, renounced by all others. I would declare the gods to be my only kin, wanting in my burning thirst only a drop of amrita of affection. Have I a right to it – a mere man, I?
Do you, too, gods, mistake me for a mere man? I would retrieve my godhood among my kin, for, is it not that one becomes what his thoughts most adore?
Knowing not how I should address you all, oh gods, my only kith and kin, I cry – save! Save! Save! Each of my words here is a tear, each thought a cry, each movement a faltering step towards returning home to your embrace for a little touch of affection and comfort, my mind’s healing and a rest.
Swami Veda Bharati (then Usharbudh Arya)
Holland, 1967
By the kindness of an anonymous donor, we are now in the process of establishing a shrine to the Divine Mother in our Swami Rama Sadhaka Grama. The shrine will be next to where the present crystal Shivalinga is luminously established.
If your participation in this programme does not conflict with your intention to participate in our 2013 programme, then you are invited and are most welcome to participate in this 2012 programme also.
Please let us know your wish to participate at https://www.ahymsin.org/contact/.
In the service of Gurudeva,
Swami Veda Bharati
Kailash is a sacred most, the most sacred place, of four religions – Hinduism, Buddhism, then one religion about which most people do not know called Jain religion – it was founded by a great teacher named Mahabirar who was at the same time that the Buddha was teaching in India, but that religion has not spread because it is a very very pure and ascetic religion so not many people know about it because you follow many many rules of purity – and Mt. Kailash is also, of course, the sacred most place for the people of the Bon-po, the pre-Buddhist religion of Tibet, of which there are still many followers, and some of the Tibetan Buddhism is also a mixture with the influence of Bon-po.
One can never quite explain why some place is sacred. Why is Kaaba sacred? Why is Jerusalem sacred? No?
People who have gone there, they have felt a sanctity, a change of consciousness, a certain peace of mind, and they feel it is sacred. And the word spreads, so for thousands of years, pilgrims have been going there.
The word kailasha in Sanskrit means crystal and in all the spiritual traditions, crystal is a purest state of mind; when no color is reflecting in the mind that is mind of crystal light purity.
The Mt. Kailash is not made of physical crystal, but because of the purity, we call it a crystal mountain. That is the original crystal mountain.
In Tibetan Buddhist tradition, it is called Gangs Rinpoche, Gangs Rinpoche. The word rinpoche is used for reincarnated Buddhas, so they regard this as a living entity, a living deity, not just a mountain.
You must understand that the sacred places are not like other places of the world. Sacred places have a certain special spiritual life in them. And those who go there, they feel that life. Where that life comes from – it is a secret known only to the great masters, great yogis, and so on.
So Gangs Rinpoche, the precious jewel, the precious jewel of the snow.
The Bon-po, the original Tibetan religion, people – I do not remember the exact Tibetan word – call it the Water Flower, Water Flower.
These, all these words express a feeling of purity. The purity is of the mind that comes by being there.
The Jain tradition, the religion that I spoke about, they say that one of their 24 founders, the very first of their 24 founders, named Risabha Deva was enlightened in Kailash mountain, so they all make pilgrimage there also.
In Hinduism, it is the dwelling place of Shiva and his wife Parvati. There is such a vast philosophy about Shiva that I cannot begin to explain. The universal meditating God – Shiva who is meditating within us – God who is meditating within us. And more than half of what you might call Hindu mythology is centered around Shiva and how people of all different temperaments, divine and demonic, all go to Mt. Kailash to worship Shiva and receive his blessing because Shiva is easy to please. Anybody can fool him. With very little worship, he is pleased and he asks “What do you want?” and sometimes he gets into quite a bit of trouble, but I will not go into Shiva stories. There are many systems of philosophy built around Shiva, but the shape of Mt. Kailasha is like the Shiva linga, the oval form in which the solidified light is placed as the shrine and that is the shape of Kailasha, the way we have our Shiva lingam in our ashram. Because the jyoti lingas, the lingas made of light, they are made of crystal. And Kailash is called Crystal Mountain.
So as in all belief systems there are layers upon layers upon layers and there are people who say they have seen Shiva on Mt Kailasha or they have seen great Jaina Masters or Gangs Rinpoche or they have seen great sages.
And there are caves around the Mt Kailash where it is believed that for thousands of years rishis and the bodhisattvas have been sitting there in hiding in eternal meditation and it is their vibration also that the pilgrims feel.
The pilgrimage around Mt. Kailash is not easy. It is 52 kilometers, and according to the scriptures, you are supposed to do 52 kilometers in one day, but nobody can do, because from 15000 feet to 18000 feet in one day 52 kilometers that is not easy. It is said that some people have done it, but they must be people of very very special power.
So you go and you meditate.
The lake below Mt. Kailash that all pilgrims visit is Manasorovar, lake of the mind in which the Kailasha reflects. So now you can see what a meditative connection that is. Shiva in his jyoti linga form
The earth is a representation of that process that takes place in us when we advance deep in our meditation.
I have not been fortunate to visit the place and now at my age I do not think that I can visit, but when you come back, I would like to touch your hand because anyone who says I am coming back from Kailash I touch them. Some holiness will be imparted to me. So congratulations, Tinyu, for organizing this, and I wish you a great great pilgrimage. God bless you.
[Someone starts to talk]
Just a minute.
Kailasha Mountain in the Himalayan tradition of meditation is always – (touching his body) this is the earth this body. And this here (touching his head) is Mt. Kailash, and Shiva dwells here (touching the crown of his head). Thank you for reminding me. I was forgetting the most important part. This here is Mt. Kailash.
You see, spiritual traditions speak to people at different levels. To some, they speak only about the internal experience. Those to whom the internal experience is not yet open, not yet available, for them, there is a shrine in the village, there is a temple, there is a statue, there is an image or a whole natural phenomenon.
It is the natural tendency in the people of spiritual traditions, especially in the Orient, that any place that has a unique geographical form, they say it is sacred. Lakes, sacred. Mountains, sacred. Anything that has a special form – there is a presence of the divine beauty there. Rivers, sacred. And that way people connect to the idea of sanctity. Even in a physical form. So people should not view a mountain only as another mountain, should not view a river as only flowing water. They should feel the living spirit in it. So the living spirit that is inside us meditating in the Mt. Kailash and we see it in the geographical form as well, so this is a connection
[Comment: You always carry a photo of Mt. Kailash with you.]
Yes, I carry the photo of Mt. Kailash because that is my spiritual home although I have never been there.
(End of transcript)
Swamiji wrote to Swami Ritavan, Tinyu, and Yoong: “I am glad you are back safe. The eastern people who walk these parikramas do not analyse the spiritual benefits. They simply accept the fact that being there is a blessing. On the other hand I have known many who have returned without any change in them… many of my friends have gone to Kailash but I did not feel the closeness. This time I feel I have done the pilgrimage by proxy in the comfort of my holiday hideout at the tremendous height of 1 foot above sea level! My mind kept going to you all.”
This is a transcript of a talk that Swamiji gave on 29 September 2011 before a pilgrimage led by Tinyu Chen, Yoong, and Swami Ritavan to Mt. Kailash was to begin.
We also invite you to read
“Love, Meditation and Service” by Swami Veda at https://www.ahymsin.org/love-meditation-and-service/
“What Is a Pilgrim” by Swami Veda at https://www.ahymsin.org/what-is-a-pilgrim/
Shivam
shantam
adwaitam.
Benevolent divinity ever at rest within ourselves.
Pacific,
serene,
indivisible,
non-dual,
one.
Tat twam asi.
That thou art.
Know that self with affirmation
sohamasmi,
sohamsmi,
sohamasmi.
I am that,
I am that,
I am that.
This self, atman, I, am pure consciousness.
In the infinite ocean of life force and consciousness force, know yourself to be an oceanic wave.
You are in the infinite ocean of fullness from which a wave flows and identifies itself as you and you say
soham,
soham,
soham,
I am that,
I am that,
I am that.
Contemplate that being of yourself.
A wave from the infinite ocean of bliss that now you are,
flowing through a finite time-space frame that you name yourself to be the person.
In this you-person the consciousness wave touches the mind — a field of energy called the mind.
This consciousness-generated mind-field receives the waves of revealed wisdom; supreme enlightened realizations,
Contemplates these,
diversifies them in the processes of mentation and sensualization.
You mentate and send the mind waves to generate prana and the senses.
This prana energy field of life force sends forth impulses of aliveness into your internal organs.
Observe the consciousness, mind, prana, sending forth these waves, impulses, whereby your internal organs begin to move in a melodic rhythm.
Observe the prana-infused wave-like impulses and thus generated melodic rhythms harmonize all your internal organs.
Ah this melodic rhythm makes the airs flow that become your breathing process.
Thus forms a person every moment; every nano-second a new person is being formed by these impulses, waves beginning from the oceanic wave of consciousness that you truly are.
Observe the entire spectral process from the consciousness to the breathing. This eternal life force and consciousness wave from the fullness of infinity find the mind infused by your mantra revelation.
Your prana,
the sense awareness,
rhythms of all internal organs and the cells,
the very breath—
in the time-space of the finitude of your person
filling
Infusing your entire being.
Know this rhythm, the wave passing through your whole body from the seat of the mind to the soles of the feet.
From the soles of the feet to the seat of the mind.
The light of infinitude merging in the shadows of the finitude and giving them light, life, consciousness.
Feel this entire melodic rhythmic person flowing.
Sense this breath of infinitude perfuming your person-finitude from soles of the feet to the seat of the mind.
From seat of the mind to the soles of the feet.
The waves of consciousness, mind, prana, breath, mantra
flowing,
ascending,
descending.
Observe.
Let this flow of awareness continue
through your entire finitude-person.
Your mantra or the chosen sacred sound, prayer word,
too,
filling the entire space-time frame of your person.
Now gather all of this awareness and the sense of your breath in the seat of your prana,
the navel center of consciousness from where a mother infuses a foetus with her mind and prana.
Dwell in the awareness of that center,
sensing the melodic rhythm of the internal organs that makes your navel
and stomach area to extend and pull back with each breath.
Observe that rhythm and maintain the mantra or the sacred sound.
A continuous flow.
Without a jerk.
Feel a subtle wave of the breath consciousness infused from the navel center of consciousness
to the center between the eyebrows in the area of the sinuses
and then
from that third eye center down to the navel center—
feel a smooth flow, gentle, subtle, slim.
Observe the ascent and descent of this breath consciousness
with the mantra or the sacred sound.
On this channel of the centers of consciousness as your awareness, breath awareness, touches
the navel center,
the heart center,
the throat center,
the third eye center,
third eye center,
throat center,
heart center,
navel center.
let the flow continue unimpeded,
just barely noting that, yes, indeed, that center is being touched.
Unimpeded flow continues just barely marking the centers through which the flow passes.
Now mark as you pass through these centers as to which center draws your attention the most.
Where it is that the mind wishes to settle.
Let the breath flow continue.
Let the mind settle in that center,
as though your mantra, your sacred sound, is arising as an impulse in that center.
Dwell there.
If the mind wanders, come back into that center with the mantra impulse.
Dwell there.
Now feel the breath again through the entire channel.
Now feel the flow and the touch of your breath in your nostrilswith the mantra or sacred sound of soham.
Remaining inwardly tuned to the oceanic wave of infinitude,
slowly open your eyes but let the flow of consciousness, mantra, mind, prana, breath continue.
To return to the space-time-mind-frame-finitude,
gently bring your palms to cup your eyes.
Become aware of your cognitive and active senses.
Gently rub around your brows, temples.
Look at your palms joined sideways
and looking at the palms,
bring the palms down.
If it feels that the meditation was too long I’m helpless. Yatha niyukto’smi tatha karomi. As I’m impelled, so I do.
Those who identify their being as a time-space-mind frame of finitude,those who identify themselves with the time-space-mind-frame of finitude
begin the meditation as a process from the surfaces of that frame, from the surfaces of that body. Muscles, nerves, breath. Slowly seeking the channels of inward pathways.
How long will you stay skimming the surfaces?
The yogi begins from the infinitude and simply observes how the oceanic fullness Infinitude in which we are all swimming, at all times, how the wave of that consciousness becomes infused into this frame and starts, triggers its processes.
A wave, a wave, a wave, that’s what you are.
Fellow waves in the ocean of infinitude.
You can write a textbook of philosophy on that. Some people will study that textbook and a few will get Ph.D.’s, or, you can enjoy. Learn to enjoy this fullness.
Do not suffer the emptiness you suffer so often.
Enjoy.
That joy rises from within you.
The great mystic poets of all cultures, literate cultures, pre-literate, non-literate cultures, all have burst out singing of this fullness. We read it as poetry. Analyze its rhyme, rhythm, and diction and we get a doctorate in literature or in anthropology!
Enjoy the ecstasy. The word ‘ecstasy’ is used in all different levels of senses. Some people seek ecstasy by bursting their neurons with the infusion of chemical drugs, leaving their minds helter skelter, confused, made unable to concentrate on anything, unproductive, uncreative, addicted.
Then there are some drops of the cosmic goblet of ecstasy we enjoy. Drops we enjoy of the whole goblet. Sometimes that delicious taste in the mouth sends us into ecstasy, the touch of a lover, the site of a little drop dripping of morning dew from the rose.
In the system of yoga we have a spiritual anatomy. I cannot go into that whole subject today, the whole spiritual anatomy. Layers upon layers of our consciousness.
One part of this spiritual anatomy is called the system of koshas. The word kosha is a Sanskrit word from which the English word case, like a ‘pillow case’ is derived; casings, casings of consciousness, layers.
In the tradition, the yogis speak of five casings:
annamaya,
pranamaya,
manomaya,
vijnanamaya,
anandamaya.
This ‘maya’ in these words is not to be confused with the word maya that is pronounced maayaa. It is a different word. Annamaya, Pranamaya, manomaya, vijnanamaya, and anandamaya.
Annamaya is consciousness of the food-body. The body made of food. The body made of nutrients, our most external consciousness. Most of us just remain on the surface of that annamaya kosha, the nutrient-casing. They think that we are nothing but all the pies we have eaten heaped together — that is what I am! The annamaya consciousness.
Even that is a wave of divinity.
This whole universe is God’s food. At the end of a cycle of creation, at the moment of dissolution, He gathers it all together and consumes it back into Himself, by Herself, or Itself. So in the ancient Upanishads one of the names of Brahman is annam, annam-Brahman, Food that is Brahman.
Annamaya, your consciousness of the body made of the nutrients.
Now, pranamaya, the layer of consciousness which then identifies with prana. In your practicing, doing your asanas, postures, movements, on the surface you are doing the exercises of the annamaya kosha and nowadays that is what people think yoga is, no more, because people do not wish to go to deeper layers of consciousness.
In the process of asanas and other yoga movements, the subtler pranamaya infuses the annamaya.
There is a principle in the cosmic sciences that the subtler energies infuse into grosser energy forms. So prana infuses the annamaya.
This prana is also the name of Brahman. There is a hymn to prana in the Atharvaveda.
praaNaaya namo yasya sarvam idam vashe
yo bhootah sarvasyeshvaro yasmin sarvam prati-ShThitam
My homage to that prana under whose control is this entire universe; Who is the Lord of it all. The one in whom all of this universe is sustained, a living energy passing through all of us.
So, the wave of annamaya is infused with the wave of prana.
Next level of yoga practices then deals with the pranamaya kosha. Motionless exercise. Motionless movement of the energy. That is the next level in the practice of yoga.
Manomaya, who moves this prana? The mind. Mind again has many layers. Each layer is given a word, a name. There is a whole taxonomy of the mind.
The ego-identifying mind.
The naming mind.
That is, the ego-identifying and naming mind.
The wisdom mind.
The active mind that activates the senses and thinks neuronal thoughts which most people nowadays consider to be the only mind there is, and the totality of the energy field called the mind which is also the vehicle of reincarnation.
This is manomaya kosha, the mind casing.
As you penetrate from casing to casing the practices differ, change, become subtler; greater and yet greater stillness is obtained.
The wave becomes serene. Such a serene one can sit in meditation motionless for eighteen hours or eighteen days. That is manomaya kosha.
Now to Vijnanamaya kosha.
We speak of divinity as omniscient. In Sanskrit sarvajna, all-knowing. A drop of that ultra-cosmic transcendental knowledge has been very miserly gifted to us. All the knowledge in all the computers and in all the libraries, it is all a tiny drop. Was it not Sir Isaac Newton who was a great explorer of spirituality that many people do not realize, like Einstein much later, trying to fathom the secrets of how God operates this universe. He said something like : on the vast ocean beach of knowledge I’m only holding a few specks of sand.
There is a story in the ancient epics in Sanskrit language called the Puranas.
We speak of knowledge of the three Vedas or four Vedas and one sage spent his entire one life exploring one Veda. Spent his second life exploring the second Veda. Spent his third life exploring the third Veda, one compendium of knowledge. He thought of himself as greatly wisdom-endowed but a sage of high realization came to him and said, “You have the knowledge of all the three Vedas?” So the greater sage created for him a vision of three tallest mountains in front of him. Do you see these mountains? Yes. He asked: how many grains of dirt in these mountains? Then he picks three grains of dirt from the ground, puts them into the wisdom-seeking sage’s hand and said: compared to those mountains this, three dust grains worth is the wisdom you have.
But in its own miserly measure we have this vijnanamaya kosha, the casing of knowledge. That is the fourth stage.
And the fifth, anandamaya kosha, the casing of ecstasy and bliss.
Just like this miserly drop of knowledge in vijnanamaya kosha, also from the ultra-cosmic transcendent bliss, ananda, we have been give one tiny miserly drop of ecstasy.
All your bursts of genius compared to that infinitude, mine too, all specks of dust.
Take all the pleasures that make you ecstatic. Any pleasures that you have had, any pleasures that you wish to have in their utmost intensity, and,
all the pleasures, all the living beings that have ever been on this earth from dinosaurs to tiny mites — gather them all together, all the pleasures they have ever had, put them all together — then you have a tiny drop that the divinity has conferred to us in which we revel and enjoy our ecstasies.
I assure you of that but it is because of that drop of vijnana and ananda that all the bursts of genius occur, that all the pleasant sensations of your body and exhilarating thoughts of your mind arise.
What is the bliss like that is of Brahman? As I said if you gather all the pleasures all the living beings have ever had and will ever have, put them all together; in comparison to the transcendent infinitude of divinity they are tiny drops but it is those tiny drops that give you the capacity to create the works of genius and to enjoy whatever it is that you enjoy.
Then we come to mystic ecstasy, next level. When you make love there comes a moment between the two lovers when the male and the female [ here the speaker pointed to his left and right nostril ] perfectly unite. The left and the right nostril, the yin and the yang flow in absolute total balance for a few seconds. Those are the moments of shushumna breath that all lovers seek in their pursuits of sexual exploration. This here [the speaker points to nasagra, the point between the nostrils].
The yogi turns on that shushumna breath anytime without going through all the trouble. Both nostril breaths become equal. No male, no female; no moon, no sun.
That is why the spiritual paths recommend celibacy. Not as a controlling but as an enjoying. That is true celibacy. All the rest is repression, not workable.
So, then, comes the mystic ecstasy. When you know your linkage with the infinite and the infinite comes gushing into you, ah, it is that of which the saintly poets have written and sung. In the early stages that mystic ecstasy is an up and a down. Sometimes it gushes, sometimes it doesn’t. When it doesn’t gush then Rumi cries in separation because he remembers that moment of the gush of infinity passing through every particle of the delimited space-time-identity frame.
So that mystic ecstasy goes through ups and downs. So much of the spiritual poetry is often this kind of ‘up’ and ‘down’ poetry. Great bursts of joy, great tears in separation. That stage gives way to the next, the highest where there are no more ‘ups’ and ‘downs’.
The final ecstasy, fullness forever, absorbed, assimilated. Those in such state won’t show it off. They use particles of it for the benefit of the world.
That, my friend, is a very brief charting of the path of yoga.
God bless you.
You can start with a two minute balancing of the breath.
Just free your hands.
Balance the body.
Relax your forehead. In the annamaya kosha, start back from there.
Feel the flow and the touch of your breath in your nostrils.
If you have no mantra use the word soham, I am that.
Balance the left and the right nostril breath.
Exhale and without a break inhale feeling the flow and the touch in the nostrils.
Maintain the flow.
Maintaining the flow gently open your eyes and resolve ever to be full.
Om sham, peace to you.
This is a transcript of the lecture given at the Spirituality Centre of the Medical Faculty of the University of Minneosta. Delivered at Mayo Auditorium, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA, on 20th July 2011.
Accommodations, generally speaking, will be allotted on a first come, first serve basis. We have already received more than 200 registrations; not everyone has picked the same arrival and departure dates or accommodations. Deposits are due before March 2012.There has been a truly global response with reservation forms coming in from sadhakas in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Italy, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mauritius, the Netherlands, Singapore, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America.
This gathering has three parts. The first part, 28 February – 9th March is the 10 days of inspiration from Swami Veda and others. The second part is 10th March, which is a day of “Sacred Celebration.” March 11 – 19 is the 3rd part and is for those who want to do the nine day silence retreat. Not everyone will be attending each of the three parts, but Swamiji is encouraging all who are coming to be there on 10th March.
Before Swami Veda Bharati takes to a 5 – 7 year vow of silence, he will impart special guidance on secrets of effective teaching.
• 27th February 2013: Arrive at Swami Rama Sadhaka Grama.
• 28th February through 9th March: 10 days of inspiration from Swami Veda Bharati, other leading teachers and experts.
• 10th March: Final offering of the current three years of Gayatri practice and introduction of the new AHYMSIN community practice.
• On 10th March, Swami Veda Bharati will begin his 5 years of silence.
• 11th through 19th March: Some of the Sangha will take 9 days of silence
• 20th March: Leave SRSG or continue your silence practice.
For more information about the gathering, please read the article at this link: https://www.ahymsin.org/main/index.php/2013-Gather-of-the-Sangha/2013-all-teachers-and-sangha-gathering.htmlLimited
Many have already expressed their intentions to come to India for this event, so outside accommodations are being secured for the period of 27th February through 10th March, but even with this there will be limited accommodations, and these accommodations generally speaking will be allotted on a first come, first serve basis.
We have already received more than 200 registrations; not everyone has picked the same dates or accommodations.
For the period of the silence from 11th – 19th March, Swami Veda would like all participants to be accommodated at Swami Rama Sadhaka Grama (SRSG), which means there will be less accommodations at this time. If you are interested in attending this section of the event, you may have to be wait-listed.
An option for 11th – 19th March 2013: The ‘first comes’ fill the spaces from 10th to 19th March; others in the meantime can take a guided pilgrimage to holy shrines/ mountains, and then we can have a second batch of silence-keepers from 20th March as Swamiji will still (!) be there with his silence vibration. Do also bear in mind to come often for silence during the ongoing 5-7 years of Swamiji’s silence.
If you would like to attend the 2013 All Teachers and Sangha Gathering and have not submitted a registration form yet, please contact us at https://www.ahymsin.org/main/index.php/Contact-Us/AHYMSIN-Office.html and more information about the registration process will be sent to you.
To secure your reservation, there will be a non-refundable deposit to be paid by 28th February 2012. This will be per person. After you have returned the 2013 Reservation Form and we have established which accommodation you will have based on the first come first serve principle, we will send you information about how much your deposit will be and how you can make the deposit. We will do this as soon as we can.
For those of you who have already sent in registration forms, we thank you for your patience.
Swami Veda introduced a set of practices for the period 2010 – 2013. If you have not started this practice, you may want to start it in preparation for the 2013 event. If you already have started the practice, perhaps you would like to review it. Information about the 2010 – 2013 practice can be found at this link: https://www.ahymsin.org/main/index.php/Initiates/2010-2013-practice.htmlAfter
Swami Veda has written:
“This is just to reassure you that after my 5-7 year silence begins
• The regular programmes of teaching at our Rishikesh Ashram will continue through other advanced and experienced teachers
• The guidance for your personal meditation will intensify.
• This little teacher’s silence will enhance your own silence and vibration.
• Silence mothers the mind if you know how to be nurtured by her.
Our Ashram specializes in the science of silence —- yes, it is a methodical science in which you are guided when you come to practice silence at the Ashram.We have programmes for silence lasting 3 days, ten days, 21 days, 40 days —- and few rare ones may graduate to 90 days as at least two dozen initiates have done so far (writing in June 2011). Each of these fortunate ones experienced a breakthrough.
All who do the practice of silence at the Ashram — either one of our two ashrams —-know what a magic touch the place imparts through its vibration.
May I invite you to undertake this adventure into the depths of the Ocean of your own Self, and come take a silence retreat. I will be there to serve you, now, and even more so, after my 5-7 year silence begins on 10th March 2013.”
Chicago, 2002
It was a bright, sunny, but a solemn day on September 11th of this year in Chicago. Communities across the United States were commemorating the anniversary of the horrific terrorist attacks of one year ago, in their own unique ways. Swami Veda Bharati’s talk in Chicago this year held a special meaning to those who attended. Both the students of Himalayan Tradition as well as others came that evening to hear Swami Veda Bharati’s message and his guidance. People came to receive not only Swamiji’s wisdom and guidance for personal growth, but they also came with questions about the terrorist attacks of September 11th. Questions such as “What can we learn from nine-eleven?” “What can we do to avoid such a tragedy in future?” and “What must we do to promote world peace?”
In his masterfully lucid and loving manner, Swamiji gave the essence, the central messages of his years of lecturing to students on path of spiritual growth world wide. Here, now, is what he said:
Good evening all. It is such a great pleasure always, to come by and meet all the old friends. You all are, most of you, veterans of meditation teaching. You have been blessed by the Master. You don’t really need some swami travelling from Rishikesh taking your time. All there is is all contained in this vessel of life. It is a very full vessel.
Some people write me: “Swamiji I am feeling empty,” and that puzzles me – because the fullness, that is your own, can never be made empty. It is like the ocean complaining to be empty. It is like the sun saying, “I have forgotten where I put my light.” It is like the flame of a lamp saying, “Turn on a light so I can see myself.”
And by what other light will the flame of a lamp see itself? By what other light will the sun be lit? By what pieces of ice will the moon be cooled? It is nothing outside you that can fill you.
For your fullness you are looking at things outside, and that is why you forget your own light, your own coolness, your own calmness. A churning whirlpool you have chosen to make your mind. “Chosen” – there is nothing helpless about it; you’ve chosen to make your mind a churning whirlpool. It is entirely your choice.
Yet, ask anyone who understands the physics of a whirlpool; he will tell you that in the center of the whirlpool there is one point which is absolutely still, a calm eye of a storm.
We have been given the capacity to make the mind a whirlpool, the capacity to turn the mind into a hurled-about-hurricane, so by contrast we may experience the center, the absolute calm. That center can not be disturbed. A disc may be whirling at the rate of a million cycles a second. The physicist who understands the principles of motion tells you: at the center of that incredibly fast whirling disc, there is an infinitesimal point absolutely still, around which the whirling takes place.
Get into that. Take your ship right through the storm and get right into the eye. Don’t hang around on the edges of the storm. That is where you will be hurled about and whirled about. Go right through it to find the calm eye. That entry, the process of that entry, for a beginner is defined as meditation. For the more advanced, they don’t need the contrast to realize the still point. You and I need the contrast.
I now invite people to spend ten days of silence. Not silence of speech, silence of the mind.
Without silence of the mind, silence of speech is a torture to be reported to the commission for human rights. On the other hand, when you have the silence of the mind, speaking is a torture, equally to be reported. For me now, speaking has become a torture. I invite you all to enter this very natural world of silence within.
You know, the greatest, fastest growth of human personality takes place when you are silent. In nine months, a tiny little blob, stuck to the walls of mother’s womb, in nine months of being there absolutely silent, it becomes a fully shaped human being. And as we discover speech, the growth becomes slower and slower.
The most profound experiences of human existence are silent ones. The baby looks at you, and there is love, and there is joy in its eyes. Later in life, you keep trying to find some way of expressing that love that joy. You can train your eyes to express love, but it doesn’t work out, not quite the way the baby disarms you by its very looks, by the very looks of its eyes. Do you know why? Because it does not yet know that the words exists, because it does not yet know that the word love is spelled l-o-v-e.
The pre-verbal love is the most profound. And then you have to take meditation classes so you can go through the processes of speech, learn to calm the grosser part of speech, and the middling part of speech, and the interior part of the speech, and you can go into silence, and forget the word “love,” so you can once again love like the pre-verbal infant.
You know the Sanskrit word for silence is maun. The act, the habit, the nature, the inclination of a muni, a contemplative one, a sage, a wise one, is not writing volumes of philosophy; it is mauna, silence. The word muni is derived from Sanskrit verb root mana.
The very old lecture of mine, you have heard at least a hundred times, since 1971-72. I always write about it and always remind people about this verb root man (“to think, to contemplate, to meditate”). It is the verb root from which the English word “man” is derived. It’s exactly the same spelling. I am not making it up. It’s in the history of the Indo-European language family. It is the same verb root from which the Greek menos (“mind”), the Latin mens (“mind”), mens and sana and corpora-sano. The English word “mind” and “mental” are all derived from the same Sanskrit verb root man, from which also is derived the word “mantra.” And where do they all join together? In the word for silence. Not a chatter box.
The Greek, English and Latin words for “mind” and “mental processes” and the word “mantra” that we use for interior calming, and the word “man” are all related to the word muni, the highest man, the contemplative one.
And what is the designation, what is the definition, what is the test of someone having become a contemplative one? Is not that he becomes a chatter box like me; he enters a state of mauna, silence. Only a silent mind is a beautiful mind. Only a contemplative one is fully a man.
Now, Gurudev, Swami Rama of the Himalayas, who still speaks to us in our minds, used to say repeatedly, “You are an unfinished product. Human beings are an unfinished product.” What you call a human being, sitting here, is not yet a finished man. This is the raw material for becoming a human being.
All of us are raw material for shaping a human being. We are not yet fully human. We have not reached the fullest in our development, in our evolution as human. Some accept the theory of evolution, some don’t, some argue back and forth. I am not concerned with that – whether there is a theory of evolution or not.
So far as the evolution of human beings is concerned – while the evolution of other species and other beings is both exterior and interior, the development of a shape and development of the level of consciousness – the evolution of the human being, once the shape has been given, is purely interior. When you become a human, your mind now begins to evolve. Evolves to what? To making spaceships? The other day I was reading an article in the newspaper that the planet Mars is to be the next Wild West, the next territory to be conquered. So we’ll make human habitation on Mars. Will everybody be in peace? Will there be no violence?
In the last century or two, steel has made great progress, ceramics have made great progress, plastics have made great progress, engines have made great progress. Weapons? Oh! Nothing to match their progress! Push of a single button, you can kill ten million people. Oh, great progress! The switches have made great progress, no question. By the touch of human being, by the distortion or application of human consciousness, all these objects have made great progress. Ships have made progress, no question. Bridges have made progress. There is no question about it, no challenge.
Have human beings made great progress? Are you less angry today than you were five-thousand years ago? Are you less greedy? The coming historians will write of the nineteenth, twentieth, and the twenty-first centuries not as the most progressive centuries, but as the most destructive centuries in the history.
That is not progress. We have destroyed more in the last two and a half centuries than was destroyed in twenty five centuries before – and we continue to destroy. There are flowers we have seen that your great grandchildren will never see again. There are species of butterflies that you have seen, that your great grand children will never imagine that they existed. Commemorate one of the most destructive events that occurred on the soil of the United States.
What’s the answer? What is your answer to that? Counter violence?
A mind that has become meditatively calmed, becomes incapable of violent thoughts, becomes incapable of anger, it becomes incapable of vengeful inclination. And in the presence of such a mind, such a field is generated that whoever comes within that field becomes calm. The vengeful person ceases to be vengeful, and the angry person begins to smile. That is the test of whether you are making progress in meditation or not.
It is not how many hours you sit turning your mala beads or your rosaries. But whether in your presence, minds of others calm down or not. Whether someone who came to you with an aggressive intent went away forgetting that aggression. If you are reaching that point, then you as a human being are making progress.
Why does that happen in the presence of a meditatively calmed mind? Because a quality of forgiveness arises.
The Sanskrit word for forgiveness is kshama. Many people do not know its verb-root meaning. The word actually means capacity. You throw a stone in a small bowl. It makes a big noise, generates waves. Throw the same size stone in the ocean, nothing happens to the ocean. Because the ocean has the capacity.
As you go into the states of meditation, the energies that you are frittering normally, that are oozing and leaking outwards from you all the times, are increased.
I am moving my hands, the mind energies are leaking. I am speaking. The mind-energy is leaking, gushing out. It is not held back. It is not used for generating more.
When you learn to gather yourself to your self, your senses to your senses, look at the source of your thoughts, and you do not convert that thought to the kinetic energy of words and sounds, rather you return that thought to its source, its origin and generate the mind energy and hold it in you, your capacity increases. Then the shallow words spoken by others, stare-stones, and word-rocks thrown at you, touch you the way a stone, a rock or a lump of clay touches the surface of a deep ocean. For the ocean it’s no effort to forgive. It’s not even a test of its capacity.
I used to wonder at my master when he was building the hospital. Imagine what capacity! From the day of laying the foundation stone to the day of his departing from the body, in four years, creating a medical city in a country like India where nothing happens in less than a century, if it happens at all. The trouble people gave, every politician saying, “Oh swami from America got plenty of money. Swamiji, I am fighting the election. It is nothing for you; would you help me with twenty million?” Swami Rama replied, “I haven’t come here to distribute money to the politicians; I have come here to help the poor.” Politicians would go out and become rabble rousers, and cause problems with the villagers.
I said to him, “Swamiji, people are giving you so much trouble.”
“Huh?” He says, “Huh.” Nothing happens to me. Half of it I am generating.” Repeatedly he said, “Half of it I am generating, so that all the negativity will come out now while I am here. Later on everything will run smoothly.”
That capacity! So the first benefit of meditation is it increases your capacity to take on more. Take on more of what? Taking on the world’s negativities and neutralizing them. When human beings have learned that art, then we can say that human beings are slowly becoming a finished product.
Everybody wants advanced techniques. This is the advanced technique! But nobody wants this advanced technique. They want to know of the advanced pranayamas. How many pranayamas can you learn in one life time? How many can you practice? After Swami Rama wrote his book, Path of Fire and Light, Volume One, he asked me on phone, “Did you read it?” I said, “Yes Swamiji, I read it, but when will I ever practice all of these?” Swami Rama replied, “Read it in this life and practice in the next!” He said, “I have given you a short cut, follow it.”
He did give me short cuts. I was so blessed, you don’t know. Other people, when they find their guru, they start all their tapasya, all their asceticism, and all their rules of life. I used to sleep on the floor until I found my guru, and I used to fast in all different ways – fifteen days fasting on only vegetables, and fifteen days fasting only on fruit, and fifteen days fasting only on milk, and fifteen days fasting just on water with a spoon full of honey and a little lemon juice – and try all types of things. And he came in my life and said, “Why do you do all those things, I have done them all.” I said to myself, “You have done it, but I haven’t done it.”
So when my guru came in my life, I started sleeping on the bed, I stopped fasting. We got it easy. “We have a tradition in our lineage,” Swami Rama said. “One generation of disciples gets it very hard way; the next generation gets it the easy way. The next generation gets it the hard way, the next one gets it the easy way. You’re lucky to be in the generation that gets it the easy way. But, you see,” he says, “the next you will give to, you will be very hard. Oh. You will give them very hard times, before you teach and give them.” So it goes down.
I was driving Swami Rama in Minneapolis in 1972, and I said, “You’ve got your disciples that you love up there in the mountains in the caves and sitting there and doing their sadhana and all the practices, and I am sitting here, driving around in the cities of United States. I am not getting a chance to do any of those things.” “You know,” he said, sitting next to the driver seat? He said, “Why do you need to do them? I have done them all. I’ve already given you the benefit of ten million Gayatris.” That was in 1972. “Haven’t you felt it?” I said “Yes, I have.”
I try to tell people there are short cuts. There are short cuts for calming the mind. But the short cuts don’t work unless you work on your choices of emotions – and that, no one is working on. If I say one insulting word to you now, you’ll flare up. Forget everything that has been said, forget all your meditation, everything. You walk out of here, drive your car and somebody yells you in his road rage, and you yell back.
Let me see how much you remember of the lecture. When someone yells at you on the road, do you smile back disarmingly, lovingly? Then, you have made progress. Then, short cuts will work, because you have smiled back disarmingly. I’m using the word “disarmingly.” I give lectures on “Disarmament of the Mind” quite often.
If you yelled back, you think you have let off your steam. But his rage and your yell will keep on echoing in your mind, and you will create more words and counter words, and you will sit down to meditate in the night and wonder: Mantra. “Why are people so angry? Ah ha! I am glad I told him off!” Mantra. Mantra.
What’s the point? Why take it all in? Why carry that stuff? Why stuff your mind with that poison? Drop it there.
If I was walking down the street, and you were on a shopping trip, and I handed you a vial of poison, will you take it? But every day you take it. Every day, you are taking it, when you are sitting there, meditating, hoping to find an antidote to that poison. Why take the poison? Increase the capacity of the mind, and you can ingest the poison, and nothing happens to you.
Then short cuts to meditation will work. Then you don’t need all these techniques, these long pranayamas.
Do you know nadi shodhanam, alternate nostril breathing? There are ninety-six basic different types of nadi shodhanam, types that I can teach you. Then there are branches of those ninety-six. If you learned all of those ninety-six, it’s not going to benefit you if you have not worked on your evolution, increased the capacity of the mind, found your fullness through those little short cuts, through silence, through calmness.
The answer to 9/11, if there is an answer, is individually, nationally, internationally, stopping economic violence, religious violence, political violence, starting from the individual minds. For humanity, there is no other recourse. The destruction that has been wrought on this planet in the last century or two is unprecedented. If you don’t change the direction drastically, the next century or two will be doubly disturbed. Stop it here, from here! From this place.
What I am speaking is not to make it an interesting lecture. This is what you have to do. Not “work on” – do it.
There was a gentleman in Dallas, twenty-five or more years back, and Swami Rama asked him, “Would you do this for me?” The man said, “I’ll try.” Swamiji got this look, trembled, “What? What do you mean try? Do it!” Don’t try. Don’t work on it. Don’t struggle. Don’t fight with yourself. It is a vial of poison. Leave it. Don’t struggle: “Shall I keep it? Shall I leave it? Where should I put it? Where shall I leave it?” Either you will do it, or you don’t want to do it. Either you will do it now, or you will not do it. From this moment a change in your mind patterns. Examine the seeds of violence in your mind. National, international, economic, political, individual.
The answer to September 11th is to reduce your personal wants by ten percent, and all the world’s shortages will be taken care of. Can’t you manage with ten percent less electricity in the house? Can’t we manage with a TV screen that is ten percent smaller? Can’t we manage with ten percent less clothing? Ten percent? Do we have to run the faucet full? Can’t we run it just ten percent less? In every area, you are responsible for economic violence. Examine. Stop it now. Otherwise, your great grandchildren will pay the price. It can be changed. There is nothing like destiny.
People say, “Swamiji, what is going to be happening in a century or two?” There is nothing like destiny; it’s your choice. The direction you give to your mind is what will happen.
You know, everybody worries about my health and physical condition, and some people with some really great concern and love for this being have shown my birth chart to six different top astrologers in India. Each one of them – I am not saying whether astrology is right or wrong, okay. Each one of them independently looked at it, and surprised, said, “This man has died ten or fifteen years ago!” Yet, I am here creating mischief as usual. There is nothing like destiny. In Rishikesh in February, I am giving a seminar: “Spirituality for Longevity,” and I will tell you my secrets, as much as I can.
So also with history, so also with future events. Start here at this moment. Make the choices for your interior mental life, your interior mental life-style. The kind of thoughts you think, the kind of reactions you cultivate when you read a newspaper item, the kind of emotion you choose in response to news on the TV, the kind of emotion you choose. That ability to choose comes to you when you learn to go to the depth of silence through meditation – because you learn that the mind can be directed.
Sit down for six minutes or sixty minutes and tell the mind: “Mind, for the next six minutes, or the next sixty minutes, think only this thought, only this mantra, only this breath.” Train your mind, and use that training for choosing your emotions, your reactions. Then from that make choices in your external life style. Don’t suffer the reduction of ten percent less electricity. Feel a fulfillment of achievement – “Ahh! I did it!”
One of the things I have been teaching in my silence retreats is on the art of falling asleep and the art of waking up. Don’t go from wakefulness into sleep with a transition through fantasies and revelries. From wakefulness, go into the calmness of the mind, into a state of meditation, and through that make a transition into sleep. When you wake up, enter the calmness of meditative state, and through that transition you emerge into wakeful state. You will be surprised at the change it makes on the general fabric of your daily life.
Secondly, master the pause between the breaths. Swami Rama taught this repeatedly, and almost up to his last minute he kept on saying: “Nobody is doing what I am telling them to do. Nobody is doing what I am telling them to do.” Master the pause between the breaths – no pause between the breaths. When you come to end of a breath, immediately, immediately transit into the awareness of the next breath.
The purpose is not breath awareness. Mind has a habit that it takes the shape and form of whatever is presented to it. If you sit by an even-flowing stream, your mind calms down and you don’t want to leave. But you can’t sit by an even-flowing stream all the time. So there is an even-flowing stream called the breath that is always with you. You tell the mind: “Look at this even-flowing stream,” so then the mind does the same thing – becomes an even-flowing stream.
The purpose of breath awareness is to trick the mind and make it an even-flowing stream – without a break, without a pause.
Third, pay more attention to the exhalation. Inhalation is a correlate of the activity of the sympathetic nervous system. Exhalation is a correlate of the parasympathetic nervous system, which is calming, braking and relaxing. The actual meditation for a beginner occurs during exhalation. So pay more attention to the exhalation.
Let’s try these three very subtle things. Subtlety is the advancement, not learning another method of doing nadi shodhanam.
Wonderful people pass through this small bit of land. I hope that what they are comes alive in this story.
Here in India, soon after I stop wearing my winter hat to bed, Passover comes.1 Though I don’t celebrate Passover in the traditional way here, it finds its place in me, and I feel at home. Along with the flush of new flowers, birds and the wild flurries of Holi colors, Passover brings alive the gratitude that comes with the end of the dark winter cold. It takes its name from the angel of death who passed over the houses of the Jewish slaves in Egypt and protected their children from the 10th plague on Pharaoh’s Egypt, the death of every firstborn. After this, the Pharaoh set the Jews free. In the spring of every year, my mother would tell me to go outside and pick a rock. She would put this rock together with our Passover dishes and utensils in a gigantic pot of water and boil it. She said that we cleaned the dishes like this to remind us that we were a part of the earth. Only then would the dishes be clean like the earth for Passover. It was as if we were not just here for ourselves. We were part of a larger flow. Lately, I have been reminded of this quite a bit.
Passover is a reenactment of how the Jews were freed from slavery in Egypt. That slavery still exists in many forms and cultures worldwide. It is good to remember the suffering of others whom we may not even know and to do what we can to reduce suffering— starting with taking responsibility for our own suffering and paying attention to how we might even unwittingly contribute to the suffering of others not yet born.
Passover comes with reminders of threads common to many traditions. It surprised me to learn that Mohammed emphasized the importance of the Jewish Passover many times in the Quran. The ultimate goal in both Yoga and Vedanta is freedom from the bondage of ignorance and pain. Traditionally, Passover celebrates the freedom of the Jews out of Pharaoh’s Egypt, perhaps in 1246 BCE, but that date is disputed. Yoga is not a religion nor is Vedanta. Yoga is a corpus of practices and Vedanta is a philosophy to be lived. Both are a training aimed at leading to a way of being and seeing, just as the best of Judaism or any religious tradition is. Many modern Jews extrapolate from the Passover story the wish for freedom from oppression to all people everywhere. Some celebrate the search for spiritual freedom.
Springtime is a time of deep cleaning. As in many households the world over, spring cleaning is a time to expunge the dust and debris from every corner of the house and a time to free oneself of things one does not need. My mother practically emptied the closets, attic and cupboards every spring and gave things to those who needed them. I seem to be moving in that direction, bringing order and simplicity where there was a profusion of confusion, both physical and otherwise.
There are some Passover practices special to this time of year which reverberate in all times. Matza, a cracker made from unleavened dough, is eaten instead of bread to remember the hasty escape of the Jews from the Pharaoh; there was no time to let the dough rise. During Passover, bread is also a symbol of being puffed up with false pride so during Passover bread is not eaten. It can be a gentle tapas, an austerity, not indulging in the simple pleasure of eating bread. It can also be a form of smrti or mindfulness of old habits and inclinations.
Before the start of the holiday, the children hide bread in the house. Before nightfall at the start of Passover, the father or grandfather does a search of the whole house, looking for any bread or other chametz (food not eaten during Passover). Once, before Passover, I hid a piece of bread in the freezer, expecting my parents to find it. Having forgotten that I hid bread there, I was chagrined to find it several days well into Passover.
Elijah is an important figure in the Jewish mind, especially during Passover. In the Bible he is said to be one of only three sages who saw God face to face and did not go mad or perish in flames. Elijah also represents the stranger. Because the Jews were strangers in a foreign land and because historically Jews have often been outsiders, we welcome the unexpected guest. There was always a place for Elijah at the seder, the special Passover dinner where the Passover story is read aloud. A full place setting and a chair were left empty at the table to remember him and to feed any wayfarer who might appear out of the night air.
Elijah always comes unannounced. In the true spirit of Elijah, Atithi,the word for guest in many Indian languages, literally means one who comes without appointment, without notice.(A= no, not + tithi=date, appointment) Elijah might be disguised as a beggar or a king. You only know it was Elijah if he disappears in a poof once a situation is resolved or a lesson learned. We also left a glass of wine for him at the kitchen door which was left open to the fresh night air of spring. By the end of the evening the glass was always empty. Elijah had come and blessed us!
Swami Veda encourages the practice of keeping a gratitude diary, jotting down at least one thing per day. Cultivating gratitude can lead to santosha or contentment, one of the 5 niyamas (restraints) of Yoga. Here, contentment is not complacency; rather it is a kind of mental and spiritual rigor that dislodges old habits of worry and mental grumbling.
I recently awoke one morning with the Passover song Dayenu going through my head. Dayenu goes back to the 9th Century and is sung by Jews around the world during Passover. It is about contentment and gratitude. Its refrain dayenu means it would have been enough, it would have been sufficient had God given only one gift and not all the others. It goes over a whole list of things, many associated with the Passover story.
Over the years, when Dayenu goes through my head, I think more about the great blessings of my life and how it would have been enough if just one or none had been given. It is a powerful affirmation. As I sing it, I mentally go through my list of wonders, one by one. The song Dayenu can be an exuberant exercise in gratitude, contentment and detachment.
Jews in Afghanistan and Iran, while singing Dayenu, hit each other over the head with green onions. (Not being Afghani or Iranian, our family didn’t do this.) The onion-hitting commences at the part Even if you had supplied our needs in the desert for 40 years but not provided us with manna. Some say that this was a reminder to let go of cravings for foods that the Jews no longer had in the wilderness but had enjoyed while enslaved in Egypt (like onions); others say it is a reminder to examine one’s cravings for unnecessary things.
Some of the other stanzas of Dayenu are:
If He had brought us out of Egypt. (It would have been enough.)
If He had split the sea for us. (It would have been enough.)
If He had drowned our oppressors. (It would have been enough.)
But wait. It says in The Bible that after the 10 plagues2 scourged the lives of the Pharaoh and his people, the Jews went free—only to be chased into the Red Sea by the Pharaoh’s men. When all seemed lost, God sent a miracle—the parting of the Red Sea—and the Jews rushed safely across to the other side. Seeing this, the Egyptian soldiers hurried after in the dry swath of land before them, but then the sea closed in on them and they all drowned.
Then the Jews rejoiced at the death of their enemies, but God called out to them that this joy was ill placed. Do not to be glad for the suffering of your enemies. The Egyptians are My children too.
Recently, a friend confided in me about a great loss. This prompted me to look for a passage in Martin Buber’s Tales of the Hasidim but I couldn’t find it. I came across a far more interesting remedy for the pain she was suffering. It was Love for Enemies. A well loved rebbe (rabbi of rabbis) admonished his son to pray for his enemies. If you think this is not serving God, he said, you should know that this prayer exalts God more than all the other prayers.
I thought about this a lot. How could praying for an adversary be the highest prayer? Perhaps because it defrays the false reality (incorrect perception really) of my turf and my terrain for a higher reality— that we are all inextricably interconnected. Not only that, it reaffirms the Shema, sometimes called the highest prayer in Judaism, which is often translated as:
Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.
Swami Veda has said that in the middle of a heated argument, offer a glass of water to the person with whom you are arguing. Do a secret favor, make a silent blessing for one with whom you are at odds, he would say. And don’t tell—anyone—or it is an energy leak on that meritorious act. Once told to another, an intended selfless deed can morph into an act of ego or false pride.
All this fits nicely with giving up one’s own small square of Personal Real Estate. It is the kind of opportunity I have been looking for lately. And then another such opportunity arrived: Holi!
Holi is another spring festival which at its core best, asks us to step aside, to forgive and be forgiven like children at play. It is the Indian spring festival of colors, mischief and of symbolically killing the demon and washing away old grudges. It starts the night before with a big bonfire made of the dead wood and leaves of winter. The following day, you splash all your friends and enemies with colored water. Some do it from the rooftops. Then together you might all walk down to Ma Ganga (the Ganges River) and wash it off.
Well, this year I did my share of water-vaulting—not with chemicals but with colored powders made from tulsi and beets. One little boy pelted me about 30 times and I feigned terrible defeat as many times. He didn’t get bored but I finally did so I took my bucket and walked into the center of the playing field. Under attack from every direction, I decided to just sit down on a convenient bench and take it. Many jubilant cries, handfuls of colored powder and buckets of water later, a bunch of us stood by the water spigot and helped each other get the colored powder out of our hair and faces. Then I flagged down a friend who gave me a ride on the back of his motorcycle to Ma Ganga.
That was the most fun of the whole day. It was a feat to get on the motorcycle, but once on, I barely held on. It felt like just letting everything fall away from me. Once there, I walked along the beautiful blue and hardly anyone was there, a rare opportunity on Holi. I sat straight and still near the river’s edge, my feet on the first step in the water, at one with the world. Then people arrived and splashed the step-sitters so vigorously that I didn’t even have to slide down the last slimy stair to immerse myself in Ma Ganga. She came to me.
I was given a ride back by motorcycle by another wonderful friend. I got to catch up with the extraordinary turn of events in his life, the kind of holiday sharing that reminds me of playing with my favorite cousin on Passover. When I got home I washed myself and my clothes for 2 ½ hours. Pink hair and green fingernails, it was almost time for the very best part of every day, sitting upstairs in silent meditation for an hour with the formless form of Swami Veda Bharati. Later I heard myself say to a friend who, somewhat depressed, had not come to meditation, the guru has no body. The world is in pain. We are all his hands and feet. He needs you.
Isn’t this true in any tradition, guru or no guru, belief in God or not? Every action or refusal to act affects the whole.
In India, it is common to reflect on non-ownership and non-doership after any act with the following prayer:
Om tat sat brahma panam astu.
May all this be an offering to Brahman .3
*****
1 It begins at nightfall of the first full moon after the spring equinox and ends at sunset of the 8th day except in Israel where it ends one day earlier. This year, 2011, it begins on April 18th and ends on April 26th (April 25th in Israel).
2 The 10 Plagues of Egypt: The Nile River turned to blood, Egypt was covered with frogs, gnats, flies, cattle plague, boils, hail, locusts that devoured all the crops, total darkness for 3 days over Egypt except over its Jews, the death of all first-born Children except that the angel of death passed over the houses of all Jews, sparing their children.
3God, the One God that is All, the Absolute Reality, the Expansive One, at once vast and infinitesimally small
Spiritual guides are often asked to pray for someone. From illness to wellness, from poverty to wealth, from failure to success, from emotional distress to peace, from grief to acceptance, from anger to equanimity.
Frequently, the seekers also ask “how may I pray for someone”. Here is a brief answer.
Often people think of prayer as so many words, “please help him. Oh God”, “please make my daughter well”, “please make my son pass his examination”, “Dear Divine Mother, please, please, reduce my husband’s anger” – and so on.
Or we think of prayer as reciting or chanting of some mantras, shlokas, set compositions, verses from holy books of our religion – whichever religion.
The way of prayer for a meditator is a silent one. My Master, Swami Rama of the Himalayas, said:
“Prayer is intense feeling.”
Even one who does not believe in God can pray for others.
But, one needs to learn to prepare one’s mind to offer such a prayer. A clear, sattvic and selfless mind.
Also, learn the technique of meditation. This can be a long and complex process, or short one. One may even use a recording of guided meditation . Here briefly is one (missing out many details):
Relax all your muscles, especially the forehead.
Bring your attention to your breathing.
Simply observe how you are breathing.
Through that simple observation your breath will slow down.
Bring your attention to feel the flow and touch of your breath in the nostrils.
Breathe slowly, gently and smoothly.
Keep feeling the breath stream touching in the nostrils.
[Here you may choose a name of God from your religion and language, or a sacred phrase. If not, just count the breaths, not in words, but in thought alone, Onnnne…Twooo… repeatedly, while feeling the breath stream.]
When the mind has become an undisturbed even-flowing stream,
Visualize the presence of the person you are praying for.
Visualize the person in the condition in which you wish to see him/her.
Let this be an intense feeling.
Interspersed with the breath observation as described above, keep returning to this intense feeling.
If you are a believer, let there be an intense feeling of surrender to Divinity.
Do this repeatedly till your goal for the person is achieved. But, let there also be a sense of acceptance, surrender of the desire and the fruit. If the Divine Force accepts the prayer, you are grateful.
For a more advanced mode of this feeling prayer, one needs to learn diaphragmatic breathing, otherwise chest problems can ensue. For this, take some lessons in the Himalayan yoga meditation methods from a certified teacher.
When diaphragmatic breathing has become a natural process, one may move to the next step in this feeling prayer.
Feeling the breath stream in the nostrils [with the divine name or the count of onnnne…twooo… as above],
Breathing diaphragmatically – and not otherwise.
After some time, whenever the mind feels settled, bring the mind’s attention to your heart centre, the area between the breasts.
Feel as though there is a cave in that area.
Dwell in that area mentally.
Feel as though you are entering that cave.
In that cave visualize the person in the condition which you wish him/her to attain.
Let this be an intense feeling.
You may intersperse between the intense feeling and the breath-awareness and sit doing this as long as you wish.
Do not complain: “God when will you hear my prayer? I have been praying for so long and you have not fulfilled my wish!!”
Secrets of success in prayer are:
I wish you success in your prayers.
The recordings of guided meditations are available from Himalayan Yoga Publications Trust, info@yogapublications.org.
