Category: Swami Rama

God bless you.

Guru Purnima is a day that reminds one that the purpose of life is to attain knowledge which dispels the darkness of ignorance. The word “guru” is a pious and holy word which means the source of knowledge. There is only one life force so there is only one Guru. Deep within the centre of our being resides the Guru. Let us all direct and guide our energy to the centre from where consciousness flows in various degrees and grades.

The day of Guru Purnima is celebrated because internal research is more important than any other attainment in life. The world is full of charms, temptations and attractions. One should not be lost by the temptations. The external world furnishes the means, but the seed of reality resides within. With the help of spiritual guidance one allows that seed to grow and attain perfection in this lifetime. Blessed are those who are guiding disciples and blessed are those who are being guided. May you be happy, healthy and wise. My blessings are always with you. I pray for you in every breath of my life.

Peace, Peace, Peace.

Editor’s note

This passage has been taken from a transcription of the address on the occasion of Guru Purnima given by Swami Rama, 1980.

It is easy to believe in God, and to believe in God is definitely better than not believing, however, that is only half way. It is something great when you come to know that:

God is in me. The Lord dwells in me. I am a finite vessel, and Infinity dwells within this finite vessel.

The human being is great, not because he can speak and narrate things, and not because he can feel. He is great because wherever he goes, the Lord travels with him.

No one has seen God. Highest of all, love without object, is God. How to know him? How to enjoy?

Seeing God in everyone and working for others is one way of enjoyment, but that is not so easy. You will have to practice. Remember the Lord all the time and sooner or later, you will be transformed.

The day you come to know that the Lord is within you, you will be free from fears. Then where are you? Where do you exist? If you have that consciousness that you exist separately from the Lord of the Universe, then it means you deny the existence of the Lord of the Universe.

God is all—a personal God, a universal God, and that which is beyond. Start from a personal God, go to the God within, then to the universal God, and finally beyond.

Editor’s Note

This is an excerpt from The Essence of Spiritual Life: A Companion Guide for the Seeker by Swami Rama, pages 6 – 7, Himalayan Institute Hospital Trust, 2002.

For published works of Swami Rama and Swami Veda Bharati, please visit www.yogapublications.org or email hyptbooks@gmail.com

Bhakti yoga is known as the path of love and devotion. It is the path of self-surrender and dedication of all one’s resources to attain the ultimate Reality. In this path, love becomes the Lord of life and motivates the whole being toward Divinity alone. The path of bhakti yoga is the path of love. This sounds so exciting to modern young people, that many want to follow this path, but only a few know what it really is. Many think that performing rituals and becoming fanatical makes one a follower of this path, and they also that that it is the easiest to follow. But it is not at all like that. Performing certain rituals to worship God is an easy way to keep the mind busy, but it is an inferior type of worship yielding no results and no progress in spirituality. In the higher way of bhakti, one totally surrenders everything to the Lord. The offering is not just a flower or a fruit, but all of oneself. There are no rituals involved. The offering is the devotee himself. He completely surrenders himself to the Divine.

Bhakti is a compound of two qualities: love and reverence. Love without reverence cannot be called bhakti. Reverence is also essential in human relationships. If one does not respect the person he loves, then there is something wrong with that relationship; that is not love. One cannot exclude love from reverence. There is a Persian poet that says, “On the ladder of love, reverence is the first rung leading to the person you love.” If a person has no reverence for the beloved one, then he does not have true love.

One should also learn to love with one-pointedness. One-pointed love and reverence is called self-surrender. One cannot be selfish and egotistical and loving at the same time. If one is not giving and selfless, he can never follow the path of love. Bhakti means unconditional love, directing all the energies of mind, action, and speech for God only. Love for God is something different from love for human beings. Bhakti is love for God. It is the path of the heart and not of the mind.

The path of the heart is not mere emotionalism and sentimentality. If a person just allows whatever emotions arise to come into action without properly channelling them, the goal of life will remain unattained. One must learn to control that emotional power and channel it towards spirituality. Emotions are of two varieties: one is negative and the other is positive. When a negative emotion arises, one is distressed and becomes passive, depressed, or imbalanced. This is not control; this is being helplessly tossed about by an emotional outburst. But when a positive emotion arises, it makes one calm, joyous, and happy. The emotional body is like a fish tossed by the currents in the lake of the mind. If the mind is agitated by unfulfilled wants and desires, the emotional body is also disturbed; but when the mind is calm, the emotional body functions properly. Emotional maturity comes when one starts guiding his emotional powers consciously for creative use. In the path of bhakti, the devotee learns to tap that emotional force within and to control it properly so that it is channelled positively in one-pointed devotion for the Lord. He does not suppress his emotions, but intensifies them and directs them towards God.

Editor’s Note

This passage has been taken from the book Choosing a Path, pp 55 – 56, by Swami Rama, published 1982 by the Himalayan International Institute of Yoga Science and Philosophy of the USA.

When you have developed a still posture and when you have done the breathing practices, you have made the first preparations for the technique of meditation. Next, you have to deal with your conscious mind. The moment you start meditating, the mind becomes very independent. The whole mind will come forward to fight with you. You also want to eventually come in touch with the unconscious. Psychologists have not yet found a way of taming the unconscious, of knowing its vast reservoir, of tapping the unconscious, the source of the infinite library within you. The unconscious mind brings up things that are of the past, such as images. In meditation you are trying to maintain that state that is in between, neither the past nor the future, but the present – this moment.

This is a battlefield within. A meditator has to face this battlefield. Meditation was not meant to be a battlefield, but you use it as a battlefield. Perhaps an image or sensation comes to mind that you decide is good, or a memory of a boyfriend whom you have forgotten long ago comes into your meditation, and then you decide that is bad. Thus, you fight with yourself. All your impressions from your conscious and your unconscious mind come forward.

You think you are small, petty, and good-for-nothing. You condemn yourself because of the limitations of the mind; therefore, you need to purify the mind. You need to understand your mind and to make it one-pointed. You need to make your mind dynamic so that you do not think that you are limited. All your troubles are created in your mind. But the mind also has the capacity to lead you. It works both ways; if you do not knowhow to make use of your mind, it can create hellish problems for you. If you know how to use it, it can lead you to a kind of heaven. You can realize that hell and heaven are concepts created by your mind. There are no such physical places according to yoga science. One is not punished and sent to hell; it is your mind that takes you there. Many times you experience hell here in this world, but your efforts with the mind can convert this hell into heaven, and then you can enjoy this life.

So the next step is learning to cultivate sankalpa, determination, that feeling, “I will do it! I can do it, and I have to do it!” no matter what happens. You make the effort and the determination should be there. It is not like being forced by an outside authority; you are committing yourself, and this is your sankalpa, or resolve. You cannot attain anything without sankalpa. There are many intelligent students that do not have sankalpa, and that is why they lack confidence. They may be brilliant, but they do not have self-confidence, because they do not have sankalpa. They never disciplined themselves, so they lack sankalpa shakti.

Sankalpa shakti is a power. Without shakti you cannot be successful. All the great ones on the earth needed shakti; there was a shakti behind them to inspire them. Without inspiration, even the greatest ability is scattered. If you do not have sankalpa shakti, no mere technique imparted by either your teacher or the scriptures will help you. The teacher can give you all the techniques, but if you do not have sankalpa, nothing will happen.

Sankalpa is determination. Willpower is a one-pointed mind plus determination. The more one-pointed your mind and the more determined you are, the more you will have willpower. If these two things are absent, then you will have no willpower. Usually you do not have enough concentration or determination to develop willpower, but you can build your dynamic will, and then you can do wonders.

But the first aspect of shakti that you can see is not kundalini herself, but sankalpa shakti. One aspect of the great power of manifestation and creation is actually sankalpa shakti, or determination. You can reduce a mountain into a molehill, or you can magnify that molehill into a mountain with sankalpa shakti.

You need to decide, “I am going to sit for my meditation, and no intruding thoughts will be able to control or sway my mind. What thoughts can disturb my mind? I am someone, I am initiated. There is a tradition behind me. I am a human being. I have the infinite Source within me. How can a mere thought disturb me? I have allowed myself to be disturbed; that is why this thought is disturbing me. I am not going to allow this!” This is sankalpa shakti; it inspires you. Although you do not recognize it, you have immense shakti.

Editor’s note

This is an excerpt from Path of Fire and Light, Volume II, by Swami Rama, published by Himalayan International Institute of Yoga Science and Philosophy of the U.S.A., 1988.

I don’t understand how you can live without loving people. If you cannot love one person, how can you love the whole universe? And if you cannot love the universe, then what is the use of talking about divinity? The important part of your behavior is how loving you are.

This word “love” is the least understood and most misused of all words in the modern world. People tell their partners they love them, but often they don’t really mean it. If they say, “I love you,” they are lying to the other person. If you love someone you don’t lie to them—that’s not love! But many people know only one kind of language, and that is wounding someone’s heart and mind by suggesting to them in person that they love them, and then when they’re gone, resenting them and criticizing them to others.

Another serious problem is that people think that in order to love one person they have to exclude others. In the name of love, they become possessive, and then they hate or fear others. This insecurity develops, increases, and makes them miserable in their day-to-day life-and eventually it destroys them. That is why they cannot enjoy life; they are insecure and possessive of those they claim to love.

What a human being really needs is to clearly understand life, so that life’s purpose can be fulfilled and attained. And this can be done if you do not scatter your energy and distract yourself. If you gather your energy, light the fire within, and bathe in that fire, then life is good. But if you scatter your energy, then your purpose in life will never be attained. So learn to enjoy life as it is. Every second of life should be enjoyed! The enjoyment of the past is gone, and the enjoyment in the future is only an imagination, so learn to enjoy life here and now. You need to understand how to tread the path of life and how to enjoy this procession of life without harming or hurting anyone.

According to yoga psychology, there are three qualities in human beings: the spiritual, the human, and the animal, or sattva, rajas, and tamas. The quality that establishes balance, tranquility, and equanimity in life is the sattvic quality. When you are sattvic and at peace you are serene and love all; you don’t hate or feel jealousy for anyone. This is why yoga science teaches ahimsa, nonviolence. But if you want to practice non-violence, you must first know that love comes before truth; satya (truth) is developed later on, but first you have to understand ahimsa (love). You cannot practice truth if you do not understand ahimsa. Your goal is to practice love and to learn to speak the truth. The great bibles and scriptures of all the cultures in the world say you should love others and speak the truth. Your parents told you to do this, but their teachings didn’t explain how. You need to have an example. Yoga science teaches that.

In developing love, the field of your practice is where you live—with your family, friends, colleagues, or neighbors. If you want to develop love, then you should do no violence. Whether you are learning to love your husband, wife, children, or friends, the first thing is to do no violence in action, speech, or mind. If you refrain from hurting, injuring, or killing, then you will naturally come to love. By observing this principle of ahimsa, you become loving, and then you can practice truth.

But your ego is a fortress that does not allow you to expand your personality and consciousness. The role of the ego should be to help you to function well in the external world, to coordinate your various activities in life, and to give direction to your mind’s internal states. If you allow the ego to become dominant, then you cannot grow or attain anything of value either spiritually or personally.

There is a way to tell how much love you have for others: sit down quietly and calmly examine your fears. The more fear you have, the less love you have. If you have less fear, then you will have more love. If you have no fear, you are able to give complete love. Your fear will tell you how much love you are capable of. So learn to live in love and not in fear. Always be cheerful, compassionate, and giving. Let Providence work, and trust that you will receive what you need.

Editor’s Note

This article has been taken from the book – The Art of Joyful Living, pp 135-137, by Swami Rama, published 2014 by the Himalayan Institute India.

I sing my songs by myself.

I find need for no one to sing them for me. My songs are filled with delights; they are never empty or vacant.

They are hymns of the Mother Divine.

She is the beloved Mother of all.

How magnificent, wonderful, and grand Thou art! To see Thy luminous face is the only desire I hold.

What a fate and destiny I have: Thou caresseth me, and I am unable to see Thee.

Surely, most certainly, one day I will see Thy face, in this lifetime, certainly.

How is it I am unable to see the face of my Mother?

I have been crying for ages, and Thou hast been wiping my tears.

The tears that moisten my eyelids make my vision blurred; everything looks hazy here and everywhere.

Give me vision, give me strength, and help me sing my infant song.