Category: Swami Veda Bharati

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

To watch a video of Swami Veda Bharati reciting Gayatri mantra:

https://www.facebook.com/ahymsinthailand.himalayanyoga/videos/vb.1364591723567145/1621924037833911/?type=2&theater

To watch a video of Swami Veda Bharati reciting akhanda-mandalākāram mantra: https://www.facebook.com/ahymsinthailand.himalayanyoga/videos/1525403217485994/?pnref=story

To read what Swami Veda has written about akhanda-mandalākāram mantra: http://ahymsin.org/main/swami-veda-bharati/akhanda-mandalkram-mantra.html

God does not create the world’s and people’s doership
Nor does he prompt one’s karmas
Nor yet the fact of experiencing the fruits of action
Only the laws of nature prevail and operate.

— The Bhagavad-Gita

Why do we suffer? Why should the sweetest and the most innocent child suffer? Why has God created suffering?God has not created suffering. Some philosophical schools of India even believe that God and Nature are two coeval forces operating together without infringing each other’s nature. Others propose only that God manifests, by a part of Her/Himself, in the form of nature.

In any case, it is not God who has made the laws of nature. It is not God who comes to the chemistry lab and, while we are mixing mercury and oxygen molecules, S/He somehow steps in and creates for our sake a compound called mercuric oxide! Nor is it God who, to punish our over-indulgence in cakes at Christmas time, gets our stomachs aching.

If you pour in the vial some copper, no matter how much you pray for mercuric oxide, you will get only copper oxide. And, understanding the laws of Nature, we should vow not to over-indulge again – not just pray for the stomach ache to go away without medicine. The Laws of Nature prevail and operate – says the Gita, a text spoken by God in the Krishna manifestation.

This is the view of ALL systems of philosophy in India. Jaina tradition, hardly known in the West but on par with Buddhism, has gone into it most deeply.

The laws by which our psychophysical personalities also follow the laws of nature.

Newton’s third law of motion

For every movement in one direction there is a movement in the opposite direction.

is parallel to the Law of Karma, another law of nature:

For every action in one direction there is a reaction in the opposite direction.

Numerous Greek philosophers believed in reincarnation as a matter of course; the belief was banned by the Judeo-Christians, but still persists in pockets of the West. So does nearly half of humanity (India, China, Korea, Japan, SE Asian countries) believe in re-incarnation today. To this large segment of humanity, re-incarnation is not a hypothesis, not a mere theory but

a guide to daily actions, emotions and choices one makes, and
the basis for the interpretation of suffering (or enjoying).

Not only teachers and philosophers but so many Indian novels and movies carry this theme and interpret the events on its basis.

Oh , Arjuna, I have passed through many incarnations and so have you. I know them all but you do not know.

So says the Gita.

With this interpretation of life as an eternal continuum, and this continuum operating within the laws of Naure, of karma, a soul looking like a child is a child to the parents, but at the same time it may be in his/her ten millionth body. We suffer along with our children because compassion and love are natural urges in human beings. May they remain so; may the parents continue to suffer when the child suffers, but the neutral observer within them, the buddhi, must also remain operative to understand a phenomenon in its true perspective.

Nor should we be tempted to say:

Oh, you were a bad person in one of your last bodies, so you suffer; what do we have to do with it?

In this very life we make mistakes and see their consequences. A child plays naughty, but knows the laws by which the parents operate and expects the consequences. In this child’s suffering, it is not the child who is being punished. Although many Indian texts speak of God punishing or rewarding the souls, that is not the deep philosophical view. If one plants a berry tree, it is not God’s reward that berries will grow. If one plants a thorn tree, it is not God’s punishment that one’s foot may be pricked by a thorn. Once again, the Laws of Nature prevail and operate.

Today I think an angry thought about my nature. The thought shows itself in my facial expression, in the way I pass by the neighbour with a colder than usual greeting. The neighbour reacts and throws anger at me. He has powerful friends who can destroy me. It is not God’s act that my business then suffers; it is the law of nature, reaction to my mental act of anger.

I love this child. So sweet and innocent. But not all of his/her minds in the million bodies of the past were sweet and innocent. If this sweet and innocent child spits at a neighbour’s dog and the dog bites (not that this particular child will do that), and the neighbour reacts, I cannot say, well, this is a sweet and innocent child – why should the neighbor’s dog choose to bite him/her?

While we explain to the child the consequences of his/her acts, we continue to love, and protect the child from future dog bites. Yet the first dog will still growl when it sees the same sweet and innocent child again. The past actions visit us in the present. The present ones will visit in the future, in the form of natural karmic consequences.

Let it not be that by neglecting the child’s mistake in the name of love we sow the seeds of a worse tree growing in the child’s future.

Let it not be that we ‘punish’ the child beyond what is needed to prevent the child from repeating an undesirable act. That unjust act on our part will definitely serve as a seed for a poison tree in our future life, or future lives.

Let it not be that we love the child less and do not get the dog bite treated. That negligence also will plant a poison tree in our life, or lives, and we will have to eat its bitter fruit. Not remembering our act of today, perhaps we will be complaining all the while against God’s injustice!

Let it not be so, that, as a sweet and innocent child of loving doting parents in the next body, or in one of the future bodies, we may have to eat of the poison tree we planted today. But our parents of that time will love us nevertheless, and, if unwise and ignorant of the Laws of Karma that are included in the Laws of Nature, will complain about God’s cruelties. Let it not be so.

Remember that laws of karma are jet planes hurtling us to our destinies, the destinies we have made for ourselves by planting certain karmic seeds. The thrust of a jet plane’s forces moving in one direction, backwards, pushes it in the opposite direction, forwards.

May this suffering child continue to receive the balm of the parental love and understanding. Let it not be that neglecting to give love now, you be deprived of parental love in a future body under the laws of karma.

There arises the question: by this argument, are we saying that it is the neglected child’s karma that s/he be neglected, and so the negligent parents need take no blame? This line of thought has been thoroughly misused by the nefarious Indian caste system to continue the suffering of ‘lower’ castes. It falls in the same category as some Christian priests in early 19th century preaching in favour of the rich mine owners who had 8 year old children working in coal mines 12-16 hours a day. It was said to be God’s will!! The devil can quote the scriptures freely to support his devilishness. We blame God or karma for our social injustices to exploit and hurt large masses of downtrodden people. Let it not be so.

The above statements leave us with a lot of questions, like, why do we pray? (The Jainas and the Buddhists, both reputed to be atheists, also pray). The force of prayer is known to reduce suffering. We shall need to take up this and such questions at another time.

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Suggested Readings

Swami Rama, Freedom from the Bondage of Karma
Swami Rama, Perennial Psychology of the Bhagavad Gita
Swami Veda Bharati, God
Ovid (Ovidius Publius Naso), Metamorphoses, Chapter 15 titled Nux (Nut), section on the teachings of Pythagoras.

The Guru Vandana, Guru Prayer

ॐ गुरुर्ब्रह्मा गुरुर्विष्णुर्गुरुर्देवो महेश्वरः।
गुरुः साक्षात्परं ब्रह्म तस्मै श्रीगुरवे नमः॥१॥

gurur brahmā gurur viṣṇur gurur devo maheśvaraḥ,
guruḥ sākṣāt paraṁ brahma tasmai śrī-gurave namaḥ.

Guru who is Brahmā [the Creator], Viṣṇu [the Maintainer] and Śiva [the Great Lord through whom all things return to their origin]. To that Guru who is the direct experience of Brahman, salutations.

The Guru Vandana, Guru Prayer, is from the Guru Gītā in the Skanda-Purāṇa. The Guru Vandana, Guru Prayer is in the Swami Rama Sadhaka Grama Handbook, if you have a copy.

To hear Swami Rama sing the Guru Vandana, please use this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8UcrJ19VCU

Akhaṇḍa-maṇḍalākāram Mantra

अखण्ड-मण्डलाकारम् व्याप्तम् येन चराचरम्।
तत्पदम् दर्शितम् येन तस्मै श्री गुरवे नमह्॥

akhaṇḍa-maṇḍalākāram vyāptam yena carācaram|
tatpadam darśitam yena tasmai śrī gurave namah||

(Which) pervades the entire unbroken form of the circle (of creation), moving and unmoving.
To that beautiful and benevolent Guru through whom that state was revealed (to me), salutations.

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Editor’s Note:

This is an excerpt from a writing about the Akhaṇḍa-maṇḍalākāram mantra by Swami Veda Bharati; the writing, which has a longer explanation, can be found at http://ahymsin.org/main/swami-veda-bharati/akhanda-mandalkram-mantra.html

On this American Independence Day I wish for all Americans (and all souls in three worlds) independence of soul from bondage by matter.

– svb

July 4, 2015

Dear Peace Lovers Around the World,

When you hold silent meditation prayers to commemorate those who have died or suffered in terrorism violence, do not forget to offer a prayer for the terrorists.

May God grant them Sat-Buddhi
(reawakening of their wisdom) so that they may
change their path. This is the only antidote to terrorism.

Swami Veda Bharati

 

Here is the earliest reference to yoga, a mantra revealed to Rishi Shyavashva Atreya.

युञ्जते मन उत युञ्जते धियो विप्रा विप्रस्य बृहतो विपश्चित:
वि होत्रा दधे वयुनाविदेक इन्मही देवस्य सवितु: परिष्टुति: — Rgveda 5.81.1

Yuñjate mana uta yuñjate dhiyo viprā viprasya bṛhato vipaścitaḥ
Vi hotrā dadhe vayunāvideka inmahī devasya savituḥ pariṣṭutiḥ

yunjate mana uta yunjate dhiyo viprA viprasya bRRihato vipashcitaH
vi hotrA dadhe vayunAvideka inmahI devasya savituH pariSTutiH

They yoke the mind in yoga
They yoke the intelligence in yoga;
They the great wise ones who belong
To the expansive wisest One.

There is but one Master of Wisdom
Who upholds all our sacred endeavours.
Indeed great is the all round praise
to that celestial divine sun-like Brilliant One.

To download an mp3 recording of the mantra, please click here.