Category: Swami Veda Bharati

Many of my friends and initiates in all continents write me asking, “Swamiji, how is your silence going?” I am tempted to answer, “How is your talking going?”

Majority have a not five-year but life-long vow of talking. To many, silence is something not so natural. To others, seekers after truth and serenity, silence is the nature from which we have emerged and into which we will dissolve. Through all our externalised sense operations, an inner substratum of a silent stream continues to flow. Some of us have chosen to take a dip into that stream.

Some treat my five year vow as ‘heroic’ or something I have done; perhaps an act of tremendous self-denial! The fact is that I have chosen to indulge into this pleasure.

Yes, my indulgence in this pleasure is going very well but it is not accomplishing all that I had meant to accomplish through it. My hope was to be free of all involvements in matters of the organization and the Ashram. Few leaders have taken over certain areas of these and freed me to a certain extent, but not yet fully, and there are still hundred e-mails a day, all needing attention. So also matters relating to the Ashram. I manage to give thoughts and suggestions in writing but I would rather write instead my Vedic poetry that flows in moments of silent contemplations.

One thing I find unpleasant is anyone talking in my presence. I want total silence but people around me go on chattering and do not always even realize when I am inwardly tuned and my solitude needs to be accepted.

I do speak sometimes (a) giving guided meditation or initiation to a very select rare few and (b) in blessing children under 8. I find hugging a child a great experience in silence and it enriches me and enhances my silence. There is no better lesson in mind’s silence than hugging a child.

Silence has helped conserve the shakti in many ways. It has helped improve the physical strength of this 80 years old body and when I do give the rare initiations and guided meditations, the energy manifests itself. This is because my Guru has taught me how to absorb the shakti and assimilate it and not waste it all the time in talking, chattering and idle pursuits. Instead of ex-pressing, I have chosen to im-press this energy into myself and it grants a subtle joy and serenity.

Swamiji, how did this idea of a five year silence come to you?—people ask. It came when I was perhaps six years old. My father and I had gone for an evening walk on Rajpur Road in Dehradun where I was born. We were going uphill. From the opposite side was walking down our neighbour Pandit Dharmadeva Shastri, a philosophy teacher at the Gurukula where we lived. Later he established one of the most important relief Ashrams for lepers under Gandhiji’s guidance (another inspiration that remained waiting to be realized until KHEL was established).

He, coming downhill, was accompanied by a Swami in saffron robes with a brilliantly shining face. Pandit Dharmadeva knew of my father’s interest in yogis. He introduced us to the Swami and told us that he met him sitting by the roadside. He was a silent swami and had not spoken a word for 25 years while living in the mountains doing sadhana. I cannot remember his name. There is more to this story but here this much suffices. That was my first inspiration. I knew then that it was something to aspire for and that some day I would take a 25 year vow of silence. My ambition remains unfulfilled.

Since then I have met a few silent swamis and each one has left a spark of inspiration, strengthening my ambition. My friend Swami Chandra who has an Ashram at the bank of the river Yamuna in Domet village near the mountains has not spoken a word for over 27 years. I often send our ashram members and visitors to visit his Ashram.

Majority cannot imagine for those who are inwardly attuned, how difficult and unnatural it is to have that attunement interrupted and to fulfil the world’s demands that you become outwardly tuned.

I wish these five years are never over but I know they will end. 138 days are already gone, too fast. When five years pass, it will be painful to speak again, a major effort of will.

I wish for the people of the whole world to learn to enter the profundity that is silence.

March 3, 2013
at the 2013 Sangha Gathering at SRSG

Om
Gurave namaḥ.
Parama-gurave namaḥ.
Parameṣhṭhi-gurave namaḥ.
Paramparā-gurubhyo namaḥ.

Akhaṇḍa-maṇḍalākaraṁ vyāptaṁ yena charācharam.
Tat padaṁ darshitaṁ yena tasmai shrī-gurave namaḥ.

Hiraṇya-garbhād ārabdhām śheṣha-vyāsādi-madhyamām.
Svāmi-śhrī-rāma-pādāntāṁ vande guru-paramparām.

Om tat sat brahmārpaṇam astu.
Om śham.

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Is everybody happy in spite of any discomfort? It must be a bit hard for the people who have to stay off campus and have to go back late at night and come back early in the morning with no time to rest and not enough sleep. I don’t know what kind of breakfast you are getting over there and how you are managing with the food here. Sometimes it is a little too spicy or a little too salty. I have a principle of tasting the food every day. It is brought to me to check. And I eat a little of what you eat. So I imagine with your international taste it might be too salty or too spicy. But you are managing. Okay. So, thank you. Thank you for your tolerance and your patience.

And maybe we should have one day where there no activity and there is total silence. What do you think? [Reply] Oh, you mean you get the rest and I don’t get the rest. I was trying to wriggle out of one lecture. [Laughter]  You can figure it out; you can let your opinion be known. But on that day, then really resting and not going about chatting and socializing; just relaxing and resting, and staying put and meditating.
I’ve been asked to cut this talk a little short today, because I have some business things to take care of with planning for the future. You know, all this organizing and putting up all these tents and so forth, and you know how much effort goes into that and how much planning we have been doing for the past three years. But here now it’s a question of the continuity of the teaching and the tradition, which apart from the purity of the tradition, requires a certain material, physical, relational, social, organization base. And you are here to take care of both parts: the pure spirituality and the applied spirituality in your organization. And so there are some times when you need to pay attention to that, and I’m asked to close ten minutes early so we can discuss the question about whether this swami will be traveling during his five years of silence; there are some tricks to that. And my committee of four ladies, who take care of me day and night to keep me alive, will present a plan for you – if the traveling is workable – if it is workable. Because it’s not easy; it’s really not easy. So feel free, and please don’t feel burdened, that demands are being made on you. If I cannot travel, I’ll stay put, and you travel and come. And even if I do travel, you travel, too, and stay put and relax here at Sadhaka Grama.

Many, many years ago, maybe ten years ago, I taught a series called Signs or Marks of Spiritual Progress.  I suggest you use that series to always check to see whether you are making progress. That is one step. Then read Swami Rama’s The Art of Joyful Living over and over and over, and see if you are  truly applying the principles that he has go generously, so lovingly, so beautifully, and so effectively presented to us. And then comes this little book that has been presented to you: Sadhana in Applied Spirituality, in which I have given, hopefully, some practical suggestions on your thought patterns, which result in a change in your communication patterns, which result in a change in your relational patterns, not only in the family, but even in the workplace. And I would like these three to be your study, your contemplation, your discussion and especially your application over the next five years. I still have not managed to do the recording that I promised would go with it, but I will do it before you leave, within a day or two. I’m not getting the time.
Yesterday we spoke of the grand, cosmic presence of the Divine Mother and how from a few specks from the dust of the feet of the Divine Mother – now, if that is just a few specks from the dust of the feet of the Divine Mother, what is the Divine Mother like? – from those few specks, flung – creating spaces, not flung into spaces, but flung and creating spaces – this multi-billion-galaxy universe arises, in whom it continues, into whom it dissolves. And the ashes of that burning fire, that burns the products of this universe, Shiva rubs on his body, and you rub on yourself as ashes. That is where the Christian idiom “sackcloth and ashes” comes from. I suggested to you to expand your consciousness, to expand your consciousness so that this piece of paper can lead you to enlightenment. As I explained to you yesterday, the smallest fiber in a piece of your clothing can lead to you to enlightenment if you understand its reality, but not by sitting there and imagining.

Don’t get trapped by the very captivating net that your imagination, arising out of your unconscious mind, weaves for you. Do not get captivated by that. Many people who are the arm-chair spiritualists, who sit there and let themselves be caught in this very captivating net of imaginings arising out of their rajasic and tamasic and very confused unconscious minds; that is   not what we are talking about. Spiritual progress is the field of sattva, the brightest light, the purest, the clearest, the most luminous, the most pacific, the most benign; it leaves no confusion.

Every now and then I receive a letter: “Swamiji, I am having this revelation. I am having this experience. So what do I do next?” And my reply is, “Well, if I am driving from here to Delhi or from New York to Los Angeles, what do I do next? Well, you were going to go to Los Angeles, weren’t you? Do you want to settle down in Chicago now? You don’t want to go any further? Well, so carry on in the same way as you have been driving.” What’s the problem? What’s the question? Okay?

Today, and for however many number of days it takes, I will mark for you a few stations that you will pass through. You just need to recognize them when you are at that station; you don’t have to do anything about them. People write me: “I am at this station; what do I do about it?” You are to do nothing. Just look at the station: “That is what it looks like” and carry on.

There are these stations in many different dimensions, not in just one dimension. A one-dimensional growth is incomplete. The multidimensional growth that I will describe for you, whether it takes thirty minutes or whether it takes three lectures, you will keep with you, and you will learn to recognize those stations. Some of them are very interesting stations. When we did here the study of the Shiva Sutras, we came across a phrase. A few of you were here; most of you were not. Can anyone remember that phrase that we popularized? Smera, smera stimita. Does anyone remember from that course? Can you say it? It has a very nice musical sound. Smera, smera stimita. Smera, smera stimita. Smera, smera stimita. And the commentator who is writing on the Shiva Sutras says that as you come to these stations, you smile in amazement; you smile and you will become stilled. It is not that you become all excited. It is not that you become a dancer. Stimita: you become stilled, stopped in amazement. That is, the effect of those stations at times in your spiritual progress is this smera, smera stimita.

I can tell you, there is no journey more interesting than your spiritual journey. For your worldly journeys you need to pay for a sea cruise, you need to buy airline tickets, you need to service your car, but for this journey: free of charge. Everything is free of charge. The whole cosmos: free of charge. And I don’t know why people don’t take the offer. It’s a free lunch. The spiritual universe is a free lunch. Don’t you want to enjoy this transcendental free lunch? Learn to enjoy it, and wait for that smera, smera stimita. At every revelation a smile, your mind smiles and goes further – stilled.

(Coughing) This daily speaking is not good for my body. My cardiac muscle gets tired. Please forgive me.

So, enjoy whatever little smile of the mind that comes in your view, comes in your way, and every moment of whatever relative stillness and amazement that touches you. You know, sometimes you see that you are amazed and for a moment you are stopped still. That is the way it is in your spiritual journey. You are stopped still. And if one of those moments – Don’t ask me when; there is no clock; ask my guru – if it once happens and Mother Infinity reveals her glimpse and all her cosmic music pours into you, if even for a fraction of a second, even that fraction of a second, which is a fraction of a second by your worldly clock, feels like an infinity passed, because Infinity showed one of her multiple faces.

These are not false promises. This is not a pep talk. That is the way it goes. And there begins to come in you gradually, gradually, gradually, a sense of fullness. And wherever there were empty quarters in your personality, in your heart and in your mind, they begin to fill and you begin to sense and fullness. Then what do you do with that fullness? It pours out of you to others, and you become a teacher; you become a healer. You don’t get a teacher by getting a teacher training certificate; you become a teacher because there is this fullness in you, and this stillness is overflowing and touching the hearts and minds of others, and you cannot help it; it’s just there. And the more you progress to the next smile, the more you progress to the next station in stillness, the more it pours into you and overflows from you. Don’t waste it; be creative with it; channel it. Don’t waste it; be creative with it; channel it.

“Bahu-jana-hitaya, Bhau-jana-sukhaya.” When the Buddha sent his first batch of monks to go teach in the world, he said in the Pali language in which he spoke: “Charatha bhikkavo charikam bahu-jana-hitaya, Bhau-jana-sukhaya.”  “Wander, O monks. Wander a great wandering for the benefit of the many, for the comfort of the many.” If your spirituality does not benefit many and if it does not comfort many, what is the difference between a worldly material, selfish life and a spiritual life? So: “for the benefit of the many, for the comfort of the many.” In your stations of progress, this will arise in you naturally. You don’t need to try. You are helpless. You cannot help it. If there is a space under a tree, you will sit under a tree and, like Socrates, people will gather around you, because they are thirsty and you have the potion of elixir, or water. That depends on how diluted your elixir is. Dilute it less and less over time. Dilute your elixir less and less over time and serve it in its purest forms.

Many times I spoke to my master and I said, “Master, I am very jealous of all those great yogis who sit in the caves.” He said, “Tell me of what benefit are they to the world?” Of course, that is his way of answering. I know of what benefit they are. Sitting there, they are of greater benefit at times than shouting and yelling like me here. But something will happen in you. And if there is space under a tree, you will fill people there, or whether you sit under a tent, or you sit in a palace or an ashram or a monastery or wherever, this teaching will flow from you, healing will flow from you – healing of minds.

One of the things that begins to happen is that the mysteries of the universe begin to unfold before you. You begin to understand the principles and the laws by which the whole universe operates. There is a meta-science about which I have indicated in one of my writings,     the science of sciences by which all the sciences operate. The principles are the same. When I talk to an architect, I tell them to learn music if they want to improve their architecture. Have you heard that before? Because architecture is music. And music has its own architecture, so architecture has to have its own music too. So we had a musical performance by a master architect yesterday, and he could tell you what the structures are of that architecture – what are the pillars, what are the roofs, what are the floors, what are the spaces in it? So, this happens for you. You begin to understand the science of sciences in which all sciences become one science. It is not something multidisciplinary that you create – that you gather this discipline, this discipline, and this discipline, and you create a concoction. But there are some fundamental principles by which all the science and all the arts operate, included in your theology and your philosophy, and these begin to unveil themselves to you. And the next then, then you begin to understand the relationship of this cosmic science with yourself, with your entire being, with your interior being. You begin to understand the architecture of your internal music of which there is a whole orchestra in you.

So, as the sciences reveal themselves, you learn to apply them. I know of a great yogi who studied only up to the fifth grade, and then went off to devote himself to the Grandmother of the Universe. And when his sādhana had reached its fructification, the Divine Mother ordered him to go to someplace which is all very rough-looking and establish himself there. So he went and he sat down under a tree outside a village in a very rough-looking area. Well, all he has to do is sit down, and next somebody put a tin shed over his head and the villagers started coming. Next, someone built a little room, a little chamber for him. And if you take a 30-minute drive from the Delhi airport to the Chattarpur Temple complex, what he created is a wonder of architecture by guiding the architects about how each pillar was to be adorned and decorated. And when my master and I went to see him, he said the same thing: “I have reading instruction only up through the first grade, but I have designed all this architecture.”

And, you know, I will tell you something: I don’t know what people do in schools. I don’t know because I’ve never been to one. I have no idea. What do they do year after year after year? All you have to do is close your eyes, and the knowledge will reveal itself to you. Listen to a language once and you will speak it. But . . . that requires a mind that is free of all this green stuff that accumulates on the surface of the water. Your mind needs to be like clear water, sattvic and pure, so that the full moon can reflect in it unbroken and not in fragments. At present in your sciences you are studying only those fragments, and one who knows just one tiny fragment does not know the rest of the fragments. As your purification occurs, this happens naturally.

I’ve been told to close at 5:50 today because my keepers, mothers are waiting to give you ten minutes of explanation over the other questions.   I promise I’ll continue with these talks. So God bless you all.

March 2, 2013
at the 2013 Sangha Gathering at SRSG

Om
Gurave namaḥ.
Parama-gurave namaḥ.
Parameṣhṭhi-gurave namaḥ.
Paramparā-gurubhyo namaḥ.

Akhaṇḍa-maṇḍalākaraṁ vyāptaṁ yena charācharam.
Tat padaṁ darshitaṁ yena tasmai shrī-gurave namaḥ.

Hiraṇya-garbhād ārabdhām śheṣha-vyāsādi-madhyamām.
Svāmi-śhrī-rāma-pādāntāṁ vande guru-paramparām.

Om tat sat brahmārpaṇam astu.
Om śham.

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Om. Hari Om.

We have been discussing the stations in spiritual progress and the stations in the progress in meditation also.  Because many times people inquire: “How do I know whether I am making progress?”  So I have given you some readings and some recordings which will help you. And we have covered some ground in the last several days.

Before I move on someone has asked me a question. Someone received a Shri Vidya (Śrī Vidyā) mantra from our tradition elsewhere. One has to decide which mantra one should be doing and which Guru-tradition you want to follow. Sri Vidya is a vast topic. I’ve looked for someone to whom I could teach it, but no one has come around. And the Shri Vidya we teach here is not the external worship, but the internal path. If one receives a special mantra and one also wishes to follow the tradition in which one is initiated here, one may add that special mantra. But then you have to learn, find out how that particular mantra is to be used, how is it to be practiced? And even those who give the Shri Vidya mantra do not know, or do not teach, how to do the internal processes of the Shri Vidya mantra.

I have the privilege to welcome Prince Indra of Bali. Is he here? Will you stand for a moment, Sir? It is an honor and pleasure to have you here. Thank you. They paid us a visit a little while back, and there was a wonderful Bali dance performance and the sharing of many things.
As you make spiritual progress, some things unravel, unveil, open up inside you.  Some things begin to change. If those things are changing, then you know that you are making spiritual progress. For example, your need to speak will become less. When you speak, your speech will be softer and will not cause resistance in other people. One example: You will be able to say the same thing in fewer words.

People are asking me: “Will you answer e-mails during your silence?” Learn how to ask a question. Narrow it down to what your real question is. If you are sending me a three-page letter with the whole history of your emotions, I will not answer. I am not in the business of being a psychotherapist; I am a meditation guide. Find out first. We call it in Sanskrit manthana (“churning”) and pulling the cream up.  What exactly is the question? Half the answer is in knowing what the question is, and then write the question in one line; then I will answer. So it’s up to you, whether you want the answer or don’t want the answer. Sometimes it takes me four hours each night to answer all the e-mails. I cannot continue to do that. So your need for speech will become reduced. Your voice will become gentler.

I find that people speak too fast. Your speech will slow down. Before you notice it, other people will notice it. Your speech will have a calming effect on others, not an agitating effect. That does not mean that you will become uncommunicative. As you make spiritual progress, you will become a better communicator because your communication will be positive, beneficial, measured, [and] pleasant. And in fewer words you will communicate much.
If you are making spiritual progress, the words of the ancient scriptures, of the sages, of the saints and the prophets will reveal themselves to you as to what their meaning is. At present, if you are reading them – because some people do not read – but if you are reading the scriptures of whatever religion or whatever philosophical or spiritual tradition, at present you are understanding them in the terms and the terminologies of the common language that you use for your worldly purposes, full of resistances, full of fears, full of anxieties. When you are making spiritual progress, those words will reveal themselves to you. In the Rig Veda we are told:

uta tvaḥ paśyan na dadarśa vācaṁ uta tvaḥ śṛṇvan na śṛṇotyenām.
uto tvasmai tanvaṁ visassre jāyeva patya uśatī suvāsāḥ…(Rig Veda, 10.71.4)

The word in the Vedas for the “word,” in the sense that you read it in the Bible – “in the beginning was the Word” – is vāc, which means speech, which is a feminine word. So the feminine gender is used for the “word.”

uta tvaḥ paśyan na dadarśa vācam  “There are those who seeing yet do not see the word.”

uta tvaḥ śṛṇvan na śṛṇotyenām  “Hearing, they do not hear the word. But to some – uto tvasmai – she reveals herself, like a beloved bride reveals herself to her lover.”

So the meanings of the scriptures, of the Upanishads, the Bibles, the Qur’ans, of the Avestas and other lesser-known words of revelation will reveal themselves to you, and you will see a depth, a deeper layer. And as you make further progress, the meaning will change and another layer will come.  And thus you will communicate with the rishis, with the sages and the saints and the prophets. They will speak to you, as it were, and they will say to you, “All this time, for thousands of years we have been speaking to you, but you have not been hearing. Now hear.” As Jesus said, “Those who have ears, let them hear.” (Matthew 11:15, 13:9; Mark 4:9, 4:23; Revelation 2:17, 3:22). Long before that the Rig Veda said, “They, hearing, yet do not hear; they, seeing, yet do not see.” (Rig Veda, 10.71.4)

As you make further spiritual progress, you become a seer.  You begin to see truth. Here and there a sentence comes out of your mouth which is immortal. Sometimes people ask me to autograph their book and I write these blessings. One of the blessing is “May the words you speak today become the scriptures of tomorrow.” This is not merely an empty wish; it can be so. If you reach that status, the words you are saying will be remembered a thousand years from now. So, with the gift of speech, the gift of the meaning of speech, then you will become among the ranks of those rishis and sages, someday, sometime.

“Friends,” I always say, “Be ambitious.” You have no ambition. The only ambition you have is to buy a car and get a promotion in your company. What kind of ambition is that? Have real ambition. This is the ambition.

As you make spiritual progress and as you progress in your meditation, you begin to feel some changes inside your body. Your posture becomes firm. Once you sit down, you don’t want to move. That is a sign of spiritual progress. Not out of lethargy and laziness, but because your ādhāra (the region from the navel down) has become firmly established in the pṛthvī tattva, in the ground, in the earth, and you become stable. The posture becomes stable by itself without you struggling. I have five ruptured discs in my back. I have had a broken meniscus for the last fifteen years in my knee and torn ligament in my knee. And the doctors tell me: “You can’t sit with crossed legs. Stop sitting that way.” I can sit here and speak to you for the next three hours and will not change my posture.  No necessity. So these changes occur. Your spine becomes inclined to being erect. Instead of having to remember “Oh, I should be sitting erect,” your spine becomes inclined to be become erect. Something from inside you, that snake that rises up, the snake of the kuṇḍalinī, lying coiled up at the bottom –ahirbudhnyaḥ  it is called in the Vedas, “the snake in the fundaments,” rises up and becomes steady. And your spine becomes inclined to be straight. Your posture becomes inclined to be firm. It is no longer required to practice, struggle – fighting with the body, sitting there and saying, “Maybe a massage will help my legs so I can maybe sit for half an hour without moving.”  No need. These things will happen. If that is happening, you are making spiritual progress. But not if you just sit for fifteen minutes and do quick, quick, quick mala (mālā), and in the middle of the mala checking to see “Well, how much is left now?” I’m sorry, that’s not meditation.

You have to know the meaning of meditation. So stability, stillness of the body, erectness of the spine – at present we teach you that as a technique for correct sitting. But at a certain point in your development the techniques fall off. The techniques – tell me, how many of you have my book The Philosophy of Hatha Yoga? Well, I’m happy: 90%. Shall I give you an exam on it? I have explained these processes that happen in you because of the way the energy channels begin to flow.

Then, at a certain point, you will begin to feel the natural mūla-bandha, the natural root-lock. At present we are teaching these as a technique for you. When they cease to become a technique and become your mind-body-prana natural inclination, then know that you are making spiritual progress.

In the chakra system, as I have explained in my lectures on kundalini and the chakras, there are two forces: the push-forces and the pull-forces: the lower energy concentrations pushing up, and the higher energy concentrations of the chakras pulling the lower ones up. That is the secret of the words prāṇa and apāna, the kundalini meaning of those words. Don’t forget to get my book Kundalini Stilled or Stirred?, which has just been published.

So, because of these changes happening by way of a slight, beginning-level awakening of energies, the mūla-bandha, the root-lock, forms by itself in meditation; you don’t have to remember to form it. Most people who form the root-lock do it with an effort with the result that the ādhāra part becomes tense. Tension is not supportive of relaxation and meditation. When the root-lock happens naturally because the energy is pushing up and the energy is pulling up, then that tension does not occur in the muscles and the organs of that region. Similarly in the course of your meditation khecarī mudrā [the tongue-lock] will form by itself; the tongue will go up. Sometimes it forms even while you are walking about because you have no more inclination to speak, so you tuck the tongue away. So mūla-bandha forms and khecarī forms.

Many times I have seen people in the beginning who sit down to meditate, and because they have seen in the books and have been taught in the classes to form the mudrā and the chin mudrā and the jñāna mudrā with their fingers. Half their attention is on their finger and their thumb – “Am I forming the mudrā correctly?”  As you make spiritual progress, the mudrā forms by itself because the energy curves and circles and forms these mudrās and molds and shapes the body accordingly – and that happens to you naturally.  So your posture becomes firm; your spine becomes inclined to be erect.
My body is very weak. Sometimes when I sit down, I need to get a lot of support. But as my meditation progresses, the body becomes inclined to move away from the support and the spine becomes straight – because my guru has taught me to respond to that which is happening in the energy realm. These are things that yoga teachers need to learn. The root-lock forms, khecarī forms, the need for speech changes.

Then, a lot of times I get letters from people: “I feel pressure at this point” or “I feel a pull at this point” or “I feel a sensation at this point,” and “When I meditate . . .” and so on. This is a natural phenomenon. When that happens, simply respond to it. Where you feel the pull, let the mantra go there as though you are breathing from there, as though your mantra is arising there. Let your mind go there as though you are breathing there and as if your mantra is arising there.

We have taught elsewhere how to recognize which is your chakra. That’s a little bit different topic, a separate topic. There are recordings available.  Five thousand hours of recordings have been made over the last 42 years. Swami Ritavan has been keeping these recordings, and the archives here have them, and there is a group of volunteers internationally who are transcribing them. I am told by Swami Ritavan that when the transcribing is completed there will be 45,000 pages. If you people help with that, that work will go on long after I’m dead. First making the 45,000 pages of transcripts, and then looking through them and making them readable is a lot of work, and we need that work from you. We need volunteers for that work.  This Michelle [Kinsey] here is doing a lot, who is just sitting here quietly, designing CDs and all of that. So I really, really deeply appreciate what people are doing, but a lot more needs to be done.

So, in the initial stages, there are three phenomena that are experienced in the chakras: (1) an inward pull, not an outward pull, in that region, or a pressure, (2) a feeling or sensation – something vibrating, something happening, and (3) the feeling of a flow, as though a stream is passing through that region or the stream is flowing upward from that region.

Also, when the spine becomes naturally inclined to be erect, the next step will be a sensation as if ants are crawling over your spine, or the base of your spine is plugged into an electric socket and is receiving the current. But don’t go about connecting it to the socket in the wall; you would be dead.

These things are not written anywhere. They are not written even in my commentary on the Yoga-sutras. They are given indications in the texts. But when the ancient ṛshis were teaching, they would not only give a lesson in philosophy, they would give an experience! They would alter the consciousness of the disciple and let him see! And then in the Upanishads we can read phrases like etad vai tat (“This is that!”). araṇyornihito jātavedā garbha iva sudhito garbhiṇībhiḥ; etad vai tat  “This experience that I have given you, that is this mantra, this recitation.” But you have been reciting it, not experiencing. And only though that experience will you understand the meaning of the Upanishads or Vedas or the Bible or the Avesta. And you would become a teacher, even without a teacher training certificate. I don’t have a teacher training certificate! Nobody ever gave me one. My master never gave me one. I should complain? Because then you will teach from experience. My master said, “Don’t teach from the books.” And I don’t.

Every now and then I teach a text for your entertainment. On October, 2014, I’ll be teaching a course on the Mahā-vākyas, the Great Sentences of Vedanta. They are installing a little computer screen in my room, so I’ll type the lessons on that.

People are asking me, “Who will teach us?” Don’t worry, the teaching will go on. The same one who has brought you here, the same one who has brought you to the Guru’s ashram and the Guru’s seat, the same one will guide you. The guidance never ceases for a disciple. The problem is that there are no disciples. There are no disciples with commitment to self-purification.

Along with these pulls and pressures, sensations or feelings of a flow, if you understand the science of the chakras, you know that each chakra carries powers, elements which constitute your personality, so the awakening happens in those faculties of your personality and in the constituents of your personality.  Different changes happen when your navel chakra begins to open, and different changes happen when your heart chakra begins to open, and so on. But mind you, every little emotion is not the awakening of a chakra.

There is a time I used to be available to people 24 hours a day, and I would tell them to call me anytime. Now I am a night person and I do my meditations at night, or I do my japa at night, or I do my e-mails at night, and I work at night. And at The Meditation Center in Minneapolis we had a 6:00 a.m. meditation every morning. So at 3:00 I laid down in bed to rest for couple of hours, maybe to get two hours sleep, because I had to be at The Meditation Center at 6:00. And at 3:30 the phone rings. It was a lady calling from California: “You said I could call you anytime, Dr. Arya. My heart chakra is opening; what shall I do?” And I heard her voice and I said, “Tell me one thing: did you have a quarrel with your husband last night?” “What does that have to do with it?” So every flutter of your heart is not the opening of your heart center.

It is time to stop now. I will continue tomorrow over the next three or four days. God bless you all.

[A group of people from Bali come up to give gifts to Swamiji.] Siddhartha [Krishna], there is something? I was told to be ready for this kindness. Oh, Prince Arjuna! How beautiful! Oh, look at that: a Ganesha from Bali! Thank you so very much. I really appreciate it!  Alright. Oh, what book is it?  Oh, this is the Ramayana. Is it the Uttara kāṇḍa?  Araṇya. I’ve been looking for the Uttara kāṇḍa. This is part of the Ramayana in the Balinese. Is it in Kabir or present Bali? And I’ve asked them to bring me a lontar, a palm leaf manuscript which they are preparing for me. I am so grateful. Thank you so much. Om svasti! Om svasti! Om svasti! I must go for the ārati.

Remember all those details that I am giving you. Alright. Siddhartha, thank you.

The word ‘science’ is derived from Latin verb root ‘scire’, to know. So, all knowledge is ‘science’ and God the Omniscient, from the same verb root, can be translated into modern English as God the All-scientist!!

Up to 1840, what we now call science was a part of philosophy, known as Natural Philosophy. The scientists like Isaac Newton were philosophers seeking answers to the mysteries of the universe. No wonder Newton wrote a 300,000-word commentary on the Bible’s Book of Revelation. Einstein spent his entire life searching for the answers to the question “How does God run the universe?”

Yoga’s twin, Veda, may be translated as science. It is from the verb root ‘vid’, to know. In fact, in many European languages words derived from the cognates of ‘vid’ are used for science, so, the German Wissenschaft and the Dutch Wetenschap, so also ‘wisdom’ and ‘wise’.

In the traditions of India we often speak of the twins Yoga and Veda. Veda, the science, is the intuitive knowledge derived through the buddhi — whether in meditation or empirically in Nyaya-Vaisheshika-Ayurveda type of experimental procedures. In the traditions of India, the intuitive and the empirical are inseparable because one must enter the state of meditation to receive the intuitions that will then be experimentally tested and proved. Thus, without yoga, there is no Veda, no science.

As the yogi passes through all the different layers, from grossest to subtlest, of the constituents of personality s/he unearths the secret of each element of nature at the cosmic level. By seeing the workings of muladhara-chakra, s/he learns the secrets of gravity. [The word ‘gravity’ is derived from ‘gurutva’ as it is referred to in 6th century BC Vaisheshika texts. Where did Newton get it from? – I wonder.]. The yoga-sutra (YS.3.26) says : One obtains the knowledge of cosmology by concentrating on the sun. The sun here is an internal concentration, the cosmic counterpart of which are the external suns. It is thus that the Vedic rishis (? c.3000 BC) sang of a heliocentric solar system and numerous texts composed by the rishis speak in wonderment about ‘uncountable trillion universes’ (ananta-koTi-brahmaaNDa).

It is on this basis that, I, a disciple in yoga, have lectured on SCIENCE IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL SPIRITUAL POEM EVER COMPOSED.

That Vedic poetic beauty of science, with all its rhymes and rhythms and cadences can be enjoyed only by a yogi. Yoga grants the ultimate, the Transcendental Joy, Ānanda. Along the way the yogi and the yogi alone enjoys the poetic secrets of the cosmos through his internal scientific revelations.

Much more is to be said on this topic, for example how we are confirming the findings of the ancient yogis in the Meditation Research Institute Laboratory in Swami Rama Sadhaka Grama in Rishikesh to which all are invited. But here we take a short cut and cease.

A Vedic rishi is a scientific poet, a poetic scientist.

Enjoy yoga.

Enjoy science; it is something to enjoy, like poetry.

To truly enjoy science, enjoy yoga.

Bring your mind to your asana where you are sitting.
Turn inwards.
Relax your forehead.
Feel the flow and the touch of your breath in your nostrils, with your personal mantra.
Breathing slowly, gently, smoothly.
No break in your breathing cycle, no break in your mantra cycle.
Observe how the mind, mantra and breath are flowing together
as a single stream.
Without breaking the stream of consciousness gently open your eyes.
May God and Guru bless us all.

I plan to keep it short. I will not cover everything that I am bubbling with. You can do your own research, and more than research, your own contemplations.

There are two books by Swami Rama on the subject that are available: Love and Family Life and Let the Bud of Life Bloom: A Guide to Raising Healthy and Happy Children.

Whatever you do in life,
Whatever actions you undertake,
Whatever gestures you make,
Whatever words you speak,
Whatever glances you throw,
Whatever thoughts you think,
Whatever emotions you feel,
Establish each one’s connection with the cosmic scheme.
That is called – sacrament; living sacredly. That alone is a lifelong sadhana.

This universe is an ocean, a multilayer ocean of energies. Some energies the scientists deal with. Some energies the spiritual seekers experience and find. And many mysteries in the scientific field cannot be resolved without understanding these intangible energies called ‘atindriya’ – the ones beyond senses.

One universal energy is ‘samashti chitta’ – the universal mind.

Just one of many in the multilayer ocean of energies called the universe -as there are streams and currents, waves, ripples, and bubbles in the ocean at each layer, at each level, so in this universal mind there are streams and currents.
The yogis experience these streams, currents, waves, ripples, bubbles.

When we are in harmony with these energies we have a happy, peaceful and fulfilled life. So learn to connect every event of your individual mind. Learn to connect every event of your individual mind with this universal mind, with this ‘samashti chitta’. Only then you will understand the mysteries of life and the purpose of life.

These currents, these streams, in this energy field of the universe are the pathways that our times take. Our past, present, and future. These streams and energies cross each other, they merge with each other, they separate from each other. The mergers of certain streams occur because of the special karmic forces inherent in them.

We are participants in this universal energy,
By our actions.
By our actions called thoughts.
By our actions called? Thoughts.
By our actions called words.
By our actions called movement.

We give certain impelling direction to these currents, these streams, in the universal mind energy field. Please understand this principle if you want the meaning of life. These are called karmic forces. Where these energies impelled by these karmic forces meet each other, they are the confluences of many lives, confluences of currents. What are those confluences in this energy, confluences of currents called? They are called the family. Now understand this. What family is. The currents that have met, also separate, and go their way, with new karmic forces. So what you make of the family is up to you.

Where is the family made? What is the core? The central point?

It is the consciousness of the fetus. That is where the mother energy, the father energy, and the energy of this soul are meeting together. And yet we pay no attention to the training of the fetus.

Now please understand that these confluences, called the fetuses, are the ones where these energies meet.

Now, from here I can take many directions to this argument. To make life sacred is to live understanding that this entire universe is what we call a ‘yagna’. The word ‘yoga’ has become very popular, but actually they are twin words that have been used in Indian spirituality – ‘yoga’ and ‘yagna’ – The inner union and the sacraments of life.

The essence of ‘yagna” is ‘na mama’ – not mine. That everything I am doing is an offering in a sacred fire. When I am feeding a child I am performing a yagna. I am putting an offering into that prana fire. When I am eating, also I am performing the same yagna. Without understanding the word yagna, you will not understand the applied spirituality.

So, that is where all the sacraments come from. Understanding the karmic principles and living with the mental attitude of ‘namaḥ’, not mine.

There is a tradition in a few, very rare, families in India, where one child of the family is given to an ashram or a temple and is raised to take care of the spiritual needs of the people. There are still some families that do that. Rare ones. Less in North India. More in the East and in the South. Or if an astrologer predicts that a child will not live long, they give the child to a Guru. Because if you live for others you will live. It’s a nice trick on fate, and on karmic processes.

Or someone goes to Swami Rama and says, my astrologer has predicted that tomorrow I am going to die. He said no, tomorrow you will take vows of Sannyasa. Called him over and gave him the vows of Sannyasa.

What is the mystery behind these acts of yagna? These acts of sacraments? These acts of sacrifice? The word ‘sacrifice’ means making sacred.

Then there is the possessive way of living. The other way, as I said, is the way of possessive life. ‘My’ son. ‘My’ daughter. ‘My’ house. ‘My’ family. ‘My’ future.

You want to understand these words, understand how these cosmic currents that I have described are flowing and how their confluences have occurred.

To appreciate and recognize these confluences special rituals have been developed, in all parts of the world. Nowadays, in the modern life, there is a negligent attitude towards ritual. “Oh, that’s only a ritual.” Because you perform your rituals only with the body. Ritual is when you pray with the whole body. With all the limbs of your body. When you pray with all the senses. There is something of smell and something of sight. Something blooming, something blazing, something flowing and a sense that in the moment of that ritual, in the moment of that sacrament, in that yagna moment, these energies are more alive and awake and you take an immersion into them.

I find in the modern world for example, even before people start planning for a child – the planning they should do, they don’t do.

The spiritual planning. What is the spiritual place of this child in this confluence of energies called the family? Nobody thinks about that. When they start planning, they think of the name. They think of the room. They think of the crib or the cradle. In the traditions of India, nobody ever, well, nowadays I don’t know what the traditions of India are, because so much of India right in front of my eyes, has vanished in the last 50 years, in the last 80 years. It’s no longer there.

But I still speak of India because it is from the essences of the tradition that I draw my inspiration and my information. In that tradition nobody thinks of giving a name to a child until quite a little time after the birth. Because the consciousness of the fetus at present is in a boat. In a boat, in a stream between two shores. Those who are standing on this shore, they are only thinking of someone arriving. They are not thinking of someone who has departed from the other shore. Where has he or she departed from? Nobody thinks of that.

This consciousness of a fetus is half linked to the past life and half to what is to come. In fact, that fetus is hardly aware of what is to come.

He is aware of the loud sounds that the mother hears. He is aware of the emotions that the mother is feeling. And feels those emotions because his body and mind and prana are so intricately and deeply linked with the mother’s body, mind and prana.With that umbilical cord, you’re not only feeding or nourishing the body of the child, you are also sending your prana there;

By every thought
By every thought
By every emotion
By every emotion
By every movement you make,
you are educating that fetus.

But it’s not your child yet. The consciousness, this unit of consciousness is still in a boat, mid stream, crossing over.

Even when the child has come out of the birth cannel, he or she is not yet yours. The samskaras of the past are still very strong.

Don’t start claiming them too early. So nobody in India ever buys, well, no again, I am talking of old India, I don’t know what’s happening nowadays. Nobody in India ever buys clothes for a child until after he or she is born.
Because we know that we cannot yet claim the child. That soul is not ours yet. These processes have stations; these stations are called sacraments, samskaras. These are performed in many cultures.

I am so deeply impressed by the culture of spiritual Africa, for example, to which hardly anybody pays attention. There are a few books now about the way in which the children are welcomed into the world and the way in which they are planned to be brought into the world.

But I want to tell you something. You will not like it. What you read in English and French is diluted soup. Diluted juice. 10 parts real juice and 90 parts water. To learn about spirituality you need to go to the other languages. Korean poetry cannot be translated into English. Chinese poetry cannot be translated into English. Sanskrit poetry cannot be translated into English; people read it in English. That is why the mantra recitations in the rituals here – they cannot be translated.

So you have these stations, before you plan for, when you plan for a child, what do you plan spiritually? I was a householder, married man, Mrs. Arya is here. To welcome a son in my life, my Master gave me a special Shri Vidya practice which I had to do for 40 days in the attic of my house in USA. That is called planning for a child. You don’t do any planning. My mother did three years of Gayatri. Good for her, because then I never had to go to school. I was teaching from the Vedas at the age of nine. And my mother did all the Gayatri and it was done. So the preparations you make before birth, before conception, the sacraments you have during pregnancy.

You may not follow nowadays all of the attitudes from the times that these sacraments were developed. But you take the essence and learn of the sacraments of different cultures. Do not reject them as mere rituals because as I have explained, ritual means praying with all your senses. Ritual means praying with your whole body. Some recitation with the mouth. Some movement of the hand. How your eyes are fixed, how you are seated.

I have seen this sense of the sacred in many cultures. I watch the facial expression of the people when they receive Prasad among the Hindus. I’ve seen the same expression in the Catholics and the Greek Orthodox when they are receiving the sacrament. I’ve seen the same expression of face. I watch. And I say, the spirit is present. At that moment, the spirit, the Holy Spirit descends into you.

The Jewish rituals; the Yajno paveeta the sacred thread ceremony of India; the Bar Mitzva, the day a child is introduced to the Scriptures. Dr. Shirin Venkat, please tell about ‘Navjot’ in the Zoroastrian community.

Dr. Shirin: “Navjot is done for both girls and boys. And it’s usually done at the same age as the ‘Upanayana.’ It is an induction into the religious tradition of Zarathustra. It’s also lighting a new lamp within you to bring you into the Zarathustrian faith, and we are taught the prayers. And we are given ‘gomutra’ to purify ourselves. We are supposed to prepare a few days before, when we receive our Navjot. And it is done just like Yagna, in front of a fire and offering sandalwood and sour curd to the fire.”

So Navjot is like the Bar Mitzva, like the sacred thread ceremony, ntroducing the child to the sacred responsibility, to open the scriptures.

Now, for a community of meditators who are above the idea of confinement to specific religions, you can learn something from each culture.

You can learn from Bar Mitzva.
You can learn from Navjot.
You can learn from the sacred thread ceremony.
You can learn from the purificatory ordeals that a child has to go through to be made worthy of receiving the sacred lore in the cultures of Africa. Or of New Zealand.

But you cannot do them as rituals. They must be internalized.

There must come a sense of the feeling of the sacred. Yes, indeed. Let the spirit descend. That is, let that confluence of a family event, such as a wedding, such as a conception, such as a sacred thread, such as Bar Mitzva, such as Baptism, such as Navjot.

It’s not two people uniting. It’s not father and mother bringing the child to be baptized. There is a secret presence. And you forget that secret presence. And that is the presence of the total field of the universal consciousness. Call it GOD. Don’t call it GOD.

We have here a Chinese Buddhist Monk who is waiting also for receiving Swami vows. He can tell us about the Buddhist tradition. How the purification of the child’s spirit…

What I am saying to you: please take the essence, take the spirit, and make your life sacred and make your family sacred.

When the ancient Greeks sat down to eat they took out little bits of food, “This is unto Apollo”; “This is unto Zeus”. So also those who are brought up in the orthodox traditions, they take out a little bit of the food, place it as a ‘bali’ offering for the beings. I have seen in India, at least that was so 60, 70 years ago when I was living in this country, a father will take the child for a walk with some sugar. Finding an ants’ nest, he teaches the child to feed the ants. That is called ‘bali’. There are five daily sacraments – pancha maha yagnas.

Sometime, someday I’ll tell you about it. Well, I will be in silence, but every now and then I will teach on a computer screen.

As I told you, in the beginning of this session I am not going to give you everything I am bubbling with. But I have given you the essence. Think about it, discuss it. And see how to implement it. How to make your life sacred. And how to make the family a sacred event. And understand every thought you think, every thought you think, every emotion you feel, every emotion you feel, every glance, every movement of the finger, the clothing you wear, the clothing you wear, the food you prepare. Connect it to the cosmic reality as an experience; as a personal experience.

When we have special feasts for the monks, for the sadhus here, they recite the 15th Chapter of the Bhagavad Gita before eating. And I’ve looked at that chapter, because I recite it also by heart.

अहंवैश्वानरोभूत्वाप्राणिनांदेहमाश्रितः।
प्राणापानसमायुक्तःपचाम्यन्नंचतुर्विधम्॥१५- १४॥

The Lord says: I become the Vaishvanaro, the universal fire, dwelling in the living beings, living in the bodies of all the living beings, praninam deha masritah. I, Vaishvanaro, become the universal fire dwelling in the bodies of all the living beings, and joined by the forces of prana and apana, I take the nourishment and digest it for their continuity. How many of you eat that way?

That the divine fire is eating, and you are making it an offering.

So I wish you success in your deliberations and your internalizing how your perceptions of life will change, and how you will internalize and become a walking, sacred fire.

God Bless you All.

Thank you.

---

Editor’s Note

This is a transcription of a talk given by Swami Veda Bharati on 22nd February 2013 at the Nurturing Spirituality in the Family Conference at Swami Rama Sadhaka Grama.

March 1, 2013
at the 2013 Sangha Gathering at SRSG

Om
Gurave namaḥ.
Parama-gurave namaḥ.
Parameṣhṭhi-gurave namaḥ.
Paramparā-gurubhyo namaḥ.

Akhaṇḍa-maṇḍalākaraṁ vyāptaṁ yena charācharam.
Tat padaṁ darshitaṁ yena tasmai shrī-gurave namaḥ.

Hiraṇya-garbhād ārabdhām śheṣha-vyāsādi-madhyamām.
Svāmi-śhrī-rāma-pādāntāṁ vande guru-paramparām.

Om tat sat brahmārpaṇam astu.
Om śham.

---

Om. Hari Om.  How is everybody’s forehead doing?  Are you a little bit more free of worrying and anxieties? We would like your visit here to be a success. And what will be your definition of a success? If you can go with one or two new habits, if you can drop one or two old habits and cultivate one or two new habits, then your visit and all the money you have spent, and all the time, and all the discomfort of sleeping here and there, it will be a success.

Also, for your information, there is, or is going to be from tonight a mauna kaksha (a silence chamber). It’s somewhere on that hilltop among all those big houses in a corner where you can go and be silent. That is not the place you go for a bed. So sometimes you can go and use that silence chamber. Enjoy.

One thing more: this is one rare occasion when so many people are going to be practicing silence together. Swami Rama’s legacy is to merge science and spirituality. So we have a lab on this campus. We have something like 3,000 titles of articles published in medical and scientific journals on the subject of the effect of yoga breathing, meditation, mindfulness, and among all those titles we have not come across one single article on the effects of silence. So we are using this opportunity of the 200 people who are participating in the silence together from the 10th of March. Around 50 have chosen to be accepted as subjects for testing, that is, the brainwaves before you begin the silence and brainwaves and other physiological effects after nine days of silence, and what a difference that makes. So a list will be given out on the topic of when your turn is for that brainwave testing. And you need take it a little bit more seriously, not as a fun thing: “Oh, I had all these electrodes hooked into my skull.” That is not the purpose. We are not in a position to give you immediate results. All this data is being collected and is being sent to the scientists for later analysis. We have already had one research paper published based on the research that has been done in our lab, and one Ph.D. thesis that has been done in France has come out. So we have been moving ahead with that.  Do be prepared, and a schedule will be given for when you are scheduled for that test.

I am also asked to announce, people ask me, “After you go into silence, will you still travel?” The answer is a complex one. And the answer does not depend on me; the answer depends on you. And there is a small committee who will explain to you what is planned and where you come into that planning. So, center leaders and traveling teachers, please attend tomorrow, March 2nd, at 2:30 p.m. to discuss the plans for that. I’m certainly not traveling until mid-2014, but some possibility is there. But the possibility depends entirely on you – the more practical side of things. [Note: Swami Veda has subsequently moved the possibility of traveling to mid-2015.]

Some foreheads are still wrinkled! What happened? Did I say something worrisome? What are you worrying about? Whatever you are worrying about there is nothing you can do about it sitting here. You might as well forget it and enjoy a worry-free life for a short time. You don’t always get such opportunities. Use the opportunity!

As one progresses spiritually, all the layers of one’s being are revealed. You are not just this jumble of bones wrapped up by a plastic wrap, tied up with some strings inside, nerves and pipes. That is not what you are. That is only the outermost container. And you have begun to mistake yourself to be the container instead of the spirit-content. Between the container (called the body) and you the content (the pure spirit) there are many layers.  Here I go into the very ancient science of Sāṅkhya and Vaiśeṣhika. These are two of the six Vedic schools of philosophy. There are layers upon layers, whether you read the theory about them or not, whether you can list all those categories by heart or not, as you begin to move your consciousness, your awareness, your mindfulness, your realization.  What does the word “realization” mean? Something becoming “real” to you! When that which was previously merely a theory, which was previously a speculation or a hypothesis, when that becomes real to you, that is realization. That realization, that is a form of revelation, revealing. That which is covered with veils is unveiled.

One of the prayers in the Veda is:

Hiraṇmayena pātrena satya-syāpi-hitaṁ mukham,
tattvaṁ pūṣanna-pāvṛṇu satya-dharmāya dṛṣṭaye.

“With a golden lid the mouth of truth is covered. O Nourisher of the Universe, please remove this cover so that I may have the glance and the vision, the sight of the true dharma, the true nature of things.” (Īśāvāsya Upaniṣad, 15).

That is why as we progress the penultimate samādhi is called the dharma-mega samādhi. Dharma-mega: the raincloud of virtue and the nature of all things.

(The electricity went off here and with it the sound system.  When it returned, Swami Veda said, “We’ll get the generator working.” “Sorry, I wish I could shout.” “Well, enjoy the silence.”  “Is it working?”  “Can you hear?”)

The samādhi of the raincloud of virtue and of the knowledge of the nature of all things, that is called dharma-mega samādhi. So, along with the revelation of your true nature, your true essence as atman the pure spiritual self, the nature of all things is revealed to you.  So all these layers of prakṛti, all the layers of nature, matter of which your composite being is composed, one-by-one-by-one, they reveal their essence, what they are, how they function, how they operate. And by knowing that, you know the nature of the universe, because the components of your being are the same as the components of the universe. If you understand your individuated mind, you will understand the universal mind.

If you understand the atomic energies at the sub-cellular level of your physical composition, you will also understand the atomic energies in the whole universe. If you will understand inside you the birth of a cell, the continuity of a cell, and the dissolution of that cell, thereby you understand the birth of the stars, the continuity of the stars, and the dissolution of the stars.

And it is thus that when I read…. I am an avid reader of scientific magazines. I do not miss out on the latest scientific discoveries. I have no training in science, but I keep up with the scientific news. I am looking for some news, but I am not finding any. Really! I’m looking for some new discovery in science, but I’m not finding anything. It’s been known to me from childhood, from the texts – not the technology, but the science.

Science – what is it the science of? What is the science the science of? Einstein answers: “I am trying to find out how it is that God runs the universe.” Learn to find the God within you. Learn to find how you, the God of this body-universe, how you the spiritual being, the God of this body-universe, how you run this universe, and thereby you will find out how God runs the universe.

And this is the message of Yoga and Tantra and the beautiful texts like Saundarya-laharī. Gurudev Swami Rama often referred to these texts, Saundarya-laharī (Youtube) and Ananda-laharī, the Wave of Beauty and the Wave of Bliss. What is this Wave of Beauty and the Wave of Bliss? The entire universe is a stream of forces that come in waves. An interaction of the waves is the universe. And those waves are the same ones by which you, atman the spirit, utilizing the instrumentation called the mind, run your body-universe. When you understand that, you will understand how the universe is run. You will understand all its mathematics.

Sometimes people ask, “What is the contribution of India to the world’s civilization?” You want to know my answer? The contribution of India to the world’s civilization is “zero.” Only the meditation masters could have figured out what “zero” was. And what is the common Sanskrit word and Hindi word commonly used for zero? Shunya! That is the word for zero. And going into that shunya within, from there they understood what the value of zero is and how all the numbers revolve around this reality of zero. That is how the zero was invented – no, discovered.

Why am I saying this? What is its practical application for you in your spiritual life, in your daily life? Anything you touch, anything you sense, anything you feel, anything you experience, that you act upon or react to, find out its metaphysical connection. This piece of paper with scribbles on it can lead you to liberation. This little piece of paper, this object in my hand can lead you to liberation. This [other] object in my hand, what is it? What do I have in my hand? A cell phone. What is a cell phone? Its geometry, its dimensions, its subatomic particles, its energies, its interactions of energies – it is waves, it is interaction of waves. It’s poetry! That is why one of my lectures is that science is the most beautiful spiritual poem ever composed. And here is the poetry in my hand, and here is all the metaphysics: dimensions and what is beyond dimensions. What are the waves and what is beyond the waves, and from where do those waves arise?

Can you learn to connect every smallest particle of your experience – of the taste buds or the smells, or what you see with the eyes, or what you touch with the skin, or what images you form in your mind – can you take any one of these are find their trans-physical resource? And so also your relationships, even more so! It is not by denouncing relationships that you will find renunciation. Renunciation is not denunciation. Some people think that renunciation is denunciation. It is not by denouncing the relationships, but by bringing them to their fullest conclusion, to their richest level. And then you will transcend to the next level – because that is where God is, because that is where love is. You keep hearing “God is love. God is love. God is love.” Have you brought your little love to the level where you say, “Yes, this is God.”

So do these internal, mental, spiritual exercises. Every experience, anything you see, you hear, you observe moving, anything that moves in you, where is it in me? And where is it in the universe? And how are the spiritual contents moving these containers?

The second verse of Saundarya-laharī, Shankaracharya’s text, the Wave of Beauty. I wish I could sing for you, but that is one thing I have not been able to do all my life. I can pray in the name of singing, so I only recite:

Tanīyāṃsaṃ pāṃsuṃ tava caraṇa-paṅke-ruha-bhavaṃ
viriñciḥ saṃcinvan viracayati lokān a-vikalam;
vahaty enaṃ śauriḥ katham api sahasreṇa śirasāṃ
haraḥ saṃksudyainaṃ bhajati bhasitoddhūlana-vidhim.

You read, you hear, you see pictures, you see icons of these Hindu gods, but you don’t know what they are. I have a shrine to Mother Divine.  Some people think it’s just a statue. What is it a statue of? According to the texts and the poetry composed by the realized beings the Divine Mother is unending, fathomless. The verse that I have just recited, listen to it: “O Mother Divine, O source of all beauty.” Because sometimes we give mantras as to explain the Divine Mother dwelling within all things, all entities, all beings, shapes them and beautifies them from within. That is the secret of evolution – but that’s a different topic. “O Mother Divine, Brahma the creator god (God in his creator mode) takes tiny bits of the pollen dust of your feet, that is, all of the prakṛti, matter, anti-matter, all the millions of galaxies and black holes spinning close to the speed of light, all of that: a few particles of dust, a few particles of the pollen dust at the feet of the Divine Mother.

What the extent of the Divine Mother in infinity is we cannot fathom. “God in the creator mode as Brahma takes a few particles of the pollen dust of your feet, and from those he shapes – lokān a-vikalam –unending and unbroken chains of all the universes, viracayati lokān a-vikalam – creates the unbroken, unending chains of all the universes, so that even the vast galactic serpent with a thousand hoods cannot easily bear the weight of this universe. And God in his dissolution mode takes it and blows it, and it turns to ashes and blows the ashes all about and rubs the ashes on himself, and that is how Shiva is shown as wearing ashes: the remnants of the dissolved universes.

So when we have these yagñas, on the last day we take the ashes and rub them on ourselves – agnir iti bhasma vāyur iti bhasma.  “The fire is ashes,” we recite. “The air is ashes. The earth is ashes. Ashes are merged into ashes.”  You have the English phrase “ashes to ashes,” but the original is in that particular mantra. This is the vision by which a cosmic master walks. In their grandeur this is the way they look at the universe, and this is the way they look at themselves, and this is the way they carry themselves, and someday, sometime, by way of an incredibly high level of initiation may impart that vision.

But this vision cannot be imparted to everybody. I have seen a case of a very, very dear Guru-brother of mine – I will not name – who kept begging for higher initiation, begging for higher initiation, and kept on asking me: “Intercede on my behalf to Swamiji, intercede on my behalf to  Swamiji.” And made the mistake of interceding and pestering him on behalf of my friend, and so he received the initiation. And then Swami Rama left me to attend to him. And here now this disciple is writhing on the floor and says, “Please, beg the master to withdraw the power. Please, beg the master with withdraw the power. I cannot withstand it.” So first create in you the capacity.

When you will read my little book on kundalinī, you’ll understand what I have just talked about. This part that I have just spoken of I have not covered in that book. People talk of energies flowing in them, touching them; they are blessed! What more do you want? Just become absorbed in observing them. This is for those who are writing me day and night, okay. Just let them absorb into observing and flowing wherever the energy goes, whichever layers it bursts. There is nothing to fear. It’s the pathway; it’s the Waves of Beauty and the Waves of Bliss. Enjoy! And those who have not yet been touched that way by the invisible masters, keep aspiring, keep contemplating this universe as the Wave of Beauty and the Wave of the Universe, and this object that you call the cell phone can lead you to enlightenment; this piece of paper in my hands can lead you to enlightenment, if you understand its reality. What is it? Waves – nothing more.

Ask any physicist and they’ll tell you what the reality of this piece of paper is. It’s waves! It’s atomic waves imbued by another layer of waves, and that is consciousness; that is chaitanya; that is I the Self, the indweller of every particles of this body, the indweller of every particle of this universe, which has been created from a few grains of the pollen dust from Mother’s feet and flung into space, forming millions of galaxies, unbroken, unending chains. And in time, as the wave subsides, so Shiva, the power of dissolution, dissolves the waves and rubs the ashes on his body and keeps them till the next time: another universe.
You are living in that universe. You are part of that system of waves. That is what you are. Learn to enjoy your true existence. God bless you all.

Just a moment. Those who ever wish to learn more about our lab and our scientific work, please, Dr. Prabhu, will you stand? Dr. Prabhu is our fulltime senior scientist who is working fulltime developing the lab, and you can ask him any questions anytime. I think he is making a brief presentation sometime about the lab, too. Thank you, Dr. Prabhu.

And remember that we’ll give you the schedule for your testing. And do remember tomorrow at 2:30 p.m. the meeting to discuss further plans. On the third of March there is the election of AHYMSIN office-bearers. And on the 5th we have whole-day workshop on the future of this family and how to keep all its arms working together, and your thoughts and your contribution to that is most invaluable because I am in the withdrawal mode, okay? And so it’s you who carry the responsibility.

How many people remember to do two or three minutes of meditation many times in the day?  [Some people raised their hands.] A few. You come, you listen to the lecture, and you walk out. And the lecture you gather in your apron, and before you leave, you just shake it off.

Form this new habit, every two or three hours for two or three minutes wherever you are, standing, sitting, lying down. Just relax your forehead, feel the flow and the touch of your breath in your nostrils. Breathe in slowly, gently, smoothly. Exhale and inhale with your mantra.  Maintain the flow. Let your entire consciousness become an even-flowing stream. Remaining in this wave of consciousness, gently open your eyes, and may you walk in life aware that you are a wave in the ocean of the Waves of Beauty and Bliss.

God bless you all. Thank you. Please accept my apologies for not being able to see my friends personally. The spirit is willing, but the body has its limits. It cannot do it anymore. I’m sorry we meet this way. God bless you.

February 28, 2013
at the 2013 Sangha Gathering at SRSG

Om
Gurave namaḥ.
Parama-gurave namaḥ.
Parameṣhṭhi-gurave namaḥ.
Paramparā-gurubhyo namaḥ.

Akhaṇḍa-maṇḍalākaraṁ vyāptaṁ yena charācharam.
Tat padaṁ darshitaṁ yena tasmai shrī-gurave namaḥ.

Hiraṇya-garbhād ārabdhām śheṣha-vyāsādi-madhyamām.
Svāmi-śhrī-rāma-pādāntāṁ vande guru-paramparām.

Om tat sat brahmārpaṇam astu.
Om śham.

---

Welcome to you all. Thank you for being here and warming mine and each other’s hearts by your presence.

I hope, I pray, I suggest that you use this time both for saṅgha and sādhana. While you are here, let the Sangha be truly formed so that among yourselves there is an introduction, a deepening of connections, closeness of the hearts, expressions of affection and love – not only to go back home and say, “Well, that was a good experience, although the Swami’s talks were a bit boring” – not just to go back and say, “It was a good experience,” but to make it a lasting effect for the entire Sangha, the entire community the entire family.

We are so fortunate, so rare, that we have people here from twenty five countries and you do not feel a difference of country, religion or background, from wherever you have come and you become a family. And that is what the world needs to be: a world family! And by your presence here you are setting that example.

I will try my best to join you every day at 4:30 p.m. for silent meditation and at 5:15 p.m. to continue my lifelong ‘blab-athon’ which is about to end. People ask me: “Why are you taking to silence?” Look, those who have read the newspapers in February 1947 in India, they would know that I started in February, 1947, traveling, lecturing, teaching, meeting people, concocting organizations. In different places and in different countries, hardly a day has passed without me saying some idiotic thing. Isn’t it time for me to shut up, to go inwards?

Whatever I have been able to share with you in my life, for those who have known me for five years or ten years or forty years, or some into their fourth or fifth generation of their families for their knowledge, whatever has passed through this person in the form of words is not mine; it belongs to the tradition to the paramparā of the rishis. It is they who for thousands of years have spoken the same words. For thousands of years they have been saying the same thing: “Know thyself.” In the Oracle of Delphi, in the teachings of the Upanishads: ātmanam vidhi: Know thyself.

But we try to know the whole world. We also try to know the faults of everybody, and how the galaxies are formed and how the atoms work. And whether there is a Higgs boson or not, or whether Higgs boson is truly a particle. And something I find it to be the most hilarious scientific joke of the century: to take some tiny ripple of energy and choose to call it the “God particle” because the wisdom of the rishis and yogis in their interior seeking is not taken seriously

Whatever I have spoken has come from that tradition that flows through my master and to a very, very small degree flows through me, which is not at all mine. And why do I do this? Because I wish for you to connect with that interior resource and that interior source – that interior resource and the interior source from which you can draw from the fountain of wisdom and become the guides to the big, wide, ever-fighting, quarrelsome world.

I always beseech you, and I beseech you again: Be ambitious! Be ambitious – ambitious enough to know thyself in this life. There can be no greater ambition than that. To be ambitious; then, to lead this striving, struggling, suffering world to centuries of wisdom and peace. People ask what kind of future can we expect in the coming centuries, as though the yogis were some kind of a super astrologer who can tell you which nations will be threatening, rattling what bombs three hundred years from now. That is not what we are here for. We are here to give the future centuries a direction – for you to be ambitious enough to be the kind of person who can give that direction by your mind, your words, your acts, your thoughts, your choices. Cease to live in these depressions! Cease to live in this darkness of anger! I have composed some messages for just this Sangha gathering: Sadhana in applied Spirituality.

People ask, “What is the meaning of my mantra?” People should ask, “How do I apply the meaning of my mantra to my social life, to my family life, to my emotions in life?” Our mantra initiators, of whom we have nineteen in number, also need to guide you on how to apply the meaning of your mantra to your society, your family, your relationships, based on – nothing new here that I’m saying – your choice of emotions. Your choice. You are here to learn that art.

While you are here, if you do nothing else, become mindful of your thoughts. Become mindful of your thoughts. Learn to detect your thoughts. Learn to observe your thoughts. Practice that.

What was I thinking two seconds ago?
Why was I thinking that?
Was it something creative?
Was it something loving?
Was it something critical of others?

The one person or society or country or people or present situations in which I find myself, of which I was critical seconds ago in my mind, could I have been appreciative instead? I have made these suggestions and I would like you to read these and that is why I have called it Sadhana in Applied Spirituality.

There are two kinds of spirituality. There is ‘armchair spirituality,’ like armchair traveling: You sit down in a nice easy chair and read National Geographic, and you are traveling. The other is the actual travel. And many of us spend a lot of our time addicted to this ‘armchair spirituality.’

We sit there and imagine what God might be like, and send a three-page letter to Swami and ask him to explain what is God. And if Swami cannot answer that three-page letter because he has four hours of emails every night to look at, then they send me a reminder. People actually send me a reminder: “Swami, I am reminding you of your duty as a Swami. I wrote you three days ago and you have not replied.” I get these appreciations as well.

So use this time to master the art of the observation of your thoughts. What was the thought I was thinking two seconds ago, five seconds ago, when I woke up this morning? Why was I thinking that? Instead of an emotion that led me to criticize a person or a situation, could I have chosen in my mind to feel an appreciation and gratitude for other qualities, other positive components of that situation? Thus, learning to replace all that is of the dross.

Humanity has become excuse me, a garbage producing machine. There are almost islands of garbage floating on some parts of the sea. But I am not talking of the plastic garbage; that is the byproduct of the garbage we are producing with our minds. From this moment on, what do you want your mind to produce? Meditation will give you guidance. It will give you a peacefulness. But fifteen minutes of meditation and the rest of the time: twenty three hours, forty five minutes of what? And then again fifteen minutes of meditation. “Swamiji, when I sit down to meditate, I get all these disturbing kinds of thoughts arising. Why do these thoughts arise? Where do they come from?” Because that is what you have gathered for twenty-three hours and forty-five minutes; when you close your eyes, you see them in the mirror of your mind.

So your applied spirituality is in those twenty-three hours and forty-five minutes. So first I have given you the easy practice: Learn to observe your thoughts.

I have given you a more difficult practice that you should do while you are here. Can you guess what it is? Learn to observe the state of your forehead. And when you meet each other say, “How is your forehead doing?” Every gathering we have here, every time I speak I give the same practice; I have been giving that for a decade: keep your forehead relaxed. Very difficult, right? Learn to observe the state of your forehead. Just that external part of your musculature can trigger a different mood, a different mode in your neocortex and in your limbic system. Try it! You make so many experiments with your life. Can’t you make this experiment seriously for the next ten days? And see what happens?

In the last portion of this little collection of compositions, Sadhana in Applied Spirituality, the last chapter is titled “Internal Sadhana,” in which I have given you some recitations to strengthen your saṅkalpa. I was planning to record these recitations and I haven’t gotten around to doing it. I am hoping to do them tonight. Those CDs of the recitations will be available to you to strengthen your saṅkalpa, to strengthen your spiritual resolve – and to keep reinforcing them.

We have a family elder taking the vows of vānaprastha during this event, and this is one of the mantras we recite during those vows:

व्रतानाम् व्रतपते व्रतम् चरिष्यामि तत् ते प्रप्रवीमि।
तत् शकेयं तेनर्द्यासम् इदम् अहम् अमृतात् सप्तम् उपैमिं॥

vratānām vratapate vratam cariṣyāmi tat te prapravīmi|
tat śakeyaṁ tenardyāsam idam aham amṛtāt saptam upaimiṁ.

“Oh the Lord guardian of vows and resolves,” enunciated the ancient Vedic Rishi. “Oh the Lord and Guardian and Protector of Vows and resolves, I undertake this vow and this resolve, this I declare to Thee,” – not to the whole world, but to God – “may I, by Your grace, succeed in following this vow. Following this resolve, may I thereby grow. Here and now I abandon all untruth and surrender myself to Truth.”

This is for strengthening your resolve for practicing applied spirituality.

There is also a hymn that we recite here in the ashram every night. It is known as the “Shiva Sankalpa Hymn.” This is a rather difficult-to-read translation here. It is difficult to read because you need to read a sentence, sit back and contemplate – and then read the next sentence. You can take a year to read these twenty pages if you like. It can take that long. The “Shiva Sankalpa Hymn” is the hymn of beautiful, benevolent, beneficial, beneficent, thoughts, resolves, sentiments and emotions, whereby you may become a veritable Shiva, the benevolent, the ever-beneficent God.

I will recite the six mantras and we will record them for you: Om yaj jāgrato dūram udaiti, daivaṁ. We recite it every night because the night, which you waste, is the most beautiful, sweetest, most useful, most helpful time for cultivating your thoughts, for cultivating your sentiments, for cultivating your emotions. You just need to know the little tricks of the art – how to use the night.

I wish you would learn how to use the night. That is part of your applied spirituality. I am not saying that you should give up sleeping, but learn to use that sleep as an instrument of purifying yourself. I grew up as a child reciting with my family the same hymn every night before going to sleep: the “Shiva Sankalpa Hymn”:

Om yaj jāgrato dūram udaiti, daivaṁ
tad u suptasya tathaivaiti
dūraṅgamam jyotiṣhāṁ jyotir ekam
tan me manaḥ śhiva-saṅkalpam astu.

That which travels far while I am awake,
which likewise wanders far while I am asleep,
this far going one light of many lights –
jyotiṣhāṁ jyotir ekam – one light of many lights,
may this my mind be Shiva Sankalpa,
a place of beautiful, benevolent, beneficent, peaceful,
meditative resolves, thoughts, sentiments, emotions, inclinations.

As we go along, I will explain this more. I am sorry that I cannot meet you personally. It is very difficult for me. His Holiness the Dalai Lama is retired. His Holiness the Pope has resigned. Why doesn’t a small fry like me have the freedom to withdraw into silence? It takes me all of these twenty-four hours to be resting, to be silent to do my internal things before I sit before you. I am sharing with you my cardiac energy to speak for forty-five minutes, and some days I may not be able to do that. So please don’t press my body. Listen. Resolve. Apply.

Keep your forehead relaxed and do that – especially at stressful times. Do that especially at challenging times. Let us say that your airplane is late, or your bus is late. By wrinkling your forehead, it is not going to come any faster. I don’t know who gave you the idea that the solution to every problem in the world is to wrinkle the forehead.

Can you form one new habit? Speak gently. No. Feel gentle thoughts. Thereby you will speak gently.

Those who wish to sit at the yajña can sit there. The whole idea of the yajña is to take your very essences and offer them into the divine fire saying Na mama: “Not mine, not mine” – “I burn it into the divine fire. I make myself an offering into the divine fire.” So those who wish to sit there, please benefit from that experience. Feel free.

Those who are not staying here on campus, unfortunately, you’ll come in the mornings and stay here during the day. I hope you will find it comfortable. I saw last night that they have put sixty beds for your daytime rest. You can go and rest there if you are staying elsewhere. But please, if you use a bed to rest, before you leave it, make it up for others because we don’t have a hotel staff to fix it up for you. You be the volunteers.

There is one thing I want to do today. It is getting to be 6 o’clock soon and I don’t want you to miss your dinner. This event has been in preparation for the last three years. There is one person who has helped to organize, who has publicized, who has remained in communication with, and who in the last six years has maintained connections among, all the different arms of the AHYMSIN family. Constantly in communication behind the scenes, holding a position only as a mantra initiator, holding no high administrative position, helping me immensely in this way. Normally we give an honor at the end of a series. but at the end of the series, on the Purnahuti day I will do the final fire offerings, and at twelve noon I will start my silence on 10th of March, so I will not have the time for that at that time.

I hope that many people will come along as a result of this Sangha gathering who will help this very special humble person with the work she has been doing and, as I said, through communication, keeping all the arms of the AHYMSIN family in touch with each other. The only person, only leader without claiming leadership has managed to do that. Can you guess which one of you? May I ask her to come forward please. You know who I am calling. Please stand and accept my appreciation. Thank you, Carolyn. God bless you. You have been invaluable. Don’t you agree with my choice?

And the third thing. Before you all go. Now don’t get jealous. I also have for everyone a special shawl with the Gayatri mantra imprinted on it for your meditation practice and everyone will receive this as a gift from me to take home. It has the Gayatri mantra written all over it. It will look very nice on you when you sit to meditate. There is also a new book which has been published just for this occasion: “Kundalini Stilled or Stirred. How do you want your kundalinī served, stirred or stilled”? That is the title of the book.

“Swamiji when I sit to meditate, my body starts moving around. My head starts shaking. I feel this tremble. I must be arriving at a very high place.” So I asked, you want your kundalinī stirred or stilled? We are on the path of ‘stilled’ not on the path of ‘stirred.’ You can take this and study the meaning of kundalinī in the context of what we are aspiring to achieve. And also watching your thoughts and replacing them with Shiva Sankalpa. Make that resolve now to keep your forehead relaxed. And every hour or two, when waking up, before breakfast, before going to a lecture, before going somewhere, in between activities, take two or three minutes of self-awareness repeatedly throughout the day. Apply that. Don’t forget. Starting when? Tomorrow evening, right? (Laughter)

Just bring your mind’s attention to yourself.
Relax your forehead. Feel the flow and the touch of your breath in your nostrils.
Maintain the feel of the flow, breathing gently, slowly, smoothly with your mantra flowing.
Maintain the flow.
Observe how the mind, mantra and the breath are flowing together as a single stream.
Your entire consciousness becomes an even flowing stream.
Without breaking the flow, gently open your eyes.

Resolve to do this practice for two or three minutes many times during the day.

Resolve to keep the forehead relaxed.

Resolve to observe your disturbing thoughts and replace them with beautiful benevolent and the beneficent thoughts.

May God and Guru bless us all.

The Last Statement of Swami Veda Bharati

Before Taking the Five-Year Vow of Silence

At the Gathering of the Sangha 9^th March 2013

[During Swami Veda’s talk on 9th March 2013 at the 2013 Sangha Gathering, Swamiji introduced the practice for “the next five years and the rest of your life.” This is a transcript of that talk.]

Om
Gurave namaḥ.
Parama-gurave namaḥ.
Parameṣhṭhi-gurave namaḥ.
Paramparā-gurubhyo namaḥ.

Akhaṇḍa-maṇḍalākaraṁ vyāptaṁ yena charācharam.
Tat padaṁ darshitaṁ yena tasmai shrī-gurave namaḥ.

Hiraṇya-garbhād ārabdhām sheṣha-vyāsādi-madhyamām.
Svāmi-shrī-rāma-pādāntāṁ vande guru-paramparām.

Om tat sat brahmārpaṇam astu.
Om sham.

---

Hari Om

In the past nine days we have covered the grounds on spiritual stations. Stations in meditational and spiritual progress. We have also covered a little of the traps into which we can fall along the way.

I am sorry to say that today I am not going to say anything profound. Not that I was saying anything profound before.

You can ask my Gurus. They will tell you how shallow I am. They will tell you.

I wish One of Them could be present here, and could guide you personally

with Their own presence,
with Their own words,
with Their own voice and sound.

Then you will know what a Guru is.

Yesterday I had the honour of welcoming not very formally, my spiritually adopted sister, Professor Bettina Sharada. Today I have the pleasure of welcoming Dena Merriam.

Little slips of paper with questions keep coming my way. Some of them I have already answered; so just go back to those answers. Do remember: do not get trapped by every experience inside of you.

For example, people talk of ‘out of body experience’. I am a very scientific-minded yogi like my Guru. Very scientific minded. If there is a scientific explanation for something, I do not accept it as pure spiritual experience.

To me pure spiritual experience is only of ātman. Some of these outer body experiences are works of, and are of certain sections of the brain that trigger certain sensations and project them, and you think that you are flying away into the heavens.

Those are not spiritual experiences. They are cerebral experiences. Now one thing to remember is that sometimes these cerebral experiences may be triggered by a spiritual station. Sometimes these cerebral experiences may be triggered by spiritual development. Quite often also these cerebral experiences may be stepping-stones to something purely spiritual. They are not to be rejected, but do not think that you are now enlightened because you have had an outer body experience.

In my own personal sādhanā, I am very careful. Sometimes I feel that I am not careful enough. I am very careful that I do not attribute to myself any special powers and special experiences and make myself into a Guru. I am careful that I do not take my spiritual experiences seriously except the ones imparted to me by my Guru. I am very careful but still not always careful enough, as I do get trapped for a short while. But l pull myself out and as I told you whatever I am teaching you is autobiographical.

Now today’s topic is a little different one. Our organizers are working on the coming programmes. I am sure that all of you have received a copy of this small book Sādhanā in Applied Spirituality ¹, this is written especially for this occasion. It is applied spirituality. It is written for the family. We are not publishing it for the general public at this time.

Your next five years and for the rest of your life

For your next five years and for the rest of your life,

whatever mālās you do,

whatever mantras you do,

whatever breathing you do, do continue these, and,

in order to avoid getting trapped by

ego,

vanity,

feeling of power, feeling of position,

feeling of your worldly station – identifying too closely with it, and then dealing with other people on that basis of your assumed station,

to avoid all of that, you need to do these practices as taught in Sadhana in Applied Spirituality.

These are not practices that you do sitting down. These are what you do in your

daily emotions,

feelings,

voice quality,

communication,

relationships.

This is much more difficult than sitting down with your mala for twenty minutes a day. Do sit with your mala, but do practice this application in your daily life.

We have a word in our Tradition, a very common Sanskrit word “vrata”. It is roughly translated in English as a ‘vow’. It is an observance. For example, a one day of fasting is a vrata. One day of silence is a vrata. Three years vow of celibacy, ‘brahmacharya’, that some people have taken today that is a vrata. So your vrata for the next five years and for the rest of your life included, is the vrata of “Shiva-saṅkalpa”.

We have printed out the mantra. There will be another printout where the mantra is written in the original Vedic language and script.

Now these are six mantras of ‘Shiva-saṅkalpa Sūkta’ or the Shiva-saṅkalpa hymn. In this Ashram we recite them every night. I grew up as a child reciting them with the family before going to sleep every night. At that time I did not know that I will be advising a few hundred people to practise it. Now everything depends on your capacity. Everything depends on your capacity. So you can repeatedly in the day renew your vrata, your Shiva-saṅkalpa vrata, simply by one short phrase which is the refrain of all these six mantras of Yajur Veda. That short phrase is the last line of each of these.

It is also in the Handbook of the Ashram, but the translation is a little bit different. In the handbook it is on pages 25-27. But I will be distributing this translation and a different printout. So when you collect your CD from AHYMSIN Publishers, leave your address to which these can be mailed. By email or in printed form. [Editor’s Note: Please use this link to download the recordings: ShivaSankalpaSukta.zip]

So let us first recite this short phrase together:

Tan me manaḥ shiva-saṅkalpam astu
Tan me manaḥ shiva-saṅkalpam astu
Tan me manaḥ shiva-saṅkalpam astu

Now on this entire hymn, I have a little booklet also with translations of some great Veda Masters. The Shiva-saṅkalpa booklet you can read that with much care and very very slowly. Don’t just look at it and say I don’t understand it, and put it away. Take your time to understand it. So recite with me:

Tan me manaḥ shiva-saṅkalpam astu
Tan me manaḥ shiva-saṅkalpam astu
Tan me manaḥ shiva-saṅkalpam astu

May that mind of mine be shiva-saṅkalpa.

Shiva –

benevolent,
beneficent,
meditative,
Shiva-like,
Godly,
divine mind.

Because you cannot practice what is advised in this ‘Sādhanā in Applied Spirituality’

without applying your mind,
without purifying your mind,

this is a prayer for mind’s purification, mind’s pacification.

To make the mind one in which, not by effort but naturally, [what was that word for ‘naturally’? ‘Sahaja’!], in the sahaja way, only the beneficent, benevolent, peaceful, meditative, godly Shiva-like divine thoughts, sentiments, emotions, and resolves arise.

Swami Rama often talked about saṅkalpa – or saṅkalpa shakti – the power of resolves. These are the mantras, verses for developing the power of resolve. Developing saṅkalpa shakti.

You don’t have to do ten million recitations and repetitions of this.

Do a few repetitions at your meditation time, but during the day, just like those two other practices:

Keep the forehead relaxed.

Every 2-3 hours, do 2-3 minutes of breath awareness with your mantra.

Do this third practice:

Every 2-3 hours, Shiva-saṅkalpa -strengthening your resolve to be sāttvic so that only the sāttvic thoughts, feelings and sentiments arise in you and they become your saṅkalpa. They become your resolve.

So recite that phrase, that short fourth line again with me.

Tan me manaḥ shiva-saṅkalpam astu
Tan me manaḥ shiva-saṅkalpam astu
Tan me manaḥ shiva-saṅkalpam astu

Now I will help you recite the full first mantra. Those who have the capacity for the full recitation may do so.

I should have made the recording even before you arrived here nine-ten days ago. I was not able to do it and I kept saying ‘I’ll do it today, I’ll do it today,” but there wasn’t time, and last night I had Dr. Sanjay Shastri do the recordings so that the recordings are now available.

Om yaj jāgrato dūram udaiti, daivaṁ
tad u suptasya tathaivaiti
dūraṅgamam jyotiṣhāṁ jyotir ekam
tan me manaḥ shiva-saṅkalpam astu. 

I will not go through the recitation of all the six mantras of the hymn at this time. You get hold of the CD and learn from there. Let me read to you a translation.

 

[Note: Please use this link to download the recordings: ShivaSankalpaSukta.zip]

 

Now please remember that there is no human being on earth, no matter how much he is expert in languages and grammar. There is no human being on earth who can translate the Vedas. Yes, there are translations. You can get them. There is no human being who can render them in another language. I give you an example. if I were to start translating the Vedas – the very first word of the Vedas is ‘agni’ – “agnim īle purohitam”. The sacred fire that we burn in our ‘yajña-shālā’. It is the same word agni from which you get the word ‘igneous’ and the ‘ignition’ key in your car. When you turn the ignition key say, “agnim īle”! There is a mantra for that.

One great translator Swami Dayanand Saraswati has translated the word ‘agni’ in two hundred and fifty six different ways. “agnim īle purohitaṁ yajñasya devam ṛtvijam. Hotāraṁ ratna-dhātamam”. Nine words in that first mantra of Rig Veda. Now if I were to take two hundred and fifty six meanings of each of those words, how many translations will I do? Cannot. So just by reading this in English don’t think that you have got the translation. But here is this rough attempt at a very shallow level. I’ll read it for you –

That which travels far while one is awake
That which similarly goes far while one is asleep
May that far-reaching one light of many lights
May that, my mind, be filled with beautiful and benevolent resolves

I have expanded it to more beautiful, beneficent, peaceful, meditative, Siva-like, divine thoughts, feelings, sentiments, emotions, resolves. They are all contained in the word ‘shiva-saṅkalpam’.

That with which all the wise ones perform their actions
And the sacrificers perform their priestly duties and worship
That which is the unique, mysterious personality hidden within all beings
May that, my mind, be filled with beautiful and benevolent resolves

That which is the absolute knowledge,

That which is the reservoir of the mind stuff
That which is memory and steadfastness and sustenance that which is the light hidden within beings
That without which no action can be performed
May that, my mind, be filled with beautiful, benevolent, beneficent, peaceful, Siva-like, divine thoughts, feelings, sentiments, emotions, resolves

That Immortal One by which all the past, present, future
All of this world is held, that by which – through which the sacrifice of the seven priests (points to the seven chakras in the body) is extended and performed,
May that, my mind, be filled with beautiful and benevolent resolves

That in which the three Vedas: Rig of Knowledge, Yajuṣh of Actions, Sāman, the music of Realization
The three branches of Wisdom are held as spokes in the hub of a wheel
That in which the mind-stuff of all living beings is woven and interwoven,
May that, my mind, be filled with beautiful and benevolent resolves.

As a good charioteer controls the horses and leads them on the right path
Frequently, holding the reins fast, controlling them though they be speedy,
So the mind controls the senses,

This which has its seat in the heart ever moving, the speediest of the forces
May that, my mind, be filled with beautiful and benevolent resolves.

I am doing a much larger book on this hymn but I am not getting time to do what I need to do with it. Someday it will come to you, but in the meantime you can utilize for contemplation:

the little booklet on Shiva-saṅkalpa.

the CD,

the printout,

and of course your assignment for the years to come.

Then normally when we give ‘saṁnyāsa dīkṣhā’ (vows of renunciation) and confer the saffron vestments to the new saṁnyāsin on the banks of the Ganges, we give them a ‘māhavākya,’ a ‘great sentence’ from the scriptures.

There are many mahāvākyas, four of whom are very well known in the Vedanta tradition, but there are many others that I also use. I am not preparing you, to give you, confer on you saffron. Your one yellow shawl with Gāyatrī is enough, but I am giving you a ‘mahāvākya’ for contemplation.

 

That mahāvākya is “Om khaṁ Brahma”. “Om khaṁ Brahma”

‘Om’, for this, read Swami Rama’s two commentaries. Two commentaries on Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad².

‘Khaṁ’ means space, shūnya, transcendental Null.

‘Brahma’. Brahman – supreme, transcendental, all expansive, absolute reality.

You can read my comments on that³.

October Teaching on Mahāvākyas

On some dates between October 15-30, 2014, I will do a special teaching on mahāvākyas, the great sentences of Vedanta and the Yoga Tradition, by sitting with a computer and you can work from the screen. My adoptive spiritual sister Bettina Baumer, at the same time, will be teaching a very fundamental Tantra text called: ‘Vijñāna-Bhairava’. [Note: Swami Veda will no longer be doing the teaching on the mahāvākyas; however, Bettina Baumer will be teaching a course on the ‘Vijñāna-Bhairava’  17^th – 26^th October 2014 at Swami Rama Sadhaka Grama.

There will be other courses, other programmes going on here in between the times and you can keep a lookout for the announcements, and do please encourage your friends and so on to attend these. [Please see our Upcoming Events at http://ahymsin.org/main/events-maps-schedules/upcoming-events.html ]

Resolve for 5 Year Silence

Now some people think that I am some kind of a hero so bravely going into silence for 5 years. I tell you it is no big deal. For thousands of years yogis have been taking to the vows of silence.

I have a friend Swami who has been silent for 9 years. I have a friend Swami who has been silent for the past 27-28 years and I always send people from this Ashram to go and visit his Ashram. It is about less than 2 hours from here. He is also quite physically frail and old; he had very much wanted to come for this occasion, but his body would not permit. So many things that our body does not permit, so what can we do?

I will take one or two minutes extra…

Since I have been brought up in the Vedic lore and sat with my father for an hour of meditation from the age of 4 or 5. My father had been initiated by a great yogi, but that is a different story. He was always looking for great yogis. So in the afternoon, we used to go for a walk on the Rajpur Road in Dehradun where I was born. From the other side on the road our neighbour was coming with a Swami. That was a first time I saw a Swami coming down from the Himalayas. The light on his face impressed me. The neighbour friend said: I found him sitting by the roadside. He has been in silence for the last 25 years and has not spoken a word for these many years. He had been a silent Swami. That was the first time, I must have been about 6, that I met a silent Swami. From that moment on I knew this is something to aspire for. This is something to be. The duties of life, the duties for my Guru, they have kept me going and blabbing and blabbing.

But don’t you think that I need to fulfill one wish of mine? And you all can make it possible for me? You take over the mission. You take care of this Ashram. You take care of the global network we have and let me practise my lifelong wish to be a silent Swami.

So I thank you all, really thank you all for being here. At one time we had requests from 700 people to come from 25 countries. But for some in this day and age the costs are too high, and we cannot manage with less and so on. So we have 350 from outside and another 50. So we have about 400-450 people participating. I feel very fulfilled by your presence and I would like you to go feeling fulfilled and take your spiritual life one step further.

One step further

One step further

by self-purification,
by self-pacification,

making yourself peaceful beings.

Shiva-saṅkalpa – your minds and hearts filled with

beautiful,
benevolent,
beneficent,
peaceful,
Shiva-like divine thoughts, feelings sentiments, emotions and resolves.

May this vrata of yours – Shiva-saṅkalpa – be a source of fulfillment for you.

Om.

Hari Om Tat Sat.

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¹Available from AHYMSIN Publishers ahymsinpublishers@gmail.com

²Enlightenment without God, and Om, the Eternal Witness by Swami Rama, available through AHYMSIN Publications and other bookstores and outlets.

³Sadhana in Applied Spirituality, Swami Veda Bharati, p. 108

Note: Please see these links

Sadhana in Applied Spirituality at https://www.ahymsin.org/main/sadhana-in-applied-spirituality

Shiva-Sankalpa-Sūktam at https://www.ahymsin.org/main/Miscellaneous/shiva-sankalpa-sktam.html

Shiva-Sankalpa-Sūktam (From SRSG Handbook) at https://www.ahymsin.org/main/Miscellaneous/iva-sankalpa-sktam.html

Shiva Sankalpa Prayer at https://www.ahymsin.org/main/Swami-Veda-Bharati/shiva-sankalpa-prayer.html

Shiva Sankalpa Sukta at https://www.ahymsin.org/main/Swami-Veda-Bharati/shiva-sankalpa-sukta.html

Download the recordings: http://ahymsin.org/docs2/2013/ShivaSankalpaSukta.zip

To read the transcripts of the other lectures given by Swamiji at the 2013 Sangha Gathering: http://ahymsin.org/main/swami-veda-bharati/swami-veda-bharati-s-lectures-at-the-2013-sangha-gathering.html

That which travels far while one is awake,

That which also similarly goes far while one is asleep,
May that far-reaching one light of many lights,
May that, my mind, be filled with beautiful and benevolent resolves.

That with which all the wise men perform their actions
And the sacrificers perform their priestly duties and worship,
That which is the unique, mysterious personality hidden within all beings,
May that, my mind, be filled with beautiful and benevolent resolves.

That which is the absolute knowledge, that which is the reservoir of the mind-stuff,
That which is memory, and steadfastness and sustenance, that which is the light hidden within beings, that without which no action is performed,
May that, my mind, be filled with beautiful and benevolent resolves.

That Immortal One by which all the past, present, future,
All of this world is held, that by which — through which the sacrifice of the seven priests is extended and performed,
May that, my mind, be filled with beautiful and benevolent resolves.

That in which the three Vedas: Rig (Knowledge), Yajas (Action), Sama (Realization)
The three branches of Wisdom are held as spokes in the hub (of the wheel),
That in which the mind-stuff of all living beings is woven and interwoven,
May that, my mind, be filled with beautiful and benevolent resolves.

Like a good charioteer controls the horses and leads them on the right path
Frequently, holding the reins fast, controlling them though they be speedy,
So the mind controls the senses, this which has its seat in the heart,
Ever moving, the speediest of the forces.
May that, my mind, be filled with beautiful and benevolent resolves.

************************************************************************************

Swami Veda’s translation is from the 1970’s and 1980’s when the Shiva Sankalpa Prayer was recited as part of the evening prayers.

Let me but once still myself. When I am still, will my senses become inoperative? Will my activity all cease? Is that a state, something, to aspire for? Only that stillness, which at present lies occluded, will be experienced and it will become known that stillness is not absence of activity, it is the only source of activity. That, silence is not an absence of speech; silence is the source of speech. It will be known that non-violence is not an absence of violent action; it is overflowing love in which there is no other.Love ceases when love exists. There shall be no more love, for another. There shall be no more love towards an alien. When I have ceased the otherness, I cannot love another. When there is no alien, there is no hate. When love is, love ceases. When love ceases, then love is. If love is between two, the ‘two’ ceases, so love ceases. God, give me that love, that by its very existence ceases and I fail to say ‘I love another’. For, I look around and I find no other. Whom shall I love? Then love becomes my own Self, filled with the Self to the brim.

When I put a sword through an ‘enemy’, if I have love, it is through myself that that sword has pierced. Whom shall I see with my eyes, when there is no ‘other’ to see. For my own Self to see, I need no eyes.

In the stillness of consciousness within you, within me, who am one, one hears the still and the silent voice, and slowly that voice too trails off. And, in that dimension, which is no dimension, in the deep heart of a living sun, I and the light are one. “I and my Father are one” – said Jesus. I am the light. I am all the ways. I am the life force. Whether the Father speaks or the son speaks, it is I who speak. In the son the Father speaks. In the Father the son speaks.

When you meditate, let your senses still themselves and it is in that stillness that the apex of all energy will be reached. It is in that stillness that all will be energized. It is in that stillness of the mind that the mind will be filled. It will be so filled that the whole universe may come and each entity and each one who has assumed a separateness of being may come and dip their vessel in your mind and go away, filling their vessel. You will know that nothing empty came. Nothing full returned. There is only a force known as consciousness, as life —-I am that.

Thus, we contemplate on the great sentences of Vedanta.

Sarvam khalv-idam brahma:
All this (world of phenomena) is Brahman.

Ekam-evadvitiyam:
There is only one Brahman, without a second.

Mrtyoh sa mrtyum apnoti, Ya iha naneva pashyati:
From death to death he proceeds who sees as though there were many (phenomena) here.

Prajnanam brahma:
Brahman is pure consciousness.

Tat tvam asi:
You are that.

Aham brahma-asmi:
I am Brahman.

Ayam atma brahma:
This self is Brahman.

Brahman alone is truth, is real. The universe is a myth. Jiva, that which you call the individual soul, is itself Brahman. It is no other.

It is unbound.

How can a river’s soaking lips be parched?
How the flowing stream tongue feel dry?
How the Lord of Free Will be
by slender fibres bound?
How can our solar soul ever wilt or die?

Death liberates me from bondage of life
Liberation frees me from fetters of death.
When thus I am returned to life’s Freedom City
without any of enfleshment’s confining idiom,
Freedom sings to me a fairy song that says:

All in the all sans ‘was,’ ‘will be,’ ‘shall cease,’
is ever pure ever wise unbound ever free.

Soar, soar, soar from every luminous pore
of mine, O lightning, to sky’s farthest shore.
Roar, roar, roar, from woods that minds explore,
O Silences, to suns and suns yonder more,
Yea, to every distant sun’s
deep fathomless fire core.

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Editor’s Note

One of a series of contemplations guided at The Meditation Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.