G. SELF-CONTROL
Knowledge cannot save a person from entering into darkness, bondage and grief, unless it is infilled with wisdom and discrimination at every step, and unless the power of choice is wisely and effectively exercised. Even knowledge combined with wisdom and discrimination will prove futile, vain and ineffective unless it is backed up by strong will-power to apply the knowledge in a determined, resolute way.
Therefore, knowledge is good, but it is useless unless it is infilled and supported by wisdom. Wisdom is good, but it is ineffective unless it is supported by discrimination and right enquiry. Discrimination and right enquiry are good, but they cannot help you if they are not supported by inner spiritual strength, determination, sincerity, earnestness and a resolute will.
52. LIBERATION HAS AN IMMEDIATE RELEVANCE
The supreme, ultimate goal of the Vedic way of life is moksha or liberation. And while the immediacy of this goal has been posited and affirmed in the here and now sense of jivan-mukti (liberated in this life while still living), still a feeling has been created that it is something remote to be striven after, to be attained, to be reached far away, a distant goal: “yad gatva na nivartante tad dhama paramam mama (Having gone thither, they return not: that is My supreme abode).”
But liberation has a relevance, an immediate relevance and implication as well. And perhaps if this immediate implication is not recognised, understood and grasped, then the traditional concept of liberation will always continue to be a far-off, distant and remote attainment. Perhaps we will never reach towards it.
For, there are many things—it is not only ajnana or ignorance—that bind the jivatman in this body. There are many other petty things—petty but powerful—that hold us to this earth-life consciousness, to jivahood. They have been binding us since birth. And, it is to liberate ourselves from this immediate bondage that a certain way of life has been prescribed for us within the context of the Vedic way of life.
The first thing we have to liberate ourselves from is selfishness. Identification with the body creates a false sense of a separate personality, an entity. And it is not only a false sense. It is a false sense of a false personality, where the falseness of the false personality is carefully veiled away from our perception. It is endowed with a sense of being a solid reality, and we are bound to it. This is the veil of maya.
Due to this sense of a separate identity and the idea that this personality is very, very important, there arises selfishness. A selfish person always expects something from others. And where there is expectation there is misery—there is always misery. There is also raga-dvesha, like and dislike, attraction and repulsion. There is anger also. All these are defects of selfishness.
But the foremost defect of selfishness is expectation. A selfish psyche or individual expects something from others, from this world, from everything, all of God’s creation. And expectation means misery. So, if you want to liberate yourself from misery, you have to liberate yourself from selfishness through a new approach to life.
If your attitude becomes one of unselfishness, of selflessness, of living for others, not demanding or taking from others, you will expect nothing, but you will give everything. Then you are freed from the frustration and disappointment of non-fulfilment of expectation, because there is no expectation to be fulfilled. So the misery of non-fulfilment is out of the question for you. You eliminate it from your life. You become contented. You are a happy, cheerful, satisfied person.
We also have to gradually learn to liberate ourselves from the stern tyrannical demands of the annamaya kosa or the gross body. To do this, Patanjali prescribed tapasya. Train yourself to hardship, simplicity of life. Do not pamper your body. Do not be luxurious. Don’t be a softy all your life. Do not give in to the body’s demands for comfort and luxury. In its extreme form it can mean walking with bare feet and keeping your head uncovered in the hot summer sun. Thus, liberate yourself from the tyrannical stranglehold that the body has on you.
Now, this is indicative of what liberation means. Apply it to the demands that each one of the kosas (sheaths) makes upon your consciousness: the pranic sheath with its hunger and thirst, the mental sheath with its sentiments, desires, scheming, imaginations and projecting into the future. In a hundred ways they tyrannise you. But unless you liberate yourself from their tyrannical stranglehold, how can you expect supreme liberation? Unless you liberate yourself from these little attachments, these little earthly affections—sense pleasures, sense of importance—how can you expect aparoksha-anubhuti?
We must further liberate ourselves from earthly affections and attachments. As long as you have earthly affections and attachments, they divert your mind and they focus your attention and energy towards themselves. And, as long as your mind and heart are scattered and focussed upon various things, giving yourself with all your heart to the Supreme Reality is out of the question.
Liberating yourself from earthly attachments and affections is a preparation, an indispensable prerequisite to fulfilling the greatest of all commandments of the Lord Jesus to love the Lord thy God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul—with your entire being. We must refuse to be beguiled, attracted and entangled in created things. Say: “Not anything you have created, O Lord, but You and You alone is whom I desire, whom I long for, whom I yearn after, whom I love and cherish with all my heart’s love and devotion.” That is necessary if you want to have atma-nishtha (steady abidance in the Self).
Therefore, you must liberate yourself from the powerful pull of the senses towards their sense-objects. You must learn to recognise the hollowness of all things. What we think is pleasure is actually pain. What we think is happiness is actually misery. Ye hi samsparsaja bhoga duhkha-yonaya eva te (The enjoyments that are born of contacts are only wombs of pain). Thus, very, very categorically, clearly, unambiguously and unmistakably this truth has been put before us, not merely for our knowledge or information, but for making it the basis of our relationship with all the pleasurable sensations and attractions of sense-objects.
Therefore, when this is known, curbing the senses becomes natural. You don’t want to rush towards your own unhappiness. You don’t want to rush towards misery and pain. The viveki (discriminating one) doesn’t do it. The budhah, one who is awakened in intellect, does not go after them. Be a wise person. Be a viveki. Liberate yourself from the pains that arise by expecting pleasurable sensations from things that are the source of misery and pain.
Therefore, liberate yourself from the senses that drag you towards the sense-objects. Liberate yourself from the tendency of the mind to move towards the senses. Discipline and control of the senses and conquest of the mind is also an immediate liberation. This is liberation for you. It has an immediate relevance, and unless this liberation in its immediacy is first of all recognised, pursued and attained, you cannot move forward to that ultimate liberation.
Liberation commences here and now. Liberation must be attained right here. And it is only when you know that the whole visible universe is a myth, a dream, a long drawn dream—it has no substance, it is meaningless, it is like a bubble, its value is zero—that you become liberated from the immediate oppressive sense of the so-called solid reality of this world. Vedanta alone can liberate you here and now from this oppressive sense.
You cannot go after two realities. If you want to dedicate yourself totally to the attainment of the Reality, it cannot have a competitor. It is either the world or God. It is either the anatman or the Atman. Everything created is a great jugglery of maya. Not only this universe, but millions and billions of universes constitute a big cipher to the true Vedantin or the true lover of God.
We should liberate ourselves right now! Liberation from this sense of reality of the outer universe brings immediate, total serenity. There is no inclination for the inner being to move either this way or that way. For one knows that one moves only towards ciphers, empty nothings. So, why burden yourself by moving towards something which has no meaning, no value, no substance?
Thus one becomes settled in the inner sanctum. Serenity prevails. Peace descends. One is always steadfastly established in a peace that is unknown to one who takes this world to be a reality.
Thus, the immediate liberation of oneself from selfishness, love of created things, the attractions of pleasurable sense-objects and the sense of reality of appearances, becomes a great blessedness, a great state of blessedness. It yields immediate dividends here and now. You don’t have to wait for some far-off state. Instantaneous is the gain of this progressive process of liberating yourself from all that holds you bound to anything else other than the Supreme Reality.
Liberate yourself every moment. Keep on liberating yourself with every breath, every step that you take. Let your entire day-to-day living be a process of ever liberating yourself from every factor that binds you. This is the process. This is the sadhana—the unseen sadhana—known to you, seen by God and none else. Launch yourself upon this process of immediate liberation right now and get immediate gains step by step, progressively! There is no end to this immediate gain and blessedness, ever-increasing blessedness!
53. SELF-MANAGEMENT IS ESSENTIAL FOR LIBERATION
The teachings that the great teachers of mankind have given to us on the spiritual life are very clear about one thing, and that is that there can be no question of spiritual life, spiritual experience, unless one readily, willingly and purposefully attempts to control and conquer one’s lesser human nature and tries to be the master of one’s inclinations, passions and sensual appetites.
Unless the inclinations of the senses towards sense-indulgence and the urge of the mind towards innumerable desires and satisfactions are kept in check, unless they are countered and controlled, spiritual life is only a fantasy, an imagination. Even if it is not a fantasy or imagination, it is but a losing struggle. It is but a see-saw, up and down, earning and spending, never having anything, never acquiring anything, never gaining anything.
Self-control is the key. An earnest attempt to control one’s lesser human nature is the condition prerequisite for the successful awakening and active manifestation of one’s higher divine nature. All yogas, yogis and yoga texts have this to declare. The greatest overcoming is the overcoming of oneself. This must be recognised. One must accept this fact willingly for the sake of the success of one’s spiritual sadhana and life. Otherwise, one is ever working against oneself.
It is in this context that great ones have said: “If without self-restraint, without control over one’s lesser human nature—one’s appetites, sensual urges, desires, passions—spiritual illumination and liberation is possible, then it is equally possible for a mountain range to float on the surface of the ocean.”
They have said this just to show how impossible it is for any individual soul who wants the highest to gain it if he is unwilling to liberate himself from the lowest, the grossest, the animal within. It is a contradiction in terms. If you want to go to the Ganga bank, you have to leave the place where you are presently sitting. If you want to go to Rishikesh or Haridwar, you have to leave Sivananda Ashram.
We should recognise the sheer logic of this. We are endowed with intelligence, with understanding, with viveka and vichara, with book knowledge and much satsanga. How foolish we are if we do not let go of that which is being held on to so that we can grasp something higher, greater. We should ponder well that we have to fulfil a preliminary condition if we are to move on to the next higher step.
It is upon this understanding that we should build our relationship with ourselves—with our human nature, with our senses and their appetites, with our mind and its desires and cravings. Bhoga and moksha (enjoyment and liberation) cannot go hand in hand. Tyagena eva amritatvam anasuh (Immortality is attained through renunciation only). Tyagat santir anantaram (Peace immediately follows renunciation).
Only when we understand this will we be starting spiritual life, will we be starting yoga—real yoga, authentic yoga. This is the ABC of yoga. Yoga is based upon self-management, self-control, samyama. Therefore a sadhaka, a yogi, is essentially a self-managed person—in possession of oneself, not possessed by oneself, not a puppet. Understand this in all the ways that it should be understood.
God bless you to ponder this truth, to work upon this truth, and to begin to realise its logic, its indispensable necessity, its importance, and its incalculable benefits. This will take you towards your greater benefit and your highest welfare.
Gurudev has awakened us to the pearl of great price, the supreme value. He has shown us a sublime and higher ideal to live for which brings a great, lofty significance to our life. There is a deep meaning and a lofty, sublime purpose behind life. Life is not existence, not striving, not survival; life is attainment, it is achievement, a glorious culmination.
When this is understood and realised, life becomes worth living. Each day becomes full with deep significance and meaning. Each day becomes an adventure, as it were, in the overcoming of oneself and the overcoming of seemingly adverse circumstances which are, in truth, opportunities to help us to overcome ourselves.
Such overcoming is indeed the greatest of all victories. Overcoming others may not be too difficult. Status, power, authority, wealth, superior personality, domination, strength—ever so many factors—can help one. And there are also urges to overcome others, such as ego-trip, prestige, self-satisfaction, a peculiar type of irrational, illogical sense of achievement. But all these factors—which in the ultimate analysis are hollow, non-productive and negative—are not there in the overcoming of oneself.
There is no question of privilege in the overcoming of oneself. One is only too conscious of how hollow one is. More than anyone else in the whole world, one is only too acutely aware of one’s own defects, one’s own drawbacks, imperfections and insufficiency. The whole world may see a golden image. The golden image is aware of its clay feet.
Where there is introspection, there is humility. Where there is deep and sincere self-analysis, there is a true appraisal of one’s own inadequacy. And out of this appraisal, out of this realisation of one’s inadequacy, springs the urge for overcoming, for working diligently, for perfecting oneself.
If, lacking introspection, analysis and humility, one sees only all that is good in oneself, then all evolution, progress, self-overcoming and self-improvement comes to a stop. One becomes complacent and self-sufficient. There is no greater risk and danger in the spiritual life than such complacency and self-sufficiency. It is a great bar, a hurdle that has to be overcome.
Out of this realisation of what one truly is springs forth a great desire, a great determination and strong resolve: “No, I shall overcome—not anything outside of me, but everything inside of me that needs to be overcome. It will be ‘do or die.’ I shall overcome and I shall succeed come what may. For that is the only purpose for which life has been given to me. I shall not rest until I have succeeded, for I know that the perfection that has to be achieved is already within me. I have to rediscover it; I have to uncover it; I have to activate it; I have to manifest it. This is what life is. Therefore, I have not far to seek, but I have work to do!”
Seeking, questing are words used for lack of more suitable words. They are words taken from the context of the external space-time dimension of one’s life, where, when one loses something, one has to find; one seeks here, there, everywhere. Lacking other terms, we make use of these words also in regard to the mystical inner dimension of our spiritual being, even though they do not convey within the same meaning that they convey in the outer dimension.
There is no seeking. There is nothing that is lost. Everything is found. Only we are not aware that it is there. There may be a finding, but there is no seeking. If an old grandfather has pushed his spectacles up on his forehead and then hunts all over for them thinking he has lost them, he needs to discover or be told: “You have not lost them. They are right there.” Even so, you have only to rediscover, to remember, recollect, remove this Self-forgetfulness. That is the situation in the spiritual life.
Therefore, indeed, this is a mysterious inward journey, an attainment of a thing which has never been non-attained. For you are the Being whom you are seeking. You are already That which you want to be. But great effort is required to discard the persistent wrong idea that you are something else.
And the essence of this is the word persistence. You have to persevere and you have to persist. If you stop breathing, in a short time you will cease to exist biologically. Even so, to put an end to Self-forgetfulness, to the alienation of oneself from one’s own true, essential, eternal Self—to discard the hollow, erroneous wrong notion of a spurious, transitory, non-existent identity—effort should be kept up in an unbroken stream of a newly awakened consciousness.
In the depth of your own newly awakened self-awareness (where time stops and you are permanently yourself) this parallel, inward, unseen stream has to be there—dynamic in its continuity, non-stop in its unbroken flow—at all times, even while eating, drinking, sleeping, working, or resting.
Towards this end are all teachings. And they call it the highest knowledge. The highest knowledge of a being is knowledge of one’s own Self. Therefore, one needs to be awake among sleepers, vigilant among the heedless, ever active among the slothful, living in a perpetual dawn and day where night has no place.
And, in this effort great overcoming is necessary to push away the persistent recurrence of habitual contrary thinking in the wrong direction. That is all. The awakened higher self has to stand in contradiction and opposition to the petty lesser self which rules the interior at present due to the momentum of past habit carried over through births.
There should be the cessation of this stream of error and the springing up of the fountain of truth which must rule the interior in an unbroken stream ever moving towards its source, the great ocean of satchidananda, that is here and now.
May the grace of the Supreme and the loving benedictions of the Master grant you the gift of this life of ever-awakened awareness, so that your life may be full of light, so that you may really live!
55. IS DENIAL OF SELF-EXPRESSION DOING VIOLENCE TO ONESELF?
Worshipful homage unto the supreme, eternal, unchanging Being, the one transcendental and absolute Cosmic Reality, that is the Being worshipped in and through all the living religions of the world, the Being glorified in the scriptures of all the living religions, the Being who is honoured, adored and worshipped in all places of worship, the one non-dual God behind and beyond all religions. May His divine grace guide you in your life’s journey to its destination and destiny. May He ever make your entire life and all the movements of your life a constant, unceasing, ever-progressive process of trying to approach nearer and nearer to that Being in awareness.
For this is an inward journey of the Spirit. Its direction is not outgoing. It is an extraordinary journey whose destination is already there where you start your journey. For He is the omnipresent, ever-present, immanent Reality, who is more to be discovered and experienced than to be reached. It is a journey that has no arriving or reaching, but a journey of knowing, a journey of progressing degrees of awareness of ever-presence. It is a journey without movement.
It is a journey only in the sense that it covers a time period as all journeys do. There is no linear dynamism here. It is a growth of awareness. It is like a dim light that gradually becomes brighter and brighter and brighter until it reaches its full potential of dazzling radiance. It is like a sleeper awakening. When he awakens, he is not fully out of sleep; sleep still persists. There is half awareness, drowsiness, and then gradually, ultimately a state of full awareness when there is no more sleep.
And that process may take place or it may not take place—as you will it. If you start with the awareness that there is a need to awaken, then you are on the road to fullest wakefulness. If you hug your slumber, then not all the forces in the universe can awaken you.
But then, the seed of this urge to awaken was sown by the Supreme— yamevaisha vrunite tena labhyah (He whom the Self chooses, by him the Self can be gained. To him this Atman reveals Its true nature). It is not anything that you can do that brings you this wakefulness. That Being reveals Itself to one It chooses. So even subheccha, aspiration, jijnasa, seeking, is a gift of the Divine. This awakening, this urge to satchidananda-consciousness is the movement of the God within you, not you.
As long as you persist, you hamper the movement of God within you. Therefore, it is not without reason that Saint Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of Italy, ended his simple prayer with the most significant line, “It is in dying that we are born to eternal life.” That is, it is in dying to the little self that we attain to everlasting life. Death of the little self is indispensable and essential for everlasting life, which means that the life of ego-consciousness is not life. It is a contradiction of everlasting life. Therefore it is that the great master Jesus said: “Whoever clings to his life shall lose it, and whoever loses his life shall save it.” Thus, let us pray that we may die to live.
Beloved and worshipful Holy Master Gurudev Swami Sivanandaji had this to say about this gradual process of dying to oneself: “Within you is hidden God. Within you is Immortal Soul. Within you is fountain of joy. Within you is ocean of bliss. Kill this little ‘I’. Die to live. Lead the divine life.”
Who is this that has to do the killing of the little “I”? It is your own inner being, vichara yukta buddhi, vivekatmaka buddhi, the higher self, the higher understanding, the awakened intelligence, the purified intelligence, suddha buddhi, the pure mind. Therefore, they insist upon chitta suddhi (purification of the mind). There is within us both light and darkness. We must usher in the dawn of day within our consciousness, our interior, make it perpetual day through awareness.
There is a very popular and significant saying among the young people of the West nowadays: “Let go and let God.” When that is yoga—the renunciation of the constant and continued manifestation of the age-long ego-process— that constitutes renunciation as well as restraint. The ego constantly seeks manifestation, seeks expression, wishes to affirm itself, make itself felt. And denying this expression is the commencement of the process. “Let me be a servant of Your servants.”
Is it not doing violence to oneself if you refuse the natural urge to self-expression? It seems so. But, it is violence if you do it in spite of yourself, if you do it unwillingly, if you do it half-heartedly, if you are compelled to do so. Then it is violence; it can bring about psychological conditions. But if it is done joyfully, knowing that the greatest thing that can happen to the jivatman is the cessation of the ego-consciousness, this is the greatest renunciation.
The erroneous notion that one exists, one is, and the failure to perceive and recognise clearly that God alone is, that there is nothing else besides that Being constitutes the essence of the ego. And the renunciation of this false notion is the essence of renunciation, tyaga. Here there is no violence, because you want to do it. You know that it is your highest good. You take keen interest. You do it with great enthusiasm, with immense awareness and understanding. You do it with an awakened insight that herein lies my highest good—that I cease to be and God is.
That, therefore, is a greater self-expression of an awakened awareness, of a higher I-consciousness—I am part of God. The more I refuse to recognise this, the more I shall ever be apart from God. The more I recognise this, the more I will know that I am a part of God, I am never apart from God. It is the expression of the awakened consciousness, the real “I”, the real identity.
So, far from being a denial of self-expression, far from being a negative state of restraining oneself from self-expression, it is, on the contrary, real self-expression. It is the real expressing of one’s own higher Self; it is the manifestation of the real You. So it is fulfilling, and not denying fulfilment. It is a creative religious process; it is a positive spiritual process. So, it can only lead to elation. It can only lead to rejoicing. It cannot lead to any negative state of denial or frustration. It is, in fact, liberation not restraint.
Therefore, it is not doing violence; it is not suppression; it is not repression. It is liberation; it is the higher state of expression of one’s awakened consciousness, one’s true Self, one’s real identity. Therefore, all along it is a positive and creative process. It is a movement forward not backward. It is not stagnation, not a denial of movement. It is dynamism in a higher sense, but not upon the human plane. It is a vertical ascent of the Spirit towards ultimate, true fulfilment. Knowing this, one engages in the process. One is ever in a state of fulfilment.
This has to be engaged in with patience, with diligence moment by moment, movement by movement in and through our actions—verbal, mental and physical. Life must become then a glorious movement of the Spirit towards its fulfilment.
This is sadhana. This is yoga abhyasa. This is the life spiritual in its deepest depth—a journey without movement, a journey that is inward, a journey which is of the nature of a growth. It starts from the point where you have to arrive, because both coexist. God is now, here, not something to be reached, remote and far. God is something to be known, someone to be known and experienced wherever you are at any given point in time and life.
May this vision be bestowed upon you by God, who is grace, and may we obtain all the help that we can from the wisdom teachings of sages and seers who have come here to make us aware of the ever-present fact of the oneness of Being. May the benedictions of the saints as well as the light of their wisdom teachings make us aware of this truth, the Reality. This is sat-vidya, the science of Reality.