B. WHAT SHOULD BE THE RESPONSE OF THE DISCIPLE
It is said that without Grace Divine that the proximity to a spiritual personality and the active benedictions and blessings of that spiritual personality are not possible in this earth plane. Our exceptional and rare circumstances of being provided with an ideal environment and all that is necessary and beneficial for our spiritual evolution proves that we are extremely fortunate recipients of God’s grace, that God’s grace is present in abundance in the life of each and everyone of us. If we recognise this truth we will feel uplifted; we will feel no room for despair.
In this Iron Age, in this world of ours, in the situation prevailing in human society today, we will realise how blessed we are to be in a spiritual atmosphere with the rare blessedness of the company of other seekers. All these things and more have fallen to our lot thanks to divine grace, the blessings of saints and our own meritorious past.
Given these circumstances and given these facilities, if we will but make use of all our time and energy and direct our attention to the Goal Supreme, we can make each day a forward and onward process towards God-experience.
Therefore, lead a spiritual life, a divine life. Be essentially an aspirant and sadhaka. Have no other identity. In your subjective consciousness feel: “I am a seeker after the great Reality. That is my truth, that is my real identity. I am a seeker and Divine-experience is my goal, divine living is my way.”
Thus, with God’s help, absolute faith in the words of Gurudev and, above all, command over your own self, have an intense faith in your ability to attain the Goal, given the right exertion, the right effort. That indeed is the way of recognising the precious nature of the gift that you have received from God.
7. SELF-AWARENESS AS DISTINGUISHED FROM EGO-CONSCIOUSNESS
As you sit in Gurudev’s vicinity, proximate to him, what do you pray for, what do you ask for from the Divine Presence in which you are? What do you ask for from the indwelling Divinity which is always with you, to which there is no question of distance or proximity? It is always near you, ever by your side.
In the proximity of Bhagavan Sri Krishna, Arjuna asked: “sishyas te’ham sadhi mam tvam prapannam (I am Thy disciple. Instruct me who have taken refuge in Thee).” Lord Krishna told him that in the proximity of enlightened and illumined divinity one should give reverence, serve and seek to know, be a jijnasu. A jijnasu is one who is in quest of knowledge.
A quest for knowledge arises when I feel that my present knowledge is inadequate, and, therefore, I wish to know, I wish to make my knowledge full. This feeling that my knowledge is inadequate can only come if there is a basic simplicity and humility in one’s nature. If there is self-sufficiency, if there is a self-sufficient ego-consciousness, it is an obstacle to such seeking, it is contrary to such seeking.
Gurudev used to say: “If a thirsty person wants to drink from a tap, he has to bend low. Therefore, if you want to have knowledge, you must accept your inadequacies, be humble and lower your self-sufficient ego-consciousness.” Thus Arjuna was told to pay reverence to the master, serve him, and then seek to know, ask with humility. This then is the process of receiving knowledge, illumination.
Egoistical consciousness is one thing, self-awareness is another. Self-awareness, an awakened awareness is desirable. Egoistical consciousness is not desirable; it is an obstacle. One must distinguish between them. Arjuna became a seeker when he became self-aware. He knew that he was in a very bad situation. As a prince in charge of an army, he had a certain duty, svadharma. He became aware that he was in a deplorable state, and so in that state of awareness of his true psychological condition, he pleads with Lord Krishna: “Show me the way, I am confused. I do not know, Master.”
So, this is self-awareness. He was aware of himself as one who had proved weak at a time when strength was needed. He was aware of himself as one whose knowledge was inadequate. He was aware of himself, therefore, as one who needed to be told and guided. Therefore, he was aware of himself as a disciple.
A disciple-consciousness is also a certain ego. But, nevertheless, it is not an assertive, rajasic ego-consciousness. It is an awareness within. Without individualistic ego-consciousness, he was aware within himself of a condition, of a need. Thus, in this state of awareness, he was able to approach Lord Krishna.
The Upanishads say: “uttishthata, arise,” and then they say, “jagrata, awake.” Why did they not say, “jagrata, uttishthata”? Because uttishthata symbolises the shaking off of tamas and jagrata means to be awake, aware, awakened—a state of sattva. And at the very beginning of the Gita, Lord Krishna says to Arjuna: “kshudram hridayadaurbalyam tyaktvottishtha parantapa (Cast off this mean weakness of the heart. Stand up, O scorcher of the foes). Therefore, He repeats the Upanishadic call of uttishthata— stand up.
At the very end of the Gita, Arjuna gives us the key to what our response should be to this Upanishadic call: “sthitosmi...karishye vachanam tava (I am firm...I will act according to Thy word).” That should be your response. “I have shaken off tamas. I am now in a state of jagriti, because I have awakened to the truth of things. I am now in a state of inner awareness. I will carry out Thy word.”
So, this inner state of jagriti is the keynote to successful spiritual life—to always be in a constant inner state of jagriti, wakefulness, no matter where you are. It ensures a certain state of mind: “If I am always aware that I have attained the lofty status of a manava—a thinking, reasoning animal—then I must base my life on rationality, think before I do something, and select that which is noble, which is good, sreyas. I must try to be an ideal human being and not give way to animal propensities. I must put this status to the highest and best use, and thus benefit myself and benefit humanity.” This awareness itself becomes an urge for striving for perfection, an urge towards idealism.
This awareness is not egoistic. It is a non-egoistical self-awareness. If, for example, one is always conscious that one is a Brahmin, then this awareness, if filled with sattva, will not bring about caste superiority; but, on the contrary, it will always keep you alert and aware. It will always keep you on the right path: “I am a Brahmin. Therefore, I cannot do anything that is against the ideals and dharma (the duties) of a Brahmin.” So this awareness conduces to evolution, to progress, towards idealism, to becoming higher and better day by day.
This self-awareness, therefore, is not egoism. It is an ingredient that is essential for progress. It is jagriti. It keeps one awake within. It is a response to the Upanishadic call, jagrata. And this awareness which gives us an urge to be ideal is coupled with a humble knowledge, “I am a Brahmin, but I know that I am not a perfect Brahmin. I have got a lot to do. I have many drawbacks, many imperfections, many weaknesses which I must try to get rid of and thus be a true Brahmin.”
It is the same with a spiritual aspirant. If one’s self-awareness is sattvic, one is also conscious, “I am a spiritual aspirant, but not an ideal one. I must constantly improve myself, become better day by day.” So this awareness, because it is sattvic, is always coupled with humility. Awareness of one’s imperfections, therefore, fills one with an urge to strive for better and better levels of being and doing.
We are not touching upon the higher spiritual dimension of your divinity: awareness that you are divine, ever awake to your divine destiny. Even where we are, in whatever field we are living our life, awareness upon that level is necessary—awareness of one’s being a student, being a seeker, being a grihastha, being a sannyasi, being a disciple. All these awarenesses, even upon a comparatively lesser level of life, are desirable. As a matter of fact, they are preliminary states of awareness that may ultimately lead us to become aware, awake upon a higher dimension, a higher plane of our essential divinity. That can wait until we fulfil our task of evolution in self-perfection upon the lesser levels of being.
For, if we consciously practice awareness now, wakefulness now, it will naturally lead us ultimately to that state of awareness and wakefulness upon the higher divine dimension of our essential spiritual nature. That will follow as a matter of course; therefore, it can wait.
Top priority should be given to wakefulness and self-awareness as we are, where we are. That is the key to evolution, the key to progress, to a steady, upward ascent of our personality. God bless you all! God make you liberate yourself from tamas and be awake! God make you aware and keep a continuous wakefulness within!
8. SUPREME GRACE AND SELF-EFFORT: THE LIFE TRIUMPHANT
Worshipful homage unto the supreme, all-pervading Universal Presence, our eternal source, our present, invisible support and our ultimate goal, attaining which our lives become fruitful! Worshipful homage unto that great Reality, that is our true abode now. It always has been and always shall be at all times our nija dham (own abode), our svasthana (own place) and our asli ratan (real wealth). May divine grace which constitutes Its very essence lead us day by day in all that we do as the living of our life!
May divine grace guide your footsteps and lead you on, so that your life becomes a meaningful and gainful process towards the ultimate attainment and experience of that ever-present Divine Essence. It is for this alone that you have been endowed with this most covetable, most invaluable human status. Great is the grace the Universal Spirit has bestowed upon the individual soul by conferring upon it this status which is verily the portal to blessedness, the right royal highway to liberation and divine perfection.
Similarly, great is the grace of the Cosmic Being in coming to us in this life as our worshipful and beloved guru, for in the ultimate analysis, the guru is grace personified. It is divine grace, it is that Cosmic Being who comes to the seeking soul as the guru, as the spiritual preceptor. And thus manifesting grace, It guides us to the Goal. Therefore, it has been said: “Guru is Brahma, guru is Vishnu, guru is Siva, guru is the ultimate, transcendental Being, the Absolute Being.” Such is the grace indeed that infills each individual human life when the individual has been induced, one way or another, to come into the spiritual path, has become a mumukshu. For mumukshutva is also a manifestation of grace.
And bringing one into the spiritual path brings the seeking soul into direct spiritual contact with a realised, enlightened, illumined saint and sage. That is the ultimate grace; all that is needful has been done. Now, it is for the seeking soul, the sadhaka, the mumukshu, the jijnasu, the yogi, to recognise this grace and to start utilising it. This is, therefore, the point where purushartha or sadhana becomes the dominating overall factor in one’s life.
In various ways this truth has been revealed to us, but nowhere more aptly than in the parable of the twenty golden talents. Before a master goes on a long journey he calls his three servants and says: “I am going away for a long time. To each of you I give twenty golden talents. Use them well.” And the master goes. What has to be given has been given. There is nothing lacking; the grace is complete.
It is, therefore, the utilisation of this grace that constitutes the essence of spiritual life. It is recognising the value of that which has been received and putting it to the highest and best use that constitutes sadhana. Where grace, its recognition and self-effort coexist, then there is great blessedness, all success, the wealth of wealths, the supreme attainment.
It is this truth that is the declaration of the closing, final verse of the Srimad Bhagavad Gita wisdom teachings—the coexistence of fullest grace and its fullest application through sadhana or self-effort. This is the ultimate good and this closing verse of the Gita needs to be pondered upon.
The first chapter of the Gita puts before us the inner situation of the individual soul before the commencement of the spiritual life, a situation of a twofold pull within the heart of the individual in two opposite directions—the divine and the undivine, the spiritual and the unspiritual, the cosmic or supremely transcendental and the merely worldly. There are these two forces ranging one against the other. That is the situation in the human heart before the spiritual life has commenced, before sadhana has stepped into one’s life.
But when this situation is resolved in the best manner in a fortunate awakened human being, in the manner most conducive for the highest welfare and blessedness of the individual, there emerges this ultimate state of fullest grace and fullest, ready, willing and sustained self-effort— param kripa and purushartha. That is the life triumphant.
The confluence, the combination and the dynamic presence of both these factors—divine grace and an awakened and aware self-effort—grace accompanied by self-effort, grace enhanced by self-effort, grace augmented by determined and purposeful effort to see that this grace is not in vain—that grace will bear fruit in the form of highest blessedness.
This is to be reflected upon and to be deeply understood, for all of us are recipients of grace, are beings possessing a great golden wealth. Our lives have been enriched, and the Being who has thus endowed us watches and waits patiently for our response. This response, when it is there, is called spiritual life; it is called sadhana, aspiration, abhyasa. Call it yoga.
Therefore, to all the blessednesses add your own genuine spiritual aspiration, your own devotion and dedication to the ideal of the spiritual life. It is this bringing unto the grace and blessings that we have received our earnestness, our sincerity, our effort, that brings about enlightenment. This is the simple truth provided that it is done every day, provided it is persevered in, provided it is continuous, as continuous as divine grace and the guru’s blessings.
This is the condition, this is the need from our side—this constant affirmation, confirming our dedication to the spiritual life. It has to be daily and always there, constant and continuous. Then we see the miracle. Then there is nothing that can stop you.
Thus it has been with all spiritual giants past and present, the globe over. They never gave up. They again and again affirmed their devotion and firm abidance in their ideal. This is the one thing needful: a genuine longing, a sincere, earnest yearning that is affirmed each day and that is kept up, persevered in, continuously and ceaselessly. Then miracles can take place.
The call has come into your life. The hand has been stretched out towards you. Grasp it, respond, and become blessed. This verily is the essence of your life here as a sadhaka, jijnasu and a mumukshu. Your supreme blessedness lies in the extent to which and the manner in which you answer the call, grasp His hand and rise to the occasion. Never cease, but always strive until this supreme blessedness is attained, not in the hereafter, but here and now!
The simple truth is that you who come and pray for blessings and grace are already blessed and graced. Faith in God, a desire to be blessed by Him and to be in His good books: “Let me live in a way that I may not displease God or act against His divine will. Let me try to be what He wants me to be. May He bless me”—such feelings arise only in a being who is already graced and who has received blessings from God and His saints. This is the truth. Otherwise, there would be no aspiration in your heart, no desire to come to Rishikesh, no desire to engage in sattvic activities like attending spiritual programs. This, therefore, is the assurance that you now have to utilise the grace and blessings which you already have.
9. AN AWAKENING MUST BE FOLLOWED BY PURPOSEFUL ACTION
Homage unto the all-pervading Cosmic Being, the Universal Spirit, visvatma, the Eternal Reality! And worshipful adorations to Gurudev, that very Cosmic Being manifest as a world awakener, a world spiritual teacher and a path-pointer!
A guru is a guru because he brings into our life the light of wisdom, an awakening impulse. He points out to us the path that leads to life’s fulfilment—to the jivatma attaining paramatma. He points out the means and the methods, the direction and the path. He awakens the jivatma from the slumber of Self-forgetfulness, the slumber of ignorance, ajnana, the slumber of avidya, dehadhyasa (identification with the body).
The guru is not only an awakener, he inspires us to make use of our wakefulness in purposeful action. If one who is awakened from his Self-forgetfulness, his ignorance of his destiny, does not engage in purposeful and proper action, does not put this wakefulness to highest use, the awakening, though better than slumber, proves infertile, proves fruitless. Therefore, the ending note of the Srimad Bhagavad Gita, the most important utterance of Arjuna, is: “karishye— I shall act, I shall do.” Arjuna, who said, “No, I shall not do, I shall not fight,” in the beginning, ends up by saying: “I shall do Your bidding.” It is almost an answer to the Upanishadic call of uttishthata jagrata prapya varan nibodhata (Arise, awake, having reached the wise become enlightened). The fallen Arjuna is now not only awakened from his ignorance but he stands up ready to fight.
Wakefulness with action is called sadhana. It is called abhyasa. Yoga is primarily engaging in a self-determined and self-directed activity which propels the jiva ever higher, upward and Godward, towards God-realisation—thus the significant term yoga-abhyasa.
The guru, therefore, is an awakener and an inspirer. He is a path—apradarsaka—he is one who throws light upon the path, who shows the path. But the treading of the path must be determinedly undertaken and engaged in by the fortunate disciple. Discipleship is in obedience and in action, in being and doing. “Be what I want you to be. Do what I want you to do.” Thus says the guru.
All yoga is, therefore, the response of the seeking soul, the sadhaka, the jijnasu, to the call of the guru, in the same manner as Arjuna responded by karishye (I will do), and followed it up by standing and picking up the bow once again in his hand. Thus he engaged in the action that was called for at that time and attained victory in the war. Eighteen days of ceaseless activity brought about victory.
Therefore, diligently the sincere seeking soul must engage in spiritual sadhana, knowing that the source of all power and energy is God Himself. “Thy will be done, and let me have the insight and the power to engage in action for the due fulfilment of Thy will.” Even so, the disciple should engage in spiritual sadhana, but without a sense of abhimana, ego. “Yes, even this I am enabled to do by Your supreme mercy and grace. Naham karta harih karta tvatpuja karma chakhilam (I am not the doer; Lord Hari is the doer. All work is Thy worship).”
A mother, with great love, prepares food for her slumbering child. She wakes it up, places the food before the child and urges it to eat. But the eating has to be done by the child. There is an old saying: “Two men can take a horse to a river, but twenty men cannot make it drink.” That has to be done by the horse.
Therefore, sadhana is the hallmark of the sadhaka; yoga-abhyasa is the hallmark of the yogi; prayer, worship, is the hallmark of the devotion of the devotee. Discipline, self-control, ceaseless effort to ingather the mind and to check its wandering, to centralise it, to focus it towards the great ideal—this is the hallmark of the dhyani yogi. Worshipfully engaging in one’s duties and activities, remembering the Divine Being throughout the activity itself, in the midst of the activity, and offering up the activity at the feet of the supreme, ever-present Reality is the hallmark of a true karma yogi.
Thus, in the ultimate context, all spiritual life, all yoga, all sadhana is the devout engaging in the right and appropriate kind of spiritual activity by the seeker, the sadhaka, the yogi, the devotee. It is, therefore, upon this plane of action and reaction, action and the fruit of action, this outer plane, that the law is fulfilled. Significantly, in the Gita, the Lord says that whether you wish it or not, the Cosmic Nature, which resides in you as your own human nature with its outgoing tendency of the mind, will impel you, compel you, oblige you, to engage in numerous and various activities. When this is inevitable, why not be wise and direct it towards your divine destiny? Why not be wise and spiritualise it? Why not be wise and make it a means of connecting yourself with the Divine, linking yourself with the cosmic source of your being? Why not be wise?
Such wisdom in action is called yoga—yogah karmasu kausalam. “If I have to engage in action, let me not be foolish and make it my problem. Let me not allow it to take me into further bondage, greater Self-forgetfulness. Let me not allow action to be a breaking up of my connection with the Divine. On the contrary, let me be wise, let me have wakefulness and an inner awareness, so that my activity is done with an attitude and an approach that makes it a means of moving towards the Goal.”
Thus acting, the actor becomes not merely a karma yogi, he also becomes a jnani yogi. Action is based on wisdom, infilled with jnana. And he desires to elevate his activity to such sublime heights because of his great desire, his love for attaining the Lord. There is in it a keen longing to obtain the Supreme. There is bhakti. Bhakti and jnana automatically become the moving forces infilling all activity.
So, the true yogi cannot help being a jnani, a bhakta, a yogi even in the midst of activity. Therefore, the activity of people who have adopted the spiritual life, who have entered the path of yoga, who are engaged in sadhana, is not the mere activity of the man of the world, the bound soul who is in love with the world and its things—a samsari— one who is impelled by desire, by attachment, by craving, the urge to taste the transitory pleasures of the petty objects of this universe. That action leads to greater darkness and bondage. The activity of one who is awakened, one who is wise, is a spiritual activity in every sense of the term, in which the ingredients constitute jnana, bhakti, yoga, and it is filled with vairagya, dispassion.
It is a totally different kind of activity: a liberating activity, a spiritual activity, a God-oriented activity, a wisdom-based activity, an activity at the centre of which there is wakefulness, an awareness, and a lofty and sublime purpose. So, the inner svarupa of this activity is purely spiritual; it is yogic. This is the inner content of those who have adopted the life spiritual, who have entered into the path of yoga, who are engaging themselves in spiritual sadhana.
Therefore, may your life be a confluence of bhakti, jnana and yoga, and may all your activity be a sadhana for God-realisation. May it be God-oriented, directed towards the supreme Goal, thus helping you to connect yourself with God at every step, at every moment. May the grace of the Divine and the choicest blessings of the Holy Master enable you to understand this aspect of your life, to reflect upon it and to elevate your so-called ordinary day-to-day life to a lofty height of higher awareness, purposefulness and direction.
Thus may all of your life be to you a fulfilment of this central aspiration—not part of your life, but all of your life. May your entire life be a divine life.
Towards this end, strive with diligence and wisdom, unaffected by the outer factors that constitute the passing scene around you. That will continue to be what it is. The transformation is within yourself. You cannot change the outer world, but there is every need for you to be a changed being inwardly. That is the secret of a successful spiritual life.
You must be a living Vedantin. You must be a practical yogi at all times, not only when you are in your meditation or puja room. There is no partial son to the parent; there is no partial patriotism; there is no partial conduct and character; there is no partial Vedanta; there is no partial yoga. They are either total or not at all.This is the truth.
This truth should be clearly perceived and recognised. One should not have a mental block to seeing this truth fairly and squarely. We may play a part, but we cannot play a game with God.
If Gurudev means anything at all to a sincere seeking soul, that meaning is to make our life divine. If he means anything at all, it is a divine life. His presence here is to inspire us, to touch and awaken our dormant Divinity—by his glance of grace to awaken us to our own awareness, to awaken from within us our reality which is Divinity.
This is a centre for removing the veil across our vision which hides the Divinity that pervades everywhere and is ever present before us, for removing the inner veil that hides from our vision our own Divinity, for we are part of that all-pervading, infinite, eternal Cosmic Reality. Being parts of that infinite Cosmic Reality, we partake and share of Its essential nature in our own essential being.
We may be different in our non-essential appearances, but we are all one, identical, in our hidden true nature, our hidden, eternal, unchanging essential nature. We are the distilled quintessence of pure Divinity. We possess within us the ability to recognise this potential and to seriously, earnestly and sincerely struggle, strive and aspire to awaken the sleeping Divinity that we are. We have the potential to persevere in this attempt to continuously awaken and manifest that only and to refuse to manifest any lesser aspect of our non-essential outer self.
The outer self is made up of limiting adjuncts: the senses, the inner cognising faculties, the life-currents, life-principles— pancha karma indriyas, pancha jnana indriyas, pancha pranas, mind, intellect, ego-sense, memory, imagination, thought and sentiment. Refusing to identify yourself with and rejecting the demands for expression of these lesser, imperfect, passing aspects of your present human personality; and being ever persisting, insisting and firmly determined to express only that which you are (to unfold, awaken, express and actively manifest only that part of you which is your reality, your eternal identity, that part of you which is one with the Cosmic Reality); to be insisting, always resolving, determining and persevering in the continuous attempt, in this unbroken practice of manifesting your Divinity—that is true discipleship to this invisible spiritual presence. That is the token of our reverence for this invisible spiritual reality.
That is the one and only way we can offer our genuine homage, our authentic recognition of his gurutva: “He is my guru; he is my spiritual teacher; I follow him.” This is to be demonstrated by our persistent, persevering, continuous, unbroken attempt—again and again, and yet again—to make manifest our higher nature (our real nature, our essential divine nature, the God-principle within us which we are) and not anything else. This is leading the divine life. This is Yoga-Vedanta. This is the sadhana of Gurudev Swami Sivanandaji.
And to enable us to engage in this sadhana, his penance, his renunciation, his realisation has brought into being this outer, greater manifestation of his in the form of this holy ashram. He has brought into being this ashram to offer us a field for engaging in this essential Sivananda sadhana, Divine Life sadhana, to offer us varied facili