Memoirs of the Divine Personality – Sri Swami Nisreyasanandaji Maharaj

Excerpts from the letters written by SWAMI NISREYASANANDA

I never forget the writers (of letters), as soon as any letter comes, I mentally think out some answers, not for one day only but for a number of days.

- NisreyasanandaMadras: 27th Aug. 1952

GOD AS THE ONLY INSPIRER

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et us think of God as the ONLY INSPIRER for all of us. He has ‘created’ the world, He has been sustaining, teaching, perfecting, and saving his children

always. All our efforts must be to tune ourselves to Him and His ever-abiding Grace, fully at ‘work’ in each on of us, as well as all around. Let us avoid giving prominence to individual persons, letters, words, or even books. Bahir-antas-cha bhutanam, acharam charam eva cha. He is outside all creatures, and inside as well. He is also within our experience of moving (sentient) and non-moving (insentient) creatures and

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objects. (29th Oct. 1966, Salisbury)

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od-given element, POETRY . . . the idea of writing poems as an expression converting the ever-available and inexhaustible current of God’s Grace into

artistic and satisfying FORMS . . .. Actually when one gets into the stride of doing it, it will become like breathing, - inevitable and rhythmic, regular and spontaneous.

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Sri Ramachandra “lost” Sita. But for purposes of a sacrificial ritual he kept a “golden image” of her by his side. What he kept WITHIN him can be very well inferred; his whole life and conduct as a RIGHTEOUS KING, BROTHER, etc. must have become a continuous expression of SITA’S virtuous presence within his loyal heart . . . and so it must be for all of us – Inward fountain of LOVE bubbling forth in worthy FORMS, purifying and enriching one and all, – performer and partaker alike. (29th Oct. 1966; Salisbury, Rhodesia)

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ou know how I have learned to view any HOUSE? I had parents. Each of them had parents, each time, two, two! And so on, to the Rishi, the founder of the

Gotra. If I has married, my wife too would be one, in this long chain of a few millions of ancestors. So when people marry or have any CONTACT, like that of teacher & student, doctor & patient, merchant & customer, these earlier millions of ancestors, are REALLY MEETING. People dead to us are really LIVING, as Pitrs, Rishis and Devas. So we make Tarpana for our ancestors, sages, and Devas. Their achievements accompany all contacts. Their hopes or programmes too accompany us. Children born or to be born (so also students & others to be contacted) come, if so wanted, to FULFIL unfulfilled programmes of ancestors, sages and Devas, blessing from beyond our sense plane. HOME COUNTRY, GOD: in this sense, will be a GOOD formula to get their blessings, across to our sense-world. Children will then be totally transformed, fulfilling accumulated hopes, with unsurpassed blessings from beyond! So too will future contacts with all, in daily life, be blessed immeasurable! May you, as well as myself, experience this TRUTH day by day! (26th Aug. 1965, Salisbury)

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t is no use saying that we are all good. The question of questions is ARE WE WISE? We must study individual and group psychology. And we should take no

step, which will create misunderstanding in a group. Individual loyalties must be replaced by loyalty to an ideal. So alone we keep the trio – Ramakrishna – Mother – and Swamiji as a kind of composite ideal for all. We succeed best when we hold up these and remain ourselves in the background. I would even disappear into the wildness if thereby I could preach their message to all. And the moment I find myself a hindrance to the spread of their message, I shall retire into obscurity. This is true of all movements. This is true in the political field also. The more Gandhiji and his message are remembered, the less individuals will come into clash. – Let me put it philosophically: the more Brahman is preached, the less cults will come into clash . . .. (11th Sept. 1953; Bhadrachalam Relief Camp)

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never expect any kind of “holiday” in my life, - holiday in the sense that my present way of dealing with situations is all that is needed and that I need not exert

at all in the future to learn any thing new. On the other hand I always feel that each day is a new day and it bring its own new adjustments from me. In short, I am to learn new lessons as long as I am alive. Whether these come from financial troubles . . . (or any other), it is immaterial. I am to learn; that is clear. So I am thankful to God that He keep me as a perpetual student, . . .. I hope this attitude will help me to meet the situations as they crop up here. (27th Aug. 1952; Vivekananda College Hostel, Madras-4)

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Swami Vivekananda had trained Sister Nivedita to look at India’s Ideas, (persons,customs, institutions, etc.) from a truly Indian, original and creatively dynamic standpoint. She had the good fortune to see for herself how the Holy Mother, trained by Ramakrishna himself to take his own place as a spiritual guide – easily adjusted her basically “orthodox Hindu ways” to suit the needs and temperaments of all aspirants, irrespective of caste, creed, sex and also RACE. Let us learn to enter meditatively into all the factors that made Nivedita [to write about the Holy Mother] with devotion and depth of insight. We shall then be blessed with glimpses of Prabuddha Bharata, India in her Awakened Form – whose first tidal waves rolled into modern world Sri Ramakrishna, Saradamai and their disciples – whose successive waves continue to roll forth many more from the Inexhaustible Store – house of the Supreme. (17th Dec. 1966; Salisbury)

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Love transcends the value of physical presence. (8th April, 1983; Zimbabwe)

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y thoughts run in your direction almost daily, as I re-view the past and dwell on these relationships and situations which enable [me] to work hard, pray and

struggle for spiritual progress. God puts us into pressures of various sorts so that we have to shake off our laziness, regroup our energies, and cultivate the highest virtues. (n.d. & no place; probably Salisbury)

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WORK is always interesting, - a sort of pleasant tonic – when we look upon it asservice of the Lord. I do not make any distinction between “Work” and “Worship”. To me all work is worship, work never tires me: and I am grateful to the Almighty for this turn in my outlook. (n.d.)

10Money and house [in Africa] can easily come. But where is the man?. . . the need is for men who can adjust to the local public and live a calm and simple life. Quote the Bible and live like Christ: That is the need. (16th Aug. 1954; London)

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Things move in strange ways. An austere man like myself struggled hard . . . but faith, not in the men and their changing ideas, but in your burning desire and the country’s need – rather in the hand of the unseen Ramakrishna playing through all of us is needed. Please do not cut yourself off from the stream of moral and spiritual forces, through doubts. The force that moved you . . . to Ramakrishna’s feet knows how to move other people and other ideas at the proper time. Please try to see things as I see them from this distance. Our combined ritual will “suck in” the desired goal-rather “tune in”. (16th Aug. 1954; London)

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I review the past and dwell on those relationships and situations which enabled me to work hard, pray and struggle for spiritual progress. God puts us into pressures of various sorts so that we have to shake off our laziness, regroup our energies, and cultivate the highest virtues . . . I am what I now am as the result of all these experiences (n.d. or place; Africa)

experiences. (n.d. or place; Africa)

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Africa has taught me a good lot too. From outside they all appear as men, women, and children. But a glance behind shows that they all are limbs of the all-pervading and beneficent Lord Himself. Whether working in the farm or holding classes, or taking regular yoga exercises in the early morning long before sunrise, I try to keep this coordinated view before me . . . (n.d.)

14The only thing I can do from here is to pray that you all may have your high hopes fulfilled through the Lord’s grace. (n.d.)

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Physical bodies of ALL of us may appear, get old, sickly sometimes, and ultimately when God thinks our “piece” is done, disappear. But MIND, – Cosmic Mind, which is ONLY ONE, without a Second – is like the vast ocean. For convenience we may call IT “my” mine, “your” mine, “his” mind and so on. It is like called the VAST SEA “Arabian” Sea, “Persian” Gulf, “South China” Sea, “Indian” Ocean and so on, according to the labels we give to the LAND nearest to it. So, too, according to the physical body, nearest to it, we call THIS MIND by the names of the man or woman or child that our physical bodies are. As when a boat turns its propellers, the Big Sea it self is churned, so when thoughts are moved ANYWHERE, COSMIC MIND is churned. The Milky Ocean, upon which Vishnu the All – Penetrator abides is churned all the time when you and I and other THINK, FEEL, PLAN, JUDGE, THANK and so on.

Each though movement acts like the propeller of some boat on the boundless sea. The visible world of our physical senses is the exact resultant of all thought-movements carried out by all propellers. We can look at this from the standpoint of each “person” and of each “group”. Thus what Swami N. does in the field of thinking, feeling, willing and acting when taken as a single unit, will churn Cosmic Mind, and produce for me ONLY what I can Expect, when mixed with all other similar churnings of the past and present of everyone else. Just as my physical body is what I can expect from the race, colour, and other characteristics of my Indian parents, so, to my mental movements can produce ONLY the result of their impact on the 20 th century mental movements of the world – including within them, also the movements connected with a Ramakrishna, a Vivekananda, a Sivananda, Ramamurty of Tanuku, and Mr. Attili Suryanarayana of Bhimavaram. And now, of course, when I think and feel, when mixed with the movements of people in Africa, Salisbury and the inmates of the house of my host . . ..

The sum and substance is that NO ONE is really standing ALONE. We are all properly mixed up, whether we take note of it or not. You have entered into my experiences and into my ways of reading, chanting, praying, writing, hoping, trusting and feeling grateful. So too you have all been mixed up with me and others . . .. Penetrating all these mental movements stands the All-blissful Lord, – guiding, correcting, and also COMPLETING our momentary sectional activities. By LOVING HIM, we love all. By calling HIM The COMPLETER, we tune into the Cosmic COMPLETING energies. In other words, we get Grace, we become blessed. He is the Poorna Paramatma, the One Power which we convert into our little loves and anxious prayers. (n.d. Salisbury)

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I keep my health fairly all right through Yoga Exercises . . . etc. Partly also, I think, Because of the way I have learned to look at people and events. I can never completely ignore the fact that in waking state, it is God alone who appears as millions of different persons and objects. First, I take the lessons of what we call DREAM and DREAMLESS SLEEP. I compare the lessons taught by these TWO states which come and go. The SEER Drasta, i.e. MY REAL SELF, as Witness, never comes and goes. Without any real change, dream shows up MANY, in different conditions of joy and sorrow, with war and peace, with fire and flood. Yet in a moment the many vanish into the UNITY OF DREAMLESS SLEEP. NO STAIN of joy and sorrow, war and peace, fire or flood is LEFT.

Consciousness, CHIT – SHAKTI, is Niranjana, stainless and Akhanda, undivided. The number seen in dream is only NAME AND FORM – Nama and Rupa. This universe is really sat-chit-ananda, GOD. Asti, Bhati, Priyam, usefulness, Purushartha. If we do NOT understand that the MANY of waking are also the same sat-chit-ananda, we miss the Artham, usefulness, and get Anartham, misery and pain. The Upanishad says that even if we make a slight difference, we become subject to FEAR. God alone is the Fearless and Immortal. And we are THAT. Al persons and objects seen in waking – like those seen in dream – are ONLY CONSCIOUSNESS hiding ITS Truth of Unity and Bliss, and showing up Names and Forms and human prayojana or at times human Anartha.

The highest human Prayojana is technically called Nih – sreyasa; compare:

Krishna said: Sanyasah karmayogan Chanishreyasa karou ubham

Tayos tu karmasamyas at karmayogo Visichyate (5.2)

Both renunciation and unitive action have emancipation as their common effect; of the two, however, unitive action is superior to (mere) renunciation of action. (tr. Nitya Chaitanya Yati; Delhi: Viaks Publishing House, 1981;p.130)

Why such an arrangement of Name and Form by God? Simply this: [let us say] there is a student of M. A. She is a bit nervous. Her grandfather and [say] a bearded Swami know of the waking fact of the young lady’s fear. How should we react then? By counter Name and Form and Prayojana. This sat-chit-ananda is Perfect. Though dressed as a lady – [as in the case of this student] – it is really Durga, Lakshmi, Saraswati – standing there and saying, “I am afraid, help me.” We say, applying POSITIVE NAME and FORM, and Prayojana,“Don’t fear. Saraswati will guide your mind And hand in the examination hall.” We say this to the seeming lady. BUT WE FEEL INSIDE: “Lord, thanks for coming in the dress of the [lady student]. You have given us Darshana of confidence and being a First Class?” If we are QUITE SURE that God, the Poorna Paramatma ALONE exists there, looking like that [student], then without sat-chit-ananda making any alteration IN ITSELF (Seagatabheda), the new Name and Form and Prayojana, Fearless, Confidence and First Class Are REVEALED.

This is Darshana. So Tyagaraja got Darshana of Protection, while robbers got Darshana of Rama and Lakshmana shooting at them to make them yield. Mundu Venukala iru pakkala . . . [By the two sides of the palanquin]. So Bhadrachalam Ramadas got protection from prison, but Nizam got the vision, Darshana, of Rama and Lakshmana as merchant princes who brought gold to match the sum Gopanna spent in repairing the Rama temple at Bhadrachalam. So you and I will get only Protection. Only robbers and mistaken rulers will et Darshana of the Lord handling them in such a way that our danger is replaced by protection . . ..

Pre-chosen Names and Forms and Prayojanas being artistically repeated as pleasant waves in the mind, form RIGHT MEDITATION. God alone is – Names and Forms can be changed for the better by rightly chosen Names and Forms. Neenama Rupamulaku Nitya Jaya Mangalam Rajiva- Nayana – Tyagaraja – vinutamaina Nee Namarupaluka, etc.

Names and forms come. Let them. Do not with fear fight them. Welcome them and make them sit on a side and have a cup of coffee. Then create a few NEWLY CHOSEN Sattvic Names and Forms – Nama-rupamulu. These Sattvic Names and Forms will more than balance the Rajasic and Tamasic pain-bearing Names and Forms. Nature serves us, like Tennis balls, from morning onwards at all time of the day and even early night. 4 units of rajas and Tamas, followed up by, say, 16 units of Sattva, well chosen, Ishta, will make most pains vanish. Let us try this sort of Tennis play, LEELA. (23rd Jan. 1976; Salisbury, Rhodesia)

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. . . if I were you, I would meditate upon that living experience, making my calm confidence my further oblations. Instead of fasts, sleepless nights, early baths as a physical penance, I would consider my feeling of the little pricks from . . . [friends] as a daily psychological bath and use them to steady my calm confidence. Similar nobility in attitude made you emerge successful . . .. Put forth slightly better efforts; you will emerge as a Sthithaprajna or Gunatita. How I wish you will gradually study and preach, do swadhyaya + pravachana, first to small circles. Prepare a dozen subjects carefully . . .. Meanwhile read and digest (1) Four Yogas of Swamiji (2) Teachings of Ramakrishna and (3) Katha and Mundaka Upanishads to begin with.You can do this, and add on to the satisfaction you already have . . .. Let people see in you . . . a giver of peace, a transformer of personal troubles into impersonal joy. Ask: Ideas will rain. Keep the picture of Holy Mother who bore all troubles, Radhu and others gave her from one side, and yet cooked, served and taught hundreds of seekers on the other side. Instances can be multiplied . . .. Having pushed up your way this much, push forward in this absolutely fresh and joy-inducing line. As your personal mental frictions vanish and joy flows in – [physical] pains will disappear. (11th May 1954; Nairobi, Kenya)

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All constructive work is slow and not ‘dramatic’ in the least. (4th Jan. 1962; Salisbury,Rhodesia)

19. . . small group and informal talks. We call it ‘sittings’ – Sat-sang. The idea is that the subject matter of the discourse should be UNEXPECTED and UPLIFTING. As these doses of talks fall “repeatedly”, new Samskaras are generated in the speaker’s as well as hearers’ minds. Thus ALL are benefited. The new Samskaras pull corresponding environments into position . . .. (4th Jan. 1962; Salisbury)

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My duty is to work in all humility. The results are in the HANDS of HIM who pulled me through . . . and threw me into Africa’s lap! You will pray for the success of the work here, and I shall pray for the solution of your problems on that side. Each side will thus be praying for welfare and at the same time be UNSELFISH. (4 th Jan. 1962; Salisbury)

21[When circumstances were really] trying, we used to pray for peace every night. Who could ever dream that the next scene would be my second trip to Africa, and God’s abundant grace? He who helped Draupadi from being stripped totally in Kaurava court and again from Durvasa’s curse, who blessed Akrura by showing His true form when Akrura was forced by circumstances to lure Him into Kamsa’s well-laid trap, who transported his old classmate Sudama, into unimaginable bliss, in response to urgent needs of Sudama’s own wife – He, the ONE without second, capable by mere kataksha, of fulfilling the legitimate desires of His countless children (Eka bahuman yo vidadati Kaman) knows when and how to enact His wonderful Leela anywhere and everywhere. Let us each gladly play the part He assigns to us, you all there, and this myself here.

We are not CREATORS in any sense. He alone is the creator. If we play our parts well without grumbling, nay, with sincere Joy, His creative power will pout itself out with divine abundance all around us. Inwardly we shall see only sincerity, outwardly we shall see a gradual unfoldment of goodness and harmony. When He pushes one hand into us, we feel, a desire to be sincere; and the more we try to be sincere, He pushes His other hand into our surroundings and gives a Darshana of goodness, love and harmony . . ..

Let us see this total picture in each context . . .. Your sincerity is one side, the steady development of children in your family, the opportunity for good work in society . . . from the other side . . .. It always struck me that the talks I gave in [various places of Andhra] were all the beginnings of the creative play of God even in distant Africa. All these movements are intimately connected from God’s standpoint.

It is we, small human beings, who see India and Africa, separate and different. To Him it is all One, Himself only . . ..

My old books? If God has chosen to withdraw them through the mouths of white ants, well let Him. Has He not helped His work in Africa through white men and women? A few rupees worth of books there, and a few hundreds of pounds worth of gifts here!

Got to get “yourself” or “sin”! Indeed remember Him and His throne in your heart, family, etc.

. . . don’t purchase or replace those books, He who have them has withdrawn them. They are His, as we all are also. (28th Oct. 1961; Salisbury, Rhodesia)

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Nowadays, I often tell myself and my friends here: What we call “our mind” is, in reality, God’s Creative Field, Cosmic Mind, Hiranyagarbha. What we call “our thoughts” then, are only converted forms of God’s Power, Grace or Chaitanya. Just as we DRAW the invisible electric current and make it work through ADAPTERS, like a bulb or a fan, or a stove, or a motor, so also we are DRAWING God’s Sakti through different ADAPTERS – our sense organs like eye, ear, etc. and our mental functionings like planning, choosing, deciding, hoping, trusting, feeling humble, grateful and so on.

Whenever any mental movement, in the conscious field, takes place, the UNIVERSAL POWER (GOD) copies it or makes a subtle carbon copy of it and keeps it as a deposit – SAMSKARA. Such samskaras constitute our SUBTLE BODY, Sukshma Sarira, at any time. It becomes a creative sub-station managed by God. When any impression is PLAYED BACK, we call it MEMORY, Smarana. Thus, in every act of MEDITATING OR SMARANA, we select what we SEEK, or LOVE OR ASPIRE FOR, and GOD PLAYS IT BACK FOR A TIME. From every mind – wandering, our unwanted Samskaras, thrown up or played back by Him – we must thankfully and patiently BUILD UP different stages of other thoughts or memories, including Mantra and bhavanas, till the thought easily dwells on God’s LOVE FOR US – His GRACE, constantly making us live and work. From each unwanted, or irrelevant or negative, childish thought, feeling, or doubt and fear, we must THANKFULLY build up a thought structure till our Ishta is involved and LOVED.

If this is what ‘meditation’ implies, then our share is very little – to keep on choosing the best. HE PLAYS BACK what we choose and after a time, also what is still negative in his file, connected with us, such negatives, when He kindly shows them to us, we should not call “mind-wandering” or treat is as NUISANCES. We must thankfully take them as starting points for the next Bhavana parampara – chain of GUIDED memories till the mind is filled with fresh LOVE of our Ishta.

This was the subtle body is constantly purified and made more and more DIVINE through negative thoughts being built up into positive thoughts, ending with Ishta. Such constantly purified subtle body (rather each successful meditation exercise) pulls Tanmatras in a different way. They combine to create a more favourable EXTERNAL WORLD and internal condition for us, and for the others, thoughts thus condense into the contact of greater friends, better opportunities, the incoming of new teachers, the rising up of higher nobler thoughts, etc. We do not actually REMEMBER at all; we want to remember but memory takes place only when GOD HAS PLAYED BACK an old impression.

If you now ask me: Swami, do you meditate? My reply is: No, God sometimes plays back that I LOVE, often He plays back old childish Samskaras. I receive them thankfully and lovingly build from there a thought-structure like a temple Gopuram, till I invoke Him into MY HEART LOVE HIM more fully. (7 th March 1968; Luanshya)

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Gita says in ch. XV: I am seated in the hearts of all, O’ Arjuna. From Me are memory, knowledge and their absence. I am the one Thing to be known from all Vedas (Scriptures): I am also the author of Vedanta, and the Knower of Veda as well. Sarvasya cha’ham Hrdi Sannivishto, Mattah Smritih jnanam apohanam cha/ Vedaischa sarvaih Aham eva vedyo, Vedanta-Krt Vedavid – evacha’ham.

It is God Himself, seated within us, who copies all our experience of sights, sounds, tastes, and preserves them in His Own Filing Office. We unfortunately call that office of His “my subconscious”. Its Divine Value is thus lowered by our tying up our smallness to it. It is when He shows His Grace by playing back a desired file . . . that we get what is called ‘our memory’.

Meditation is a skilful playback of the same holy memory second by second, previously CHOSEN by us. His Grace obliges us by playing it again and again. We cannot then ask, “What memory or meditation CAN BRING GRACE TO ME in the future?” In the past God himself copied and filed the holy experience, whose repetition we desire now. His grace is playing it. So Grace is flowing as MEMORY, as MEDITATION. We do NOT ourselves remember. He HELPS US TO REMEMBER BY PLAYBACK from His Office. Successful meditation even for 10 seconds is thus His FREE GRANT OF GRACE FOR 10 SECONDS. We MUST thank Him for this expression of Grace at least 5 seconds. This thankfulness increased by with daily practice.

One question comes: why our meditation is disturbed by unwanted thoughts coming in? Reply: This is also His Grace. He has been keeping in His store all these childish, painful, shameful memories. FREE OF COST. All these years from our childhood. By showing a few of these samples, He is silently asking, “What do I, God, do with these?” Our reply must be, again, Thanks, Lord. Those are my thoughts and plans of my earlier days. I was then immature. Kindly take my present value of nobility, truth, love, devotion only into account. I shall put a new rubber stamp on them, saying: From now on, I want only Sat, Chit, Ananda, Bhakti, Jnana, etc. Then Mentally stamp the new Ishta, or latest Chosen Value on those files, date them and make them readjusted files. Next time when those old memories come up, they come with the new value accompanying them. With this, repeated again, day after day, thankfully, the entire MIND becomes PURE and vibrant with Ishta, or latest Value. Then God’s angels, which in philosophy we call Tanmatras subtle and gross, combine in various ways and bring about healthy changes in our body, house, society, and even country.

Prophets were so harmonized that each idea they has became condensed into the benefit of others, and even the country. IN VERY SHORT TIME . . . what others would have done only in a hundred years, these wise people with hearts purified in this patient skilful way, did in 20 or 30 years. And that work lasts for even 500 years.

So let us thankfully practice noble thinking, and readjust old files when he plays them back to us. Let us NOT call these “Disturbances.” God, through His Grace, shows us these old files; so that we can at each sitting readjust them and bring them upto date.

Looked at in this way, our body is relabeled as His Temple, and our mind relabeled as His Throne Room, where His sits . . . persisting, seeking, trusting, acquiring, totaling, comparing again, feeling fulfilled, THANKFUL, etc. This combination, like the physical, is also meant for the king, seated within and controlling everything as the ANTARYAMIN. From even simple waking standpoint this body and this so-called mind, etc., are different sections of a Cosmic City, with Cosmic Ruler seated within each section and controlling it be MERE PRESENCE. Maya Adhyakshena Prakritih suyate sa characharam (GITA: IX, 10): “By Me presiding, Prakriti produces the moving and the unmoving. Because of this, O Son of Kunti, the world revolves” [and] “The One, the Luminous hidden in all beings, all-pervading, the Inner Self of all, the Superintendent of all acts, the abode of all beings, the witness, the perceiver, alone, and free from qualities.” Swetashwatara Upanishad VI, 11.

Thus we can see why, when we make Achamana, even, we are by each touch and Mantra, handing over real control of lips, eyes, ears, etc., to the Divinity within supplementing (not denying) the existence of control of the body, mind, etc. RE –VALUING, through scripture and discrimination, body, mind, etc., as city, etc., where the Lord presides always. (1st Sept. 1977; Chicago)

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The places where each finds a fit occupation cannot be the same town. Physically, it is impossible to be with all. But mentally we can feel oneness with ALL. GOD is the one common abode from which All come. He, as Antaryami, fills all, sustains ALL as Pushan nourishes all, perfects all and in their perfected states takes them back into His EMBRACE. “Yathova imani bhutani jayanthi yena jathani jeevanthi yat prayanthi abhisam visani, tat vijnanasya tat brahma iti.”

It is only from ordinary sense-bound view that each of us evolves from ignorance, fear and doubt into wisdom, fearlessness, and knowledge. From God’s view there is no change from good to better. From his level, everything is full, Himself only. From our level, snow, water, and steam are different. One changes into another. Snow changes into another gaseous steam. But the combination called H2O remaining constant. So the Lord remains Samam, equal and Full, in all creatures changeless. Samam sarveshu bhuteshu tishtantam parameshvaram vinasyasthu avinasyantan-yah pasyati sa pasyati. (Gita XIII, 27) Also 28 and 30 of the same chapter give the clue for our practice.

When the physical eye sees a sick man, the mental eye, activated by teacher’s words, and our reading scripture backed by our own reasoning, must practice seeing GOD seated there in all His Glory and Fullness. Second by second we must try to see BOTH VIEWS, man the sich and God the Full one after the other, as time flows by, second after second. The very arrangement of this flow of seconds one after another, is to help us to practice BOTH VIEWS. If 41 seconds are spent in seeing a sick man, at least 16 seconds must be Lovingly spent in SEEING Dhanvantari standing in the form of the sick man.

So also in the case of a frightened student, seen 4 seconds, one must for 16 seconds practice SEEING SARASWATI with book, rosary, and Veena in Her Four hands pleasantly smiling at us. So also when the suffering earth is seen 4 seconds one must practice seeing Vishnu with Lakshmi, Thumuru and Narada and Garuda together smiling at us for 16 seconds. Thus a cash balance of 12 seconds, Satwick thought, will become our Karma, our Satwick sadhana gaining over the Rajasic and the Tamasic view of pain and suffering.

This must become a sport, a game, a Leela. We must not strain while cultivating this habit of allowing painful scenes to stay for a short time and then trustfully following it up with thoughts of God’s presence as that very sad scene of a few seconds earlier . . .. We cannot have Sattwa alone. Rajas and Tamas will also be there all mixed up. What we must do is to give importance to Saatvic pictures, as and when Rajasic and Tamasic pictures come in the course of daily life.

When negative 4 are followed by positive 16, we get a clean balance of 12 Sattwa. Since what we call out thought power is really only God’s Power and Glory, this positive balance of Sattwa is God’s grace itself – not all our Karma. We must learn to pur new labels, give new names, replacing words like ‘my body’ by HIS TEMPLE, our mind by His milky ocean, individual by Hiranyagarbha, man by God. We must learn to play this game as a sort of spiritual FUN. If we practice a Game, Leela, with

God, Leela becomes intensified with repetition. Then what we do mentally becomes a protecting song, a Gayatri, cha Trayate ch, Gayatri a Movement of Trana, a Mantra, a succession of Saatwic, pleasantly continued movement of Created waves . . .. (n.d.; Johannesburg)

25. . . Those were glorious days when I was picking the valuable art of loving people, entering into their lives and problems, and with God’s grace, helping to solve them . . .. That art is the Art of Spiritual life, Saraswati, with two hands playing Veena, shows that spiritual life must have the soul-capturing melody and flow of music. The book in one hand and a rosary in the Her two other hands show that scriptural study and meditation are to be harmoniously blended with every movement of life . . . Vani, vak, speech, word, spoken mentally while praying, to purify us and make us fit instruments for getting and retailing revelation: is the Key to it.

Gold is made into a ring. There are not two: Gold AND a ring. Gold IS the substance; ring is the FORM. Similarly, God is the ONE SUBSTANCE in the Universe. God is the material cause of the universe, according to Vedanta. Any creature, animal or man, or celestials, or even Brahma, the Creator, is the Rupa, form, shape, AS WHICH GOD APPEARS. Touch the ring, you cannot separately touch Gold.

So touch man, serve him; we cannot separately touch or serve God and man. God IN man; GOD AS man: these are different standpoints to realize and use as our base for work. Advaita uses God as man. So Vivekananda advised people, if possible to make worship, and service to man identical. Serving man or animals SEEING THEM AS GOD. This is a deeper form of spiritual life than formula Karma Yoga which can help us to serve God IN man, and thereby purify our mind, and make it fit for realization. As Viswamitra saw Sri Rama as God and yet taught Him, so all can serve the visible man and see God standing there are recipient of the service. (4th Oct. 1977; Chicago)