Bharatham : Uthishtatha-Jagratha : (wef-05/11/2012. )

Part-16. There is something in you which misunderstands, misinterprets. What is it? Your mind. Your mind is not on a level with the Guru’s mind, with the other person’s mind, never mind whether he’s a Guru or a teacher. Your mind is not on the same wavelength. Your face may be beautiful but when you hold a funny little thing in front of you it distorts your figure. Why? The mirror has not been ground and polished. If that mirror had been ground and polished, it would reflect your beauty entirely. Therefore service of the Guru was prescribed, not because the Guru wanted your service, not because he wanted to enslave you, but because it was the only way in which this mirror could be polished. There was something marvellous in our Gurudev, Swami Sivananda. He insisted on Guru Seva. He insisted that if you wanted to be a disciple, if you wanted to attain enlightenment through the instruction of a Guru, you must serve the Guru. The Guru, not me. How do we know th

Part-15. So eat, drink and be merry, fight, quarrel, and kill others and you will be powerful and rule the three worlds. What he forgot was the comprehensive definition, that the self is beyond hunger and thirst, pain and sorrow. A little later the other fellow, the chief of the gods, comes along and asks the same question, and Brahma the teacher also gives him the same instruction. "Look into the mirror. What do you see?" Indra replies, "I see myself." "That is the self," says Brahma. So Indra goes away but begins to reflect. "I can fight with all and become the emperor of the three worlds, but this old man mentioned that the self is beyond hunger and thirst, pain and sorrow. This body is not like that. It is subject to all these and more." So he goes back to Brahma and asks : - "Please can I have some instruction." Brahma replies :- "If you want to ask another question, go into the backyard and serve

Part-14. The demons only heard the last part of the sentence, that they would be the rulers of the three worlds. So as soon as the discourse was over, the chief demon approached Brahma first and said : "Father, please tell me, what is self-knowledge. Because I want to be the ruler of the three worlds." And the Upanishad says that Brahma asked him to look at the mirror. "What do you see there?" "I see myself," said the demon. "That’s it," said Brahma. "You said so." Do you understand the trouble of using language? The Guru is supposed to impart self-knowledge, so he asks the disciple to look into the mirror. "What do you see?" he says. "I see myself," says the disciple. "That’s it," says the Guru. But then what is the disciple’s understanding of "that’s it?" The demoniacal disciple’s understanding was that the body is the self. Sri Swami Venkatesananda To be co

Part-13. So here, both these seem to be necessary and both must arise simultaneously. I must be an ardent aspirant, a first class disciple and I must be entirely receptive. I must have entered into this inner silence which means that my ego must have been completely destroyed already. Then, when I go and stand in front of an enlightened person, there is instantaneous non-verbal communication, otherwise there is danger. This danger is pointed out in one of the Upanishads, where Brahma himself was the teacher—not the Guru but the teacher. The gods and the demons (this distinction exists only in our dictionary, in reality they were all God’s children) were sitting and listening to Brahma, the Creator. Brahma was telling his children to strive for self-knowledge, because if they attained self-knowledge they would go beyond hunger and thirst, pain and sorrow, and they would be the rulers of the three worlds. Sri Swami Venkatesananda To be continued  ....

Part-12. If I am a perfect disciple, then it is possible that the first person I meet may become my Guru. He may be a tramp, or it may not even be a human being, it may be an animal. It may be a tree or a plant or it may be a natural phenomenon. So if I am an ardent disciple, an ardent seeker, then it is possible for me to reach enlightenment with the help of human and non-human beings, because I have trained myself in non-verbal communication. When is this non-verbal communication possible? Only when I have learned to remain absolutely silent within myself. When I have trained myself in such a way that I am able to enter into this inner silence, then it is possible that even a stone might teach me, even a stone might become my Guru. There is a story, which I will give you in brief.  A hunter, during the time of the Mahabharata, went to the Guru of Arjuna, the great archer, and requested him to teach him also. This old man refused. So the hunter went away,

Part-11. If I am a perfect disciple, then it is possible that the first person I meet may become my Guru. He may be a tramp, or it may not even be a human being, it may be an animal. It may be a tree or a plant or it may be a natural phenomenon. So if I am an ardent disciple, an ardent seeker, then it is possible for me to reach enlightenment with the help of human and non-human beings, because I have trained myself in non-verbal communication. When is this non-verbal communication possible? Only when I have learned to remain absolutely silent within myself. When I have trained myself in such a way that I am able to enter into this inner silence, then it is possible that even a stone might teach me, even a stone might become my Guru. Sri Swami Venkatesananda To be continued  ....

Part-10. There is a very beautiful incident in the ‘Yoga Vasistha’, when Vasistha goes on hammering the same idea into the heart and mind of Rama. "All this is your own thought. You think you are so and so, you think you are this. You are not this. You think the world is this, the world is not this. l this is your own thinking process, mental activity. Drop that." Suddenly Rama turns around and says :- "In that case are you also my mental creation, my imagination? If so, why are you teaching me. Who are you teaching?" Vasistha keeps quiet. Rama turns to him again and says :- "Hey, what kind of a Guru are you? I ask you a question and you are not answering." And Vasistha responds in a very beautiful way. "It is not because I could not answer that I was quiet, but because silence was the answer to that question." Ramana Maharishi has also said quite often that silence is the most eloquent language. But am I, the student

Part-9. You see a great master like Swami Sivananda. So many people go to him and suddenly their lives are transformed. A rogue suddenly becomes a saint, a fool becomes a wise man. You are standing looking at the whole thing and you say : "My God, nothing has happened to me." This means I am still the same old fool. He seems to be alright because the others are benefiting by his teaching, but nothing is happening to me. This means there is something wrong with me. So I must work a little harder on myself, because the knowledge that the Guru imparts to the disciple is essentially non-verbal. It is incapable of being verbalised. Sri Swami Venkatesananda To be continued  .... Swami Sivananda with his disciple Swami Venkatesananda

Part-8. That is the sequence. First I must realise my inadequacy, and then I must look for someone who will dispel the doubts in my heart, who will show me the inner light, who will enable me to attain self-knowledge. The person or the event, or the thing,  or the object that enables you to attain self-knowledge, is the Guru. If it has not taken place, sorry, wait.  Don’t declare :- "You are my Guru, I am your disciple." It leads to unnecessary complications. That is the most important thing to remember. Until then go on learning. Sri Swami Venkatesananda To be continued  ....