Showing posts with label Swami Chetanananda. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Swami Chetanananda. Show all posts

May 1, 2016

All for Her

No one is a stranger my child, 
make the whole world your own.



- The Divine Mother -

I am the empress of all that lives.
I am the sovereign power in all the worlds.
I am the bestower of all treasure.
I am the knower of the supreme.
Among those to whom homage shall be offered,
I am the first.
Everywhere the gods worship only me,
who am diverse in form
and permeating everything.
Whoever breathes,
whoever eats or sees or hears,
does so through me alone.
Unknowing,
they depend upon me.
Hear now, one and all,
the truth as I declare it.
This truth revered by gods and men alike,
I am myself revealing to you.
Whom I will, I make terrible or benign.
Whomsoever I wish, I make mighty—
a brahmana, a seer, a sage.
I transcend heaven above
I transcend earth below.
This supreme greatness have I attained.

– Vag-Ambhrni Sukta (Devi Sukta), Rig Veda








Swami Chetanananda signing his book 
at Santa Barbara Vedanta Society March 2016
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The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new. A mother’s arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them. A mother’s heart is a patchwork of love. 

Some mothers are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers. A mothers love is peace. It need not be acquired, it need not be deserved. A mother is the truest friend we have, when suffering and heavy trials befall us. The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which we will always find forgiveness. Mothers can reach farther down into the heart and offer healing love that can pull a soul back into light from darkness. A mother never gives up hope for her child. Never finding fault with others she will fight to the death when her precious offspring is faced with unjust treatment or needless suffering. A moms hug lasts long after she lets go.



Quick to forgive she is the first to offer food and the last to eat. She assumes the best in those around her and works tirelessly to make them comfortable and included. Encouragement is something she does naturally. A Mother's love is the spirits fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible. A mother always has faith that a child can change their errant ways. Being a mother means that your heart is no longer yours; it wanders wherever your children do. Mother is a verb, not a noun.










That which is Shakti is also Brahman.
That which has form, again, is without form.
That which has attributes, again, has no attributes. 
Brahman is Shakti;
Shakti is Brahman.
They are not two.
These are only two aspects, male and female, 
of the same Reality, 
Existence-Knowledge-Bliss
Absolute.

- Ramakrishna -




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Perfection will come when you are completely identified with the Divine Mother and feel yourself to be no longer another and separate being, instrument, servant, or worker but truly a child and eternal portion of her consciousness and force. Always she will be in you and you in her ; it will be your constant, simple and natural experience that all your thought and seeing and action, your very breathing or moving come from her and are hers. You will know and see and feel that you are a person and power formed by her out of herself, put out from her for the play and yet always safe in her, being of her being, consciousness of her consciousness, force of her force, Ananda of her Ananda. When this condition is entire and her supramental energies can freely move you, then you will be perfect in divine works; knowledge, will, action will become sure, simple, luminous, spontaneous, flawless, an outflow from the Supreme, a divine movement of the Eternal.















February 1, 2016

Teacher of Truth to the West


Swamiji was a man of wisdom, an ideal worker, a yogi, and a devotee; he was a monk, an ascetic, a sage, and a mystic; he was a leader, an orator, a poet, an artist, a writer, a conversationalist, a debater, a singer, a musician, and a humorist; he was a philosopher, a linguist, an educator, a patriot, a humanist, and a reformer. Swami Vivekananda was the perfect man.

- Swami Turiyananda





What makes you weep, my friend? In you is all power. Summon up your all-powerful nature, O' mighty one, and this whole universe will lie at your feet. It is the Self alone that predominates, and not matter. Know that all sins and all evils can be summed up in that one word, weakness. It is weakness that is the motive power in all evil doing; it is weakness that is the source of all selfishness; it is weakness that makes men injure others; it is weakness that makes them manifest what they are not in reality. Weakness is the one cause of suffering. We become miserable because we are weak. We lie, steal, kill, and commit other crimes, because we are weak. We suffer because we are weak. We die because we are weak. Where there is nothing to weaken us, there is no death nor sorrow.

This is the one question I put to every man, woman, or child, when they are in physical, mental, or spiritual training. Are you strong? Do you feel strength? — for I know it is truth alone that gives strength. I know that truth alone gives life, and nothing but going towards reality will make us strong, and none will reach truth until he is strong. Strength, therefore, is the one thing needful. Strength is the medicine for the world's disease. Strength is the medicine which the poor must have when tyrannized over by the rich. Strength is the medicine that the ignorant must have when oppressed by the learned; and it is the medicine that sinners must have when tyrannized over by other sinners.

Make your nerves strong. What we want is muscles of iron and nerves of steel. We have wept long enough. No more weeping, but stand on your feet and be men. It is a man-making religion that we want. It is man-making theories that we want. It is man-making education all round that we want. And here is the test of truth — anything that makes you weak physically, intellectually, and spiritually, reject as poison; there is no life in it, it cannot be true. Truth is strengthening. Truth is purity, truth is all-knowledge; truth must be strengthening, must be enlightening, must be invigorating.

Stand up, be bold, be strong. Take the whole responsibility on your own shoulders, and know that you are the creator of your own destiny. All the strength and succor you want is within yourselves. Therefore make your own future. Stand firm like a rock. Truth always triumphs. He who falters at first will get stronger and stronger, and the voice will increase in volume until the truth takes possession of our hearts, and courses through our veins, and permeates our bodies. Delusion will vanish as the light becomes more and more effulgent, load after load of ignorance will vanish, and then will come a time when all else has disappeared and the Sun alone shines.
-Swami Vivekananda








April 1, 2014

In the Glow





Silence.... Is the beginning and end of yoga meditation work. Sitting in silence enables us to begin to know the symphony that is present inside ourselves. Really there is no silence as we will learn when we try to sit in meditation. Our heart beats, respiration, nervous, digestive and circulatory systems all create a myriad of sounds, a mini celestial orchestra, that we can become aware of through silence. Listening is an active activity, as opposed to hearing which is a passive activity. Listening involves using our ears as an organ of consciousness to discriminate between the sounds around us. By sitting in silence it enables us to empower the act of listening. When we sit in this manner we also become aware of natures external sounds, birds chirping, wind blowing, dogs barking, clocks ticking or the hum of electrical sounds. But it is through the simple act of sitting silently in meditation and tuning into the inner world of sounds that we truly change the way our everyday perceptions and brainwaves work. In meditation we learn how to detach ourselves from the sense organs. Meditation is the time to look and listen to understand our suffering. Finally we experience an openness that helps us to realize our interconnectedness to all things.  

Swami Vivekananda writes:
"First sit for some time and let the mind run on. The mind is bubbling up all the time; it is like the monkey jumping about. Let the monkey jump as much as he can, simply wait and watch; knowledge is power, says the proverb, and that is true; until you know what the mind is doing, you cannot control it. Give it the rein. Many hideous thoughts may come into it, you will be astonished that it was possible for you to think such thoughts, but you will find that each day the mind’s vagaries are becoming fewer, and less violent; that each day it is becoming calmer. In the first few months, you will find that the mind will have a great many thoughts; later you will find that they have somewhat decreased, and in a few more months you will find they are fewer and fewer, until at last the mind will be under perfect control. But we must patiently practice every day."

This is where Arati/Vespers comes in handy. From my own experience, I find Vespers a very effective way to transition from my busy work day into the contemplative state of evening meditation. While sitting in the silence of the temple, I listen to the Santa Barbara Vedanta Society Nuns sing three beautiful Sanskrit hymns and become a watchful witness to the closing ritual of dusk. This allows my soul to unload much of it's hurried material world burdens and relax in the loving unity of the oneness. 








December 16, 2013

Truth is One


"The Master [Sri Ramakrishna] said that one day he sat in a parlor room at Dakshineswar, where a painting of Mary and baby Jesus was hanging; and intently studied that image, thinking of the wonderful life of Jesus. Just then he saw the picture become animate and luminous. Rays of light emanated from the bodies of Mother Mary and the child Jesus, entering his heart and revolutionizing his mental attitudes. … After he returned to the Dakshineswar temple garden, the Master remained uninterruptedly absorbed in meditation on those experiences pertaining to Jesus. He completely forgot to visit the Divine Mother in the temple. The waves of Christian faith that swayed him lasted for three days. When the Master was walking in the Panchavati at the end of the third day, he saw a beautiful but unfamiliar godman with a fair complexion advancing towards him, gazing at him steadily. … The Master was charmed by the unique divine expression on his serene face and wondered who he could be. Very soon after that the figure drew near, and a voice from within told him, 'This is Jesus Christ, the great yogi, the loving Son of God who is one with his Father, who shed his heart's blood and suffered torture for the salvation of humanity.' Then the godman Jesus embraced the Master and merged into him. In ecstasy, the Master lost external consciousness and his mind remained united with Saguna Brahman for some time. With this vision, the Master became convinced that Jesus was truly a divine incarnation." —Swami Saradananda, Sri Ramakrishna and His Divine Play, p 355-6




Prayer 
of Unity
May He who is 
Father in Heaven of the Christians, 
Holy One of the Jewish faith, 
Allah of the Muslims, 
Buddha of the Buddhists, 
Dao of the Chinese faith, 
Great Spirit of Native Americans, 
Ahura Mazda of the Zoroastrians, 
and Brahman of the Hindus, 
lead us from the unreal to the real, 
from darkness to light and from death to immortality. 
May the all loving being manifest himself unto us, 
and grant us abiding understanding and all consuming divine love. 
OM shanti, shanti, shanti, 
peace, peace, peace be unto us all.



November 28, 2013

Wish-fulfilling Tree


"Am I in need of fruit?
I have the Fruit that makes this life
Fruitful indeed. Within my heart
The Tree of Rāma grows,
Bearing salvation for its fruit.

Under the Wish-fulfilling Tree
Of Rāma do I sit at ease,
Plucking whatever fruit I will.
But if you speak of fruit -
No beggar, I, for common fruit.
Behold, I go,
Leaving a bitter fruit for you."

As Sri Ramakrishna was singing this song he went into samadhi. 
 Again the half-closed eyes and motionless body that one sees in his photograph. 
 Just a minute before, the devotees had been making merry in his company. 
 Now all eyes were riveted on him.








October 1, 2013

Disciples

Discipleship Speech by Swami Vivekananda
(Delivered in San Francisco, on March 29, 1900)

My subject is "Discipleship". I do not know how you will take what I have to say. It will be rather difficult for you to accept it — the ideals of teachers and disciples in this country vary so much from those in ours. An old proverb of India comes to my mind: "There are hundreds of thousands of teachers, but it is hard to find one disciple." It seems to be true. The one important thing in the attainment of spirituality is the attitude of the pupil. When the right attitude is there, illumination comes easily. What does the disciple need in order to receive the truth? The great sages say that to attain truth takes but the twinkling of an eye — it is just a question of knowing — the dream breaks. How long does it take? In a second the dream is gone. When the illusion vanishes, how long does it take? Just the twinkling of an eye. When I know the truth, nothing happens except that the falsehood vanishes away: I took the rope for the snake, and now I see it is the rope. It is only a question of half a second and the whole thing is done. Thou art That. Thou art the Reality. How long does it take to know this? If we are God and always have been so, not to know this is most astonishing. To know this is the only natural thing. It should not take ages to find out what we have always been and what we now are.
Yet it seems difficult to realize this self-evident truth. Ages and ages pass before we begin to catch a faint glimpse of it. God is life; God is truth. We write about this; we feel in our inmost heart that this is so, that everything else than God is nothing — here today, gone tomorrow. And yet most of us remain the same all through life. We cling to untruth, and we turn our back upon truth. We do not want to attain truth. We do not want anyone to break our dream. You see, the teachers are not wanted. Who wants to learn? But if anyone wants to realize the truth and overcome illusion, if he wants to receive the truth from a teacher, he must be a true disciple. It is not easy to be a disciple; great preparations are necessary; many conditions have to be fulfilled. Four principal conditions are laid down by the Vedantists.