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by
Sri Bimal Mohanty
VOL
No. 64
June 2006
ONE
GOD, MANY GODS- Part 2
"Based on the lectures by Sri Bimal Mohanty"
QUESTION 1 FROM SRI PRASUN GOEL
Sir, I believe in God but I do not practice Yoga or take part in any religious or spiritual rituals. I have struggled to build a small business employing a few people and spend all my time in looking after my business and my family. Am I a condemned man? (But I enjoy AHWAN greatly)
ANSWER: Thank By no means you are condemned. Your statement that you believe in God and your very question as it is, prove that you also know it.
The spiritual journey of the individual soul (jiva) is a continuous ‘process’. We all go through the various stages of the process as part of our preparation. What is required of us is to continue being part of the process with constant remembrance of the Lord. That is Yoga indeed. Sri Aurobindo stated that all life is yoga.
Look at your own business. Your efforts are providing support for living
for your employees, your family and all those connected with your activity.
Every ‘life’ is a God given opportunity for the individuals
as the base for their spiritual evolution. By providing “support”
to these lives, you are indeed fulfilling the task cut out for you by
the Lord Himself. If you are discharging this duty with honesty and within
the guidelines of dharma, (you may please read December 2000 and January
2001 issues of AHWAN) then you are in Yoga and you are already following
the advice of Lord Krishna: Yogastha kuru karmani- carry out your actions
being established in Yoga. Everything blossoms at the right time and soon
you will rise in your spiritual ascent. You will be the cause of great
happiness to you and all those connected with you if you continue to be
in Yoga with constant consciousness of the Lord around you.
All of us are built that way. The Lord does not condemn any one. (see
also comments on ‘success’ against another question)
QUESTION
2 FROM SRI KUNAL MALHOTRA
For years and ages people in India have been pursuing Spiritual knowledge. Has man become more knowledgeable? What good has the knowledge brought to him?
ANSWER: It is the Sanatan philosophy which first gave to this world the true definition of knowledge.
AdhyAtma jnAna nityatvam tattvajnArthadarshanam
Etat jnAnamiti proktam ajnAm yad atah anyathA
The true knowledge of essential reality (the truth about the eternal self) is declared to be knowledge. Everything else do not come under the meaning of knowledge.
Ironically, the part of the world that knew this great truth, with the passage of time chose to ignore this and stopped to pursue this within its own educational system. With misconceptions of secularism, equanimity and foolish social pressures etc. adhyAtmajnAna or spiritual education has been excluded from being part of our lives.
It is true that the modern world and its innovations has given us a lot of information about many things around us as part of our education, but these are mere information gathering as opposed to knowledge gathering. That has –alas- become the modern concept of progress –such a superficial view.
Informations are useful, but they are relative and conditional. They are true from one perspective and untrue from another. Being relative, they are bound to give us either pleasure or pain.
Whether ecstasy of pleasure or agony of pain, under both circumstances human mind goes berserk.
Only when information is tempered with true knowledge, it helps to maintain clarity and steadiness of mind – described as sthitaprajnyA.
It may take long time to return back to the path of knowledge – the true character of sanAtan dharma, but that is the only way. Nanya panthA vidyate.
Few souls who are engaged truly in their own small way and know the profoundness of this truth, are still out there even in these difficult times. There are still groups, even following different paths, who are still engaged in the pursuit of ‘knowledge’, who are truly happier than the rest and keep showing the way. The prodigals shall return. Let us not lose heart.
QUESTION
3 FROM SRI INDRAJIT SINGH
Is reaching a state of ultimate bliss indeed a reality? Will man ever reach that state?
ANSWER: When the journey is long, the traveler often has these moments of doubt. Why does not he abandon the journey? Because in his heart, he still carries the memory of his home – his destination. The road-side distractions may occasionally make him drag his feet but the pleasures of his home awaiting for him still beckon him. Strange as one may think the spiritual journey has the same pattern. Every one of us has in his heart the memory of the home, the destination that is ours. Some where in some corner of the heart, each one has the knowledge of the awaiting ‘bliss’ tucked away and craves for it. Therefore man has never and shall never be able to totally abandon his spiritual journey. We are programmed that way. Take it as Lord’s grace.
Consider your own life. There was a time when you were less spiritually consciousness than as you are today. A small gain it may be, but you are happy and proud of your achievement.
If you have walked one step, it proves that you can also walk two steps. If two steps are possible, so are twenty. It will go on till the final step.
Doubts will be there and so will be the surges of hope. When you will pass out, you have a powerful friend who will lift you in His arms, revive you with caress and put you back on your feet.
QUESTION 4 FROM MR ALAN ‘FREE SPIRIT”
Some people speak about seeing images, symbols, lighted objects etc. during their meditation. Some have weird dreams. Are these real? What is the spiritual significance?
ANSWER:
Yes, such stories we hear everyday. At the outset one must learn
to differentiate these from hallucinatory images which a disturbed mind
is notorious in projecting, as a result of some suppressed desires or
delusive and confused understanding. This is a very common malady and
people waste a lot of time unnecessarily to derive many reasons and explanations.
On the other hand any mental or subconscious experience, if it simultaneously
and invariably relate your thinking to the divine entity on whom you meditate,
is a positive development. Any experience unrelated to the Lord is a wasteful
play of the mind. But when experienced with ‘consciousness of the
Lord’, it shows that the mind is trying to search and focus on the
Divine and the antahkarana ( the whole combination of mind, intellect
and the ego self) is trying to explore the real objective. If it happens
more often it is a sign of progress.
But people often make the big mistake of getting overwhelmed by such experiences
and dwell upon it again and again, deriving satisfaction as if they have
reached their goal. Conscious and vigorous effort is required to transcend
this state of mind (through dhyAna and dhAranA) so that this itself does
not become a road block. Guidance from the inner voice and a Guru’s
intervention greatly helps here.
When you are seeing things, you are still at the level of physical or
mental dimension. There is still a long way to go. At the psychic dimension,
and when you have reached the proximity of the Lord or intense concsiousness
of Him, all these experiences must fall off. You see the Lord in the entirety
of the whole creation – as Arjuna had the viswaroopa darshan –
or there remains nothing to see, hear or touch. Ultimately you simply
“become”.
That is mokshya or liberation.
QUESTION
5 FROM SRI PERMINDER SINGH
I consider myself successful in life, happily settled. Should I bother
too much about God etc.?
ANSWER:
Any Some one put it very nicely. Success
is the measure of assessment of your actions, as the world judges you.
Satisfaction is the measure of your actions as you judge it. To this we
can add another truth. When the world hands you its judgment, it always
demands a return. It takes away something of you leaving you poorer and
empty. A successful man is not necessarily a happy man. That is why it
is said’ every success has a price.
On the contrary when you earn satisfaction by being judged by yourself, nothing is demanded but you still receive. You receive a tonic that builds up your confidence and fortifies you for even a richer and better life. That tonic flows only with the grace of God. Success alone is short lived, but when wrapped with satisfaction, has a longer shelf-life. Children seek success. Wise seek satisfaction.
QUESTION
6 FROM SRI INDRAJIT ROY
I am a regular reader of AHWAN and now I have a peculiar problem. Earlier
when I was not so much concerned with Spirituality, I was quite worryless
and happy go lucky going through the activities of Life. But now I have
become so much aware of my shortcomings, of my superficial living, my
purpose of existence and the way I have been wasting myself, that I feel
quite unhappy. Please help.
ANSWER: God Bless you for this change in you. Should you really think of this as a worrying problem? Let me give you a small story. A poor old lady was living in her hut. She had a small oil lamp. With the dim light of the lamp she was cleaning her hut removing dust and muck from wherever she could see till she was satisfied in her own mind. Later somehow she came to possess a gas lamp which was so much brighter than the little oil lamp. It brightened up her hut. But soon she discovered so many unseen areas of muck lying untouched, insects and scorpions lurking in the cracks. She became alarmed thinking so much more house cleaning she has to do but at the same time knew of the dangers if she does not attend to all that right away.
Our lives are somewhat like that until our minds turn spiritual one day.
The knowledge of spirituality – the adhyatma jnana – lights
up our lives. It reveals the many short comings that are yet to be overcome.
It brings to awareness the very purpose of life. It reveals the path so
that one is no more a lost wanderer.
All these happen by the Grace of the Lord.
Double or triple your efforts now. Nay, increase it by hundred times and discover the true meaning of your life. Move towards your final destination. The grace of the Lord is beside you. Be grateful.
