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by
Sri Bimal Mohanty
VOL
No.70
December 2006
THE DWELLER IN THE INNER LOTUS AND RELATED TOPICS - Part1
Based on the lectures by Sri Bimal Mohanty
QUESTION 1 FROM SRI SANTOSH MANUSHYAN (rephrased from email)
A sensible god .would have made a World .with no wars, no sickness, etc..All would have been peace and quiet, happiness, and enjoyment.
ANSWER: In order to understand the ways of the Lord, one has to try to imbibe an overall and wider concept of God, the creation, its guiding principles of cause and effect, the soul’s destination and evolution, the life and its purpose etc. The obvious surface knowledge always presents a distorted and wrong understanding of this grand divine enterprise and process of which everything including ourselves is an integral part.
God’s purpose is not to create either an evil world or an enjoyable world. We see evil, and we see good, we see misery and we see happiness and in our own concept and understanding gave the world a good or bad character. God presents to us both sides of the picture and also continuous guidance as to which path to chose as well as what kind of fruit will be ours by what kind of actions. When we fail to heed the guidance and repeatedly ignore the lessons learnt, the sufferings continue. We need both good and bad to know the difference. If darkness were not there, no one would move into light. When we gain the knowledge, the sufferings give way to bliss. All this while, God never loses his faith in us that one day we shall return to the right path. That is how sensible He is.
QUESTION 2 FROM Sri ANIL KUMAR TEWARI
On the question of existence and non-existence. (Taken from his email)
ANSWER: Based on partial understanding, things appear confusing when we judge everything around, on a single dimensional plane- as for example, the physical dimension.
The SanAtan philosophy on the other hand goes beyond and says that all awareness – or consciousness of mind – always has to be multidimensional to be complete. Along with physical, the mental as well as the psychic planes are vitally important. Otherwise, it is incomplete knowledge, same as avidya or ignorance.
When a lamp is blown out does the ‘light’ of the lamp really goes out? Ofcourse it does not. The fire simply became unmanifested on the physical dimension which is dependent on the limitations of perceptive power of our senses.
But the ‘fire’ is one of the five eternal elements – the pancabhutas along with earth matter, water, air and space. They are ‘sat’ or ever-lasting elements in the creation. The sAmkhya yoga of The Bhagavad Gita explains:
NA sato vidyate bhAvo nAbhAvo vidyate satah - The impermanent has no existence; the permanent never ceases to exist.
Ubhayorapi drstontah tu anayoh tattvadarsibhih – To the true seer the final truth is clear when both existence and non-existence are understood.
These pancabhutas are also derivatives of that one and only everlasting Brahman. As long as Brahman is everlasting – nitya, everything that emanates from Brahman is also nitya, never ceasing to exist. The permanency of Brahman is the permanency of consciousness of Brahman, present in all, in every cell or ‘anu’ of this creation.
The beautiful resolution of the paradox of ‘is’, ‘is not’ (asti, nAsti) ‘permanency vs. impermanency’ (nityAnityAnAm) are the unique findings of SanAtan philosophy. They need in-depth appreciation.
Swami Vivekanada’s words come to mind. Reality and Unreality (or existence, non-existence) – religion starts with this question and ends with the answer.
QUESTION 3 FROM Mr SAL GREENE
I know I must change. ..am short tempered, impatient and I can not control my needs. But it is proving to be such an impossible and arduous task. Can you sir suggest some step by step discipline that will force me to change quickly and for good?
ANSWER: No my friend, no one can ‘force’ you to change nor can give you a ‘pill to change’ to swallow. I heard an anecdote once. Man asked God to make him faultless. God replied ‘no son I can not. But I have given you power to remove your faults. Only you can work on these powers. I can only strengthen your efforts’.
The moment we think that some kind of a rigorous training can wipe out our slate of weaknesses clean, overnight, the battle becomes more impossible. It is by our own efforts we improve.
Our spiritual scriptures have enough suggestions for achieving self- improvement. Do not hesitate to study them and practice.
How does one get God’s strength and assistance? - By simply being and remaining conscious of Him. Do not keep wandering searching for a Guru. When God sees your sincerity and the efforts that you are putting, a Guru always turns up at the time of need. Such is His grace.
QUESTION 4 FROM Pt. RAVINDRA NATH WATTS
The way of Sadhana within us…
ANSWER:
The Divine works within all of us. Once we start walking on the path of dharma or spiritual approach to life, slowly, steadily and positively, our antahkarana undergoes subtle changes towards its purification. (chitta suddhi). Irrespective how much or how little we may have progressed, yet the change unfailingly comes within each of us. This is what dharmacharan achieves. This is how the ever-flowing grace of The Lord works. Even if temporarily we fault by taking a negative view of things, as long as we remain even loosely linked to the Divine, instinctively our inner voice corrects us and purifies us. The Lord never fails. Mind may dwell temporarily with an inferior view, but once it remembers the Lord, it corrects itself. (justam yada pasyati anyam isam asya mahimanamiti vitasokah). That is what sadhana does to us. If man could always remember this and never for a moment loose his “Bramhan awareness”, would not the life be then full of bliss?
