By
A
collection of inspirational talks given at a year-ending
Retreat at the Yoga Sadhana Mandir, Urbana, MD. in 1985.
Published
for the Blessed Occasion of the PLATINUM JUBILEE
75th BIRTHDAY ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION
of Swami Chidananda Maharaj
by
YOGA
SADHANA MANDIR
6606 Hardwood Lane
Keedysville, MD. U.S.A.
The Publishers acknowledge with thanks the help of Mary Dean, who transcribed Swami Chidananda’s talks from the tapes and edited the manuscript. Much gratitude to all friends of Y.S.M. who contributed to make this publication possible.
World Wide Web (WWW) Edition : 2000
WWW site: http://www.SivanandaDlshq.org/
This WWW reprint is for free distribution
· Your Consciousness Is Like A River
· The Prayer of St. Francis: A Blueprint For Life
· Don’t Hide Your Light Under A Bushel
· The Mirror Person Is Not You
December 28, 1985
Your consciousness, your awareness of existing as a person, is like a river. The Supreme Being is your be-all and end-all, your wealth of wealth’s, your greatest, richest treasure beside which there is no other treasure, the fulfillment of all your desires, longings, and aspirations, your total satisfaction and your greatest good. That Supreme Being is the reason for your existence, is your beginning, middle, and end, light of lights, beauty of beauties, sweeter than the sweetest, nearer than the near, dearer than anything we may think of as being dear, to Whom you belong and Who is verily your very own. That Supreme Being, Who is Bliss Absolute, Peace Absolute, Wisdom Consciousness Absolute, is like unto the ocean.
When the river flows as a river it is led, confined and bound between two banks, therefore, necessarily it is limited in space. It has its other limitations, too, of depth and width. Many times it is curved, stopped and dammed, diverted and canalized and lifted and put to work. It can dry up if anything happens to its source. It can be polluted also. Therefore it is qualified. It has limitations. But in spite of all these limitations, the wonderful thing about the river is that its very existence means the steady, ceaseless onward flow towards the ocean. A river is a river because it is a thing that flows towards the ocean. Even as it has a source, it has an apex where it meets and enters into the ocean and finds its fulfillment. It is its entry into the ocean that puts an end to its limitations. No more is it bound by banks on either side, no more is it limited in its depth, no more is it restricted by any other factors. It attains vastness, it attains an unfathomable and immeasurable depth and grandeur. That ceaseless flow now becomes a Being. It leaves its “riverness” and puts an end to its limitations and enters into the vastness and immeasurability of its being. It has no more the necessity of flowing. It just has to BE in all its grandeur, its depth, in its limitless boundlessness.
Your consciousness, therefore, is meant to reach that vast boundless, immeasurable, grand Consciousness: the ocean that is the Reality, that is supreme, luminous, illumined Consciousness, the ocean that is bliss absolute, the ocean that is peace profound. That is life.
That you may not miss your direction and forget the great consummation and fulfillment that awaits your life, that the flow of the stream of your life may not get bound up by any obstruction, dam or confinement nor get lost and dried up in some desert of illusion or delusion, of craving or of self-forgetfulness, but that the stream of your life may steadily pursue its destined course and firmly adhere to its right direction so that every day that passes sees you nearing that great and grand and glorious ocean of Satchidananda, that supreme cosmic source and origin of your being, the ancient men of wisdom, out of their infinite love and compassion for all beings, laid down the need to each day set the direction of the stream of your individual consciousness towards this goal supreme. They wisely set down means and methods so that your life-stream ever may move towards the ocean, towards fulfillment, consummation, and the glorious attainment of the supreme aim and objective of your existence.
These means and methods overall, in a general term, are referred to as “worship”. Worship is turning our vision towards that Supreme Being, the great Reality: God, Brahman, the Tao, Ahura Mazda, Yahweh, the Father in Heaven, Allah, Eka Omkar. It is turning our vision towards that Supreme Being in Whose direction the sages would have us face and move, towards that one non-dual Being, the One and Only Great Reality referred to by various terms and given various names. Turning towards that Great Reality and initiating a movement towards It is the main purpose of worship. Suited to the stage of evolution and state of spiritual awakening of different individual souls, the ancients formulated varied techniques, all aimed at this one purpose only; that of turning your thoughts to the eternal and permanent, to the all-perfect, all-full Reality, and of initiating a movement towards that Great Reality. Because individual seeking souls are in different stages of spiritual awakening and evolution, a single method would be inadequate to meet the needs of one and all. But it was necessary that there should be a suitable method for each and every being. Therefore, wisely the ancient sages created this diversity which contained within itself a fundamental unity. All methods have but one purpose. Though the process may outwardly vary, the inner objective is identical: to direct our consciousness towards the Supreme Reality.
Formal worship includes the lighting of candles, waving of incense, offering of flowers, genuflection before God, kneeling and kissing the ground, glorifying Him with psalms and hymns of praise, praying, saying the rosary, repeating His divine Name, reading divine texts that describe and glorify Him and tell you of your relationship to Him, and finally, of entering into the inner silence, gathering up all the divine strands of thought and feeling, purifying them and focusing them upon the Great Reality within through contemplation, interior recollection, and prayer. This initiating of a steady, unbroken stream of God-thought within the depths of your inner being and gathering the sentiments, thoughts and intellect and dwelling only upon that Supreme Being is meditation. Even as there may be many methods according to context and background, even so all the varied processes ultimately are to lead to meditation. They constitute meditation in different forms and in different degrees of intensity, but the objective and the aim is identical. That is to direct your consciousness towards the eternal Reality, which is the goal of your existence, and to initiate a purposeful, loving movement of your consciousness towards that Great Being.
Meditation is this movement fully internalized, this movement taken from the outside into the inside, having no more outer movement. It becomes a process that is supraphysical, that is totally lifted up to the level of the mind and intellect so that it attains a degree of subtlety that goes beyond external ritual, formal ceremonial, and outer manifestation and becomes completely interior; silent, wordless. But essentially it is that same movement which is inwardly present even in the most preliminary of methods which constitute overall the process of worship. When man moves towards his divine source and destiny, he is worshiping that Great Reality. Meditation is the ultimate supreme process where the seeking soul leaves the body aside and does not involve it in any movement or process and goes into the interior, higher region of the mind. When thinking comes within, is intensified and made subtle, even the mind is transcended and meditation becomes the attainment of a state of consciousness where you are aware only of the Divine Reality and you hold onto that subtle state of inner awareness and perception.
You are fortunate that you are gathered here during the last remaining days of the concluding old year to collectively come together day after day, morning after morning, to initiate this movement towards Divine Consciousness, and to experience this movement towards transcending all limitations, of liberating yourselves from all bondage and of entering into a state of illimitable freedom; of Divine Awareness. You are fortunate. It would not be at all out of the way to regard this retreat as a continuing initiation into a state of consciousness that should characterize your interior in all the days to come. You are setting your sights as it were towards the vision of the Supreme Being. You are giving the interior of your mind a new direction. You are giving a different, undivided, truth-filled direction to the stream of your thoughts. Let, therefore, this morning meditation mean to you not merely an item in the program of this retreat for the time being, to conclude upon the first of January. But, on the contrary, let this morning meditation be for you the commencement of the purposeful movement of your consciousness, the commencement of a determined, ceaseless, persevering flow of the river of your consciousness towards that great ocean of Satchidananda. That alone is the one thing worth doing in life. That alone IS real life. Meditation is the central purpose of your existence. Meditation is the true meaning of life in the correct sense of the term. It is the flow of your finite life into infinite, eternal life in the Atman. Thus grasp the right significance and implication of meditation and what it means to you. It is not merely a practice or a picnic or a process, but rather it is the essence of your being. IT IS LIFE ITSELF. When you rightly meditate and when you rightly grasp the implication of meditation, then your entire life is a meditation. When you make your life an earnest, continuous flow towards God-consciousness and higher God-experience, then as you do, life itself becomes a continuous process of meditation. Meditation becomes inseparable from your life. As it is true that when you meditate then alone you live, and otherwise you merely exist, it is equally true that when you rightly live, verily you are meditating. Life and meditation to the spiritually perceptive cannot be separated. To one with right spiritual perception and understanding of life, these two are inseparable.
Let us meditate. Remember that you are a river of consciousness going towards the ocean of infinite Divine Consciousness. This flow through life, when rightly understood and properly grasped, is meditation.
Peace. Peace. Peace be unto all beings in this universe. Peace be unto you all, and the joy of moving towards the Supreme Reality, the joy of moving towards Satchidananda and the joy of ever flowing onward to the ocean of Infinite Divine Bliss. Peace and joy to you, and peace and joy to all in and through you. May that be your life.
God has given you a nice day to meditate and to remember Him, to think about Him, to give thanks to Him, to praise and glorify Him, and to live for Him.
OM OM OM OM OM OM OM
