Memory-Culture By SRI SWAMI SIVANANDA He who dwells in the subconscious mind or Chitta, and in memory, and who is within this memory, whom the Chitta and memory do not know, whose body is the memory (and subconscious mind), who rules the memory and Chitta from within, is thy Self, Inner Ruler (immortal Atman, Antaryami, Amritam). My silent adorations and prostrations to the Inner Ruler! Memory-culture is very, very important. It brings success in God-realisation as well. A forgetful man always fails in his endeavours. The manager gets displeased with a forgetful clerk. A forgetful man commits serious mistakes again and again. A man with strong and retentive memory gets sanguine success in all his ventures and undertakings. He who has memory can conduct his business-affairs very successfully, remember credits and debits, and keep accounts in a satisfactory manner. A student who has a retentive memory will get success in all his examinations. Intelligence is only one-tenth of memory. The Sanskrit term for memory is Smriti. Smarana is remembering. This is the function of the subconscious mind or Chitta. The Samskaras of thinking and acting are deeply impressed in the Chitta. The Chitta is like the sensitive plate of a camera. It is like the sensitive plate of a gramophone. All the impressions are indelibly recorded there. Whenever you make an attempt to remember the past events or things, they come back to the surface of the conscious mind through the trap-door. Just as a prisoner comes out of the jail through a small door in the big main gate, so also the impressions come out through the trap-door in the form of big waves of thought or mental image. If you have a clairvoyant vision or astral eye, you can clearly watch all subterranean movements of these images in the subterranean workshop of the mind or the underground mental factory. The term ‘memory’ is used in two senses. We say, “Mr. John has got a good memory.” Here it means that Mr. John’s capacity of the mind to store up its past experiences is very good. Sometimes you say, “I have no memory of that incident.” Here it means you cannot bring out to the surface of the conscious mind, in its original form, the incident that occurred some years ago. It is an act of remembering. If the experience is fresh, you can have a complete recall of your past experience through memory. You cannot get any new knowledge through memory. It is only a repetition. In ordinary recollection, there is a temporal coefficient. In personal memory, there is a specific coefficient. That which acts together with another is a coefficient. In mathematics, the numerical or literal factor prefixed to an unknown quantity in an algebraic term is coefficient. Suppose you have received a nice fan as a present from your friend. When you use the fan, it sometimes reminds you of your friend. You think of him for a short time. This fan serves a cause for memory (Udbodhaka or Smriti-hetu). The following are the four characteristics of good memory: (i) If you read once a passage and if you can reproduce the same nicely, it is a sign to indicate that you have a good memory. This is termed Sugamata. (ii) If you can reproduce the same thing without increase or decrease (addition or subtraction), it is called Avaikalya. (iii) If you can preserve a fact or passage or anything for a very considerable period, it is called retentive memory, Dharana. (iv) If you can reproduce a passage at once without any difficulty when it is needed, it is called Upaharana. If your brother is a coward, the sight of a similar man in another place will bring to your mind the memory of your brother. This memory is due to similarity of objects (Sadrishata). Suppose you have seen a dwarf at Madras. When you see a very tall man or Patagonian, this will remind you of the dwarf whom you saw at Madras. The sight of a big palace will remind you of a peasant’s hut or a Sannyasin’s grass Kutir on the banks of the Ganga. The memory is due to dissimilarity in objects (Viparitata). When you walk along the road on a stormy day and happen to see a fallen tree, you conclude that the tree has fallen owing to the storm. In this case, the memory is due to the relation between cause and effect (Karya-Karana-Sambandha). A knowledge of the working of the subconscious mind is very necessary for those who want to develop their memory. Most of the mental operations take place in the subconscious mind. The conscious mind takes some rest, but the subconscious mind works throughout the twenty-four hours. It is the subconscious mind that brings the answer like a flash of lightning in the early morning, when you fail to get a solution at night even though you rack your brain for hours and hours together. It is again the subconscious mind that wakes you up in the morning when you go to sleep with a firm resolve: “I should catch the train at 3 a.m.” It is a most faithful servant, provided you know the technique of manipulating it in a masterly manner. You can extract tremendous work from it. All the prodigies, or intellectual giants of the world, know the act of handling and tapping this portion of the mind. The Chitta analyses, sorts, arranges facts and figures, takes out all old records from the various pigeon-holes of the mind, and produces in the early morning or at any time a clear balance-sheet of facts for your perusal and review. Before you retire to bed, give orders to the Chitta to do any kind of work. It will keep the answer ready in the early morning. When you are in a dilemma, when you are at your wits’ end and confused, when you do not know how to solve a serious problem, give orders to

May the Bell Ring Swami Krishnananda recounts a classic Indian tale There is a story in the Mahabharata about a great rishi [sage], Sukha Maharaj. He was a little boy sixteen years old. He was one with all the trees, the mountains and everything. If you spoke to him it was like speaking to a tree or a wall. He just went around naked without any consciousness of the body. Vyasa, his father, called, “Sukha my son, where are you?” The trees everywhere in the forest started vibrating, “I am here, I am here, I am here.” There was a king who was a very virtuous and charitable man. After he was crowned king, he had a desire to feed thousands and thousands of people as a gesture of his greatness as an emperor. And when he did this he wanted to know how many people were eating. He asked the great master Vyasa, “Can you contrive some method so that I may know how many have eaten?” Vyasa hung a bell with a magic spell, a mantra, saying, “When one thousand people eat, the bell will ring once. So you can count the number of times it rings, and know how many thousands have eaten.” The king held a big feast, feeding thousands of people. While all the people ate together for the whole day, the bell rang many times. When it was evening, everybody left. The place was empty and quiet, but then the bell started ringing continuously. “Is something wrong with the bell?” the king asked. Vyasa said, “My bell cannot be wrong.” The king said, “This is a tremendous mystery. Why, when everybody has gone away, is it ringing?” “Whatever it is,” Vyasa said, “my bell cannot be wrong. Go look around and see if people are eating, or what is happening.” The king went out and found the little boy Sukha, looking very dirty. He was sitting with the dogs and they were licking the remains of what all the people had eaten that day. Each time Sukha ate a grain of food, the bell went “dong.” The King ran to Vyasa, saying, “Some poor boy is eating and every time he eats a grain of food the bell immediately rings as if a thousand people have eaten.” “Who is the boy?” asked Vyasa. When the king described him, Vyasa said, “Oh, he is my son. He is the whole universe itself. If one grain of food goes into his stomach, millions have been fed.” The king cried out, “What is the good of my feeding so many people when they have not even seen such a man as this? If he eats one grain it is as if the whole world is being fed. What good have I done with all my charity?” Ashamed, he said, “I never knew that such a person existed, and here I am boasting that I have fed millions of people.” He fell prostrate before the boy, but the boy was unaware. He just continued eating with the dogs. This is the story of an enlightened rishi who has pierced through the cosmos and made it his own– not merely has he made it his own, but he himself is the cosmos. The Upanishads say, “The universe is his. Nay, he himself is the universe.” What more can we say about enlightenment? It is worth thinking of this matter. And one day we shall have it and afterwards may the bell ring.

Knowledge as Means to Freedom By SRI SWAMI KRISHNANANDA Though the Yoga Vedanta Forest Academy was inaugurated by H.H. Sri Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj on 3rd July 1948, the construction of the premises for conducting regular and systematic courses of studies was commenced in September 1976 and the Academy now conducts 3 months’ courses from July 1979. Hence this talk of the Swamiji on 3rd July 1977, while the building was under construction, and the thought bestowed on the regular functioning of the Academy after its construction, reveal his ideas of the aims and ideals before the Academy, its method of functioning, etc. as distinguished from similar other institutions. If our search is for freedom, knowledge is regarded as an endeavour towards the achievement of this freedom. The institutions of the world, whether they are educational, social or political, are instruments for the implementation of this endeavour towards the attainment of human freedom. From this point of view, it is difficult to believe that mankind has different ideals before itself. There seems to be a convergence of ideals, inspite of the diversity of approaches which appear to characterise the efforts of people. An investigative analysis into the structure of the human mind and its longings, would certainly reveal that there is a basic similarity of character in the needs of people and the effort on their part to gain greater and greater mastery over the techniques of the achievement of this freedom. This may be also regarded as an advancement in knowledge. So, the increase in knowledge is in a way equivalent to the increase in the capacity of a person to achieve freedom. But freedom from what, is the basic question. If this question cannot be answered, we cannot also know what knowledge is, and impliedly what education is, because education is the process of the acquisition of knowledge. So one thing hangs on the other. If we cannot know what we are asking for, what we are in search of and what is the sort of freedom that we expect in our lives, we cannot also know what is the knowledge that we seek in life. Consequently, we cannot know what should be the educational process. Everything will topple down, if the central aim is not clear to our minds. If we have a concept of an Academy in this Ashram, it is certainly not going to be an institution of a social kind, because we have many of such kind in the world. It is not going to be a series of studies, in the fashion of the age-old system of the several branches of learning. While all these learnings, arts and sciences, which we gain in the educational institutions of the world, are good in themselves and necessary as far as they go, because they help us to get on in life in some way or the other, we must know that the intention of mankind is not merely to get on in life. Because many can get on beautifully in life on the surface level and yet be very unhappy at the core of their heart. Our intention, in consonance with the intention of Sri Gurudev Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj and masters of that calibre, has not been certainly to tread the beaten track of social tradition or even personal idiosyncrasy or sentiment, but to find out some ways and means of unfolding the mysteries that seem to be at the background of the longings of mankind, and to provide them with a true enlightenment, which is perhaps a better word than knowledge. For this purpose, we may have to proceed from one degree of reality to another degree, gradually. It has to be reiterated, at the outset, that we are not to interpret knowledge as information of some particular subject. Truly speaking, knowledge is a percentage or degree of absorption of one’s life into the character of one’s knowledge. Knowledge is valuable to that extent alone which can be accommodated in one’s personal life and remains as a basic foundation for one’s search for the ultimate purpose which one is apparently longing for. It is very easy to be comfortable in life. But it is difficult to be happy in life. Society can deceive us into the notion that we are well off. When we conform to the standards of social ethics and idiosyncrasies, naturally we are supported by society. But society is only one segment in the vast circle of human endeavour. It is not the whole of the reality that is pictured before bur minds. What we call institutions, academies, societies, universities, colleges, etc., are certain convenient forms introduced to educate people to acquire the true knowledge of life which will make them really free and happy even when they are absolutely alone. These institutions have utterly failed to achieve this purpose. It is no use being free to move in society with the help of an army or a band of policemen. That is not freedom. Freedom is a kind of fearlessness that comes out of the acquisition of the wisdom of life, which again is identical with the reality of life. Thus, whatever groups we form in the social pattern such as institutions, academies or universities, they are not going to serve their purpose as long as they satisfy only the instincts and the sentiments of the groups of people we call society, but do not cater to the needs of the soul. The soul is not a department of the body. Likewise, I should say, the Academy here is not a department of the Divine Life Society, but it is the soul that works as the incentive behind every kind of activity, which you call a department, and is the vitality which supports the entire structure. It is not one branch of learning. Here it is that we have to draw a distinction between the concept of an academy here and similar concepts that may be elsewhere. We are not going to teach physics,

The Individual Nature By SRI SWAMI KRISHNANANDA The location of the individual in the scheme of things makes it inadequate in every way. Its reactions cannot eliminate some amount of error. All individual experience is a form of error in some degree, though all error becomes an element of perfection in the Absolute. The aim of life of the individual is to overcome the urge for organic reactions in relation to external perceptible objects and to transcend itself in the all-comprehensive Absolute, which is the essential reality of all individuals. These reactions among individual natures are either unconscious or conscious. The unconscious urges are termed instincts and the conscious ones are those which constitute the rational processes in the individuals. Beyond these reactions of a twofold nature, there is the supreme integrating principle, viz., intuition and direct realisation of the highest essence of experience. These instinctive urges are powerful, and being ingrained in the very constitution of the individual, refuse to be easily subdued. The most powerful of these involuntary unconscious urges are those of self-preservation and self-reproduction. The instinct of self-preservation is sometimes wrongly called ‘food-seeking’ instinct. Food is not the end that is sought by the individual; food is only a means to the fulfilment of the will-to-live or the love of life which is inherent in everyone, and which is the end. One does not desire to eat food as an end in itself; the purpose of food and drink is living as an individual personality, possessed of a body. This urge is not within the control of the rational intellect, and it overcomes the other urges by its intensity of expression. It manifests itself in various forms, and has several ramifications, primarily connected with, as well as secondarily related to it. It tethers the individual to bodily life and thwarts all ordinary attempts at turning a deaf ear to it. This instinct, this craving for life, this love of individual personality can be overcome only in a higher understanding and feeling relating to a wider experience transcending gross physicality and distorted psychic personality. But any unwise meddling with this urge, without properly understanding its deeper meaning, may make it run riot and ruin the individual attempting to control it. Intimately connected with the self-preservative urge is the self-reproductive urge, the nature of which has to be analysed before any method of overcoming instincts may be discovered. The self-reproductive instinct is misnamed ‘sex-instinct’. This urge has, really, little to do with the sexual personality, as such; the sexual personality is only a means to the propagation of the species, and it is this urge for the production of a new individual of the species that makes use of sex as a cat’s paw. What becomes the object of craving is not sex, but the pleasure caused by the release of the tension brought about by the urge for being instrumental in bringing forth a new individual. Homosexual intercourse and fixation on objects which do not help actual reproduction are only cases of perversion or regression of this original urge, due either to a defect in the formation of the sex glands, or to frustration and non-fulfilment. The aim of the urge for reproduction is not to bring pleasure to the individual; its purpose is the continuation of the species. Those characteristics of the sexual personality which become the source of attraction for the opposite sex are merely the external indications of the development of the gonadial hormones which, through these indications, make known their maturity and readiness for the act of the production of a new individual. This attraction is not concerned with the pleasure of anyone, but is merely the process of the externalisation of cellular and nervous vibration seeking intercourse with the counterpart of the constitution of the attracted individual. It is not the external feature or the form of the opposite sex that is the source of attraction, but it is the meaning which is read in it by the individual that gives value to it and forces the individual to conform itself to that value. It is the suggestiveness and the expressiveness of the form that evokes the stimulation and vibration of the entire constitution in its counterpart. The more does something mean to one, the more is the value that one attaches to it, and the more is one concerned with it. The reading of meaning in the opposite sex is not a rational act of the individual, but it is the ‘general’ urge of the species that materialises itself in a specific individual as an involuntary instinct for physical action. All stimuli set the organism in vibration, and this disturbs its equilibrium. In this process there is release of nervous energy, affecting, not merely the body, but, to a great extent, even the mind. The pleasure that is experienced at the time of being stimulated by an ‘intended’ external agency is really the warmth and affection felt in yielding to an inner command of the physical nature, when motor reactions take place in the organism, on account of the magnetic properties called forth in it. What ravishes the personality and makes it leap up in ecstasy at the time of a desirable objective reaction in the physical world is the total disintegration of the parts of this organism and the peace that follows as a consequence of the cessation of this disturbance, on the fulfilment of the purpose of this reaction. All instinctive pleasure is ultimately the recognition of harmony and equilibrium and joy in consciousness on account of the banishing of disturbance in it by the fulfilment of the meaning of the instinct through the possession and utilisation of the object which plays the role of an agent in loosening and removing the nervous and psychic tension created by the expression of the instinct. Even the urge for self-reproduction may be explained in terms of the urge for self-preservation. It is really the will-to-live of the individual of the

Happiness By SRI SWAMI SIVANANDA “At the doors of large granaries are placed traps containing fried rice (Moori) to catch mice. The mice, attracted by the flavour of the fried rice, forgets the more solid pleasure of tasting the rice inside the granary, and fall into the trap. They are caught therein and killed. Just so is the case with the soul. It stands on the threshold of Divine bliss, which is like millions of the highest worldly pleasures solidified into one; but instead of striving for that bliss, it allows itself to be enticed by the petty pleasures of the world and falls into the trap of Maya, the great illusion, and dies therein”. – Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa Man wants happiness. He shuns pain. He moves heaven and earth to get the happiness he wants from sensual objects, and lo, gets himself entangled in the extricable meshes of Maya. Poor man! He does not know that these objects are perishable and evanescent, finite and conditioned in time, space, and causation. And what is more, he fails to get the desired happiness from them. Sensual pleasure is tantalizing. There is enchantment so long as man does not possess the objects. The moment he is in possession of the object, the charm vanishes. He finds that he is in entanglement. The bachelor thinks of his marriage, day and night. He thinks he is in imprisonment after the marriage is over. He is not able to satisfy the extravagant wants of his wife. He wants to run away from the house to forests. The rich but childless man thinks he will be more happy by getting a son, goes on pilgrimage to Ramesvaram and Kasi, and performs various religious ceremonies. But when he gets a child, he feels miserable; the child suffers from epileptic fits and his money is given away to doctors. Even then, there is no cure. This is Mayaic jugglery. The whole world is fraught with temptation. A SPECTACLE OF SORROW A worldly man is always drowned in sorrow. He is ever struggling to get something, some money, some power, some position, and so on. He is always anxious as to whether or not he would get it. Even when he is in actual possession of the thing he so passionately longed for, he is very anxious lest he should lose it. A rich man has great wealth, but he has no children. And so he is pained at heart. A poor man has fourteen children, but he has nothing to eat, and so he is miserable. One man has wealth and children, but his son is a vagabond, and so he is worried. One man has riches and good sons, but his wife is very quarrelsome. No one is happy in this world. The session judge is very discontented. He thirsts to become a high court judge. The minister is also discontented. He longs to become the premier. A millionaire is discontented; he yearns to become a Croropati (Billionaire). The husband is discontented; his wife is black and thin; he wants to marry another wife with good complexion. The wife is discontented; she want to divorce and marry a rich, young husband. A lean man is discontented; he wants to put on fat and gulps cod-liver oil. A fat man takes antifat pills. No man is contented in this world. A doctor thinks that the advocate is very happy. The advocate thinks that the businessman is more happy. The businessman thinks that the judge is more happy. The judge thinks that the professor is more happy. No one is happy in this world. An emperor is not happy. A dictator is not happy. A president of a state is not happy. God Indra is not happy. Who is happy then ? A sage is happy. A Yogi is happy. He who has controlled his mind is happy. Happiness comes from peace of mind. Peace of mind comes from a state of mind wherein there are no desires, no Moha, no Vishaya, no thoughts of objects. You should forget all ideas of pleasure before you enter the domain of peace. PLEASURE IS MIXED WITH PAIN You cannot have pleasure without pain. Wherever there is pleasure, there is pain. You vainly seek pleasure in gold, in women (or men in the case of women), in this mundane existence. You cannot have absolute happiness in a relative physical plane of pairs of opposites. The pairs of opposites rotate in their turn. Death follows life. Night follows day. Light follows darkness. Pain follows pleasure. One part of pleasure is mixed with fifteen parts of pain. Pleasure that is mixed with pain, fear and worry is no pleasure at all. If you carefully begin to analyze this one part of pleasure also, it will dwindle into an airy nothing. You will find that it is mere play of the mind. Pleasure and pain are relative terms only. They are not two entities. They are obverse and reverse sides of the same coin. The difference is not in kind, but in degree only. Pleasure and pain are two names for one thing. They are two aspects of one thing. For a worldly man without philosophical knowledge, they appear as two different entities. PLEASURE AND PAIN LIE IN THE MIND What is pleasure for you is pain for another. What is pleasure for you now is pain after some time. The first two cups of milk gives you pleasure. The third cup induces disgust, nausea and retching. Milk does not give pleasure during fever. Therefore, pleasure is not in the objects, but in the imagination or inclination of the mind. Pleasure and pain, beauty and ugliness, are all false imaginations of the mind. Mind is a false, illusory product. Conceptions of the mind also must, therefore, be false. Pleasure and pain are in the mind only. It is subjective. Things, when longed for, are pleasant; but are bitter if not longed for. Desires are the cause for pleasures. You can convert