Your Wretched State Desire, anger, jealousy, worry, anxieties, cares and excitements torment you every second. Deaths of persons whom you loved most give you severe shock. Yet you will never renounce these momentary pleasures of the senses of this unreal, mundane existence. Such is the depth of sensual enjoyment! You will say with pride: Oh, I am a powerful man. I am very clever and intelligent. I can do anything. There is no Isvara. But when a mere scorpion stings you sharp, you will call out bitterly: O Narayana, help me! If the hair becomes grey you will invent various dyes to blacken it. You will invent ‘monkey-gland grafting’ for rejuvenation. If the teeth fall, you will put on a new false dental set. You will never leave the ‘will to live and enjoy.’ Hopeless specimens! There are scorpion-stings on one side; flies, bugs, mosquitoes, thorns trouble you from another corner. The sun scorches you in summer and the biting winter sucks your blood. Influenza, plague, leprosy, fashionable appendicitis, pyorrhea, small-pox are ready to devour you. Fear, delusion, grief, sorrow and misery kill you every moment. Renunciation comes only to those who were once kings in their previous births, who developed discrimination between the real and the unreal in their previous births, who have done meritorious actions in their previous births, who led the life of a Sannyasin in several births. Only those who have tremendous will-power, spiritual strength, dispassion, discrimination, and who thirst for salvation can renounce the world. Renunciation demands superhuman strength. Renunciation or Sannyasa is stern stuff. After all, what is this world? It is like the foot print of a calf when compared to the Infinite Brahman or the Absolute. It is a small bubble in the ocean of Existence. It is less than an atom. The worthless nature of the joys of this world is already known to a Viveki or a man of discrimination or an aspirant or an ordinary worldly man even in whom there is not even an iota of spiritual awakening or a little opening of the eye of wisdom. But this world is a very great thing or solid reality for a passionate, worldly-minded man. As his mind is soaked in worldly thoughts, worldly Vasanas, and worldly Samskaras, as he is surrounded by Asuric environment, as he is breathing the atmosphere emanating from sensual filth, he is not able to comprehend subtle things which are transcendental. He has forgotten all about the glory of divinity and super living. Just reflect for a while on your state. As a baby in the womb you are covered with urine and pus and scorched by the fire of hunger. At the age of adolescence you are puffed up with the enjoyment of the sense-objects, etc. As a senile old man you become extremely weak in body and mind. A life of delusion amidst money and sensual objects is your pitiable lot. The Jiva undergoes unbearable suffering in the womb of the mother for ten months, being placed in the midst of faecal matter, urine, blood, flesh, phlegm and marrow and being burnt by the Jatharagni. At the time of birth, the child’s head should come first. If the child gets obstructed by change of position, either the child or the mother must die. To save the mother, the child has to be cut to pieces. Even if the delivery becomes normal, the pain caused to the mother and the baby is immense. A big officer, a big landlord is only a big fool if he nourishes this body only and forgets all about his Soul, if he indulges in sensual objects only and does not attempt for Self-realisation. Knowledge of the Self or Brahma Jnana is more precious and important than the kingdom of all the worlds. King Janaka said to Yajnavalkya, I will give thee, O venerable Guru, my kingdom and also my own self to become thy slave. Such is the glory of a Sage or a Brahma Jnani. If you do not possess Viveka, if you do not try your extreme level best for the attainment of Salvation, if you spend your whole lifetime in eating, drinking, sleeping, marrying, divorcing and propagating the race, how are you better than an animal? As a matter of fact, they are better than you! You will have to sit at the feet of the animals and learn several lessons from them. Even animals possess self-restraint to an astounding degree. O man! where has your self-restraint gone? O man! Never say: My body, my son, my wife, my house, my property, my garden, etc. Attachment is the root cause of the innumerable miseries and troubles of this world. Discipline your mind well, realise the illusory nature of all that appears here in this world. The Bhagavadgita says: The delights that are contact-born are verily the wombs of pain, for they have a beginning and an end, O Kaunteya! the wise do not rejoice in them (Ch. V-22). Indifference to the objects of the senses, and also absence of egoism, insight into the pain and evil of birth, old age and sickness (Ch. XIII-8). That which arises from the union of the senses with their objects is at first as nectar, but in the end is like venom (Ch. VIII-38). Having obtained this transient, joyless world, worship Me (Ch. IX-33). O man! Are you not ashamed to call this filthy body as I and to say this is mine, he is my son, when everything is perishable? This identification with the body is the seat of the great Raurava hell. What is the difference between the worms and men that rejoice in this ill-smelling body? Maya, the great juggler, prepares a skeleton, covers it with flesh, and hides the various impurities with a shining skin. O deluded man! How long are you going to call this body as yours? How long are you going to cling to this perishable body? Give up this deluded

Sensual Life is Shameful Life You are but repeating the same actions as yesterday, yielding but momentary happiness or delusion, and enjoyed things do recur again. Things seen yesterday do again present themselves today. Ornaments worn with exaltation yesterday, are again donned by you today. And yet, even intelligent per sons do not become disgusted with them and are not ashamed to enjoy them again and again in their gross delirium of worldliness. Fie on their intellect! Like ignorant children that taste again and again sweetmeats which impart sweetness for the time being, you are also afflicted, ignorant of the true path. Days, fortnights, months, years, and Yugas do cycle again and again as formerly, and nothing new crops up. Wealth which only makes hosts of thoughts whirl in the brain will not confer bliss on you. This wealth which the mind covets and is very ephemeral in its true nature is utterly useless like a flower-bud in a creeper growing on a high wall and encircled by a serpent. The Prana, which is like 3 drop of rain-water dripping from the end of a leaf turned overhead, flits out of the body at any time. This life is ephemeral like autumnal clouds or a gheeless lamp or the waves of the ocean. Life and death are two acts in the scene of the Juggler, Maya. The lives of those who have freed themselves from rebirth are the true ones and the noblest; but others� lives are like those of old asses. There is nothing so baneful as this life which is utterly perishable in its nature and fleeting in the bestowal of sensual pleasures. The fire of desires has completely burnt you up. In the present state even a bath in Ambrosia will not cool you. You have spoiled yourself to such a pitiable extent. It is these over-vexing de sires that bring on the pain or rebirth, the heaviest and the most unbearable of all pains. This body which is composed of muscles, intestines, urine and faecal matter and is subject to changes, being at one time fat and at another time lean, shines in this mundane existence simply to undergo pains. What beauty, then, is there to be enjoyed in this body? The body of both rich and poor, tall and short, is made up of the same physical stuff. It is false air-bag, filled with rotten vegetable urine and faeces and various kinds of other impurities. These are worshipped by the worldly man. What a pity! If lust which is the source of all enjoyments in this world ceases, then all worldly bondage, which has its substratum in the mind, will cease. Even the most virulent of poisons is no poison; but sensual objects are truly a deadly poison. The former defiles one body only, whereas the latter adulterates many bodies in successive rebirths. You are a slave of passions and desires, emotions and attractions. When are you going to rise up from this miserable state? Those persons, who, in spite of the knowledge of the non-existence of happiness. both in the past and in the present, in the baneful objects of the world, do yet entangle themselves in them with their thoughts clinging to them, deserve the appellation of an ass, if not a worse one. If you do not possess Viveka, if you do not try your best for salvation, if you spend your lifetime in eating, drinking and sleeping, you are a horizontal being only having to learn some lessons from these animals which possess far more self-restraint.

Sense Life is a Terrible Bondage If you want God and God alone, kick off the world ruthlessly. Enough of tea and coffee, enough of soda, lemonade and crushes; enough of novels and cinemas, enough of races and aeroplanes, enough of father, mother, brothers, children, friends and relatives! You came alone and you will go alone. None will follow you save your own actions. Realise God. All miseries will come to an end. A worldly-minded fashionable wife (or husband) is a sharp knife to cut off the life of the hus band (or wife). Be wedded to Santi and have Vairagya as the son, and Viveka, the magnanimous daughter and eat the delicious divine fruit of Atma Jnana which can make you Immortal! Sensual pleasure is tantalising. There is enchantment so long as the person does not possess the object of desire. After obtaining possession of the object, he finds that he is entangled in it. The bachelor thinks of his marriage day in and day out, but enjoyment does not and cannot bring satisfaction to him. Far from it, it only aggravates and intensifies the desire and makes the mind more restless through passion and Trishna. He realises that he is in imprisonment. This is Mayaic jugglery. This world is full of temptations. You cannot get bliss in the objects of the world. It is only materialistic poison. Further, marriage is a lifelong imprisonment; it is the greatest bondage on the face of the earth. A bachelor who was once free is now tied to the yoke, and his hands and feet are chained. This is the experience of married people. They weep after marriage. Therefore, do not marry, if you can help it. Escape will be difficult after marriage. Realise the glory of life in the spiritual path and the great difficulties, anxieties, worries and troubles of married life. Develop intense Vairagya. Assert your birthright of God-consciousness. Art thou not Brahman Itself in Truth? A great man is not one who possesses enormous wealth. A man of renunciation alone is the greatest man in the world. He may be clad in rags. He may appear ugly to people of clouded intellect. Yet he is the happiest, the greatest and the richest man in the whole world! He has no cares and worries. He inherits the kingdom of Peace. O poor worldling! Much hemmed in on all sides and whirling in different conditions in this fluctuating world, you are ever being driven by delusion and afflicted with pains, like dusts of sand floating in the midst of a large stone. Now, reflecting upon Time which is eternal in its true nature, you cannot but term your hundred years of life as a tiny moment. While this is so in fact, how is it that you estimate your life greatly and fall into all sorts of despondencies through the powerful deluding desires? Who is there so miserable in life as those who are spoiled through their gross mind? Fie on your un even life! Comparing this earth to the countless universes that exist but of which you are unconscious, you cannot but consider it as an atom. It is really surprising that you should rate so high this universe so full of pains. Even the greatest of persons will in course of time become the lowest of the low. All enjoyments, great men, and their kindred have appeared in former times. Where, then, is certitude of existence of all objects now? The innumerable earths with their rulers and their wealth have all perished like fine sand! The Devalokas with their Indras and celestial wealth have all disappeared like a flash in the sky above. No limit can be imposed upon the number and size of the universes, the Brahmas, Brahmandas, and Jivas that have come and gone. Where, then, are all the objects that have vanished out of sight? Where, then, is the permanency of this earthly life? It is only by bestowing your desires on the illusion of a long dream of physical delusion in the sable night of the unreal Maya that you have debased yourself to this ignorant state. Enough, enough with all the births and deaths you have undergone hithertofore. Not a single beneficent object exists in this world, either in the beginning, middle or end. Are not all created objects coated over with the varnish of destruction? You enact in your daily life sinful acts, painful deeds and illimitable vices which cannot be pardoned. In youth you are enveloped with Ajnana or illusion; in adult age you are entangled in the meshes of sense-pleasures; in old age you grownunder the burden of Samsara and deluded attachment for family and children even when in debility. You eventually die a miserable death. Being thus always half-sinking in the quagmire of delusion, when will you find time to devote yourself to virtuous actions? How came this Maya to play and dance in this world? This dreadful ghost of your mind dances in the theatre of this universe to the music of the organs. If in the opening and the closing of the eyelids, many Brahmas are created and destroyed, what are you, a mere puny creature reveling in the filth of earthliness?

Waste Not Precious Life You do not know even a single Sloka of the Gita or the Upanishads. You do not know how to sit on Padmasana. You do not know the efficacy of Mantra-Kirtana. You do not know anything about self-analysis, mind-control, self-restraint, concentration and introspection. You have lived in vain! You have wasted this precious life. Hotels, restaurants, cine ma houses, are your abodes of Immortality or Vaikuntha Dhama. Really you are leading a miserable life. If you can talk something on dry politics, you think you are a great hero! Time is fleeting. The night is wasted in sleep and pleasure. The day is wasted in idle talk, amassing money and maintenance of the family. Days, months and years are rolling away. Hairs have become grey. Teeth have fallen. You are attached to perishable objects through Moha. Tell me, friends, how long you will be a slave to the fleeting things of the world? How long are you going to repeat the same sensual enjoyments? How long do you wish to worship mammon and woman? When will you find time to meditate on the Lord and to do Virtuous deeds? Think and reflect. This world of names and forms is constantly changing. Seas dry up and vast sandy deserts come in to being in their places. Elevations become depressions and depressions become elevations. Sand becomes stone and stone becomes sand. Blocks of stones become lime and lime becomes dust. Forests become model towns and cities become deserted places. Grass becomes blood, blood becomes milk, milk again becomes blood. Blood becomes flesh. A young man becomes an old man and a beautiful girl becomes an ugly woman. The fatty man becomes thin and a lean girl a fatty woman. A Zamindar becomes a beggar and a beggar becomes a Zamindar. At the back of these ever changing objects there is the changeless, eternal, Immortal Brahman or the Supreme Self. The Ultimate Principle or Atman, fearless, timeless, endless and beginning less, shines eternally behind the names and forms. He who realises this Brahman attains Immortality, Freedom and Eternal Peace! Kings and lords will pass away. This world will pass away with all its occupants. The sun, moon and stars will pass away. All joys and sorrows will pass away. Wife, children, wealth, property will pass away. The five elements, the earth and heaven will pass away. Only Brahman, the Pure Satchidananda, will shine eternally. The leaves of life are falling off. Youth is fa ding. The days are rolling on. Time, the destroyer, lays his icy hands on the whole world. Existence in this world is as momentary as a bubble or lightning! O Man! Wealth, vehicles, sons, women, dominions, property, are worthless! They are all perishable. Seek the Lotus-feet of the Lord and attain Immortality, Eternal Bliss and Supreme Peace! If you do not meditate on the Lord, you will be thrown in lower births. If you do not know Him, the cycle of births and deaths will not come to an end. If you do not think of Him, you will take countless births as germs and insects. Exert and realise Him. Then all troubles will terminate.

Worldly Man, Wake up! by Swami Sivananda Human Birth is for God-Realisation The Goal of life is the attainment of Self-realisation, or God-consciousness. There is One Supreme Undying Principle or Essence, the Brahman or the Absolute Self, which dwells in the chambers of your heart and everywhere. Brahman has existed in the past, exists in the present and will exist in the future. Brahman is Existence Absolute, Knowledge Absolute, Bliss Absolute. An ignorant man vainly searches for happiness in perishable objects of the external world which is only a dream-appearance in reality, conditioned in time, space and causation. The worldly man has no peace of mind. He amasses wealth, begets children, gets titles, honours, fame, name and yet his mind is restless. He has no abiding joy and lasting happiness. He is still in want of something. Rich people possess immense wealth, have decent bungalows, servants, take dainties and palatable dishes and enjoy all sorts of comforts, but have no peace of mind. They are restless. They are searching for something; what, they do not know. They feel they are in want of something, the nature of which they do not exactly comprehend. In the whirlpool of fleeting sensual pleasures you have forgotten the purpose of life and its goal. In your pursuit after the phantom-shows of worldly vanities, you have annihilated the spiritual instincts and longings of the soul. What a sad state! Mysterious is Maya! Mysterious is Moha. You have entirely become a creature of servile imitation. You cannot remain even for a day with out self-shaving. The razor, the mirror and the sha ving stick are your objects of worship, as soon as you get up from bed. You cannot walk bare-footed even for a few yards. You want a servant to put on the socks and the shoes and tie the laces. You can not walk even half a mile. You want a ricksha or a tonga. How effeminate you have become! How much degenerated you are! O dear Ram! Remember that you are a lonely pilgrim here. This world is a public inn only. Your permanent abode is in the Atma or the Self which is this All. Finish your pilgrimage quickly by doing rigorous Tapas and meditation and reach your origi nal abode of Immortality, everlasting Bliss and Peace, in this very birth! To have a human birth is difficult. To follow the Vedic path is rare. To be well-versed in scriptural lore is still rarer. But the rarest of all is discrimination between the Self and the not-Self, Self-realisation and getting established in Brahman. Liberation is attained through the well-earned merits of a hundred crores of births. Human birth, longing for liberation and contact of a great saint or a sage are all obtained by the grace of the Lord. He verily commits suicide who, having obtained all these means, still does not exert for Liberation. Nobody knows what the next birth will be. How can one make enquiry into Vedanta, if one takes an animal birth? Bullocks, horses, elephants and buffa loes get emaciated through starvation and carrying heavy loads without any rest. They are not able to express their sufferings and pains. Should you not do righteous actions to prevent yourself from taking such miserable births? We cannot extend our lifetime even by a second though we spend crores of pounds for this purpose. What greater harm can we do ourselves than was ting such a precious life? Neither charity, nor sacrifice, nor fame, nor fast ing, nor begetting a good son, nor control of breath, nor victory over the enemy, nor the society of friends, nor Siddhis and Riddhis can stand in comparison to the Great Glory of the Realisation of the Self.

Advaita and Vishishtadvaita Both systems teach Advaita, i.e., non-duality or monism. There exist not several fundamentally distinct principles, such as the Prakriti and the Purusha of the Sankhyas, but there exists only one all-embracing being. While, however, Advaita taught by Sri Sankara is a rigorous absolute one, Sri Ramanuja’s doctrine has to be characterised as Vishishta Advaita, i.e., qualified non-duality, non-duality with a difference. According to Sankara, whatever is, is Brahman, and Brahman itself is absolutely homogeneous, so that all difference and plurality must be illusory. According to Ramanuja also, whatever is, is Brahman; but Brahman is not of a homogenous nature, but contains within itself elements of plurality owing to which it truly manifests itself in a diversified world. The world with its variety of material forms of existence and individual souls is not unreal Maya, but a real part of Brahman’s nature, the body investing the universal Self. The Brahman of Sankara is in itself impersonal, a homogeneous mass of objectless thought, transcending all attributes; a personal God it becomes only through its association with the unreal principle of Maya so that strictly speaking Sankara’s personal God, his Isvara, is himself something unreal, Ramanuja’s Brahman, on the other hand, is essentially a Personal God, the all-powerful and all-wise ruler of a real world permeated and animated by his spirit. There is thus no room for the distinction between Parama Nirguna and an Aparama Saguna Brahman, between Brahman and Isvara.

The Royal Science and Brahma Vidya By Swami Sivananda “Kingly science, kingly secret, the supreme purifier is this, realisable by direct intuitional knowledge, according to righteousness, very easy to perform, imperishable.” -Bhagavad-Gita IX-2 Brahma-Vidya (science of God), is the Science of sciences. The knower of Brahma-Vidya or the Science of Brahman or the Science of the Absolute, knows everything. His knowledge is full. He has the whole experience through intuition or revelation. Take your firm seat on the rock-bottom of the Upanishadic truths and accept the findings of science only if they tally with the Upanishadic truths, otherwise reject them ruthlessly. All secular sciences have their own limitations. A scientist works on the physical plane with a finite mind and with instruments. He knows the physical laws. He has some knowledge of the elements, atoms and physical energy. His knowledge is fragmentary. He has no experience of the whole. He has no knowledge of transcendental or supersensual things. Science is only a partially unified knowledge. A scientist infers, investigates and draws exact conclusions from his observations. He understands Nature but he knows nothing of the origin or destiny of Nature. Who made the sun and gave power to its rays? Who combined four parts of nitrogen with one part of oxygen? Who gave power to the electrons? Who gave power to the atoms to combine into molecules? Who or what made and bestowed upon the ultimate particles of matter their marvellous power of varied interaction? Science does not know this great mystery. On the contrary, Yoga is completely unified knowledge. A Yogi gets inner, divine realisation. He clearly sees with his inner Yogic eye the subtle rudiments of matter. He identifies himself with the Supreme Being who is the Lord of Prakriti or matter. He gets control over the five elements. He clearly understands the whole mystery of creation through direct intuitional knowledge. The scientist lacks this sort of knowledge. He has only experimental knowledge. In the matter of evidence in psychological questions, the sense-perceptions with which science naturally deals are only second-rate criteria and are therefore to be received with caution. The closing of the external channels of sensation is usually the signal for the opening of the psychic and, from all evidence, it would seem that the psychic sense is more extensive, acute and in every way more dependable than the physical. The business of science is generalisation of phenomena; it is the function of philosophy and Yoga to explain. Religion is the practical aspect of philosophy. Philosophy is the rational aspect of religion. The scientist tries to answer the “how” of the problem; the philosopher and the Yogi attempt to answer the “why” of it. It is a mistake to say that such and such an event occurs because of certain laws of Nature. The laws of Nature do not give any real explanation of the phenomena. A law of Nature is simply a statement, in terms as general as possible, of what happens under given circumstances in a natural phenomenon. Science is only concerned with the phenomena. Science shows a marvellous harmony of Nature. But it is the problem of philosophy and Yoga to solve the why” of Nature’s harmony. Scientists possess a partial knowledge of the universe. They have not understood the whole code of Nature’s laws. They have no knowledge of the occult side of things. They have no knowledge of the astral, mental and higher planes such as Brahma-Loka or the world of Brahma. The unseen world is of far greater importance than the sense-universe which is visible to the naked eye. A fully developed Yogi can function on all planes and so he has full knowledge of the manifested and the unmanifested Nature. The senses, by which you get a knowledge of the external objects, are not fully developed. Therefore, the knowledge obtained is partial. The external senses are exact counterparts of the internal astral senses. Scientists have no knowledge of the subtle rudiments of matter. Life will become fuller and richer when one develops this inner eyesight by the practice of Yoga. Just as blood, when seen under the microscope, reveals many mysterious things, such as leucocytes, nuclei, pigment, germs and bacilli, so also the inner Yogic eye reveals many a mystery to the hidden side of things. The knowledge of the scientists is only fragmentary or partial, whereas the knowledge of the Yogis who have realised the Truth is full and perfect. In its outlook, science differs radically from philosophical musings. Consequently, the mode of approach of science to its specific problems is different from that of philosophy. Yet there is some similarity in the findings of both science and philosophy when some broad questions are discussed. Scientists have to learn many things from the seers of the East. Who gave power to the electrons to revolve? What is at the bottom of these electrons? Who gave life to the cell or the protoplasm? Who gave intelligence to the cells to secrete milk or bile or gastric juice from the blood? The scientists are still observing and experimenting. They are still groping in darkness. What is the cause of the origin of an impulse? Who is the director of the mind? What is the cause of the origin of thought? Even if all the living scientists were to put their heads together to solve these questions, they cannot give definite and conclusive answers. The mind of a scientist cannot work on higher spiritual planes. It is gross and impure. it has outgoing tendencies. It is filled with desires, passions and worldly impressions. The scientist cannot look within, introspect and meditate. He can analyse the atoms of different elements but he cannot do self-analysis. He can bombard the atoms, watch the movements of the electrons and make discoveries in Nature. But the mind of a Rishi or a Yogi is subtle and pure. It is free from worldly desires and passions, from selfishness, lust and hatred. It is equipped with