You Are the Light Sri Swami Chidananda A disciple rang up and asked for blessings that he may attain Illumination, and said: “Today (being Dipavali) all of India is illuminated with millions of lights taking away darkness. While everything is bright outside, but within me there is only darkness. The light of that inner awakening has not yet started to shine forth with me.” The thing he had to do was to get rid of this wrong notion that there is no light within, that there is only spiritual darkness. “Who told you this? Have I not repeated many times, ‘I am in the Light. The Light is within me. I am the light’? Why cling to the wrong notion that there is no light within? Have not all the scriptures told you that the indwelling Divinity is your reality, that the Light of lights beyond all darkness shines in Its non-dual splendour where the knower, the Thing known and the process of knowledge sink into oblivion? The triplet disappears. There is only the experience of Consciousness. And that Light dwells in all hearts. Jyotishaamapi tajjyotistamasah paramuchyate; Jnaanam jneyam jnaanagamyam hridi sarvasya vishthitam – That, the Light of lights, is said to be beyond darkness; (That which is) knowledge, the knowable and the goal of the knowledge, abides in the hearts of all.” [Gita 13.17] “You have only to stop thinking that there is no Light. You are the Light of lights, which can supply radiance to everything it comes into contact with. It can light up million lights. Establish yourself in an unshaken manner in this truth. Abide in the awareness: ‘Within me there is no darkness. I am the Light of lights. Divine radiance is my name. I can supply light to the whole world.’ Try to practise this truth. Abide in this fact. Do not be fearful of non-existent darkness.” He answered: “Please bless me to understand all that you are saying.” Then I told him: “All these words are nothing but one hundred per cent blessing only. A spiritual teacher does not strike a pose, raise hand in some benedictory posture, and then pronounce in a big dignified way, ‘My son, I bless you. He lives blessings. He is blessings. What he says, what he speaks, what he is doing is blessing. He is nothing but perpetual blessing in all that he thinks, feels, speaks, acts and lives. The way that lives is also a blessing. Recognise the blessing. Know it as such. Blessing is there.” And I concluded, “You are the Light.”

The Necessity for a Guru Is a guru indispensable in the field of spirituality? It may be that a guru is not easily found, but I can assure you that he is no less indispensable–whatever the impediments may be. What can you learn if there is no one to teach you? What can you receive unless there is someone to give? There is a saying in India that even if you want to learn to make a pot from a lump of clay, you have to go and apprentice yourself to someone who knows the skills. If you want to prepare a simple dish, you have to ask about the recipe from someone who has done it. Maybe there are certain ingredients that you don’t know at all, or you don’t know where to buy them. Then the person might tell you that there is a shop in such and such a street and there you will find all the things you need. At each moment you had to be helped and shown the way. Who is a real guru? A real guru is one who has advanced on the path. He may not be a Jesus or a Buddha, but he is sincere, earnest and dedicated to the quest for God. He has attained a state of purity and self-control, he is established in truth, and he is ahead of you on the spiritual path. He can teach you what you have to learn; he can show you the path that you have to tread, and he can guide you along that path. It is not as easy in the West to find a competent guru as it is in the East, and this is surely an obstacle for a Westerner. But if you cannot find a guru who is established in the highest samadhi and Self-realisation, you need not wander about without guidance and advice. Take one who is ahead of you on the path, and he will be in a position to lead you. In this modern age, spiritual teachings are available everywhere, but you must be cautious. Select the teachings of a guru who is practical, who is sincere to the core and whose teachings strike a responding cord within your heart, and then launch yourself sincerely in sadhana. You should not keep waiting to commence sadhana because you think that first you must find a guru. The guru will come one day, but on no account should sadhana be delayed. One should take up spiritual practice, and when the time comes, the divine will provide you what is necessary. There are fortunate ones who get a guru right from the very beginning–even before they have really started on the path of spiritual life and realisation. That is very good, but in the absence of such a phenomenon, right from the beginning one should proceed with sadhana. What can you do before you find a true guru? They say that without a guru no spiritual sadhana is possible, but this is a misconception. Whether a guru comes or not, when you have realised that the goal is to attain God, you should immediately start practising sadhana in earnest. Be humble, truthful, kind and compassionate. When you are in touch with these things, you must start practising, whether the guru comes or not. Every little thing in this universe requires someone to teach you the skills, and why should there be a sole exception only in the spiritual life? People will ask, “Cannot God Himself be my guru?” Yes, but God contacts you through a manifest form. Very rarely indeed does God come directly and invisibly within the heart. Ultimately, it is God alone that is the supreme Guru of Gurus–the Indweller within you who prompts you, guides you and takes you to the spiritual path. But He also comes in and through the physical guru. We should not always think that we are supreme exceptions who don’t need a manifested guru. There are rare exceptions in this universe, but we should not think that we are one of them. It is subtle ego to think that God Himself has come to us. By and large, the main reason for this question as to whether a guru is necessary is that the subtle ego is unwilling to submit to a human teacher. Ego and a sense of superiority play havoc in the individual. Keep yourself ever humble and try to learn from all sources. Ultimately it is the ego that is the barrier. One claims to want liberation, but who is it exactly that thinks they want liberation? It is this little ego. The elimination of ego is the whole of spirituality. The most effective method ever formulated is this tradition of the guru, who can help eliminate this ego in a concrete way. In so many ways you can practise the process of eliminating the ego, but it is only in relation to the guru that you can actually practise this process of eliminating the ego day by day. This ego is truly very subtle. A person under the sway of this sort of ego might contend, “Oh, formerly there were Self-realised gurus to whom you could submit yourselves, but now there are no Self-realised gurus. How can you submit yourself to some Tom, Dick or Harry?” Who asks you to submit yourself to some Tom, Dick or Harry? Saying that there is no proper guru is itself an assumption on your part due to a subtle superiority complex. This type of person might say, “There may be gurus for those who have not yet come up to my state of spiritual awakening, but for me there is no adequate guru, because I have already attained to an advanced state of awareness.” What spiritual knowledge are they talking about? They have stuffed their minds with some book knowledge, and then they are giving themselves airs. One should always guard against this subtle feeling of superiority. “I have already gone a long way; I am not like the rest;

The Supreme Need of the Hour: Love Sri Swami Sivananda New Year’s Message 1st January, 1950 Is there a man whose heart will shed tears of blood at the misery of even the meanest of God’s creation? It is in his heart–be sure–that the Lord dwells. O Man! Years have come and gone! You are yet the same old brute, the same abode of the same old cruel heart which grabs and does not give. Renounce, serve, love! Become good this very minute! What have you learnt from the terrible tragedy which shook the country from end to end? Would you still lean back in your cushioned lounge and ignore the misery of the poor, of the downtrodden, of the ignorant masses, merely philosophising: “It is their lot, it is their own Karma?” Have you not seen that in the twinkling of an eye the rich man becomes penniless and the pauper becomes a millionaire? Come, plunge into selfless service. Serve all. Love all. See your God in all. Renounce every penny that you have in the service of the poor, in the regeneration of the fallen. Rush to the aid of the Lord that walks on the road with his begging bowl. Hasten to the aid of the hapless and the helpless sick and relieve their suffering. Greet the half-naked, poverty-stricken God-in-human-form with a smile, reverence and sympathy. Clothe the naked. Feed the poor. Educate the illiterate. Nurse the sick. Raise the downtrodden. Give of your best in their service. Shame upon the perpetrators of violence, the Asuras in human garb who massacre innocent men and women! Gandhiji lived, loved and diedfor the sake of the establishment of Ahimsa in the human heart. His life’s toil should not go in vain. It is a crime to allow it to be neglected as mere ideology. The immortal glory that Gandhijiachieved can be achieved by every one, if only one is prepared to pay the price in the form of loss of personal gains. God has sent His messengers again and again to teach humanity Divine love. To make this Message of Love more prominent, He sends wars, famines, riots and pestilences! Love shines sharply in contrast. Yet, how long does it take forman to understandthe Message of Love! It is not yet too late. O children of God! This beastly nature is only an outward covering. Your essential nature is Divine. Under the influence of this ignorance-Anaesthesia you commit all sorts of crimes. Your real nature is Purity, Wisdom and Godliness. Come, wake up! Wait not for calamities to put into your heart the wisdom which is available to you in the life and teachings of the Sages of India! Wake up at once, realise the folly of worshipping Mammon and the glory of serving God. Worship God not only in the temples and shrines, not only in places of pilgrimage; but in every one you see around you, in the poorest of the poor, in the lowliest of the low, in the downtrodden, illiterate masses, in the sick and the suffering. See the lord in them and love them, express this love in the form of service. This alone will make each one of you a real MAN, nay, a Superman, or a Divine Personality! It is the One Self or the One God alone that pervades every atom of creation. If but every morning this forms your first thought: “My own self it is that pervades the universe”, you will realise that it is you yourself that suffer through every sufferingman! You will then become utterly unselfish and share with the needy what you have and thus bring abouta new and glorious Age of Peace, Plenty and Prosperity. All religious and spiritual organisations, social service leaguesand humanitarian institutions, should convert themselves into Sevashrams for the amelioration of the conditions of the poor–the masses. Every one who can afford to, should contribute his mite to these institutions and see that the poor are raised to a normal standard of living. Individually, every one should sympathise with, and comfort, every man in distress, every man in need, and rest not till he has been provided for. This is the greatest service. It is only when the heart thus expands that the Lord will be enshrined in it. It is when every Indian heart is brimming with this universal love that Mother India will assume the motherhood of all nations of the earth and guide her children in all parts of the world to limitless happiness. Let us all hail the New Year with a heart of Love! Let us melt our differences and unite! Let our heart melt at human suffering! May all be united! May all attain God-consciousness in this very year! May there be peace, amity, plenty and prosperity everywhere! May His blessings be upon you all!

Cast Off This Ego Sri Swami Sivananda The so-called bewildered and tumultuous world with its never ending tale of toil and tears is in reality a majestic university of wisdom wherein everyone learns from the living book of life of their own as well as that of philosophers of realisation, of saints and sages, of divine teachers and holy masters. They that put forth their own ego shall learn nothing in this grand university and all that they have shall be taken and they shall be left forlorn. The man of ego loves his own ignorance; he glories in his own foolishness and attaches much importance to his perishable body and thereby he exposes himself to the winds of adversity, storms of woes and strokes of fate and affliction. He is filled with nescience and in his audacity, he disobeys the Law of Life; he shall have no admission into the portals of Eternal God and Supreme Felicity; he will be imprisoned in his own cocoon of misery and shall never be let out into boundless Empyrean Blessedness. Looking through the wrapped perspective of his own ego, man has made this earth a hell of gloom and death, torture and frustrations. Looking through the medium of his own illusions and sensuous mind, he has made this temple of happiness, this world, into a den of anguish and grief, terror and forlornness. Laws of darkness and death rule him and not that of light and life. Staying in his own ego, man invites the invasion of sins and annihilation. Wisdom appears to him as folly, purity as impurity, perfection as imperfection, humility as cowardice, meekness, weakness, service as attachment and passion, compassion as hypocrisy, and everything else appears just the opposite to the man’s perverted mind intoxicated withthe wine of ego. The man of ego is ruled by vanity, he is governed by utter pride; hatred grips him, folly sways him, delusion sits in his very intelligence, evils hover round him and his steps lead him into the realms of denser ignorance and ruin. But his understanding being clouded and his discrimination being obscured by his own prejudiced preconceptions, he is unaware of his own sorry state. On the contrary, he feels himself well off and all knowing and surveys the rest of humanity with condescending eye as unfortunate creatures toiling foolishly far below him in evolution’s scale. Such is the self delusion of the ego. Where the egotism is not, there is all blessedness, all goodness, all glory and there can one find God. To the one devoid of ego, the whole world is a haven of rest, a realm of peace and kingdom of abounding all happiness. For him there is no more distress. He is purified, exalted and illumined. He sees no sin anywhere and no evil can come near him. Nothing is hidden from him; the Truth stands before him in all its splendour and radiance; the mysteries are revealed to him and all the secret workings of the universe are made known to him. He who has no ego and who has surrendered himself to God is the master of every power and force that there is, for all powers and forces are under God. Egoless man’s is the supreme freedom and perfection. Too difficult is it to sacrifice the ego, but unless it is sacrificed, no vision of truth and no sight of God is possible of revelation. Sell away your lower self and purchase the Supreme Self. Withdraw your mind from justifying your position; serve your enemies; sacrifice all your rights if you wish to rule; love those who hate you; resist not if you wish to conquer; sacrifice all that you feel belongs to you. Seek nothing if you wish to have everything. Conquer yourself if you wish to have the Highest Freedom. Take no shelter under ego if you wish to be protected by the Supreme Power, the Almighty God. Let one annul all forms of ego and he shall see the Divine Truth reflected in his own heart within; he shall be illumined with the Divine Knowledge forthwith. Let the ego be destroyed; lose yourself in the love of all; negate yourself and merge yourself in the service of all and thereby you shall see that you have become one with the Supreme Lord who is all in this vast universe. Empty yourself of your egoism and all the impurity connected with it and you shall see the inexhaustible Abundance of Prosperity, of God filling you to the brim, nay, filling you so much that you cannot contain it any longer. Sacrifice a little of your ego, be it even so little a fraction of it, that in itself shall be sufficient pretext for God to inundate your being with His Delight, His Power and His Light. Such is His Divine Love and Compassion. Deny yourself a little and be indifferent towards the turmoil of outward happenings, towards the external surge of like and dislike, pathos and pleasantry, and the seemingly crushing stress of life and fall back upon the Lord, for you shall be let out into the Blessedness, Peace and Wisdom and eternal joy.

Yogic Life – In And Through The World Sri Swami Chidananda We take up now the vital subject of how being in the midst of worldly activities, one may yet fulfil the supreme spiritual purpose of life on earth. While it is true that both the secular life and the spiritual life are a part of you, the spheres of the two are different, in the sense that the secular life has its sphere outside of yourself, and the spiritual life has its sphere within yourself. But then, your spiritual life does have some expression outwardly also, and wherever you are your spiritual life has to be there. This interior life cannot be created by bringing about visible external changes in yourself or your circumstances. You cannot be a better spiritual man if you are living at the top of a mountain than if you are living at the foot of it. Mere change of the external form cannot really and truly affect your spiritual life; for it is the life of the soul, and wherever you are, the inner self can be looking towards God. It is what you are within yourself that determines whether you are living a spiritual life or a worldly life, and not the place you are in. That gives the secret of living a yogic life in and through the world. Everything can become yogic if you spiritualise your life. The method of spiritualising life has been expounded in the most sacred scripture, the Bhagavad Gita. Yoga is the union with the Divine. And if you are living your life in constant inner union with the Divine through a link of great devotion and love for the Supreme, then whatever you may do, wherever you may be, and in whatever manner you may be living, you are living a life of Yoga. For you are living with God, and you are at one with God in your inner life. Such a life of at-oneness with God, such a life of conscious effort to be for ever united with Him in love and devotion, and with an awareness that the whole of this life is meant for totally consummating of perfecting such union is Divine Life. It is a life of Yoga. If you are consciously trying all the time to reach out towards Him in spirit, to draw nearer and nearer to Him day by day, then you are living a life of Yoga, no matter what shape your external life might take. This spirit is the most important and essential factor, which makes the life spiritual. This enables us to be united with God in the interior of our being. Neither thief, nor even nuclear bombs can take away the spiritual wealth gained from living such ayogic life.

Are Spiritual Practices Necessary? Sri Swami Chidananda Introduction We speak of the necessity of an awakened awareness. We speak of the necessity of a higher awareness which alone will make our life genuine and authentic. Until that awareness becomes firmly established in our heart, our life is still counterfeit, our life is still, if you want to put it more charitably, apurna, inadequate. It is not fully the life we are supposed to live; it is not a spiritual life. A spiritual life is based upon spiritual consciousness. A spiritual life is based upon spiritual thinking; it is based upon a spiritual approach to all things. It is based upon a spiritual vision of the universe in which we live; it is based upon a spiritual awareness of oneself, a divine awareness of oneself. It is a transcendence of one’s present, limited body-mind-bound and time-space-oriented human personality. It is a going beyond this present earth consciousness, this psychophysical human consciousness, which by its very nature is temporary, changeful and inadequate. For, in every cycle of 24 hours, this human consciousness is extinguished. It is simply not there. It has a recurring death every day during deep sleep, and this is not philosophy or metaphysics or speculation. It is the fact of experience of all, be he king or beggar, donkey or dog. That being the case, when this human consciousness appears and disappears every 24 hours, how can it be called truly real? Therefore, spiritual life begins from this central point, this subjective starting point: How do you know yourself? What is your awareness of yourself? From morning till night, what is the awareness of yourself that pervades your consciousness, that dominates your heart, that fills your mind and that directs the manner in which your intellect functions? If spiritual life is to be authentic, genuine, true, and, therefore, go on yielding spiritual results, it is this which is the very key. You are what your inner awareness is. Hence the great prayer to the effulgent Light of lights beyond all darkness, Narayana, shining as this Light of lights: “dhiyo yo nah prachodayat—Maymy inner being—mind, intellect, thought, emotion, sentiment—all become characterised by an effulgence, by a certain radiance, a certain brightness. May Your light of inner spiritual vision bring a flood of light into my intellect.” Hence, again and again, this prayer is offered. Thus, it is true that the essence of spiritual life is an awakened and alert awareness, an unfolded inner consciousness of yourself upon a higher dimension, upon a higher plane. It is true. But then, what relevance, what meaning, what significance, what relationship, what place, do processes such as japa, kirtan, formal worship, study, pilgrimage, Ganges bath, mantra writing have? What do these various sadhanas, various aspects of practical spiritual life, have to do with this awareness? Are they irrelevant? Are they meaningless? Are they a superstition? Are they an unnecessary burden we are carrying—unscientific, irrational, illogical, outmoded? Or, do they have a role to play in our spiritual life? Do they have some practical value? Do they even have a central, important place in our spiritual life and sadhana? One way of answering this and understanding it is very direct. It is supra-logical, direct. Had they no importance, if they did not have any real, vital link, some relationship, some connection, with this inner awareness, some definite role to play, some very indispensable function, then great souls like Gurudev Swami Sivanandaji would never have endorsed them, supported them or made provision for them, would never have built a temple, a Bhajan Hall, instituted akhanda nama sankirtan or written books called Japa Yoga and Philosophy of Idol Worship. All these Swami Sivanandaji would not have done unless they had some great significance and value. So this is enough answer. Had these things not a relevance, a purpose and a value, he would not have endorsed them. And no one in his senses would say that Swami Sivananda was a superstitious person. Similarly, a great spiritual phenomenon like Sri Sri Anandamayi Ma would not have endorsed japa, kirtan, havans and various other worships. Neither would Papa Ramdas by bell, book and candle have proclaimed the supremacy, the supreme efficacy of the Name: OM SRI RAM JAI RAM JAI JAI RAM. And mind you, none of these people were orthodox in the conservative sense of the term. They were modern people, of our own times, who were aware of all the new trends of thought. And yet they meticulously followed certain outer forms. That is enough answer. The Need for a Purified Mind But then, if you want a different answer, more along the modern line of thinking, it is that such an awakened awareness, such an unfolded spiritual awareness, an active divine awareness, needs a certain medium, a certain field through which and in which to manifest, wherein to abide, just as any force needs some medium to manifest itself in and through. And the point lies here: this subtle, alert, awakened awareness, divine awareness, is an extremely subtle state of consciousness that can manifest only in a refined inner instrument, in a purified mind. Such a very subtle state of mind and intellect is conspicuous by its absence in the vast majority of present day global mankind. They are steeped in rajas and tamas. For them, this gross world of names and forms alone is real, and they live to satisfy sense appetites and to fulfil desires. They are firmly bound down to a lesser, grosser level of being, of thinking, feeling and acting. In such beings, the mind-stuff, the chitta,is gross; it vibrates in a very rajasic and tamasic way. It may be able to make scientific discoveries and inventions, but it is ego-bound. It is bound to dehatma Buddhi—”I am the body” awareness. Even the slightest concept of the abstruse, the purely abstract principle as Spirit, is not there at all. They will mouth certain words; it may be part of their vocabulary, but it is not part of their thought frame; it is not part of their inner content. This being the case, an awakened awareness, an alert awareness