The Best Part of Knowledge By Sri Swami Chidananda The whole of the spiritual life is an acquiring of spiritual knowledge. The guru is a source of spiritual knowledge: Scriptures are the source of spiritual knowledge. Special books on specific topics or aspects of the spiritual life and sadhana are also a source of spiritual knowledge. The function of knowledge is to remove ignorance. We replace ignorance by knowledge. It is knowledge itself that does this function of getting rid of ignorance and taking its place. It removes darkness and brings light. But, apart from its function of getting rid of ignorance, let us ask a different question about knowledge itself. What is the best part of knowledge? Have you ever considered this? We have knowledge, but what is the best part of this knowledge that we have acquired? We may say that knowledge by itself is undivided–it is one integrated thing–but there are parts of knowledge in relation to us. When we consider knowledge and ourselves, when we consider knowledge and its relationship to ourselves, it is dual. We are related to knowledge, and knowledge is related to us. Therefore, the question of what is the best part of knowledge acquires a certain relevance. It also acquires an importance. The first part of knowledge is that we now know something that we did not know before we acquired this knowledge, before we were blessed or graced with this knowledge. The guru gives blessings in the form of the knowledge that has the power to gradually liberate us. Thus, you did not know, and when you got the knowledge, you knew. So knowing is a quintessential part of knowledge–enabling us to know things that we did not know until it came into our experience. Knowing, therefore, is the essence of the matter. However, what is the difference between a person who does not know and a person who knows? Is there any difference at all? That is the next part of knowledge–when the knowing of the knowledge makes a difference in the person. The person is more perceptive, more understanding, more tolerant, more sympathetic. They act with a greater spirit of give and take. Knowledge can do all these things, but there is a big IF. That big IF is that knowledge can do all these things only if the person allows this knowledge to have a transforming effect upon their being. They become a better person because before they got the knowledge they committed many errors. After they acquired this knowledge they begin to avoid all those errors. They act in a different way, a better way, a nobler way. So, knowledge is knowing, and when this knowing brings about a change for the better in us, it also becomes being. Knowledge first becomes knowing when previous to that we did not know. But then, if we are satisfied with keeping it at that level, and it does not bring about any change, then there is only one part of knowledge that is present–not a better part of knowledge. The second part of knowledge is becoming someone different in a positive and creative way because of the knowledge. The second part of knowledge is being. And there is still a better part of knowledge. This change must become a social asset. It must become a value that has an effect in terms of other people’s well-being. It is here that the third part of knowledge comes into our consideration. Out of becoming a knowing person and then a changed person, we turn this knowledge and its knowing and being into a social asset, a value in human relationship–a value not only to our own self-culture, self-evolution and ethical and spiritual progress, but a value also in terms of the well-being and happiness of others. Perhaps this is the best part of knowledge–the doing part of knowledge–bringing knowledge into actual manifestation in a creative pattern of human relationship, behaving with others so that every act that you do becomes a source of benefit to others, every act is, as it were, a seed for the well-being of others, the good of others, bringing into their lives something positive, something helpful, something for which they feel grateful. That is the third part of knowledge, the best part of knowledge. Knowing is good; it is a wonderful part of knowledge. Being is better. It is really a very praiseworthy part of knowledge, a very, very valuable part of knowledge. But doing is best because it affects in a positive, creative and beneficial way all other lives whom you touch as you move about in this world and live your life. It becomes a benediction, a boon, a blessing, a great desirable value in your life with others–all others, all of God’s creation. Therefore the best part of knowledge is knowledge in practice, the transforming effect of knowledge upon your being being a source of auspiciousness, good and benefit to others.

Living with Spiritual Paradoxes By Sri Swami Atmaswarupananda Early Morning Meditation Talk given in the Sacred Samadhi Hall of Gurudev Sri Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj, Sivananda Ashram, Rishikesh The spiritual life is full of paradoxes. One of the most puzzling of them is the scriptural declaration that if we want God-realisation we must make great effort, supreme effort. At the same time, they adamantly declare that we are already what we are seeking. Our common sense objects. If we are already what we are seeking, why do we have to make extreme effort? And indeed, there are some teachers who ridicule normal spiritual practices and say, “Just realise that you are already free.” But that is not what, for example, the Yoga Vasishtha tells us to do. The whole first section of the Yoga Vasishtha is dedicated to self-effort. That’s not what Gurudev said. He constantly urged us to make effort. And in Pujya Swami Chidanandaji’s book, Ponder These Truths, 74 of the 75 talks urge us to make effort of one sort or another. One morning here Swamiji suggested an analogy for this paradox. He said, “It is as if a poor man is living over a treasure. One day a sage tells him that ten feet under the small plot of land where he is sitting, a treasure is buried. That means that the poor man is actually very wealthy. But until he digs down those ten feet, he is as poor a man as he ever was. Even if he digs 9 feet 11 inches he is still poor. It is only when he has dug the full ten feet and puts his hands on the treasure that he is wealthy beyond his fondest dreams. Other analogies speak about cleaning a window so that the light that is always there can shine through, tilling the soil so that the grain can grow. Swamiji also mentioned that Gurudev had a secret. Gurudev made extreme effort, yet at the same time he always knew that everything was happening by God’s will. “It was a secret,” Swamiji said, “that Gurudev kept to himself, because we being half-baked people, if Gurudev were to tell us that everything is happening by God’s will, we would stop making effort.” Are we then just supposed to make effort without recognising that we’re already what we are seeking? That doesn’t seem to be the answer. Part of our sadhana should be a constant remembrance of the fact that we are already what we are seeking. But how do we do this sadhana? We do it with everything that we have within us. We use our intellect to remember that the scriptures say that God alone is. We use our heart in devotion to God, recognising that He is everything to us. But above all, we must put it into practice. If God is all in all, if everything is happening by His will, then why is there this inner tension within me? Do I require an inner tension in order to do my spiritual practices? Why can there not be an inner relaxation–knowing that everything is in God’s hands–and yet I still do my duty, I still do my spiritual practices with all the earnestness that I can muster? Indeed, if we will inwardly recognise that everything is happening by God’s will, that He is in charge, that we are already what we are seeking, we will also find that we will be able to see very clearly what we should be doing in our outer life, what is favourable to our spiritual life and what is not favourable. The spiritual life is full of paradoxes, and the real challenge is to be able to rise above those paradoxes and incorporate them into the fabric of our sadhana.

“That’s Enough” By Sri Swami Atmaswarupananda Early Morning Meditation Talk given in the Sacred Samadhi Hall of Gurudev Sri Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj, Sivananda Ashram, Rishikesh Each religion, each philosophy has its own way of explaining life. But most seem to agree that in the beginning God alone was; then God created the world out of nothing or manifested Himself. They say that the One became the many; and yet, paradoxically, the One has never changed, even though the many appear to exist. If the One has never changed, the many must exist in our consciousness. And even here we have a strange phenomena. Because no matter what part of our consciousness we are experiencing, the other parts seem to be eternally there from the highest to the lowest. What we experience is where our attention is. According to Vedanta, there are two principal forces working on our attention. One is the force of avidya maya, which is constantly taking us into the many, and the second is the force of vidya maya which is constantly attracting us back to oneness. Why, when we are told–and it is true–that peace and happiness abide in oneness, are we attracted to the many, to separation? Perhaps it is because avidya maya constantly promises to satisfy all our desires, to make us someone special, even to make us like a god. These promises are named in all the scriptures as demoniacal promises. They are intoxicating promises, but they lead us to nothing except disaster–to restlessness, to clash and quarrel. Even more, avidya maya never gives us the satisfaction that it promises. It promises to satisfy all our desires; instead it just adds fuel to the fire. So ultimately, with God’s grace, vidya maya has its opportunity. Through a guru, teaching or spiritual experience, we see the promise of a better way, the way of oneness. Thus to one degree or another, our lives turn around and we start heading in the homeward direction. But, avidya maya is still very much alive. And while it can no longer totally fool us, its tactic now becomes one of “that’s enough.” We move a certain distance along with vidya maya and avidya maya says, “That’s enough, you should be satisfied now.” It does this at every step, and unfortunately, we frequently settle at a spiritual comfort level and get stuck there. But ultimately that level can never satisfy our souls. Vidya maya is ever calling us higher. This is why the guru will frequently disturb us, try to make us move higher. And if the guru doesn’t do it, life will do it. Our wisdom knows that this is happening. Wisdom also recognises the nature of avidya maya, that even until the very end it never gives up the battle, that it is eternally there–its job being to drag us towards the many. But wisdom leads us to listen to vidya maya, which wants to take us back to the One. So as seekers, who are feeling the pull of vidya maya, feeling the pull of God, we must be aware that at all times avidya maya is sitting in waiting telling us, “That’s enough. You’ve gone far enough. Be satisfied.” But God, guru and vidya maya are telling us, “It’s never enough until you have reached the goal,” and it is vidya maya we must always pay attention to.

What is Knowledge Doing for Us? By Sri Swami Chidananda Worshipful homage to the supreme, eternal Cosmic Spirit Divine, the paramatman! Loving adorations to revered and beloved Holy Master Gurudev Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj! They are both, through their grace and benedictions, the source and the cause of the knowledge that illumines our interior–the knowledge that illumines our intellect, the knowledge that illumines our path of life, the knowledge that illumines our ethical vision of what ought to be and what ought not to be. They are the sources of that aspect of our knowledge, which is neither purely secular knowledge, nor is it the ultimate absolute explosion of knowledge–as one illumined soul termed it–the ultimate transcendental knowledge experience, anubhava jnana, by which one forever becomes illumined, one becomes an enlightened and a liberated being–the higher knowledge mentioned in the Upanishads, the para vidya. In between these two there is an invaluable and blessed spiritual knowledge having the potential, power, capacity and capability of taking us upward from this environment of pure secular knowledge or pure book spiritual knowledge, the potential and the capacity of taking us upward from this plethora of unavoidable–as well as avoidable–knowledge that can become both an encumbrance as well as a support to a special ego, shastra abhiman, I know. Here is a paradoxical situation where a certain type of knowledge can become a barrier for the dawn of wisdom or the dawn of higher essential spiritual knowledge. It can become an encumbrance, and it can become a supporter, a booster, of that very thing that is the quintessential factor of ignorance that holds the individual soul forever bound down to its false identity. The grace of the Supreme and the benedictions of the Master must provide us with the necessary perception to distinguish between the knowledge that liberates and the knowledge that binds. Divine grace and the benedictions of the Master must also grant us the overwhelming desire to get rid of all that holds us bound down by enabling us to acknowledge that all our knowledge is but ignorance and that ultimately it is in stripping ourselves bare of this idea of I know that alone will be capable of taking us into true light, of making us simpler and simpler. Strangely enough, in this outer plane of our earthly life, knowledge sometimes can co-exist with a darkness. Strangely enough, knowledge itself can become a hindrance to spiritual rebirth, progress. Knowledge can itself become a veil that hides the truth from us. It is the in-between knowledge that will help us. That is the crucial step, crucial factor that will help us discern which knowledge is a knowledge that binds us down–that constitutes spiritual ignorance and becomes our own binding chains–and which knowledge is the true and right knowledge that will take us from unrealities to Reality, from darkness to Light, and ultimately confer upon us immortality. This we can only discern by observing what knowledge does to us as individual persons of this human family that was made in the image of God. What is happening to this being by the knowledge one acquires? It can only be known through observation, through the awareness of one’s own state. Is it stagnant, or is it day by day finding itself better than each yesterday? Is it in a process of unfoldment, of growth in holiness, in humility, in the cardinal graces and virtues such as faith, hope, charity, purity, compassion, truthfulness and all the daivi sampadas? It is this awareness, this keen observation, and a continuous process of self-appraisal, self-examination–an impartial self-examination–with a deep, earnest desire to know the truth as it is, not varnished by our own self-appreciation and self-approval, but know the truth as it is very impartially, it is this constantly and continuous process of self-appraisal with perfect honesty, that is our mainstay in spiritual life and spiritual progress towards ultimate enlightenment, liberation and supreme blessedness. So let our daily life contain, as part and parcel of its ongoing pattern, not only a special period set apart for this process of self-appraisal, self-observation, but have this process of honest, impartial self-appraisal constantly as part and parcel of our daily being and doing from dawn till dusk. This is the way. This is the true spiritual way. And one who adheres to it will be making full use of the benedictions of the Master and the grace of God. And one who adheres to it will ultimately reach one’s destination and fulfil one’s destiny, one’s divine destiny. May we all take this way and walk diligently along this way. God bless you all!

We Want Two Identities By Sri Swami Atmaswarupananda Early Morning Meditation Talk given in the Sacred Samadhi Hall of Gurudev Sri Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj, Sivananda Ashram, Rishikesh The call to the spiritual life is a call from God to a better life. Whether our life has been a difficult one or whether it has been one with a minimum of difficulties, the spiritual call is a call to a higher life, a life of greater satisfaction. Ultimately, in Pujya Swamiji’s words, total satisfaction. In the beginning our spiritual life does seem to bring about some changes; but after some time, no matter how many changes we may see, there seems to be something that fundamentally hasn’t changed at all. We still seem to be a long ways from the total satisfaction that our hearts long for. We blame it on our behaviour. We see so many weaknesses in ourselves, so many virtues that we do not have. But if we will analyse it very carefully, we will find that the reason we don’t feel total satisfaction or even partial satisfaction is because at the core we haven’t changed. Our fundamental identity hasn’t shifted. Gurudev put his finger on it. He said, “You are not the body, not the mind, Immortal Self you are. Realise this and be free.” We have been trying to realise the Immortal Self without, at the same time, realising clearly that we are not the body, not the mind. Indeed, the truth seems to be that we want to have two identities. We want to realise that we are the Immortal Self without giving up our identity with the body and mind. But to have a double identity is neither logical, nor is it possible. Therefore, there is another way to describe the beginning of the spiritual life. That is when we recognise clearly that we cannot have two identities and that the fundamental change that is required is the willingness to give up our identity with the body and mind so that we can realise the Immortal Self that we already are. The classic methods of doing this are to totally surrender our body and mind and our identity to God or to enquire into who I really am. The enquiry of “Who am I?” is actually to constantly discover who we are not. A fundamental error of the spiritual life is to think that the Immortal Self or who we really are is something that we can grasp, is some experience. The fact is that It is what is left over when time and time again we have recognised “Not this, not this.” Whether our basic sadhana is one of surrender or whether it is one of “Not this, not this,” success is not something that normally happens overnight. As Pujya Swamiji would say, “Perhaps it happens suddenly once in a million times, but it would not be wise for you to think that you are that one in a million.” It is something that we must work on constantly, and indeed, integral yoga is the best way. Sometimes our path should be surrender. The next moment it may be “Not this, not this.” We must use every weapon that God suggests to us in this battle against our stubborn identification with the body and mind. But above all, we must first recognise that if we want to see a fundamental change in ourselves, then that fundamental change must start with our identification. The identification with the body and mind is a false one and must be clearly recognised as such.

Our World Viewpoint By Sri Swami Atmaswarupananda Early Morning Meditation Talk given in the Sacred Samadhi Hall of Gurudev Sri Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj, Sivananda Ashram, Rishikesh Each one of us has our own individual world viewpoint, the way we see the world. If we were born in a very rich family, we see the world in a certain way. If we were born in a very poor family, we see the world in another way. If we were born a Hindu, we have a certain world viewpoint. If we were born a Muslim, we have another one. During the cold war, if we lived in the West, we saw the world from one point of view. If we were living in Russia, from another point of view. Unfortunately these different points of view, which usually depend upon our circumstances of birth, frequently lead to clash and to quarrel. But actually, there is less difference between those of us born in different circumstances than we would think. We all think we are individuals, we all think we are separate from other individuals and that God is somewhere else. The real difference we actually have is with the scriptures and the saints. They are the ones that have a radically different point of view than we do. And often throughout history we have treated the saints and prophets like enemies–persecuted them and sometimes even put them to death. But even when we worship them, honour them, love them, we don’t recognise how different our viewpoint is from theirs. We see everything as separate. They see the oneness of all things. We talk about the oneness of all things, but we don’t see it. Why don’t we see it? Because there is a tremendous force within us that doesn’t want to see it from that point of view. There is a tremendous force within us that wants to be separate, that wants what we want. We don’t want to be the same as everyone and everything else. When this is discovered, then, so to speak, the gauntlet is thrown down. We are called on to face up to what we profess. Do we really want God, do we really want the saint’s point of view or do we not? If we do, there is a battle to be fought. Our teachers tell us that the Puranas are only about us. The battle between good and evil is not some battle outside, but it is a battle that each one of us has to fight within ourselves. And it is literally a fight to the death. That force of separation has no intention of giving up easily. Kill it one place; it appears in another. Kill it there; it appears somewhere else in another form. It is a never-ending battle and a battle that all the scriptures tell us can only be won when, one way or another, we take refuge in the Lord. But however we view it, the real battle of life is not with those who think differently from us, the real battle of life is against our limited view of ourselves. We must fight this battle until we achieve the world viewpoint of the scriptures and the saints.