The Basis of Success in all Human Endeavours Sri Swami Chidananda Introduction I want to bring to you a little message that holds the central secrets of success in attaining the goal of life. As a matter of fact, it contains the basis of success in all human endeavours, no matter in which area it might be. An effort will succeed if these secrets are utilised–even if the effort is pointed in the wrong direction. If you want to become the Al Capone of the underworld and shine as the Number One Crook, if you apply this method you are bound to succeed! If you apply it in any direction, it will give you success. However, we are more concerned about using this to find success in our spiritual life than we are in becoming Number One Crook! Two great laws are at the back of this secret, and the first one is: What you think, that you become. This is a universal law. You should always ceaselessly affirm that which you want to become, and then one day you will end up becoming that. This law is inevitable and nothing can hold it back. The second great law is: Persistent effort in any one direction overcomes all obstacles. No obstacle can withstand the assault of persistent effort. That is why in the Srimad Bhagavad Gita, when Arjuna tells Krishna that it is impossible to control the mind, Krishna replies that if one keeps on persisting in this effort, one will overcome, and the mind will be subdued. Persistence overcomes all obstacles and ultimately reaches its goal. Whatever it is you are pursuing, you will get it with persistent effort. The first law is once again: what you think, that you become. Think you are good for nothing, and you become good for nothing. But, how could you really be good for nothing? It is an insult to God to think that you are good for nothing. Maybe your goodness is temporarily covered up, but it is in fact there. If you think that you have got the potential for everything beautiful, then you will become that. Think like God, and you will become like God. Think like a sinner, and you will become like that. Think that you are unhealthy and weak, and you will always be in a mess regarding health. Think that you are full of health and strength, and you will end up becoming healthy. Because you are thinking that way, those conditions become actualised. This is the law that Vedanta invokes in its approach. It rejects the assumption that you are only this conglomeration of flesh, bones and organs. It asserts that you are the Atman–ever-pure, ever-perfect and divine. At any stage, if there is a wave of anger or jealousy, you assert that you are not this anger or jealousy. You have nothing to do with it, for you are the Atman, which is always full of peace, joy and light. Reject the different conditions of mind and intellect, and affirm your all-full divine spiritual nature. If you are always fearful of things, you will attract to yourself conditions of fear. Have firm trust in God, and all conditions will correct themselves. They come and then they go when you do not respond to them. You do not allow them to hold onto you, because you have made yourself a centre of faith and fearlessness. This great law very much governs your entire life. Invoke this law and think of what you want to become. “I am the Atman; I am a child of God; I am shining with divine radiant spirit.” These thoughts should occupy your mind day and night, waking, dreaming and sleeping. We must affirm this truth by repeating it, visualising it in our mind, writing it down, and by practising it. We must try to bring this feeling into our daily lives–even in the midst of the most adverse conditions. You must persist in being what you are. This great law is the secret of success in your spiritual life. This practice requires no previous background, so start right now from where you are. One day success and fulfilment will be yours. The Law of Persistence The second great law is, once again, that persistent effort overcomes all obstacles. As an example, I could describe a situation found at the public water taps in rural India. The entire locality has to fetch its water only from that one tap, because there is no proper water supply in most parts of the country. Sometimes these taps go out of order and cannot be completely closed, and the faucet keeps dripping on the granite stone, and a hole is made in the stone just from the accumulated effect of these drops of water! There is another phenomenon observed with the wells used in India. When the rope is used to pull the bucket up out of a well, the rope rubs against a granite slab that serves as the wall of the well. After a few years, the constant rubbing of the rope causes a groove to be formed in the granite. Taking this as an example, one can say that nothing can withstand the power of persistent effort. No matter how difficult or how slow the process seems, don’t despair, and be sure to keep on persisting. Bondage does not easily give way, but one must continuously keep trying to get free of it. One day it will give way. Long, long ago in ancient India the forest-dwelling sages had to make a fire sacrifice every day. They did not have matches, so the only way to have fire available whenever they wanted it was to have the fire burning twenty-four hours a day. However, on very special occasions they did not make use of this ordinary fire, and a new fire needed to be started and used specifically for that purpose. To start the fire, they used a block of heavy wood with

Thoughts To Ponder Sri Swami Shivapremananda Most of us are creatures of beliefs that are convenient to justify our desires and longings, allay the basic fears and uncertainties, and fulfill a sense of belonging. Their usefulness is to the extent they help to make us better human beings and bring a deeper meaning to our being alive. Lofty words like altruism, transcendental truth, God, eternal love are only indicative of how inadequate our life is and how insecure our identity in relationship. Their ability to lift our spirit is in their translation as duty, honour, feeling for and understanding of each other. Philosophy is meant to form principles and shape criteria. If you have no principles then you have no philosophy. Religion is meant to promote spiritual fellowship among people, not merely within a particular faith. This is possible only through an understanding heart and freedom from prejudice. The bigot can never be religious, much less spiritual. Justice is meant to promote respect for the rule of law, and a law can be respected only when it gives equal legal protection to all, while striving to promote mutual responsibility for social security and welfare. Moral norms are not merely social habits but spiritual ligaments in the body of society and represent not just the outlines of social behaviour but are meant to appeal to the better side of human nature. They are not merely to hold people together through a balance of self-interest but to sustain spiritual responsibility to each other. People should ask themselves the following basic questions: How can you expect respect from others if you have no self-respect in your own eyes? How can you have self-respect if you lie, deceive and act as a coward and a weakling, if you are arrogant, vain and selfish? How can you have peace of mind if you are self-centered and have no basic integrity of character? How can you be happy if you are a slave of passion and keep being attached to those who do not really care for you? How can you expect the love of others if you are selfish and full of yourself? How can you expect success if you do not work hard and try to acquire the necessary talents to get what you want? How can you have inner harmony if you have no devotion to spiritual ideals? What worth is all the effort to keep yourself and your family in material comfort if you have failed to find harmony in your heart and give peace and love to your family and friends? Spiritual life does not consist in singing the glory of God and chanting mantras but in the practice of integrity, compassion, fulfilling of duties and obligations, acceptance of personal responsibility, selfless service for a common cause that does not enhance the ego of anyone in particular, and in the sublimation of passions. A tree can remain standing in spite of stormy weather only if it has deep roots. Likewise, the tree of life can be stable only through the deep roots of actions motivated by love, a sense of justice tempered by compassion and understanding, and unselfish support of those you care for when they are in need. The tree of life can have many branches of knowledge and many leaves of prayers, but without its deep roots it will fall down with its branches and leaves when the storm comes.

Vedanta is Living Experience Sri Swami Sivananda VEDANTA is today a much abused term. All sorts of vanity, hypocrisy and self-conceit have been masquerading in its name. It has become the fashion of the day to pass for a Vedantin as it is then convenient to give up all sorts of responsibilities, rituals and restrictions of the Varnashrama Dharma and enables one to lead a happy-go-lucky life of ease, lethargy and inertia. The Punjab is full of dry, lip-Vedantins. Punjabi women have also taken to Vedanta and they take great pride in calling themselves Vedantins, whether or not they understand the philosophy, whether or not they do any practice. All retired officers who have not done any selfless service or any Sadhana or worship or charity take to Vedanta as a sort of fancy. Thus Vedanta has become a very comfortable philosophy, because one can do whatever he chooses and eat whatever he likes. Licentiousness is mistaken for a life of expansion. If a man can eat anything in any hotel in any part of the world, if he can move socially with any man or woman, that does not mean, he is a Vedantin. There is much tall talk of Vedanta nowadays. There is idle Vedantic gossiping. But there is no practical Vedanta. Nobody wants to do any real solid Vedantic Sadhana. Man feels ashamed to call himself a Bhakta, but he takes great pride in calling himself a Yogi or a Vedantin, because he foolishly imagines he will be respected by the public. Many ignorant Vedantins have mistaken the body for Brahman and hence there is corruption amongst the so-called loose Vedantins. This is not only lamentable but also highly deplorable. Wholesale preaching of Vedanta to the Masses is not advisable. It will result in chaos, bewilderment and stagnation. Grasping of Vedantic principles and a right understanding of the philosophy and Sadhana are very difficult. Vedanta is for a select few who are equipped with the four means of salvation or Sadhana Chatushtaya and who have removed the impurities of their minds and mental oscillation through constant practice of Nishkama Karma Yoga and Upasana. The path of Vedanta is not so easy as it is generally supposed to be. It is a sharp razor-edge path. Therefore, those who preach Vedanta to the masses do more harm than any good. They are misleading the people. It is very, very easy to say, “Soham–I am He, Sivoham–I am Siva, Aham Brahma Asmi–I am Brahman” like a parrot, but to live in the very spirit of Vedanta, to feel the oneness or unity of consciousness, to become ‘That’ in reality and to radiate the Brahmic Bliss, Joy and Peace is an extremely difficult affair. While repeating ‘Soham’, if his mind is easily upset when another utters a single harsh word, and if he begins to fight with that man vehemently, there is no use at all in that repetition. It is mere hypocrisy. He will not be able to influence others. People will take him for a cheat. Vedanta is not merely a concept or a dogma. It is neither a theory nor a dry philosophy for contention and argumentation. It is the actual life of perennial joy in Brahman or Truth. A single practical Vedantin like Sankara could move the whole world. A practical Vedantin will outweigh a thousand and one Sandows when weighed in a balance. A practical Vedantin possesses tremendous inner spiritual strength. The whole world rejoices at the sight of a real practical Vedantin. Practical Vedanta is a living experience, the melting of the individual self in the ocean of consciousness or the Supreme Self. The experiencer exclaims with inexpressible joy, “All indeed is Brahman. All differences, distinctions, qualities have vanished. I see Brahman and Oneness everywhere. I am Brahman.”

The Lofty Ideal Of Renunciation Sri Swami Chidananda The glorious Sannyasa Diksha anniversary that we have the privilege and joy to celebrate this day, which marks the supreme occasion of H. H. Sadgurudev Swami Sivanandaji’s renunciation of a secular life and his early entry into the holy order of sannyasa, commemorates such lofty action. Master has taken to this ancient order and lived his noble life of increasing good works and innumerable services of humanity all over the world. In him, I see a unique and amazing confluence of two trends: (1) Renunciation and all the inwardness and detachment. (2) The thrilling dynamism with all the outwardly activity and active sympathetic interest in human beings. Our holy Gurudev Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj’s act of tyaga and sannyasa carries the message: “O man! Give up thy little ‘I’ and thy petty selfish life; and let thy selfless life flower into cosmic love, world brotherhood and service unto all. Give up thy little self, and give yourself in body, mind and spirit to the whole world. To renounce is verily to offer yourself as a gift unto the noble cause of human welfare.” Such was the exemplary life of our holy Gurudev! His renunciation represents, as it were, a fertile seed out of which has sprung forth a great tree. The giving up of his secular life has come to mean the bestowal of a lofty new Divine Life to countless thousands. The power that sprang out of his renunciation has outspread into the world, and has brought new life, hope, solace, light, strength, joy and inspiration to literally countless millions of souls. His renunciation can rightly be said to be an offering to God, to appease the spiritual hunger of His soul-famished children. It has indeed become transformed into the spirit of Divine Life to pervade the modern world in the form of a divine urge, a divine impulse towards virtue, goodness and godliness. In renunciation lies the end of all strife and hatred. In renunciation lies the source of true peace and progress. By his life, the modern Maharshi has given to humanity the new law of welfare: “O modern man! Know ye that renunciation is the law of life. It is the path that leads to friendliness, cooperation and unity. Renounce selfishness, greed, hatred and egoism. Embrace love, humility, contentment, and charity. You will have the Kingdom of Heaven on this earth” May the Master’s radiant life inspire one and all!

Precepts for Practice Sri Swami Sivananda Worldly life is a bed of roses till a thorn pricks yon in your feet. When the thorn starts pricking you, then realise that the world is a bed of thorns. The man then awakens to the reality. The world is an illusion. Friends are hypocritical cheats. Relatives are selfish bugs. There is none on whom you can depend except God. Beloved aspirants! Awake! Arise! Realise! Resort to the feet of the Lord. Practise Yoga. Come, start today. Follow my Twenty Instructions. I will serve you nicely and guide you. Waste not a minute. In spiritual Sadhana nothing is of so much importance as regularity. Whatever you do, even though it is very little, do it regularly. The mind will tempt you in various ways. It will try to keep you away from Sadhana but never yield. Mind is a crooked mechanism, agitated, wavering and wandering. It is always unsteady. Control the wandering nature of the mind. Sadhana is the means to control the mind. Withdraw yourself from the external world. Control your emotions, sensations, activities. Constantly dwell in the Atman. Give up external show. Do not be attached to the flesh. Develop the eye of wisdom. Look with your inner third eye. The aspirant realises immense joy when his third eye is opened. Fear, sorrow, doubt and delusion take leave of you. Unfold all the latent faculties and powers. They are lying hidden within you. Keep the ideal always before you. Do not forget it even for a second. Examine within yourself how far you have progressed at the end of the day. Make fresh resolves the next day for better progress. Repent for the mistakes you have committed. Diabolical forces are within and never outside you. It is only the mind that is reflected in front of you. Change the angle of vision. Everything will be good. You will see only His hand in everything. Do not blame God for your having failed in maintaining the Spiritual Diary. Give your mind a good shoe-beating. Resolutely start the practices once again from today. Do not strain yourself beyond your capacity. Relax completely the moment you feel that there has been something wrong with the normal movement of the Prana. Dash cold water on your face when you feel sleepy. The breathing gets controlled during meditation. It becomes very thin. Merge the mind in the Atman. Take it away from the body and its associates. The goal of life is Self-realisation. Mere seeing of some lights and hearing of sounds during meditation is not the final state of Self-realisation. They are, no doubt, encouragement to the Sadhaka. You have had your rebirth in God. By gradual degrees try to forget the past, its successes and failures, its sins and virtues. You are not concerned with any of them now. You are a new man altogether. Bury the past deep and cover it up nicely with the Lord’s Names and Yoga Sadhana. Develop self-surrender to the Lord. Asanas are as necessary as Pranayamas. One goes with the other. Please practise Asanas at least for fifteen minutes daily. This is the best insurance for good health. All energy must be conserved and utilised for purposes of spiritual Sadhana. All the time that you have should be spent for spiritual practices and Nishkama Seva. If you use your time nicely in spiritual pursuits, you will be able to achieve the goal of life in this very birth. I shall be pleased to accept you as my disciple. The ‘fees’ I demand are very costly. They are Vairagya, Viveka and Mumukshutva. If you have these, you can be my disciple. Go to the temple daily and pray to the Lord to give you more and more devotion to His Lotus Feet. Pray to Him to enable you to remain perfect Brahmchari. Go to a secluded place daily and introspect. Intensify your Sadhana and Vairagya. Do not take onions. You need not object to tamarind, salt and sugar now. Fast on Ekadasi. Take milk and fruits. Take saltless diet on Sundays. If you want to know God then know yourself. Find out who is the seeker. Then you have known everything. You are that Eternal Self. For this you have to put up a course of Sadhana but a strenuous one. Then you will be able to clear all the doubts. Nothing will satisfy you by the explanations. Only when you taste the sweetness of the sugar you are satisfied. So also till you have realised God you cannot have any satisfaction. Doubts after doubts will be mounting over your already heavy shoulders. The western psychologists start and work from the physical and go to the mental plane and stop there, whereas the Eastern philosophy proceeds from the top and then looks at the bottom with the knowledge of the highest. Knowing the One Imperishable, you know everything else. This is the gist of our philosophy. You can have your godhead through your physical mechanism provided you acknowledge its perishable nature. Look at the perishable nature of the body and all that we see around us. Just see how within a few years great wars were fought. Thousands perished. What does it show? You must go in after that Imperishable–that is God. The Lord permeates everything. To realise this Imperishable it is not enough if you simply sit quiet expecting a miracle from Him or the Guru. You should strive for yourself, by incessant practice of Sadhana. By one strong determination of the will, get rid of all evil qualities like smoking, taking tea and meat-eating. These weaken your nerves. You will be easily irritated. You will not be able to control your emotions. Tea is stimulating no doubt, but does harm ultimately. When you are harassed by the tea habit, it will be difficult to leave it in the beginning. Use milk as a substitute for some time. You are simply alarmed. You imagine that you will have

Light into the Darkness Introduction Yoga is an ancient and unique system of unfoldment of the personality at all levels. However, especially in the West, people are only accustomed to doing yoga in order to derive some health benefits. Ninety-nine per cent of the people who practise yoga do it merely as a physical exercise. Steadiness of body can calm the mind, and for this reason many people are also interested in yoga, but another dimension to yoga needs to emerge; namely, the desire to meditate on something beyond body and mind. In my own opinion, these aspects of body and mind alone have a lesser place in yoga when compared to the spiritual aspect. What is the relevance of spirit to yoga? Maybe I am just more accustomed to speaking about spiritual life, but regardless of the kind of retreat with Swami Chidananda you intend to participate in, you will get a spiritual retreat, because Swami Chidananda and the spirit are inseparable. What exactly is the connection between yoga and the spiritual life? You are practising yoga as a human being, but in reality you are an immortal spirit. When an immortal spirit is practising yoga, it is impossible to separate spirit from yoga. The question about the connection arises only when you have forgotten that you are an immortal soul and not a cage of flesh and bone. When you wisely remember this fact, the question of the relationship between yoga and spiritual life does not arise. It arises when you forget the truth and cling to falsehood. In addition to its being a psychological and physical system, yoga is the science of attaining the experience of your innermost Reality. Hatha yoga, or the practising of yoga asanas, is not the whole of yoga science. The word “yoga” is a Sanskrit word implying a union with the eternal, universal source of Being. The attainment of union with the universal Being is the supreme good for a human being. In this world we try to avoid sorrow, pain and suffering. Even the most uneducated person with limited understanding does not want pain, sorrow or suffering. High and low, great and small, everyone wants happiness, joy and peace–this instinct is universal. In the ultimate analysis, all life as well as all human activity is only a striving to eliminate pain and to attain happiness. The will to joy, peace and satisfaction pervades the life of everything in this world. A little reflection will make this point very evident. Even subhuman creatures wish to avoid suffering and to get bodily satisfaction. You might have noticed that if the summer is very hot, animals try to remain more in the water. Even birds and insects take shelter from cold and rain, but their capacity to attain this universal desire of God-realisation is limited by the absence of greater intelligence. It is the human individual alone who tries to consciously and intelligently achieve this objective and who can devise ways to attain this goal. Right from birth men strive to attain happiness and to avoid pain and suffering, so naturally one could expect that they would succeed in getting what they want. But in today’s world, do we find human beings full of happiness and completely free from any suffering or misery? What is our observation of life and the human beings around us? What is the report of the world’s condition that we get from the media? What is our own personal experience? I am not asking just about the outer facade or the mask we are putting on in the drama we are playing. I do not refer to the relative happiness of our outer life. What is our frank observation of our own lives based on our honest experience? I don’t necessarily need an answer from you, but I want you to answer these questions for yourselves. What is your observation of life and the people around you? Are they full of joy with no sign of pain, suffering or any other negative experience? Day after day, what are we being told about the state of the world? People throughout the world are facing starvation; hundreds of thousands of people suffer hell due to political and social upheaval; an entire generation of Palestinians has never known a real home or a peaceful condition in their lives; people are being massacred in African countries. It is like this in all the directions of the compass–a constant tale of human agony. What do you make of this paradoxical situation? If all people want happiness and joy, why do they not get it? We are able to possess thousands of things that our ancestors never had, due to science and technology, and so many things today are convenient and easy for us that were extremely difficult in the past. We have achieved a standard of living hitherto never achieved by human society, and yet, are we free from pain and suffering, old age, disease and decay? These inexorable experiences seem to be unavoidable. Old age is painful, disease is painful, and the decay of the senses and the weakening of one’s faculties are painful, but these problems have not been solved. Many of the current solutions create worse problems than the initial ones. Cancer is an ever-growing menace in human society because modern life is so full of chemicals, and toxins are on the increase. Destructive therapies like cobalt, radiation and chemotherapy are being given for cancer, and the patient goes through hell. Teeth and hair can fall out and terrible changes occur in the entire system, but often in spite of all this, the cancer patient may not survive. Life becomes so much of a torture that it would seem more desirable to let the patient die a natural death. To die of cancer seems preferable to dying of the treatment for cancer. It is not just I who says this, but also families, patients and physicians who have borne witness from their own experience.

Adaptability, A Means To Peace Sri Swami Sivananda Adaptability is a virtue or noble quality by which one adapts or fits himself with others, whatever their nature may be. The man of adaptability accommodates himself with others, whatever their temperament may be. This is a most desirable quality for success in life. This has to be developed slowly. The vast majority of persons do not know how to adjust themselves with others. Adaptability is a peculiar knack or pluck to win the hearts of others by a little bending. The wife does not know how to adapt herself with her husband. She displeases her husband always and makes quarrels in the house and gets a divorce. The clerk does not know how to adapt himself with his boss or superior. He quarrels with the superior and gets an immediate sack. The disciple does not know how to adapt himself with his Guru. He misbehaves, and leaves the Guru. The businessman does not know how to adapt himself with the customers and loses his customers and business. The Diwan does not know how to adapt himself with the Maharajah. He has to leave the State Service. The world runs on adaptability. He who knows this art or science of adaptability pulls on quite well in this world and is always happy under any conditions of life. The man must be pliable if he wants to adapt himself. It does not need much wisdom or ingenuity for developing adaptability. If the clerk understands well the ways and habits and temperament of his superior and adjusts himself nicely to suit his ways, his superior becomes a slave of the clerk. You will have to use some kind, sweet words. A little lubricant to soften his heart is needed. That is all. Speak gently and sweetly. Carry out his orders to the very letter. Never retort him. “Obedience is greater than sacrifice.” Remember this maxim at all times. The superior wants a little respect. Say, Hanjhi, Hanjhi. Ji huzur, very well Sir.” It costs you nothing. Then your superior becomes your slave. He has for you a soft corner in his heart. You become his pet. He will do whatever you want. He will excuse your mistakes. Humility and obedience are necessary for developing adaptability. An egoistic, proud man finds it very difficult to adapt himself. He is always in trouble. He always fails in his attempts. Egoism and pride are two important obstacles in the way of developing adaptability. When one student does not know how to adapt himself with his fellow-mate who is living in the same room, friction comes in and their friendship is broken immediately. Adaptability makes friendship last for a long time. Students fight for little things. One student says, “I gave Mr. X tea for several days. I took him to cinema on my own account for several days. I asked him to lend me the book “Boswell’s Life of Johnson” for reading. He has bluntly refused now. What sort of friend he is? I do not like him.” The friendship is broken now. A simple thing upsets the mind. Adaptability is a strong catgut ligature that links people in unbroken love and friendship. A man of adaptability can pull on with anybody in any part of the world. People unconsciously love a man of adaptability. Adaptability gives immense strength and profound joy. Adaptability develops will. A man of adaptability has to make some sacrifice. Adaptability develops the spirit of sacrifice. It kills selfishness. A man of adaptability has to share what he has with others. He has to bear insult and harsh words. A man of adaptability develops the feeling of unity or oneness of life. For Vedantic Sadhana it is of great help. He who practises adaptability has to destroy the feelings of Ghrina and contempt and the idea of superiority. He has to mix with all. He has to embrace all. Adaptability develops universal love and kills the feeling of hatred. A man of adaptability has to put up with the unkind words and harsh treatment of his friends. He has to develop patience and endurance. These virtues develop by themselves unconsciously when he tries to adapt himself with others. A man of adaptability can live in a cool place. He can bear the heat of Benares or Africa. He develops balance of mind. He can bear extreme heat and cold. Adaptability brings eventually Atma-Jnana. He who has this noble virtue is a great man in this world. He is always happy and successful.

The Ultimate Success Sri Swami Chidananda Introduction There are a fortunate few into whose lives God has brought an awareness of a goal higher than merely being born, making a living and being called successful. Often we say, “He has succeeded in life; he has distinguished himself in his career, earned a lot of money, and attained a high social position.” Yet, is being a successful person merely accumulating some things, being called a success, and then leading a comfortable life? In terms of ultimate values it would be a very small life. In an impartial evaluation, one could ask, “What did he actually accomplish? He was born, managed life competently, and then ultimately he died.” Death seems to be the ultimate outcome of whatever you might apparently have gained or achieved–name, fame, position or wealth. To live a life of striving and desiring, then to leave all you have worked and sweated for and go into oblivion–isn’t that the ultimate irony of death? Who cares about you once you have gone? Who is thinking of all the great bigwigs who shouted and thundered while they were alive–the politicians, financiers and multimillionaires? Who really cares for them? If the truth were known, ants, flies and worms all take birth, manage to live for a while, and ultimately perish. If you want to be completely frank, what is the ultimate difference in this respect between the multimillionaire and the insect? Maybe the insects ate each other, but they couldn’t help it. Yet, maybe the insects did not do many of the nasty things the millionaire did–no lies, tax evasion, bribery, dishonesty or hurting people. Man in his cleverness many times cuts a sorry figure in comparison with the animals. In one of his humorous moods, Swami Sivananda wrote a poem about a conference of monkeys. They deliberated and came to one important conclusion: they should register a firm protest against Darwin for having said that monkeys were the ancestors of man! No monkey ever does the horrible things man does in society, so the monkeys rejected the idea as an insult. If one considers the way in which man is making use of his God-given intelligence, then they surely had a right to be insulted. The great masters of wisdom of the East had a much more elevated vision of the possibilities of mankind. They have always preferred to evaluate man and his life in terms of the search for a higher meaning in life. They discovered in man a dimension that was more than merely mental and physical and was not limited in time. Their discovery is one of the most important insights of human society, for out of it came an experience of a state of absolute illumination, wondrous beatitude, indescribable bliss and perfect peace and freedom. Those who went into that experience were ecstatic. The scriptures are replete with expressions of this unbearable ecstasy. This experience threw open the doors to absolute perfection and freedom. Man has access to tremendous pinnacles of higher experience and the ability to rise up and become established in that experience. These great realisers said, “Yes, man has this potential for perfection, because he was made in the image of God. If he can become a seeker, he can exert rightly and attain That. Nothing can come in his way if he has the will and he wants it heart and soul. Seek and ye shall find; ask and it shall be given. That is your birthright.” All great messengers of God have again and again borne out this truth. Claim Your Birthright Swami Sivananda said that man is an extraordinary mixture of the animal, the human and the divine. Man has the same biological nature as the animals–hunger, thirst, fear, procreation and the desire to survive. There is at the same time a uniqueness that is denied to any other form but man–such as reasoning, the ability to discover, to be aware, to ask questions and to progress in knowledge. What is more, what the physical sciences cannot see is that in addition to these evident aspects, there is also an unseen, nonmaterial dimension available to man. The true identity of man is deathless and eternal. This was clearly perceived by the mystics and the illumined sages, who boldly stated, “You are divine, you are a child of immortality.” These sages called on mankind to claim its birthright. They possessed the vision of this divine dimension of man’s personality that is not seen by scientists, because despite tremendous knowledge in their own fields, the scientists have only the outer knowledge. These great sages saw all of life’s endeavours in the light of that supreme destiny of man. For them the real attainment always had to do with this ultimate fulfilment, and success in life was meaningless if it did not relate to that supreme goal. A life lacking in the aspiration for this attainment would have been wasted. No matter how much you have succeeded and how wonderful your life is, if it lacks this ultimate purpose, you have gone off the track and wandered into a desert. These selfsame masters were not mere impractical visionaries who ignored the secular aspects of life. They gave it its due, and they said, “Yes, do all that you have to do in order to prosper in life. Acquire the necessities to live a successful and comfortable life, and of course strive to improve your lot.” They never looked down upon man’s endeavours to improve his situation, but these endeavours should not be limited to just physical well-being. You should also try to improve yourself as a person by building up your character and integrity through your principled living. Life becomes meaningful only if, in addition to living a life of comfort above want, it also brings a person further towards the attainment of that supreme goal. Otherwise, this life had no intrinsic worth. Just to make a living and to manage to get

Guru Oriented Life Sri Swami Chidananda The devotee who has devotion and reverence for God tries his level best to live his life in accordance with the will of God; he does not go contrary to the will of God. Reverence and devotion cannot coexist with contrariness to His will, at the same time in the same person. If there is reverence, there is obedience. If there is reverence, there is the attempt to carry out His will in thought, word and deed. If we say that we revere and do not do this, then it means that there is something wrong. There is an essential inner contradiction. Similarly with the guru. Our life should be guru-oriented. Our life should be a life of harmony with his will and teaching. That would be therefore the way we express our reverence for the guru. And that we should do daily. We should live a guru-oriented life in close accordance with the teachings to us, not only daily but also every hour from morning till night. If you revere some being, you would also wish to carry out his instructions and orders, the way that he wants to walk you to walk, the way that he has shown by his teachings as well as by his living. The genuine manner of showing reverence in a practical way would be to live in accordance with his will, and not contrary to it. We must be aware that this orientation in our life is one of the essential ingredients of discipleship. We may even say that it is the essence of discipleship. Then indeed all blessings will be ours. Then indeed day by day we will proceed and progress towards the Goal. The guru’s teachings will find fulfilment in the disciple’s living, and all blessedness will follow. We must sincerely, earnestly and diligently strive to this end without ceasing. Our supreme good and highest welfare lies in this. May the divine grace of the Supreme and benedictions of the guru enable us to do so and live so! May God and Gurudev’s grace and blessings enable you to do so most effectively, most fully, for the benefit of all humanity!

Running After The Shadow Sri Swami Sivananda A drama asserting in unequivocal and convincing terms the paramount importance of the Divine Life and Spiritual Propaganda at all times and in all conditions–in war and peace, in freedom and bondage, in poverty and luxury. Synopsis A conversation takes place among four friends–an advocate, a doctor, a professor of Economics and a spiritual culturist. The politically and economically degraded condition of India is attributed to the emphasis laid in the past by Indians upon spirituality. The spiritual culturist meets the arguments halfway, when his Guru, a Swamiji, appears on the scene and, by his brilliant exposition of the essence of spirituality, opens the eyes of all to the Real Truth. Also this play serves as an introduction to the Plays that follow. Scene: Drawing room of a wealthy advocate. He is talking to a friend–Spiritual Culturist–who is a selfless worker in the religious field. Two other friends of the advocate enter at this time. One is a Doctor, a follower of the Epicurean school, wholly engaged in earning money and feeding his own family with luxuries and comforts. The other is a Professor of Economics who strongly believes that industrial expansion and economic independence alone is the ultimate goal. After usual introductions, the topic of conversation is switched on to the problem of the hour. Advocate: (Addressing the Spintual Culturist): My friend, I am strongly of the opinion that your precious energy and intellectual capacity are being wasted in worthless activities which cannot solve our immediate problems. Spiritual Culturist: The immediate problem can only be solved by striking at the root-cause of our present state. A nation cannot survive or prosper unless the majority of its individuals possesses a high degree of culture and character. India had a glorious past and a culture of its own, which is now confined to a few. We must revive it and raise it to more glorious heights if we are to regain our lost heritage, both material and spiritual. Professor: But how can the masses and lower middle classes, who are steeped in poverty, who cannot make the two ends meet and who have nothing to eat, assimilate these cultural teachings before their physical needs are satisfied? Spiritual Culturist: If our well-to-do educated people first develop their character and culture by practising religion and philosophy in their daily life, we shall regain our lost glory and economic independence, by generating the spirit of self-sacrifice and selfless service among them for the uplift of the poorer classes. Doctor: I do not believe in all this talk about culture and character or economic betterment of the masses. Where is the time or leisure for any public work? Everyone should mind his own business. All my time upto late hours at night is occupied by professional activities and calls. I must have time for recreation, shopping, cinemas and other social obligations. Spiritual Culturist: You seem to have a gross and limited vision and are ignorant of higher, transcendental matters. This is an Asuric attitude of life described in the Gita (Ch. XVI) which leads to degeneration, bondage and suffering in the future lives. Where there is a will, there is a way. If you earnestly wish to serve humanity, you will find the leisure and energy also. Advocate: I think we should direct all our energies to the political and economic field instead of wasting our energy in the propagation of spiritual culture. When we get freedom and economic independence, we shall see about culture, character and the life hereafter. Spiritual Culturist: In that case you should also stop your eating, drinking and professional activities until freedom and economic betterment are attained. Culture, character and religion are as important for the soul, as food is for the body and wealth for material life. If you wait till freedom is attained, you may never be able to progress at all. Who can say that freedom will be attained in his lifetime? You will be wasting this precious life and human birth. Professor: It is the overstress on spiritual life and religion that has brought about our downfall and slavery. We neglected our material progress in the past, hence others overpowered us and we have remained a poor and backward people. We should, therefore, develop our material resources and physical powers and reach the same peak of progress, power and comfort as the western nations, before we can even think of dabbling in idle pursuits like religion and philosophy. Spiritual Culturist: Even those who work in the political, economic and social fields cannot turn out beneficial work, without disciplining themselves on a spiritual basis, and without undergoing religious training. Social and political leaders, with a few exceptions work with selfish motives and fight for their own name, fame, wealth, superiority and power. Doctor: No nation in the history of the world has ever gained freedom or economic independence by the study of scriptures and leading Divine life or by prayers, Bhajans and Kirtans. Spiritual Culturist: India has been in bondage for only a few centuries. Of what significance is this period in comparison with the millions of years which have elapsed since the advent of man on this earth? Even if we regain freedom now, it may not last for more than a few hundred years and the people then living will have to make stupendous efforts to regain it. A thing which does not last for ever, cannot be the ultimate goal of life. It only provides a field for selfless service leading to purity of mind and heart. To that extent, work in that field is helpful. It is a means for progress on the spiritual path and should not be confused with the end or goal. Professor: We must strike a mean between spiritual and material life. By over-stressing the spiritual aspect, we have come to the present stage. Hence we should have more of material and industrial progress, as far as India is concerned. Spiritual