WORDS OF VIVEKANANDA

Always discriminate between the real and the unreal, and devote yourself, heart and soul, to the attempt to realize the Atman.  (The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda:  Volume 6, page 519)

(Comment:  The real is what is abiding, reliable, eternal, while the unreal is what is transient, undependable, impermanent.  Atman/Brahman is real; the manifested, time-bound world is unreal.)

Always think that this body is only an inert instrument, and the self-contained Purusha (Atman) within is your real nature.  (CW:  Volume 7, page 194)

Always try to get absorbed in the eternally present Atman.  (CW:  Volume 7, page 267)

Let every man, woman, and child, without respect of caste or birth, weakness or strength, hear and learn that behind the strong and the weak, behind the high and the low, behind everyone there is that Infinite Soul, assuring the infinite possibility and the infinite capacity of all to become great and good.  (CW:  Volume 3, page 193)

The natural universe is the result of the limited consciousness of man.  When man becomes conscious of his divinity, all matter, all nature, as we know it, will cease to exist.  (CW:  Volume 6, page 97)

Undifferentiated consciousness, when differentiated, becomes the world.  (CW:  Volume 7, page 39)

Our present consciousness is only a little bit of an infinite sea of mind.  Do not be limited to this consciousness.  (CW:  Volume 9, page 268)

SWAMI PREMANANDA

Swami Premananda, 1861-1918, was born Baburam Ghosh.  He was a monastic disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, who considered him an Ishvarakoti.  Ishvarakotis are eternally free and perfect souls, born on earth for the good of humankind.  An Ishvarakoti, according to Ramakrishna, has at least some of the characteristics of an avatar.  As Ramakrishna put it, Baburam was “pure to his very marrow; no impure thought can ever cross his mind.” 

After Ramakrishna passed away in 1886, Baburam joined his brother disciples at Baranagore, and afterwards at Alambazar.  Baranagore, two miles north of Calcutta, was the site of the first monastery of Ramakrishna’s disciples.  Alambazar, three miles north of Calcutta, between Baranagore and Dakshineswar, was the site of the second Ramakrishna monastery.  This was from 1891-1898.

Swami Premananda went on to become head of the Belur Math, which was founded by Swami Vivekananda and which constitutes the headquarters of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission.  The Belur Math is situated four miles north of Calcutta and was consecrated in 1898.  From 1902-1916, Swami Premananda managed the day to day affairs of the Belur Math, and was vice-president of the Ramakrishna Order.

Among Premananda’s teachings:

--To follow the Master (Ramakrishna) means to practice what he taught.  Nobody can advance by just offering him a few flowers or through some momentary sentimental outbursts.

--Can one become a great devotee of God simply by dancing and jumping, or by quoting plentifully from the scriptures?  What is wanted is freedom from selfishness--freedom from egotism.  Mere talk will not do; this is an age of action.

--Not mere theory; actualize it.  There has been enough talk and writing.  Put the books aside and let your actions speak.  This is what the lives of the Master and Swamiji (Vivekananda) stand for.

--The poor, the weak, the fallen, the ignorant--all these you have to make your own.  And yet I warn you, that in loving one section of society you must not become hateful of any other.

TRUE AND FALSE AUSTERITY

Vedanta defines austerity as the spiritual practice of conserving energy and directing it toward the realization of God. 

As set out in Chapter 17 of the Bhagavad Gita, there are three kinds of true austerity.

The first is called austerity of the body and includes doing no harm, straightforwardness, physical cleanliness, and sexual purity.

To speak without ever causing pain to another, to be truthful, to say always what is kind and beneficial, and to study the scriptures regularly, is called austerity of speech (words).

Austerity of the mind consists of the practice of serenity, sympathy, meditation upon the Atman, withdrawal of the mind from sense objects, and integrity of motive.

When the three austerities are undertaken with full faith and concentrated mind, without longing for results, but only for the sake of God, they are said to be “in goodness.”

When, on the other hand, austerity is undertaken for the purpose of getting praise from others, such as “He is a great ascetic,” or with the aim of receiving bodily respect, such as having people stand up when the person approaches, or for the purpose of gaining mental respect which would manifest in the future as, for example, gifts of money, then the austerity is in what is called the mode of passion and is considered false austerity.

Similarly, when austerity is performed out of blind attachment and foolishness, causing pain to oneself or others, or with the objective of harming or destroying others, the austerity is in the mode of ignorance and is likewise considered false austerity.

FIRST BIRDS: A SHORT STORY

His first meditation of the day was at "first birds," as he called it, when the canyon wrens outside his window whistled at daybreak.  He considered the whistling his call to prayer, and a reminder to him that he must maintain the advanced state that he had achieved if he was to reach the next level.

His morning meditations, and subsequent meditations throughout the day, were, therefore, so he could get to that next stage, even as he knew that the distractions of the outside world, the world of the senses, the thinking mind, the egoic self, could foil it.

The Atman in him had come too far, he reminded himself always, for him to lose the way now.  The next level, he knew, was moksha, liberation, nirvana, samadhi, union with God, and the only way that this would not happen was if he did not let it happen.  He must let it happen.

Outside, all the while, the wrens whistled.

THE SOUL

In an abandoned shed in the woods, a mushroom grows in the light of the keyhole in the door.

SOMEONE IS ASKING

Someone on the other side is asking about you, but you will never know who it is, even when you are over there again yourself.  This someone is who you used to be.  All of you are there.

SPIRITUALIZING LIFE AND WORK

Notes from Swami Sarvapriyananda’s lecture entitled “Spiritualizing Life and Work.”

Background consciousness cannot become an object of knowledge.  You cannot know it.  It is your true self.  Nothing can touch you there.  It is  pure consciousness, a consciousness that illuminates everything outside of it.  It enables us to experience.

You cannot see your own eyes.  How are you able then to know that you have eyes?  Because you are seeing.  You cannot know background consciousness, so how do you know it is there?  Because you are experiencing yourself and the world by way of it.  By experiencing anything you will know that the background consciousness is there.

The background consciousness, Atman, in us is the same background consciousness that is in all sentient beings.  Background consciousness, that oneness, is what Vedanta considers to be God, the oneness shining through all of us and through all living things.

(Comment:  Sarvapriyananda says that background consciousness cannot be the object of knowledge, cannot be known.   Furthermore, pure consciousness has no content, is blank, hence there is nothing to be known.  This is not to say, however, that it cannot be experienced.  When the background consciousness, the Atman, “awakens,” a person knows it.  He experiences it.  Eckhart Tolle, the spiritual teacher, terms this condition “presence,” which is to say that a person is aware now of something else in the room with him, so to speak.)

As for how a person spiritualizes his life and work, Sarvapriyananda begins by asking, why is there so much suffering in the world?  It is, he says, because people do not live the divinity within them.  The way to do so is by love and service to others.  See God in all things.  Serving is worshiping the God in all things.  Serving is manifesting the God that is within you.

COMMITTING TO COMMITMENT

Either you are going to jump off the high diving board or you are not.  You can aspire to jump, intend to jump, plan to jump, decide to jump, climb the ladder to jump, step forward on the board to jump, stand at the end of the board ready to jump, but until you actually jump you haven’t jumped.  The same with committing to the spiritual life.  Aspiring monks remain only aspiring monks until they actually step through the monastery door. 

Commitment means not allowing yourself to be compromised by other interests you may have.  It brings to mind novelist Christopher Isherwood who was an initiate for twenty-two years of Swami Prabhavananda’s Vedanta Society of Southern California.  Isherwood participated in the spiritual practices and lectures at the Society, and did much writing and editing for them. 

For example, he edited their two books of essays, Vedanta for the Western World and Vedanta for Modern Man.  He translated with Prabhavananda the Bhagavad-Gita, Shankara’s Crest Jewel of Discrimination, and the Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali.  He wrote a biography of Ramakrishna title Ramakrishna and His Disciples, and a memoir of his association with Prabhavananda titled My Guru and His Disciple.

Yet, despite all this, and the regular urgings of Prabhavananda, Isherwood never fully committed to Vedanta.  This is to say, he never took vows.  He even wrote a novel titled A Meeting by the River where an alter ego of his goes through the taking of final vows.  But, in the end, Isherwood had too many outside interests, his novels, his screenplays, his love affairs, that the final plunge was simply not in the cards for him.  He was up on the high diving board but never off the end.

AN OBJECT AS AN EVENT

Buddhists consider an object an event and not a thing or a substance.  “Event” implies that a process brought the object into existence.  A rock was not always a rock, this is to say.  It began as dust which over eons became the rock it is now. 

In the same way, a rock will not always be a rock.  It will breakdown over time and become the soil from which plant life grows.  This plant life will then be eaten by animals which will go on to become higher life forms.  Objects are dynamic, accordingly, which is why Buddhists see them as events.

Vedantists see them as events also.  Unlike Buddhists, however, Vedantists start from the view that everything in the universe, even the universe itself, emanates from Brahman, God.  Consequently, everything, even the event of a rock, is divine. 

What Buddhism and Vedanta have in common is, again, the idea of process.  Buddhism sees the universe, and all it contains, as forever becoming something else, albeit nothing in particular, whereas Vedanta sees the universe changing, too, but with the aim of spiritual awakening.

But now if everything, even the event of a rock, is divine, does that mean that a rock possesses the Atman?  In Vedanta there is one ultimate Reality which, when regarded as transcendent, is called Brahman, and when regarded as immanent is called Atman.  Since it is omnipresent, this Reality is within every creature and object, so the answer is yes, the Atman is in a rock.

NO MORE EXTREMES

The word “middle” suggests balance, but Buddhism’s Middle Way should not be confused with a sort of middle-of-the-road compromise or passivity. 

The concept of the Middle Way occurred to Gautama Siddhartha, destined to become the Buddha, while he was a young man.  Born a prince, he enjoyed every physical comfort and pleasure he could ever want.  Dissatisfied with the pursuit of fleeting pleasures, however, he set out in search of something that was deeper, more enduring, a philosophy.

First, he tried extreme asceticism as found in Jainism, which had him depriving himself of food and sleep, to the point of physical collapse.  Realizing the futility of this path, he went on to study meditation with two esteemed yogic teachers, Alara Kalama, first, and then Uddaka Ramaputta, who taught him all they knew.  However, this was still not what he was after.  It was human suffering that he was trying to get at, to solve.

It was while in solitary meditation under a tree in Budhgaya, as it is now called, that he had a revelation.  What followed was his doctrine of the Noble Eightfold Path, principles such as right belief, right conduct, right speech, and so forth, by which individuals could govern their behavior, in a moderate way, in a Middle Way, that would free them from their suffering.  No more extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification.  Liberated from suffering, a person could go on to gain higher levels of wisdom, culminating in the bliss of Nirvana.

Still, he had one more matter to settle.  Should he remain a Buddha for his own sake or should he become a Buddha for all, a teaching Buddha?  What if others did not understand his message?  After struggling with himself at length, he decided finally that if just one person benefited from what he had to say, it was sufficient.  So it began.

THE ARGUMENT

Why are you unhappy? Buddhists ask.  It is because you are filled with wanting, with longing, to the point that eventually the longing becomes a desire that cannot be satisfied, even when you achieve what you long for.   

So how can you be happy?  By ceasing to want.  Just as a fire dies down when no fuel is added, so your unhappiness will end when the fuel of wanting is removed.

Buddhism teaches that the individual determines what happens to him.  The individual, not something “out there” is responsible for his fate.  The external world only reacts to what the individual does.

The skillful person always asks, what are the consequences of my actions?  Will what I do lead to hurt of myself, of others, or of both?  (Majjhima-Nikaya I.416)

If this is, that comes to be; from the arising of this, that arises; if this is not, that does not come to be; from the stopping of this, that stops. (Majjhima NIkaya II.32)

Always remember that the price of existence is suffering, Buddhism underscores.  All sentient beings suffer. Greater than the waters in the four oceans is the flood of tears each being has shed in his lifetime, or the amount of blood each has lost when, as an animal or evil-doer, he has had his head cut off.