Serve, Love, Give, Purify ~ Swami Sivananda

Serve, Love, Give, Purify  

Excel in Service,

Expand in Love,

Advance in Knowledge.

Service is Love in expression,

Love is concentrated Knowledge,

Knowledge is diffused love

PURIFY

Spirituality means growing into the form of Divine Ideal. It is the transformation of your nature from human to Divine. This is brought about by Abhyasa, i.e., spiritual practice or Sadhana and Vairagya leading to renunciation.

Conscious attempt to merge ourselves in the Supreme Reality is called spiritual Sadhana, which should be the common aim of all, though the process may be different.

If you wish to evolve quickly, you must have the right kind of Sadhana. If you are a student of the path of self-reliance, you can select the Sadhana for your daily practice, yourself. If you are a student of the path of self-surrender, you should get the right kind of Sadhana from a Guru and practice it with intense faith.

Constant Satsanga with the wise and study of the Srutis under a Guru will slowly wipe out the wrong and worldly Samskaras.

Make intense inner Sadhana the keynote of your life. Base your life upon the ceaseless remembrance of the Divine consciousness and constant feeling of His presence.

Sadhana is at first mechanical and it is only in the later stages that it becomes a part and parcel of one's own life. It appears as a drudgery in the beginning, but later on it imparts joy, peace, strength, courage and freedom.

Do not be slack in you Sadhana. It is Sadhana that will help you in the long run. It is the only asset in this life.

Be regular in your Sadhana-and attain Self-realisation in this very birth.

Never mind repeated failures in your Sadhana. Nil desperandum. Despair not. Do not give up the struggle or the Sadhana. Stand up and fight again. Struggle again. You are nearer to success each time. Every failure is a steppingstone to success. You are sure to succeed in the long run.

Only when you have purified the heart, silenced the mind, stilled the thoughts and surging emotions, withdrawn the outgoing senses, thinned out the Vasanas, you can behold the glorious Atman during deep meditation.

The practical method of realising one's divine nature is the complete transformation of the base animal nature, transcending the human nature and awakening fully the dormant spiritual traits within.

This is done through perfect ethical evolution, self-restraint, self-analysis, self-purification, concentration, meditation, practice of selfless love and service to all and systematic inner culture through right speech and right conduct. This alone is the pathway to Yoga and inner unfoldment.

Never complain against bad environments. Create your own mental world wherever you remain and wherever you go. Do not try to run away from bad unfavourable environments. God has placed you there to make you grow quickly.

The world is not a hindrance to your spiritual path. The world is your Guru. The world is a training school. The world is Virat or Isvara.

Perfect serenity, cultivation of divine virtues, entertaining holy thoughts, discipline of diet-all these pave the way to success along spiritual path.

Right from the very beginning of your spiritual life, you must understand clearly that in true humility, sincere desire to root out gradually pride, egoism and jealousy, earnest and increasing introspection to find out one's own defects and improve oneself, lies your hope of progress.

The nature of the mind is such that it becomes that which it thinks upon intensely. Thus if you think of the vices and defects of other man, your mind will be charged with those defects and vices at least for the time being. He, who knows this psychological law, will never indulge in censuring others or in finding faults in the conduct of others. He will always praise others. He will only see good in others. That is the way to grow in concentration, Yoga and spirituality.

No man is absolutely bad. Everyone has some good trait or other. Try to see the good in everyone. Develop the good-finding nature.

Examine your character. Pick up some distinct defect in it. Find out its opposite-let us say that you suffer from irritability. The opposite of irritability is patience. Meditate on it regularly every morning for a few minutes taking one aspect of it-such as its value, its practice under provocation on different days.

Choose one virtue for every month and keep it before you as an ideal to be achieved throughout. Meditate on it morning and evening just after getting up from bed and just before retiring at night.

There is no easy path to salvation except through small improvements, correction, purity, Japa and celibacy.

If you are established in Ahimsa or non-violence, you will never be harsh, rude and haughty even for a moment. No thought of evil or of injuring others will ever occur to you, even for a moment. Your heart will be filled with love, kindness and affection.

Not to hurt others is not so difficult as not to be hurt by others. You will have to become mindless. You will have to kill your egoism in toto. You will have to develop patience to a maximum degree if you wish not to be hurt by others.

Source: sivanandaonline.org 

THE EGO DOESN'T EXIST ? ~ Atman Nityananda

THE EGO DOES NOT EXIST?

The idea that the ego does not exist has no basis. If only the Self (Atman or Consciousness) whose nature is bliss, exists, then why do we experience misery and suffering most of the time instead of bliss? Because of the ego.

Ego in its lower aspect causes misery and suffering. Separation, incompleteness, uneasiness, anxiety, anger, fear, all these are caused by the ego and in my experience and understanding, all the above egoic aspects are the lower ego itself. Τhe ego assumes various forms likewise the H₂O that assumes the form of water, ice, steam, snow, etc. Although all the above psychological aspects have an illusory nature does not mean that they are non-existent. And since the cause of these psychological aspects is the ego, we cannot negate the existence of ego.

Certainly, what really exists is Consciousness because self-created, self-existent, self-contained and self-luminous ανδ is eternal. Although Consciousness is the absolute reality or the Truth, we cannot, however, negate the existence of ego even though it is relative and impermanent. Ego cannot exist by itself, it is not self-luminous, it is an object of perception and it is dependent on Consciousness.

Consciousness is the only self-conscious reality, but the ego creates the illusion in us that Consciousness belongs to it. Thus, we erroneously perceive (due to lack of discrimination and clarity of the Buddhi-intellect) that Consciousness belongs to us (to the body-mind entity) and to the ego itself.

Great teachers, like Ramana Maharshi, have talked a lot about the illusory nature of ego. Even though they admit that ego is an illusion or a fandom, do not negate its relative existence. Illusion does not mean that something does not exist at all, but rather that it is not what appears to be.

All great gurus, like Shankaracharya, Ramana, Shivananda, Aurobindo, Amma etc, and sacred texts like Bhagavad Gita, have declared with emphasis that the death of the ego is liberation. How can a non–existent ego die?

Self-enquiry is also related to the ego. We trace back the ego-sense (the sense of Iness) in order to become aware of its source, i.e. the Consciousness, and realize that we are the Consciousnesses itself. This effort to return to the heart is done by the ego (its subtle or sattvic aspect of ego) and ends up in the dissolution of ego.

MEDITATIVE PRAYER OF ONENESS WITH GOD. ~ ATMAN Nityananda

MEDITATIVE PRAYER OF ONENESS WITH  GOD

Lord of my heart, eternal source of light, love, and peace, I salute you with all my heart, with all my soul and all my mind, and I address you wholeheartedly.

O Lord of my heart, open my mind and my heart to realize that Your Existence is My Existence, that I am one with You, that we are One. Your Existence is My Existence, I am One with You, We Are One.

You are the light, the truth and the life, inside me and in all. I am the light, the truth and the life in all.
I am one with you, we are One.

You exist and everything exists. You are and everything is. I exist and everything exists, I am and everything is.
I am one with you, we are One.

You are eternal existence, pure Light-consciousness, infinite bliss.
I am eternal Being, pure Light-consciousness, infinite bliss.
I am one with you, we are One.

You are the Light of Life, You are the Light of Awareness, You are the Light of Bliss.
I am the Light of Life, I Am the Light of Awareness, I Am the Light of Bliss.
I am one with you, we are One.

Everything is One,
We Are All One,
Only You exists
and I am one with you,
We are one.

Note
We repeat (for as long as we want) the words from the heart slowly, penetrating more and more into the center of our existence. After some time we can rest in silence.