Guru Purnima Message

Swami Sri Atmananda Posted on by

Copyright_Satyachetana_2011OM Namo Bhagavate

Jai Gurudev

Blessed Yogis, Devotees and Collaborators of Divine,

On the occasion of Guru Purnima I am glad to be with you all and share with you what I feel on this auspicious day.

We are celebrating Guru Purnima because it is the birthday of Vyasadev, one who gave to mankind the scriptures: the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Puranas, the Brahmasutra, and the Vedanta darshan. One who gave the jnana to mankind in a very systematic format that the mind can understand and the intellect can comprehend, it is the day of his advent. We don’t call it the birthday of Vyasadev, we call it Vyasa Purnima. That is the manifestation of Vyasadev. There is no mention anywhere in any scripture when Vyasadev was born, because the Vyasadev who is considered the guru of mankind is not a form, it is the manifestation of the force of wisdom, and that manifested today.

Guru as you all know is the gunatit rupavarjit force. Gunatit means that which is beyond the gunas, beyond the modes of prakriti and beyond the power of prakriti. Purnima is the full moon. This is symbolically the entire process of sadhana. Sadhana begins from the zone of darkness, as the movement of the moon begins on the non-moon day, the dark night, and with the passage of each day the moon moves one degree so that on the night of the full moon the moon is complete. In the same way, the sadhana of a seeker begins at a time when the mind cannot register. None of you can exactly tell in which year, on what day or at what time your sadhana began, because the journey for light begins in the zone of darkness and moves forward and enters into the sphere of light.

Each day, as the moon expands its light, an awakened seeker expands his awareness. The fifteenth day of the moon is considered the full moon, but full moon always refers to the night. Today as per the Vedic calendar is chaturdashi, the fourteenth day of the moon, but when the night comes it will be the fifteenth night for the moon. We all know that as we move from day to night, we move away from light to enter the zone of darkness. But as we move from day to night on the full moon, we enter into a night full of light, the light without heat, the light that is soothing. That is the symbolism behind Guru Purnima.

The seeker constantly marches forward. As the moon continually enters more and more into the zone of light, the seeker enters into the zone of pure light, that is pure awareness, more and more, and a day comes when the awareness is complete. That is when the seeker transcends the barrier of seeking and becomes light, knowledge and wisdom, and transcends the triple identification of the veil of maya. At that point he feels, knows, experiences and is convinced that he is Brahman, he is the Absolute, All-pervading. That is the gunatit state, the guru state. The seeker withers away and what is manifested is the seer.

On this Guru Purnima day I bless you all to reach that state of seerhood. I strongly aspire and sincerely believe that if you are keeping your aspiration strong and intact, you will definitely reach that state of fullness, that state of completeness when you the Sat will be eternally present along with you the chit. That is the state of the guru. The guru is not a statue, not a stoic individual, it is not a mere witness, it is not someone who is indifferent to what is happening to you in the zone of chit or what is happening to you in the zone of awareness. The guru who is gunatit force in a form always plays its role, and activates the force within so that the power will fully manifest. Sometimes through his descent, sometimes through his ascent, sometimes with you the jivatma fully involved and sometime with you the jivatma fully delinked. It is a very delicate role and the guru shakti through the form called guru always plays its part only if we are able to keep our link intact.

On this Guru Purnima day I bless you all so that each one of you can reach that gunatit state and remain active in the zone of chit to manifest pure love, true knowledge and absolute truth on earth consciousness. This is our mission. For this mission to manifest we all are called and chosen. There is absolutely no difference between you and me, there is only a gap, whereby I have reached the state of fullness and am in full moon, but maybe you are in the fourth moon or eighth moon or tenth moon or twelfth moon. But this gap between you and I is constantly getting reduced. The day is not far off when many of you will wither away in Me the all-pervading, and I the all-pervading will manifest fully in you and wither away.

This is the beautiful relationship we have. You wither away in me and in doing so you manifest the supreme delight. And I wither away in you and through that I simply manifest me as you. This is the mission for you and me and this is the role I am playing for you to make you I in that form.

Guru Purnima day we celebrate by remembering our link with the guru, recollecting our memories with the guru and evaluating our relationship and finding out where and when we were ahead and the guru was behind, and when and where the guru was ahead and we were running behind him. This is the beautiful relationship between an awakened seeker and a conscious seer. The guru-disciple relationship is not a one-way journey, it is not a game where the guru always wins and disciple always loses. No. The disciple many a time wins and the seer frequently loses in the relative plane. This is the reason the seeker gathers more and more strength to proceed towards the goal. Had it been otherwise the seeker would not be able to retain his enthusiasm to reach the goal. This is the reason enlightened masters often consciously behave and react as if they are ordinary human beings, because that is the only way that a seeker can transcend the limitations imposed on him or her by prakriti.

On this day I feel great joy, not because it is the day when you all are remembering me and celebrating my life with you, but because I clearly feel that many of you are very near the goal. Gone are the days of my sadness and worries about whether I will be able to see at least five in the gunatit state before I drop the body. I am now convinced that many of you will reach the state where I am today and that will come much before I leave this human body.

On Guru Purnima day every awakened seeker aspires to attain the gunatit state and every loving seer gives the blessing for them to reach it. Today is not the day to calculate how much you have lost. Today is that day to find out how much you have really gained in your inner journey and what needs to be done for the next year to make sustained progress.

Have faith on my words and march with confidence. Reach the goal before the lamp goes out, because you are in the zone of darkness. The degree of light is still not hundred percent.

Blessings and Love.

All Glory to Gurudev.

[From 19 July 2016, Satyachetana Ashram, Tiruvannamalai.]

To give advice…

Swami Sri Atmananda Posted on by

To give advice to one who is not asking,

to expect humility from one who is arrogant

and to correct someone who always feels, “I am right”

are sure signs of delusion.

Purpose

Swami Sri Atmananda Posted on by

Copyright_Satyachetana_2011

Why do I have a website?

This question was haunting me for a long time. One day a simple child (a seventy-year-old seeker) gave me the answer.

He said, “If we do not get a chance to know how you live, act, react and interact with outer world how can we know whether your attainment is true or fake? Masters have come and gone from time immemorial but few have left their imprints on the hearts of yogis. When you teach something and do not give us a chance to see whether or not your life is manifesting your teachings then yoga becomes a philosophy or a pastime hobby. How can we receive guidance? Who will face the missiles of the mental being if not the one who is known to be enlightened?”

I got my answer. A voice spoke from within. Rama, Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, everyone has made their life visible. That is what has sustained religion, tradition, human culture and spirituality. Why not I follow the path shown by all the wise men? What is there for me to lose except my ego and ignorance?

My purpose is you, to push you to the state where I am today. That is the best way to make you understand what is yoga and make me see where is my ego. This is a challenge and I have accepted this.

I have a vision.

Swami Sri Atmananda Posted on by

Copyright_Satyachetana_1993-2010-eternityI have a vision. This is about you the individual and you the universal. As an individual I aspired to reach a state of consciousness when nothing could touch me. I did not want God or the Self. All I wanted was to know, understand and feel always that I am not the body, mind or not even the soul. I wanted to feel I am all, everything, beyond and above.

Now I sincerely feel I am that. After reaching this state I felt I wanted to live for the manifestation of this vision. For that I decided to work, toil, struggle and strive. Failure, success, profit, loss, fame, pain, pleasure, life, death – these terms have lost their meaning to me. I am not alone feeling “that.” People who come and stay with me, near me, work for me, also sometimes feel “that”.

To make this feeling of unity a normal state for millions of human beings on Earth is my vision as a spiritual being. You may call it madness but it is for this that I am working.

“Astrology is the eye of the Vedas.”

Swami Sri Atmananda Posted on by

OM Namo Bhagavate

A personal account of one devotee’s experience with Swamiji.

“Astrology is the eye of the Vedas.” Swami Sri Atmananda, Patanjali Workshop, 2015.

2016 marks the fifteenth year of my association with a “mystic” lovingly addressed as “Swamiji”. A mystic, by definition, is one who apprehends the spiritual truth that is beyond human intellect. I had the great fortune of spending many mystical moments with Swamiji that would often leave me bewildered and confused, and at times, shocked. These moments would sometimes carry such a force that it seemed they could affect a seeker’s inner being for years and sometimes even his lifetime. Little did I know that the accumulated effects of these moments would soon take over the reins of my mind, heart, and eventually destiny. During the past four years, not a single day has gone by when I was not contemplating on one or more of these moments—either trying to understand the hidden meaning behind Swamiji’s utterances or patiently waiting for his predictions to come true. On the occasion of Swamiji’s birthday, I wish to share one such incident from my early days with him. Another reason I am sharing this is because I feel I now peripherally understand why he did what he did.

I was in my early 20s when most of my in-person interactions with Swamiji took place. Back in those days, his spiritual organization was just starting out and relatively small; this freed up a lot of his time to interact with outside visitors to the ashram. He would make himself available for teaching meditation techniques to visitors and ashramites alike, and hold several discourse sessions each week. I felt such deep admiration for Swamiji that I thought I should take up a monastic life in order to be with him for the rest of my days. One day, at the height of these feelings, Swamiji highly encouraged me to go to America for my higher education, as part of his spiritual mission. My logical mind found this nonsensical—it seemed that no spiritual master would want his loving devotees to leave his sight and get lost in the material mires of this world. This seemed especially true for a novice seeker like me who had just started his spiritual quest, and faced every possibility of getting derailed from the track.

I soon cleared the GRE exams and per Swamiji’s instructions, applied to a number of American universities for my post-graduate studies. This was in2002, right after 9/11, when it became increasingly difficult for international students to obtain financial aid from US universities. Without financial aid, my chances of attending a US university were slim to none. My family was adamant on not financially supporting me beyond my bachelor’s degree, and wouldn’t even assist me in taking out a bank loan to fund my foreign trip. I had almost given up hope and made up my mind to pursue Plan B: take a company job in India and pursue my spiritual interests by remaining in close proximity to Swamiji.

On the 18th of June, 2003, much to my family’s and my surprise, Swamiji called me at my home in Assam with the following message.. He was apparently in a state of trance (Samadhi) when he said, to the best of my recollections: “Mark my words…I know your past, present, and future…you are destined to go to the US…start preparing for the journey…everything will be arranged for you by the Lord.” It was a unidirectional dialogue: he spoke and I listened. Later I learned from the ashramites that he had locked himself up for almost two days in his room to remain in Samadhi during his birthday. It was during that time that he called me.

His voice over the phone seemed impersonal, instructive, and lacking any human emotion. I can still remember the feeling that had erupted in me from listening to him that day. The unearthly force transmitted over the phone lines deprived me of sleep for nearly two nights afterward. As Swamiji foretold, I received full scholarship for my entire post-graduate education in the US. His blessings have incessantly been pouring on me and carrying me ever since, and presently, I am a professor in a highly ranked US university.

During my second year in the US, I asked Swamiji how he knew my future, and more importantly, how I was spiritually benefitting his mission and myself by completing my studies in the US. During that period, I had no time for spiritual practices. I was completely deluged by academics, which were purely material in nature. His reply, as I recall, was “Completing your PhD and becoming a reputed scientist is the best spiritual practice you can do for yourself at this stage of your life…In Gita’s language it is your swadharma. All spiritual knowledge is already inside of you,.. It’s only a matter of time before it will reveal itself to you”

Not satisfied with this qualitative answer, I visited him the following year at his Ashram, and again asked the above question. This time, he gave a different answer “I know your astrological chart… My role as a sadguru is to be patient and deliver you from maya (illusion)…this might take one year, one birth, or multiple births…Enlightenment happens as a lightning strike and hence the name…I wish to be able to see at least a dozen of my devotees enlightened in my lifetime, and to each I prescribe different solutions per his system’s needs.”

Still not quite satisfied at his explanation, I further asked which astrologer he consulted to read my chart. He laughed and said that Maharshi Bhrigu had taught him to read spiritual charts during his Nirvikalpa samadhi in the Arunachala cave. Thus inspired, I left the ashram and obtained a copy of my own birth chart from my mother, and started teaching myself the tenets of astrology during my free time.

For the next several years, I delved into numerous interpretations of the classical astrological texts by ancient Vedic sages Parashara and Jaimini. These texts highlight the importance of Rahu and Ketu—the two nodes of moon—in granting spiritual enlightenment to a seeker.

Rahu in a person’s birth chart digs out the hidden desires from the depths of one’s subconscious mind, brings them to the conscious mind, and helps materialize them. The scriptures further explain that no amount of meditation and spiritual practice can stop Rahu from doing its part in one’s chart. Yogis fall from their spiritual attainments typically during the influence of Rahu in their chart. Only after Rahu’s role in one’s life is over, Ketu (its counterpart) takes over to bestow enlightenment to the soul.

When I understood this, and learned that Rahu is in my ninth house of higher education and foreign travel, I felt that I then understood why Swamiji had insisted on me coming to the US for higher studies. Had he not done so, I would have to deal with this subconscious desire later in this life or in future births. Spiritual emancipation wouldn’t be possible without this critical astrological intervention by Swamiji.

It took me almost 10 years to realize what seems to be at least part of the spiritual significance of one of Swamiji’s many mystical actions. On a personal level, since my becoming a professor in 2014, I’ve felt a paradigm shift in my consciousness, whereby the mind seems to be naturally turning inward and the level of spiritual aspiration and focus has increased by an order of magnitude. At first I couldn’t understand why. But now it’s starting to make sense.

In Paramhansa Yogananda’s book Autobiography of a Yogi, he describes his guru, Swami Yukteshwar Giri, influencing the astrological forces for the sake of expediting the spiritual progress of his disciples. A similar cosmic phenomenon might be at play here for those associated with Swamiji. To this mystical, selfless, and mightily powerful form called Swamiji, I offer my humblest pranam and best wishes on his birthday.

His Loving Devotee.

18th June 2016

 

Question 1

Swami Sri Atmananda Posted on by

OM Namo Bhagavate

Can a wife be an obstacle to yoga?
From: SR -99.

Blessed Gurudev,

For long time I have thought that I am trapped by my wife. She doesn’t allow me to do my sadhana and very often makes me feel irritated due to her senseless actions. What should I do to get rid of this problem? You have said that yoga for the modern man is absolutely possible in a family environment but here I feel it is impossible.

Answer

You are not alone to think like this.

The majority of husbands think like you, and many wives also think in the similar ways. This feeling is the symptom of one who is stuck-up in yoga, one who actually does not want to put effort into yoga. I have no hesitation to say that your determination to succeed in yoga has weakened. Otherwise you will not blame your wife for your inability to do yoga. Modern-day husbands many a time pass on the blame to wives.

Yoga is not a battle between husband and wife. It is an inner battle to overcome all samskaras. Patanjali, the father of Ashtanga yoga, has explained this in the very beginning of his yoga sutras: “Athah yoganusasanam,” which means yoga is an anusasana, self-imposed discipline. (Sutra 1.) It should not be a sasana, or externally imposed discipline.  Submitting to external discipline is slavery where as submitting to anusasana is the beginning of self-mastery.

Now I will tell you about my experience when I was in your stage of sadhana. To be very truthful I do not recollect a single instance when my wife was irritated with me because I was doing yoga. Rather it was just the opposite. She was irritated when I was deviating from the path of yoga. For me yoga was not sitting silently for meditation or visiting temples or listening to discourses or bhajans. Yoga for me was a constant striving to be truthful, sincere and dedicated to my ordained duties and responsibilities. Yoga for me was my daily Gita chanting and maintaining my state of equanimity. I have found that my wife was never getting irritated when I was struggling with this sadhana.

Please look within and find out what it is in you that causes irritation in you. I am sure you will find out soon it is not your wife but your attachments to your notions of yoga that might be the cause of your irritations.

Love and Blessings,
Gurudev

[Swamiji answers sadhana-related questions from seekers and admirers. To submit a question, use the Contact page. Each seeker receives a code number so that the inquirer will remain anonymous.]

Question 2

Swami Sri Atmananda Posted on by

Om Namo Bhagavate

Why do a majority of seekers not attain yoga siddhi?

[This question was asked by Swamiji himself.]

“Truth Hurts but It Heals”

My Experience as a Master

When I was not a seeker I was always asking this question to me, to others and even to God. The question was, why do a majority of seekers not attain yoga siddhi?    When I encountered a sadhu wearing an ochre robe or a loincloth, or a mendicant, the first question I was asking if the situation permitted was, “For how many years are you doing yoga?” I used to ask the same question to all. I was surprised, shocked and many a time also feeling a deep sadness in me when I heard these seekers and sadhus telling me something like, “I am doing yoga for the last 20 years, 25 years, 30 years,” etc.

When I then asked, “What have you gained in these 20, 25, 30 years?” almost everyone was looking at me with surprise that I was asking such a question. Only on a few occasions, maybe three or four times during my 20 years of constant inner search, someone asked a counter-question: “Why are you asking this?”

People derive a vicarious satisfaction simply by leading a mendicant life. 90 percent of these seekers really do not know what yoga is. Out of the rest, hardly two to three percent really do yoga. Why? Because the initial euphoria about yoga usually evaporates after the first three years of awakening. What remains is just the tag of social recognition and a yogic identity card. A majority of these seekers do not have a Guru or Guide. Hardly they follow any scripture or path and rarely any rigid self-discipline. Yoga for these spiritual romantics has become a time-pass hobby.

I also saw the real picture of the spiritual masters. A majority of these masters have no grounding on any scripture nor do they have any mastery over senses. Neither their personal lives are clean nor their social lives are admirable. Many masters in many ashrams are more money-minded than a miser and more indulgent than a drug addict. Women, wealth and weapon are the three symbols of their power and authority.

It is really a great mystery for me how after seeing all this hypocrisy and falsehood I still was able to retain my love for sadhus and my aspiration for yoga.

Now as I look back, 35 years down the memory lane, as a master, I see three truths in the relative plane.

Truth No.1:

It is a fact that true seekers are very rare in this Kali Yuga. The majority of seekers are actually sattwa-driven human beings, those who come to the yoga path. In my experience of 22 years as a master, I have so far not even seen 22 seekers whom I can truly consider as striving yogis. Hundreds have come to me for receiving guidance for yoga, but I have not found even 20 true seekers in these 22 years as a master whose only mission in life is to guide an awakened soul to the stage of Realization or Liberation.

I have an Ashram in one of the most famous spiritual places in India and the ashram gates are always open for seekers, but I find mostly spiritual romantics, spiritual tourists and sattwa-driven human beings coming to the Ashram. Most painful is my experience as a master with those seekers who stay with me to do yoga.

A majority of ashramites always find an excuse how not to attend an Ashram program. It is most shocking to me to see how ashramites just go out for their material and social chores even when chanting, invocation or Guru Puja is going on in the campus. Many even do not feel the need to chant a chapter of Gita or a sukta from the Veda, which are considered the basic scriptures in our Ashram. I cannot remember a single ashramite who is able to attend all the Ashram programs, although no one misses a single meal in the Ashram dining hall.

Recently I returned from a tour of USA. My experience and observations were no different there. Nowadays we hear lot about pseudo masters, but has anyone ever asked himself whether he/she is a pseudo seeker?

I am sharing my experiences with the world not to blame or glorify anyone but to make a simple, obvious point more obvious. That is, why do a majority of seekers not attain yoga siddhi?

My answer is,

they do not really want it.

To be continued…

[Swamiji answers sadhana-related questions from seekers and admirers. To submit a question, use the Contact page. Each seeker receives a code number so that the inquirer will remain anonymous.]