part 2 nine

Millennium

In the Christian religion there is an idea that a time will come when everybody will be pure, noble and filled with holy thoughts. All will be saints, suffering, poverty, wickedness and crime, will vanish, heaven will descend on earth and earth will be heaven. Swamiji, referring to this, called it an impossibility. It was fine to hear, but unfeasible and a contradiction in terms.
As we go on meditating, when the mind gets steadied and the body-consciousness is minimized, i.e. when even the remembrance of body, place, time, country and causation is not there, and the mind rises to the Great Void, then the object of contemplation is reflected in its cidakasa. But devoid of substratum (or receptacle) the mind cannot remain long in the Great Void: that is why a support is needed. The first impression of truth comes in the form of pictures. In the Great Void or cidakasa, numerous forms suddenly appear like pictures. But the movements of these in relation to each other express quite new ideas. We can express through speech a little bit, but all the living ideas which are beyond speech, and which speech is attempting to indicate, then become clearly evident. There is no fear in all these visions; gradually this seeing of pictures will get expanded in various ways and become uplifted to higher realms.”

Self-realization; Swamiji’s own experience

“Sadhus and yogis in the early stages see everything as external, and try to get their instruction and their blessings from outside. I roamed about the whole of India, my forehead swollen from being banged against the floor through prostrating. At the time, a little peace would come, no doubt, but shortly it would all go away and I would become very depressed. Nothing happened nor was there any hope. Finally I got disgusted and so dejected that I gave up all external practices, all bhakti. Then I decided that as I had got nothing from outside after so much search, let me see if I can get it from inside. I would renounce everything, even give up the body. There was no necessity for a life spent in vain. And I began to search inside. I extinguished the external world completely; in the interior world I saw something tremendous! There the external seemed a mere trifle. Little by little, doubt began to lessen, and my dejection abated and I began to have Self-realization. Then a strength and courage came into my heart. The inner vision is far superior to the outer. A natural dignity (or manliness) comes from the vision of the Self. Ordinary heroism is clumsy person’s heroism: it lasts but a little while – in a moment a person can become crestfallen and cowardly. But the manliness of those who have seen the Self is full of fire, enduring and incontrovertible. It is not the build or strength of the body that gives mental power. That comes from the vision of the Atman.”
    Self manifestation the basis of everything. “Self-knowledge or Self-realization and each object as the manifestation of Brahman – when one acquire this Knowledge one becomes free. One can no longer be much impressed with external glamour. In my days as a wandering monk, because of the uncertainty over food and rest, the body was always out-of-sorts and ill. I took many medicines but got no result. Finally, exasperated, I altogether gave up resorting to medicine and tried to arouse whatever was already within me. Then strength came to the mind. I banished all bodily illness, then the body became all right. If the Atman within awakes, one’s body becomes changed. From that time my health has been quite good. Sometimes I catch a bit of cold, but then I don’t have to take much medicine. Self-manifestation is the main thing.
    “Even if yogis drink intoxicants, they get no special effect from them. When a yogi reaches an advanced state the body changes. The way the action of liquor affects the ordinary person is not seen in the advanced yogi. Wine is no different from water; one will notice no difference. The scriptures even say that if poison is administered to the perfect yogi, nothing will happen, because when the mind has risen, no action on the lower level is effective.”
    Swamiji said that he knew of the case of a certain person. Though one of his limbs was burned, in the state of samadhi he felt nothing. Though others got the odor of burning flesh, he, dwelling in the state of samadhi, did not move the rest of his body nor feel pain in the member. But when his mind came down again to a lower level and joined itself to the gross state, he began to feel the pain of having been burned. When the mind unites one part of the body with another it experiences its sensations. But when it rises, the gross body’s sensations cannot disturb the subtle body.
    “When we first meditate we get some joy and the mind moves ahead by degrees. But a state comes when the mind becomes paralyzed, and there is no energy left in it. It seems to be dull. At this time, one must try to invoke grace, blessing, and bhakti. Crossing over this state by such means, you will again be able to meditate.
    “When, after meditating, there comes real absorption, i.e., the sadhaka becomes free of body-consciousness or clings only to the subtle body, letting go of the gross (in this condition the whole external world gets merged and only space or void remains), then from inside oneself a question must come up; turning over this question for some days, one provides the answer oneself.

Self-projection

So’ham, so’ham. Swamiji became very serious on the subject of self-projection. He said, “The whole creation is the self-projection of the “I.” Joy and sorrow, virtue and vice, freedom and bondage, all are self-projection. In whatever way I project myself, in that way, seeing the idea of freedom in each object in the world, I am absorbed in bliss. And when I rise above ideas of good or ill, vice or virtue, free or bound, I see it is I who has become one, I who has become many.” Here he was so exalted in outlook that everyone was spellbound. The room was so still, even breathing was not heard. “I am He, I am He,” he said, “I am that Sat-chit-ananda, the Atman. The world, the body, mind, whatever is outside – all that I pervade. It is I who have projected the universe, I am hidden in everything. Just as I am staying in this body, so do I exist in each body. I am all-pervading. Every created thing is mind. I am a voice without form. Body is something external, world is something external, thought too is the same. So’ham, so’ham – the Hindus have given this idea to the world. In it there is no fear or hell or cringing tendency. The ideal here is the establishment of Oneness in all things.
    “The body is a stream of matter. Ordinarily we see the body as a stable or abiding entity. But it is changing at every moment, and yet we regard this perpetual transformation as a temporary fixture. What do we see from babyhood to old age? Everyone is the same person, but the body or covering is being changed at every moment. By food, by breath etc. e are taking in the material world and a little later in various ways we letting all that out again. All the transformation that goes on between this taking in and letting out we are calling an abiding thing. We are superimposing permanence on the changing – why? Because within us there is consciousness of the Everlasting.
    “You all know that we cannot dive into the same river twice, because after the first dive time has wrought changes. I have grown a bit older, the sun has risen higher, some water has gone down the stream, tree leaves have fallen in, some mud has floated by, etc. What is it that we call the present? When I form a thought and have not pronounced it aloud, then I call it ‘future;’ but as I speak of it, even then its work is done and it is gone; so it is called ‘past.’ Future I understand, and past, but where is the present? Inferring a joining of past and future, we give a special name and call it ‘present.’ But future thought is no sooner present than it becomes past.
    “Our bodies are collections of certain materials. I am putting everything in through one kind of opening and it is all going out through another kind. This transformation is called ‘enduring’ body. The illustration may be given of seeing a beehive from a distance. From afar it appears that the bees of the hive have sat down quietly inside, but if we go close we can observe that the bees are continuously on the go, wandering to and fro; within a certain boundary they light here and there, some fly up high, etc. So it is with body or anything having name and form.”