The Tree of Life -3.9: Swami Krishnananda.

Chinmaya International Foundation (CIF):

Uttama-purusa, as Bhagavan Ram is fondly called, lead a life that teaches us ways to lead a life of perfection and integrity.

Ramayana gives a beautiful glimpse at the leadership and life affirming qualities of Bhagavan Rama. 

In this enlightening discourse, Swami Ramakrishnananda expounds the nuances of Valmiki's Ramayana. 

Swamiji refers to 2 epics based on Valmiki's Ramayana, 

Kamba Ramayana composed by Poet Kamba during the 12th century

& Raghuvamsa written by Kalidasa in the 15th century.

Listen in, be inspired and lead a life filled with honesty and integrity at 

http://chinfo.org/.../f580db38-3030-4afe-88e6-91d483c7881d

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Wednesday 31, Jan 2024 07:10.

Discourse 3: Severing the Root of this Tree of Life - 9.

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Our deeper levels in the inner layers of our psyche are connected to subtle objects of sense, and these are the impulses that disturb our meditations and even the very thought of God. How can anyone be seated throughout the day and think of God? We will feel restless and out of sorts because of the unnaturalness of this thought. It is a wonder that the thought of God should appear as unnatural and be rushed forward into the outer atmosphere to become natural.

Don't you feel, even all you people seated here, a slight sense of relief when you finish the satsanga and go out? “Oh, the boredom is finished. Let us breathe.” You feel a sense of limitation and uneasiness when you are restrained like this inside a hall. This is unnatural satsanga, if going out of this place is natural to your minds. If you feel a sense of relief when you go out into the open air, and feel the other way around when you are inside the hall, this sadhana is unnatural. But if you feel restless when you go out—“Oh, it is over. I want it more. I want to be seated here. I want to listen. I want to contemplate. I want to absorb myself in this idea”—then your sadhana is natural. Otherwise, the kitchen would be natural, the shop would be natural, not the satsanga here.

Unfortunately, likewise is our meditation on God. It has somehow or other become unnatural to us. Japa is unnatural, worship is unnatural. Who would like to sit there? It is a great headache. We would like to go out as early as possible. The whole of sadhana becomes a nuisance to the innermost layer of our personality. But we force ourselves to believe the other way around. “No, no, it is not like that. I want God.” Who is telling this? It is our conscious level, which is the least part of us, the weakest part, and perhaps the most unreliable part. The reliable part, our real substance, is inside, and it is connected to objects of sense by a power of prehension, which is different from the apprehensions of the conscious mind. So this asaṅgaśastreṇa dṛḍhena chittvā (B.G. 15.3) admonition of the Bhagavadgita will be like pouring water on the rock of the human mind if its implications are not properly understood. We will be simply chanting and chanting, and gaining nothing.

We cannot really love God, let us be honest to ourselves, because we have subtle loves for our children, for our families, for our properties, which of course we will deny outright if it is told. We say it is not so, that we are fed up with everything. But we are not fed up because, again to reiterate, we have a personality deeper than the one which we know about ourselves, and we cannot know what we are thinking.

So there is, again, a very great necessity before us to sit at the feet of powerful Masters who emanate a force of rejuvenation and positive thinking, who have dedicated themselves entirely to God-living, and whose totality of being is immersed in the search for this great Reality. All people cannot succeed in this attempt because we cannot go under our own skin and enter into our own psyche.

Therefore, blessed souls, I evoke the blessings and the grace of the Almighty upon you all that you have time enough to think over these difficulties, and do not think that everything is milk and honey in this world. There is neither milk here, nor honey, nor friends in this world. You have terrible problems before you every moment of time if you mistake things for what they are not. God is before you, and nothing else is before you.

End

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Next

The Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity

The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita: Swami Krishnananda

To be continued

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