Satsangs by
Swami Satyananda Saraswati
Does it say
anywhere in the vedic literature that God is an experience and not a person?
In the
Srimad Bhagavatam there is a verse which says, “You are formless, but for the
convenience of my meditation I have created a form for you. You are placeless,
but in order to worship you I have erected a place for you. You are beyond all
description, but in order to pray I have created your descriptions. God, due to
my inability and inexperience, I have committed three sins. Please pardon me.”
The
absolute experience is beyond time and space. At the same time, most people
cannot visualize the formless aspect. So from time to time, God has incarnated
himself in different manifestations and forms (avataras) so the devotees will
love him. I like Rama very much because for me his personality is absolute,
disciplined, systematic and perfect. Other people are attracted to Krishna as
the ideal form and embodiment of joy, dynamism, love and music. For others
still, the form of Shiva whose detachment is perfect is the form of greatest
attraction. The form of the supreme varies according to the inclination and personality
of the devotee. These forms become the object of awareness through which the
devotee moves forward and evolves. This is the vedic tradition as it is taught.
In the
vedic tradition, you start from your town and let others start from theirs, and
ultimately all converge in the centre. It is not necessary that only Rama,
Krishna, Govinda, Devi, Christ or Mohammed will take you there. Any way you go,
you will reach there. That is experience, and after experience you are
fulfilled.
—London,
September 1979
Why is it
necessary to do so many yogic practices and sadhanas such as asana, pranayama,
pratyahara and dharana?
As a layman
of faith, when I love the Lord all I have to do is fall at his feet and cry!
Why can’t you do that? First show me where his feet are and then I will cry!
Our body and mind are valuable instruments and therefore we should not misuse
them in drinking, overeating and other abuse. We should take care of the body
and keep it in the best condition by practising asana and pranayama. One cannot
get food from a cookbook; only cooking can satisfy our stomach. By reading a
book on electricity, we cannot bring light into our house. Likewise, by reading
books on yoga theory one cannot attain samadhi. One needs to practise. Yoga
increases the mental, physical and psychic capacities of the personality. Even
if we are to dedicate our life to the service of the Lord, what use is it to
offer a diseased, sickly flower to Him? In the ancient vedic scriptures it said
that the body is a means to great virtues, to great attainments, spiritual or
otherwise.
What about
japa? Hindus practise it to remember the Lord. How does that help?
Japa is
practised by all faiths, but maybe without understanding its psychological
import. The emotional energy should be sublimated and properly channelled for
constructive work. Bhakti is the best method of sublimation. Japa is the
easiest and safest way by which a person can elevate the state of
consciousness, by reciting the name of the Lord in a particular manner, either
alone or in a group.
What
happens in japa is that you slowly create a rhythm and then a momentum is
produced in your brain. After a while the mind loses touch with external
objects and the consciousness is withdrawn and elevated. A blissful state is
reached and eventually it brings you to a state that is higher than pratyahara.
Sometimes it gives a glimpse of meditation also. You can thus see that japa is
not repetition of the Lord’s name for the sake of repetition, and it is not
only for Hindus.
You mean to
say that japa is primarily intended to concentrate the mind. If that is true,
then why can’t I say ‘kitchen, kitchen, kitchen’ instead of the Lord’s name?
Any word or name will have the same effect.
The origin
of the sacred syllables, mantras, can be traced back to the time of the ancient
sages who received these sacred syllables through higher states of
consciousness in meditation. Every mantra has a deep meaning according to the
arrangement of letters and sounds. When we do japa of a certain mantra, we
simultaneously meditate on it. For example, by doing japa on the mantra Om, we
reach a certain cosmic realization which is not possible by repeating ‘kitchen,
kitchen, kitchen’.
I do not
believe in the name of the Lord. I am not emotional; I am intellectual. Why
should I do japa?
Man
possesses all the three faculties of intellect: intellect, emotion and spirit,
although they appear in different degrees in each individual. There are many
situations in life when one is not only intellectual but also emotional. Even
too much intellectualism is actually suppression of emotion. The question is
how to employ the emotions for spiritual development. A certain amount of
emotional energy should be sublimated through divine love, bhakti, and
utilizing the emotions in constructive purposes, such as maternal love or
social service.
If this is
not done, there will be emotional imbalance and that has taken place in many
cases. Even those who have faith in God are sometimes found to be unbalanced
because the emotional energy is not let out, but suppressed inside. When the
emotions are suppressed, they have to come out in some form or other. Even an
intellectual person, on hearing good music, can be deeply moved. At that moment
he forgets his intellectual personality. In the same way, by seeing a lonely
house in a forest, even an intellectual person can be moved. He becomes calm
and relaxed. The happiness in such instances is an expression of the elevated
emotion. He is separated for some time from his intellectual personality. Even
a hard-boiled intellectual becomes emotional from time to time.
—Bombay,
February 1968
I have
studied many Chinese books and was struck by the fact that they hardly mention
God. They say Tao is the way. Could you give your idea about this?
The concept
of God is always different in different periods of history. Hindus in the vedic
period and even now believe that God is someone, somewhere. Then followed
Christianity and Islam. They believed in God as someone, somewhere. In between
came the Upanishads in India. These were discussions between guru and disciple
about the ultimate nature of the individual and the universe. The Upanishads
were less concerned with the God who is someone and somewhere, but more
concerned with the ultimate nature of reality. They came to the conclusion that
everything is within, that is the microcosm, the miniature of the macrocosm,
and that the God who was someone and somewhere was inside also.
Now, these
discussions about the nature of reality and the nature of God continued for
centuries in India and finally they said that the self was perfect. With the
help of meditation, dhyana yoga, you could become aware of that microcosmic
consciousness. However, this discussion about the nature of reality became so
metaphysical, so abstract, so abstruse, that by the time Buddha came he just
kept quiet about all these topics. Later on when his disciples, the Buddhists,
went to China, Japan and other south-east Asian countries, they also said
nothing. Buddhist monks travelled extensively throughout the world, but the
Buddhist philosophy had the greatest influence in China and Japan. Therefore,
in their system, although individually they do accept God as a reality, the
philosophy teaches that everything is part of the way.
When you
think about God, He is the goal, but when you go in search of Him, He becomes
the way. And if He is the goal, then He is not infinite because the very word
goal presupposes an end. One who is endless and infinite can never be a goal,
He can only be the way.
Talking
about God will lead you nowhere because we are all blinded by avidya, psychosis
and neurosis. Our vision is too narrow. We are like the seven blind people
trying to describe an elephant. One says it is like a rope, another like a
pillar, and so on. God is not a matter of discussion. God is a matter of love,
dedication and surrender. Those who have not seen God can find Him in their
guru. By faith, devotion, sincerity, virtue, by complete surrender, you are
nearer to God. Even if you do not see Him, it does not matter. We should not
try to dissect God on the table of logic.
—Chennai,
August 1976
What does
God mean to sannyasins?
We feel
that God is within. God is the subtle or spirit body in everyone. When you have
illumination within, you don’t seek God outside any more. God is a symbol for
the beginner, but one who is illumined has found God within. When you start
school, you begin with the ABC. However, an older student who already knows the
alphabet shouldn’t be put into kindergarten. For a beginner the symbol, a
cross, flower, lingam, etc. is necessary, but when awareness is deep, grand and
magnificent, then what need is there for symbols?
Everything
depends upon one’s own awareness. If you want to enter the temple of God, at
the beginning you can do it externally, but the high temple, Shiva’s real
dwelling, is only found within. The external holy places and shrines are built
of bricks and mortar on the basis of the envisioned model that people have
experienced within themselves. They are only expressions of what is found
within.
So it is
very important to know the way to the inner shrine. Only by entering the inner
shrine can one know God, the deity dwelling there. As long as you are aware of
the external symbols, you are within the boundaries of the mind. In order to
experience reality, one has to transcend these boundaries because God is beyond
the limited, finite mind.
There are
many techniques which lead to the point or brink at which you have to jump over
the mind. But I don’t think that anyone can teach us how to make this jump. Up
to this point the yoga practices which your guru has given you, or any
spiritual practice, can help. Beyond this point, however, there is no spiritual
practice, no yoga practice that can help you and no book has been written on
it.
Only one
thing can help us transcend the mind, and that is grace. But what is grace?
Nobody knows. So all our spiritual pursuits and religious practices only take
us to the edge of this boundary of material consciousness. Up to that point
everybody can teach you, but to go beyond surpasses all human power. You alone
must find the way.
—Kathmandu,
February 1977
The saint
knows everything without looking out of the window. The farther out you go the
less you know. That is why the saint does not travel. He knows all things
without seeing them.
Yes, that
is true, because our spiritual nature is not something which is far away from
us. It is the nucleus of our existence, the seed, the centre, and we are the
circumference. It is within; it is our totality. Our absolute personality is
that. Therefore, we do not have to go through the windows; we do not have to go
through the door. We just close our eyes and then we can see everything inside.
—Bombay,
November 1976
Are Shiva,
Parvati, Ganesha and other gods legends, or are they real?
Shiva,
Parvati, Ganesha, the Holy Ghost, the Holy Trinity – all these things are a
reality of another dimension. When you talk about reality, you want to know if
they lived like you and me. Do you call that reality? There is a joke about
this.
Once a
fellow from a primitive tribe, a very simple people, dreamed that one of his
chickens was stolen by a neighbour. In the morning he got up and reported to
the chief of the tribe, “Sir, my chicken was stolen by him.” “When did he steal
it?” “In the night.” “And what were you doing?” “I was sleeping.”
The chief
called the culprit and asked, “Did you steal his chicken?” He said, “I don’t
remember.” The chief said, “He says you stole his chicken.” The culprit asked,
“When did I steal it?” The fellow replied, “In the night.” “You saw it?” “Yes,
I saw it.” “What were you doing then?” “I was sleeping.” “But I did not dream
that I was stealing your chicken!”
This is the
concept of man’s reality. What you think is real need not be real. According to
science, too, every experience is relative, it is not absolute. On what is this
experience dependent? Is it a concept? Is it an object? Has it got a reality in
space and time? Finally, you will find the definition inside. Even this world
in which we have been aspiring and trying to prove so much does not really
exist.
Everything
is relative, and therefore Shiva, Parvati, Ganesha, the Holy Ghost and the Holy
Trinity are absolute realities in the realm of reality, but in the world of
appearance, I think they are not real, they are a vision.
—London, February 1983
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