The Vishnu Gayatri shows us that the Lord is everywhere, and the Narayana mantra is the most efficacious of all mantras. But in order to benefit through a recitation of the Narayana mantra, we must have bhakti towards the Lord, K.B. Devarajan said in a discourse. Suppose there is a tank full of water. There are three orifices in the tank, which are kept plugged. Suppose even one of the plugs is removed, all the water will drain out. Similarly, in order to get the benefit of the Narayana mantra, there are three holes that we must plug — lack of bhakti towards the Lord, lack bhakti towards one’s Acharya and lack of belief in the efficacy of the mantra. We often lack all the three requisites. We lack bhakti towards the Lord, whom the mantra extols. We lack bhakti towards the Acharya who teaches us the mantra. Or we lack faith in the mantra itself. A mere recitation, without faith, is not going to help us. All the three conditions are essential for us to reap the benefits of the mantras taught by our Acharyas. Those in samsaric life are in a pitiable condition. They have forgotten who they are. They have forgotten who God is. So they do not serve God. And the saddest part is that they are not sorry to have forgotten God. They are like a man who has lost his property, does not know he has lost his property, and is therefore not sorry about his loss. The Lord has great sympathy for our plight and is eager to save us, if only we have bhakti towards Him. Bhakti yoga is difficult for most of us. That is why the Lord shows us the path of surrender at His feet. But we do not even resort to this, often. We will resort to surrender only if we have the knowledge about our ‘atma’ and about God. An ignorant man does not know that he is imprisoned in a cycle of births and deaths, and to escape from this repeating sorrow, he must surrender at the Lord’s feet. If we understand the Lord’s qualities of kindness and willingness to forgive us for our transgressions, love for God will result, and will prompt us to resort to surrender.
Psicóloga Martha Luisa Callo Febres – Directora de San Gabriel Centro de Psicoterapia en New Delhi – India. En Sri Aurobindo Ashram. Capacitación en Meditación (Raja Yoga). Marzo 2009
Yogashakti y la Maitreyananda Orchestra del Aurobindo Sivannada Ashram, Yoga Integral ® www.yogaintegral.biz
Sewa Ashram is a rehabilitation center for sick, destitute people that has cared for the poorest of the poor since 1997. Regularly our team patrols through the streets of Delhi and picks up those extreme cases who have been abandoned, overlooked or left to die by others. At our community setting, 25 km outside of [...]
In this satsang talk given at Yasodhara Ashram, Swami Radhananda reflects on the healing potential of work and the opportunities it provides us with to expand our awareness, and to make better choices.
Ardhanariswara Temple Tiruchengode God lives in the hearts of those who think of all human beings as equal. This world has many who treat fellow human beings cruelly and contemptuously. And yet such is the Lord’s love for us that He resides in this world in temples. Those in this world are here due to their karma. But they can be freed from the effects of their karma, if they worship Lord Siva, who is seen in the form of linga in temples, said K. Sambandan. Although this earth is a place where there is sorrow, even Brahma wanted to be born on this earth, because Siva is seen in many temples. The devas are sorry not to have been born on this earth. God does not discriminate against anyone. What we see as His partiality is not in fact so. He only assigns experiences to us, on the basis of our karma. To Him the have and the have-not are alike. The Lord wants us to share our God-love with others. This is not easy. If we plan to go to a religious lecture and meet a friend on the way, it is our duty to inform him of where we are going and invite him to come along with us. But the friend might say he is busy and might just slip away. So while a person must take others along with him, when he goes to worship, those invited must also realise the importance of listening to Vedic truths being explained and must attend discourses. Those who seek the mercy of Lord Siva must seek the mercy of Goddess Parvati too. Goddess Parvati is even more merciful than He is. Whenever Siva goes to slay someone, He goes alone. When he offers refuge, He is with Parvati, for Parvati forgives more easily, and therefore might pardon an asura, who needs to be destroyed by Siva. So He leaves Her behind, when He has to destroy anyone. Lord Siva has given one half of His body to Parvati and bears the name Ardhanariswara. Therefore, He will not be pleased if a person worships Him, without worshipping Parvati. In most temples, there is a separate shrine for Goddess Parvati too. When we visit temples, we must not just worship Lord Siva and come away. We must worship the Goddess too.
Sukhi Sivam Words can comfort or hurt. It is our pride that makes us use words that hurt. The words that great men utter are words that will prove true. We should, therefore, seek their blessings, and not doubt whether their words of blessing will come true, said Suki Sivam in a lecture. One day a spiritual man blessed a sick man and said he would recover soon. A bystander mocked at the great man and asked how he knew that the sick man would recover. Moreover, would his words of blessing have the power to heal, he wondered. The great man then said to the bystander, that he, the bystander, was like an animal. Immediately, the bystander fell upon the spiritual man and scratched him. The spiritual man observed that all that he had said was that he (the bystander) was like an animal. Immediately, the man had behaved like an animal. If he, through his behaviour, had proved that the great man’s words would come true, why should anyone doubt that the great man’s words of blessing too would come true? Words of great men come true, because of their spiritual strength. The reason we disbelieve even great men is our pride. Pride is like drug-resistant bacteria. If we suppress one form of pride, it mutates and takes another form. So we have the strange phenomenon of people who are proud of their worship of God, and dismissive of other people’s bhakti. In temples, we see how some people arrive with a lot of fanfare, and wonder if others are watching them as they display their devotion. So in their case, pride has taken a novel form – pride in religiosity. There was once a teacher, to whom everyone went for lessons in siddhanta. In that village was a child, wise beyond its years, who was taking spiritual lessons, but not from this famous teacher. Angered, the teacher asked the child what it knew. Did it know the meaning of pride? Could it define pride, the teacher asked. The child silently pointed to the direction of the teacher. The teacher was the embodiment of pride, for he had assumed that there was no one else who had more knowledge than he, and a child had pointed this out to him. If we leave the luggage of pride behind, then we can reach the destination of heaven.
Swami Ananda Chaitanya, talking on Stress Management based on Vedic knowledge using Yoga and pranayama as a tool to handle one’s own stress.
A short film capturing the experiences of a few students from around the world during The Art of Living Yes+ Winter Break program at The Art of Living Ashram just outside of Bangalore, India. For more information, visit: www.yesplus.org or www.artofliving.org
