Month: August 2020

Sources of Energy

Posted on by ahymsin

The definition of the weakness and strength of the mind is analogous to the weakness and strength of the body and its vital functions. Through the practice of yoga and meditation and other attendant disciplines, both the body and the mind may be energized.

We feel low on energy sometimes; we feel high sometimes. Sometimes we feel weak; sometimes we feel strong. When we feel weak, we have a lack of initiative, a lack of memory, a lack of concentration; fatigue, inability to endure a situation, a relationship, a difficulty, a job, a course of study, any kind of dedication or devotion. At that time, we have a preoccupation with ourselves.

The weakest word in the human dictionary is “I.” It is one of the major sources of weakness of the body and mind – the thought “me” . . . “What about me?” . . . what I want. When people write letters, for example, notice how many times the word “I” is used – how many paragraphs begin with the word “I,” how many times the word “me” is used: “I want, I feel, it happens to me, my reaction, my feeling, my disappointment, my frustration, my expectation. He told me, I told him. I’m not like this, I’m not like that. I am this way, that’s the way I am.” This shows their weakness. And in a spiritually strong person, the frequency of the word “I” and “me” becomes less and less. It is said that one of the greatest yogis of this century, or of the last 500 years, Ramana Maharshi, in the last 25 years of his life simply did not use the pronouns “I” and “me.”

When we are energized, we have endurance; we have strength; we can carry weight – physical or mental. Things that before made us quit, now seem as nothing. We can carry through and enjoy doing so. Energy is creativity. Without energy, we do not have the inspiration to create. Without energy, we do not have the initiative to begin the creation nor to carry it through, nor to complete it, nor to perfect it. This is true whether it is carrying a physical weight, entertaining guests, becoming a great musician, or in serving others. We need to find sources of energy for ourselves.

Let us summarize some sources of energy through which we may energize ourselves.

FOOD – When eaten in a regular and balanced manner, when not overeaten, food is a source of energy. Overindulgence in food de-energizes us. Food eaten in moderate amounts leaves less residue1 to block the energy channels of the body. One of the most debilitating and de-energizing factors causing inertia is the residue from foods left in the body which are not properly assimilated or cleaned out. Irregular eating, constant nibbling and eating between meals do not allow the system, sufficient time to rest, assimilate and clean house. If the dead cells and phlegmatic flows are not eliminated, if the putrid stuff just lying in the internal organs is never removed, a de-energizing, debilitating, tamasic influence is exerted on the nerves and the mind.2

THOUGHT– is a great source of energy. For example, having a firm faith in something often becomes a driving force of such potent strength that a wiry framed bag of bones, like Mahatma Gandhi can lead an entire nation to almost impossible lofty heights. His energy did riot arise from muscles and nerves; it arose from carefully cultivated positive thoughts in which he had firm conviction and faith – thoughts which were not dogmatic nor competitive with anything else3. To be pure, a faith must not be competitive; it must not be against something. Any faith that is against something is not an energizing faith. Any faith which is an abandoning of something else is not an energizing faith.

Blockage of energy occurs through wrong karmas. The words, “wrong karmas” do not mean past karma. They mean the karma of now, the karma now being gathered in the form of our thoughts. The karma that you are now doing will affect your future energy levels. Wrong, karma, for example, is a jealous thought, a guilty thought, an unloving thought, a me-centered thought, a thought in which the washing-soap of the Four Right Attitudes4 is not used. Therefore, any me-centered thought is a de-energizing thought. An energizing thought is not a thought that suppresses a negative thought; an energizing thought is a thought that replaces a negative thought. Such a positive thought is an energizing thought.

A beautiful thought, a peaceful thought, is the greatest source of human energy – a thought such as love. For example, I spoke of food. Food purchased from a fast-food place and gobbled, not eaten is not a source of energy. But food that someone prepares with gentle, loving thoughts, with you in mind and then is given to you and you enjoy it because it is an act of love, this food then is a source of energy. It is more a source of energy than food which is prepared without the thought of love in the mind. Without love being directed to flow through the fingers of the person who is cooking, there is no energy. For this reason, the pie made by grandmother was seldom overeaten, but pie made in the popular pie shops is over-eaten because, though it fills the stomach, it does not fill the mind.

The love that gives you energy must be repaid. Food that you do not eat, but that you give to someone else out of love, also gives you energy. The energy there is the energy of a loving thought. Food prepared with someone in mind and handed to them personally is a source of energy to both the giver and the receiver.

WATER – is a source of energy, both as you drink it and as, it bathes the body. Again, a proper thought-flow, a mental connection with the Cosmic Reality, is the true source of that energy. When you are taking a shower, if you are taking a shower with the Divine Flux of the universe, the flow of all the galaxies in your mind – the sacredness of the Jordan and Ganges in your mind – then that bathing acts as a daily baptism. If bathing is a preparation of the body as a temple for the Divine whom you invite to be present in your meditation, then that bathing becomes a source of energy.

BLESSING – One of the great unknown sources of energy is a blessing, and one of the most debilitating things is a curse. By a curse, I do not mean a curse placed upon you by a witch, but rather the ugly thoughts that others are thinking about you. If you have lived a life in which there has been too much of the “me-thought,” then you have created a “non-me” – you have created its opposite. The moment you separate yourself from the Great Cosmos, you create a duality, you create an “other,” an opposition. That opposite tries to destroy you, tries to I compete with you. You say, “Me?” and the other one says, “No, not that ‘me,’ this ‘me’ – ME!” Which “me” in the Great Cosmic Consciousness is more important – the “me” inhabiting this body, or the “me” inhabiting that body? So other minds think ugly thoughts about you, and those thoughts hit you if you keep your mind open to those thoughts. On the other hand, if you avoid wondering, “Is that person still thinking bad thoughts about me? That person must be thinking bad thoughts about me. I cannot believe he or she would ever love me. I wonder if that person will ever trust me.” If you avoid those debilitating, de-energizing thoughts and cultivate indifference to evil, those thoughts cannot affect you. But thoughts directed toward you can be debilitating if you are open to them. When you are open to such thoughts, you also think thoughts that are negative, harmful, and self-destructive. It is not that person’s curse that is affecting you, but your own curse that says, “Who me, selfish? No, no, that other person is the selfish one!” And that thought is the source of your mental and physical debility and eventual disease.

To repeat, one of the greatest sources of energy is a blessing. There is a saying in India that from the parental blessing flows all other blessings in life – the parental thought of tenderness and love that, although a child is going wrong, yet, “I would like my child to prosper, grow and be happy.” We speak of specific sources of blessing. The first source is the mother; the second source is the father; the third source is the teacher; and, of course, the fourth source is God. Always try to obtain the blessings of these sources. Please them: “May they be pleased with me.” Why? Because the very cells of your body respond to the thoughts that permeate them. From the moment of your conception, a synchrony exists between you and those with whom you are sharing an inherited structure, an inherited body structure. Similarly, between a loving teacher and a loved student there exists a mental synchrony, and the good thoughts of these people should always be sought irrespective of any differences of opinion. These thoughts will bring you blessings. The Muslims call it a barakat. In India the blessing of friends brings you energy: “He’s such a fine person, such a wonderful person, such a giving, loving, gentle human being. They say sampati: a prospering. They bring you a prospering in the same manner in which the happiness of a pregnant mother brings health to the child in her womb and the unhappiness, depression or dejection of the pregnant mother brings debilitation to a child in the womb. That relationship that you have with the mother while you are in the womb is never quite broken; it is not cut with the umbilical cord. This type of blessing is efficacious, then, as well as a person thinking, “May he ever prosper, may all good things happen to him.” When others think such thoughts about you, whether you know about them or not, you grow. May others think such thoughts about you! If in our minds there are such thoughts about others, others will think such thoughts about you. Consider how to eliminate the “me,” and instead think, “How may I serve?”

SELFLESS SERVICE – One of the greatest sources of energy is selfless service. It comes as a surprise to many when someone resents, or resists helping, or resigns from his organization or church because he has to tithe or to work. Giving is a virtue. Giving is a source of blessing. Sharing is a source of blessing. Sharing one’s strengths, sharing one’s mind – these are all sources of blessing. You cannot live without giving, without serving, without helping, without sharing. How would you live? You would be very lonely. So, we have this constant feeling of being debilitated, not having enough strength to keep going, wanting to quit, to drop out, to get away. Irrespective of where you are, whether it’s a job or a relationship or a church or a study, rid yourself of this debilitating depression by cultivating the Four Right Attitudes, by seeking proper health-giving sources of energy, and by eliminating negative, me-centered thoughts through selfless service to others.

CONCENTRATION – There are other very, very great sources of energy. One is concentration. Concentrate on any given sense. From how far away can you smell a flower? Concentrate at the tip of the nose where the nose bridge joins the upper lip5 and feel as if the breath is going in from there and is branching off into two. Take a slow, deep, fine, breath; then see if you can smell the flowers that are sitting at the other side of the room. If you cannot smell them from where you are, try moving closer . . . closer . . . closer. Gradually, as your concentration improves, you will be able to smell them from a greater distance. You will increase the energy of your smell organs and will give yourself a greater joy.

Or concentrate on tasting your food. Concentrate on the food and on the taste buds, and you will derive a greater amount of energy while eating. Then you need not eat large amounts of food, hoping for mental energy and mental fulfillment from eating.

Concentration on a mantram also energizes the mind.

LIGHT – Light is a source of energy. Concentration through gazing at a flame of light energizes us. If the eyes are closed after gazing and the mental after-image of that flame is focused between the eyebrows, this creates a reaction in the pineal gland. Thus, gazing at a flame of light – a pure, still, steady, white-light candle flame – energizes the pineal gland which then starts further reactions which control the pituitary gland. This awakens the mind from its lethargy, and we are energized. Concentration on any form of light, whether external or internal, in any one of the chakras or centers of consciousness, is a great source of energizing the mind as well as the body. For example, a red flame visualized and concentrated in the upward triangle of the navel center is a source, of energy that helps the process of digestion and the functioning of all the internal organs.

PRANAYAMA – Another source of energy is pranayama, lengthening and deepening the breath, doing the 108-breath channel purification, deep breathing, real deep breathing, not chest breathing, but abdominal and diaphragmatic breathing. Concentrate on the left nostril and the right nostril and then merge the nostrils, letting the ida and pingala join, and become the flow of sushumna itself.

You need not start with the highest forms of energizing. Start with the smaller ones. Eliminate thoughts that do not invite or bestow blessings, eliminate unnecessary residues of dead cells, the remains of half-eaten meals, etc. And constantly, constantly observe ways in which to serve and share as one of the greatest energizing forces. When you give somebody a gift, aren’t you pleased? That pleasing state of mind is the energy of the mind. In India there is a custom on certain occasions when gifts are given in which we say, “Thank you. Please accept this gift.” Not “Thank you for giving me the gift,” but “Thank you for taking the gift from me, giving me the opportunity to be happy.” That is energizing.

So, go over these sources of energy in your mind and lead a life that is full of shakti, full of fulfillment and realized potential. That becomes your creativity, your completeness, and your path to perfection.

Editor’s Note

This article was originally published in Himalayan News – April, 1978.

1) In Ayurveda, this residue of toxic, undigested food is known as āma.

2) See Dr. Rudolph Ballentine’s book, Radical Healing, Chapter 8, titled “Detox.”

3) “Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.” (Gandhi)

4) The Four Right Attitudes, also called the Brahmā Vihāras or the Parikarmas (pari-karman) are:

maitrī (amity, friendliness),
karunā (compassion),
muditā (gladness),
upekşhā (indifference to evil).

Practicing these Four Right Attitudes enables one to stabilize the mind-field. (See Swami Veda’s commentary on Yoga-sutras I.33 and III.23.)

5) This point of focus is called nāsāgra. It located at the base of the nostrils where the partition (columella) between the two nostrils meets the indentation (philtrum) extending upward from the middle of the upper lip. The nose “bridge” (nasal bridge) is higher up – the bony part of the nose – a little below eye level.

Appreciation for All Living Beings

Posted on by Mandala

The following is an article about my destiny work and the Corona crisis published in the most famous Yoga Journal of Germany. 

Wolfgang Bischoff, Spiritual Director of the “Himalaya Institute Germany”, has been dealing with the topic of shaping fate for a long time. YOGA AKTUELL asked him for his assessment of recent global events in their significance for the destiny of mankind.

Wolfgang Bischoff is the founder of several, mainly non-profit organizations as well as the Himalaya Institute Germany and has been supporting the Manini land development project in Odisha, India, for twenty years. As founder of the Human Culture Academy and as a former consultant to the World Bank and UNESCO, he strives to carry a human culture into companies. His main work today is personal destiny counseling to help people to understand, change and order their own lives. In fateful times such as these, we wanted to get to know his perspective on the current upheavals and talked to him about how to shape the life and future of the human community.

YOGA AKTUELL: Especially in the last few months we have experienced something like a global collective destiny. This also raises the question of collective karma – is there such a thing in your eyes, and what exactly can be understood by it?

Wolfgang Bischoff: In order to understand the collective fate of humanity, the answer to the question can be helpful: Do we live in a world of opposites of hot and cold, love and hate, day and night, male and female? If we answer this question with yes, then there must be a contrast to the world of opposites. That would be the world of unity, which I will call the Spiritual World.

We are deeply spiritual souls who for a short time try to survive in the material world. In our civilization today, many people’s minds are focused on the motto “the greatest possible belongs to me”, on maximum material consumption, on “faster, higher, further” and on group decision-making processes of national interest that exclude others, that demarcate and that seem aggressive, even destructive. The spiritual side of our being has long been ridiculed and denied.

Let us now look at the breathing. Linguistically, many people today still describe this process as one actively controlled by the human being in form: I breathe in, I breathe out! This implies that we are the masters in our own house. If we do the experiment that we as masters decide to inhale and no longer exhale, and observe the end of inhalation with an alert, scientific eye, then we can experience that an immense force emerges against our will and forces us to exhale. What kind of force is this? After such an experience it is time to change our language. We can observe and direct the flow of the breath, but we cannot control it ourselves. This linguistic change with the previous experience is the basis of every relaxation.

Let us assume that this force that forces us to exhale comes from the Spiritual World and determines and directs our existence in this world. If it deprives us of breathing, the body dies and our soul floats freely to regions yet to be discovered.

Breathing has been given to all living beings for free. And now this precious process is suddenly attacked by a virus that knows no continents, no language differences, no nationalities, no differences of origin, no differences of rich and poor. If this power wants to communicate itself to all mankind, then it does so where it hurts most. It is as if the Spiritual World were hitting humanity on the head with a hammer and making it clear to it that it has gone completely astray. It is a world, a humanity without difference, a whole living organism, which is awakened here by the Spiritual World. This is what we can understand by the concept of a collective karma, a collective destiny. The precious earth, the beautiful plant world and the so heart-warming animal kingdom with its so touching innocence have been trampled underfoot by mankind for too long. The earth is so abused by us humans that it can no longer regenerate itself. Human beings seem no longer able to correct this, even after the touching admonitions of a 16-year-old girl.

There it seems to be too understandable that the Spiritual World sends a message that all men can understand if they only wanted to. Here the individual karma, the shaping of the individual destiny, takes on great significance.

At the same time one could ask here about the individual Dharma: Everyone contributes to the collective with his life tasks and ways…

Now our time has come to positively shape the fate of humanity by shaping our own destiny: You can do nothing more important for humanity than to ensure that you are well; and you can do nothing more important for yourself than to serve humanity selflessly and lovingly!

But you can do this only when you are well and healthy. We have been teaching this in our yoga training for thirty-eight years.

In Bhutan a state definition of happiness is: “Happiness cannot arise while others suffer. Happiness can only arise from loving, selfless service to others, from living in harmony with nature, and from realizing our inner wisdom and the true and grandiose nature of our own mind.”

Now is the time for every single person to awaken to his or her own being and develop a new consciousness through a courageous life training, also called spiritual training.

How can the emotional distress in today’s world be overcome with this mature consciousness?

It is important for each of us to learn to accept ourselves in love, esteem and dignity and then to radiate this dignity to all living Beings in this world. What this can mean in this situation today is to take on a social human love and social responsibility towards all those in need of protection.

Learn to give dignity to every moment of life! This challenge can bring about a wonderful transformation in the shaping of our own individual destiny. This self-reflection and the courage to experiment can help us to go through a process of transformation and to change the inner place from which we react or act. With an open heart, an open mind and an open willingness to act in an unfamiliar new way, we can then learn to recognize and dissolve our constant evaluations. This can lead to a complete helplessness in the transformation process. With the help of the meditation exercises we come to a zero point, where we experience complete devotion and openness, and thus the future as an intuitive pulse can come to us.

We can then try this impulse experimentally and integrate the experiences gained into our lives.

What could emerge from this new openness, from this fruitful zero point?

By abandoning old habits of evaluation, we can learn empathy and a social understanding of human beings through listening, by learning to understand precisely those opinions and phenomena which we have so far avoided, in order to be able to give the weaker and sick in our society the protection they need. By changing the inner place from which we have reacted so far and entering a place of loving action, we can now penetrate to deeper levels of our humanity and thus of humanity and recognize who we really are and what we want to be and really need as a society.

In this way, through our own training, we can reach a mature, social love for all living beings, a sharp ability to discern, as taught by Samkhya philosophy, and a living relationship with the spiritual world.

Discriminatory ability teaches us to distinguish between true and untrue, between pure and impure, between authentic and fake behaviour and between selfish and social behaviour. By practicing to give dignity to every moment of life, our ability to discriminate will become more and more developed and our language will change. As a result, a clear thinking can develop in us that is able to judge complex relationships.

The lively relationship to the spiritual world, which you mentioned, seems to have been lost to many people. How can it be found again or rebuilt?

We can achieve a living relationship with the Spiritual World by opening our senses, by looking at life without our blinding evaluations and judgments and by learning to discover the beautiful, radiant light of the Spiritual World in nature and in all living beings that surround us.

Just like little Lena, who was so unhappy with her life situation that she packed her suitcase, chocolate, cookies, two apples and something to drink and stomped out the front door with her suitcase. Mom saw this and asked: “Lena, what are you doing?” “I’m going to visit Our Lady God,” Lena stomped off. After a while she came to a park, already a little tired, and saw an old woman sitting on the bench. She looked sad. Lena sat down next to her, opened her suitcase and took out a red, fragrant apple. As she was about to bite into it, she saw out of the corner of her eye how the old woman, apparently hungry, looked at the apple. She pondered for a moment, rubbed the apple brightly on her sweater and then handed it to the old woman. To her great surprise, the old woman took the apple and gave her a beautiful smile she had never seen before. Neither of them spoke a word, but Lena shared everything she had in her little suitcase with the old woman and always received a beautiful smile that touched her heart. After a while she felt like going home to tell dad and mum about it. So she got up, took her suitcase and walked a few steps, but then she suddenly stopped, put her suitcase on the floor, turned around, walked again beaming with joy and hugged the old woman with all her love. The old woman gave her the most beautiful smile Lena had ever seen in her life. When Lena came home, her parents looked at her with great concern and were surprised at Lena’s radiance. “But Lena, what have you experienced?” they asked excitedly. “I have met the Mother God. And she has the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen.” When the old woman in turn came home, her daughter looked very frightened, because she had seen the mother very sad in the morning. But now the old lady came in the front door beaming with joy. “But mother, what has happened to you?” asked the daughter quite astonished. “I have met the Mother God, and do you know what amazed me? I never knew she was so young!“

When Friedrich Bonhoeffer was arrested by the fascists for his resistance activities, and later murdered, he wrote the following lines in prison shortly before his death:

“Wonderfully sheltered by good powers,
we confidently await what may come.
God is with us in the evening and in the morning
and certainly on each new day.”

This lively and so comprehensible access to the spiritual world is the basis for a serious training of our discernment and for the training of a reverence for what is above us, among us and around us. If we practice this, it will change the world and make love and appreciation for all living things blossom.

How do you see the prospects for future developments? How can we develop more wisdom and peace even in large communities?

None of us knows what the future will look like, but we can shape it for our own good and the good of all.

In spiritual training, the most beautiful gift that humanity has received from the sages of the Himalayas is the training of concentration on one point, contemplation on meaningful world contexts and the graceful gift of meditation of joy, for which we can only prepare ourselves. This serious training enables us to find out who we really are, where we come from and where we are going, and what the deeper meaning of our existence on this earth in this life really is.
Two questions that we can ask ourselves daily could help us in our transformation:

Am I living or am I being lived?
What do I really need?

Thank you very much for the interview!

Wolfgang Bischoff, psychologist and psychotherapist, is the founder and spiritual director of the Himalaya Institute Germany since 1980. For forty years he has been taught by the Masters of the Himalayas traditionally in the Mantra-Initiation-Meditation-Method and passes it on to people all over the world.

Editor’s Note:

Wolfgang is a mantra initiator and a member of the AHYMSIN Adhyatma Samiti, or Spiritual Committee.

Is it true that we should not practice any special mantras between midnight and 3 am and between noon and 3 pm?

Posted on by Mandala

Questions

1) Could you please tell me if Gayatri mantra is connected to surya and therefore should be only recited during day time and avoided after sunset?

2) I believe that we are not supposed to practice any special mantras (mantras apart from our diksha mantra) during 12 midnight to 3 am and 12 noon to 3 pm (6 hours in total). Is this correct?

Answers

Stephen Parker (Stoma) and Lalita Arya (Ammaji) have answered this question.

Stephen Parker (Stoma)

The Gayatri is indeed a solar mantra, the most powerful one, in fact. But the sun addressed is the inner sun of Ātman. There is no reason to avoid reciting it after sunset.

With respect to appropriate hours for japa, one explanation of these rules is that these are the hours when the devas are resting. But by what clock? 12 midnight here is 7 AM in Europe. And what time on the North Pole of Mars?

Swami Veda always maintained that because women are given extra respect in our Śrī Vidyā tradition, there are no such restrictions for women. He said that the same is true for nishkāma-japa, japa without a desire-based purpose, done solely for the purpose of liberation.

Japa of special mantras for spiritual prosperity, for healing, or to find a spouse, done by male sādhakas, should follow that rule.

Lalita Arya (Ammaji)

I agree with Stoma. My added comments –

Mantra japa has to do with the subtle and does not refer or allude to the physical like sunrise/sunset, and hours of day and night, which as Stoma well explains differ from location to location. When the mantra is absorbed into the atma-self, there is a continuous throb/hum that goes on, so no limitation.

Rituals, however, that have to do with the manifest physical may have limitations in their practice times- these are almost always done with consultation from the experts.

Seeking the truth is the journey to moksha.

Editor’s Note

If you have any questions about your spiritual practice, you may write to the AHYMSIN Spiritual Committee at adhyatmasamiti@gmail.com.

Divine Love

Posted on by Mandala

Love for God means love for all.

Human love is not perfect. But if you do not have a major transfusion of human compassion, you can never have divine love. Only when you learn to truly love will you understand that love is the Lord of life.

No matter how much sadhana you do, first you have to understand the law of equality of love: the sun shines for all, the moon pales its light for all and the breeze blows for all equally. There is no disparity except when the individual self declares: “This is mine, this is mine; this is not mine.”

In ancient days there were people who could see the face of God. Someone once asked me why people could not see His face anymore. I replied that one must stoop a little to fetch water from the stream; nowadays no one can stoop so low.

Many prophets have come to this earth. The prophets of today can become builders of heaven, music makers or dreamers of discourse, but without love all hopes will finally crumble to dust. Many times they have tried to establish their world over the world created by God and have called it religion. Where are they today? In their shattered state of madness they have quit this world. This is why I call them quitters and not prophets of love. They have merely tangled humanity into various knots. One prophet professes something, another teaches knowledge, still another teaches yoga. They teach this and that philosophy, but only the prophet of love can help to transform the sufferings of humanity. The world is suffering because no one knows what love is, although we all have the same capacity to understand the true meaning of life.

Love for a human being is different than love for God. Love for God means love for all. There is one life force in all human beings, animals and even plants. This is life itself. But you have no time to love life itself because you are too busy loving those things you think are essential for life. Loving things of the world first, without knowing the reality beneath all these different forms and names, is not going to help the human race. The day you are awakened to the highest knowledge you will really start to love. Once you become aware of love itself, that which is eternal and not subject to change, death and decay, you will be able to love all things.

Love for life, love without an object, is the highest of all loves.

We all are like small light bulbs. When a bulb is broken, nothing happens to the electricity. Similarly nothing happens to the life force when we disappear from this earth. You do not want to accept this because you do not want to understand the whole process. Birth is mingled with death; they are one and the same thing. You should accept this fact and live here and now. Enjoy every bit, every moment and every part of life. Your past experiences and future imaginations distract you and have caused you to forget the whole purpose of life. You have forgotten that life is something eternal and you are part of eternity. No matter which culture, religion, or philosophical background you come from, you all have one and the same purpose of life, and that is to attain perennial happiness, everlasting bliss and peace. When the love of the world is changed from a sense experience to a soul experience, it will be founded on the love of God.

There is something beyond religions. Religion is an act that is humanity’s relationship with God. It is essential in the preliminary stage but surely does not allow one to be one with the whole. It is like being a moth that eats Kashmir wool trying to prove to other moths that Kashmir exists. God’s existence in reality does not depend on our proofs. There is something wrong with the philosophers and theologians for they have the curious notion that God is a kind of hypothesis that could be analyzed and discussed. God to me is a real annihilating fire and indescribable grace. I accept both. Everywhere in the realm of religion I have encountered locked doors. If ever one door should chance to open, I was disappointed by what lay behind it.
My religion knows neither hope nor fear. It dwells in the calm of the spiritual universe, which nothing but the human heart can comprehend. When the dew drop in the grass mirrors the heavens, why can’t the human mind and heart?
When one’s whole being is saturated with the idea of love from head to foot, then every pore of the body becomes alive to cosmic consciousness.

Your outer individual shell will remain exactly the same, but your inner light will expand to universal consciousness. That individual flame of love will become a forest conflagration and will burn up the precarious weed of selfishness. In love, you want to give and feel great joy in giving. Truth will automatically come to you if you learn how to love selflessly. The language of love comes from the soul through the heart.

Editor’ Note

Reprinted from The Ancient Traveler: Writings on Love, by Swami Rama

Universal Brotherhood

Posted on by Mandala

The human race is suffering from its ego-born narrow-mindedness. Discrimination exists, based on religion, color, and nationality. In the same locality, people are being discriminated against just because they are European or Asian, black or white, Hindu or Moslem. As long as these man-made divisions exist in our society, there is no hope for peace or happiness. We must understand that we are born as humans and all other identifications are superimposed on us later. Loving others and receiving love from others is our birth right. True freedom means loving all and hating none, including all and excluding none. For cultivating the true human within, we have to reach out to the hearts of our fellow beings. Political treaties and alliances are of little value. There has to be a desire in every human heart to overcome mutual differences that have been artificially imposed by selfish political, social, and religious leaders.

Removing differences and moving from diversity to unity are the essence of real spiritual practices. This process has to occur at every level of our individual and social lives. By realizing one Reality within all, we will be able to purify our hearts and minds. This purification can lead us to the experience of the Divine Light within. Once we experience the Truth within, we will find ourselves to be part of the universe, and vice versa. Upon such realization here and now, we will not need to imagine a heaven apart from this universe. By loving all and excluding none, by sharing everything and possessing nothing, we will attain freedom from the fear of hell and the desire for heaven. We can have our own heaven here on earth.

Our interpersonal relationships must be based on the philosophy of universal brotherhood.

Editor’s Note

This is an excerpt from A Call to Humanity by Swami Rama, Chapter “Humanism,” pages 116-117 in the 1988edition.

This book is out of print, but available as a used book.

For all Swami Rama’s and Swami Veda Bharati’s published works, please email hyptbooks@gmail.com

Published works of Swami Rama and Swami Veda Bharati are also available at other venues.