JAI GURU DATTA!!!!!
I am very happy for all of you for keeping faith in your own experiences. I am really delighted to read some of the real-life experiences that have been shared thru posts and comments. So here I am again to let the divinity flow…
Wisdom is spread all over
The greatest of all gurus, Sree Guru Veda Vyasa, the master of the ancient lore, once said:
“BhramhaVidyam Tasyam Ramyathe Ithi Bharathah”
Translation: Where people perform and enjoy the bliss of BhramhaVidya, that very place is called Bharat (India).
Meaning: It is this holy land India where Bhramha Vidya or Sri Vidya is performed and people enjoy the bliss. Sri Vidya encapsulates the holy Vedas and manifests itself into different forms and practices. There are many Siddhas who practice and teach Sri Vidya in their own way. It is like different science teachers teaching the same science in different ways. The subject remains the same, only the methods differ. Just like any one teacher cannot claim the ownership of Science, Sri Vidya is also unbounded and remains to be independent of anyone.
There is a great contribution by the Guru, and master of Srividya, Guru Agastya called Saraswathi Suktham in the Rig Veda along with the most famous contribution of Lalita Trishathi. One of the verse in that say:
Yasya Anantho Ahruthasthu
YeshaScha Rishnu Rarnavaha
Amascharathi Roruvath
Translation: May the Saraswathi or word, which permeates like boundless ocean, which is beyond anyone’s possession and which co-exists within us as the endless soundless sound protect us.
Meaning: The wisdom or the holy mother Saraswathi is like a boundless ocean, which cannot be possessed by any person. A person who realized the word in actuality co-exists with the word but does not show command over it. There will be many Pandits (or masters) gifted with Saraswathi, but no person can claim ownership over the divine wisdom. All knowledge came from God, but even God does not claim to be the owner of knowledge. God has always been friendly with it and only tried to protect it.
To possess wisdom is the worst of the illusions. Wisdom is non-possessive. When you walk the righteous path, eventually you become the Wisdom, the wisdom never becomes yours. A master of wisdom cannot be possessed nor will he possess anything else. All is given to the man in friendliness when he surrenders to the divine. Man must learn to live in gratefulness for what he receives from the divine. Wisdom is revealed to man so that he can live with the same divinity with his fellow beings. Then there is only joy in sharing the wisdom in friendliness.
It’s time for Change
Continuously evolving is nature; the only thing constant in the world is “change” and nothing else is. So, when the goal is total liberation, the age-old methods, dogmas, rules, and religious practices, which most of us have been following have to be questioned, reviewed, and discarded as freedom alone will lead to freedom; rigid conditioning of mind will keep you in bondage.
Only those can be called walking on the righteous path, whose ideals and actions are not based on static and rigid thinking, but are out of free will, honest thinking, conviction, and benediction, which in turn gives total liberation from mind.
A seeker should always explore and look around. Something important maybe waiting for him that will transform his life. It’s a pity that people are living their lives still in confusion whether to do or not to do just because someone said “why go elsewhere when I am loving you so much”. This is being possessive. Your hometown also loves you very much, but in the pursuit of life and career success you may have to go places.
Imagine a school kid in 8th standard. There is an immense love between the teacher and the student. But as the year passes by, the student has to move to the next standard. The teacher cannot hold back the student and say I love you so much, do not go to the next level. The student will stop progressing, if he stays. The student should never stop. Year on Year, the student should see a new teacher and learn new things with same love. Not to say that the previous class teacher is wrong or the student should forget the previous teachers; the gratitude should always be there because each teacher has played a vital role in elevating the student to the next level. The fundamentals learned in every standard remain an integrated part of your total knowledge.
Siddha Sanmarga tries to inculcate free and honest thinking in the people, thereby making it easy for them to lead a life of clarity and conviction instead of confusion. So raise and keep elevating in this journey.
Dusting your knowledge is very important
It is very good for a seeker to learn from different masters and acquire knowledge. But more than the knowledge, it is important that the seeker perceives the knowledge correctly and applies it correctly too.
Schooling examples explain so much. So let us take one more to understand this.
A typical day in an elementary school has multiple classroom sessions. Imagine a class going on Indian history and teacher is talking about “Ramayana” to the students. The teacher writes four names from the topic on the board “Dasaratha”, “Ram”, “Lakshman” and “Janaki” and the session ends after some story telling. The information remains on the board and the next class starts with the mathematics teacher. The mathematics teacher explains algebra and writes an equation on the board (a+b)2 = a2 + b2 + 2ab, just below the point where the previous history teacher has written.
When the student goes back home, he has the following information in his mind:
Dasarath = (a+b)2
Ram= a2
Lakshman = b2
Janaki = 2ab
While the chalk piece is important to put the information in your mind, it is also equally important to have the duster. If you do not clean or learn to process the information you have received in your mind, the information will get mixed creating confusion in the mind. The moral of the story is that without chalk piece you are stupid and without the duster you will get confused. So, you need both.
So to be a good Sadhak, you first need to learn to process the information you receive, by intellectual reasoning. Do whatever seems best to you, but only after intellectually thinking and reasoning it out.
You need the chalk piece, the world, which writes the information on your mind, and the duster to be able to clear it also. The clearing process of the conscious mind with being able to remain thoughtless for some time acts as the duster (this is the blank state that you get while meditating in the lines of Siddha Sanmarga’s teachings). We need both these things. This is one aspect. The other aspect is, once you really achieve silence of the mind, stop all the dialogues and the monologues in your mind, then you enter a state called yoga. This state gives you complete clarity.
The great guru Patanjali once said:
Yogah Citta Vrutthi Nirodah.
Observe, understand, and learn from your own experience
Siddha Sanmargadhyana definitely gives you that inexplicable experience of the inner joy and truth from its very first meditation. All that is revealed to you is Vedic - Om NamahaShivaya, I am, Keyless Door Open, Panchadashi, and Shodashi. These divine mantras are integral part of the Vedas and there is nothing wrong in what you are doing. In all these processes, you just meditate on yourself and try to be aware of your own feelings.
Don’t be afraid, there is nothing negative (or maili) about it. You don’t need to live your life in confusion when you learn to live out of your own experience. Meditating upon the self in the heart can never be called as maili. Understand this out of your own reasoning. Some people might say you have good experiences now, but in the long term you might have problems. Such statements are nothing but a psychological influence to demoralize you from the path. There are numerous examples where people have practiced the Siddha Sanmarga dhyana for months and years and their lives have been joyous and continuously improving.
Siddha Sanmarga does not encourage the process of asking ashirvad even from Guru. Instead, it encourages on being able to receive the blessings through your own sadhana, which then flows forever into you without you asking for it anymore. This is the kind of strength that Siddha Sanmarga aims to build in all of you. This is done because it focuses on building leaders, but not mad followers who do not think on the statements said to them.
Generally, people need emotional support as it is the most lacking thing in our lives. Gurus should never be the source of emotional support. It makes people weak. You can take the examples of many great gurus in this context. Take the life extract of the great gurus like Baba Nithyananda, Guru Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Guru Vivekananda, Guru Shankar Maharaj, Sri Swami Samartha, or Guru Gajanan Maharaj. They never gave emotional supportto their disciples. In fact, they created situations where the disciples learn to be strong and come out of emotionally-compromising situations. Remember the words of Guru Vivekananda, “You many meditate on whatever you like, but I would meditate on the heart of the lion; it gives me strength.” Be strong, and intellectually awaken yourself and think, but do not come under any psychological influence. People come to me and I say something, they accept it and feel it and also experience growth and joy in their life. After sometime, if someone says something irrational, then the very same people even while feeling good and experiencing improvement in their sadhana and life, go confused. It is time for you to test yourself whether you are ready to walk the path like a lion or just follow the herd of sheep. Do you want to be a sheep or lion? I ask this question although I feel bad that I am comparing a more advanced and civilized animal called man, and I am asking them to at least behave like a little lower animal, Lion.
During Shiridi shivir, people have seen me with Ehasaan Baba, a Muslim saint, and Shri Jangli Das Maharaj Ji, a famous Hindu Saint who freely invited himself to my workshop and we even saluted mutually while leaving; and I feel grateful to be in their company and learn from them. Tomorrow, if some other saint invites himself to my workshop, I would be more than happy to welcome him wholeheartedly and show full mutual respect as co-existence in friendliness is the only way to live in harmony with the nature. I am in complete harmony with every saint of any religion and all Siddha masters, though Ehasaan Baba is the only Muslim saint I personally know. And this is how I have been blessed by so many great siddha masters in the holy Himalayas. My learning continues even today from the nature, the animals, and insects. We limit ourselves to only one guru due to our conditioned thinking. Remember, the growth is limited by the limits one applies. But, the knowledge is unlimited. So, why keep limits when the seeking is for the infinite. Lord Dattatreya also had 24 Gurus to learn from. It is only foolish to be contented with one type of learning. One does not have to go in search of a Guru, the fact is, it is that Guru who selects his disciples; it is never the other way round. Be a seeker and divine will make Guru appear in your life in any from, even as a cat or dog. Didn’t the greatest of all gurus, Sri Sri Shankara BhagavadPada (Sri Adi Shankaracharya) learn from a chandal with a group of dogs? Please have an open mind.
In this journey there is nothing called final destination; you only cross milestones, and keep moving forward. When God is infinite, how can there be a destination, or a singlepoint to stop. God is infinite and so is the learning and your ability to change and weed out your anomalies. Please don’t believe that your life is dependent on your karmic factors. In fact, it is the contrary, “your karmic factors are dependent on your attitude.” Change your attitude, the way you look at things, and you have changed your karma or destiny. Siddha Sanmarga not only teaches or advocates release of karmas alone, but also transmutation of thought or mind, which is the cause of karmas.
Here, I would like to quote the saying of the great master Swami Vivekananda: “Hindu religion does not consist in struggles and attempts to believe a certain doctrine or dogma, but in realizing not in believing; but in being and becoming.”
Siddha Sanmarga has strong values and it does not wish to say anything to anyone and always tries to live in friendliness. It just strongly tries to provide enough psychological collaterals to help people to make their own decisions by extracting the truth out of the untruth as “you are the creator of your own destiny”. Giving false names to people is positional demeaning or undermining done by people.
