Seven steps to Divinity, by Mahendra Mathur
A reader of Tattva wrote to me: “As part of Sanatana Dharma, our duty as human-kind entails that we become DIVINE in our metamorphosis, constitution, lifestyle, and composition. Divinity and divine spiritual thoughts bring us firstly peace, secondly love, and thirdly compassion: the three most significant qualities we need to understand our own kind and our own Atman.” One suggested strategy for attaining that metamorphosis is to set your feet on the following seven steps to divinity.
1. Relax. There is nothing to agonize about so long as you keep the objective of spiritual progress in mind.
2. Study the scriptures. Broaden your reading to include the Upanishads, world history, astronomy and philosophy. Exploring a wide variety of ideologies and beliefs creates an individual value system that is as unique as you are. Your personal ideology will begin to flow through the whole of your life, growing ever more broad and specific to your life, benefiting you in ways you never thought possible.
3. Believe in your heart. Within each of us there is a source of wisdom that is ours and ours alone. It is the inner voice we occasionally hear advising us during periods of uncertainty. Whether we label it the conscience or the heart of consciousness, this voice is usually quiet and unassuming, which means that it can easily be overshadowed by other concerns. We must listen to it carefully and attentively; the wisdom it offers will guide us toward the most rewarding alternatives.
4. Purify the personality. We all have things we keep closeted away in our minds – thoughts about who we think we are, thoughts that are so personal and embarrassing that we would never want to let anyone see them. In this step, we let these thoughts go. This brings an amazing sense of lightness and freedom.
5. Know the self. I have always found the fifth step most satisfying. Now flip the exercise around and examine your own goodness. Feel the radiance of your own heart; touch the depth of your own wisdom. This exercise helps us imbibe more divine qualities.
6. Meditate everyday for at least 15 minutes. During the meditation, experience your divinity by identifying with Lord Shiva or Mother Lakshmi or any other form of God. Start by visualizing the deity “out there” in front of you. Gradually draw the Being within yourself with each breath until it becomes who you are.
7. Trust the Sanatana Dharma. This is a science verifiable by reasoning, research, and experience. Even in this world, plagued by terrorists and wars, there is something which helps us awaken. As great saints discovered through direct experience, the Atman, or immanent eternal Self, is one with Brahman, the Absolute Principle of all existence; the goal of every human being is to discover this fact for himself, to find out who he really is.
So let us recognize and respect the sacredness of everything. If you have seriously cultivated enlightened consciousness, the next time all hell breaks loose, you will see it for what it is - a movie on the screen of material existence. And you will be able to flip the channel to another program even while expertly dealing with the calamity on hand. This is the divine nature of consciousness.
Why live an ordinary material existence which culminates in old age, disease, and death when you can instead live a life of unlimited adventure at the vanguard of existence, relishing unlimited transcendental bliss at every minute? It does not matter where you are or who you are. You can constantly taste the sweetest happiness if you will take shelter of the transcendental platform.
bahya-sparsesv asaktatma vindaty atmani yat sukham sa brahma-yoga-yuktatma sukham aksayam asnute
“Such a liberated person is not attracted to material sense pleasure but is always in trance, enjoying the pleasure within. In this way the self-realized person enjoys unlimited happiness, for he concentrates on the Supreme.”
-Bhagavad-Gita 5.21
Colonel Mahendra Mathur prematurely retired from the Corps of Engineers of the Indian Army in 1975 to build a highway in Tobago. Subsequently he was appointed Director of National Emergency Management Agency of Trinidad and Tobago before retiring in 1998. He has been a student of the Gita all his life. You can contact him at mmathur@tstt.net.tt.
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September 3rd, 2008 22:30
Just be true to one’s own soul divine and others alike
Becoming spiritually aware, requires one to rise beyond thesis and antithesis and synthesis; the transformation in one’s outlook, all together the manner in which one feels towards others, the lofty divine nature of one’s humankind divinity must elevate to its true essential spiritual nature – that of equanimity, compassionate love, humanity, servitude, sincerity, placidity, contentment, peacefulness, and happiness. This is the centrifugal theme of the self-realisation process. Each one of us is a unique seed of divinity. Each one of us is born with the potential of becoming divine.
Beyond the metamorphosis of the intellectual referendums, ideological differentials, imposition of conceptual views upon another based on one’s own philosophical perceptions, and strategic plans; divinity DOES NOT manifest in plans. Only God knows the plan. If we as humankind knew the strategy and plan to realise our SOUL divine in abstracts of methods, by now, we would have a world that was without taint, upheaval, and ‘imbalance’. The very fact that ‘imbalance’ prevails in every corner of our modern world in epiphany, diseases, increased pollution, gross injustice, discrimination, prejudices, partiality, biasness, political religious institutions, and fabricated sectarianism; shows that our divine gifts are different, as our constitution [prakruti] and our foundations.
Divinity entails that we just begin by being true to our own kind. For example, ships are not made for harbours to anchor albeit they wonder from port to port. Likewise, each one of us adventure life, and learn the proficiency of manoeuvring stormy seas, steering difficulties amidst adverse weather [circumstances] and striving to overcome our problems in the best possible ways.
My older brother Dr. Bharat Pattni a medical doctor died in 1999, at a sheer age of 42, unexpectedly, suddenly, without any plans, strategy, or goodbyes. Death comes uninvited. We cannot plan spiritual divinity.
I certainly never planned my life to be spiritual. God had it planned, God is the only planner, and God is the only strategist capable of holding me abreast the turbulences of disturbances, and mundane survival to transport us into a divine state of growing with divine experiences.
Of course, once we have the GRACE divine of DIVINE GRACE, we have everything. Like Meerabai, had the grace of Krushna, towards which even Udhavji a learned wise man as astound. Udhavji learnt very simple basic “strategy” from Meerabai: “In mind, thoughts, feelings, emotions, dreams, consciousness, sub-consciousness, un-consciousness, only KRUSHNA is in divine love.”
Divine love, is GRACE DIVINE without which, no one individual person is able to go towards the gist of divinity. This dose of super energy, super grace, super para-physical comes when we give our whole our entire to DIVINE LOVE. – This is “purna-sharrannagattam” [TOTAL TRUST IN GOD] without any doubts, motives, and reasons.
Having three financial strategy degrees and further MBA from Henley School of Management [two years], my mind was trained on strategy, sub-strategies, and planning on comprehensively large infrastructures and systems.
However, as time elapsed and experience teaches us lessons of karma, we realise that there is nothing, [absolutely nothing] that can transpire without the grace of God [or without God’s wish]; not even a leaf could move without God’s wish. This is my belief based on crux of experiential spiritualism that began from childhood foundation in scriptures, yoga, meditation, divination, astrology, and recitations.
My intention is not to ponder over a viewpoint. However, it is my divine intention to state with humble sacredness that divinity begins by being true to our own kind and our own soul divine. It is the inner most intention, the inner most need ; the inner most determination; the inner most faith; the inner most belief to become divinely merged with the true eternal light of our soul divine. That is divinity.
Many fears are born out of loneliness, rejections, out on a limb, very few of us do actually really truly understand the depth of those who suffer silently, in grief of hurt. Hurt when transformed into divine contemplation brings solace. It opens a dialogue between the higher order and ourselves in somewhat mysterious ways. From the crux of mastery over our life we become humbled towards the will of GOD and whatsoever happens, it so happens for the best, with the grace of GOD DIVINE.
To my spiritual mothers, spiritual sisters, and spiritual brothers; especially to those who feel lonely, may the divine grace embrace your spirit of life in love and peace. When all else fails, prayers, jaapas, contemplation, silence, aloneness, never failing always bring us light of hope, light of wisdom, and gracious mystical lessons of karma, to teach us altruism of divinity. Only divine love brings true happiness.
From mastery to mystery, everything, transpires, transposes; and delights into divinity with the grace of divine GOD. I am more than grateful to all those wise spiritualists, whose company granted me the opportunity to dance and to rejoice to bhajan kirtan raass in divine love. It is true that we are influenced by the company we keep and we become that which we think we are innately.
BHAGAVAD GITA has stipulated: “Take one step but take that one step with all thine divine intention, with all thine divine love, and with all thine divine faith; and, PARAMATMA PARAMEISHVARA shall take ten steps in return.”
Our human life is a rare opportunity to experience DIVINITY in light of million delights. Life oh life! Let it be a flight of delight.
Premma cha Shantih [love and peace]
Forgive me please for any inconvenience caused.
Prannamm_Namaskaram
Jyotikar Pattni
http://www.hanss.co.uk
June 9th, 2009 10:25
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