Tattva

Power of Thoughts                                                                                                             

We are what we think we are. The habitual inclination of our thoughts determines our talents and abilities, and our personality. Thus, some think they are writers or artists, industrious or lazy, and so on. What if you want to be something other than what you presently think you are? You may argue that others have been born with the special talent you lack but desire to have. This is true. But they had to cultivate the habit of that ability some time — if not in this life, then in a previous one. So whatever you want to be, start to develop that pattern now. You can instill any trend in your consciousness right now, provided you inject a strong thought in your mind; then your actions and whole being will obey that thought. So wrote Paramhansa Yogananda.

Life of Yogananda                                                                                                        

Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh  was a yogi  who introduced many westerners to the teachings of meditation and Kriya Yoga through his book, Autobiography of a Yogi.

He met his guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri, in 1910, at the age of 17. He describes his first meeting with Yukteswar as a rekindling of a relationship that had lasted for many lifetimes: “We entered oneness of silence; words seemed the rankest superfluities. Eloquence flowed in soundless chant from heart of master to disciple. With an antenna of irrefragable insight I sensed that my guru knew God, and would lead me to Him. The obscuration of this life disappeared in a fragile dawn of prenatal memories. Dramatic time! Past, present, and future are its cycling scenes. This was not the first sun to find me at these holy feet!”

In 1915, he took formal vows into the monastic Swami Order and became ‘Swami Yogananda Giri.’ In 1917, Yogananda founded a school for boys in Dihika, West Bengal that combined modern educational techniques with yoga training and spiritual ideals. A year later, the school relocated to Ranchi. This school would later become Yogoda Satsanga Society of India, the Indian branch of Yogananda’s American organization.

In 1920, he went to the United States as India’s delegate to an International Congress of Religious Liberals convening in Boston. That same year he founded the Self-Realization Fellowship to disseminate worldwide his teachings on India’s ancient practices and philosophy of Yoga and its tradition of meditation. For the next several years, he lectured and taught on the east coast and in 1924 embarked on a cross-continental speaking tour. Thousands came to his lectures. The following year, he established in Los Angeles, California, an international headquarters for Self-Realization Fellowship, which became the spiritual and administrative heart of his growing work. Yogananda was the first Hindu teacher of yoga to make his permanent home in America, living there from 1920-1952.

On March 7, 1952, he attended a dinner for the visiting Indian Ambassador to the U.S., Binay Ranjan Sen and his wife at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. At the conclusion of the banquet Yogananda spoke of India and America, their contributions to world peace and human progress, and their future cooperation, expressing his hope for a “United World” that would combine the best qualities of “efficient America” and “spiritual India.” As he ended his speech, he read from his poem My India, concluding with the words “Where Ganges, woods, Himalayan caves, and men dream God—I am hallowed; my body touched that sod.” At the very last words, he slid to the floor, dead from a heart attack. Kriyananda wrote that Yogananda had once stated in a lecture, “A heart attack is the easiest way to die. That is how I choose to die.

His Teachings

One must never give up hope of becoming better. A person is old only when he refuses to make the effort to change. That stagnant state is the only “old age” I recognize. When a person says again and again, “I can’t change; this is the way I am,” then I have to say, “All right, stay that way, since you have made up your mind to be like that.”

No matter what his present state, man can change for the better through self-control, discipline, and following proper diet and health laws. Why do you think you cannot change?  Mental laziness is the secret cause of all weakness.

Everyone has self-limiting idiosyncrasies. These were not put into your nature by God, but were created by you. These are what you must change — by remembering that these habits, peculiar to your nature, are nothing but manifestations of your own thoughts.

The spiritual man conquers wrath by calmness, stops quarrels by keeping silence, dispels inharmonic by being sweet of speech and shames discourtesy by being thoughtful of others. There is no more liberating action than sincerely to give people kindness in return for unkindness.

At death, you forget all the limitations of the physical body and realize how free you are. For the first few seconds there is a sense of fear — fear of the unknown, of something unfamiliar to the consciousness. But after that comes a great realization: the soul feels a joyous sense of relief and freedom. You know that you exist apart from the mortal body.

The consciousness of the dying man finds itself suddenly relieved of the weight of the body, of the necessity to breathe, and of any physical pain. A sense of soaring through a tunnel of very peaceful, hazy, dim light is experienced by the soul. Then the soul drifts into a state of oblivious sleep, a million times deeper and more enjoyable than the deepest sleep experienced in the physical body…. The after-death state is variously experienced by different people in accordance with their modes of living while on earth. Just as different people vary in the duration and depth of their sleep, so do they vary in their experiences after death.

Yoga is the art of doing everything with the consciousness of God. Not only when you are meditating, but also when you are working, your thoughts should be constantly anchored in Him. If you work with the consciousness that you are doing it to please God, that activity unites you with Him. Therefore do not imagine that you can find God only in meditation. Both meditation and right activity are essential, as the Bhagavad-Gita  teaches. If you think of God while you perform your duties in this world, you will be mentally united with Him.

The Hindu masters taught that to gain the deepest knowledge one should focus his gaze through the omniscient spiritual eye (at the point between the eyebrows). Those who go deep enough in their concentration will penetrate that “third” eye and see God.

During deep meditation, the single or spiritual eye becomes visible as a bright star surrounded by a sphere of blue light that, in turn, is encircled by a brilliant halo of golden light. This omniscient eye is variously referred to in scriptures as the third eye, the star of the East, the inner eye, the dove descending from heaven, the eye of Shiva, and the eye of intuition.

If you contact God within yourself, you will know that He is in everyone, that He has become the children of all races. Then you cannot be an enemy to anyone. If the whole world could love with that universal love, there would be no need for men to arm themselves against one another. By our own Christ-like example we must bring unity among all religions, all nations, and all races.

So long as God’s children differentiate, “We are Indians and you are Americans; we are Germans, you are English,” so long will they be bound by delusion and the world divided. Much war and suffering and destruction will be prevented if we cease to emphasize differences and learn to love all without distinction or prejudice. Be more proud that you are made in the image of God than that you are of a certain nationality; for “American” and “Indian” and all the other nationalities are just outer coats, which in time will be discarded. But you are a child of God throughout eternity. Isn’t it better to teach that ideal to your children? It is the only way to peace: Establish the true ideals of peace in the schools, and live peace in your own life

I believe that if every citizen in the world is taught to commune with God (not merely to know Him intellectually), then peace can reign; not before. When by persistence in meditation you realize God through communion with Him, your heart is prepared to embrace all humanity.

I am neither a Hindu nor an American. Humanity is my race, and no one on earth can make me feel otherwise. Prejudice and exclusiveness are so childish. We are here for just a little while and then whisked away. We must remember only that we are children of God. I love all countries as I love my India. And my prayer to you is that you love all nations as you love America. God created a diverse world to teach you to forget your physical differences with other races; and, from the debris of misunderstanding and prejudice, to salvage your understanding and use it to make an effort to know Him as our one Father.

Therefore, my friends resolve that you will love the world as your own nation, and that you will love your nation as you love your family. Through this understanding you will help to establish a world family on the indestructible foundation of wisdom.

Follow the ways of God. Set a time apart each day to meditate on Him. When you commune with God, you shall feel toward everyone as toward your own. No one can ever make me feel he is not mine. All human beings are God’s children, and He is my Father.

Thomas Trahene                                                                                                                   

Not very different are the thoughts of the Sixteenth Century spiritual writer, Thomas Trahene, which follow.

Your enjoyment of the world is never right till every morning you awake in Heaven; see yourself in your Father’s place; and look upon the skies, the earth and the air as celestial joys; having such a reverend esteem of all, as if you were among the Angels. The bride of a monarch in her husband’s chamber hath no such causes of delight as you.

You never enjoy the world alright till the sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens and crowned with the stars; and perceive yourself to be sole heir of the whole world, and more than so because men are in it who are every one sole heirs as well as you. Till you can sing and rejoice and delight in God, as misers do in gold, and king in specters you can never enjoy the world.

Till your spirit filleth the whole world, and the stars are your jewels; till you are as familiar with the ways of God in all ages as with your walk and table; till you are intimately acquainted with that shady nothing out of which the world was made; till you love men as to desire their happiness with a thirst equal to the zeal of your own; till you delight in God for being good to all; you never enjoy the world. Till you more feel it than your private estate, and are more present in the hemisphere, considering glories and beauties there, than in your house; till you remember how lately you were made, and how wonderful it was when you came into it; and more rejoice in the palace of your glory than if it had been made today morning.

Yet, further, you did not enjoy the world alright, till you so love the beauty of enjoying it, that you are covetous and earnest to persuade others to enjoy it. And so perfectly hate the abominable corruption of men in despising it that you had rather suffer the flames of hell than willingly be guilty of their error.

The world is a mirror of Infinite Beauty, yet no man sees it. It is a Temple of Majesty, yet no man regards it. It is a region of Light and Peace, did not men disquiet it. It is the Paradise of God.

Quite different is the teaching in Surah 5.51: O you who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians as Auliyâ, they are but Auliyâ’ to one another. And if any amongst you takes them as Auliyâ, then surely he is one of them. Verily, Allâh guides not those people who are the Zâlimûn (polytheists and wrong­doers and unjust).

No wonder the conflicts between Muslims and the rest are unending. If the whole humanity imbibed the teachings of Yogananda on humanity the world could still become a Temple of Majesty as visualized by Trahene. Yogananda emphasized the underlying unity of the world’s great religions, and taught universally applicable methods for attaining direct personal experience of God.

 

 

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. You can contact him at mmathur@tstt.net.tt>

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