1 The World We Live in

Man has endeavored through the ages to live without God or the cosmic Being. Political philosophers, economists, and scientific 'sages', have assigned to themselves the godly role of protecting man's peace and happiness, while others function as religious leaders, offering easy salvation to their supporters. Politics, science, and economics, have failed. Let man now turn towards God. If the religious spirit is absent from our life, it has no value; but, once it is added, then learning, wealth, social position, political or scientific leadership, can all assume meaning and purposefulness.

The word 'dharma' means - a factor that sustains, upholds, protects, and brings together. It brings us all together, binds us in a wonderful and divine cord of love; that is what religion means. Anyone using this dharma or religion to divide society into antagonistic groups, is spreading irreligion, and doing the greatest harm to this dharma. Ultimately, dharma unites us with God; God who dwells in all beings.

Thus, our religion or dharma ought to promote the prosperity of mankind, and also ensure the salvation of man. By keeping us together in a bond of love, we are almost compelled to serve one another, and thus promote one another's interests and welfare. By uniting us with God, we are liberated from pettiness, worldliness, selfishness, and greed. Here is the greatest miracle on earth: the silent transformation of the human heart, which our dharma brings about. It reminds us that we form the one body of God, inseparably united in Him. We may have our own characteristics, faculties, and temperament; we may follow different paths to Him, but in His Love we are all united, and eventually we shall all reach His Feet. All our efforts for the betterment of the lot of mankind, fail only because we have not yet realized this.

Religion has suffered the same fate as the present era - that of distortion. The simple is made complex. Yet, we see on the horizon the dawn of the age of simplicity, and of an urge to seek for the truth in a maze of distortions. Even the word 'yoga' has been distorted. Yoga has nothing to do with miracles and magic; but it is the synonym of its phonetic cousin 'yoke', which is the essential meaning of the word 'religion'. Yoke unites two, religion binds them.

Distortion has also crept into religion, and divided mankind into opposing camps - 'your religion' and 'my religion'. True religion - yoga - ignores this disharmony, and yokes all of us together for human weal. The source scriptures of all religions say that we should love our neighbor as ourselves, and that we should love God with all our being. That is yoga, and that is religion. The two must be linked.

Understood aright, therefore, yoga can enrich our life, and fulfill its purpose. By yoking us, uniting us, and binding us together with a cord of love, it indirectly promotes harmony, peace, and prosperity. God is love. The soul yoked to God is possessed, and led by this love. We are all bound by the cord of His love, which is the omnipresent omnipotence that creates, sustains, and redeems all.

That is theory, and theory must be translated into practice. Fundamentally, yoga is simple. It demands the curbing of our egoism, annihilation of selfishness, and effective control of our mind and senses, so that they function in tune with the infinite. In practice, however, we discover that, before we attempt to harmonize the self with society and with God, we should strive to integrate our personality, so that our thought, word, and deed, as also our intellect, emotion, and life, do not tear us into several disjointed personalities. Yoga integrates our personality by revealing our own inner nature, its potentialities and limitations.

By an interesting process of social service, worship of God, inward contemplation, and health giving physical posture and breathing exercises, yoga achieves the greatest of all miracles - the transformation of the human heart.

 2. The Meaning of Life

What is the meaning of life? Why are we born as human beings? Do we merely exist until we die? What is my relation with you? Why do I suffer and why am I happy sometimes? What is the meaning of the terms 'pleasure' and 'pain'?

These and similar questions occur to many of us at some time or other in our life; but, the tragedy is that they do not arise in the mind of many people until they are rudely shaken by some shock, loss, or calamity. They were sleeping; and, hence, they were unaware of the meaning of life and the facts of existence. There are some who do not even wake up after many unhappy experiences in life!

The 'normal' man in the modern world is far too busy with the struggle for existence, to find time for such thoughts about life. He is content merely to exist, he hardly lives. There comes a stage in ignorance when it is mistaken for knowledge or wisdom. Like a long-caged bird that has forgotten its very birth-right to soar into the sky, and which fights to remain in its cage, man hugs ignorance and limitation. Even misery fails to awaken him - he changes his tactics, blames his neighbors, and endeavors to find happiness by other methods.

In this process of awakening, there are two ways open to us. If we heed the precepts of the master Swami Sivananda, we can be spiritually healed and awakened - which is the easy way. But, if we ignore His message, God has to resort to other methods to bring home to us the truth that we live in a world of pain and death, and that we cannot find real happiness here. Sooner or later - the easy or difficult way - we have to ask ourselves the great question: 'What is the meaning of life?' Hence, our Master used to sing:

Is there not a nobler mission than eating, drinking, and sleeping?

It is difficult to get a human birth; therefore, try your best to realize - God - in this birth.

It is good to keep these flaming words of wisdom ever before us, so that our life may be illumined by the light of our Master's life and teachings. Life has a great mission: it is to find god who is supreme bliss. Life, minus limitation or conditioning, is bliss. This is the meaning of life. Its discovery is yoga.

 3. Quest of Happiness

In man's heart, there is an unceasing, but paradoxically urgent urge for pleasure and happiness. In fact, this is the urge to immortality; and, it is this urge that has led him up the ladder of evolution to his present human birth. But, it is not correctly understood. When there is the cry of restlessness in the heart of man, he does not always discern the right cause.

No living being is satisfied with merely living. If we merely had to exist, life would be easy. There is this continuous quest for happiness. That is the meaning of life. That is the nature of our self.

Happiness is within your own self. You fail to get it, only because you are searching for it where it does not exist. The common and universal experience of deep sleep is proof that this happiness is within us. This sleep is the only period of the day when we are really happy, free from worry and anxiety. Moreover, in sleep we 'rest within ourselves', and get new energy.

What is it that prevents us from enjoying this happiness constantly? Because of ignorance, the little 'I' is unable to find its way consciously to this inner source; and therefore it endeavors to find that happiness in the external objects of the world, which it can see, grasp, and experience.

Man has scaled the highest peak, and delved deep into the bowels of the earth. But man does not know what is within himself. And within him is God, the fountain of joy and bliss, the goal of his quest.

It is through a deliberate turning away from the objects of pleasure in this world, and by the practice of meditation, that the seeker after truth enters the inner realm, consciously, and with full awareness. But this 'turning away' should not be construed to mean 'running away'. It is like averting our gaze from a glaring object; it hurts the eye, until we put on sunglasses, when we can enjoy that very sight which previously hurt us. We turn our gaze away from the objects of the world for a little while, until we are able to adjust our inner vision, and look at the world through the eyes of god. Then the world is no longer a painful process of birth and death. Then the world is a charming field of divine activity. The very same world, seen through God's eyes, appears as it is - the body of God, which is good.

In the synthesis of activity and idealism, of dynamism and divinity, lies the secret of yoga. Yoga is contemplative dynamism. It implies neither running away, nor even turning permanently away from the world, but looking through it, and perceiving god who is the reality underlying the world.

 4. The First Principle of Yoga

The deluded man is sure that his happiness is derived from the objects of the world, until pain awakens him to the truth that pain is the result of the enjoyment, whereas the happiness was derived from within himself when the mind ceased to restlessly long for pleasure.

Sleep not only gives us the clue to the great truth that happiness is within us, but also provides us with the two vital laws that govern its experience - forget the world and forget self. These are the two deep sleep state conditions. We cannot go on sleeping for ever, nor should we wake up to misery. To combine the two, we must be conscious - awake, and we must also enjoy the homogeneity that is the characteristic of deep sleep. We must be awake, and yet the ego-sense should not be awake; we must live, and yet forget the world. The unalloyed happiness that we enjoy in deep sleep can be ours if we can forget ourselves during the waking state of activity - intense activity. Desires and cravings produce stress and tension; and, it is only when these have been removed that we are really happy, for then we turn within ourselves. This does not last long. It is immediately followed by the rising of another craving and its chain reaction. This will go on till we (a) prevent the tension from building up, (b) stop the mind from craving for sense-gratification, and (c) train the self to rest in the self all the time, enjoying perpetual happiness.

The dynamism which is part of our - and cosmic - nature, cannot be stamped out. But it is possible to let the ego-sense step down from the pedestal of sovereignty it has usurped, and not to let desires and cravings, selfishness and self-aggrandizement, motivate actions. Then we live in a remarkable state, in which the intellect is in a contemplative mood, while the body and mind are engaged in intense activity.

If we constantly think of and work for the welfare of all beings, self-forgetfully, we shall derive the same happiness that we had during deep sleep. It is strange that we fail to notice that when we are least conscious of our health, we are healthy; and when we are not mindful of pain, it disappears. When we run after the shadow of happiness, it runs away from us; it is because we push unhappiness away that it seems to lean so heavily on us.

The solution lies in rejoicing in the happiness of others, and in understanding the magnitude of human suffering in this world. In both cases, we forget the self; and, that is the first condition for being happy.

Service. Serve all. Serve selflessly. Serve self-forgetfully and self-sacrificingly. This is the first principle of divine life, of yoga, of the contemplative dynamism of the Bhagavad Gita.

 5. Essentials of Social Service

"You cannot remain inactive even for a moment," says Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita. And the gospel of selfless social service of my master Swami Sivananda has this immutable law as its first corner-stone. Nature is ever active. We, too, are active by nature. That is the sign of 'life'.

Then, will it do if I am ever active, doing whatever I feel like, in whatever manner I like doing it? The human being does not merely wish to live, to exist, and to procreate, but to aspire to something nobler. That nobler mission is to serve all, and to do good to all.

The world glorifies a philanthropist or a social worker, but it does not bother about his motives, or about his inner nature. God is the inner ruler of man, the witness of our thoughts, feelings, and motives. Swami Sivananda demands, "Scrutinize always your motives", for God looks to our motives more than to our spectacular deeds.

Action itself is inferior to the right attitude. Hence, if we want to find our inner harmony, if we wish to commune with the inner reality, we should be good. If we are good in our very nature, we shall constantly and spontaneously do good, without the temptation of a reward or the incentive of self-aggrandizement.

Therefore, Swami Sivananda declares: "Be good, do good - these four words constitute the fundamental essence of all religions, of the teachings of all the prophets of the world, of yoga and vedanta." This, then, is the second corner-stone of dedicated selfless social service.

Here is the third corner-stone. If we want to be happy, and if we want to enjoy peace, we must transcend the ego-sense. In meditation, one transcends oneself and enjoys peace. In repeating or singing God's Names, one transcends oneself, and enjoys happiness. One cannot normally be engaged all the time in these practices. How, then, to live the normal life in this world, and yet to be happy and peaceful? "Forget yourself in the service of humanity," says Swami Sivananda. He was Himself the greatest exemplar of this doctrine. He was an embodiment of self-forgetful, selfless service.

'The wise man should do unattached what the ignorant man does with attachment', says the Bhagavad Gita. The difference is not in the external form nor mode of life, but in the inner spirit of that life. Swami Sivananda taught us that it is the motive and the inner attitude that acts either as a bondage or a liberator.

The correct inner attitude is that of worship. This is the fourth and most important corner-stone of Gurudev's gospel of selfless social service. Performed in a spirit of worship of the omnipresent reality, our service and all our actions tend to liberate us, instead of binding us to the world and worldliness.

Two aspects of this divine worship are to be constantly borne in mind. They are (1) the whole world is a manifestation of the Lord who receives the worship offered in the form of selfless service, and (2) we derive the power and the capacity to serve or to work from God who dwells within us. The first keeps us ever willing, ready, and eager, to serve and serve all, and render any service. The second keeps us away from the pitfall of egoism. We have to serve with intense zeal, and yet remain unattached. We have to feel that the Lord is working through us, and yet be humble. We have to see the Lord in all, and yet sympathize with them.

If these fundamentals are clearly understood, we shall readily see the great qualities that go to make up the ideal social worker. Then service becomes yoga. It will not bind you, but liberate you.

 6. The Power of Love

Real service is very difficult to find these days. Work without our heart in it can build up tension within us, and eventually lead to a nervous breakdown.

The man who learns to love his work, serves with love. He is ready and eager to pour every ounce of his energy into that service. He is not only free from tension, but he is full of joy, peace, and satisfaction.

We are unhappy, not because someone is making us miserable, but because our heart has become so small that we want only our own happiness. Selfishness is an animal instinct. The extremely selfish man is an animal. The moderately selfish man is human. The truly unselfish man is a divine being. We live in order that we may reach that stage one day. To become divine is our goal. With God-given intelligence, we can hasten our progress to this goal.

We saw that the first universal experience of happiness is deep sleep. There is another universal experience which goes unnoticed and unreflected upon. When are we intensely and consciously happy in our daily life? When we are close to one we love. If being near beloved ones makes us happy, it is simple logic that, to be always happy, we should always love all! If it is not possible to live always surrounded by our particular loved ones, then we should love all those who are around us at all times, and thus transform them into our 'beloved ones'.

Is it possible for you to love strangers? Yes, one of them is your wife now! Later, others arrived, whom you had never seen before, and these you call your children! There is a taint of selfishness in these relationships. That is why, sooner or later, they give us some amount of unhappiness. If these and all relationships cease to be commercial contracts, and if love is pure and selfless, then we shall be always happy.

True unselfishness is not possible unless we recognize the hidden God in all. If you love your husband, your father, your mother, your child, or your friends, can you not see that you are in truth loving the omnipresence in and through every one of them? It is that omnipresence that stands in front of you as the wife, the son, the daughter, the friend. So, if you have learned to love this one person, and if you can enter into the spirit of this experience of love, you realize: 'This is the experience of love which delights my heart. In and through that person, I am actually loving God, the omnipresence.' Once you know what it is to love, expand that love, and let it cover more and more of the world in which you live.

This applies not only to the people with whom we associate, but also to the circumstances in which we are placed. Only man demands that God should adapt His gifts to man's wants, whereas animals accept God's gifts and adapt themselves to them. We must have full faith in God's goodness, and learn to adapt, adjust and accommodate to whatever God gives us, in whatever condition or environment he places us.

God is our father-mother. It is the height of foolishness and ignorance to imagine he is going to punish us, and send us terrible calamities and diseases. A bitter pill may be needed to correct an ailing body; and even the most loving mother will give it to her child. God is love. We must lovingly welcome whatever he gives us. And, we shall ever be happy. This is the attitude of a bhakta, a devotee, who practices karma yoga.

 7. God is Love

God's blessings are showered equally upon all; but man is fond of depriving his neighbor of his share. Man has forgotten God. Therefore, he has also forgotten that God is love. He has turned away from God in whose image he is made. Love is divine - hatred is diabolical. God is love. God is peace. God is bliss. If we wish to enjoy this peace, we should grow in love. God has given man freewill to shape his own destiny. We should choose the path of love. Love should govern our thoughts, words, and deeds.

God is the cosmic being. He cannot be enthroned in a heart which has shrunk through selfishness. It must expand, gradually, to include our neighbors, our community, and ultimately all beings in the universe. When this love is cultivated in our heart, it will naturally express itself as service and charity. These will become part and parcel of our nature. Then we shall attain cosmic consciousness, and enjoy supreme peace, eternal bliss, and immortality. When the little 'I' - the selfish ego - dies, you will be God, full of love and compassion for all beings.

We cannot love one another truly, unless we recognize that God who dwells in our heart, dwells in the hearts of all. We cannot truly serve mankind, and work for the good of all, unless we feel that all of us together form the body of God. This knowledge and realization should come first. Only then will political systems, economic theories, and technological progress, bear fruit.

It is dangerous to pay lip-homage to this doctrine. We should sincerely pray to Him, meditate upon Him every day. We should endeavor every moment of our life to express, through loving service of our neighbor, the inner faith that God is omnipresent. We should love all. It is then that we shall truly be human beings.

This is the essence of the teaching of all religions. This is yoga.

 8. Wisdom Looks at Evil

What is the yogi's attitude towards evil?

Evil is primarily within us, and it also exists in the objective universe as a neutral - tamasic - inert, ignorant and dark - factor. What we call 'evil' is for the most part a matter of opinion or tradition. For instance, when you say A is wicked, there are others who say he is good. Drinking wine may be regarded as a great sin by the brahmin in India, but it is not so to a saintly man in France!

Secondly, evil is the projection of our own vanity, selfishness, or ignorance on something outside. We find outside what we, within ourselves, want to find. If we are good and want only good, we shall find something good - God! - in the 'evil'. If we are evil, then we shall find faults even in god.

Thirdly, in God's own divine nature - the manifest universe - we discover beings of different natures. One man is affectionate, another is harsh. But, if you see the expression of love that is God in all these, your own heart will be filled with that love. Wind dries - water wets. Though of different or even opposite nature, they are all part of a single pattern - God's good world. They exist to serve Him, His Will, and His purpose, for the universe and all of us. The wise man understands them, and benefits himself. The ignorant man interferes with them, to his own disadvantage.

Ignorance of this truth leads man to the violation of the divine law. Ignorance itself is sin, and this sin is followed by the necessary corrective measure, according to the divine law. Ignorance regards this corrective measure as pain! It rebels against it, and commits more sins. The wheel of karma is kept revolving.

Wisdom consists of a threefold attitude to life: (a) evil is the dark side of nature, with its divine purpose of revealing and promoting goodness by contrast; (b) fault-finding, on the other hand, is the fruit of ignorance, which nourishes, strengthens, and perpetuates evil; and (c) pain, poverty, disease, and the like, are nature's measures to purify the inner nature, so that the roots of sin - ignorance and craving - are removed, and man's inner vision is turned to God.

Adoption of all three principles will at once give us peace and happiness. To condone evil in ourselves, condemn it in others, and reject or run away from pain, is the very opposite of wisdom. Until we uncondition our inner being, we should be wary not to succumb to evil tendencies. Until we have purified our heart thoroughly, we should avoid evil company, too. That does not mean that we hate those whom we regard as wicked, nor should we take upon ourselves the duty of 'correcting' or 'reforming' others. In this, we only succeed in adding to the evil in ourselves.

Remove the inner evil first. You will love all. And, that love will transform everyone you come into contact with.

 9. A Forgotten Vital Secret

Selfless service is its own 'achievement'. If one serves in order to gain something, the service is not 'selfless'. Motives are often hidden within the subconscious; it is not easy to detect them. You may 'give up' desire for material reward, but secretly wish to be admired. You may 'run away' from such admiration, but enjoy a 'spiritual satisfaction' within yourself. An honest appraisal of the situation must enable you to appreciate that the whole life is tainted with selfishness, and as long as the mind functions and the ego-sense prevails, selfishness lurks in some corner of your personality. When this is clearly seen, and when the danger of selfishness is realized at the same time, there is great vigilance, in which there is no selfishness. Such vigilance is meditation.

Otherwise, service, though begun with pure love, often leads to the very results it is meant to avoid - either we get attached to the people we love and serve, or, if their response is inimical, we are angered, or we even dislike or hate them.

There is a mysterious power deep within us which does not allow us to love all and serve all. It generates two currents of attraction and repulsion, attachment and hatred, likes and dislikes. Helplessly we are drawn in different directions by these two currents, and do not even make an attempt to free ourselves from them. Thus, never finding harmony within, never loving and serving selflessly, we live in total dissatisfaction and frustration - all because we are unable to free ourselves from likes and dislikes, and dive deeper into our center, beyond these.

Nothing but meditation - coupled with selfless service, which is dynamic meditation - can enable us to rise above these two currents of raga - infatuation, attachment, desire, and dvesa - hate, anger, aversion. Therefore, our masters ask us to meditate daily. And if we are sincere in our approach to and practice of meditation, we must arrive at the truth that the God who dwells in our heart, dwells in all. This realization must come, sooner or later; sooner, if at the same time we endeavor to practice selfless service of humanity and cultivate cosmic love. A very good exercise in meditation is to start with visualizing an image of God in our heart - we have to fix the mind somewhere, and the heart is the center of our being. Let this image expand and enlarge, as you get nearer and nearer to God, so that eventually the original position is reversed: God is not part of me, but I am part of God. Even so, all are part of God. God is the cosmic being. We are all autonomous but interdependent cells in that body. Because we are autonomous, we can love. We are not pre-destined to hate each other. We love one another, not for the sake of one another, but for the sake of the self that is all.

When this truth is actually realized, then, to love all, and to serve all, will be effortless, and we shall then have an entirely different attitude to the world. We will love God in all and serve him in all; not as a good policy, not for any gain, not as a privilege, nor even as a duty, but because it is quite natural and inevitable. And this love never wanes; for, there is no selfish motive here to wane.

When we forget ourselves and the world, we enjoy peace and happiness, and we enjoy them consciously while we are engaged in our daily work. This is my master's divine message. This is the religion of tomorrow.

 10. Yoga for Integral Perfection

Yoga or 'divine life' is divinizing our entire life, all our activities. We cannot be saints for an hour of the day, and sinners for the rest. Our masters, therefore, plead for integral perfection. They exhort us to combine all the spiritual practices in our daily life, and thus ensure that we have a 'balanced spiritual diet', which enables us to grow harmoniously into a perfect personality. Theoretically, it is supposed to be sufficient to deal a fatal blow at the ego with the axe of the yoga that is suited to one's temperament. In practice we discover it is not so. Hence it is better to adopt a concerted attack.

Even the so-called different yogas or paths to god realization are not really so different! Or exclusive! A close examination reveals that they are all interconnected. Activity - karma yoga, without love of the omnipresent God - bhakti yoga, and knowledge of the truth - jnana yoga, or the latter without right activity, is nearly impossible.

They are inseparable, and cannot be independently practiced. The emphasis differs in accordance with the difference in individual temperament. If there is God at heart, his love must flow in and through all our limbs. If there is knowledge of God in the 'head', it must compel us to love him, too. Head, heart, and hand, must respond to God-love.

The Indian spiritual aspirant is an optimist. He knows that, without purification, he cannot get God-realization. He knows that karma yoga, which implies multiplicity - a finger cannot scratch itself, and bhakti yoga, which implies duality, and jnana - direct intuitive realization of oneness, which asserts unity, are rationally incompatible, and yet he practices them together. He does not understand the Upanishads, but reads them daily. When the heart is purified through karma yoga, and the mind is steadied by bhakti-raja-yoga, then the knowledge of the Upanishads illumines his soul.

Perfection is a synthesis of all yogas. Raja yoga steadies the mind, and jnana yoga pours wisdom into it. Feeling is perfected by bhakti yoga. 'Living' is perfected by karma yoga. The instrument with which we are able to practice yoga, the body, is looked after by hatha yoga. All these together constitute yoga. They are inseparable, even as the three faculties - thinking, feeling, and 'living' - are inseparable in us.

 11. Self Discovery

In this self-development towards perfection, no-one can help you, and no-one can hinder you either. There are two reasons: this perfection is already there, waiting to be discovered; and secondly, you are unique. No-one else has the exact replica of your personality.

A sculptor looking at a marble slab 'sees' the figure of Krishna or Christ in that slab. He does not add anything, it is there already. But there is a lot more marble, in addition to that figure. He merely removes the extraneous chips, and what remains is what he saw in the slab in the first instant.

First, you have to see this unique spirit that is built into you. When you do, you also see a lot of rubbish sticking to this central being. As you keep eliminating these - this rubbish, the latent perfection is discovered, and there is total development. In order to discover yourself, you must not assume there is only goodness in you. You must also be aware of what is diabolical and devilish in you too. When you thus become aware of the divine and the diabolical in you simultaneously, you know what to do!

To ascribe the cause of an inner evil to something outside oneself is immature. If you cut your foot on the coral, you immediately fix it. There is no time to blame anyone. You become one with the problem - the pain; and the pain demands immediate relief.

When you thus observe yourself inwardly, there is utter stillness of mind. It is transparent, and in that transparent mind, you can see the play of thoughts, you can be aware of the 'evil' in your personality.

You learn actively to watch the thoughts, without thinking those thoughts. When this watchfulness or awareness becomes constant and efficient, keen and sensitive, it detects an 'evil' thought even as it enters the field of consciousness, and keeps it away, because the evil thought hurts the inner being.

While cultivating this watchfulness or awareness, the question one asks concerning the thought is, 'What is this thought made of, and who thinks it?', and not, 'Why is it there?' If you ask the question in the right manner, you will known the answer, immediately and experientially, not verbally. The asking itself is the answer. The questioning is important; for, it directs the attention to the very source of thought. When an undesired or evil thought arises from this source, this attention itself neutralizes such thought.

In this self-inquiry, there are two delicate factors to be carefully and vigilantly borne in mind: (1) there is unrelenting vigilance which burns steadily within you, reducing to ashes every 'evil' or undesired thought even as it rises, because such a thought hurts you; and (2) when your mind becomes aware of similar evil outside, in others, you are extremely sympathetic, for you do not judge or condemn.

What is that state of perfection that this self-inquiry reveals, and what are its characteristics? The Bhagavad Gita provides an inspiring answer: perfection is that state in which all cravings end. It is there all the time. But you have turned away from it. When you turn away from the sun, you see the shadow; and the shadow has all the appearance of yourself. But when you wheel around and face the light, you see only the sun, the light, and not yourself. That is god-realization, self-realization. That is perfection.

The whole process of yoga, of spiritual development, is the removal of obstacles to this realization. In order to see these obstacles, one needs a tremendously calm mind.

Quietness of the mind does not mean that there are no thoughts. There may be millions of waves on the surface of the ocean, but underneath it is absolutely calm. Can you go down to the depth of the 'ocean' within you, the depth of your own consciousness, so that even while the thoughts keep rising and falling on the surface, there is this deep calm and peace? This is the most important thing.

Disturbance in the mind goes on as long as you cling to false values, to any values at all. When you directly realize that nothing that the mind and the ego have cherished so far is of any value, there is instant, complete, and permanent cessation of disturbance; there is enlightenment.

 12. Practise Yoga and love It

Yoga is intelligent practice. Swami Sivananda asks us to reflect and analyze ourselves, to understand our capacities and limitations, our hidden potentialities and lurking weaknesses, and then to formulate a spiritual plan for self-discovery.

We know a lot, but do little. Idle knowledge is more dangerous than ignorance, for it adds to our vanity. If we know a little and put that into practice, we shall liberate ourselves. Even our self-analysis and its resultant estimation are validated only by their application in practice. Based on our understanding of our need, we ought to take a few resolves. These will assume the form of a determination to grow in virtue, to eradicate evil habits, to do a little of various spiritual practices, like yogasanas, breathing exercises, meditation, study, charity, worship, japa, kirtan, selfless service, and satsanga. Then we should draw up a daily routine incorporating all these in it. Even if we do a little of each item of yoga practice, if we are regular, we can achieve a lot.

There is often a human tendency to make big resolutions, do something for a few days, and then to let the zeal cool off. To prevent this, our master gives us a priceless companion, the spiritual diary. In it, we record to what extent we were able to carry out our resolutions, and to what extent we neglected the daily routine.

Of course, none of those is meaningful if it is undertaken as a gimmick, or in obedience to the dictates of someone else, or as a proud record of one's spiritual progress. Genuine sincerity is needed for real, natural, unspectacular, progress.

 13. Are We Sincere?

Only the insincere man grumbles, and finds difficulties. If you have sincerity at heart, there is no impossibility, and difficulties are accepted as necessary challenges. The sincere man converts obstacles into stepping stones. The insincere man regards stepping stones as obstacles. On the path of yoga, what is needed is sincerity; and if we are sincere and earnest, then the path is smooth. Sincerity itself is only the inner expression of the correct scale of values. We are sincerely devoted to only that which we value. Otherwise, we treat it as hard labor.

If you value anything, you want to do it, and love doing it. If you do not value it, your mind magnifies only the difficulties involved.

As proof of sincerity, the ancient masters looked for what are known as the 'four means of salvation', which every aspirant is encouraged to cultivate.

These four means are:

(1) discrimination - the recognition of the proper scale of values,

(2) dispassion - its adoption to daily life,

(3) virtues which induce one-pointed application of the mind and heart to the goal of life, and

(4) keen desire to attain that goal.

These are fundamental to all our endeavors - sacred and secular - and cannot be dispensed with. Time does not efface nor alter these eternal verities. In order to be aware of these verities, one has to realize the futility of relying upon changing phenomena and fleeting objects of pleasure, upon the elusive inner emotions and divisive thought processes, which perpetuate inner conflict, and the consequent restlessness and unhappiness. Unless we realize the danger of relying on false values, we shall not seek true values.

One who has these four means, takes to yoga as a duck takes to water. But one who neglects them, regards spiritual life as a labor or burden to be carried. The secret of overcoming this unpleasantness lies in understanding the fact that we are bound to realize the self - God - one day or the other, and it is a great joy doing so now; and also in taking a keen interest in boldly venturing into the realms of the mind and the spirit, in full recognition of the truth that the 'other path' - the path of sense-pleasure - is worthless, and is fraught with pain and sorrow. Then, yoga becomes delightful and fruitful. Occasional setbacks lose their depressing effect, but act as stepping stones to greater effort and success.

 14. Your Normal Life is Yoga

If there is a change of heart, and a change of values, then our daily life itself becomes divine life. 'Normally' we live in a fool's paradise, with our scale of values tilted in favor of sense pleasures.

These evanescent objects of pleasure are often referred to as illusory. They are part of an illusion which is so, not because it does not exist at all, but because it appears to be what it is not. The world is not false, but the 'world-appearance' is false. Matter exists; and both vedanta and science agree that this matter itself is not what it appears to be, but a universal system of light-sound-waves - energy. But it is ignorant man who perceives in them, here an object of enjoyment which attracts him, and there a painful object which repels him.

Of this ignorance, the first-born is egoism - the feeling 'I am this', and the second offspring is selfishness - which manifests itself as desire and possessiveness - 'this is mine'. If a man is able to overcome these two, by removing ignorance which enshrouds the soul, then his scale of values also changes, he perceives the reality of the universe. It then appears to him as it is. At present, we see the world outside as we like or dislike. The world outside is but a projection of our own wishful thinking. A toy is a companion to a child, a marketable commodity to a businessman, and a piece of delicate workmanship to an artist. It is an item of expenditure to the buyer, and of income to the seller! These are relative, changeable values. But, hidden within, there is a real value. What is it? That is what the yogi, the man of wisdom, asks himself all the time.

When these false values disappear, the world does not disappear too. A swimming pool does not become the Himalayas to a yogi or a sage. These remain as they truly are, not as they appear to be in the eyes of an ignorant man, who perceives in them an object of pleasure or pain, profit or loss, good or evil. It is then that the animal instincts are sacrificed at the altar of truth, reality, or God, and man shines as a real human being, the crown of God's creation, made in the image of God!

This is the object of creation, and the purpose of human birth. But, this animal to be sacrificed is not outside us; it is inside us. The world of matter includes our own body; and, what applies to the objects of this world, applies to our body - which is also perishable, etc. Therefore, the yogi who knows that the objects of sense-pleasure are deceptive, also knows that his own senses, which experience pleasure in them, are also deceptive. It is only when we finally overcome even the sensations of pleasure and pain in us, that we are truly above the illusion of phenomena, and close to the reality that is God.

To the yogi who has arrived at this sublime state of consciousness, all life is sacred, all life is divine, all life is yoga. He lives in God, for God, and as God, and he sees the whole universe - including his body - as the body of God; he sees that it moves and lives according to God's Will. Such a life is called karma yoga.

Karma yoga is also a sadhana - the means - to reach this sublime goal; we shall discuss it in the next chapter.