Sri Brahmachaithanya Pravachan-Sept.10

Be at Rama’s Feet, Chant Nama Day and Night

Rama’s name is a formless saviour; chant it repeatedly. Hold to it firmly and you will be free from the cycle of birth and death. Shri Shiva recited nama for overcoming the effect of the poison he swallowed. The stories of Valmiki and Ajamela also show the importance of nama. In heaven, earth or hell, nama alone is the most effective remedy. Hanuman jumped across to Lanka by holding nama firmly in his heart. This sense  world is like an empty dream. Therefore, take the support of nama, the abiding truth.

Chanting of nama reduces sins to ashes. Many precious stones and other items came to surface when, in the mythological times, the oceans were churned. Nama is much more precious than those items. Even the teachings of the vedas are rectified in the process of chanting nama; it is simpler and achieves the same goal as yoga. The human mind itself is Shriram, and the soul animating the body is Atma-rama. It is the same Ultimate Reality that pervades and activates the entire universe, and therefore you should learn to recognize its manifestation among all the people; merge your own ‘self’ with this manifestation while maintaining nama on the tongue. The great Vasishtha merged with the ‘self’ and Shriram Himself became enslaved by accepting his tutorship. That is why, like a humble servant, I say that one who remembers Shriram does not have to worry about worldly affairs. Nama is a mine of truth, meditate on it. See Shriram everywhere, amongst all humans and animals. Protect the sacred cow, be compassionate to everybody, feed every visitor coming to you, discard sense pleasures by association with saints and remain in nama, unmindful of everything else.

Do not waste even a single breath, earnestly aspire for nama alone, don’t be carried away by the vagaries of the sensitive, subtle mind.
I take your leave now. But please listen to my last earnest request. I have told you today the sacred secret of Rama, nothing else is required. Follow this secret and become entitled to liberation. My sadguru has graced me with the name ‘Brahmachaitanya’. I am only a humble servant, constantly chanting nama.

* * * * *name is a formless saviour; chant it repeatedly. Hold to it firmly and you will be free from the cycle of birth and death. Shri Shiva recited nama for overcoming the effect of the poison he swallowed. The stories of Valmiki and Ajamela also show the importance of nama. In heaven, earth or hell, nama alone is the most effective remedy. Hanuman jumped across to Lanka by holding nama firmly in his heart. This sense  world is like an empty dream. Therefore, take the support of nama, the abiding truth.

Chanting of nama reduces sins to ashes. Many precious stones and other items came to surface when, in the mythological times, the oceans were churned. Nama is much more precious than those items. Even the teachings of the vedas are rectified in the process of chanting nama; it is simpler and achieves the same goal as yoga. The human mind itself is Shriram, and the soul animating the body is Atma-rama. It is the same Ultimate Reality that pervades and activates the entire universe, and therefore you should learn to recognize its manifestation among all the people; merge your own ‘self’ with this manifestation while maintaining nama on the tongue. The great Vasishtha merged with the ‘self’ and Shriram Himself became enslaved by accepting his tutorship. That is why, like a humble servant, I say that one who remembers Shriram does not have to worry about worldly affairs. Nama is a mine of truth, meditate on it. See Shriram everywhere, amongst all humans and animals. Protect the sacred cow, be compassionate to everybody, feed every visitor coming to you, discard sense pleasures by association with saints and remain in nama, unmindful of everything else.

Do not waste even a single breath, earnestly aspire for nama alone, don’t be carried away by the vagaries of the sensitive, subtle mind.

I take your leave now. But please listen to my last earnest request. I have told you today the sacred secret of Rama, nothing else is required. Follow this secret and become entitled to liberation. My sadguru has graced me with the name ‘Brahmachaitanya’. I am only a humble servant, constantly chanting nama.

Sri Brahmachaithanya Pravachan – Sept.8

Read Little, Contemplate and Act on it

What is maya? That which exists without God is maya. Everything that is visible and perishable is maya. As long as we practise nama-smarana we are out of the snare of maya; when we forget God and nama, we fall under the influence of maya. The essence of anything is in doing it, not just listening to it or telling about it. Howsoever you describe nirguna, it will not be possible to comprehend nirguna. We should, therefore, visualize and worship saguna. One who says ‘I worship nirguna’, does not really know what nirguna is, because in nirguna there remains no one even to tell this.

One gentleman told me that he had read all books on vedanta. I said to him, ‘Then you must have achieved contentment;’ On this he replied ‘That is the only thing which I have not achieved’! Of what use then has his entire reading been? What can we then get from studying vedanta? Let us practise simple and easy devotion. Surrender yourself single mindedly and completely to God, practise nama-smarana; you will get everything. Unless you practise what you read in sacred books the reading is futile. Do not read merely for the sake of reading; it adversely affects your sadhana, and you start developing pride over your reading. Therefore, read only a little, contemplate and act on it.
If you spend even a small part of the day in the remembrance of God, the entire day will pass in the same mood of awareness of God; extending days into months, months into years, and years forming the life, your whole life will pass in the continuous remembrance of God.

You should not be fond of family life itself, but should be fond of your duties therein. It is holy to do your duties, but you should not get involved in attachment to family life. You should mentally belong only to God. If you earnestly remember God, He will definitely keep you happy and contented. To belong to God is to be happy and contented in life. Have profound faith in God and do only what He likes; that is the essence of paramartha.

No one knows when this body may fall; never say, therefore, ‘I shall practise nama when I am old;’ start right now.

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Sri Brahmachaithanya Pravachan-Aug.29

Religion: Blending of Morality and Spiritualism

Let us try to simplify this mystifying jargon about unity and duality. It is from a single elemental entity that these diverse forms which we see and sense have emanated. Duality appears real because we have lost sight of the fundamental unity that pervades the diverse-looking creation. This is an obvious illusion which pundits call maya. Living ever in the awareness of the fundamental unity, the true Reality, is to overcome this illusion. Illusion is the product of imagination, and can only be dispelled by correcting the imagination, by living in the company of those who are ever aware of the single Reality, God.
How can we belong to God? By giving up what made us part company with Him: maya. After all, maya is the handmaid, the creature, of God; so submit unreservedly to God, so that you will not get into the clutches of maya. Maya works through desire and doubt; these fail in assailing one who is ceaselessly in nama-smarana.
Nama, God’s name, is changeless, but His forms are changeful. Form does not mean only the visible shape, it includes all that the mind and imagination can envisage. Nama has no equivalent, it is immaculate, unique. What is perfect is satisfying, that is, it gives peace, which means lack of upsets and disturbances. That philosophy, that religion, alone is acceptable which definitely yields contentment. Religion is true blending of right behaviour or morality and spiritualism.
Man’s desire for more and more physical comfort leads to devising more and more amenities. Experience shows that this is an insatiable search that never yields contentment; on the contrary, it whets the desire for yet more amenities, a dissatisfaction in life, and destroys peace of mind. Knowledge which can only secure employment must be imperfect. It can only provide means of sustenance; the study and knowledge which bring peace and contentment are quite a different thing; so what is popularly known as ‘education’ need not be given paramount or undue importance.
Looking at the misery prevailing in this world, one may well doubt whether happiness, contentment, joy, can ever be found. The doubt, however, is baseless, for, on festive occassions we do assume, for the time being, utter freedom for worry. The only thing to do is to continue the worry-free attitude for all time.
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Sri Brahmachaithanya Pravachan – Aug.28

Maya Obscures Eternal Joy

That which makes things look what they are not, is maya. Maya is perishable; it is and it is not. The pleasure derived from sensual enjoyment is not lasting. It is common experience that sensual pleasures ultimately turn into suffering of one kind or another. Maya pushes us into the lure of sensual pleasure. To make one uneasy, dissatisfied, with the existing situation is the modus operandi of maya, and money is the main weapon. It is the business of maya to lure man away from God. Maya derives its power from God Himself; but when it debars us from understanding Him, it works as a deterrent; whereas when we realize its true nature and feel amused by it, it appears as His sportiveness. It becomes ineffective and disappears, for a person who dedicates himself, unifies himself with God. The wonder is that while realizing the mischief of maya, we play voluntarily into its hands.
The way of the world is to deny God, or to connive at Him; let us avoid being carried away by it. One who submits himself to the current runs many kinds of risks; he may be dashed against a rock, be caught in a whirlpool, or be carried on and on, away from the destination. We have to fall into the stream, but, instead of drifting along with the current, we should brave it and swim to safety; this requires maintenance of constant awareness of God. A haunted person feels unceasingly the presence of the ghost; we should similarly ceaselessly feel the reassuring company of God as our sheet anchor. Improper thoughts may sneak into the mind despite the wakeful watch by the conscience; it is our duty to repel them by refusing to follow their lead. Thus discouraged and unsupported, they will ultimately give up their nefarious attempts.
The many relatives and friends and things that I am familiar with – these I call ‘mine’; only, I hesitate to call God my own. This is the effect of maya.
A pleader pleads a cause in a court of law as if the case were his own; however, he views the case only objectively, with a subjective detachment from the final judgement. We should similarly look upon prapancha as a task and a duty, and be unmoved by the sweet or bitter fruits thereof. Won or lost as the case may be, the advocate gets the fee agreed upon; so, too, in prapancha we get only the destined result.
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Sri Brahmachaithanya Pravachan-Aug.13

Bodily Pleasures and Pain, and Spiritual Joy

You should, in your own interest, try to help others whenever you can. It will be fallacious to argue that you had rather leave them to suffer whatever God has ordained for them. That you cannot go contrary to His will is always fully true, but your attempt to help him is beneficial for your own self, because to that extent it wears down your ‘body-am-I’ feeling. What you do may or may not avail to the person concerned, according to God’s will, but it will definitely count as your service to God. Suppose I ask you to nurse a sick person, you will do it very willingly, probably even enthusiastically, in obedience to your guru’s behest. Why should you not take in the same light the illness or other troubles which God sends for you yourself? The difficulty is that you do not have the conviction that whatever He does is bound to prove good for you. Is it not highly improper to ask Him to remove the troubles that He has Himself sent to you? Also, since prarabdha cannot be by-passed, is it not wise to square the account right now rather than wish it to be merely deferred? Again, bodily pain and mental suffering being distinct from each other, the former should not detract from the mental or spiritual joy. Only he can live in peace who lives in God, that is, in nama-smarana. Therefore, one who wants contentment and joy should remain in ceaseless nama-smarana and anusandhana, that is, awareness of God. What is anusandhana, in essence? It simply means relating all your actions and thoughts to God; sleeping, sitting, rising, doing nama-smarana, reading, talking in earnest or joking, everything, in fact, including even breathing; this will bring you closer to God. One whom I have accepted as mine, I may help even in his prapancha, but certainly not to the extent that prapancha will engross his interest and strangle his ardor for paramartha. If I don’t fulfill all his expectations, he may complain, may whine and whimper, even his faith in me may be shaken, but he will survive it all, and eventually come back to nama. The seed of nama-smarana is bound to sprout and flourish sooner or later. Awareness of God nullifies the snares of maya. Where there is maya, self-pride, God will not be found. * * * * * AUGUST 13

Sri Brahmachaithanya Pravachany- Aug.7

Nama Alone can Identify the Form of God

Devotion for God is definitely superior to the dry-as-dust, infertile, pedantic knowledge of God acquired through book-study; for devotion means love of the highest, purest order. Devotion, indeed, is the end, while Karma, Jnyana, and Yoga are the three different approaches. In the Karma approach, the mind pays attention to meticulous performance of procedures, and the sadhaka becomes rigidly orthodox, with scant regard to the essence, namely, God. The advocate of Yoga has to try to control the mind and its tendencies. This produces a vacancy of mind which may be devoid of love for God.
In the approach through knowledge, the emphasis is on the consideration of the subtle distinction between the spiritual and the non-spiritual. Such consideration calls for a keenly intellectual approach which may be beyond the scope of many persons. Besides, maya, the enveloping ignorance, is so potent a force that there is no knowing when a person may unwarily be misled, and become a prey to pride, because he is most likely to be entrenched in his set of opinions and convictions. The person versed in the shastras conceives creation as the activity of maya; that is, as unsubstantial. Since the Elemental Reality is all-pervading, and since creation is part of that Reality, argues the devotee, creation is but the sportive activity of the Elemental Reality. Therefore, he sees it as an expression of its prowess, Its personality, Its irrepressible, ebullient bliss. Creation is basically identical with what it is created from. All the various forms that we see in nature are made of what we may term the Original Element or Reality, just as different earthen pots are made by a potter from the same original clay. We identify them by different names according to their sizes and shapes, such as cups, saucers, jugs and pitchers. Similarly, the same God can be given different appellations according to the forms and deeds viewed by different persons. These eventually become traditional. Whatever the names used the qualities, the forms and the deeds ascribed are the manifestations of the same God. It is the name, that raises the idea of form. The forms may eventually cease to be visible, but the name, that remains for ever. Nama thus transcends space and time. It is therefore truer than apparent forms. To recognize this Ultimate Truth is the purpose of spiritual quest.
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Sri Brahmachaithanya Pravachan-Aug.6

God is Unalloyed, Changeless Bliss

Everyone seeks permanent joy, that is God, for God and bliss are inseparable, identical. God is indeed, the source and home of everlasting happiness. Happiness is a sine qua non for the very survival of every being.
What we style as ‘joy’ today is really only ‘hope’ of joy, an illusion never realized in practice. If everyone lives for joy, why is it that it is never obtained? Evidently, the goal and the means are at cross purposes. The fact is that we seek joy in the ‘pleasure’ we get through the medium of the senses. Now such joy can neither last nor be free from accompanying or eventual pain, like the ‘kick’ one gets from the use of liquor or other narcotic. The joy of all sensual pleasure is severely limited in degree and duration, and invariably accompanied by immediate or eventual pain, misery, disappointment, etc. All palpable things are impermanent, non­satisfying, and consequently, incapable of giving lasting happiness.
We expand, proliferate, and diversify our activities and interests, all for deriving happiness, but fail to achieve the objective. The bliss that is God is, like God Himself, permanent, unchangeable, independent of external cause, limitation, or interference. Consequently, to strive for acquiring mundane things as a means of happiness, is doomed to failure.
A smile or laughter is the outward expression of a joyful spirit. Joy independent of external cause shows the presence of God. Vairagya consists in abstaining from anything that would mar that pure joy, while vivek consists in doing that which will bring about, strengthen, or augment such joy. This pure joy is the mark of a mind which is happy and contented owing to deep pondering on and merging with the Universal Soul. Such pure, unruffled joy invariably stamps the life, talk, and behaviour of one whose love is universal and selfless; such a person delights in giving without even the thought of a return of one kind or another.
Truly speaking, divine bliss is innate in every heart; we have to rediscover it by removing the heavy pall of maya, or attraction of the mundane. Rest secure in the reassuring thought that you are insignificant, nobody, that Rama is all in all, and commit yourself completely to His caring, protecting hands.

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Sri Brahmachaithanya Pravachan-Aug.5.

The ‘body-am-I’ Feeling is Sheer Illusion

In the practical world, it is important to know who I am and what my duty is. It is equally important, in spiritual life, to know who I really am. If I speak of something as ‘mine’, the owner ‘I’ is definitely a different entity. When I talk of ‘my’ body, evidently the speaker ‘I’ is distinct from the body. When we say ‘I have fever’, or ‘I am emaciated’, we are obviously identifying ourselves with the body, and confusing matters. To identify oneself with the body, losing sight of the true ‘I’ is an illusion, and this creates experience of ‘pleasure’ and ‘pain’. The fact that I detest ‘pain’ and welcome ‘pleasure’ clearly indicates that my original state must be one of joy, permanent joy. The water we bring in a jug from the flowing river must taste like the water from the river, because the two are identical; if it tastes different, we can confidently surmise that the jug must have been unclean. We may extend the analogy and say that, since the individual soul is part of the ever-blissful Cosmic Soul, it must be equally blissful; if it is not, if it experiences misery of any kind, this can only be ascribed to pollution in the form of the ‘body-am-I’ idea. Therefore the mind must be disabused of that notion. If we desire to stop the growth of a certain tree, it will not do merely to prune the foliage; we must stop watering the roots. The tree of our prapancha has flourished because it has been nourished by playing into the hands of ego, and it is this ego that needs to be eradicated. This can be achieved by discarding the pride of ‘doership’. This pride is entirely unjustified, because the true doer is God, not we. True worship consists in cultivating the conviction that God is the true doer, not I. Pleasure and displeasure both vanish when the conviction that God is the doer gets indelibly inscribed on the mind. Such a mind possesses an unmistakable grandeur of contentment, and this, indeed, is the mark of saintliness. It is the attainment of this peaceful, undisturbable contentment that all sadhana aims at. Nama-smarana should be practised with the conviction that all doership rests with God. * * * * *

Sri Brahmachaithanya Pravchan-Aug.1.

Discovering True Bliss

Before this multifarious creation came into being, there existed a single entity, with nothing to disturb its peace and bliss. We, as part of the creation, naturally hanker to recapture that peace and bliss. But we also delight in doing something; we find inaction intolerable. Now and then, we feel beset with the travails, reverses, and disappointments of worldly life, and feel like retiring into solitude and peace, but these are only temporary fits. Blessed indeed is the person who disentangles himself from the multifarious vexations and upsets of worldly life and achieves unruffled peace of mind. The rest of us fail because we are reluctant to do what is required. We must cultivate a frame of mind which refuses to be upset at reverses; in other words, a mind devoid of desire of any kind. The thought that I do or do not desire should become foreign to our mind. So long as we entertain desire of any kind, we may be sure we are far from mental peace and bliss. Ambition one may entertain, but without staking mental peace. We should accept the outcome cheerfully, gracefully, as the verdict of God, acting without pride of self and doership; for, only that attitude can give peace to our mind. Ruminating on past deeds and happenings, whether pleasing or otherwise, and worrying about the future, both disturb peace of mind. This is evidently unnecessary if we once and for all accept everything as happening by divine will. To grieve and not to grieve both depend on the reaction of the mind; if the mind is properly trained, it can be peaceful, unmoved, even when the body is undergoing pain. In old age, in particular, a cheerful heart is beneficial even more than drugs for maintaining health. One who loves nama can be in peace and happy in any condition of the body; and one who enjoys this happiness can rest assured that Rama has taken him under His grace. There can be only one thing that we can truly bestow on the Lord, and that is our ‘self’. To chant nama incessantly and be utterly unaware of one’s ‘self’ and physical existence is true dedication to Him. The prapancha that I can truly call ‘mine’ is one that brings me true happiness. If my happiness rests on others it is only an illusion; for my agony and pain they cannot take over. Remembering nama alone stands me in good stead. * * * * *