Sunday, July 21, 2019

From ‘The Saint of Gondawali. The Life and Sayings of Shri Brahmachaitanya’ by K V Belsare



Reality is Ananda. Ananda is the experience of supreme harmony. It corresponds with the highest degree of integration of self. It produces equanimity and brings profound peace…..Divine experience cannot be communicated in the form of neat logical propositions. It is conveyed through symbols, myths and parables. Shankaracharya calls it Samyak Jnana, i.e. Perfect Knowledge. Spinoza calls it Scientia Intuitiva i.e. Intuitive Knowledge.

Introversion means a turning of the mind inwards……involves a gathering together of the senses from the world of sensory objects. Manana or meditation and Manas Puja or Inward worship are a great help in introversion. However, it needs an untiring and strong effort of the will. Many seekers fail in this first step of contemplative life……the state of vacancy or stillness in the mind. It is the consequence of success in introversion. ……..The self……can withdraw herself completely from the noise of the flesh for some time………The self has to move out of the ease and quiet of the second stage…..She has ….to become afire with a longing to see God……..She must open herself through complete surrender and wait silently for an influx of divine love. This period of suspense is hard to bear and so it is called the Dark Night of the soul. …….When the longing for God becomes consuming enough, there is the moment of total surrender…..When the contemplation comes to stay, the mystic becomes one with God for all time. He becomes a free person in every sense. He is a Jivanmukta. …..It is the state of Moksha or Liberation. Such a man lives in an inward poise and remains undisturbed among the ups and downs of life……Such a man who enjoys Freedom and Beatitude is called a saint.

The Master answered, “Desire is the cause of birth. Desire again becomes the cause of death. When a child is born, it comes to satisfy some desire. The common man does not know who comes to him as a son or a daughter. The saints know it. Sometimes it happens that some spiritually advanced souls fall a prey to some petty desire. This desire dominates at the time of death during the previous birth. Then it forces them to be born again preferably in the family of a seeker or a saint. They satisfy the desire and soon depart from this world. That is why many gifted children die young.”

The common man is conscious of the words he speaks. He becomes the knower who knows the object which is the known. But there is a state of super-consciousness in which the knower becomes one with the known and knows it by identity. The man who attains that state is called a Rishi or a seer. The Rishis are…. So deeply united with God that sacred hymns flow out of them. They honestly and truly believe that God composes the hymn and they become merely the channel for its expression. In this sense the Vedas and the Upanishads are called Shruti, i.e. what the Rishis heard from God.

Nanasaheb Peshwa was one of the leaders of the Indian Revolution of 1857. The Master had met him before. After the British viceroy, the Indian leaders sought refuge in various unknown quarters. Nanasaheb became a Bairagi and entered the Nepal territory. The Master advised him to stay in the dense forests called Nimisha Aranya at the foot of the Himalayas……..The Master convinced him of the great changes which had come about in the political situation in the country and pointed out that the political role of kings was receding in the background. He initiated the ex-King into the mysteries of the Divine Name and …..promised him to be by his side in his last moments. …………Nanasaheb had an attack of influenza. His lungs were badly affected. …….Nanasaheb breathed his last in the Master’s arms.

“….Of all the animals, the cow is the only one which possesses human emotions.”


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