About new life and a living portrait of simplicity with depth, humility with courage and wisdom with devotion.

The two-year Vedanta course at Sandeepany Sadhanalaya in Mumbai demands
rigorous personal discipline, deep devotion and intense scriptural study
Chinmaya Mission’s training program is
no ordinary course of study. It is a 24/7
commitment of body, mind and soul to an
immersive spiritual adventure. A recent
graduate, Vivek, recounts his
extraordinary experience.
Challenges and Fulfillment
When I lived in a university residence, I often
heard students complain about how difficult
it is to live in close quarters with others.
I also heard some of my married friends
whine endlessly about living with their
spouse. Both these situations are trying, but
there is always a chance to escape—which
is what we always do. We try to run away
from our mind via entertainment, relationships,
even work.
Living in Sandeepany was a thousand
times more challenging. All that I had ever
depended on was taken away: cell phone,
television, restaurants, friends—I was only
left with my mind. I was forced to live with
the minimum; and if I could not handle this,
I suffered. There was no escape from this
suffering but to face it and transcend it.
Classmate Vimal had a similar experience:
“Only after studying at Sandeepany
did I realize that happiness is independent
of outer circumstances; that it resides in
my own heart. One is forced to spend time
in solitude, in ruminating, in silent searching,
in discovering, in fighting the uprising of
negative tendencies within.” For some, the
experience was too much. Of the 60 of us
who began, ten left before completion for a
variety of reasons, including being dismissed

Those who are constant doubters can enjoy neither here nor there. Such men are psychologically incapable of enjoying any situation, because the doubting tendency in them will poison all their experiences. He whose teeth have become septic must constantly poison the food that he is taking; so too those who have this tendency of doubting everything, will never be able to accommodate themselves to any situation, how perfect and just it might be.
In the Bhagavad Geeta Lord Krishna condemns such men of endless doubts, and points out their tragedy in life. The Lord says that such men who “doubt the Self” will not find any joy or happiness anywhere—”neither here nor in the hereafter.”
When through the practice of Karma yoga, we have learnt to renounce our attachments to the fruits-of-action, and yet to work on in perfect detachment—when every doubt in us regarding the Goal-of-life has been completely removed in our own inner experience of the nobler and the diviner in us—as a result of the above two, the ego comes to rediscover itself to be nothing other, than the Atman. Then the individual ego comes to live “poised in the Self as the Self”. When such an individual works, his actions can never bind him.
This being the wondrous result and the supreme profit that-‘true knowledge’ can give to the deluded, Krishna advises Arjuna to cut with the sword of knowledge the bonds of ignorance and “cleave asunder this doubt-of-the-Self lying in the heart.”

Doubts are but the shadows of your own mind’s dancings. Quieten the mind through prayer and realize that which is beyond all doubts.

Chinmaya Vibhooti, the most beautiful place,
Overflowing with Gurudev’s Grace,

Shri Hanumanji’s ‘Ever Ready’ stance,
N’ the tranquil surroundings put me in a trance.

Guruji’s teachings and Beauteous smile,
Make me forget the world for a while.

Swamis and Brahmacharis from far n’ wide,
Gently explain to us and Guide.

Devotees and volunteers milling around
‘Hari Om, Hari Om’ is the recurring sound.

Chyks and children scurrying around
Enjoying the ‘Pawan vahan’ ride they are found.

Satsang, Puja and aarti singing,
Awaken me to a new understanding.

Violins, cellos and bagpipes are playing
“We Love Gurudev” is what they are saying.

Each and every ‘Surya CHYK’
Taught us so much with their ‘Time Travel’ trick.

Culture and Tradition, music n’ dance
Offering their talent, What a Golden Chance!!

Gliding into the ‘Jeevan Darshan Center’
1916 is where we enter.

Enlightening us about what we never knew,
Bringing back Gurudev’s memories anew.
For a week we had left the race,
Going back with a clear mind and smiling face.

To My Chinmaya Home I will always return,
To give my mind the much needed churn.

Let us go back to light the Knowledge Lamp,
With what we have learnt at the family Camp.

Hari Om!!

Time moves on. That which was the future becomes the present, and itself rolls away to join the endless ocean of the past. Time never stops, under no conditions, for no person! It is ever on the march! Man, gather¬ing memories from his own ‘past’ barricades his ‘present’, sets them ablaze with his excitements in his day to day life, and the rising fumes of his bosom blurs his vision to make his fife rugged with his anxieties for the future F As we thus waste ourselves with our endless maneuvers, in the irresistible stride of time, all our hopes and plans get defeated and routed.
The young courageous heart of the spiritual child Nachiketa realizes this ridiculous tamasha, when he consoles his old father Vachasravas, by reminding him that “things born must die and perish away only to be born again”—nothing is permanent.
Later the same spiritual hero talking face to face with his teacher; Lord Death, at Death’s own portico, with utter disdain rejected the gifts that Yama offered him, and there again we hear the same truth expressed in the vigorous words of the child “even the longest life that you can give is but a trifle; may you keep to yourself the dance and the music.”
The day decays to end itself in the night. The night dies only to blossom forth into the following day. The dawn grows in vigor and heat to be the noon, but soon waves away to the mellow dusk. On the wheel of happenings, the months steadily glide along and in its soft-footed silent march; the irresistible floods of time roll up in waves of years, sweeping everything in front of its relent¬less might. Hushed in the silence of its own wonderment, the Age slips unperceived into its slushy grave.
Life is at Time’s mercy…………In not recognizing this, man desires to enjoy the sense-objects, strives, sweats and toils endlessly to acquire, to possess and to aggran¬dize – to hope, to spend………..And death snatches away everything from him…………….He is compelled to leave everything here – and with painful bundles of Vasanas, acquired in his desire-ridden selfish fife, the miserable creature departs. How sad! Indeed, how tragic!
The objects glitter with an illusory beauty and sing their dissipation-songs only because they are rendered so enchanting by our own mind—just as the objects of flaming joys in our dreams! This dazzling glow of joy in them conceals the Highest Reality. “A golden disc covers the brilliant face of Truth”, declares Isavasya Upanishad, and therefore the Upanishad student therein could not realize what the teacher declared. Everything that is here present is clothed by Isa. Sensuous passions alone make a man blind to his own true state of perfection.
Desire for the fleeting, delusory, golden-deer is for the time being, seemingly more powerful for Sita than her infinite love for Rama, her Divine Beloved. This is delusion at play—Maya with a vengeance.
Life steadily ebbs away, but desire fed by the sense gratifications only grows the more by them. Body decays and becomes infirm. It has grown to have no more strength to enjoy, but the man hungers all the more for sense enjoyment. Death crawls behind. Disease and decay accompany him. Piloted by worries and anxieties, this mournful procession reaches the edge of the grave still man wants the joys of the pain-ridden objects.

Be wise. Seek the all satisfying Reality that lies behind the mental show of change and sorrow. The infinite alone will satisfy you. Seek it with a mind withdrawn from the fever of all passions.

So long as we are looking at this world from our old levels of ego and ego-centric ideas of the physical, mental and intellectual personal/ties alone, we shall fail to see the world co-operating with us. If only we can lift up to new amplitude of consciousness in ourselves, then alone we become mightier and stronger. When we are mightier and stronger the present problems of the world will no more be problems to us.
The Early religion.
Religion has been with mankind from the very beginning. When man was all alone there might not have been any religion. But the moment man started living as a commu¬nity, as a tribe, as a group, from those days onwards we find that “a religion” was pursued by man. No doubt the religion was developing. As man developed, the religion also seems to have developed from time imme¬morial. And when we watch on the procession of progress of mankind, we also can observe that in those societies, or communities, religion has also been evol¬ving. So a time has come when we can say almost with confidence that the texture and quality and depth of religion indicated the development of the community, its civilization and its culture. Thus the crude men in the early historical periods, when they lived in utter igno¬rance, their religion was mainly a fear-complex arising out of sheer fear of nature. In order to pacify nature, man had to surrender and offer his offerings to the Lord. During this early stage Religion was so crude because men were also crude.
As man evolved more and more intellectually he started understanding more and more the nature and the play of life around him. He started to recognize that in spite of the abominable ugliness of the world around, there is an under-current of beauty and melody and a serene composure joyously gurgling. The more he recognized the harmony in the society the more his religion evolved; and thus, there is a blending between the progress of mankind as well as the progress of religion.

The religion and philosophy must serve mankind.
Those religions that remained without any movement that could not extend themselves, that had not the elasti¬city to accomplish, to accommodate, the new demands and urges in the community, those religions were smash¬ed and mankind progressively moved forward. The march of man cannot be stopped by anything. Philo¬sophy and religion must come to serve mankind and not mankind forced to serve philosophy and religion. Thus, if there be a religion of Truth and a philosophy explaining the Truth, that philosophy must also be a living philosophy ever growing with the development of the community. The growth of the community cannot be stopped. The new extension of the community will absorb the very laws and overgrow these laws. So, a vital, dynamic philosophy must have the elasticity—not so elastic that any foolish idea in the community can be allowed to find its way into scriptures. A philosophy or religion must be elastic enough to embrace the new urges in the community or society and that philosophy is alive which can thus embrace its new urges from within.
The great religions of old such as the Egyptian religion or the Greek religion or even the Roman religion, could not stand this onslaught of the new impulses from within, and therefore they were all stampeded by the march of man. Those religions have become now mere museum specimens or archeological discoveries.

The great Banyan tree.

Our religion, the Hindu Religion, in this country has got various branches. The Jains, the Buddhists, the Sikhs etc., these are the various branches of the one mighty tree called the Hinduism. These branches have got, no doubt, adventitious roots themselves just as a Vatavriksha or banyan tree. The banyan tree has got so many branches. In order to support each branch new roots have emanated and these adventitious roots strike the earth and there afterwards serve the mother plant with its own absorption of food. At the same time the branch is well supported by its independent roots. But if the branches were to be cut off, no doubt it is true that the branch can grow on independently but the branch is not healthy enough as the mother plant standing by itself. Similarly the other religions are the various aspects of this one religion—the various branches of one mighty tree based upon the Upanishads, or the Hindu Scriptures.
Unlike other religions, in Hinduism the great philosophy of the Upanishads, need not be extended by a vote or by democratic method because the philosophy itself is declaring the fundamental Reality, which is the bulwark on which we are standing and functioning at this moment in the society. Unlike other religions, in Hinduism the great philosophy of the Upanishads, need not be extended by a vote or by democratic method because the philosophy itself is declaring the fundamental Reality, which is the bulwark on which we are standing and functioning at this moment in the society.

The Amendments and emphasis.

Whatever is the extension that you might conceive of and feel within yourself, all those things are already embraced in the thought process of these great scriptures. The Hindu Religion has stood the test of time without amendments from time to time. In fact, to an extent we can say, these amendments and emphasis which came have become different religions. The Sidhartha had to become Gautama Buddha to show a certain emphasis of a value as non-violence which was seemingly lost sight of by the society. Therefore he insisted upon it and Buddhism came into existence, which is nothing but the ideas that were already in Hinduism. But the society at that time needed this emphasis for the right guidance and thus Buddha came into the forefront and emphasized one aspect of our culture which we seem to have forgotten for the time being. In all other religions we find that it is nothing but an over-emphasis of one or the other aspect which the society in its clamorous forward movement seems to have overlooked and forgotten and had become habi¬tuated not to recognize these values. To re-establish those values such mighty masters came and emphasized those ideas.

Lord Krishna—the great revolutionary.
Every day we have to meet the various challenges in society and while we are meeting the challenges in the society, the society is ever growing; therefore, the pattern of challenges is changing from time to time. That religion is alive only which can serve man actually in his every-day life, serve him in his office, or his commer¬cial centers, in his workshop, in his factory or on the road-side, or in his home—wherever he is functioning, the ideas must extend themselves to help him in his inner tranquility and happiness.
The Mahabharata culture or civilization came to this country and it came into such a chaos of too much of materialism. A time came when the old society in the country was in the throes of a great civil war. In the wake of the great civil war, the great student of Vedas started feeling “how am I to kill my own relatives and neighbors. How am I to fight this great battle of love with political war or civil war? This war is a great crime indeed, and what is my duty at this moment.” Thus an individual started thinking. There we find when the great revolutionary of that time, Lord Krishna, comes and advises what exactly is his duty and how those duties are also implied in the various Upanishads. This exten¬sion is only an application of the .spirit of dedicated activity in the world outside. How we can act on in the spirit of Yajna is being indicated in the Geeta which is an extension of the Upanishads demanded by the neces¬sity of the society at that time.
The culture of a country.
The culture of a country has always been serving as a hand-maiden to man to meet his own challenges in the society. It is only for the last 200 years religion did not apply itself in our life and therefore here we are an ugly caricature of a community which has got the name of spiritual culture but we find in our actual life we have not got any flavor of religion. We have started feeling that mere physical religion, physical activity, and material production will bring about prosperity in the country. In spite of all our activities there is nothing but disastrous sorrows and pains, and penury everywhere, only because the man or the inner man is not tuned up at all.
Modern man demands a religion.
The old type of religion with ritualisms, the temple, the church, and the mosque seem to be losing its hold on mankind. The religion that suited the man of last centuries is no more suiting him in the present context of things. He is demanding a religion that would equip him to face his vast and fantastic problems.

The cleavage of personality.
Science has brought progress and wealth in the society, science has shrunk the world into a smaller one, science has made you conquer space and time. You are the chil¬dren of the Scientific Age. When you are physically the children of an evolved age—the age of science, mentally and intellectually certain readjustments are necessary. Without which if you try to live in the world, it will be too dangerous indeed. This pang or the cleavage of per¬sonality is because physically in the world outside we are the children of science but mentally and intellectually we are still living the material ideology of each one wanting his own security only, and not extending himself to come to claim and live as a citizen of the world. To that extent there is this pang, this discordant note thrown into the melodious song of progress.
The felt need of the present generation – the religion of Vedanta
In order to be a real citizen of modern world the people must develop or grow into a new stature, altogether a new consciousness or awareness. Politics might give us a political awareness. Economics cannot help us because economics can give us only some more wealth and conveniences in the society. Science can give us a little more. Perhaps it may give us a chance to go and habitat in the moon and Mars but even when we go and live in Mars it is self-evident that we carry our own problems there also. What else can there be? So that the scientist, the politician and the economist them¬selves cannot help us in this particular way or particular aspect of the growth of man.
True Religion perhaps can help Mankind.
When we say that modern youth and the modern college student has no faith at all, we are only insulting him, misnaming him because the fact is not that he has no religion but the religion that is available at this moment is not capable of catering to his demands or his problems at all. His problem is much deeper. His is not a problem of security because he is born in the age where he knows life is nothing—it may go off at any time. So he has not placed any great value on life. All that he wants is only to live dynamically. The threatening condi¬tion of a danger, and a feeling of a total annihilation of the world—it is under that cloud the poor younger boy has grown up and as he grows up he finds no consola¬tion, no strength in himself to face this great challenge of this new age. At that time the old religion comes with ringing the bell or throwing of the flowers and offering of sweets. He thinks “why should I offer to these silent Gods.” He has no more any understanding of it because it is not bringing him anything. The poor boy is demanding a new religion which would give him the new fire and enthusiasm, make him greater than what he has created for himself—out of his own intellect.
The Philosophy
The religion of Vedanta can alone satisfy the modern man. We can teach him that in him alone is the Master of the mighty, the centre-most Reality. That Reality can¬not be; that divine God cannot be somewhere yonder there because it is from that Reality the whole universe has emerged out. From a cause when the effects emerge the cause must necessarily be inherent and con¬current in the effects. The great Omnipotent Omniscient Reality in ourselves is the Atman—the Self—the Pure Spirit. The spirit in me functioning through the matter vestures is the expression of the individual that I am bringing out into the society, and it is my intellectual eminence with which in the modern scientific age we are able to extend our knowledge so much, for all is the ex¬pression of the Truth, or the Infinite functioning through our own well developed intellect. Man should discover in himself the essential knowledge that “I am nothing but the Spirit and as the Spirit I am the universal entity and not an individualized person identifying with and limited by my body or my mind or my intellect,” This capacity to de-condition himself and experience his nature of pure divinity, if he is given, then alone he can ever be converted to religion. All the rest is only a political or economic programme. The conversions that are going on, the ringing of the bell, the chanting that are going on are all at best, to the modern man only an external expression, an external symbol which does not go deep into him, it does not touch him. But in case the modern man can be explained in terms of his own modern science, the nuclear science of the outer world and the modern well-developed or developing science of psycho¬logy, if he is taught that the psychological and emotional entity in him is the expression of something deeper, something vaster, and something higher than all—supra mental, beyond the mind there is a mighty source in each one of us ; to realize which and to experi¬ence that dimension in ourselves, that path would be the modern religion fit for the modern man. All barriers should be removed. There should be oneness in our life and in our endeavor. And this oneness in our life and endeavor can be only apprehended and appreciated and can contribute to it, only when we rise into a new dignity in ourselves. So long as we are looking at this world from our old levels of ego and ego-centric idea of the physical, mental and intellectual personality alone, we shall fail to see the world co-operating with us, If only we can lift up to a new amplitude of consciousness in ourselves, than alone we can become mightier and stronger. When we are mightier and stronger the problems of the world are no more a problem to us.

Bharat—the fountain source of culture and true religion.
The secret or the source or remedy lies with us only, and it is here, in our country. It has been dead for some centuries now because of lack of correct usage. But our religion is even now living.
See the words of the Pope:
“So much of religious and spiritual fervor I have never seen in any part of the world and it seems that every¬body in India is a spiritual child”—this is not a mere exaggeration. It is a fact which would have been felt by any mystic who practices in himself spirituality. Had the Pope felt that there is no religion in this country, it would have been only an explanation of a lack of spirituality in himself.
India has always been the Guru of the world. The time has come. Our generation has been called upon now to lead and guide -the world not in killing, not in destroying, not in warfare but in learning and understanding how to face the problems of the outer world. For that the study of the scriptures is absolutely necessary and we must also learn to practice it in our everyday life.

God alone does nothing. He is Akarta, Abhokta. Man must strive to improve the world. Man alone, also, would not be able to do anything. He needs the blessings of things which are called God—the blessings of nature.
Even though spirituality and religion should not be organized they can be unfolded; spiritual vitality can be unfolded within-the bosom of man, only in perfect liberty and freedom. The world today has moved to a situation wherein nothing can be done without organization. Even to bless the society, to spread values of life, organization has become very important and necessary. The Hindu tradition is not in organization. In Vedic days, such organizations were not there. So, if you look for sanction for organized religion, the sanction of the Vedic books, you will find none. But as the number of people in society increased, when the problems of the community became multiplied, religion could no longer sustain the needs or answer the needs of the community.
And thus, the Puranic days came when religion first started conforming itself in an organization, centered in the various temples in India. But even at that time, there were only a minimum number of them, Badrinath, Banaras, Rameshwaram and Dwaraka. Soon, five hundred years before Christ, organization became more urgently needed and the first Hindu who brought an organization in reli¬gion was Lord Buddha. Buddha had to organize his team of workers, uniformed as Bikhshus, through centers called Buddha Vihars. Within another six or seven hundred years, Buddhism flourished and decayed and became very decadent. And thus, the Indian spiri¬tual atmosphere became very chaotic. Hinduism also decayed, Buddhism also decayed. Spiritual values deca¬yed. It was at that time that Adi Shankara appeared on the horizon and brought about a certain amount of swift organization into Hinduism. More and more temples were made. Temples became prominent in society and these temples became community inspiration centers, from where spiritual ideas and thoughts were spread out into the community. Even these temples slowly in time could no longer inspire the members of the community and they also reached a point of decadence.
Again, in the 19th Century, Vivekananda tried to organize, and a Ramakrishna Mission came into being. Such Missions are organizations for the purpose of deve¬loping, perpetuating and spreading spiritual values and religious ideologies, moral ideals and ethical values. There are Christian Missions, Islamic Missions, Buddhist Missions, Hindu Missions, and World Missions, We view them as organizations, wherein inspired people come together to work and serve in the society for the spread of the spiritual values and improve the tempo of life, the moral quality of the community. After Rama¬krishna and Vivekananda’s time, the great acharyas, whenever they appeared, got a number of followers who organized themselves for the purpose of their own self-development. Many missions came about. Each acharya was, in his lifetime, able to inspire a large num¬ber of people to organize themselves so that they were more effective in their work. These Missions have been created as a result of a lot of human effort, a lot of since¬rity behind it, a lot of social sacrifices in creating edifices, temples, schools, hospitals, colleges, but after all that, as soon as the master goes away, the Mission collapses be¬cause our loyalty is to the personalities, individuals and not to the ideal. We are not inspired by the philosophy. We do not have the vision, but the mission’s membership only. We are not inspired by the ideal that our teachers stood for. We have to change that attitude. Otherwise, we will never be able to organize ourselves for the development of our society. Missions can succeed if there is proper vision. Again, there are instances where a mission holds on to the old vision and is not prepared to change with the time and adapt the vision to the changed requirements of modern times. If that elasticity is not there in the vision, again that mission becomes redundant. It is not that the vision was wrong, but societies are constantly changing and if the mission and its vision are not elastic enough to accommodate new demands of the community, the mis¬sion again fails. This is not the quality of Hinduism. Hinduism has been constantly changing. Whenever there was a need in the society, it had embraced society’s new dimensions. When cultural revolutions lose this elasticity, religion becomes a dead carcass and such religions are dropped from society. The Romans, the Greeks, the Egyptians—these cultures, all these religions had their own spiritual values. Their pattern of spiritual values was not wrong. They had served the societies in those periods of history, but when new throbs came, the old ideas could not change. They became inelastic and unyielding and therefore these cultures were dropped out.
Our culture has this living vivacity to answer the new throbs of society. Hinduism has been constantly chang¬ing according to the needs of the society. The vision of the Rishis always kept expanding and reflected the needs of the people; therefore, they were able to accom¬modate and reorganize to suit new throbs, and ambitions and inspirations of the community. During the Vedic period, there was a culture. A time came, when the Vedic society changed. Population increased and power poli¬tics brought new customs and rituals during the Puranic age. Even that had changed during the Buddhist time. By Adi Shankara’s time, it made new dimensions. By Ramakrishna’s time it changed further. Again, in Mahavira’s time it changed. The fundamental remaining the same, its application changed from time to time, according to the needs of the community. Then in the 19th century, Swami Vivekananda came and according to the needs of the society, the great master, in his splendid wisdom, decided to go to America and preach Hinduism to Hindus from America. Let us not forget that Vivekananda did not go to teach Americans; he went to America to talk Hinduism for the Hindus, because, Hindus here, the intelligentsias were looking to the west. Because everybody was looking towards the west, the master decided, “I will go to the west and preach Vedanta from there.” That was neces¬sary as India was under foreign rule for a long period of time. I am telling you the historicity of the development to point out that there is a throbbing liveliness in our Indian culture and that is the simple reason why Hinduism has lived so long in spite of the tremendous cataclysm of history that has passed through it. In spite of political break up, economic strife, in spite of underdevelopment and all that, the culture of India has not yet gone. In spite of secularism, in spite of saying that there is no religion, in spite of everything, corruption, immorality and characterless-ness, individually even today, the Hindu culture has not gone. Under these circumstances, if today’s Masters want to sustain the work in the commu¬nity, and when a large number of people are following them, what else can they do but to start missions? But we, as members of it, can serve our Master only when our vision is clear. You must remember the principles that are being inculcated by the Master. You should keep the vision in your heart. Only then, the mission can serve the society. A mission without a vision is a sheer waste of time and human energy. We must develop an attitude that we must serve our fellow men, through schools, hospitals or dispensaries or any other organized institutions and social welfare centers. So long as this vision is not clear, the mission loses its effectiveness in the community.

The world around is not organized by you or me. The circumstances that you and I find are not ordered by us. It is contributed by various factors. We have to adjust ourselves in such a way that we are efficient and capable to meet these challenges. We have only the freedom to tune ourselves in the world around. This tuning and adjusting and conditioning are not possible and easy unless there is complete integration within ourselves. Thus we develop a faith in a higher reality, God, and there¬after the ideal, the goal, becomes more and more clear. This ideal, the picture of the ideal is a concept of God for a devotee; supreme love, supreme kindness, supreme mercy, beauty of beauty, strength of strength. When this concept of the ideal is maintained in our mind, we are able to understand how far we are going away, deflecting from that ideal in our physical behavior, in our emotional feelings or in our intellectual judgment. When I compromise with the ideal, I act immorally, but when the mind returns, my own intellect questions my mind, “Fool, why did you do it?” My mind has no answer to this pang of self-accusation, my own wisdom I have insulted. This angle of vision is called the conscience prick so, to live in devotion to an ideal, this self-discipline in yourself, is the true backbone of all reli¬gions. Whoever does it, he is the true member of any mission. A mission can sustain itself and endure and serve the society only when the members are tenderly holding on to that vision. This idea has completely gone out of the society, not only in Hinduism, but in all reli¬gions of the world. To that extent, reverence among the youngsters has also been lost. They think it is only another organization with vested interests.

Learn to keep a vision. Learn to have an ideal. Discover it in yourself. Nobody else can give it to you.

True heroism is in living uncompromisingly to your ideal. The world may threaten you. The community will not easily leave you free. But he is the hero who defiantly stands, firmly rooted in his own conviction. It is that one, even a single individual who inspires the entire popula¬tion that is the true hero and inspires the entire genera¬tion and generations hereafter. This uncompromising heroism of living up to the ideal is the very core of our Avatars. Whether it is Krishna or Rama, what is that we glorify in them. They had heroism in their life. Otherwise they were like other human beings. We worship them; we revere them because they had heroism to live up to their ideal. Living up to their ideals was not easy. In our own times, two thousand years ago, the Jesus who tried to live his life was put on the Cross. Mahatma Gandhi was killed with bullets. But what does it matter? One day everyone has to die. You have not taken a contract that you will die in a hospital bed, surrounded by wife and children. Once you have found the joy and glory why not die living up to your ideal? That consciousness can arise in you when the vision is clear. He who has got a vision, he rises to the highest. That vision is not in paper, it is not written in a constitution. It must be enshrined in the hearts and minds of everyone. And where there is a vision, if even a single member has deve¬loped and cultivated this courage, this heroism to live up to the vision, that mission cannot die. It is such a mission that can serve the society, the community and the world at large.

Philosophy misunderstood can easily end in the suicide of the community. The literal translation of our texts has made the majority of Hindus incompetent idlers and our religion has been criticized as glorifying idleness as a divine ideal. A Perfect Man is one who has lifted himself from the world of his mind—intellect and has awakened to his inner Spiritual Nature. As such the ordinary experiences of joy and sorrow, of pleasure and pain, which generally give the restlessness of life do not affect him. A Man of Perfection is one whose beloved object, the Self can never be apart from him. And he has no sense of attachment with any other object. Having attained the Self, the inhabitant of his heart, he has such a complete sense of fulfillment that he has no desire for attaining anything. The Self being the All, he has at once attained everything.
If we consider only the literal meaning, we will think that such a Perfect-Man is a dead corpse: “neither rejoic¬es, nor hates, nor desires, renouncing good and evil” — he lies dead 1 This is a very striking example of how the literal meanings are not at all what is to be understood in scriptural declarations. “A man who is the same in heat and cold” — ‘”heat and cold” are only the experiences of the body. And this idiom in Sanskrit, wherever it is used, in the context of philosophy, represents all types of experiences to which the physical equipment is heir. “Whose love is the same for enemies and friends”; — the estimation of our relationship with another as foe or friend is generally our own psychological reaction towards another, it belongs essentially to the heart. A Man of Perfection is one who does not identify himself with his mental or emotional estimation of things. Also to one who has won over joy and grief, and who has gained a certain amount of detachment from external objects, desire for obtaining the pleasant or the unpleasant is no emotion at all. Where there is no desire, hatred is an unknown, alien factor there; and neither is there anger against any obstacle that comes between a person and the object of his desire. A situation is judged at the intellectual level as “honorable or dishonorable” with reference to the intellects own existing values and cultivated habits of thinking. Not that the Perfect Man is immune to insults nor is it because he is not intelligent enough to understand them. It is because to a great devotee, the worldly censure or even praise ha”; no significance or importance at all. He realizes that one who is praised today will be censured by society tomorrow Praise and censure are nothing more than the passing fancy of those who express them!
The above three terms comprehend the entire possi¬bility of experiences in life: physical, mental and intellec¬tual. In all of them, a true devotee is unagitated because “he is free from attachment” to the equipments of the body, mind and intellect. It becomes very difficult to believe that a man in such a condition would feet any happiness at all—as all instruments of happiness have been rejected by him. Again it is against the very logic and rhythm of life to say that man will be satisfied by a mere emptiness, a dark cave of total negation. Every living creature roams about in all its available fields of activity seeking to gain and achieve a greater fulfillment of joy. Even the state of “complete absence of pain” — though it is a platform; of relief—is not the summit where an individual will feel contented and fully satisfied. To avoid such a serious misunderstanding among the students, the Lord has pointed out in the Geeta, the positive glow of assured Divinity when the ego rediscovers itself to be the Self as it renounces all its delusory pre¬occupations with the false and the’ fleeting. The subs¬tantial and definite experience of the solid bliss enjoyed and lived by the Self, in the Self, and as the Self has been indicated.
The seeker, in his detachment, not only withdraws himself from the world of objects outside, but also discovers in himself an ampler sense of bliss and security. His inward joy is not a rare flickering flash, but a constantly experienced factor. To him the entire within is flooded with the light of Pure Consciousness. His heart is thereafter alit with the Glow Divine.
Such an individual—who has withdrawn himself completely within, where he has learnt to enter at will and court and live in It, is the one who has come to know Brahman. In his realization of the Infinite he has come to experience the Bliss of Brahman, the smokeless Shrine of Truth.
Having thus rediscovered the Self, having thus gained the goal of all evolution, what would be the duties of such an individual in his existence, till finally, with a cheerful farewell, he drops his mortal coil down to merge himself with what he knows to be his own Self ? The general impression is that he will move about in the world like a mad, walking, stone-statue—that eats at least once a day, a threat to society, a moving bundle of contagion and a screaming pillar of despondency and despair. Such a living death is not the goal indicated in the Vedas, nor did the Hindu Rishis ever try to carve out of a man, a walking corpse!
Self-realization is not a melancholy parade, crawling to a pre-destined tomb, but it is a joyous ride to the Palace of Truth, from which man has wandered away in his own ignorance and confusion. A true prophet is one who lives, consumed in an ever reviving fire of love. He ceaselessly strives to bring out the Self from the non-Self that is veiling it, in all other forms around and about him. This is indicated by the term “engaged in the good of all beings” in chapter V, stanza 25 of the Bhagavad Geeta. Thus lokaseva becomes his recreation, his self-appointed engagement. His body, mind and intellect are offered as oblations into the sacred fires of activity and while remaining at rest within himself, the Saint lives on, in an unbroken Consciousness of the Divine, the Eternal.

Let us analyze a single desire and observe what exactly happens within us. “If only I have a son” is the beginn¬ing of an entire unending chain of life-long, self-tortures. The man wishing for a son feels that all the available circumstances in his life do not serve his conception of the ‘full’ or ‘complete’ joy, and do not, therefore, give him that ‘texture’ of joy or peace which is his demand of life. His solution slowly gets crystallized in his vague ‘desire’ that “My son would complete my joy more fully.” His desire thus is an unconscious effort on his part to have a fuller expression of himself.
The desire for a son at its very birth is but a localized disturbance in the mental lake. But, a million ringlets of concentric disturbances follow and the widening ripples of thought come to crash upon the vast banks! The ‘desire’ motivates an endless array of ‘thoughts’; thoughts thus motivated by each ‘desire’ get projected out into the waking-state-world and among its sense objects, they manifest as ‘actions’. Successful ‘actions’ end in their desired fruit—which is but the objectification of the subjective desire.
The desire for a son produces the agitating problem whether to marry or not, and if the decision is in the positive, the questions whom and where crop up. As though by magic, at each leisure moment a million castles-in-the-air spring up to paint in the void the would-be-life together as man and wife in circumstances having such and such description, beauty —comforts—conveniences etc. etc. The thoughts feed the ‘desire’. The ‘desire’ vitalizes each flimsy dream. In a short time the consequent chaos creates a hell, a roaring inferno within.
And all these arise but from one desire! And, the unintelligent average worldly man raises his brows to exclaim: Swamiji, after all, is it not a common, respect¬able, natural desire to have a son. The Swamiji can only smile. If the exclaimer be a man of true intellectual qualities the sage gives a pregnant discourse on life. But who has the patience to listen for long and that too, to the strange words of a mere ill-clad, half-fed way-side Mahatma?
The individual, tortured by his own ‘thoughts’, cannot contain long within. His own ‘thoughts’, as they gain vitality from his ‘desire’, soon make him their slave. When these ‘thoughts’ find their expression, there happens the seeking, the meeting, the talk, the transac¬tion, the procession and the wedding! Mentally strained and physically exhausted, the fellow and his tame frigh¬tened bride hurry through the usual lusty processes to breed I The desire for a son, which caused the inner whirl-wind, dragging him through a distance of sweat and blood, at last condemns him to the thorny fields of fatherhood. “Ah! My son! He has arrived! My sweet son! My great son! Hurrah!”

All joy, but alas, only for a fleeting moment! The joy is immediately followed by his constant run for the milk-powder and feeding-bottle, the doctor, the tailor, the nurse and the chemist! Soon the unhappy individual is shuttled between the toy-shops and home, the school and theatre, the book-shops, the job givers etc. Every day that very thing-of-joy, the “My son”, provides for the father a hundred hopes, tremblings, plans, failures, dis¬appointments and sorrows.
“But at least in that sacred moment, when he cried out ‘My son’ don’t you think, dear Swamiji, he had a taste of real joy?” If you are tempted to ask thus, you are perfectly right. Hence it is that we, in the very beginn¬ing, admitted that the sense objects have a “false ‘glitter’ of joy”.
“If there be any joy-content at all in the sense-objects, why not we arrest the moment of our experiencing it and prolong it to any desired length of time”, ask some aspirants. Let us patiently continue our enquiry, and probably, we may come to discover the very secret of permanent joy.
So far we have observed how the desire for a son caused a storm of thoughts, how they manifested in the world outside as ‘actions’ and how the ‘desire for a son’ had objectified, as it were, for the happy father. The father at the birth of his child feels extremely happy. Why? Let us find out what happens exactly within him the moment he knows that his desire for a son has been fulfilled, say, at that moment of the last rending cry of the mother or the first cry of the kid or at that awful moment when, afoot-long tender thing, placed between folds of cloth, is laid in the father’s lap. The inner ripples or agitations suddenly settle down. The thought-distur¬bances, caused on the score of the desire for a son sink down and for a split moment the mental stuff in its liquid limpid, clearness reflects the glory within: “Ah! The joy!” But the next moment it is gone! Why? A thousand other desires regarding the son and its comforts, the mother and her health, the nurse and her conveniences, all come up to disturb the glowy-reflecting medium: the stilled mind.

So then, mind is at once the breeding ground of desire, the dung-heap of contending thoughts and also the glorious castle of perfect joy! When mind is stilled, when it ceases erupting its scorching lava of ‘thoughts’, peace is the subjective experience of the possessor of the thoughtless mind. Peace is joy. This is why, in peaceful dreamless sleep, every living creature feels nothing but joy.

From what we have so far observed it can be inferred that the joy-in-son was not in the son, but in the particu¬lar occurrence within, which the birth of the son occa¬sioned. So then, the source of joy is not in the external world of objects, but is deep within us, and whenever the, mind is at perfect rest, an effulgent flood of the inner bliss pours out its satisfying joy.

The desire for objects creates disturbances, which shatter our real nature of shanti. The struggle’ and the urgency of the individual to get his desire fulfilled repre¬sent the urge of truth to assert itself. The spirit within is asserting to come back to its normal state of fullness. The tension in the bow string is from the consistent pull on the stem-of-the-bow to regain its straight nature. Samsar and its pains are from Truth’s benign pull upon untruth!

When we have thus discovered that ‘desire’ breeds ‘thoughts’ and ‘thoughts’ propel us to ‘actions’, and when the ‘actions’ end in successful fruition, the result is the calming of the thought-storm, which in its turn produces the feeling of joy and peace in the subject, the conclusion becomes self-evident; the solution for all the problems of life now becomes an open secret. Re¬nounce desire: thoughts will end. When the desire-agitations (sankalpa- vikalpa uproar) are hushed up, eter¬nal peace is the experience (anubhava). This experien¬cing of the all-full satisfaction and contentment, which is independent of the external world and the day-to-day circumstances created around the subject by the world of objects and the living conditions — is the perfect, achievable and to-be-achieved goal of life. This is life. This is Ishwar Darshan! Kaivalya! The yogi’s Nirvikalpa Samadhi: The Jnani’s Mukti!

(In continuation of the talk delivered by Swamiji to a student camp organized by the Bhagawan Sri Satya Sai Seva Samithi in New Delhi.)
Once you have brought your Dynamism out, you are free to progress; achieve and gain whatever you like in the field of your choice. On the basis of this funda¬mental understanding, the Rishis contemplated the entire topic under three heads. How to generate this dynamism, how to conserve the dynamism so generated and how to intelligently apply it in a creative field. Dynamism is gen¬erated the moment the individual is sparked off; he is fired up by the vision of a great ideal. Suddenly, the stature of the inner personality grows and nothing can stop that man from achieving great feats of acts, great actions. This inspiration, some are born with like Napo-lean Bonaparte; some discover it in youth and some others in the middle of age like Mahatma Gandhi. There are others who discover a new vision of life even in old age. It does not matter when or how. The moment you discover this,—either you discover or it reveals, a goal, an ideal, an idea which inspires you—then afterwards, you can put any amount of effort m the world. You are unconscious of the quantum you are /putting forth. It is immaterial what age or what healthy conditions you are in. You draw your energy, your enthusiasm, your satis¬faction from the goal or the consciousness that I am moving into nearer the goal or ideal. Having thus disco¬vered or generated dynamism it should not be allowed to dissipate. It always has a tendency to get dissipated. In this intelligent way of living life, when we do not allow our inner inspiration to be dissipated to the sense organs, it is called TAP AS. Tapas means controlling the sense organs and their anxiety to indulge; not as a sacrifice, not as a painful self-restraint, but in the intelli¬gent understanding that the energy that would otherwise be wasted in sense gratification is conserved and then used for creative purposes. I am not talking to all of you. I am hoping that one or two among you is aspiring to top the list in whatever your vocation or your profession is going to be in the future. If you have to reach the top, not only you have to discover and generate dynamism, but also must know how to apply it. So the application of this we shall discuss now.
Your ideal character must be expressed in your actions. Very few of us can express in action that texture and quality and beauty of our own ideas and ideals, the ideas and ideals are in the head. They cap be expres¬sed through the hand only if that goes through the mind. The ideas are communicated to the field of action through our mind. And if that mind is not well trained, disciplined and kept trim, it would bring about dissipa¬tion, and therefore the application of our dynamism will not be forthcoming. It is here that prayers, religious practices, spirituality, sadhana, yoga etc. come into play. Mind is an instrument that interprets, that communicates, and that conveys our wisdom, our knowledge, our enthusi¬asm or dynamism. Channelize it into our physical body and allow it to express into a variety of actions. If the mind is clogged, inefficient and incompetent, it will break all your efficiency, whatever your knowledge may be. You may be proficient. Proficiency means well-equipped in your understanding. But you have no efficiency. The efficiency is the beauty and eloquence of your actions. The success in life is depending on your efficiency and not your proficiency. Arjuna was a proficient warrior. He was a master of the art of war. But, when in the Mahabharata war, he came to the front and saw his kith and kin, he started saying that he could not fight. Something within came up and he began saying. “I am not going to fight.” Proficiency is there but he says “I cannot do this. 0 Krishna! Drive to Rishikesh. I am going to take Sanyasa. I am not going to face this problem because I do not feel I have got the efficiency”. Krishna was surprised. Arjuna was well-known all over the world as a warrior, a man who had given all his lifetime in preparing in the art of war. The man had got all the proficiency, but at this mo¬ment, because of some intellectual rupture felt that there was no efficiency. He would have been an utter failure but for the grace of Krishna and Krishna, knowing this fully well, started talking to him until his mind became alright. And when the man became alright, the same Arjuna in the eighteenth chapter said “Certainly I shall fight. Did I tell you I shall not fight?” Because he discovered his mind and once the mind was straightened the profici¬ency started gushing out as brilliant efficiency. So it is not only sufficient that we generate dynamism through
an ideal or conserve dynamism, through Tapas and discipline, but we must see that we apply it correctly in our field of choice, our chosen field, and there we must see that the mind is tuned up efficiently. This tuning up of the mind, the method by which the mind is tuned, is called Yoga. It has been found by our great rishis who have been studying the play of the mind, that the mind’s vitality, i. e., efficiency, is broken due to three factors. These three sources of mental disturbances that affect our efficiency are—disturbances that reach the mind from the past, anxieties for the future and excitements of the present. Your memories of the past can persecute you; anxieties for the future can dissipate you, deflate you. There are some people who are not worried about the past. They have not been disturbed by the past. They are not worried about the future. But when” they are in the present, they get confused. If the three dissipations belonging to the past, present and future are stopped, the mind can bring into the piece of work that the person is undertaking the entire dynamism that has been gene¬rated and conserved. And when such a blast of dyna¬mism comes in your work, success is assured. You need not run after success, but success runs after such an individual. If these three can be transcended, you can rise above it and keep your mind not disturbed by these three challenges, and then your mind will be quiet, alert and vigilant. With such a quiet, alert and vigilant mind, when you pour out the enthusiasm that you have created for yourself, the work that you turn out cannot fail. What¬ever are the mountainous obstacles in front of you, all get pulverized and you go straight like an arrow to your destination, your achievement.

How to achieve this state? It is here that you find that once you have got the Lord, as the ideal the Altar is with you and you surrender yourself at the Altar and work. You have heard this a million times. It does not mean laziness as the stupid generally think. They say “Sab Kuchh Bhagawan Ko De Diya” and then sit back doing nothing and at 12 O’ clock open the mouth. Bhagawan does not want your stupid hands and legs. What he wants you to surrender is these three ego¬centric ideas of your anxiety for the future, your regrets for the past and your excitement for the present. All these three you surrender and act. Once you have surrendered, these three sources of dissipation are broken comple¬tely. Think for a moment that you have surrendered to the Lord Narayana. You are surrendering to him in total. If you have a failure in the past, you are not worried about t it. About the future, you are least worried because you have surrendered totally to Him. If there is success it cannot be yours. The success is also His. The failure is also His. So why do you worry about the future or the present?

You make me sit down here as a Swami and you are all sitting down, brilliant students of the Delhi Area. Will I be able to talk to you, if I started with the excite¬ment of the present? I have been seriously studying our Hinduism for the last twenty years. All I have studied in twenty years, how can f tell you in one hour? In one hour, what to say and what not to say. I get excited. I stammer out nothing, and you start “phoo phoo.” The more I hear this “phoo phoo” the morel become excited. This is how I am dramatizing. This is how we fail. Now why should I fail? I have surrendered to my Lord Krishna. The Lord is the best one to meet any challenge. It is he who organized me to come here and face you. Even supposing the situation or the prob¬lem in front of me is too much, why do I worry? If I am not competent to serve you, whose failure is it? It is His failure. Because He is the appointing authority. If I find myself in a situation, let me have that courage to surrender to Him and act as best as lean and forget all about it. Whether I will be able to serve you or not is not my concern. My concern is I must have courage to look at my Lord straight face to face when I can tell Him “Sir, I did best. You gave me the job. I had no compet¬ency, yet I did my best. And here it is all about.” Why should I worry ? Once that spirit of surrender has come and all channels of dissipation are blocked, neither can my mind be disturbed by the regrets of the past, nor anxieties of the future, nor the excitement of the present. When the past, present and future periods of time can¬not disturb me, the mind is undisturbed. In such an un¬disturbed, quiet, serene and confident mind, when a person pours out the dynamism that he has cultivated and conserved, there is extra human magnetism in that perso¬nality. And whatever he undertakes it cannot but become an utter success. In order to do so, a certain Altar is to be built in the mind, an Altar at which one can confi¬dently surrender. It is here that the spiritual sadhanas, bhajans, kirtans, etc. are useful.
Never before the world needed such dynamism as today and our country needs it most. Your future job is to uplift the country, revitalize and make it a nation. This cannot be “done by mere material knowledge, or mere secular ideology. It needs in the leaders this exp¬losive expression, personal magnetism and this dynam¬ism cultivated through proper education.