CHILDREN: the Architects of the Future World ~ Swami Chinmayananda

[Excerpts from articles and letters by Swami Chinmayananda]

CHILDREN are the “architects of the future world”. They are the builders of humanity. They alone are our only hope for the future. If the future is to be bright, we have to mould our children to think in a new pattern, with a new inspiration and a new vision in their minds. If the present children are moulded in their attitudes, in their values, in their ideas, and in their ideals, we can logically expect a better and more organised world of tomorrow and achieve the design for the world that we hope for at this moment. It is the most sacred task of the parents as well as teachers to mould their lives in accordance with the sublime Indian Tradition. The seed of spiritual values should be sown in the young hearts, and the condition should be made favourable for its sprouting and steady growth by the exercise of proper control and discipline. Cared for with warmth of love and affection, such a tree shall blossom forth flowers of Brotherhood, Universal Love, Peace, Bliss, Beauty and Perfection. Let us try to leave in them some higher and nobler values. This done — we have then educated them for the highest achievements.

Morals cannot be TAUGHT, they must be CAUGHT from mothers and the teachers, while the child is still young and is in his or her formative years. A true appreciation of the eternal values of life alone can make a child grow in the right direction. Children are not vessels to be filled in, but lamps to be lit. Never can children’s education be complete unless, we impart to them a true appreciation of the eternal values of life. It is our bounden duty to do everything to make children grow into beautiful beings. Children grow not only because of the food you give and physical comforts you provide, but their inner nature, emotional and intellectual, is moulded by the atmosphere at home we give them. Unless you walk out of your unproductive, stupid, thoughtless spirits of depression, you are providing children a very unconducive and unhealthy atmosphere to grow up. Unless our hearts are filled with love, this man-making programme cannot take off. We, the parents, must CHANGE. Children learn NOT from books. Higher values cannot be imparted to the children by institutions, by a society or a community. THEY IMITATE THEIR PARENTS.

At the early stages of childhood, every one is potential material which can be moulded with a little pressure of discipline into spectacular beauty and covetable perfection. Children growing up in a surcharged atmosphere of divine devotion cannot but grow up as the stalwart supports of our Culture and Religion. Children are the cleanest canvas on which to paint. Today’s children are completely in the hands of their mothers — to make or mar them. This is the time for you to start and sing to them the immortal beauty of our ancient culture, the perfections of our masters, the fullness of our kings, the heroism of our soldiers, the vision of our poets, the depths of our philosophers and the heights of our national character. Patiently ingrain into them reverence for our national culture, for the genius of the land, for the beauty of our art and the wealth of our literature.

It is not only sufficient to train the children in the higher values of life; we must teach them to have the courage and heroism to live upto their convictions. We have to take responsibility for moulding and beautifying the child, prepare him to face the world of tomorrow and to lead and guide the world of the future. Only then we have proved that today’s children are our future. It is the bounden duty of all parents to hand over the cultural inspiration of the country to the growing children of the nation.

To train our younger generation, to appreciate their culture and to inspire them to live it fully is to make a nation of ourselves, wherein everyone, without distinction of caste and creed, can sink their differences and come to live the glory that is BHARATIYA CULTURE. This civic education, and the cultural consciousness can be imparted from the nursery stage onwards to the growing generation — the Bharatiya Spiritual Thought and Culture. Man learns more with the eyes than by the ears. If the elders and leaders were to be more careful in their behaviour, they would be demonstrating the beauty that is the Indian Culture, and the vigorous youth of our nation shall readily imitate those beauties in their lives.

It is the obvious duty of parents and teachers to inculcate high-mindedness in the children, and pour their labour of love in lifting them up to be men of sterling characters. It is the duty of the educationists to see that they impart to the growing generation, not merely some factual knowledge or some wondrous theories but they must also instill into the growing generation ideals of pure living and train the children to live those in their individual life. A sincere group working with singular dedication cannot but bring about a gracious cultural atmosphere for our innocent children to grow up, proud of their heritage and self-confident in their cultural beauty. Highly inspired teachers working together as a disciplined army, dedicated to the sanctity of their sacred profession, with selfless and continuous enthusiasm alone can mould the spiritual beauty in the growing children. WE SHALL NOT FAIL THE NATION AND THE SILENT DEMAND OF THE INNOCENT CHILDREN GROWING UNDER OUR CARE TO MAKE A CULTURAL HISTORY OF TOMORROW!!

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Significance of Vishu ~ Swami Chinmayananda

[Excerpts from a letter written to a devotee by Swami Chinmayananda]

The Lord is ever guiding each of us through fit doses of experiences, in order to awaken us from our fearful dream of samsar to the realisation that WE ARE IN HIM ALREADY! Pain is His kindest means to wake us up the quickest.

Do you remember those Vishu-days of your child-hood, when parents and relatives with the best of intentions almost “tortured” you to wake up and have the Lord’s Darshan and gain “the VISHU – KAI – NEETAM”? To the one sleeping, even while knowing that the KANI-DARSAN is grand, and the KAI-NEETAM(loving money-tips) a pleasurable gain, at the moment of the early dawn, the one so lovingly trying to wake him up would seem a “torturer” indeed!

So do we consider Him as a monstrous, cruel, blind, heavenly Power as He gives us painful jerks in life to awaken us to the KANI and the KAI-NEETAM. On realising Him alone shall we understand that He is the most kind, soft, wise Power residing ever in us, which alone is His heaven. At the very touch of discomfort you have woken up and have got ready for the Darshan. This is the end of all the unpleasantness of the festive VISHU-DAY !

Now surrender yourself completely, entirely, unto Him who has awakened you, and keep the eyes closed tight! Let not the worldly charms and false values enter thy recognition even for a second. Till you get His Darshan, through the blindening lights, you should look at nothing else. Close the eyes tight and call out for Him to guide you to the seat of DARSHAN. He will help you by hand. He shall warn you of each threshold to be crossed, each turn to be taken, each impediment on the way to be avoided!! The completer the surrender, the easier you shall reach the KANI !!

As we have thus in the Vishu Kani, mainly three stages, viz., the WAKING, the REACHING and the DARSHAN, so too, in spiritual progress, there are three well-marked out stages, viz., the WAKING,the PASSAGE and the EXPERIENCE.

When a Jiva gets ripe in the welter of millions of lifes’ bitter experiences (or at least surely incomplete joys) and gains in the present embodiment a deep dispassion at the mere touch of an incident, the individual Jiva has “Awakened” and is ready to be guided to the Seat-of-Vision. You have come to this stage. Now please enter the second stage; the Reaching (of the Kani) or the “Passage” in the spiritual pilgrimage.

…….to one who can, like Mira, forget herself in her Prem for Him, the Murali-Manohar, even a Kalpa is but a second for a Bhakta living in her self-forgetful Divine experience of the life in Him!! Love (Devotion) is the noblest of Paths, and Upasana (Kirtan, Japa, Dhyana, Swadhyaya etc.) can lead us to the next stage of Pro-gress, the Darshan (of the Kani) or the “Experience” of the Absolute Truth. All Srutis are unanimous on this point. The very construction of the Vedas, (first Karmakand and then Jnanakand) is a clear declaration of this fact.

All Sadhana “purifies” the Inner Instrument—the apparatus for all investigations, enquiries, cognitions, and experiences.

You have been “awakened”. Surrender now completely to the Guru. He shall guide you to the seat of KANI-DARSHAN. Don’t open your eyes, till He allows you and commands, “open and see!!” Step by step alone can we accomplish a climb! Mile by mile we must cross to reach the SANNIDHI !!

Sri Krishna Govinda Hare Murare! Hey Natha Narayana Vasudeva!!

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Rituals: “Objective Dramatisation of the Subjective Art of Self-perfection” ~ Swami Chinmayananda

[Excerpts from letters and articles by Swami Chinmayananda]

Ritualism is a Demonstration. Vedantic Sadhana demonstrated in actual practice is — RITUAL.

Rituals are an objective dramatisation of the Subjective Art of Self-perfection. They are means to a greater end; but a majority of us have come to confuse the means to be the fulfilment in themselves. Rituals have an elementary purpose, without which nothing higher is possible; but to continue wasting the entire life in mere ritualism, would be a terrible wastage. Rituals are conceived and prescribed to help bring into expression the correct attitude (bhavana) of the mind — which is the goal of all spiritual practices. However great the ritual, and however strictly it has been performed, the performer can only hope a comparative success and can reach, at best, only a mid-station in his voyage to Truth!

A seeker should, in his initial stages of sadhana, follow the rituals diligently — it is not merely a faithful and blind performance, but a regular practice which is continuous, intelligent, fresh and cheerful. Rituals followed as a routine lose all their potency. A routine in itself cannot constructively re-create a developed human personality. It is only a deliberate intelligent training of the head and heart of an individual, gained through diligent “abhyas” that can bring about the desired effect. A dull habit, or an inert routine pursued under the blind force of a dead faith is ineffectual and quite undesirable as a measure in the spiritual revival of an individual. 

Rituals have a place in the spiritual sadhana. Rituals in themselves cannot and will not lead a seeker to his goal. An act, however noble, cannot in its result procure the Eternal, the act being itself a finite one. Rituals when performed with devotion and without any desires for their fruits have a unique capacity of integrating the personality of the seeker. When a seeker has practised for long the ritualistic worship, he develops, by his life of self-control, concentration and purity, more and more in his capacities of the mind and intellect. These are to be brought into full play in the study of the Jnana-kanda — the Upanishads. 

In ritualism, when the divine acts are pursued with an intention to gain the fruits thereof, the individual, in proportion to his diligence and acquired mental strength, comes to enjoy the fruits, but the same ritualism, when pursued without a demand for the fruits thereof, result in an efficient integration of the upasaka’s inner personality. All ritualism is only to prepare the seeker for higher and higher meditations.

Ritualism has deep significance and suggestiveness. One who does not know the exact implication will only be following the routine process of chanting and doing the prescribed action without benefiting himself and feeling any sense of inspiration. Upanishad is very insistent and the Vedas with equal emphasis, roar that without a correct knowledge of, not only the rules of the karma but also the full significance of it, ritualism has no effect at all. Therefore, it is the “intellectual faculty” that is the true performer of all Rituals.

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Ramayana: the Inner Spiritual Journey ~ Swami Chinmayananda.

[Excerpts from articles and letters by Swami Chinmayananda]

RAMAYANA – the poem was written by a man well-established in the Ultimate Reality, who was expressing through his work, the pure Advaita Philosophy, the contents of the Upanishads. The glory of the poem is that the ideal “states of living” are expressed – the ideal brother, son, king, enemy, friend and the ideal man living in society. But all this is mere paraphernalia. The core of this poem is utterly divine – which explains why the glorious story of Rama is so popular even today!

RAMA itself means “Sarveshu Ramante iti Ramah” — that which revels in every one of us, the pure Light of Consciousness, the Atman, the Self, the Atma-Rama. This spiritual essence in us, can come out only as a son of Dasaratha, one who has conquered all the ten indriyas – five jnanendriyas and the five karmendriyas. It will be born in you and reborn only in Ayodhya (yuddha means conflict, Ayodhya means where there is no conflict, meaning, where all conflict has ended). In that Ayodhya which is ruled by the self-controlled Dasaratha, RAMA is born.

This Rama, the pure Self, cannot enter into any active participation in life unless wedded to the mind. Sita (the mind) is ready. She was not born to Janaka by wedlock. While ploughing the land, he finds Sita. The mind appeared from the most inappropriate place ever. It is absurd to enquire deep into this. Later you find that the same Sita disappears into Mother Earth. From Mother Earth she came, to Mother Earth she went back. From where the mind comes, and where it disappears during samadhi, nobody can tell. This is Maya !!

Wedded to the mind when Rama returns, he finds that he cannot live in Ayodhya. For, once the mind has come, you start expressing through it. You have to enter the ‘forest of life’, self-exiled as it were. Some cause or other must emerge as one enters the ‘forest of existence’. So long as Sita was looking up to Rama, living in Rama, for Rama, by Rama, she never found any difference between Ayodhya and a jungle. But how long can the mind remain constantly centred in the higher divine potential in us? It has to become extrovert. And this is just what happened the moment Sita looked away from Rama. The golden deer was noticed. The finite, ephemeral, ever-changing objects, start pulling you towards them. The mind demands them. Rama may argue, and all the Scriptures might also argue, that it is all Maya, that it is not real, that it is only a Rakshasa. Yet even Sita, Rama’s own consort, will not accept it, and she will exile Rama in search of the sense-object. Once desire-polluted, you fall. Rama goes…. and Sita is left in Lakshmana’s charge.

Lakshman represents Tapas (austerity). He had no reason to go to the jungle. But he left of his own accord, and he lives in perfect Brahmacharya, even without sleep. It is perfect Tapas. But then, one cannot live in Tapas. The delusion of the other world will force you to give it up. The moment Sita hears the sound of Rama’s voice, she forgets Rama’s glory and might and becomes anxious about his safety. She even urges Lakshmana to go to her husband’s aid. And when Lakshmana assures her that the great Rama will never come to any harm, for there is none to match him in skill and valour, Sita severely rebuffs him. When the beautiful ideal woman Sita utters such malignant words, Lakshmana is shocked into silence. He goes away, drawing a line of demarcation round the hut, urging her not to go beyond it.

Once desire enters your bosom, as an ordinary individual you cannot constantly live in Tapas. But you can at least draw a line — thus far and no further. But once Tapas has been given up, such lines are of no use. You readily step over them. And when you do this instead of Dasaratha, you are confronted by Dasamukha, the opposite character. The latter is an extrovert as the former is self-controlled. The sensuous materialistic power persuades Sita to cross over the line because, as long as you are within the moral boundary, it cannot affect you. You go beyond it, and permissiveness starts, and Dasamukha ensnares you.

Dasamukha does not mean having five heads on the right and another five on the left, with one neck in between. What is meant here is that the five jnanendriyas and the five karmendriyas together constitute the Dasamukha. A totally extrovert man lives in the flesh, for the flesh, and by the flesh – it is the rule of the flesh. Such a man is a sensualist and a total extrovert. Materially he can become great as did Ravana who ruled over a prosperous land, Lanka. In Lanka, nobody worked, everybody was supported by the socialist government, and people from all over the world came to pay homage to Ravana, who was supremely powerful. But does materialism provide anything more than mere physical comfort? It is not a solution to the problem of life. Spiritual and cultural values alone can save the world. This idea is brought out in the Ramayana.

Sita was abducted and taken away. She was no more a citizen of Aryavarta, the hallowed and cultural land any longer. She will be given a place in Lanka, another island, no doubt very near, but altogether another land. Even there she was exiled. We are all at this moment “Sitas” in exile. Should we give in to sensuality? To gain back our original Ayodhya, what should we do? We should do exactly what Sita did. She realised she had fallen and to prevent a further fall, she firmly said ‘No’ to Ravana and remained in the garden under an Ashoka tree. Shoka means ‘dukha’, i.e., sorrow, Ashoka therefore means ‘not dukha’ (devoid of sorrow). You and I will have sorrow but we do not recognise it. This is the ‘Ashoka’ state. Under the “tree of non-recognition of sorrows”, when we want to remain steadfast in character, we will doubtless be tempted and put to a lot of strain. But in that Ashoka-attitude, we should remain steadfast, constantly remembering Rama.

Sita was constantly and vigorously thinking of Rama. And we cannot say that Rama did not respond. In the Ramayana, we will find that the scene is alternately changing — once Lanka is shown, the next moment Rama is shown in the jungle. This shows that there is a secret communication between them. The more intense Sita’s cry, the more frenzied does Rama’s search for her becomes. He weeps like an ordinary mortal, not because he is attached to her, but because of his longing to help a devotee.

The spiritual essence in man can kill and destroy Ravan, the ten-headed monstrosity of extrovertedness. It can do it with the army of monkeys. An educated man reading this should know what the monkeys refer to. The monkey has two qualities – asthiratwa and chanchalatwa – instability and restlessness. The thoughts in the human mind have these two qualities. They cannot remain – stable. The monkey cannot remain on one branch, it jumps from one branch to another and from tree to tree. If it gets tired and sits on a tree, it will still be restless. Thus, it cannot keep quiet even for a minute. So too, our thoughts. They can never remain quiet, but keep jumping from topic to topic. The army of thoughts is to be controlled. But, at this moment, Vali, who stands for lust, controls them. This has to be destroyed. And how? It can be only done from behind. From the front, every time it is your lust that wins, and not you. So, if ever you want to conquer this lust, you have to shoot it from behind the tree. Vali had such great power, that anytime an enemy approached him, half the strength of the enemy would drain away and Vali himself would become three times stronger. So, Rama had to kill him from behind. To whom should he then give the kingship of the monkey-clan – the “thoughts?” To whom better than Sugreeva? “Greeva” means reins, “Sugreeva” means well-reined, i.e., well-controlled. When the thoughts are under one’s control, the army is then available to cross the frontiers and reach Lanka to kill the ten-headed monster and bring back Sita.

When Rama regains Sita after having destroyed extrovertedness, the mind that is no longer extrovert is no mind at all. It (Sita) has to disappear. Without Sita, Rama cannot bring about “Rama-Rajya”. He cannot rule without a wife. Therefore, Kapila comes and offers him a Mithya Sita or Maya Sita. And with Maya Sita, Rama returns to rule Ayodhya, with a tranquil and poised mind in a state of perfection, having regained his spiritual status. Though he returns with a mind, it is not really there. It is like the sky which allows everything to remain in space without getting contaminated. So too, Rama, the Man of Perfection, allows the mind to remain in him, but is not affected by it. Since Rama functioned in the world outside with a perfectly controlled mind, the result had to be a RAMA-RAJYA !!!

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