Do you believe in God? Don’t believe.

Buddha with his disciples

Once, Buddha was with his disciples. A stranger came and asked, “Is there God?” Buddha replied, ‘No.’ He went away.  After a while there was another man to ask, “Isn’t there God?”  He answered, “Yes, there is”.  Buddha’s reply surprised his disciples. So after the man took his way, they asked Buddha to clear their doubts. He smiled and said that both were holding their own beliefs. One held the belief that there was God and the next with the belief that there was no God. And with beliefs people will never enquiry. Now doubts have arisen in their mind so they will start enquiry and may do some progress.

Beliefs are those concepts that they are like a baseless pitcher which is of no use. Use of that culminates only in sufferings, misery and hardships. Beliefs escape proofs. So they are unproven facts. It’s not that beliefs are always wrong conceptions. But as they are not tested we cannot rely on them.

Main problem with the beliefs is that when there is belief, the one with belief, does not want to test it. He supposes that whatever he believes is ok. So no need to be examined or experimented. It’s the trick that mind plays which can be revealed when it is asked to give proofs.

The Lord

People who believe and those who don’t believe both are in the same category. Both don’t want to come to experiment. In a way not believing is also a belief. Suppose someone believes in God that there is God. So he does not enquiry if there is God or not in reality. In the same way those who don’t believe in God also have a belief that the God is not there. And they also don’t like to go to experiment.

In this case those minds with doubts may come into use. But only bearing doubts and not trying to come out of it leads nowhere else than to futility.

There is one more disadvantage of belief that even if you move forward to experiment, your belief may intercept the Sadhana. Since your mind will superimpose the beliefs onto the realization and you may get distracted.  Jagadguru Shree Kripaluji Maharaj declares that everybody should come and experiment to know about the God. Only believing and not believing will not do any good.

Life Changing Quotes

Swami Mukundananda writing the life changing quotes....

• God comes not where reign timidity, hatred and fear.
• A young plant should always be protected against goats and cows and the mischief of little urchins, by means of a fence. But when it becomes a big tree, a flock of goats or a herd of cows can freely find shelter under its spreading boughs and fill their stomachs with their leaves. So when your faith is yet in its infancy, you should protect it from the evil influences of bad company. But when you grow strong in faith, no worldliness or evil inclination will dare approach your holy presence; and many who are wicked will become godly through their holy contact with you.
• In a potter's shop there are vessels of different shapes and forms — pots, jars, dishes, plates, etc., — but all are made of the same clay. So God is one, but He is worshiped in different ages and climes under different names and aspects.
• One can ascend the top of a house by means of a ladder or a bamboo or a staircase or a rope; so too, diverse are the ways of approaching God, and each religion in the world shows one of the ways.
• He who has faith has all, and he who lacks faith lacks all.
• As one thinks, so does one become.
• Unless one always speaks the truth, one cannot find God Who is the soul of truth.
• It is very pleasant to scratch an itching ring-worm, but the sensation one gets afterwards is very painful and intolerable. In the same way the pleasures of this world are very attractive in the beginning, but their consequences are terrible to contemplate and hard to endure.
• To drink pure water from a shallow pond one should gently take the water from the surface without disturbing the pond in the least. If it is disturbed, the sediments rise up and make the whole water muddy. If you desire to be pure, have firm faith, and slowly go on with your devotional practices, without wasting your energy in useless scriptural discussions and arguments. Your little brain will otherwise be muddled.
• Sunlight is one and the same wherever it falls; but only a bright surface like that of water, or of a mirror reflects it fully. So is the light Divine. It falls equally and impartially on all hearts, but the pure and pious hearts of holy men receive and reflect that light well.

Atomic Sayings

Swami Mukundananda

• More are the names of God and infinite are the forms through which He may be approached. In whatever name and form you worship Him, through them you will realize Him.
• One should not think, 'My religion alone is the right path and other religions are false.' God can be realized by means of all paths. It is enough to have sincere yearning for God. Infinite are the paths and infinite are the opinions.
• You see many stars in the sky at night, but not when the sun rises. Can you therefore say that there are no stars in the heavens during the day? Because you cannot find God in the days of your ignorance, say not that there is no God.
• Little children play with dolls in the outer room just as they like, without any care of fear or restraint; but as soon as their mother comes in, they throw aside their dolls and run to her crying, "Mamma, mamma." You too, are now playing in this material world, infatuated with the dolls of wealth, honor, fame, etc., If however, you once see your Divine Mother, you will not afterwards find pleasure in all these. Throwing them all aside, you will run to her.
• As the cloud covers the sun, so Maya hides God. When the cloud moves away, the sun is seen again, when Maya is removed, God becomes manifest.



Swamiji in pleasant mood

• The sun can give heat and light to the whole world, but he cannot do so when the clouds shut out his rays. Similarly as long as egotism veils the heart, God cannot shine upon it.
• Rain-water never stands on high ground, but runs down to the lowest level. So also the mercy of God remains in the hearts of the lowly, but drains off from those of the vain and the proud.
• If you feel proud, let it be in the thought that you are the servant of God, the son of God. Great men have the nature of a child. They are always a child before Him; so they are free from pride. All their strength is of God and not their own. It belongs to Him and comes from Him.
• To explain God after merely reading the scriptures is like explaining to a person the city of Benares after seeing it only in a map.
• Common men talk 'bagfuls' of religion but do not practice even a 'grain' of it. The wise man speaks a little, even though his whole life is religion expressed in action.
• The nearer you come to God, the less you are disposed to questioning and reasoning. When you actually attain Him, when you behold Him as the reality, then all noise, all disputations, come to an end.
• Sugar and sand may be mixed together, but the ant rejects the sand and carries away the grains of sugar. So the holy and pious men successfully sift the good from the bad.
• The spiritually minded belong to a caste of their own, beyond all social conventions.
• A boat may stay in water, but water should not stay in boat. A spiritual aspirant may live in the world, but the world should not live within him.
• Forgiveness is the true nature of the ascetic.

Bottom of The Lake – Our True Self

Our true self is like the bottom of the lake.

 

We cannot see the bottom of the lake, because its surface is either covered with ripples or is muddy. It is only possible when the ripples have subsided and the surface is clean, for us to catch a glimpse of the bottom. If the water is muddy, the bottom will not be seen; if the water is agitated all the time, the bottom will not be seen. If the water is clear, and there are no waves, we shall see the bottom. That bottom of the lake is our own true Self; the lake is the Chitta, and the waves are the Vritti. Again, this mind is in three states; one darkness, which is called Tamas, just as in brutes and idiots; it only acts to injure others. 

Mind is of three modes.

No other idea comes into that state of mind. Then there is the active state of mind, Rajas, whose chief motives are power and enjoyment. “I will be powerful and rule others.” Then, at last, when the waves cease, and the water of the lake becomes clear, there is the state called Sattva, serenity, calmness. It is not inactive, but rather intensely active. It is the greatest manifestation of power to be calm. It is easy to be active. Let the reins go, and the horses will drag you down.

Anyone can do that, but he who can stop the plunging horses is the strong man. Which requires the greater strength, letting go, or restraining? The calm man is not the man who is dull. You must not mistake Sattva for dullness, or laziness. The calm man is the one who has restraint of these waves. Activity is the manifestation of the lower strength, calmness of the superior strength. This Chitta is always trying to get back to its natural pure state, but the organs draw it out. To restrain it, and to check this outward tendency, and to start it on the return journey to that essence of intelligence is the first step in Yoga, because only in this way can the Chitta get into its proper course.

Mind in calm state is like the unmoving lake.

Although this Chitta is in every animal, from the lowest to the highest, it is only in the human form that we find intellect, and until the mind-stuff can take the form of intellect it is not possible for it to return through all these steps, and liberate the soul. Immediate salvation is impossible for the cow and the dog, although they have mind, because their Chitta cannot as yet take that form which we call intellect. Chitta manifests itself in all these different forms - scattering, darkening, weakening, and concentrating. These are the four states in which the mind-stuff manifests itself. First a scattered form, is activity. Its tendency is to manifest in the form of pleasure or of pain. Then the dull form is darkness, the only tendency of which is to injure others.

Sun Ray Therapy

Sun is easily accessible to all. Through the sun rays many ailments could be cured. This is an amazing system of cure in Ayurveda. It is famous not only in India but all over the world. In ancient Rome this system was very popular and it was called Heliotherapy and Chromo therapy. The capital of Italy, Rome is a very ancient city. The foundation of the city was laid by the god Romulus who lives in the mountain of Peleta. It is on his name that the city gets its title Rome. According to famous physician of Rome, Dr. Tilani in ancient Rome there was no physician for almost 600 years. The reason was that there was no need of a physician. The ancient people of Rome used sun rays, exercises and fresh air and water to keep themselves hale and hearty. In those days Rome was a very powerful kingdom

Sun rays have many colors which make the air pure and destroy the microbes present in the atmosphere and the water. This goes on naturally and all by itself. The ancient Rishis used to worship the sun and realized that sun rays could help one regain lost health. Through the sun rays even chronic and old ailments could be cured permanently.

In the most ancient of texts, Vedas, there are verses dedicated to the sun. Worship of the sun was very popular in those days. The Gayatri Mantra that appears in the Vedas is a prayer to the sun god. In this mantra a worshipper prays to sun to bestow intelligence. The mantra is also called Savita mantra that means mantra of sun.

Benefits from the sun ray therapy

The place where the sun rays fall, no germs can emerge.

The sun rays are free from side effects. By the use of sun rays in fact the body could be made active and healthy and one could enjoy the life to full.

The heat from the sun increases perspiration and removes all ailments. It also enhances body power and enthusiasm. It removes all imbalances of the three humours namely vaat, pitt and kaf. It also cures leprosy, fever, pain and weakness. Through sun ray therapy a person could attain victory over all diseases and become long lived. One can increase energy in the body and live to an age of hundred.

From the sun rays one gets vital life energy called prana and also heat; both of which make the body healthy and long lived. The sun rays are also instrumental in producing the ozone gas which protects the earth from harmful ultraviolet rays. Ozone increases the body power and makes the blood pure. It also makes the heart strong and bones powerful.

Sun bath is advised for skin infections, chronic skin diseases like eczema and psoriasis, bronchitis, asthma, indigestion, musculoskeletal pain, arthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. Sun bath should be taken bare skin early in the morning for half an hour.

The Need of a Guru

Swami Mukundananda

Every soul is destined to be perfect, and every being, in the end, will attain the state of perfection. Whatever we are now is the result of our acts and thoughts in the past; and whatever we shall be in the future will be the result of what we think end do now. But this, the shaping of our own destinies, does not preclude our receiving help from outside; nay, in the vast majority of cases such help is absolutely necessary. When it comes, the higher powers and possibilities of the soul are quickened, spiritual life is awakened, growth is animated, and man becomes holy and perfect in the end.

This quickening impulse cannot be derived from books. The soul can only receive impulses from another soul, and from nothing else. We may study books all our lives, we may become very intellectual, but in the end we find that we have not developed at all spiritually. It is not true that a high order of intellectual development always goes hand in hand with a proportionate development of the spiritual side in Man.

In studying books we are sometimes deluded into thinking that thereby we are being spiritually helped; but if we analyse the effect of the study of books on ourselves, we shall find that at the utmost it is only our intellect that derives profit from such studies, and not our inner spirit. This inadequacy of books to quicken spiritual growth is the reason why, although almost every one of us can speak most wonderfully on spiritual matters, when it comes to action and the living of a truly spiritual life, we find ourselves so awfully deficient. To quicken the spirit, the impulse must come from another soul.

The person from whose soul such impulse comes is called the Guru — the teacher; and the person to whose soul the impulse is conveyed is called the Shishya — the student. To convey such an impulse to any soul, in the first place, the soul from which it proceeds must possess the power of transmitting it, as it were, to another; and in the second place, the soul to which it is transmitted must be fit to receive it. The seed must be a living seed, and the field must be ready ploughed; and when both these conditions are fulfilled, a wonderful growth of genuine religion takes place. "

The true preacher of religion has to be of wonderful capabilities, and clever shall his hearer be" — ; and when both of these are really wonderful and extraordinary, then will a splendid spiritual awakening result, and not otherwise. Such alone are the real teachers, and such alone are also the real students, the real aspirants. All others are only playing with spirituality. They have just a little curiosity awakened, just a little intellectual aspiration kindled in them, but are merely standing on the outward fringe of the horizon of religion.

There is no doubt some value even in that, as it may in course of time result in the awakening of a real thirst for religion; and it is a mysterious law of nature that as soon as the field is ready, the seed must and does come; as soon as the soul earnestly desires to have religion, the transmitter of the religious force must and does appear to help that soul. When the power that attracts the light of religion in the receiving soul is full and strong, the power which answers to that attraction and sends in light does come as a matter of course.

Swami Mukundananda

There are, however, certain great dangers in the way. There is, for instance, the danger to the receiving soul of its mistaking momentary emotions for real religious yearning. We may study that in ourselves. Many a time in our lives, somebody dies whom we loved; we receive a blow; we feel that the world is slipping between our fingers, that we want something surer and higher, and that we must become religious. In a few days that wave of feeling has passed away, and we are left stranded just where we were before.

We are all of us often mistaking such impulses for real thirst after religion; but as long as these momentary emotions are thus mistaken, that continuous, real craving of the soul for religion will not come, and we shall not find the true transmitter of spirituality into our nature. So whenever we are tempted to complain of our search after the truth that we desire so much, proving vain, instead of so complaining, our first duty ought to be to look into our own souls and find whether the craving in the heart is real. Then in the vast majority of cases it would be discovered that we were not fit for receiving the truth, that there was no real thirst for spirituality.

There are still greater dangers in regard to the transmitter, the Guru. There are many who, though immersed in ignorance, yet, in the pride of their hearts, fancy they know everything, and not only do not stop there, but offer to take others on their shoulders; and thus the blind leading the blind, both fall into the ditch. — "Fools dwelling in darkness, wise in their own conceit, and puffed up with vain knowledge, go round and round staggering to and fro, like blind men led by the blind." — (Katha Up., I. ii. 5). The world is full of these. Everyone wants to be a teacher, every beggar wants to make a gift of a million dollars! Just as these beggars are ridiculous, so are these teachers.