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Swamiji as I Knew Him
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Swamiji as I Knew Him
(part 3)
by D. S. Rao
Spreading the Message
Mahatmas like Swamiji, when they leave the body very few people know them. When they take mahasamadhi their message spreads like wild fire. When Lord Krishna was in the body, how many knew he was the Yuga Avatar? After he took mahasamadhi his name is a legend even today after five thousand years. Jesus Christ took mahasamadhi two thousand years back. Today Christianity is the largest religion in the world. Ramakrishna Paramahansa took mahasamadhi some hundred years back when he had only a handful of devotees.
Today his movement has spread to the four corners of the globe. Compared to them, Swamiji has a very large following all over the world, so think of the gigantic proportions his message will take in the years to come! We all have the unique privilege as his devotees to interface with the world to spread his message. He willing, his message will spread into schools, into the clinics, and into every household, and if not for final emancipation, at least for health and peace of mind. A fifteen minute meditation daily should make one healthy, wealthy and wise.
Today technology which is moving at a gigantic pace is creating spiraling tensions in the society with no relief in sight. Anxiety, fear, worry and all sorts of tensions are ever in the increase. We see the psychosomatic disorders like asthma, insomnia, peptic ulcers, cancer, blood pressure, cardiac impairment and what not! People seek remedy through smoking, drinking, drugs and other stimulants. The remedy is quite often worse than the disease. Life is cut short and they go. Swamiji’s meditation is an excellent concentration and relaxation technique that could restore health and order in society in a short span of time. But first we have to prove it through research, maybe in clinics and schools. All are interested in health first. Then comes spirituality. Let us evolve a scientific basis to put it on a sound footing. His technique of meditation is very sound and very powerful.
Swami Vivekananda said a hundred years back that a new order of society will emerge through a marriage between the culture of the Orient and the scientific temper of the Occident. Foundations have already been laid in this direction. The modern religious schools give formal education with a back drop of a strong cultural foundation. It looks like Swamiji’s mission is all set in this direction. Swamiji himself has said that in the next forty years He will unite the East and the West. Let us hope for it and diligently work in this direction. It is the responsibility of his devotees to turn his every word into a living reality. That would be a fitting tribute to a Living Yogi.
Spirituality, the Science of All Sciences
One may wonder what is this spiritual science? Renouncing everything and taking solace at the feet of the Guru? Can we begin somewhere else with a more scientific bias? Spirituality is more exacting that all the sciences of which we are aware. It is a science of all the sciences. It is a master science. If science can teach you that blood circulates in the body, spirituality will make you feel and experience the actual movement of the blood in the body. If a normal person can recall memory, a spiritual person can relive an experience, much like the action replay. Experience these yourself. The taste of the pudding is in the eating. Like swimming and driving, spirituality is an experience based learning. Every truth of spirituality must be first experienced internally. Swamiji is repeatedly stressing this point. But before that happens the body and mind must shun the impurities accumulated over the ages in countless births. The soul evolves through the 8.4 million species in nature before taking human birth. How true is Darwin’s theory!
Spirituality is a mental phenomenon. It deals with brain and mind. Psychologists and brain specialists are the best interface with spiritual sciences. The whole exercise of spirituality is something like this. We are all aware of the conscious, subconscious and unconscious mind that is associated with waking, dreaming and deep sleep. Spirituality is a technique by which we use the conscious mind to explore the subconscious and the unconscious minds. When that is explored you transcend these three states and become super conscious. It is that simple but it is not that easy. There are several techniques to explore the unconscious: raja yoga (meditation), bhakti yoga (devotion), karma yoga (service), japa yoga (mantras), jnana yoga (self inquiry), and the like. The rules of the experiment are very exacting, like any other laboratory experiment. You follow the rules and you get the results. Swamiji is the best example of one who has excelled in this great experiment. Let us also put our first steps forward.
Meditation is one of the such techniques for the exploration of the mind. All these techniques require a formal initiation by a Sadguru, a True Guru who is qualified to initiate. His power comes with the initiation. Whoever follows the instructions, that power works in him and transforms him. There is always a difficulty. For one genuine Guru there are a thousand frauds. One has to be very alert. If we get cheated that is our bad luck. After all, one gets what one deserves. We think we can act intelligently but how often we get trapped!
Activating the Dormant Brain Cells
We all now that only five percent of the brain operates in the conscious self and the rest is dormant. Brain is the physical mediator of consciousness linking the mind, body and emotions into a harmonious unit. To explore the unconscious mind is to activate the dormant brain cells. We all know in deep sleep the mind is unconscious. If we can by some means achieve a state whereby we are conscious during sleep we are at once in the super conscious state. The goal is achieved. But the journey through the technique is very long. It is well worth the effort.
When we sleep we are unconscious but when Swamiji sleeps he is conscious. He is conscious at all times and at all places. He has transcended time and space. Conscious sleep is what we aspire to achieve through sadhana. That is the super consciousness that is samadhi, that is God realization, that is revelation.
Like the experiments with spirituality are conducted in the science laboratories, the experiments with spirituality are conducted in the laboratory of the human mind. Everything is validated by one’s own inner experiences. We do not need any external proofs. Swamiji is the best proof if proof is ever required.
Psychology and Brain Sciences
Spiritual science deals with the transformation of the mind and the brain. The frontiers of research in these two fields should get deeply involved in the meditation process so that meditation could become more research based. Spirituality is an attempt to integrate the three levels of consciousness — waking, dreaming and deep sleep — to evolve a more integrated personality through activation of the dormant brain cells. The techniques used to achieve this are very exacting.
Research in educational systems is another area for association. If we can integrate the conscious and subconscious minds in the learning process then the whole learning process could be speeded up many fold. It works something like this. If we want to learn a new language we should first play it during sleep and then again when we are awake. During the sleep state the conscious mind is dormant but the subconscious mind is very active and absorbs the lesson. The same lesson is replayed when we are awake. Both the conscious and the subconscious minds participate in the learning process. This will speed up the learning process. Experimentation must begin in this direction.