sri brahmachaithanya pravachan - june 2

Love the Lord without any Expectation

Nothing is lost by being uninformed about the world and its affairs. Indeed, it will be of great advantage in approaching God. Unless we give up this worldly knowledge, that is, realize its transitory nature and insignificance, we cannot have true regard for God.
When the son is to set out on a journey, the mother provides him with victuals; so, too, does God furnish an adequate fund of the sense of contentment when sending a soul out on its worldly journey; it is upto the soul, however, to avail itself of it. Where discontentment prevails, evil geniuses and evil tendencies can work rampantly. Contentment, on the other hand, provides a congenial atmosphere for good powers to assist us. If we stick to nama, adverse situations will leave us unaffected. The mind is intimately connected with the heart and the body; a contented mind will therefore substantially help in keeping good health and prolonging life.
In the process of freeing oneself from selfishness, a person may appear to be a misfit in the frame of pragmatism, for he will treat everyone with affection; but when he becomes truly and fully spiritualistic, he will be selfless while still appearing practical to the world. Spirituality is a logical, consistent science. It is absolutely unnecessary to abrogate worldly life; but because our thought and attention are easily enticed by sensate pleasures, they should be kept linked to God. A veritable passion for God should arise; for spirituality is nothing but intense, unexpecting love for Him.
Spiritual pursuit calls for patience and sanity. A certain man began seeing the figure of Rama all around. That led him to conclude that his quest had come to fruition, and that he had attained God. But this is far from the ultimate goal, which is, feeling His presence all the time everywhere. Impatience will not help in the spiritual journey; it will, in fact, create obstructions. Progress on the spiritual path should be steady and all-round, just as all the limbs grow proportionately with youth. It is foolish to try to gauge progress every now and then; how will a plant grow if we uproot it every day to see how much it has grown? The spiritual progress can be assessed from a man's talk and the light in his eyes.

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Sri Maharaj's Pravachan in Marathi-June 3

Sri Maharaj's Pravachan in Marathi-June 2

Sri Maharaj's Pravachan in Kannada-June 2

Sri Brahmachaithanya Pravachan- June 1

Discarding Doership Constitutes Spirituality
One who takes a piece of rope for a snake is baddha (tied, illusioned) while he who correctly perceives it for what it is, is a mukta (free from illusion, 'realized'). One who realizes that he is the soul and not the body, is a mukta. A mukta has perfect, doubt-free knowledge of the absolute truth; he is one who is happy under any circumstances, one who has woken up from the dream of 'illusion'. The state of illusion is created by ourselves by ignorance of the truth, by the belief that 'the body am I', and it is this that gives rise to anxiety, yearning, and misery. Because I forget God I consider myself as the body. It is obvious that I am not the body, in as much as I do not have absolute control over it. We take credit of doership, and naturally then, subject ourselves to resulting feelings of pleasure and pain. One who holds himself aloof from both these feelings is truly mukta.
The sense of doership is undoubtedly very harmful. A worldly man feels proud for having built a grand mansion and maintained his family in dignity; the sannyasin may feel equally proud of his monastery. Neither is free from the pride of doership; it is so difficult to escape it. It can only be mitigated by conviction of the existence and supremacy of God. So one should live in ceaseless recollection of God and in contentment in the situation He pleases to keep us in. What makes us happy despite forgetfulness of God is mundane, non-divine. To live in forgetfulness of God is prapancha, whereas leading worldly life in full awareness of God is spirituality.
Whatever act we perform in the way of the world, that is with a particular expectation, becomes karma, whereas whatever is done without any expectation of anything whatsoever is pure duty. To keep doing such acts of duty is spirituality. To maintain awareness of God all the while is anusandhan. Suppose an ant bites a toe while we are engrossed in reading, we immediately feel it; an awareness pervades the body. Similarly, an awareness of God's presence should pervade our being while going through the business of life. We should studiously achieve such awareness and maintain it with firm determination.* * * * *

Sri Maharaj's Pravachan in Marathi-June 1

Sri Maharaj's Pravachan in Kannada-June 1