Thursday, December 19, 2019
Wednesday, December 18, 2019
Sri Brahmachaithanya Pravachan-Dec.18
If Worrying is a Must, Better do so About Nama
It is a matter of common experience that what we today consider unpleasant often turns out to be wholesome eventually, and vice versa. Now if you think of everything as something willed by God, nothing would be unpleasant or unwelcome. Things will appear agreeable or otherwise so long as we do not become fully dedicated to God. Terror strikes us when we feel devoid of adequate support; therefore, live in the conviction that everything happens as Rama wills. Those who profess to be dedicated to Shree Samartha or Rama should never feel daunted by adverse conditions, for they are backed by the highest and most dependable support. There is really no fright but it is created by our own imagination.
The oscillations of pleasure and pain affect one only so long as there is a sense of doership. So ascribe doership to Rama, apply the body to duty, and keep the mind stable and at peace. We should pray to God, "Lord, let circumstances not affect my mind," rather than, "Please change the circumstances to please my mind."
Anxiety has permeated our very blood, and cannot be eradicated by external applications. What is required is an intravenous injection in the form of constant awareness of God. Anxiety is an accumulation of all things that cause forgetting of God. It is a fatal disease. A tumour in the stomach may grow to a large size and render impossible all intake of food; similarly, anxiety may become an ineradicable habit barring entry to all sense of gladness.
This 'anxiety' is a result of the 'body-am-I' delusion, and the consequent sense of desire. Repeated chanting of nama annihilates both, the desire and the 'body-am-I' feeling. A situation of happiness may suddenly be metamorphosed; it is this possibility that causes fear and anxiety. Anxiety is as much a killer as nama is a saviour; and yet we do not want to overthrow anxiety. Is this not curious?
Time spent in anxiety is time wasted harmfully. If you cannot help worrying, let the worry be on how to take more pleasure in nama, how to maintain awareness of God. Take care of nama, and forget all anxiety.
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Tuesday, December 17, 2019
Shree Brahmachaithanya Pravachan-Dec.17
'Body-am-I' Delusion, the Root-cause of all Misery
Paramartha is a subject not easily understood, and yet it is of vital importance to everyone. It is best comprehended by trying to see what 'I' am not, rather than to see what 'I' am. If we are walking along a foot-track which is not for our destination, then we may miss all the landmarks. If in solving an example, we make a mistake at any point, the answer will evidently be wide off the mark. Similarly, if one fails to comprehend correctly the basic qualities and failings of human nature, paramartha, which is based on them, will also not be fruitful. The first of these features is the universal desire to be continuously happy, or at least to have a promise of happiness. Death or extinction nobody wants; we all desire to live forever. God is eternal, and ever blissful; and since He is in the make-up of us all, we too desire to be likewise. But we miss the right way from the very start, and consequently everything goes amiss. If a tree in our yard is uprooted in a storm, we say' our tree has fallen;' but if a person dies, we say 'he is dead, not as a matter of fact, 'his body' is dead. The fundamental error, therefore, is that we consider ourselves identical with the body, not with the spirit or soul. We love the body more than the soul, and cater to the needs and pleasures of the body with the utmost care. Nay; instead of controlling and regulating them, we allow ourselves to be completely mastered and led by them, at times even disregarding the better judgement of the conscience. We thus go on piling one mistake on another, thus completely misusing the special assets of human birth.
If we want to fell a tree, we first cut off the branches, and then attack the trunk. To observe the moral code of conduct corresponds to cutting the branches of the tree of passions. The second attack is devotion to the saguna form of God. If this devotion is intense, a man forgets himself at least momentarily, and has the feeling that he belongs to God. True constant awareness of God comes by nama alone; nama will thereby mitigate the 'body-am-I' delusion and also attachment to material things; the person will then see God in everything.
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