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Thought for the Day:

 


""
 
Paramahamsa Omkarananda Saraswati

 

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Everything Great is within Yourself

There is much more in You than You can Suppose  

The Testament of the Common Man:

The heart says things deeper than those that philosophy teaches.

The soul sometimes knows truths higher than those the preachers offer.

The judge within us is superior to the judge without.

We believe because something deep in us intuits.

Everyone who hears of God seems to be far more familiar with God than the person speaking of God. Our age-old, unbreakable inner relations with God, show themselves in daily life, not unoften.

We have greater affection and love for the saint than sympathy for the sinner: in this we betray the truth that everyone hides somewhere in himself a saint.

Our aspirations always go beyond our needs.

On calm analysis we find our strength is always greater than our problems.

Though one is not a Beethoven, or even a music student, one can judge Beethoven, and easily distinguish which piece of Beethoven is better.

Though one is not an Einstein, yet one admires easily all that is admirable in science.

The All-Transcending Power within You  

Whatever may be the most trying situation you are in, there is Someone in you who is not involved in, and affected by that situation. With His help you can easily transcend, and fully conquer, all the heavy situations, trials, problems, difficulties.

You are troubled and very unhappy. Who is it in you that knows that you are troubled, and very unhappy? That Knower is Himself not troubled, and is not unhappy. He is all-transcending, all-blissful, all-peaceful, all-powerful. Know this all-transcending, unaffected, untroubled, all-happy Knower in you, this Kingdom of God within you. A knowledge, an experience, of this supreme Knower within you, grants you immense peace of mind, strength of will, clarity of intelligence to see the way, and the power of wisdom, to resolve your problems, difficulties, trying situations.

Reflect on this infinite, all-transcending Principle within you, which is other than the mind that is troubled, other than the body that is disturbed, other than the will that is apparently helpless, other than the troublesome situation which is the cause of the trouble. This transcendental Knower in you is the storehouse of endless and inexhaustible powers. A knowledge of Him takes away from you the excitement that blurs your vision, the unhappiness that barricades your enthusiasm, zeal and determination to overcome the resistances on the path of your fulfilment, peace, happiness, power.

(Extract from the brochure 'The Solution to the Problems of Life')

Always, there is the Greater in You  

Even while sleeping, though you are unaware of your body and its condition, there is someone who is observing your sleep and reports to you on your waking that you slept well.

Even while dreaming, there is someone in you who sometimes recognizes the dream to be a dream. Even when you dream that you are dead, as it happens on some occasions, there is someone in you that finds you dead, and witnesses your body being carried to the cemetery. This transcendental principle in you is the source of all real strength, power, peace, joy. All strength comes from above. Life acquires enduring strength, beauty, joy, richness when influenced from above.

Always, in every situation, there is the higher in you. Not even a prison can limit the free operations of your thought, or of your spirit, or of your love. No one and nothing can imprison, or affect, or injure, a Soul. No tragedy is too much to be borne. No joy is too great to be prized; for, there is always the inner tendency to approximate oneself to the infinite Joy that is within the Kingdom of God in you.

The higher in you, the transcendental in you, is the Heaven that never fails, It transforms life, it redeems existence. It divinises everything.

Like the horizons, your aspirations always recede, and your knowledge always widens, for, this must continue until the infinite Knowledge within you is attained. The transcendental, the greater, the higher in you, makes you unconquerable either by circumstance, or by time, or by space, or by any other thing. You are invincible.

The Wondrous Nature of the Consciousness within You  

This omniscient Self is not born, nor does it die. It has not come from anywhere, and it has not become anything. Unborn, eternal, perpetual and ancient, this Self does not perish when the body perishes. Birth is the process of the production of an effect from a cause, and, hence it is the process of transient becoming. For the same reason, death is impermanent and, therefore, both birth and death are denied in the Self.

Ceaseless consciousness is free from all kinds of change. Change is the character of phantasmal presentations. Changelessness is the nature of the Self. This Self does not come from anywhere, and it has not become anything else, because coming and becoming are, again, transient processes. It has not ceased to be itself. It does not decay or suffer diminution. It is the most ancient and the newest of all. An object becomes new when its constituents are changed and set in a different condition. The Self exists even prior to and later than the newest of objects. It exists together with everything, and also after everything. Nothing newer and other than the Self can ever be produced. In other words, the Self is whatever is, was and will be. Hence, it is indestructible. It neither kills anyone nor is killed. The Self suffers from nothing. It is free from the experiences of the world-process. It is formless or bodiless, and hence, relationless. The Self is subtler than the subtlest, and larger than the largest. It is situated as the central being of all. Free from thought and action, one beholds it through the cessation of distraction and attainment of tranquillity, and becoming sorrowless, rejoices in the glory of the Self. It is the subtlest of all; because, it is the Essence in all. It is the largest; because, it is limitless.

It is possible to know it through the practice of constant reflection and meditation on its Nature, after getting oneself freed from desires, and separating oneself from objects, seen as well as heard of. As long as the mind shakes and the body gets agitated, it is not possible for one to know this Self. Perfect satiety of the mind, the senses and the body is necessary before one attempts to gain the vision of the Self. Those who have got desires and passions are prevented from the realisation of the Self.

Though immovable and the eternal here, it moves far; for, it is everywhere. It is the formless in a world of forms. It is the permanent among the impermanent. It is the great omnipresent being by knowing which the seeker transcends unhappiness in all its forms. It is not possible to know this Self through sheer discussion, or operations of the intellect, and much study. It is attained through a relationless immediate inner experience in which the Self is both the subject and the object. A person whose conduct is not good, whose mind is wandering, who has no peace within, is restless, cannot know the Self. The Self is beyond all knowledge and power conceivable in the world. Death itself is swallowed in it, and all processes are put an end to.

- Swami Omkarananda
 

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