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 Divine Mother
This Supreme Unmanifest Truth
which is the object of Divine Wisdom - and also the subject of the Divine Wisdom
- can stand before us as the Divine Mother, and this relationship with the
Divine Mother comes to an end when this form enters our soul and discloses
itself as the Supreme Reality without name and form. From the Formless, the form
of the Divine, that we love, that we adore, that we serve, that we want to
contact, can come forward.
This Supreme Transcendent Reality, of the Vedanta, of the Upanishads, we can
experience as Shiva, as Rama, as Krishna, as Devi, as the Creator, as the
Sustainer, as the Being into Whom the whole creation returns, even as the
dream-phenomenon returns into your soul from which it was projected.
The quickest way for human individuals to achieve the experience of the Supreme
Truth is to have a form, a name, a personality of God. It can be Divine Mother,
or it can be Devi, Shiva and Narayana. Millions of saints over millions of
years, millions of ages have experienced God as Narayana. As many have
experienced God as Shiva - God, or here the Truth which is at the same time
transcendent and immanent in the universe. If you take a person or a personality
of God, the progress can be more quick, more rapid. You can sing praises to this
Divinity, composed by those who have experienced this Divinity. You can recite
the mantras pertaining to this personality of God, a personality of that which
is impersonal and eternal. When you have such a personality as your guiding
angel, as your mother, protecting and loving you in all conditions, at all
times, as a friend helping you always, a guide constantly illuminating your
intelligence, a person with whom you live intimately, with whom you converse
inwardly, with whom you cultivate human relations, whom you see always, with
open eyes, or with closed eyes - such a personality of God is essential, if your
whole - all your thoughts and feelings, life's aims, tendencies, purposes,
programs, activities are to be centered in the Divine, or to proceed from the
Divine, or to be guided by the Divine, or to be governed by the Divine, your
strength will be constantly displaced by the omnipotence of this personality.
Your intelligence will be constantly displaced by the wisdom of God. Your will
will be constantly displaced by the Will of the Divine. All life becomes for you
divine. Everything becomes for you divine. All your work will be done for this
personality of God. You will be always inspired, always in a state of
illumination, always supremely positive. In this world of tears and suffering,
you are established in Truth that does not suffer, and its nature is Joy,
boundless Joy, unconditioned Joy, a Joy not opposed by any suffering, not
limited by any unhappiness. Here, there is a light in which there is no
darkness. Here, there is a life which has neither beginning nor an end. It is
eternal Life.
This state you can very easily achieve. We are your humble servants and will
present you dozens of methods by which you can live with God, talk with God, eat
with God, move with God, sleep with God, rise with God, be always with God. OM
Devotion to the Divine
When your devotion to the Divine
becomes stronger and stronger, this loud repetition of the mantra is nothing but
an expression of the joy of the heart, in the immediate presence of the Divine.
It is a joy of new perception; it is a functioning of the Wisdom of God, this
repetition, this loud repetition. It is no more a human repetition. There is
Wisdom of God in it. The motivating power in the repetition is the Wisdom of
God. It is devotion in action, it is Delight in self-expression. It is a song,
it is life, it is the whole Soul - this repetition of the mantra. Those who have
no knowledge of this, they certainly think that the people here are making
noise. But those who know what it is, get in tune with the Infinite and see the
real colour and substance, and energy, and the Consciousness, and the Delight,
and the devotion in each repetition of the mantra.
I give you an example. A great philosopher, while bathing in a tub, suddenly
discovered a mathematical formula, a law of nature. You know this. Every child
is told this in school. While he discovered this, he jumped in joy. He ran out
of the bath tub, even without covering his nakedness, shouting that he had
discovered something.
Our repetition of the mantra is exactly like that: With every shouting, we
discover a new dimension of the Divine.
Truth
as the Source of Holy Scriptures
Even if there were no holy
scriptures in the world, no Vedas, no Upanishads, and no other holy scripture,
even then, here and now, we would create the content of all these Holy
Scriptures, we would here and now formulate in language all that is there in the
Holy Scriptures. Perhaps even more than what is there. And also in new beauties
- beauties that are not there in the Holy Scriptures. That is why we call it
Omkarananda-Upanishad.
Supposing there are these holy scriptures. There is no need to suppose here
because they are already there. However, let us say they are there. In spite of
the fact they are there - in this case, the new Holy Scripture that we create
now and here, is in perfect harmony with all these Holy Scriptures. The teaching
is practically identical. Maybe this Upanishad, because it is born here under
your conditions of experience, in the year 1987, and in the environment in which
you have grown up, in an environment which you understand better, because you
are born and brought up in this environment and so forth. How is it possible for
us to create the Holy Scriptures here and now? The fact is simple: all these
holy scriptures: the old ones which are more than ten thousand years old - like
the Vedas - and the new ones, comparatively new ones which are two thousand
years old, all these scriptures have come from the One Truth. This Truth was,
is, and will always be. Since all these scriptures have come from this Truth,
wherever this Truth is experienced fully by whomsoever, through that person that
Truth functions, becomes vocal, begins to speak. When it speaks, it is the
scripture, the Holy Scripture. Even if this Omkarananda-Upanishad is destroyed
this year, next year, two thousand years later, again there will be someone who
will experience the Truth, become the Truth, and the Truth expresses itself
through him. And there a new holy scripture is born. If there are now in 1987,
in different countries different persons deeply rooted in Truth whose very whole
breath is experience of the Truth, who are mystics of mystics, then you will
have a dozen Holy Scriptures, contemporary Holy Scriptures.
What is important now, this is the Truth. It produces endless Holy Scriptures.
Scriptures come and scriptures go - that is because the scriptures are made in
time-space-universe. Time changes everything. If the world is destroyed, with it
disappear all the Holy Scriptures, and all mankind. But there will be new
creation, and again the Truth will project Holy Scriptures through such
personalities in whom it is fully self-realized. This Truth-experiencer is
Truth-Seeing. The Truth experiencer is Truth-liver: living, seeing,
experiencing. All they are one. It is Consciousness in dynamic self-expression
in Itself, as Itself.
Experience
of Immortality
When you touch and experience the
Truth, you understand all and everything. Now, we have created an Upanishad,
Omkarananda-Upanishad. This contains nothing but what is seen in the Truth, as
the Truth, by the Truth, through the Truth. This self-expression of the Truth in
language has become a necessity because there are among human individuals,
people who seek knowledge of the Truth, persons who are looking for perfect
Happiness, aspirants who are hungry for the experience of real Beauty, imperfect
individuals wanting taste of real Perfection. Men and women in the face of
death, who constantly see their near and dear ones dying, who recognize the
changes in their own body and fear the approaching death - these mortals want to
experience immortality. Human individuals find that they are very ignorant. They
are tortured by darkness of ignorance, anxieties, doubts, worries; suffering
caused by ignorance troubles them. These ignorant persons, no matter how
successful they are in the social and material and commercial world, want
wisdom, the Light of Knowledge. Because of this need, the Truth expresses itself
in language. And if this knowledge of the Truth is spread, no matter in what
form and in what name - it becomes a living, transforming, inspiring force in
human society.
Experience
of Truth
When Truth is experienced by a
personality, the intelligence in that person is absolutely rich, inexhaustible
in illuminations, inexhaustible in transforming ideas, inexhaustible in divine
knowledge. In order to convince the Truth-seekers of these realities pertaining
to Divine Truth experienced by him, being seen by him, being reported by him, he
may take the aid of the existing scriptures and refer to them, to strengthen his
statements, or in other words, to bring out the meaning better, or reveal the
similarity and identity between them. You call such a person: the new mystic,
the latest mystic. These mystics will be always there in human society. There
will be always personalities who choose the Truth, pursue the Truth, no matter
what obstacles are put in their way, no matter what discipline is demanded from
them, no matter what sacrifices are extorted from them. They will continue to
pursue the Truth with one-pointed devotion and experience the Truth. To
experience the Truth is to become the Truth.
There is butter and bread. You experience butter and bread by eating this butter
and bread. This is one kind of experience. You don't become butter and bread by
eating butter and bread. Supposing you were a drop of water and there is the
ocean. You want to experience the ocean. Here, you drop yourself in the ocean.
What happens? You become the ocean. You are the ocean.
Here, the experience is the same as becoming that which is experienced. It is
not like the experience of bread and butter. You think you become bread and
butter in order to know bread and butter. But you just have eaten it! Here are
two different things. You have eaten, and you are other than what you have eaten
what you have known. There, with regard to the ocean and the drop, the
experience and the experiencer and the process of experiencing have all become
one. There, you are yourself all butter. There is no second thing. There you are
all water. There is nothing second. You are the ocean. You, the drop, which was
so tiny, bound by time and space and causation, has now become unlimited ocean.
Suddenly the drop sees all the content in the ocean: the wonderful pearls and
jewels, all kinds of creatures, beautiful plants etc.
It suddenly acquired the grandeur, the majesty, the inspiring greatness of the
ocean, yet knows all corners of the world within the ocean. The mystic is like
that. The drop of his being becomes the Truth, the ocean of the Reality. And in
this ocean of the Reality, time-space phenomenon is a passing illusion. All
about it is known. And it also knows, and is, what it is experiencing - the
wondrous world of Truth. It is all Light. It is all Perfection. It is all
Beauty. It is all Fulfillment. Here, there is no need, no want, no desire. Here,
there is perfection, satisfaction, absolute satisfaction, absolute contentment.
You are yourself Perfection. You need nothing. You have everything. You don't
need to breathe; the body may need. But with the body you have nothing to do.
You are the Spirit, all-perfect. Body may come, body may go. Its presence, or
its absence, does not affect your perfection, or limit its power. Even so, the
presence of the world, or the disappearance of the world, does not affect your
perfection, though you know you are in the world, the world is in you. That it
changes and passes away, is like the memory of a building in you. Every thought
is an image. When you think of Paris, suddenly you have the whole city before
you, arising, people walking in the street. You see a tower, you see all the
cars in the streets, you see huge buildings, large gardens etc. All this is
visible to you. Suddenly you change your mind. All that disappears. This image
was contained in your consciousness. This image was made possible by your
consciousness. This image was sustained by your consciousness. This image was
evoked into existence by your consciousness. It disappeared from your
consciousness. Have you lost something? Are there scars of this experience in
you? Scars of impressions? No. It is like the sky, your intelligence. When you
burn something, it does not burn the sky. The sky remains as it is. Whatever may
happen to the objects inside the sky, it is ever pure, ever untouched. So is
your intelligence. Million images come and disappear. So is the intelligence of
God or Truth. Millions of universes come and disappear without leaving a scar
behind, a trace behind.
This perfect Reality has to be known, seen, understood, experienced. We have to
live like that. This is not only seeing, but being. Here, seeing and being is
one and the same. I see the witness in me. I am the witness of the witness in
me. I become the witness that I am witnessing. I have become timeless, spaceless.
When I return from this experience to the body, or when I am conscious of the
body and the environment of a physical universe, a material world, I live what I
saw - that I am timeless and spaceless. I behave as a timeless and spaceless
Being. No more a time- and space-bound body. No more a slave of the needs of the
body, conditions of the body, states of the body, demands of the body. All these
fall away.
Dynamic
Presence of the Divine
The body continues from now on to
be like any other body, and yet it is not the same. The spirit within is not
identical with body but identical with Truth. Truth lives through the body,
experiencing its own bodilessness, timelessness, unlimitedness. The conduct
therefore changes. What troubles the body - now more light, now less light, now
it is darkness, now it is night - all changes, all opposite experiences are
characteristic of the world. In this world, through this world, all around this
world, beyond this world, within this world I experience a light which is always
the same, yet ever new. It is Perfection. It is Absoluteness without a change.
What changes perishes, deceives, causes unhappiness. That which I am
experiencing in this changing world is unchanging, ever-the-same, all perfect,
and it is the source of every conceivable universe, knowledge, beauty, value,
ideal, illumination, genius, music, harmony, perfection, every kind of positive
characteristic in its absoluteness.
I have not only experienced myself as a Witness, the Truth, the omnipresent Seer
but also am helping you to experience this omnipresent Seer and Witness.
Therefore I discovered for you that this inner Witness, the Observer in you, at
the background of all your experiences, thoughts and feelings can be experienced
by you as a personality before your physical eyes, as Shiva, as all-knowing
Narayana, as all-loving Divine Mother. In order to arrive at this experience,
you have to live in the light of this experience, you must learn the art of
seeing the Timeless in time-formed bodies. You have to see in changing things
the changeless Consciousness, the changeless Truth, the unchanging Reality. You
have to see in human individuals the Light of light that the Truth is. You have
to have a new vision of life, a new vision of the people before you, a new
vision of things. You see in them something of which they may not be conscious,
or in fact are not conscious, and which is the Joy of joy, the Divine Spirit,
the inner Observer, and who is also filling the whole outside-space. You have to
see in everything the joy-giving and inspiring Face of the Divine. You must have
the purity of heart, that goodness, that greatness of feeling which calls the
Sun the brother, and sees in it the Face of God, the Heart of God, the Reality,
communes with it, converses with it, lives in its light, finds this light even
when the sun has set. You have to cultivate divine relations with the Spirit in
everyone and everything. You have to talk with the river as your mother. You
have to address the moon as the sister, the sun as the brother, the river and
the ocean as the mother, the earth as the mother and so on. And discover the
living and dynamic Presence of the Divine in everything. Then you are following
the footsteps of the mystics, then you will yourself become a mystic and
experience the treasures of the Truth here and now.
So when there is goodness and purity of heart, we begin to understand a life
lived under the light of divine Truth. We have not only to ask for divine
experience, but we have to constantly imitate the lives of the mystics and
saints before you yourself become a mystic. You have not only to hear the
Omkarananda-Upanishad but apply what you hear in daily life. After getting this
Upanishad, you can never more see the sun in the same way as others see and
experience it. The sight of the sun will put you into the consciousness of the
Divine. You will no more see women as women, but as the divine mothers, as
spirits of God, as lights of God. The outer personality and form, the physical
appearance pales into insignificance. All that is important for you is what is
inside: an all-seeing Divinity. It does not matter to you in which cover the
gold is, in which bag the gold is - whether it is a leather bag, stinking, or a
paper bag, or a plastic bag, or a silk purse. No matter in what it is, you know
its value, and you don't mind to take it from the stinking leather bag.
Even so, no matter who the person is, who the people are - good people, bad
people, evil smelling people, fragrant smelling people, ugly people, beautiful
people, all these do not matter to you. Your attention is focused on the gold in
all of them. This gold is the Truth, God, Divine Mother. This Truth or God
responds to you when you think of Him in every being, child or old person, man
or woman, good person or bad person. God does not respond to you less because
you are seeing Him in a bad person. The badness or the goodness of the person
does not make the God in him bad or good. The perfection or imperfection of the
person does not make the God in him imperfect or perfect. God is supreme
Perfection, supreme Purity, supreme Beauty, supreme Fragrance. It is this you
have to see with physical eyes too. When wisdom fills your intelligence,
something else becomes visible that what the physical eyes reveal, and this
something else is the Presence of the omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent God,
the Source of everything beautiful and perfect. It is this Divinity that is the
secret of our greatness. It is the secret of our rootedness in the Divine
Kingdom, even while living in a perishing sorrowful world of time and matter.
OM.
- Swami Omkarananda
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