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Early Morning Talk on 6
November 2003 OM OM OM OM Namah Shivaya Worshipful homage unto Thee O Thou Supreme, eternal and infinite, non-dual, Divine Being. Worshipful homage unto Thee, Thou all-transcending, Absolute Reality, Thou One without a second, Thou all-pervading Reality. Thou Who art greater than the greatest, Thou Who art tinier even than an atom or an electron, a neutron or a proton. Unto Thee, worshipful homage at this moment, when we are all gathered together in the spiritual presence of Holy Master, in this sacred Samadhi Hall of Sivananda Ashram, on the banks of Divine Mother Ganga in Uttaranchal, in the lap of the Himalayan mountains. Thou encompasses all things, but at the same time, Thou indwellest even the smaller than the small, the tinier than the tiniest. Thou art a divine mystery Who cannot be known; but who knows. You know thyself, you alone can know Yourself. To Thee, worshipful homage. May Thou make Yourself felt in the hearts of all these seeking souls seated here. Loving adorations and reverential prostrations to worshipful and beloved Holy Master Gurudev Sri Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj. We bow to Thee again and again, we invoke the glance of grace of Thy spiritual presence here. Upon this 6th day of November of the year 2003, in this early morning hour, may Your glance of grace be upon all those assembled together in Your spiritual presence. Radiant divinities in the form of inmates of the Sivananda Ashram, in the form of visitors to the Sivananda Ashram, in the form of anyone seated here; who may not be inmates of the Ashram or visitors of the Ashram, but belong to some third category – maybe living in the neighbourhood, and attending the morning class. Sometimes, Christian seekers used to come here regularly; though they did not belong here, but they were regularly present for our morning prayers’ assembly. To all of you, the service I offer this morning is that you may think about the implications of certain terms. Have you ever reflected upon a certain point, thought about the implication of a certain point? That point, namely, depends between being awake, and being asleep. What is the difference? The person who is awake is aware of the passage of time. The person who is awake is aware of the passage of time. The person who is asleep is not aware of the passage of time. Seconds pass, ten minutes pass, half an hour pass, one hour pass, two hours pass, or three hours pass – the person who is sleeping does not know. Whereas the person who is awake, he knows about the passing of even five minutes! If he is waiting for a bus, he knows: “Oh! How come? Is it late today? Already it ought to have come by this time!” Fifteen minutes have passed; and scheduled time of arrival, it has not come. I had ordered for a taxi to go to the Haridwar rail station, I was to catch a train that leaves at certain time; taxi-man promised he will be here at this time, but … he has not yet come. “What time was the visitor from Dehra Dun expected?” In that way, from several angles, the person who is awake is constantly aware of time – what time it is; of the passage of time – how much time has elapsed; and the implication of the passage of time – how it will upset others’ schedules, to learn upon this time: we had scheduled some other item. Next time if you will come, he will be here, he will be here for half an hour, afterwards we will be free; therefore we can give an appointment to so-and-so … But now everything is going to be upset. All these implications, the person who is awake is aware. Sleeper is not aware. What is the implication of non-awareness of the passage of time? What does it mean to you, if you are not aware of the passage of time, due to slumber? You have all heard – I am sure, no one who is seated in this hall at this moment does not know or has not heard – the saying, “Time is precious.” Time is precious. And, not to be aware of the passage of time and allow it to pass away, it means you are losing something that is precious! Which is a loss to you: you are losing something that is very precious. And to keep on losing something that is precious is not very wise. It is not very wise. I don’t want to put it the other way; you may be offended if I say, “It’s very foolish,” so I don’t want to attribute foolishness to anyone. But, it’s what we have to admit: to keep on losing something that is precious is not very wise. It is not very wise. So do you want to be WISE? Do you want to think of yourself as a wise person? Or do you want it to be said that you are not a very wise person? Do you want to think about yourself, “Oh! What a pity how very foolish I am!” Therefore, it behooves a person who suddenly realizes that, from this point of view, “I am sleeping, I am not awake” … it behooves such a person to WAKE UP! It is no good, remaining some time, allowing precious life to be passed away. Because when time passes away – time is precious – it actually implies that life is passing away. Life is no other than seconds and minutes and hours, a.m. and p.m., midday and midnight, and days and weeks and months and years. When you declare your age, or write your age upon some form that requires that your name, father’s name, mother’s name, your age, place of birth, everything has to be … some application form, everything has to be filled in. When you write your age: “I am fifty-seven years, nine months and fifteen days. I was born on such-and-such a day” – what do you mean? Do you mean: “Since my birth so much time has already passed away? So much time has already passed away. Within this period, what have I achieved? Having come upon earth as a human individual, with a mind and an intellect which can think and reason, know and understand, what have I achieved? To my credit, what do I have, out of all the things that I have done, that will find favour in the eyes of God? In the eyes of wise men of God?” If you try to take stock, where will you stand? Where will you stand? “What have I achieved, what have I gained?” doesn’t merely mean about things and achievements in the outer field of one’s secular life in this world; it also means achievements in the inner field of our own nature, of our own self, of our own psyche. “What have I achieved?” in terms of having been able to rid myself of things that are negative, not plus points, you see, but minus points, negative; how much have I achieved in the all-important process of overcoming one’s self? Of overcoming one’s self. Of ridding one’s self of those aspects and parts of one’s self which are no good to us; which are hindrances and obstacles … path of progress towards the great goal of life, which are between us and God. Uthisthita! Jagrata! Both mean the same thing. “Awake” means: put an end to sleep, put an end to non-awareness of the passage of time; put an end to your non-awareness of what you are losing, precious thing that you are losing. “Awake!” – Do not slumber any longer. “Arise!” – Only a person who is awakened can arise. One who is in deep sleep cannot arise; he will be in a supine position only! So, “to arise” means … it presupposes that he has already managed to shake off slumber, and has become awake. Then alone arises the question of arising! Otherwise, if you are still in deep sleep, one cannot arise. Therefore, both imply shaking off slumber and being in a state of wakefulness and awareness. And, though the neutral English translation of a third admonition is not very accurate, ‘Prapyavaranyabodhata’ – “stop not till the goal is reached” – it does not actually … accurately translate ‘prapyavaranyabodhata.’ When you physically awaken from physical slumber, it is not bad, it is good enough; but it is not enough. You must also be mentally awake, alert, with your intellect, so that you can be active in enquiry, discrimination, investigation, analysis. There was a person I know – IS, not was – who calls himself, “Khogi.” He writes little books and puts himself as “Khogi.” Khogi can have two meanings. One is, one who is searching and seeking. If you look for it, they are missing it somewhere, it seems to be lost. The seeker is a khogi. Seek and find. The author has said in one place: “Seek. Find. Rest.” Seek, find, rest: seek God; find God; and rest in God. And, another meaning of khogi is, one who has lost himself. To “lose something” in Hindi means kho gaya. So, khogi is one who has lost himself. That means, he is so much absorbed in God that he is filled only with God, and there is no time or place to be aware of one's self. So, one has lost one’s awareness of himself, and completely is one hundred percent filled with the awareness of God. I used to come across him regularly, when I used to spend a couple of months in Uttarkashi – because he was regular, in the summer he used to be in Uttarkashi. And he used to engage himself in some selfless service. And, beyond Swami Premanandaji’s ashram in Ganespur, where I used to stay, in Lalit Mohan’s cottage, there is an ashram with a homeopathic dispensary. You do the selfless service of finding out who requires some treatment in Uttarkashi, this atman, that atman, that atman, this sannyasin; and take down their names and their troubles and the age, symptoms and go to that homeopathic dispensary. Tell them that this is …; get medicine for the person; carefully label all the medicines; come back and deliver it to the patients in Uttarkashi. So when we used to go for a walk towards Uttarkashi side, we used to meet each other on the way; ourselves walking towards Uttarkashi side, he himself walking, moving in the other direction. But interestingly enough, he actually resides in Swargashram, but I have never tried to find out where he resides in Swargashram. I have got some booklets of his: some of them are in English, some of them are in Hindi. And in Hindi books, sometimes he writes very knowledgeable books – analysing ourself on our behalf – and these are all the things worthwhile cultivating; and gives us a big list of virtues, positive qualities, gunas, that are helpful to others. And ends by saying: “You should benefit yourself by cultivating all these positive qualities.” And, what are you to get rid? The opposite of these! He does not detail them, he does not give a list. He says: “… anything and everything that means the opposite of this. The absence … a state of absence of anyone of these positive virtues – that is to be got rid of.” And one of those things to be got rid of is slumbering away precious life, by not being aware of the passage of time. No use repenting afterwards. Slumbering away precious time and life; and depriving yourself of the golden opportunity that time means in terms of striving to attain the grand, great, sublime, lofty goal of human existence – God. God! Attain God. “Mission, therefore, of mankind,” a saint therefore says, “lies in the journey.” You must reach a destination, you have come here to reach a destination.” We do admit, in the journey, when it is done on foot, we cannot keep our onward movement towards the destination 24 hours, we have to take halt for the night somewhere; and we have to rest our body and sleep a little. But then, we should not overdo it. We do admit it is necessary, it is indispensable also, but we should not overdo it. We should halt at the resting-place for the night; and then sleep, restore ourselves. But we must be UP before the crack of dawn, to once again resume our onward journey towards the destination. We should not allow the sun to rise upon a sleeping traveller; a sleeping you or a sleeping I. When the eastern skies become flecked with pink, rousing others – ushutkaal – one should be already up, and on the road. That means you must have woken up even before dawn, long before dawn, see; finished your toilet and brushing of teeth and taken your bath. You can halt after a couple of hours for a bite of something, have breakfast; but don’t halt to finish breakfast first and then … You can walk much better on empty stomach than after having put something into it. This is the experience. This is actual experience. Therefore, comes the admonishment, “Oh, traveller, awake! arise! it is already dawn. What do you mean by slumbering? There is no night after sunrise has passed.” In classical Hindi, literary Hindi, sometimes they refer to the night as raina, though in popular circulating language they call it raat. Din-raat. But in literary Hindi sometimes they call it din-raina. Normally we say din-raat. What is it you are still seeking as though it is still night? What is this, why are you still sleeping as though it is still darkness of night? Look here, I am putting this question to you, and asking you, and pulling you; because one who slumbers after dawn, one becomes a loser. One who slumbers after dawn is a loser. One who wakes up at the crack of dawn, before sunrise, and resumes the journey, that person will be the gainer. Jo sowat hai, woh khowat hai, jo jagat hai, woh pawat hai. Uto jag musafir, bhora wahi, ab raina kahan, jo sowat hai? You see, one sometimes gets up early; then maybe a small alarm rings. One gets up early. But one stops the alarm and goes back to sleep again. That is the … It is a tiny second sleep. But it can be very harmful, very damaging in your ideals, and to your aspiration. You should not do so. And the reason the poet adduces that you should not do so is: God never sleeps. He is always there, awake, quite wakeful to your side, and he is there, by your side, awake – and you are sleeping! What is this? Is this the respect you have for God? Is this your reverence that you show to God? A small sleep, a very, very nice, but very, very damaging and a very irreverential … This is not the right and fair way of showing your devotion to God; that He is standing by your side awake, very much awake, and …zzzzzzz!!! [Swamiji makes a snoring noise; everyone laughs] … you are sleeping! That is … Get up. You must be ashamed of yourself. Sri Sri Anandamayee Ma used to sing… He bhagavan he bhagavan he bhagavan he bhagavan He Bhagavan. Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya. Om Namo Bhagavate Ramachandraya. Many kinds of Bhagavan, up the hill, across the Ganges. Vishweshwar Bhagavan or Vishwanath Bhagavan of Varanasi, Kashi; Venkatesa Bhagavan of Tirupati; and Bhagavati, Bhagavati Bhavacharini of Dakshineshwar, Mata Bhagavati Kunjapari of Pujatpari up there, Surkhanda Devi, beyond Yerkhand, Bhuneshwari; Manshadevi, Bhagwati Manshadevi, Haridwar; or Chandi Devi, across the Ganges, across the Ganges, beyond Haridwar – Chandi Devi. These are all various names. Ma used to call: Hé Bhagavan. You have to keep calling God, all the days. You have to work out your destiny; you are your own saviour. Another person cannot make effort to save you. You have to work out your own destiny. You have to overcome your previous karmas. For everything that you have committed before, you have to pay here now. They may come in the way of obstacles; so there may be necessity of manfully striving to overcome the obstacles posed by previous karma; and, in spite of them, progress towards the goal in a determined way. Where is there peace and restfulness in sin? Having committed wrong actions in your previous birth, or earlier in this very life, you have to … eye-for-eye … you have to pay; you cannot escape this obligation. Therefore, be very, very careful, alert and watchful and wakeful what type of actions – mental, verbal and physical – you are doing moment by moment, day after day. Because, if you are not wakeful and move in a … don’t move in the right direction, and commit actions that should not be committed, they will all get accumulated. They will all accumulate. And they will become a load hampering your onward journey towards your destination. And if your own sweat makes it accumulated, and ties itself into a big bundle – like washerman’s bundle when he takes dirty cloths to take wash, they used to take it like this. Nowadays there are hand-carts and special carts and other things. Otherwise they used to … washerman used to take loads of dirty cloths for taking to the dhobi’s ghat. When he became prosperous and more and more customers came, his load became bigger and bigger; then he kept a donkey with him. He loaded the donkey. And when he is washing the cloth in the riverbank upon some rocks, you know, then he lets the donkey loose. And it wanders, wherever, fending for itself, nibbling some grass here, nibbling some leaves there. And at that time, if someone asks someone else passing by, two friends passing by: “Whose donkey is this I see daily?” “You don’t know?” There is a popular saying in Hindi: Dhobi ka gadha na ghar ka na ghat ka. Ghat means water’s edge in the river. So no one knows whether it belongs this side or that side, it belongs to no one. Until this man finishes his wash, dries – and nowadays, too, some people iron it there; otherwise they take it home to iron – and when he takes it home then he thinks of the donkey. And when a big load of your sins, tied into a bundle, and put upon your head, it will hamper your journey; at that time, what is the use of weeping? You should have made this bundle impossible by committing no sin; by walking the straight path; keeping yourself clean in thought, word and deed. Therefore, don’t play with life. That which can be done tomorrow – do it now. And that which can be done today, later on this evening – do it … Nahin. That which can be done tomorrow – do it today; and that which can be done today evening, later on – do it now. Moment by moment, hour by hour, moment by moment, your life-span is diminishing. Therefore, whatever we have to do, we have to do now. Being careless when the corn is ripe, the harvest is full in the field, if the farmer and his family do not keep vigilant watch 24 hours day and night, birds will come and eat all the crop. Afterwards crying, what is the use? See that until you reap the crop and take it home, you do not allow a single grain to be eaten away by the birds. Because birds come in Flocks; and they can finish up a whole field of ripe harvest of corn in a field like that. Afterwards repeating Hai, hai! – what is this? Therefore, whatever is to be done, do it right now. And you can do it right now only if you are awake. Awake. If you are slumbering you cannot do it; if you are careless, forgetful . And one who is slumbering is careless, he is forgetful; he does not know the passage of time. “What is happening?” Therefore, by the grace of the Supreme, and by the blessings, benedictions of Holy Master, today’s message and today’s service, and offered unto you all, is wakefulness, alertness, vigilance. Wakefulness, alertness, vigilance. One who is wakeful, alert, awake, vigilant, he gains the supreme treasure of treasures – he attains God; and not the slumberer. The slumberer is the loser. One who is wakeful is the gainer. Dattatreya Dattatreya Dattatreya pahimaam Dattatreya Dattatreya Dattatreya namah Om Dattatreya Dattatreya Dattatreya pahimaam Dattaguru jai Dattaguru purnaguru avadhoot guru Dattatreya tava sharanam Dattaguru jai Dattaguru Dattatreya Dattatreya Dattatreya pahimaam Dattatreya Dattatreya Dattatreya namah Om Om Namo Narayana |
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