Early Morning Talk on 9 November 2003
By H. H. Sri Swami Chidanandaji Maharaj
At The Samadhi Shrine of Gurudev Sri Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj

OM OM OM

Om Mitraya Namah
Om Ravaye Namah
Om Hiranyagarbaya Namah
Om Marichaya Namah
Om Suryaya Namah
Om Bhaskaraya Namah
Om Savitre Namah
Om Adityaya Namah
Om Jyotishe Namah
Om Arkaya Namah

Worshipful homage unto Thee, Thou Light of Lights beyond all darkness, from whom the sun derives its light. The sun is the brightest in all objects in the realm of human experience. The sun is the brightest light that the human world has known. The sun which is the brightest of lights shining in our heavens above. Compared to which, the moon, the stars etc., fall into insignificance. To Thee, Who are the source of the light of the sun itself, to Thee, whose resplendence is the Divine Radiance equal to the light of a million suns. Not one or two but a million suns, koti surya samasprabha. Worshipful homage unto Thee. Thou Who are filled with such radiance, Thou Who are shining with the radiance of a million suns, Thou are our Indweller.

Can we imagine what light is shining within our own spiritual inwardness? Can you imagine? Do you ever give a thought to it? I am a radiant being; I am filled with the radiance of a million suns. Wherever I go, I carry this radiance within me. Whatever I am involved in doing, I still carry this radiance within me. You should keep this awareness and keep thinking about it, you will be a radiant being. If you forget and involve your mind in thinking about other things, despite the radiance, you can still be carrying the darkness within you. It depends upon your mind.

To be aware is life. To be sleeping and forgetful of this is death. You may be awake spiritually, but spiritually you are dead. I am very fond of handing out to visitors – spiritual literature, because, that was one of the things he taught us to do. Gurudev always kept free spiritual literature and when visitors came, he not only entertained them with tea or coffee and biscuits, for children he gave toffee and chocolates and other things, dried fruits, badam and kaju – he liked to give cashew nuts. But, he would say, that is only a small prasad, he gave it with a grand fatherly attitude. He would say, look here, this is not the real prasad, this will quickly get finished off, this will go away, this here is my real prasad – it will serve you for your whole life, it is spiritual food. I also do the same thing; there is always a collection of various spiritual literatures here in Guru Niwas and at Dehra Dun in Shanti Niwas. They have made a special shelf for it. Two or three layers of spiritual literature is always there. I always tell them – whatever else you give them, you give them fruit, you give them apples, bananas, oranges, you give them sweets – normally we give sohan papdi because it is available in boxes of various weight, various quantity, various sizes and Haldiram's savory salty things, but immediately I say look here, you have given them all the other prasad, when children come, they get a surprise range of things, little toffee, little biscuit, but, have you given them free literature? First of all, give them free literature; then give them the other prasad which they can eat and digest but first, give free literature to take with them as one is temporary, the other is permanent.

In that literature, I am very fond of giving a small book of the American Mystic; James Allen – “As a Man Thinketh”. The main idea is - as a man thinketh, so he becometh. The brief title is, “As a Man Thinketh”. Before this is completely exhausted, I ask them to reprint another 500 or another 1000. Even though it is copyrighted by his daughter; Ms. Margaret Allen, yet, at the request of Swami Omkar of Shanti Ashram in Tottapuri Hills, East Godavari District, Andhra Pradesh, he was a very great friend of her deceased father; James Allen. James Allen and Swami Omkar knew each other. Swami Omkar has gone to the United States when he was quite a young person, he went to the United States when he was eighteen years of age, for the first time. Among various other things he asked James Allen’s daughter was regarding the copyright. She told him that the copyright that she held over the publication, would not come in his way of printing and publishing the book but on one condition; that it is given free to everyone. There is no price for it and it is not sold for a consideration or a monetary contribution. And, now that she had permitted him to do it and that it should be given free to all as a gift, it should be printed at the very beginning of the book, as soon as people open the book, they should see the writing, “This book is printed with the kind permission of Margaret Allen, the daughter of the author James Allen who holds the copyright. She has permitted this to be printed in this revision provided it is distributed free”. There is no cost. So, when I print it in our press or any other, I reintroduce this recital as it is. So, I print there, “Printed by Swami Omkar of the Mission of Peace, Shanti Ashram, Tottapuri Hills, East Godavari District, Andhra Pradesh, India. I don’t say printed by Swami Chidananda. I reproduce it as it is.

In the time of James Allen, in the time of Ella Walcott, they introduced a movement, called the ‘New Thought Movement’. The main thought in this ‘New Thought Movement’ was – mind is what makes man or woman, mind is what makes the human individual, what the human individual is. Whatever thoughts you keep in your mind, your nature will become also like that. Your personality will become also according to that. Your behavior will reflect the thoughts of your mind. If you are a human being, you will act like a human being, if you are a brute, you will act like a brute, if you are a god, you will act like a god, live like a god, your actions will be divine.

The New Thought Movement even took out a monthly journal called, “New Thought”. During the British Rule in India, there was no restriction on importing anything into India from outside countries, especially the western countries, especially from America, Canada and England also. All British goods were available in India, in the Indian Market for England to earn a lot of money. So, all the Indian Subjects purchased British Goods. Britain used to get a lot of money from India since India has a very big population – it has the biggest population in the whole world, except for China. China is the most thickly populated country in the whole world. Next comes India which is the second most thickly populated country in the whole world. And so, it is a very big market. Everything used to come to include books printed abroad which were commonly available in the bookshops in India. Less books printed in India were available in the bookshops in India compared to the books printed in the U.K. There were more books printed in England available in India than books printed in India itself. Who was the very well known publisher for books printed in India in those days? It was the Oxford University Press and the other publisher was Higginbotham. In North India, I do not know.

They were all forerunners. Alice Davis was another important personality in this movement of New Thought. So, “The New Thought Movement” by Ella Walcott, James Allen and there were some others – they had a saying, an affirmation, one was an universal affirmation which contained a few verses, from the point of light, how light descends, like this, there are three verses. It was called a great affirmation. It goes around even today but the short affirmation was, “I am in the Light, the Light is within me, I am the Light, I live in God, I am in God, God is within me, I a God.” Aham Brahma Asmi. If you think lofty thoughts, you will become lofty, if you think crude negative thoughts; you will become that crude negative person. If you think godly thoughts, you will become a godly person. “I live in the Divine, the Divine lives within me, I am the Divine.”

There is a person who at one time passed crudely and who lived crude, rude and a cruel life. He lived like a dacoit in a dense forest. And, he lived to prey on unwary travelers. He would take everything from them and go. If they showed some resistance, he cudgeled them, broke their heads with a stick and then forcibly deprived them of all their possessions and killed them out of sight. And this same forest dacoit due to the grace of God, and due to the advice of some saints and sages who were passing by there - who he wanted to assail and rob. They convinced him that this was very, very bad for him, not for them. That what he was doing was very, very bad for him because there is a Law of Karma, as you sow, so shall you reap. As you act, the reaction of it shall come upon you. One day it will come smash in your face. You will have to pay for it, pie by pie. Do, don’t think that you are very clever, you are foolish. You are bringing a case of fire upon your own head. Just think what it will be like to have this case of fire upon your head. And so, they instilled fear into his heart. He then realised and thought for the future. The result of what he was doing in the present and the effect in the future made his heart tremble, he fell down to his kneed and cried, “Show me the way to get out of my own practise. I am the cause of my crude self; I have become dehumanized and crude. I have become harmful and hurtful to my fellow human beings.” They showed him the way of compassion. They forgave him a 100% instantly. Just think of what he was going to do to them but, they showed him the way to reform himself, to live a new life and showed him the way of becoming a transformed person.

And so, this very same person becomes a compassionate sage. Heart filled with kindness, heart filled with compassion. Heart filled with a deep feeling of consideration for the welfare of others, for the happiness of others. It was a miracle transformation like the transformation of the metal gold from iron. Gold is the most precious metal of all. Like the process of transforming iron into gold which is the most precious of all metals, such a transformation they brought in him. He becomes a great sage and one day, while he passed by the forest hermitage where he was dwelling, living a spiritual life, contemplating God and wishing well on all humankind, followed by his disciple and as he was going to the river to take his bath, as he was approaching the river, he finds a hunter, is going about hunting with bow and arrow, and as the hunter comes within the sight of this all compassionate sage, the sage is shocked to see that the hunter is taking clear and full aim on a pair of cranes that were just pairing together to produce a family on a treetop as birds do in order to produce a family and in that condition, he was aiming his arrow at the love filled bird, clearly planning to shoot them. Subconsciously, the words came out of the sages mouth, “Na Nishada – No, no oh thou hunter (hunter is called Nishada, butcher is called Vyadha). No hunter no, stop! Think of the effect of what you are doing. Then followed a torrent of words in the chaste Sanskrit language and strangely enough, the words don’t issue out in the form of prose, the words issue out in the form of poetry. So, he becomes the first poet ever in Ancient Indian History. That man happens to be known today as Sage Valmiki.

Sage Valmiki was not a sage previously, he was as I said, crude, rude and a cruel dacoit, breaking peoples heads and depriving them of their possessions. If he can become like this, what is not possible? If a dacoit can become a sage, if iron can be transformed into gold, what is not possible? Everything is possible but, provided your mind brings about this transformation. After all, it is the only endowment of man that distinguishes him from man and animal. Animal plus a thinking, reasoning intelligent mind is man. Otherwise man and animal have the same features. We have a head, animals have a head, we have two eyes, animals have two eyes, we have a nose, animals have a nose, we have lungs, animals have lungs, we breathe, they also breath, we have feet to walk and run, they have feet – they walk and run. Everything, we have a stomach, they have stomach, we have hunger, they have hunger, we eat food, they eat food, we digest, they digest, we excrete, they excrete, we make a family, they also make a family, we build a house, they may build a nest, all that we can do, they duplicate. We speak to each other in the human language; they speak to each other in a language of their own. So, everything in the human life, in the human personality is being duplicated by the animal body. We have nails, they have claws, we have teeth, they have teeth, we have tongue, they have tongue, we hear, they also hear, we taste, they also taste, we feel, they also feel. So, the only thing that is different, we have a mind, they have no mind. They have a crude automatic intelligence which comes from the origin of the species but, we think in a systematic way, a logical way, a rational way; that systematic, logical and rational thinking is not in animals. They have got a rude, crude instinctive thinking – all animals think the same way, it is instinctive thought based on survival because the basic instinct of all living beings is the instinct of survival. Any harm of danger comes, they will run away from danger like an instinct of survival, it is programmed into them. The instinct of survival is a drive for the crude workings of their rudimentary brain.

We have the element called voluntary thinking. We can think in this way or we can think in that way – we can think in any way we like. We can regret some thought also. So, we must make use of this faculty, the rational intelligence that God has given to us and make ourselves divine. If such a transformation came upon the compassionate sage, this comes in the original Sanskrit Valmiki Ramayana of which the Tulsi Manas Ramayana is a much later version in order to make the lofty story of Rama and elevate it to the non-Sanskrit knowing general public. I must wind up now.

So, today’s sharing is that your mind is the greatest gift that God has given to you; you are the crown glory of His creation, because of this gift. Utilise this gift well in a positive, creative and beneficial way, in a sublime, divine and elevating way and bless yourself. You are the Master of your destiny; your mind can make you what you want to be. It is your great endowment, utilise it well.

Aditya Aditya Aditya Pahimam
Bhaskaraya Bhaskaraya Bhaskaraya Rakshamam
Aditya Aditya Aditya Pahimam
Bhaskaraya Bhaskaraya Bhaskaraya Rakshamam

Aditya Aditya Aditya Namah Om
Bhaskaraya Bhaskaraya Bhaskaraya Sharana Om
Aditya Aditya Aditya Namah Om
Bhaskaraya Bhaskaraya Bhaskaraya Sharana Om

Om Namah Shivaya
Om Namah Shivaya
Om Namah Shivaya
Om Namah Shivaya
Om Namah Shivaya

Om Namo Narayanaya
Om Namo Narayanaya
Om Namo Narayanaya