SRI SANKARA JAYANTI MESSAGE
(H.H. SRI SWAMI SIVANANDAJI MAHARAJ)
The occasion of the celebration of the Jayanti of Sri Sankaracharya is one of vital importance both from the point of view of religion and practical ethical life as well as of philosophy concerned with the primary issues of existence. Geniuses and prophets work, both while they are alive and dead. In fact, they never die; they only change the mode of their appearance. Sankara is one such gifted son of eternity, who descended into form for effecting such changes in the very conception of life, that his work has left its permanent mark in the passage of time. It is difficult to find a thinking intelligent being who has opened his eyes to the facts of life but has not felt the throbbing influence of the surging thoughts of Sankara. He is felt because he leaves untouched no part of the individual. He scrutinizes the body, examines the mind, points out this insubstantiality, and passes into the Spirit within. External acts and internal feelings, outward ceremony and inward religion, point to the reality of some great mystery underlying them. Sankara taught man never to be satisfied with chaff or husk, never to be deceived by dreams or appearance, but dive into the core by transcending the wise credulity and childishness of human nature. As long as one floats on the surface, one has to break like a bubble. The imperishable essence is found when one penetrates thorough the appearances.
The common mind of the world cannot appreciate the value of Sankara’s teachings as the world cannot know what is beyond its restricted ken. Sankara is great only to those who are great and magnanimous. To approach the domain of Sankara one has first to cease from playing with toys and catching shadows and become a man. The passions that burn within the heart have to be satiated with the cool waters of discriminative knowledge, if the light that Sankara throws may be beheld. There is a tendency in men to resent philosophy as unpractical and exalt the utilitarian ideals of society. But this is done with the ignorance of the fact that social ideals cannot be standardized except on the foundation of a permanent meaning found in life. No man lives and acts without an idea of the purpose thereof. The motive behind thought and action is the meaning given to one’s life here. Even a dull-witted being acts with a purpose. What accounts for the differences in life are the difference in the ideas of the purpose of and consequently the meaning attached to life. Sankara was a great unifier of humanity, because, he brought home the fact that purposes and meanings of life are not many but they all are apparent ramifications of one purpose, one meaning, of one life.
Sankara was a great religionist, an ethicist and moralist, because, his theory of the oneness of life required that all should live a life of very strict self-control, devotion and sacrifice. Injurious thoughts and actions, falsehood and sensuality, go against the oneness of life, and hence, they should be carefully got rid of. Materialism and immortality, worldliness and bad conduct, are enemies of the unity of existence and Sankara warns that one who is caught up in these meshes, does not have the fortune to realise the majesty of the truth of Eternal Life. To be wise, good and pure is the essence of the cardinal canon of the Sadhana-chatushtaya without which none can expect to have Brahma-Jnana, the one remedy for the disease of embodied life. Sankara is never tired of insisting on the need for a complete transformation of human nature if perfection is to be achieved. The man in one should die if the God in him should be experienced. This means, not a joke or a hobby, but such a thorough change in life that the majority of mankind would dread to undergo it. Anyhow God is not cheap, and if God is the highest goal, to gain Him, the greatest price must be paid. The price demanded is the destruction of the ego, the annihilation of personality, the death of mundane love and value, for the sake of immortal existence.
Sankara has not come here to be called great and be worshiped by those who are satisfied with bread and clothing, who love things of the world and wish to be masters thereof, who burn with desires and earthly ambitions, who revel in the filth of sensuality and egotism, not even by those who seek the glory of the celestials but to be a guide to those who are ready to strip themselves completely and stand in the nudity of truth, to cast off the shell of the universe and enter the kernel of the Divine, to turn the back to the shadow and come face to face with the Light that can never be dimmed. Sankara’s teachings are not words but life and light, and he exhorts that man must be, to be true to his nature, absolutely dispassionate, saintly and wise, so that, through proper meditation, he may transcend himself and attain communion with the Absolute Spirit.
The most important of all requisites, is however, a very pure heart, a crystalline conscience. Liberated from the vitiating desires that smother the consciousness within, the whole person becomes unveiled and expresses himself in his genuine natures of a melting feeling, a giving hand and bright knowledge. The dross of the various stresses of life that corrupts the true nature has to be removed if the lustre of truth is to manifest. What humanity needs at present is a strong purging, a rigorous purification, and not sermons on philosophy. It is the one duty of all those who aspire for perfection, to first make themselves worthy of the attainment, to polish themselves, after which the whole universe shall be reflected in the mind as a perfect system of Truth, a veritable haven of divine order and perennial happiness.
May you obtain the blessings of Sankara and all the Brahmavidya Gurus and attain Kaivalya!
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If the dust is in the company of the wind, it soars high in the sky. If it is in the company of water, it becomes a dirty mire. If the air is in the company of the jasmine, it wafts a sweet fragrance. If it is in the company of offal, it disseminates a foul odour. Likewise choose the company of wise men and become divine.
—Swami Sivananda
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