sumitsehrawat
July 23rd, 2005, 03:40 PM
God has a masterplan and we have our role to play. Bondage and freedom, pleasure and pain, birth and death, gain and loss are mental creations. When we transcend these pairs of opposites, we will not be reborn. It is the physical body that persists and returns. We should carry out al our actions in a detached way in a spirit of dedication to the divine. Then these actions will not bind us, says Swamy Sivananda. He asks men to spiritualize all their activities and to feed the mind with thoughts of God, their hearts with purity.
One has to remember how in a second, thousands of human beings are born in this world. Who decides their destiny? Why and how do they appear in a various strata? Scriptures say that the last thoughts of a dying person govern his future and determine his birth. A licentious man will have his last thoughts on the worldly pleasures he has enjoyed, of a liquor-addict about his joys, a soldier of his enemy, and a mother deeply attached to her only son about him and a man steeped into religious activities, about God. In the Bhagavatam, this theme is elaborated in the story of Jadabharata who out of mercy took care of a fawn, got attached to it and ultimately was born as a deer.
To the person who has disciplined his mind, all thoughts throughout the life will be pinned on God. This habit of retaining God’s vision amid routine work cannot be cultivated during one day. It requires struggle, will power and determination. That is why man is asked to be spiritually inclined throughout, as that alone will make him remember God. For this, simple methods have been prescribed, such as reciting God’s names, listening to expositions of holy books and closely associating with people of virtue and integrity so that at the time of death, one will think of God. He may not be re-born at all or he may be caused to appear as a Godly person. Swami Sivananda’s plan to train God-realization is “Start the day with God, end the day with God, fill the day with God and that is the way with God and that is the way to God(Heaven).”
In a lecture, Swami Vimalananda said that apart from the time of rising from or retiring to bed, a person can meditate on God’s forms or chant His names whenever possible thereby ensuring that base thoughts do not creep into the mind. Then the last thoughts, because of his constant remembrance, will also be on the Almighty’s lotus feet. When a person meditates and when he develops virtues, a spiritual road gets laid in his mind, and anxieties vanish.
July 16, 1993
The Hindu
One has to remember how in a second, thousands of human beings are born in this world. Who decides their destiny? Why and how do they appear in a various strata? Scriptures say that the last thoughts of a dying person govern his future and determine his birth. A licentious man will have his last thoughts on the worldly pleasures he has enjoyed, of a liquor-addict about his joys, a soldier of his enemy, and a mother deeply attached to her only son about him and a man steeped into religious activities, about God. In the Bhagavatam, this theme is elaborated in the story of Jadabharata who out of mercy took care of a fawn, got attached to it and ultimately was born as a deer.
To the person who has disciplined his mind, all thoughts throughout the life will be pinned on God. This habit of retaining God’s vision amid routine work cannot be cultivated during one day. It requires struggle, will power and determination. That is why man is asked to be spiritually inclined throughout, as that alone will make him remember God. For this, simple methods have been prescribed, such as reciting God’s names, listening to expositions of holy books and closely associating with people of virtue and integrity so that at the time of death, one will think of God. He may not be re-born at all or he may be caused to appear as a Godly person. Swami Sivananda’s plan to train God-realization is “Start the day with God, end the day with God, fill the day with God and that is the way with God and that is the way to God(Heaven).”
In a lecture, Swami Vimalananda said that apart from the time of rising from or retiring to bed, a person can meditate on God’s forms or chant His names whenever possible thereby ensuring that base thoughts do not creep into the mind. Then the last thoughts, because of his constant remembrance, will also be on the Almighty’s lotus feet. When a person meditates and when he develops virtues, a spiritual road gets laid in his mind, and anxieties vanish.
July 16, 1993
The Hindu