SIRD Malaysia

Society for Inner Resources Development (SIRD), Malaysia.

Telesatsang by skype videoconferencing:   Sunday 8 February 2009.

Topic: Installing God in the heart once and for all.

(The session was coordinated by Unnikrishnan and Jeyabalasingam in SIRD, Malaysia and brahmacarin Ramaswamy in the Ashram, India; 8.35am to 9.00am Indian time.)

Sivananthi: Pranaams Swamijis. We have 35 participants today who have come up with four questions.

Poojya Swamiji:  asirvaad.

Sivananthi: The first question: Swamiji, in some of your writings the terms heart,  mind and intelligence are used. How is the heart different from the mind and intelligence?

Poojya Swamiji: Certainly it does not refer to any physical part. By heart we mean that wonderful centre of innocence. You know the mind is generally prejudiced by emotional preferences and prejudices. Intelligence also may be coloured. We generally have something like conscience, that is a word generally used.  So  you can say heart is synonymous with conscience.

How is the heart different from the mind and intelligence? I have already told you, the mind is generally coloured with a number of impressions. It may always have likes and dislikes, constantly. Even in the very thoughts you will find when the mind puts up a number of thoughts, some thoughts the mind itself will say – good, noble, I like, likeable. Others, it will say no. So this kind of a differentiation is constantly associated with the mind. In the case of intelligence also, it is generally objective in character. And it always speaks about the world it interacts with and understands. The heart is supposed to neutral and impartial; and it carries with it innocence and immaculateness. A kind of a pure thing inside you. Call it by the name conscience. So whenever we refer to the heart, it is a reference to the purity that is present in the individual. Is it okay? Is the idea clear?

Sivananthi: Yes Swamiji.

Sivananthi: The second question: A sadhaka’s attitude towards God should be one of supreme reliance, and Swamiji says this supreme reliance will bring instant changes in the devotee’s heart and mind. How does this come about and how can we sustain it at all times?

Poojya Swamiji:  See, to speak something, say utter a word, is not necessarily to understand the word, and be governed by its import or its message. There is also a difference between speaking and acting. There is a difference between acting and feeling. There is also a difference between feeling and attunement to the feeling. There are many things which arise in us transitorily and temporarily. But we want to go beyond this transitoriness, short-termness. And we should be able to have some kind of a stability and seatedness in what we say. In this context, I would like to explain: A sadhaka’s attitude towards God should be one of supreme reliance.

             Examine your mind and find out: Do you believe that there is a God? And is that God supremely potent, supreme in every way. Is He so? You think about it. If you think you are thinking of a God who is supreme and sovereign in any way, once you rely upon Him, should you ever feel a sense of insecurity, lack or insufficiency? Even if you have, will not your supreme reliance on the supreme potential called God, look after all these things? God is not like your father and mother, or a husband or a wife or children. They are all mortal beings, they are limited by the body, limited by the mind, limited by the intelligence, etc. In the case of God, we don’t find any limitation of any kind. He has made the whole universe. What do you think of the whole universe? Is it some thing small? First of all we have the endless sky and space. Inside that, countless number of heavenly bodies. The sun is there. Finally we come down to the earth. The earth is surrounded by a number of planets and heavenly bodies and the sky. A God, who has independently, without depending upon any second substance, made all these things.

         And come to the human being, the human being has his wonderful mind and wonderful intelligence. This is  also created by God. What do you think of the supreme potential of that S-U-P-R-E-M-E  God? Why don’t you dwell upon the word SUPREME? Your reliance will have to be unconditional, full and supreme. And you are relying upon a SPREME God. To rely upon him means what? After relying upon such a supreme God, I don’t think you have any cause for grumbling at all. There is no cause for worry, anxiety, agitation, doubt. Nothing at all. May be your daughter is to be married. May be you have lost your job, you must get another job. Maybe we are going to be flooded, there may be one or two or a series of tsunamis. Therefore what? Peg, peg, peg your mind in this supreme reliance and bring every thought,  every emotion, every doubt, every note of skepticism – completely obliterate it by this supreme reliance. So the word supreme means everything.

     Now, this is the way you have to examine your mind. So the more and more you think about God, understand how magnificent, how supreme, how wholesome, how infinitely potent he is. Then only you will be able to rely upon Him and make your reliance supreme. Here God is supreme. Your reliance is not supreme. That is the trouble. God is supreme whether you acknowledge Him or not. But your reliance upon him does not become supreme. So do whatever is necessary to make sure that your reliance is supreme. You decide for yourself. How to make my reliance on God supreme? You think about it. Stand on your head if you want. Go to the Himalayas if you like. Climb Mount Meru if you want. Fast for 41 days if you like. Chant whatever you want. But examine that your reliance has to be supreme.

        You cannot question anybody. Is the reliance coming from your heart? Coming from your mind and supported and stabilized by your intelligence? Is a question the intelligence asks before the mind. And the mind and intelligence together will have to sort out and arrive at an answer. Everybody has some regard for God. Mostly people fear Him. I want to say you rely upon Him. Upon whom? Upon that infinite indefinable power from whom the whole universe has sprung. To rely upon Him, is not to remain in a human body. The body is limited. Once you start relying, your body becomes infinite. It becomes wider and broader than the sky even. That is why sky is the limit of the mind I say always.

              Now supreme reliance will bring instant changes. As I talk to you, I want a few of you to jump out and say “Swamiji, I have found my supreme reliance!”. And nothing is going to matter in my life. My supreme reliance on the supreme lord will  look after everything. My life, my death, my belongings, my house , my daughters , my children. Everything He will look after. Once you have something like that, you start shouting ‘Eureka! Eureka!’ like Archimedes. This is what you will do. How much you can go, is of course left to the individual person. Individual parameters always will defer.

                How does this come about and how are we to sustain it at all times? You know not only this; even loving couple who have got married, they have to struggle with their mutual love. “I love you, I want to be with you, you are chosen for me”, they will say. And after one or two years they will say, “ You are not chosen for me!”. So, I think to sustain any kind of a thought, any kind of a value, even to sustain your riches, everywhere, the struggle to sustenance or striving for sustenance is common. What do you think of this sustenance struggle, the trouble for sustaining this kind of a supreme reliance on the supreme Lord?  Naturally it will be very high in its proportion. Struggle. Strive for it. Again and again try. The whole life span is available. Everyone of us will be living at least for a few decades. So the few decades of effort are possible. And certainly everyone of you will attain it sooner or later. I would like you to attain it sooner and not later. And I bless you for it. Okay?

Sivananthi: Yes Swamiji. The third question: What is the difference between intelligence and intelligential? Could Swamiji elaborate further on this?

Poojya Swamiji: See the word ‘intellect’ is the common one, though there is another word called ‘intelligence’. Intelligence has an adjectival form called intellectual. Whenever I speak about the intelligence, which should be constantly harnessed to set right and refine the mind to a greater and greater degree. I don’t want to call it the intellect because there are many intellectuals in this world. These intellectuals are not generally interested in spirituality or spiritual sublimation.  So I would like to use another word called intelligence.  And the adjectival form I have possibly made it, it is one of the English  words perhaps I have coined ‘intelligential’. The idea is, I don’t want to make it  just the intellect so that all the people who have intellect will feel a sense of pride over it. I don’t want intellectual pride in any one. I would like them to have the intelligential purity or refinement or sharpness, whereby the mind can be spiritualized, divinized and refined. So the intelligential is no other than the adjectival form of intelligence. Is it okay?

Sivananthi: Yes Swamiji. The last question: What is your one main advice for installing God in the heart once and for all?

Poojya Swamiji: Mmmm. Very good. That means when I answer you, you must be able to install Him. So you cannot get away from SIRD without having installed Him this very moment. See, answer me one to one. Everyone of you can say. Do you believe or recognize in something like God?

Participants: Yes.

Poojya Swamiji: Do you think the whole world has been created by Him?

Participants: Yes.

Poojya Swamiji: Is it preserved by Him?

Participants: Yes.

Poojya Swamiji: Is it also going to be destroyed, if at all, when it takes place, by Him?

Participants: Yes.

Poojya Swamiji: So if the whole world belongs to God, and it is maintained and preserved by Him, what are you in this world? Are you not of the world, in the world? If God already sustains the world, of which you are a very, very insignificant small part, will he not also look after you and sustain you?

Participants: Yes.

Poojya Swamiji: If the world is God’s, will you start saying that I am God’s?

Participants: (Long pause,  then a meek)   Yes.

Poojya Swamiji: Why are you doubtful. See, I find a stealth in you. You agree that the whole world belongs to God. The world is God’s, then what about you, an insignificant part? See, your car you say is yours. But a bolt in the tyre you say is not mine. See the stealth in you. Either a stealth, or a weakness or an inability. Get over this inability. And say that as the world belongs to God, I also belong to God. I am a son or a daughter of God. As I invite my father, as I invite my mother, God is something very big, so he cannot sit on my lap. Only in my mind and heart he can sit. So open your heart. Make a seat, an asan, of your heart. And ask God to come and stay there, inhabit in your body, in your mind. Can you do this? You can I know. But whether you will I don’t know.

Participants: I will try.

Poojya Swamiji: There is no question of trial. I don’t want you to try at all. 2 + 3. How much is 2 + 3?

Participants: Five.

Poojya Swamiji: Will you try for it. Two added…automatically becomes five. Similarly the world is God’s. You also are God’s. So your relationship should be with God. God is mine, I am His. And the best place for Him to remain will be, in the mind which feels it. So I will bring Him into my mind. So make a carpet of the whole mind. Ask Him to come. This is all what you want. Nothing else. There is no flower required. There is no time required. There is nothing.

                We generally say to go to your husband and you go to your Guru, no auspicious time is required at all. So to go to God or call Him to your heart, no auspicious time, no astrologer, no flower, no formality, nothing is required.  Open your heart and ask Him to sit there. And remain as His, as His, as His, as His  (Swamiji repeats).  Now I would like Swaminathan, Jeyabalasingam and Unnikrishnan to make sure, three of them, so that in case a hole is required, they can make it …..to make sure that all these people, get away from CIRD, only after having installed God in their heart. Until then don’t ask them to go away. Is it okay?  

Participants: Yes Swamiji.

Poojya Swamiji: Very good. See I am going to a place called Teregolkola, where for the past 97 years, a Hindu religious convention has been going on. I am told that it is an 8 day function and it is going to be concluded. I am asked to preside over the valedictory function. There will apparently be a minister from the Kerala government also. Normally I will not like to go to a platform where these political leaders are there. But in Malaysia I visit in a different condition. So there, people say that there will be about 10 to 20 thousand people. It is on the sandbank of a particular river, Pampar river. I had heard about it many, many years back, may be 20, 30, or 40 years back. So I have a feeling that I should go and see the place. Because they have invited me, I am going there. It is a great adventure for me with my health and ….  Maybe I will leave the ashram in no time know, may be  by about 10 or 15 minutes. By the time we may come it will be 10 o’clock or 11o’clock. I take my food. We halt at an intermediate place called Allapura. Reach the place before 3 o’clock. The programs will be over by 5.30 or 6.00pm. And we will return from there. So I think we will have to travel about 200 km up and 200  km down. 400 km I have to travel today. Something very, very difficult.

          Okay. Very good. So I will start addressing you as God’s children and little, little gods and goddesses. All of you are little gods and goddesses. Okay, asirvaad.

Sivananthi: Pranams Swamiji.  Thank you.

Jeyabalasingam: Pranams Swamiji. On behalf of all us here, thank you for a very inspiring session. We will check all their hearts as they leave. But somebody has to check ours also! We can’t check ourselves. (Jeya laughs).

Poojya Swamiji: That is why I have appointed three commissioners. You can mutually check!

Jeyabalasingam: This session has had a very great emotional effect on us. Thank you.  Pranams Swamiji.

Ramaswamy: Unniji, we shall log off. Jaigurudev.

End of videosatsang.

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Skype-video recording by Rames and Rema; 8 February 2009. Duration: 20 minutes. Transcribed by Swaminathan; transcript emailed to Ashram 9 February 2009.

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Appendix: (Hand-out sheet given to participants for group discussion before the telesatsang); prepared by the Management Committee, Society for Inner Resources Development (SIRD) Malaysia:

SIRD Malaysia

Video-satsang:       Sunday 8 February 2009

Topic:                        Installing God in the heart once and for all.

veeta-raga-bhaya-krodha manmaya mam-upasritahah

bahavo jnana-tapasa puta mad-bhavam-agatah

Cultivating supreme reliance on me, reflecting constantly on me and my nature, many take to the knowledge-austerity, whereby they transcend raga-dvesa-bhaya, and as a result, being purified, they become like me.

(Bhagavad  Gita 4.10)

Every word and phrase that Krishna uses spells out what should be the basic nature of devotional pursuit and what the devotee should aim at every stage. To be devoted to the Supreme Reality, Krishna says, is to grow and nurture reliance on It. It is then for the devotee to make his reliance supreme and wholesome. The devotion must bring instant changes in the devotee’s heart and mind.

To worship the Supreme Reality ceremonially makes the devotee think of placing Him on a high pedestal in a shrine or a pooja-room. But in the pursuit of nurturing supreme reliance, the supreme has to be installed in his own heart. How can then occasional or periodical worship of the Ideal be sufficient for the devotional growth and fruition? Krishna thus points out the real elements that constitute the true practice of devotion and how they should involve the devotee’s heart and mind at all times.

 - “Krishnatva – the Goal of Devotional life”, Vicharasetu Nov 1999 

Questions for the GROUP MEMBERS participating in the discussion

1. What do you understand by heart, mind and intelligence? How are they different from the gross body?

2. What should be our bhava (attitude) towards God? Are you able to have this bhava and if not why are you unable to do so?

3. Are you practising true devotion by involving your heart and mind at all times?

AFTER the discussion, list  one or two questions your group wishes to put forward to Poojya Swamiji.

1.

2.  

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End.