SELF-KNOWLEDGE Is the Official Publication of Shanti Sadan, the Centre of Adhyatma Yoga in the West

SELF-KNOWLEDGE is the official publication of Shanti Sadan, the Centre of Adhyatma Yoga in the West. SELF-KNOWLEDGE Annual subscriptions in 2012 cost £10.00 to all destinations, payable to: VOL. 63 NO. 3 SUMMER 2012 SHANTI SADAN, 29 CHEPSTOW VILLAS, LONDON W11 3DR to whom all correspondence should be addressed. CONTENTS Page © SHANTI SADAN LONDON 2012 Time for Peace 97 ADHYATMA YOGA The Concrete Spiritual Life 99 The highest spiritual wisdom experienced by the Seers of Truth in Poems by Swami Rama Tirtha 104, 124 ancient times has been passed down to the present day through an Tribute to Gautama Buddha 105 unbroken line of traditional teachers. Its metaphysical side establishes, by reasoning, a strictly non-dualistic explanation of the universe; its Using the Mind to Transcend the Mind 107 practical side gives clear guidance as to how man should act and the The Eternal Wisdom continued 115 means whereby the purpose of life may be fulfilled. The essentials of the Discovering the Bright Pearl Within 118 teaching are: The Upanishads – Understanding the Oneness of All 125 1. That God alone is real, and all else is unreal (transient). Dhanji 132 2. That the Self of man in essence is identical with God. Meditation at Shanti Sadan 134 3. That the purpose of life is conscious realization of this identity and that it can be achieved while actively The Way to Self-Dependence 137 engaged in the duties of life. 4. That it gives unbroken peace, poise and bliss, and the TIME FOR PEACE ability to impart these to others. Adhyatma Yoga was introduced into Britain in 1929 by the late Hari One of the challenges for anyone wishing to advance spiritually is Prasad Shastri, at the wish of his Teacher, the spiritually enlightened securing time for peaceful and quiet reflection. In years gone by, the Saint, Shri Dada of Aligarh. The centre is at Shanti Sadan, 29 Chepstow excuse of lack of time was usually a polite way of saying, ‘I don’t want Villas, London W11 3DR, where the teachings are given in the traditional to do it’, when we knew we could if we wished. Some will recall the way. lines about one who was always busy: EVENTS FOR THE AUTUMN TERM 2012 He hadn’t time to pen a note He hadn’t time to cast a vote Weekday evening meetings at Shanti Sadan He hadn’t time to sing a song Meetings will be held every Tuesday and Thursday evening at He hadn’t time to right a wrong 8pm from 2 October to 29 November 2012. He hadn’t time to love or give AUTUMN 2012 Afternoon Course He hadn’t time to really live The afternoon course will be held on Sunday 4 November, 2pm - From now on he’ll have time on end 5pm, at the Columbia Hotel, Lancaster Gate, London W2. He died today, my busy friend. 97 98 But now there has been a deep cultural or sociological change, as electronic communications invade our private rooms and our pockets, The Concrete Spiritual Life and we feel a duty to connect and respond that presses more urgently A lecture given by Hari Prasad Shastri than any need to pause and reflect on deeper matters. The hymn ‘You’ll never walk alone’ has taken on a new and prosaic meaning, as we spend WHEN PEOPLE speak either of the spirit or of the spiritual life, they our precious walking time receiving and expressing, oblivious of the sometimes use vague terms. They leave great loopholes which they sky above, the birdsong and the flowers peeping from the hedges. expect the audience to fill up. Many people, even those who are deep Yet from every spiritual quarter comes the invitation to give some students of philosophy, do not know what is meant by the spiritual life. time and much attention to the higher life, before we have ‘time on You know perhaps Browning’s poem ‘Rabbi Ben Ezra’. In that poem end’. We need not be like the Japanese poet, Basho, who, for a brief is given a description of a very good man, and the moral is that time was so dispirited by his worldly contacts that he locked his door on goodness is enough. the world, only communing with the morning glory flowers that But this is humanism, and it is not an end in itself: it is a means to entwined his gate. But a certain amount of ruthless time-claiming, or re- another great and infinite end. Goodness is not an end but a means to claiming, is unavoidable if our aim is to climb the holy mountain within something greater: God vision. Vision is not an opinion or something ourselves. seen with these eyes; it is not even that which the intellect conceives. In sympathy with man’s reluctance to make new commitments, even Opinions always change, they vary, they are modified, but vision is one for his own betterment, the Bhagavad Gita speaks of the spiritual way and eternal: it lasts forever. It is the lifting of the veil of nescience and of life as ‘like poison’ to start with, but becoming like nectar, the the revelation of the fact of truth, which Socrates calls goodness. immortal drink of the gods. ‘Poison’ is perhaps a strong term, as most By the word ‘concrete’ we do not mean that you can touch or feel it, meditators find significant help and benefit from an early stage, and but something very definite, in which there is no vagueness whatsoever soon come to feel that to miss even for a day this psychological and and of which we are absolutely certain. spiritual tonic yields the uncomfortable feeling of having deprived Now a few remarks to explain a little further what we mean by oneself of a rare inner support. But good habits do, at first, need to be spiritual life. The first postulate is that every conscious movement is consciously established, and this is the hard part; afterwards, they teleological: it has some purpose. If I consciously walk, I have an idea become effortless. why I walk. From the spiritual point of view, even the rain and thunder So our fast-track living requires not only skills in keeping up, but also and lightning, and even the great pains and sufferings which come to in wise withdrawal and time-management. Actually, in this matter, we man, are meant for a definite purpose. To the spiritual man the moving are all self-employed, though we may have forgotten it; no one out there of a leaf, a visitation by a singing bird and the gurgling notes of a river has the right or authority to boss or bully us in the matter of our freedom proclaim some purpose. of thought, and the time we choose to devote to the greatest art of all, The second postulate is that our reasoning faculty, our intellect, has the fostering of a spiritual understanding. And our efforts in this a limit. That limit is always receding. What was reasonable to direction, though ignoring the general trend, will be fruitful, because, in Archimedes is not reasonable to Newton or Einstein. The whole the highest sense, we never walk alone. universe is discovered and yet undiscovered by physics. I assure you that physics has not yet discovered one billionth part of the universe. Its knowledge of the laws of nature is very meagre and poor. According to the conception of the concrete spiritual life, the whole 99 100 universe, discovered and undiscovered, is ruled by a conscious force. the greatest of the fine arts? Because in the other arts it takes some time Goethe calls it God. It is a great law, the law of all laws, and it comes to discover harmony and unity, but in music you discover it at once. into being, it advances like a thought, and it will one day come to an end Discovery of one’s particular mission in life we call the concrete ideal at the time of dissolution. Every process is governed by a spiritual law. or the concrete spiritual purpose. Each and everyone of us is here with a definite physical purpose, Question: You said that the Yoga can be summed up as adoration and intellectual purpose and also a spiritual purpose. The spiritual purpose approach. What is meant by approach? is revealed to a man who has qualified himself for the revelation, just as Answer: Approach means to qualify ourselves by study, devotion and the laws of higher mathematics are not revealed to a child but to a man discipline, to imbibe the highest characteristics of Ishvara (God) and to who has slowly worked himself up in the knowledge of mathematics. approach Him not in the spatial sense but in the qualitative sense. So the spiritual purpose of the existence of each and everyone of us is Spiritual life means to go from unearthly triumph to the vision of revealed to us when we are qualified for it. That qualification is called God. Unearthly triumph means the triumph of unity, triumph through the yogic discipline, and when this purpose is revealed, each and self-surrender. These words, unity, humility and self-surrender are the everyone knows: ‘I am here for this particular purpose.’ spiritual values. They are not the moral values. Morality does not mean There is a universal and an individual purpose. The universal purpose self-surrender or self-effacement. They are words of the ancient spiritual of each and every organism is something which is common to all, and vocabulary: infinite truth, infinite bliss, God, the whole response to the that we call adoration through discovery of unity.

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