(Darshan given on May 3, 1992)
A visitor: How are blessings given by the Guru?
Swamiji: The blessing is nothing but the thought of your welfare. If the person thinks your welfare, it will materialise. It is not only the Guru, but you also can do that. You can think the welfare of somebody, and it will materialise. Even if a person is in London and you are in India, you can think intensely something about that person, and that will materialise if the thought is strong enough. The nature of the effect will depend upon the intensity of your thought. If it is a mild thought, there is a mild action. If it is an intense thought, there is an intense, quick action.
Visitor: What was the special feature of your Guru, Swami Sivananda?
Swamiji: We lived some twenty-five years with Sri Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj, and every day was an impressive occasion for us. Like beholding the rising sun in the morning every day, he is refreshing, energising, enlivening, and giving joy every day. The ocean and elephants are majestic, in the presence of which your ego looks diminished. The diminution of the ego at that time is the reason for joy by seeing them, whereas seeing the full moon is of a different nature. You feel happy to see the full moon because of its beauty. Sublimity and beauty are the two attractions in this world.
Saints who are representatives of God are both beautiful and sublime at the same time, so whenever we had the darshan of Swamiji in the morning, our problems vanished. Problems arise on account of excessive emphasis on the finitude of our personality, and these great towering personalities are above the finite. So whenever the finite comes in contact with something which is above the finite, its finitude is diminished and it feels satisfied.
Another important characteristic of these great Masters is comprehensiveness of approach. Their approach is total and comprehensive, not partial or one-sided. People generally think certain things, finite things, little things, one-sided things, etc., whereas they think all things at the same time. That total or comprehensive approach of theirs is also one of the reasons why we feel happy before them, because our partial views get transcended in their presence on account of their total vision. This is the most impressive feature of Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj, and the feature of any great saint or Master. You feel happy when seeing a great person because of the greatness which is above your ordinary personality. You feel he is so high above that you look small before him. That smallness of yours is the reason for your happiness in front of that greatness.
The ego of a person does not want to become small. It always wants to become big. But in the presence of a greater majesty, it automatically is forced to feel as if it is small. This pressure of the ego of the disciple or person that is exerted by the greatness of the Master is the reason for the great satisfaction we feel. This is the case not only with Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj, but with all great Masters. So this is a brief answer to your question: What is the special feature or characteristic or impressive moment of your being with Swami Sivanandaji?
Visitor: Even though we have only been here since yesterday, it has been a very moving experience for us to be in this ashram and going to the Samadhi Shrine, but only praying to the picture of Gurudev Maharaj. And when you live together with such a saintly person, the actual experience of living with a saint and worshiping of a saint remains, or is there a difference?
Swamiji: Great difference! If I see you personally, it is one thing. But if I see your photograph, that is another thing. There is a difference. The photograph is useful only if you cannot see the person directly. If you see a person directly, why do you want a photograph? As you cannot see him personally, you keep a replica in the form of an image, statue or picture. But with concentration of mind, you can invoke the presence of that great Master or God Himself through that symbol. So the picture is useful when the original is not available for direct contact.
Another visitor: I have been struggling to define about the relationship of us human beings to God, and in my own surroundings as I was growing up, God is not like a cosmic God as it is explained in India. Please explain about the…
Swamiji: What is your concept of God?
Visitor: Eternal Father.
Swamiji: Where is He?
Visitor: In the cosmic.
Swamiji: You mentioned to me just now that the idea of the cosmic does not arise in your mind, but now you are saying 'cosmic'. So what is the question now?
Visitor: My problem is that intellectually I understand, but I am not convinced yet.
Swamiji: That is because your meditation is not being practised. Unless meditation is practised, the intellect will not go into the feeling. By deep thinking on this intellectual conviction again and again every day, it will melt down into the feeling of the heart, and then it will become experience.
Another visitor: There is a very famous, well-known sculptor, and there is the very great Buddha's Amitabha sculpture. He once opened the shrine that contained Amitabha and I had darshan of Amitabha, and I actually felt a certain wind, energy, was coming through, and I was very much awed by the presence of this statue. In such a case, what was happening?
Swamiji: If the sculpture is perfectly made, it will emanate a vibration. The photograph is a symbol of the original. Inasmuch as it is a perfect replica or an image of the original, it will produce a kind of vibration as if it is coming from the original itself. A thing that is artistically perfect will send a vibration of a similar, sympathetic experience.
Visitor: I cried almost like a bucketful. Why would this experience be?
Swamiji: That crying was due to the joy you felt on account of being blessed by that vibration. We cry when we are very happy or very unhappy, but they are two very different types of cries, not identical. So this is a cry of joy. It is a happy thing, very happy. That is why we go to have darshan of images in temples and holy places, so that we may have such experiences. Good, very good.
Another visitor: I am new to meditation, but I feel very settled and happy every time I do meditation. Is that reason enough for me at the moment?
Swamiji: If the meditation is done every day and it is satisfying, it is to be continued, and there is nothing more to be done.
Visitor: I am new to yoga and I read or hear words like nada, kundalini, sushumna, etc. It is very new and difficult for me. Should I try to learn them or should I not bother with them?
Swamiji: It is according to your choice. As far as direct practice is concerned, the methodology of practice should be continued every day without change of procedure. The same path should be followed continuously, just as when you want to reach a destination, you go along one road only and do not take two or three paths.
Visitor: I feel my heart is opening by listening to you, but it is only here. When I go back to my home it becomes very difficult to keep feeling the same way. So please help me by telling me the way how to keep this kind of holy feeling.
Swamiji: When you come and sit with me here and put questions, and I say something to you, if you feel happy about it and it is beneficial, I suggest that you write down immediately on a piece of paper or in your notebook what you have heard from me. Those sentences you may repeat every day, which may help you in recollecting the ideas that I expressed so that you may not forget it.
Another visitor: You said we should walk on one path to reach the destination, but also that yoga is integral. We all try to walk on one path but are also seeking integrality, or maybe dropping out to see something else, and so on. How do I meditate while searching for or looking for integral different paths but keeping in meditation?
Swamiji: When you walk on the road, only one thing is happening – the legs are moving – yet it is an integral action because your eyes are seeing, your mind is thinking, and your soul is acting. So though it is only one thing that you are doing, it is a total action of your entire personality actually taking place. When you take breakfast, it is an integral action taking place; though it looks as if only the mouth is eating, it is not the mouth eating. The whole body is active at that time, right from head to foot. So even one action can be an integral action. One path is equal to all the paths.
Another visitor: The Guru must be only one.
Swamiji: Yes, right.
Visitor: It is said that the mother is the first Guru, and then on the way of growing up, one will be meeting other Gurus.
Swamiji: There are various degrees of Gurus, and each time it is one Guru only. There are degrees of ascent in the concept of the Guru, just as when you go to a school or college one subject is taught by one teacher. Afterwards, in a higher degree, another teacher comes. Still higher degree, another teacher comes. Each time there is one teacher only. Though there can be various grades of these teachers on account of the ascent of knowledge, yet at one particular human moment of time it is one person only. You cannot have two persons at the same time.
Visitor: In the beginning, I believed the person to be my Guru, but I slowly found that the person was not the person I was looking for.
Swamiji: Then you can go to a higher one.
Visitor: Changes can be made? It is okay to change?
Swamiji: It is like education. When you go higher and higher, the teachers go on changing, as I told you. You will have a more qualified teacher. It is not actually changing, but ascending. Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa had a Guru, and afterwards another Guru came to teach him some higher methods of meditation. It is not that he had two Gurus. One was inadequate for a higher purpose, and for that latter higher purpose a higher Guru came.
Visitor: From my personal experience, like in this ashram, certain swamijis take interest in guiding me, and there is so much kindness it becomes a more personal relationship. I still regard myself as having one Guru, but many swamis give me a lot of love and teachings. Is that all right?
Swamiji: You may have many people showing love and regard to you, but among them one may be the highest, and that is the Guru. Among many who are all very good and very helpful, one among them may be the highest. That you can consider as the final Guru.
Visitor: If I find that particular highest Guru is not suitable to me, is it possible to change?
Swamiji: I told you, it is not changing from one to another, but rising from the lower to the higher. When you have grown up from the child stage to the adult stage, you have not become another person, but you have become a bigger person.
Another visitor: It is said we should be good, do good, so I try to do good things to other people, but my actions turn out to be giving a bad experience or unexpected result which gives the person unhappiness. So how should I identify or judge the goodness that I should give to other people? How do I find out what is really good or bad?
Swamiji: Anything that is beneficial for the spiritual upliftment of a person in some way or the other, directly or indirectly, visibly or invisibly, in any manner whatsoever, that should be considered as good. Anything that is detrimental to the spiritual well-being of a person is not to be considered as good.
Visitor: In merging with God as one, spiritually and also physically from outside, how does the person change? How does the person's outlook change as he merges with God as one?
Swamiji: He will see only God. He will have no other outlook. He will see only one thing. Though he sees many forms or objects in the world, he will see the substance behind the objects. The thing out of which the things are made, that he will see. There are many things in the world, but though they look like many, they are ultimately made of one substance only. So he will see the one substance out of which all things are made, and he will not be interested in the manyness or the manifoldness of the things. Instead of seeing the chair and the table and the stool, he will see the wood behind it. Instead of seeing many ornaments, he will see the gold that is behind all the ornaments. So he will see the ultimate cause or substance of everything. That is the difference between his outlook and the outlook of ordinary people.
Another visitor: In the ashrama system, the four stages of life, as growing up from the child to the youth, and having family, and so on, in the last stage of going into the forest and meditating only on God, and so on, my country has lost forests and the temples are into business.
Swamiji: Ashram does not mean 'forest'. Even if there is no forest, you can have an ashram. You can have an ashram even in Tokyo or New York; there is no objection. An ashram is a holy place, a vibration of holiness and sanctity that a person emanates from himself. A holy man can stay anywhere, and wherever he stays, that atmosphere is the ashram.
Visitor: There is no holy man in my country.
Swamiji: If there is no holy man, there cannot be an ashram, because ashram does not mean a building. It is an atmosphere of a saint, and if the saint is not there, the ashram also is not there. Nowadays people use the word 'ashram' to designate even an old age home. They say that is an ashram. People retire from their office and stay somewhere far away in a community of all retired people. That particular locality of retired people also sometimes goes by the name of 'ashram' in a modern sense, but that does not mean it is an ashram. An ashram is a saint's place. If you become a saint, an ashram will start immediately wherever you are.
Visitor: It is difficult to become a saint.
Swamiji: Why do you find it difficult to become a saint? If you really believe in the existence of God as the only reality, and this idea has gone deep into your heart, and you cannot think anything else but that, you have become a saint in one minute.
Visitor: Thank you, Swamiji.