* Lust is a potent force, very difficult to get rid of. Hence I have to place such a mental picture before the minds of the vast majority of persons. Really, women should be adored, as Mother-Shakti. She is the creatress, generatrix and nourisher of the universe. She must be revered. In India, religion is being preserved and maintained only through the devotional element of women. Devotion is a fundamental characteristic of Hindu ladies. Hate lust, but not women.
"Yatra naryastu pujvante ramante tatra devatah, Yatraitastu ne puiyante sarvastraphalah kriyah."
"Where women are honoured, there the gods are pleased; but where they are not honoured, no sacred rite is fruitful" (Manusmiriti)
This is a strange world indeed. This is a very big museum or a wonderful show. The flowers and the Himalayan landscape, the Niagara waterfalls and the blue seas, the sky and the Taj Mahal are all very beautiful and charming. But the earthquakes, Volcanic eruptions, lightnings, cyclones and epidemics of influenza and plague are frightfully awful and threatening.
A beautiful wife is very charming. She is very sweet, when she is young, when she smiles, when she puts on beautiful dress, when she sings and plays on the piano or violin, when she dances in the ballroom. But she is horrible to look at when she loses her temper, when she quarrels with her husband for not getting silk saries and gold necklace, when she is suffering from acute abdominal colic or some such disease and when she becomes old.
The spring is very lovely. The trees arc adorned with flowers and fruits. The cool gentle breeze is really exhilarating but the summer is scorching. The winter is bitingly cold.
Man laughs when he gets a son, when he gets married, when he gets some sudden fortune or increase in salary, but he weeps when his wife dies, when he loses his money, when he is thrown out of employment, or when he suffers from some acute disease.
Now, tell me, friend! what do you really find in this illusory world-happiness or pain, joy or sorrow? Have you now understood the illusory nature of Mayaic creation? This world is a mere appearance. Mind and the senses are deceiving you every moment. You have mistaken pain for pleasure. There is not even an iota of happiness in this sense universe. Abandon these selfish struggles and schemes for amassing wealth. March directly to that wire-puller who is moving these toys of fleshy human bodies, who is keeping up this big show, who is behind this show. In Him only you will find lasting happiness and perennial joy. Merge in Him by practicing daily meditation and Japa.
This world is as unreal as the shadow, bubble or froth. Why then do you run after the toys of name and fame?
How uncertain is sensual life in this world! How transitory and fleeting is sensual pleasure! Mark how many thousands of people were carried away in the recent Bihar and Quetta earthquakes! (refers to incidents occurred long ago before this book was written) How many big palatial mansions were destroyed! This is Adhidaivika Tapa. Yet people want to build bungalows in Simla and Mussoorie and attain immortality there! How foolish these people are! Poor self-deluded souls! Pitiable is their lot! They are earth-worms only as they revel in filth. I pray for them. May God bestow on them Viveka, Vairagya and Bhakti!
Go wherever you may, to Gulmarg or Pahalgaon in Kashmir, to Darjeeling or Simla, to Vienna or Alps. It is all the same.
You will not find any real rest. The charming scenery may soothe the retina for a second. Raga, Dvesha, jealousy, passion and greed are everywhere. You will find the same earth, the same sky, the same air, and the same water. And you carry with you the same mind. Imagination and change of places have deceived not a few. O man! Be contented. Live where you may. But discipline the mind and the senses. Meditate on the inner Self (Antar-Atma) ceaselessly. Here you will find the everlasting peace. Mind will stop deceiving you now.
To me the whole world appears as a ball of fire. To me the whole world appears as a huge furnace wherein all living creatures are being roasted.
Will your son or daughter or friend or relative help you, when you are about to die? Have you got one sincere, unselfish friend in all this world? All are selfish. There is no pure love. But that Lord, your real Friend of friends, Father of fathers, who dwells in your heart, will never forsake you, though you may forget Him. Adore Him in silence, that God of gods, that Divinity of divinities, Highest of the highest. May He bless you with His Love, Wisdom, Power and peace.
As everything is unreal in this world, treat love and respect as poison. Be indifferent. Be reserved and reticent. Give up mixing with others. Live alone and enjoy the Atmic Bliss in your heart. You don't want any company, when you can live in the Soul.
You must show extreme contempt towards worldly objects. Treat all earthly possessions and sensuous enjoyments as dung, poison, dust, and straw. Turn the mind away from them. Then only you will get Jnana.
Give up clinging to this illusory life. Be fearless. Take refuge in Vairagya. All fears will melt away. Cling to the Feet of the Lord. Cling to the indivisible, unseen, unknown, unknowable Atman or Brahman of the Upanishads.
By indiscriminate clinging to wife, children, house, wealth, and objects, you have forgotten all about your essential divine nature. You have become an atheist. Wife, children and money have become your gods, whereas in reality they are your enemies.
If you develop keen Vairagya, if you subdue your senses, and shun all enjoyments and pleasures of this worthless world, mixed as they are with pain, sin, fear, craving, miseries, disease, old age and death then nothing can really tempt you in this world. You will become proof against all temptations. You will have eternal peace, and infinite joy. You will have no attraction for women and other worldly objects. Lust cannot possess you then.
If you really want God and God alone, kick this world mercilessly. Enough, enough of your tea and coffee, enough of soda and lemonade, enough of father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister and relations. You have had countless fathers and mothers, wives and children in the past. You came alone. You will go alone. None will follow you save your own actions. Realize God. All miseries will come to an end.
He who indiscriminately clings to wife, son and daughter and the objects of the world has no other alternative but to forget all about his divine nature.
The company of worldly-minded people is as dangerous, if not more, as the company of a woman to an aspirant.
Worldly men think they are quite happy because they get a few ginger biscuits, some money and a woman. O, if they would just taste the nectar of immortality, what should be the intensity of happiness they should feel!
Dear friend! The past now appears to you as a dream. Then why do you not believe that the present also will appear as a dream in the near future?
All worldly pleasures appear as nectar in the beginning, but become virulent poison in the end. This world is a Mela (a congregational performance as a diversion or sport) for two days, and this body is a mere appearance for two seconds. Even if you become the sole monarch of the whole world, you can hardly be in the enjoyment of real Bliss and Peace.
Life of man on earth is nothing but a life of temptations and tribulations. Those who have real and intense Vairagya and strong Viveka can hardly be tempted by worldly objects, by Mara and Satan.
Being much hemmed in on all sides and whirling in, different conditions in this ever fluctuating world, you are ever whirling with delusion and afflicted with pains like dusts of sand floating on a large stone. Now, reflecting upon Time which is eternal in its true nature, you cannot but term as a moment the 100 years of your life. While so, how is that you estimate your life so greatly and fall into all sorts of despondencies through the insatiable desires? Who is there so debased in life as you who are spoiled through the gross-mind? Fie on-your uneven life, which cannot be considered as of any moment.
Comparing this life to the countless universes, you cannot but consider it as an atom. It is really surprising that you should rate high this universe full of pains.
Even the greatest of persons will in course of time become the lowest of the low. All enjoyments, great men, and their kindred have appeared in former times. Where then is the certitude of existence of all objects now? The innumerable earths with their countless rulers and wealth have all perished like fine sands; the Devalokas (celestial realms) with their Indras and wealth have all disappeared: no limit can be imposed upon the number of universes, Brahmas and Jivas that have come and gone. Where then are all the objects that have vanished out of sight? Where then is the permanency of earthly life? It is only by bestowing your desires on the illusion of the long dream of bodily delusion in the sable night of the unreal Maya that you have debased yourself to this ignorant state.
Enough, enough with all the deaths you had in previous times. Not one beneficent object exists on this earth either in the beginning, middle or end. Are not all created objects coated over with the varnish of destruction? You enact in your daily life with your body dire sinful acts, painful deeds and illimitable vices.
In youth you are enveloped in ignorance, in adult age you are entangled in the meshes of women; in old age you groan under the burden of Samsara and debility. You eventually die. Being thus always occupied, when will you find time to devote yourself to the commission of virtuous deeds? How came this Maya to play and dance in this world? This ghost of your mind dances in the theatre of this universe to the music of the organs. If in the opening and closing of the eyelids many Brahmas are created and destroyed, what are you, a puny self, before them?
You cannot please the world, your wife and children. Remember the story of the old man, his son and the donkey. In the Sastras it is said "The pure man is looked upon as a devil, the clever man as presumptuous, the man of forbearance as weak, the strong man as cruel, the absent-minded man as a thief, and the handsome man as lewd. Who can then please the world? There is no means within knowledge wherewith one can satisfy all people. One's own good should, by all possible means, be looked to. What can the myriad-tongued world do?"
The Blessed Lord says : "He, O Pandava, who hates not radiance, nor outgoing energy, nor even delusion, when present; nor longs after them, absent; he, who, seated as a neutral, is unshaken by the properties; who, saying: 'The properties revolve,' stands apart immovable, balanced in pleasure and pain: self-reliant; to whom a lump of earth, a rock and gold are alike; the same to loved and unloved; the same in censure and in praise the same in honour and in ignominy; the same to friend and foe, abandoning all undertakings, he is said to have crossed over the properties. And he who serves Me exclusively by the Yoga of Devotion, he, crossing beyond the properties, is fit to become the Eternal" (Gita : Ch. XIV-22-26).
To attain to this exalted state of spirituality, you should, in the first instance, fully realize the glory of life in the Spirit, or the Soul. Then only you will have the requisite strength to kick and spurn this world mercilessly and take to a life of meditation on the Atman and the path of renunciation. Constant remembrance, and meditation on the following verses of the Bhagavad-Gita will help you not a little in the attainment of your goal.
"He, whose self is unattached to external contacts, and finds joy in the Self, having the self harmonised with the Eternal by Yoga, enjoys happiness exempt from decay." (Ch. V-21)
"That in which he finds the supreme delight which the Reason can grasp beyond the senses, wherein established, he moves not from the Reality; which, having obtained, he thinks there is no greater gain beyond it; wherein established, he is not shaken even by heavy sorrow." (Ch. VI-21, 22).
"The Yogi who thus, ever harmonizing the self, has put away sin, he easily enjoys the infinite bliss of contact with the Eternal." (Ch. VI-28).
"I shall declare that which ought to be known, that which being known immortality is enjoyed; the beginningless supreme Eternal, is called neither being nor non-being." (Ch. VIII-12)
"When the dweller in the body has crossed over these three qualities, whence all bodies have been produced, liberated from birth, death, old age and sorrow, he drinks the nectar of immortality." (Ch. XIV-20).
Dear friends! Do not relax your efforts. Keep the Divine Flame burning steadily. You are nearing the goal now. Thy Light has come. There is Brahmic aura in your face. You have crossed many peaks and insurmountable summits in the spiritual path by dint of untiring and patient Sadhana. It is highly creditable indeed. You have indeed made remarkable progress. I am highly pleased with you, O Yogindra! But you will have still to ascend one more peak and go through one more narrow pass. This demands still more patient efforts and strength. You will have to melt your Sattwic egoism also. The Brahmakara-Vritti also should die. Then alone you will attain the Bhuma, the highest goal of life. You can do this. I am quite confident.
