Sri Ramakrishna Math : The Vedanta Kesari, Contents

Excerpted from a talk published in A World in Transition: Finding Spiritual Security in Times of Change. Reprinted with permission of Self-Realization Fellowship. Since 1931, Sri Daya Mata has been one of the closest disciples of Paramahansa Yogananda (1893-1952). She has served, since 1955, as the President and Sanghamata of the international society he founded--Self-Realization Fellowship/Yogoda Satsanga Society of India. She was one of the first women in modern history to be appointed spiritual head of a worldwide religious movement.

In the last decades, we have seen the world change so rapidly--our way of life literally transformed in the space between one generation and the next. Where is it all leading? Paramahansa Yogananda impressed on us the understanding that whenever world conditions or civilizations undergo significant changes, there is always an underlying subtle cause--the hidden working of the law of karma that operates in the lives of individuals and on a mass level of international affairs. Just as with challenges in our personal life the right attitude is, 'What am I to learn from this?' so the world as a whole needs to understand the lessons that the Divine intends us to assimilate at this point in our evolution.

Humankind has to embrace the art of balanced spiritual living and it has to learn to get along as one global family. The pressures we feel and the anxieties that plague us in this era of exploding technological advances will sooner or later compel us to learn these lessons. Paramahansaji foresaw this years ago, and told us many times: 'The day is coming when the world will have to get back to simple living. We must simplify our lives to make time for God. We must live more with the consciousness of brotherhood, because as civilization evolves into a higher age, we are going to find that the world becomes smaller. Prejudice, intolerance, must go.'

Science has brought the nations so close to one another that the once vast world is now more like a household, with each member interlinked and dependent on the others. Considering how difficult it is for even a small family to stay together amidst the disuniting trends of our times, is there hope for unity in the world at large? There is hope--for individual families as well as for relationships among the global family of nations--if we make time to nurture those goals and values that are conducive to real peace and spiritual understanding.

Humanity today is suffering from spiritual malnutrition. People in parts of the world are suffering from physical starvation, but millions in all nations are suffering from spiritual starvation. Science has given the means to feed every person on this planet; it is man's spiritual poverty that makes him cling to selfishness and small-minded prejudices, thereby preventing him from eradicating hunger and other forms of deprivation.

As Paramahansaji often said: 'America and other countries in the West are the most prosperous starving nations in the world.' We do not adequately nourish the qualities of the soul. With all of the material gain we have achieved, millions in the most advanced nations are discontented, unhappy, bewildered as to the meaning of their existence. But see the Divine Hand in this: the Lord has set up this cosmic schoolhouse in such a way as to ensure our upward evolution. If we were contented, there would be no impetus for progress; dissatisfaction motivates us to improve situations. So it is that the stresses and pressures of our modern life are pointing the way to the next step in our development.

We are more and more realizing, particularly in the western world, that the goals we have pursued do not satisfy our souls. Over the next generation or so, we will see this same understanding emerge in those developing nations where western materialistic values are being overly idolized and imitated. We have accomplished much in improving the outer conditions of life, but we have neglected the most important accomplishment--to improve and change ourselves, to know ourselves, to understand why we are born, to realize our true purpose in life.

'The goal of life is to know truth,' Paramahansaji said. 'We may think we have other goals, and we may have lesser goals; but eventually, in one life or in another, man comes to the realization that he has but one goal to achieve, and that is to know himself in truth as the soul, the Atman, made in the image of God; and to know Him who is Truth: God.'

When we speak of spiritual poverty, remember: it is not our souls that are starved. The soul is infinite, inexhaustible bliss, life, love that sustains every faculty of our being. It is when we shut ourselves off from the soul that our peace, understanding, kindness, courage, compassion--all the noble qualities of the spirit--remain undernourished, undeveloped, in some people seemingly non-existent! The divine manna of the soul is not something we have to acquire. We have it already but do not know it. We have only to learn, as the scripture tells us, 'Be still, and know that I am God.' Be still, and into your consciousness flows the realization that you are an immortally blissful ray of the Divine Spirit, an eternal being of infinite wisdom and infinite love, residing for a time in this little bodily temple. That is the truth of our being, but who lives in that consciousness? Who nurtures the expression of that wondrous being?

The life anchored in truth, in wisdom, in God, is a balanced life. It starts with meditation. That is the emphasis of the routine established by Paramahansa Yogananda for those of us who reside in his ashramas. The way of life he taught us consists of meditation, first thing in the morning, before we begin our daily duties, and at intervals throughout the day: at noon, and again in the early evening when we have finished our daily work, and once more late at night alone in our rooms before retiring.

You might say, 'Well, that is all right for those who live in an ashrama. It is not possible for me; I have too many other responsibilities!' If you think that way, you have written your own verdict, because no one can have a balanced life who does not make time for God. This is a valuable lesson the Divine intends that humanity learn as the world advances into a higher age. Technology has so accelerated the pace of life--getting and doing and having, faster, faster, faster!--that most people take little or no time to realize those goals and values that bring balance and peace. It is impossible to be balanced human beings and forget God, because His very essence in us is all we really want or need. To forget Him is to deny our real Self, our inmost nature, and to invite inharmony and lack of success in all departments of our life.

It is the spiritually balanced individual who is truly successful. I am not referring to monetary success; it has little meaning. A person's success cannot be measured by what he has, only by what he is and what he is able to give of himself to others.

Meditation helps us to align our outer life with the inner values of the soul as nothing else in this world can. It does not take us away from family life or relationships with others. On the contrary, it makes us more loving, more understanding--it makes us want to serve our husband, our wife, our children, our neighbours. Real spirituality begins when we include others in our wish for well-being, when we expand our thoughts beyond 'I, me and mine.'

Decades ago our Guru spoke in these terms to thousands. Many took his counsel to heart; but for the masses he was perhaps a bit ahead of his time! Fifty years later, world changes are compelling people to re-examine their priorities--to realize that without a rebirth of spiritual values this modern era will grow ever more chaotic, insecure, and inharmonious. But while there may be less indifference to spirituality and meditation today than during Paramahansaji's life, instead there now is a sense of helplessness: 'I don't have time!' Those who are able to schedule endless activities throughout the day, but not a few minutes to be with God, need to re-evaluate their busyness. Their real problem is not a lack of time, but an addiction to restlessness; and it is going to take more than simply using a new type of weekly planning calendar to cure it.

Addiction is a disease; and addiction to restlessness is an epidemic spiritual disease. Paramahansaji spoke of it this way: 'Spiritual disease manifests itself in lack of soul peace, want of poise, discontentment, restlessness, unbalance, inharmony, unkindness, unwillingness to meditate, and the habit of putting off meditation.' Until people acknowledge that we are dealing not with a scheduling conflict but with a spiritual sickness that requires a specific cure, their efforts to live a spiritually balanced life will remain mostly on the level of vague, ineffectual intentions.

The drug addict feels an intense craving for the addictive substance. As long as he indulges that craving, his enslavement simply gets worse. Is it not the same with the modern restlessness addiction? People feel empty within because of their unbalanced concentration on temporary satisfaction supplied by material acquisitions. They are trying desperately to assuage that empty restlessness by indulging in more restlessness! They occupy themselves with useless diversions to distract the mind from problems just enough to somehow get through each day: 'Well, if I can go shopping in the mall, that will take my mind off my worries. Or let me get out and play a round of golf, or go to a movie; that will help me ease the emptiness inside. Or why not just sit and stare at the television for a while; it will dull the pain of my quarrels with my children, my husband, my wife.' These are the escapes people use to try to get away from their daily torments, but evading problems does not solve them. Those troubles will beset a person all the days of his life until he faces them and says: 'Now I am going to do something about them.'

No one would try to cure drug addiction by giving the addict more of his drug. Likewise, the cure for the soul-starved restlessness addict is not more restless diversion; it is meditation--immersing body, mind, and emotions in the stillness and divine contentment within.

Most shun meditation not because they truly have no time, but because they do not want to face themselves--a definite result of the interiorization of meditation. There is too much they do not like in themselves, so they would rather keep the mind busy on externals, never thinking too deeply about the self-improvements they need to make. Get away from such mental laziness. Mental sloth, Patanjali pointed out, is one of the major obstacles that hinders our spiritual progress. It makes us say, 'Well, tomorrow I will think of You, God. Today I am just too busy with the worries You have given me.' Millions through the ages have made the same weak, lame excuse. What a delusive thought it is! 'I want You, God, but tomorrow--as soon as I get my schedule under control--I will begin to think of You.' That tomorrow will never come so long as you accept excuses. How many skulls have been strewn across the sands of time of individuals who had the intention to change themselves but not the discipline to do something about it now.

The tragedy of complacency is that most persons do not begin to do something about bettering their spiritual condition until their hearts are wrung with torment, sadness, frustration, suffering. Only then do they turn toward seeking the Divine. Why wait and go through such anguish? It is so simple to feel God now if we make but a little effort in meditation.

How marvellously different and fulfilling is the balanced life in God shown us by Paramahansa Yogananda: 'Divine Mother, teach me to live with delight. May I enjoy my earthly duties and the countless beauties of creation. Help me to train my senses to observe and appreciate Thy wondrous world of Nature. Let me savour with Thy zest all innocent pleasures. Save me from negation and unwarranted kill-joy attitudes.'

People have the notion that when you seek God, you have to be oh! So solemn! But such false piety is not of the soul. The several saints I have met and associated with, including Paramahansaji, have been joyous, spontaneous, childlike. I do not mean childish--immature, irresponsible; I mean childlike--one who can enjoy the simplest pleasures, who lives with delight. Today people do not know how to enjoy simple things. They have become so jaded in their tastes that nothing satisfies: overstimulated outwardly, starved and empty inwardly, they take to drinking or drugs to escape. The values of contemporary culture are unhealthy, unnatural; that is why it fails to produce many truly balanced individuals and families that do not go to pieces. That value-sickness is spreading in all countries, even in India.

One of the first questions people in every country have asked me in my travels around the world is, 'How can I find peace?' I say to them: 'There is no other way except by going within into the presence of God.' Daily meditation is the way to restore spiritual balance in the lives of pressured individuals and fractured families, and to resurrect those values that will nurture peace and harmony in the large household of our world family.