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Though I would present the subject in a
subjective way my illuminations of this subject
would be from the point of Sri Ramchandra's
Rajayoga, a system of realisation propounded by
Sri Ramchandraji of Shahjahanpur. That does not
mean that Shahjahanpur theory is a new one. It
is new in so far as it tries to bring about a
more, healthy and normal unification of the
power of man, which have been unfortunately
divorced from each other in the long history of
religions, not only here but elsewhere. When I
chose the subject of the Dynamics of Spiritual
life, I was almost thinking about the division
usually made in physics about the statics and
the dynamics of matter. We have a static view of
the world, a view of the world which is so fixed
that we are, each one of us given a particular
part to play and that alone and there is no
question of evolution or growth but only
emancipation from the burden of that work. So,
every one of us born in this world is said to
live a life in the routine way prescribed by the
Sastras following certain duties, according to
the status of life for the function to which one
is born and according to the age to which one
belongs, age group to which one belongs.
Therefore, everything was said clearly and rules
are being framed rather rigidly and as in all
cases of rules, they need exceptions and
exceptions become the rule. So much so, the rule
becomes merely something in the statute and not
really followed. So, the statics of our
religious life in this country and elsewhere has
been a growth of religious patterns of behaviour
which may well be described as ritualistic
patterns said to be good but really not
delivering the goods. Man feels bond. He does
not feel freedom even in the performance of the
rituals or his duties. But, really that
condition has produced one phenomenon that we in
India, are considered to be Karma-bond. We are
creatures of Karma and therefore we are karma
ridden. Nothing can make us get out of Karma,
the bond of Karma, or the bondage to Karma and
all our efforts are to find out a way, by which
we can get out of the bondage to Karma. Then, as
it was suggested there was a heavy theory called
the doctrine of Karma that our past binds us,
and will bind us and we can do nothing about it.
It has made it much more impossible for us to
seek a doctrine of Moksha or liberation. So, so
far as we are concerned, we are people obsessed
by the concept of Karma and Karma in the largest
sense of the word includes Dharma or duties and
these duties are so fixed that we can hardly
emancipate ourselves from that. To break out
duties was to court excommunication in ancient
times, in earlier times till last century, I
should feel. And, when we came under the foreign
rulers whether they were Islamic or Christian,
we became more rigid about our observance of
Dharma because we were afraid that we will lose
the little security that we have in our Karma.
Well, that is rather a paradox. But then you
know such a thing alone forged us to a
resistance to the invasion of Islamic and
Christian power and made us Hindu-conscious or
Hinduism-conscious but what a Hinduism have we
inherited now? Here again there are two types of
people - the reformist Hindus and traditional
Hindus and both of them are struggling, one for
the preservation of the karma and another to
modify the karma to suit the modern age whether
it is Islamic modern age or Christian modern age
or the technological modern age of today. So, on
the whole we are finding it rather a very
difficult thing to believe that religions can
emancipate us and the methods given for
emancipation seem to be certain kinds of
formulas. For instance, if you want to
emancipate yourself, they counsel ANASAKTHI YOGA
OR NISHKAMA KARMA. Do all your actions according
to the principles of nonattachment to the fruits
thereof, or try to imagine that you are Brahman
and that you are not caught by this Karma. But
imagining merely that you are not caught by
Karma has not emancipated you from Karma. And a
formula has not released us. Every one of us has
been uttering Japa or the Maha Vakyas or other
doctrinal thesis of the other vedantins. But
merely a reaffirmation or reiteration of the
ancient slogans called Mantras or tenets has not
provided the clue towards emancipation.
Now-a-days people are confronting the
materialist world with so called Bhakthi,
devotion and devotion to what? devotion to
ancient past modes of behaviour, devotion to
certain types of worship and without any kind of
desire for real emancipation. Now therefore the
static condition has arrived. We are now in a
static condition. As against this static
condition, Sri Ramchandraji has provided a
dynamic mode of approach to the same problem.
There is no use in merely confronting man with
duties of the society or towards the society nor
by confronting with formula of Veda nta-Advaita,
Visistadvaita, or Dvaita or any in betweens, as
we may know. Nor is it alright to say it is
enough to say that we are listening to Puranas
and Ithihasas and spend time chanting the names
of God only. What really matters then, is, we do
require a higher consciousness to help us out of
the situation. To provide that condition is the
business of a great teacher. It must be possible
for one to bring the liberator into
consciousness into the consciousness of the
unliberated. The slave must certainly safely
feel the presence of the emancipator and one who
emancipates man from his past and from his
bondage is a real emancipator. This forward
looking spirituality, as I call it, rather than
backward looking, religiosity has been provided
by this new methodology devised by Sri
Ramchandraji. He himself does not claim that it
is altogether new in the history of the
Universe. He states that this was an ancient
method nearly 10,000 years ago. Well, you must
believe there was civilisation 10,000 years ago
and then, it was that a great Rishi of that time
used to utilise this divine force and make
people transform themselves into divine nature,
that is into free beings. Somehow that technique
was forgotten and what remained was the Raja
Yoga practice that we are getting and have got
from Patanjali and others. There have been
several types of yogas - Hata Yoga, Laya Yoga,
Mantra Yoga, Japa Yoga and then all the three
modified in the systems of Gnan Yog. Bhakthi Yog,
and Karma Yog. So there have been any number of
yogas and latterly we have Tantric yogas called
the Kundalini yogas which have attracted so many
of our people and promised liberation by rousing
of the Kundalini. But, how is this to be done?
It was an arduous process and that was an
obstinate way by which a man should persist by
rousing up a force which he could not control.
That is why at one stage, especially in the Raja
Yoga of Patanjali it has been completely
omitted. So Raja Yoga of Patanjali took up the
real aspect namely that only the mind can be
utilised for getting over its own bondage
because MANAYEVA MANUSHYANAM KARANAM BANDHA
MOKSHAYOH. Man's Mind is the cause of his
bondage and mind should be made the means to his
liberation. So, if mind is the cardinal
principle in man, man is known as one who has a
mind. We do not say the animals have a mind but
perhaps we may say that animals have a mind
namely an animal mind. Nothing in the world is
without a mind. But man has that mind which
distinguishes between the right and the wrong,
that which binds and that which liberates. He
has the discrimination to say that this thing
will bind, this thing liberates. He can reason
from causes to effects and finding that an
effect comes from a particular act, he can
either repeat the cause or negate the cause, in
order to be emancipated from the effect or
rather the evil effect. So, taking the mind as
capable of discrimination as the means by which
we can, not only make it move to the objects but
restrain itself from the objects, which corrupt
its action. He suggested that the control of the
mind is the most important thing. And if you
control the mind, you are able to have a kind of
calm. But the end is not of course to control
the mind alone. It is realisation or Kaivalya or
Moksha. Moksha is the goal. Every other thing is
only a means. Control of the mind is only a
means, towards liberation from the mind
ultimately or rather liberation from the mind
that tends to bind. So, we must reserve the
activity of the mind - which ties us up to
objects which ties us up to certain experiences
- what we call enjoyments of the world or powers
which make us materialistic. So, the mind makes
matter, makes us enjoy matter, but after some
time finds by that matter binds its own
activities it strives to liberate itself. At
this point Patanjali himself intimates that
individual effort, by itself, cannot control the
mind i.e., Man's mind, a bonded mind cannot
liberate itself without the help of a higher
mind, and this is called ISWARA. That is why, it
says if you want to get liberation, you must
seek the help of Iswara-Iswara Pranidhana is
necessary. You must surrender to the higher
consciousness and the mind of God. And your
surrender will determine your capacity to
control your mind or rather you will experience
the control of your mind by means of the divine
grace. So, this particular aspect of controlling
the mind was therefore left to God. In the yoga
doctrine, Iswara is only the Guru. A function of
Iswara in Yoga - in our yoga, is to be the Guru,
one who introduces his consciousness or his
mind, or by the use of His mind controls our
mind and brings it to equalisation with his mind
(Samatwa). That is why, the importance of a
Guru, who is like God or God himself, cannot be
exaggerated. But then this God is different.
This God is not the creator, sustainer,
destroyer of the universe. He may be all that.
But that is not what we are having as a form of
God. The form of God for us is the form of a
teacher or the Guru who is introducing his
consciousness or his mind to control or bring it
to balance or equanimity. This is the unique
function in this system of the Guru or the
Iswara. So the choice of God as a Guru is very
important. God alone must be chosen as the Guru
and he who can do it, controls my mind in terms
of his mind and liberate my mind from its
bondage seeking activities. He is very near God.
You can define him as God and if you can do it,
well you may be considered to be candidates for
God-hood, but that does not mean that we are
having the idea of only one God and all that. I
just do not want to discuss that metaphysics.
Dhyan is the method by which the divine mind has
taken charge of your mind. Your Manas is
therefore taken up and made to retrace itself to
the nature with which it came from its liberated
condition to the bondcondition. That is, you
reverse the tendencies of the mind. That is its
Vasanas, its sanskaras and its past are slowly
being thrown out of it. Its bondage to its own
past. Its own previous movement towards objects.
The mind becomes turned inwards and upwards.
This is a process done only by the Master and
that is done by the introduction of this divine
consciousness into his being. Now this
particular secret of the introduction of the
divine consciousness into our consciousness, and
transforming it, is a discovery of Sri
Ramchandraji. We have all had it by saying that
we should be in the company of great men, who
have inward turned gaze. But the actuality with
which it has been realised, in each one of us is
a special message and work of Sri Ramchandraji.
How to introduce it into the heart of a man? How
to help the Dhyan of the individual to go on -
so that it can reach the highest state of
liberation even when one lives in one's own body
is a special discovery, as I said, of Sri
Ramchandraji. This he calls 'Pranahuti', the
giving of life to the JIVA. It is the giving of
life - a divine life. Practically demonstrably
into the heart of every individual and leading
him towards the higher experiences of equality
with the divine consciousness -Samatvam
(Adhigachathe) as Sri Krishna put it. That
Samatva -that equality that Samadhi with God
consciousness -to make it Sadhamya the same
function and nature of the divine consciousness
is done only by this supreme consciousness God
himself. That is why in the dynamics of this
system the Master actually takes the individual
soul in its bond condition, in its bond mind and
leads it by purifying the mind, removing from it
the gross that has accumulated in the form of
Samskars and Vasanas either Prarabhdha or
Sanchitham and takes it straight up to oneness
of the divine consciousness or likeness with the
divine consciousness; like function.
SARUPYA, SALOKYA, SAYUJYA are all possible
because it is done with the help of the divine
consciousness itself and not by individual
effort. No individual effort is needed as a
special offering to the divine to bring about
the transformation of man's nature. Now true
spiritual life is the attainment of identity or
equality with the divine nature. We have been so
far accustomed to hear that any one that merely
says word of God or name of God is spiritual.
Well, we do not accept that view because that is
too gross a view. For instance, I shall mention
that God is not only one status. God has
infinite status. Our ancients knew that very
well YEKAMSAT VIPRAHA BAHUDA VADANTI. Agni,
Varunam, Aryama, Indra and so forth. Now what is
the status of each? As the Itreya Brahmana puts
it very nicely and elsewhere also, Agneh Avamaha
Vishnoha Paramaha. Agni belongs to the earth,
Vayu to the air - Anthariksha and so on due to
the work. We know the Gods have been allotted to
several planes. BHUR BHUVAH SUVAH MAHEH, TAMAH,
JAPAH, SATYA. They are in different planes. Now
what is the status with which you are
worshipping God. So our people have created a
large theology about it, and theogony as I will
say or Cosmogony and placed him everywhere and
then what is your liberation. If you are merely
worshipping God on the physical plane, would it
liberate you - or the middle plane or 3rd plane,
the 4th plane or the 5th or the 6th or the 7th.
Obviously liberation come when you go to the 7th
plane - Satya Loka, where everything is real.
Now the God whom you have to worship should be
the highest. And we in this country are
struggling to find out who is the highest and I
think we have not even today decided as to who
is the highest. That is why all that may be said
about our own excellent variety, of manifoldness
and realistic approach to the levels of reality
only shows partial ideas of God-head and not the
total liberating aspect of God. As I said at the
beginning we must think about God as the
liberator, as the Guru who liberates rather than
as one who is controlling the universe, ordering
the universe, as one who is establishing the
Dharrna or even as PARITHRANAYA SADHUNAM
VINASAYACHA DUSHKRUTAM DHARMA SAMSTHAPANARTHAYA
SAMBHAVAMI YUGE YUGE protecting the good,
punishing the wicked and for establishing dharma
everywhere, is born in every age - quite good in
themselves but where is the emancipation? The
fundamental aim of worship of God by man is for
emancipation - Mumukshatva. You must desire
liberation and the bondage to any God is a
bandage, though it is a silken bondage. It may
be a gold one - it may be a silver one - it may
be a copper one or may be an iron one - may be a
silken one. Even the bonds of love can be bonds.
So which is the KASMAI DEVAYA.
As the Upanishad puts it which God shall I
adore? Which God shall I worship? Well we in
this system know that we want liberation. We
must only think about the transcendent supreme
god head, who is known as the divine - THADEKAM
- that one supreme being alone can give us
liberation and he is called one because no one
else can give that liberation. He is the only
one who can give liberation because he is
transcendent to all processes and all the levels
of this world and consciousness. So the idea has
been that though religions have given us a
realistic picture of the world that have been
governed by Gods and powers and they are indeed
worshipable, praiseworthy and we have been doing
that they have not liberated us. If we want
liberation, the real spiritual life - far beyond
the material world, which binds us, then we must
worship only that ultimate form of God as
liberator, as one who makes us free from all
bondages, rather who makes all our bonds light
and not bonds at all and who gives us
opportunities of a further growth into his
infinite nature. It is one of our great
discoveries in this country that God has been
called Anant-Infinite and to that infinite are
we wedded in true spiritual life. We have got
two terms which we use - God as Atchutha and God
as Anantha. Atchuta is one from whom you cannot
fall down once you reach Him. Anantha is one who
gives a dynamic aspect of taking you farther and
farther into deep levels into his infinite
nature, which we cannot in our finite mind, and
by our finite consciousness, understand. So,
this dynamic nature of the supreme being which
you realise, when you become of the same mind
that is, Samadhi with equality with his mind and
again Sadharmya with him opens up the infinite
before you, the words of liberation which do not
bring about any bondage, of any sense. That is
said to be true spirituality. That is why Sri
Ramchandraji used to put it in this way. The end
of philosophy is the beginning of religion. The
end of religion is the beginning of
spirituality; the end of spirituality is the
beginning of reality. So you will see that till
you reach that ultimate state of Ananta which is
possible to us, you do not realise your real
nature and you are not a selfrealised being
either. Realisation means that when you realise
the reality when you become one, with the
reality and begin to form and act upon to the
laws of reality-the laws that do not bind but
enhance your infinity. You begin to act
according to new laws with new freedom. This is
a vista, a possibility opened up by this simple
process of what is called transmission or
Pranahuti which is the introduction of the
divine consciousness into the heart of the
Abhyasi so that his mind might get accustomed to
the new laws and become one with these, with the
divine life and the divine mind. This is a very
big experiment in spirituality? I may tell you
that this was the aim of the earliest of saints,
That was far far in the past of our spiritual
life. I do not know whether I should say that
was the Satya Yuga since, and then we have
become degrading ourselves using lower minds and
still lower minds. Today, we are using only this
time conscious mind, bound by time, and all its
bondages. To liberate this consciousness is a
divine effort, not merely a human one. We can
take it therefore that this is an opportunity,
not ungrounded in the reality. It is not merely
a utopian dream and a visionary one. It is
something within the possibility of every one of
you and this is another thing which the new
dynamics of Sri Ramchandraji shows. That is when
any man comes to do this particular practice, he
finds that there takes place particular change
of being leading him into a larger
consciousness. It is first experienced as the
dawn of calm or silent mind. His mind becomes
gradually more and more silent but not
ineffective. He finds that when bondages are
being released or removed and when the dirt is
being taken out of him, he is able to function
in a clearer and a swifter way. It is a new
possibility of seeing and experiencing by us, at
least, and I should feel almost every one of us
in a little way or a bigger way has experienced
this there is quickening of the functions of the
mind in a liberated way, uncontaminated and
untrammelled by the past or by the rules which
have been previously governing matter. Now that
is to show what Siddhis are available within
this system. But we do not pursue the Siddhis
for the sake of Siddhis. The Siddhis are natural
products due to the liberation of the mind from
the trammels of its own past or Vasanas or
desires. Now all this is achieved in an
absolutely unobstrusive way but then they are
not our goal and as the liberation process would
get arrested. The divine takes us rather fast
through those stages till we reach the state of
Samabhava or Samatva. That is why in this system
Samadfii happens normally without all that which
go on in that obstinate way of human effort.
That is why it is so easy to have the Sarnadhi
state and also the Sahaja condition to feel that
you are always in that free condition. The mind
does, not seem to be bond. It experiences
freedom. But there is no ego in the matter. The
ego also is surmounted, because at the -very
start the ego is taken over into custody by the
Divine consciousness. So, we find some of us who
have experienced it find that liberation comes
from the very first moment we are introduced
into this system. But to appreciate it, requires
only the willing surrender of the individual,
constantly to the operation of the transmission,
He must open himself to the transmission, and
seek it with a fervent prayer that you may
experience spiritual life or liberated life in
its truest sense. The time taken by the other
systems is much longer, some times the whole
life is not sufficient. Some people have said
that even a whole life of Karm yog would bring
us into Gnan yog and another whole life of Gnan
yog will bring us into Bhakthi yog - devotion to
the divine. Then of course there are quarrels
about which should be first undertaken, and I am
not going to enter into that. As I hold that
when these three are one yoga what is the use of
pulling down the one and not pulling down the
other two. So, I am not going to enter into what
is called the casuistical process by which our
Pundits have been spending their time. I would
much rather take man as a whole and therefore l
dedicate myself to the realisation of the
ultimate which I think is Parajnana. If I am
said ,to be intelligent, why am l intelligent? I
have chosen the ultimate not the penultimate. I
have chosen that which liberates. I have not
chosen which binds me however softly. So l have
chosen wisely and my devotion to the ultimate to
reach it somehow by dedication, by surrender, by
giving up my ego or by subordinating my ego, to
it even my thoughts, even thought itself my
reasonings, my doubts - all these things l
subordinate. Just keep them in abeyance with a
freedom to revise them if I want. That devotion
must be there. It comes naturally and every one
of my actions is directed towards realising this
oneness with the divine. Whatever I do, whatever
I think about, whatever I desire, is always
towards that one goal of freedom. Therefore all
the three portions of my being are integrated in
this particular way and so there is no quarrel
about which yoga I shall follow and therefore I
need not take many births in order to realise
God. They say it is much richer to go through
every experience and then finally achieve the
ultimate and then if you want that kind of going
about every experience not one life, but many
lives or millions of lives will be necessary
before you reach God. But supposing a man
reaches God first, and all these things are
given to him and he knows and understands his
real nature, is it not a much shorter way?
Therefore our people stated "first know God and
then everything will come to you. All
experiences would be possible to you, without
binding you, without tempting you, without
making you go astray - this gives you a perfect
picture of a liberated man in a liberated
world". That is why the great promise of this
particular system of dynamics of spiritual life,
which I call the principle of introduction of
the supreme consciousness into the heart. It
facilitates, quickens and arrives at that
supreme state of equality with the divine,
without any possibility of stepping oneself down
into the lower nature, falling a victim to the
lower movements of the mind. This is a great
contribution to the modern mind tossed society,
a society in which neurotics are much greater
number than healthy people where psychological
people are trying to become pathological
experts. We are in difficulties because the true
psychology of man and his nature comes from a
spiritual angle and a spiritual determination of
the divine purpose which has decided that man
should be emancipated from his lower mind and
brought in consonance with the divine mind and
because this optimism somehow inspires me that
man is destined to become divine and his mind
has to be made identical with the divine mind,
and that the human mind should operate in terms
of the laws of divine mind itself.
I have great pleasure in introducing this
topic to you today as the real dynamics of our
being. We have to forget the statics. We have
got to take up the dynamic mood in that lies a
possibility not only for our country but the
whole universe. But ultimately when you become
divinely conscious you become cosmically
conscious - not only cosmic conscious, you
become transcendent conscious - not only this
cosmos but every cosmos is brought into your
vision and action and participation. Then alone
you will be able to say with the Vedic Rishis
SARVAM KALUVIDAM BRAHMAM. Then alone can you say
that, the whole world everything in this
universe is verily Brahman vast spiritual the
divine, otherwise the meaning of our ancient
Upanishads is very shallow indeed, however,
eminently mouthed but that does not deliver the
goods sub-consciously. So, I am glad on this
occasion to be able to speak to you something
about the direct possibility of a divine
approach and a dynamic approach for the problems
of spiritual life of this country and of the
World.
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