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Yogi Shanti Desai's PublicationsReality Here and Now
Reality Here and Now
$8.00 With Reality Here and Now, Yogi Shanti Desai has interpreted the ancient teachings of India into a realistic, everyday practice which anyone can understand and apply. These explanations and suggestions provide guidelines which will help the reader in his or her pursuit of peace and happiness. From the book...Excerpt WAKE UP-KNOW THYSELF The most fundamental questions and the most unsolvable puzzles of human life are: Who am I? Where do I come from? Where will I go? Why was I born? What is reality? What is God? What controls and manages universal order? These questions can never be answered by anyone. They cannot be argued. If one has any answers, they have no meaning unless there is a personal subjective experience of them. What existed first, the chicken or the egg? The tree or the seed? Can I know God? Can I know my past and future incarnations? Why would God create this world? These questions cannot be answered by other people. Talking or arguing about God is just an intellectual exercise. We cannot know God as outsiders. We can only experience God by being one with God. After experiencing God, one cannot describe God. Many great masters express this experience through silence or through mantras such as Aum, Thou art That, etc. A salt cube was tied with string and placed in the ocean to measure its depth. When the string was pulled up, nothing returned. The cube had dissolved on the way. In our search for God, we have to dissolve in God. We are like waves of the cosmic ocean. Waves cannot know the ocean, but when they break, they become the ocean. We, being part of the cosmos, can know the cosmos by dissolving our identities. A fish lives in the ocean, yet it does not know the ocean. We live in the ocean of Brahman and do not know Brahman. Merging in Brahman is meditation. We are in bondage. The human body goes through the changes of birth, growth, old age, disease and death. The process is unavoidable, even for avatars (God manifested in human forms). We are bound by time and space, and by the laws of cause and effect. Birth and death are suffering. We have a deep rooted fear of death and the unknown. We try to lose ourselves in playing worldly games of pleasure, possessions and greed to escape. This is like an ostrich hiding its head in the sand to try and escape attacking wild dogs. Escape is not the solution. We have no control over anything or any situation. Due to maya (cosmic illusion), we are driven by our senses and desire for happiness, and act as if we are immortal. Things are constantly changing. Mountains turn into oceans, and vice versa. Everything that is born dies, saints and sinners alike. Our possessions are left behind at death, yet we pursue pleasures, wealth, power, fame, and try to hold onto impermanent nature, which always disappoints us. We need to wake up and establish top priority to our spiritual life. We should set aside some time for daily meditation practice and spiritual renewal. This should become the highlight of our day. Life is like a flash of lightening, passing quickly in front of our eyes. Lost time cannot be regained. One third of our day is spent sleeping, and another third goes to survival related activities. The rest of the time is spent in seeking pleasure and with maintenance of the body. Much of the time of youth is spent in playing. Our adult life goes to material achievements, and to establishing a career and family life. We must plant the seeds of higher awareness from an early age to ensure that a spiritual undercurrent regulates our adult life. We gain greater spiritual wisdom as we grow older. When one attains spiritual maturity, the world is renounced effortlessly. Meditation is the process of getting to the core of our being which is permanent. By realizing this, we become free. As a result of spiritual evolution, one gains the desire to know the higher Self, which is called Brahma Jignasa (desire to know Brahman). Other souls are occupied with eating, sleeping and chasing enjoyment. Brahma Vidya (knowledge of Brahman) is the highest knowledge we can attain-after which nothing needs to be known. All other knowledge is called avidya (spiritual blindness). The value of worldly knowledge is like the value of zero. Avidya is responsible for bondage and suffering. Atma Gnana (Self-knowledge) and Brahma Gnana (knowledge of Brahman) are not separate. One must strive for Atma Gnana, as this knowledge leads to Brahma Gnana. Table of Contents I. Wake Up-Know Thyself..... 1
III. Philosophy..... 15
VIII. Terminology..... 55 |
