Spiritual Message for the Day – The Nature of the World by Sri Swami Chidananda

Baba Times Digest© | 4 January 2015 14.51 EST | New York Edition

The Nature of the World

Divine Life Society Publication: Lectures on Raja Yoga  by Sri Swami Chidananda

Om ! Om! Om!

Yoga, by itself, is a term that implies the bringing to an end man’s involvement in sorrow and suffering. The life of man here in this universe is characterised by experiences which he does not like, experiences which are painful, experiences which he seeks to avoid but discovers by the time he approaches the end of his life that they are unavoidable. These are part and parcel of what we call earthly life here. Pain, sorrows and sufferings of various kinds seem inevitable and yet man all over the world tries to avoid suffering and sorrow, pain and misery, and tries to obtain, somehow or the other, a state of joy, of happiness. In this, man fails. He has failed in this ever since the dawn of creation. Not so much because this state of absolute transcending of sorrow and experience of absolute bliss does not exist, but merely because he searches for it in the wrong direction. He looks for it in the outer world, in objects. And no wonder he fails to find the perfect and absolute experience of joy there, because finite things, changeful things, perishable things, imperfect in their very nature, have a beginning and an end; they are conditioned in time and space. These things naturally cannot give perfect experience, because these things are fragmentary. Everything is relative. Everything is one of a pair of opposites. And our relationship, our contact, with all things is also short-lived. All coming together ends in going apart, and over and above this, that very instrument through which man has to relate himself to all things here is characterised by much imperfection.

What is that instrument through which man relates himself to this external world? The body with the five senses is that instrument. And that primary instrument through which the dweller within has to contact and perceive this phenomenal world is itself defective. It has a birth and ultimately goes to extermination in death; all the five senses through which it perceives the universe gradually fail when disease comes and gradually destroys them. If disease does not destroy them, the natural process in old age makes them weaker. Eye-sight weakens, hearing fails, limbs become feeble, and all the senses gradually grow cold. Thus the body suffers its natural characteristics of birth, growth, change, disease, old age, decay and death. Numerous other factors also torment this body—factors beyond the control of man—you have natural calamities like earthquakes, epidemic and famine.

Then there are those other afflictions which are man-made and also coming from various kinds of creatures and as though these miseries are not enough, from within one’s own nature there arise factors that torment and destroy the peace of the human individual. Anger, hatred, jealousy, envy, frustration, disappointment, failure to achieve one’s objective, fierce passion in the form of lust and greed—these fires in the human being inflame his mind, torment his heart and disturb his peace.

So, elements beyond one’s control, other forms of life outside oneself and factors within oneself—all these afflict man in addition to the inevitable fate of the body. Thus, real happiness or joy seems to be an ever-receding horizon and its contrary seems to be an all-too-immediate ever-present reality; and thus, man’s quest for escaping, avoiding or overcoming pain and suffering and entering into a state of joy seems to be a wild-goose chase, seems to be a futile pursuit doomed to failure. And hopeless seems the quest of man for happiness. It is precisely in this area of man’s aspiration, in this area of life’s quest that the science of Yoga becomes relevant to all of us. It becomes very significant and meaningful and very important, for it emphatically declares that despite the deplorable fact that sorrow is the nature of this temporary earthly existence, the destiny of man is supreme joy. That is the thesis of Yoga. That is the emphatic declaration of Yoga. Man is made for the attainment of supreme joy and this supreme joy or perfect state of bliss is not to be a post-mortem attainment, is not to be an after-death state of being, but it is something that is capable of being attained here and now. And if man would claim his birth-right, it is within the reach of every human individual to attain to this perfect experience right here, even while dwelling in this body, in this very life.

Excerpts from: The Nature of the World - Lectures on Raja Yoga  by Sri Swami Chidananda

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