Selected From: Vibration, Form and Colour SS III Phalgunii Purnima 1956 DMC For January 2011 Shrii Shrii Ánndamúrti

 If you want to attain the bliss of Brahma, you must offer your own self. If you want to have the Great “I”, you must give away your own little “I”. You have to give the full sixteen annas, (the full rupee). Giving fifteen annas and holding back one anna will not do. You must completely surrender. To attain that Infinite One with the help of your mental concentration and strength, you have to surrender yourselves.

 Si quieren lograr la beatitud de Brahma, tienen que ofrendarse. Si desean poseer el gran “YO”, deben desistir de su pequeño “yo”. Tienen que entregar las dieciséis annas (una rupia completa). Dar quince annas y quedarse con una, no será suficiente. Deben abandonarse totalmente. Para alcanzar a Aquel Infinito con la ayuda de la concentración mental y el vigor, hay que rendirse.”

 Si vous voulez atteindre la félicité du Suprême, vous devez [lui] donner votre moi. Pour obtenir le grand « moi », il faut abandonner son petit « moi ». Vous devez donner les seize annas de la roupie, sans en garder un seul, sinon ça ne marchera pas. Vous devez vous soumettre entièrement. Pour atteindre cet Infini, en utilisant votre concentration et votre force mentales, vous devez soumettre votre moi.

 Paramatman or Saguna Brahma is a beginningless, endless, continuous flow. He is the Supreme Ocean of essences.  You with your limited capacity cannot apprehend this Ocean in its entirety; you can only receive one or another of His limited unit manifestations, which you perceive with your mind through its vibrations.  But such unit entities are not the whole Brahma.

 He is beginningless and His forms are countless and limitless. To attain Him you have to become beginningless and endless yourself and the only way to do this is to merge your little “I” into the great “I”.  It is only in such a state that you will realize His characteristic Self, with the help of your subtle cognition – then you will always recognize your true essence in your own original Self.  Always remember, “Where ‘I’ is, ‘He’ is not. Where ‘He’ is, ‘I’ is not.”

 By observing such ceremonial fasts as austerities like Ekadashii (the eleventh day of the lunar month) or Purnima (full moon) or by religious sacrifices (Homa), Brahma will never be realized.  Human beings can achieve salvation only through knowledge, and true knowledge never recognizes such superficial rites and rituals as a means of attaining Brahma.  Of course, if anyone fasts for his physical health, it is beneficial – but certainly not as a means of attaining Brahma.

 So from the very start it is best not to indulge in image worship. Just as a flood after it recedes leaves behind a mark on the river-bank, so the staunch idol worshippers, too, find it painfully difficult to remove the impression of that Samskara, even when they learn the introversial worship of Brahma and attain the ability to reach Nirvikalpa Samadhi.  You will find this in the biography of a recent great Sadhaka who had to face a similar difficulty.  One should avoid this predicament from the very start.

 You exist in a vast, limitless ocean of rasa or essences. A never-ending, radiant wave of manifestations is surging within and without you and radiating through all the ten directions – the indescribable vibrational expressions of small and great, accented and unaccented, eternally flowing thought-waves.

Eternally flowing thought-waves.

 Behave properly and reasonably with every expression, with every manifestation of the Cosmic mind. But always remember the One, Who is the essence of all these diverse vibrational manifestations.  Train yourselves in the ideal of the lily, which blossoms in the mud and has to keep itself engaged in the struggle for existence day in and day out, parrying, bracing and fighting the shocks of muddy water and the force of storms and squalls and various other vicissitudes of fortune; and yet it does not forget the moon above.  It keeps its love for the moon constantly alive. It seems but a most ordinary flower: there is nothing extraordinary about it.

 Yet, this most ordinary little flower has a romantic tie with the great moon. It has focused all its desires on the moon.  Similarly, perhaps you are an ordinary creature – perhaps you have to pass your days in the ups and downs of worldly existence – yet do not forget that Supreme One. Keep all your desires inclined towards Him.  Always keep yourself merged in His thought. Go deep into the mood of that Infinite Love. By this your worldly activities will not be hampered in any way.

 No matter what circumstances you are in, never lose sight of the Infinite One.  Degradation is impossible for those who have accepted the Supreme Being as the Ideal of their lives.

 Indulging in mean thoughts only engenders crude vibrations in the Citta, as the result of which you will have to take rebirth in lower species in order to suffer the lowly Samskaras created by those crude vibrations.  Thus you must arouse higher vibrations in your Citta.

 Even a man of King Bharata’s calibre had to take rebirth as a deer because at the time of his death he was deeply anxious about a fawn.  Thus regardless of what you are at present or what you may possibly become in the future, do not digress from the ideal of the Great in any circumstances: do not stray even a step away from the path of realization of Absolute Bliss.  Ananda Marga or the path to eternal bliss is the only path for you.

 Whatever be the consequence of your past deeds, your upliftment is guaranteed, if you have unflagging zeal to attain Brahma.  Do not look back, look forward. Never take any limited material object for your worship.  Accept only the loftiest entity for your contemplation.

 If your love for Him is genuine, you will ever remain in an Elysian exuberance.  Pain will then mean nothing to you, nor will happiness either.  When one’s movement is towards the Great, when one’s ardour is only for the Great, it is called Prema or Divine Love.

 That is why I say that you must bring about a revolutionary change in the flow of your judgment and thought, and see how, after overcoming your fascination with external colour, your mind becomes tinged with His glorious colour.

 In Ananda Marga Sadhana, the method of withdrawing the mind from degrading tendencies, and absorbing oneself in the colour of the Great, is called Pratyahara Yoga (the yoga of withdrawal) or Varnarghyadana (the offering of colours).

 All people have a particular attraction for one or another object or activity and as soon as they become attracted to an object, then their minds become coloured with the colour of that object.  You can withdraw your mind from the colour of that object and dye yourself in His colour by offering Him the captivating colour of the object that has attracted you: this is the real Pratyahara Yoga.  The word Pratyahara means “to withdraw” – to withdraw the mind from its object.

 The main object of the Spring Colour Festival (Vasantotsava) is not playing with external colours; it is meant to offer Him the colours of different objects which have dyed the mind.  When this practice of offering your own colours – your own attachments, becomes natural and easy, you will then merge in Him.  Then you will have no need for any colour, for you will become colourless – you will go beyond the reach of any colour. Your unit- ego will become one with the Cosmic Ego.

 Whichever way you look you will see only Him in His ever-surging glory. There is no “I” nor “you”. By an everlasting, mutual pact the final curtain will have fallen on all clashes of “I” and “you”.  At that stage, if you call Parama Brahma as “I”, you are right in calling Him so; if you call Him as “He”, you are equally right; and if you call Him as “you”, again you are correct. The extent of your attainment of Him will be proportionate to your self surrender.

 If you want to attain the bliss of Brahma, you must offer your own self. If you want to have the Great “I”, you must give away your own little “I”. You have to give the full sixteen annas, (the full rupee). Giving fifteen annas and holding back one anna will not do. You must completely surrender. To attain that Infinite One with the help of your mental concentration and strength, you have to surrender yourselves.

 But, remember self-surrender does not mean suicide. On the contrary, your soul will have its full expression.  Your existence will not become contracted, for contraction is inert in principle.  Hence in the Sadhana of self- surrender the ego is expanded, not contracted

 In the Mahabharata, when Duhshasana was pulling the sari of Draopadii she was tightly holding the cloth to her body with one hand beseeching lord Krsna with the other. “Oh! My lord, save me!” But the Lord did not then come forward to save her from shame. When Draopadii found no means of escape, she then released her hold on the cloth and appealed to the Lord most piteously with both hands out- stretched, crying, “O Lord, I surrender my all to you. Do what you think is best”. And the Lord immediately rescued her.

 That is why I say that you will have to dedicate yourselves to His feet wholly and unreservedly. You will earn godliness in proportion to the extent that you surrender yourselves, and finally, after merging that acquired godliness of yours in His Entity, you will attain eternal bliss.  God bless you.  Phalgunii Purnima 1956 DMC