Week 17: How High Should we Aspire?
Our Affirmation For April
Stanza 4:
“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after
righteousness: for they shall be filled.”
Matthew 5:5
Blessed are they who seek attunement with Truth.
They alone, of all human beings, shall find lasting fulfillment.
Swami Kriyananda
From the book
The Beatitudes: Their Inner Meaning by Swami Kriyananda
Rays of One Light: Weekly Commentaries on the
Bible and The Bhagavad Gita
by Swami Kriyananda
The passage this week is from the Gospel of St. Matthew, Chapter 5:
I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
As the Bhagavad Gita says, in the seventh Chapter:
Yet hard the wise Mahatma is to find, That man who sayeth, “All is Vasudev!”
Excerpted from Week 17 How High Should we Aspire?
The Caravan of My Prayers Is Moving Toward Thee
By Paramhansa Yogananda
From the Book Whispers From Eternity
The caravan of my prayers is moving toward Thee. In the eyes of kindness I behold glimmers of Thy mercy. Even the bare trees of dark lives flicker with a myriad glow‐worms of Thy shining life. The caravan of my prayers has been working its way slowly through dry wastes of arid doubts and furious sand‐storms of despondency.
Yet, at last, far‐off glimpses of Thy oasis of silent assurance have roused me in my drooping efforts. Eagerly I await the moment when I can dip into Thy revivifying water my parched, thirsty lips of faith, and there drink deeply from Thy well of bliss.
What inspired me from this week’s reading from the Rays of One Light was…
“Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”
The Rays of the Same Light: The reappearance of Christ : the scriptures as messengers of inner communion Volume 1
I thought I would share some more insights from The Rays of the Same Light by Swami Kriyananda on
“Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”
Jesus was telling us that we can achieve perfection only by God’s power, never by our own. For if it were possible for man to become as perfect as God while yet remaining separate from Him, would it not imply the further possibility of an infinite number of supreme godheads?
Egoic perfection is a contradiction in terms. The ego is a very definition of imperfection! - and not in its fragility and littleness, merely. But Jesus made his meaning clear in his earlier commandment:
“Live like the children of your father in heaven.”
It is from God that we have received the gift of life. Only the power of His divine love can bestow on us the Perfection of Love. For He alone is Love. Moreover, we cannot attain perfection in divine love until we have passed beyond the stage of merry affirming it, and have learned to live in God’s actual loving presence.
Mental belief, in other words is not enough: We must experience God’s love. We must channel it consciously to others. We must call it to us with deep faith and devotion. Not only must we pray: We must also. In an uplifted state of soul, receive the grace of divine love in our hearts. As St John wrote:
“To all those who have received him gave he power to become the sons of God.”
In inner communion, God enters into the heart, and makes us His own.
“Seek perfection in God, and give outward expression to what you receive from Him, by universal love outwardly in all.”
To seek God inwardly, and to serve him outwardly in all: What higher message could God have give to humanity?
The Bhagavad Gita the Seventh Chapter
KRISHNA
Learn now, dear Prince! how, if thy soul be set
Ever on Me--still exercising Yog,
Still making Me thy Refuge--thou shalt come
Most surely unto perfect hold of Me.
I will declare to thee that utmost lore,
Whole and particular, which, when thou knowest,
Leaveth no more to know here in this world.
Of many thousand mortals, one, perchance,
Striveth for Truth; and of those few that strive--
Nay, and rise high--one only--here and there--
Knoweth Me, as I am, the very Truth.
Earth, water, flame, air, ether, life, and mind,
And individuality--those eight
Make up the showing of Me, Manifest.
These be my lower Nature; learn the higher,
Whereby, thou Valiant One! this Universe
Is, by its principle of life, produced;
Whereby the worlds of visible things are born
As from a Yoni. Know! I am that womb:
I make and I unmake this Universe:
Than me there is no other Master, Prince!
No other Maker! All these hang on me
As hangs a row of pearls upon its string.
I am the fresh taste of the water; I
The silver of the moon, the gold o' the sun,
The word of worship in the Veds, the thrill
That passeth in the ether, and the strength
Of man's shed seed. I am the good sweet smell
Of the moistened earth, I am the fire's red light,
The vital air moving in all which moves,
The holiness of hallowed souls, the root
Undying, whence hath sprung whatever is;
The wisdom of the wise, the intellect
Of the informed, the greatness of the great.
The splendour of the splendid. Kunti's Son!
These am I, free from passion and desire;
Yet am I right desire in all who yearn,
Chief of the Bharatas! for all those moods,
Soothfast, or passionate, or ignorant,
Which Nature frames, deduce from me; but all
Are merged in me--not I in them! The world--
Deceived by those three qualities of being--
Wotteth not Me Who am outside them all,
Above them all, Eternal! Hard it is
To pierce that veil divine of various shows
Which hideth Me; yet they who worship Me
Pierce it and pass beyond.
I am not known
To evil-doers, nor to foolish ones,
Nor to the base and churlish; nor to those
Whose mind is cheated by the show of things,
Nor those that take the way of Asuras.
Four sorts of mortals know me: he who weeps,
Arjuna! and the man who yearns to know;
And he who toils to help; and he who sits
Certain of me, enlightened.
Of these four,
O Prince of India! highest, nearest, best
That last is, the devout soul, wise, intent
Upon "The One." Dear, above all, am I
To him; and he is dearest unto me!
All four are good, and seek me; but mine own,
The true of heart, the faithful--stayed on me,
Taking me as their utmost blessedness,
They are not "mine,"but I--even I myself!
At end of many births to Me they come!
Yet hard the wise Mahatma is to find,
That man who sayeth, "All is Vasudev!"
There be those, too, whose knowledge, turned aside
By this desire or that, gives them to serve
Some lower gods, with various rites, constrained
By that which mouldeth them. Unto all such--
Worship what shrine they will, what shapes, in faith--
'Tis I who give them faith! I am content!
The heart thus asking favour from its God,
Darkened but ardent, hath the end it craves,
The lesser blessing--but 'tis I who give!
Yet soon is withered what small fruit they reap:
Those men of little minds, who worship so,
Go where they worship, passing with their gods.
But Mine come unto me! Blind are the eyes
Which deem th' Unmanifested manifest,
Not comprehending Me in my true Self!
Imperishable, viewless, undeclared,
Hidden behind my magic veil of shows,
I am not seen by all; I am not known--
Unborn and changeless--to the idle world.
But I, Arjuna! know all things which were,
And all which are, and all which are to be,
Albeit not one among them knoweth Me!
By passion for the "pairs of opposites,"
By those twain snares of Like and Dislike, Prince!
All creatures live bewildered, save some few
Who, quit of sins, holy in act, informed,
Freed from the "opposites,"and fixed in faith,
Cleave unto Me.
Who cleave, who seek in Me
Refuge from birth and death, those have the Truth!
Those know Me BRAHMA; know Me Soul of Souls,
The ADHYATMAN; know KARMA, my work;
Know I am ADHIBHUTA, Lord of Life,
And ADHIDAIVA, Lord of all the Gods,
And ADHIYAJNA, Lord of Sacrifice;
Worship Me well, with hearts of love and faith,
And find and hold me in the hour of death.
God's Call Within
Lyrics
Listen! Listen!
Whispering within your soul:
Hints of laughter, hints of joy;
Sweet songs of sadness,
of quenchless yearning
For the Light,
For My love, your true home.
Long your heart has played the dancer.
Long you’ve toyed with merest shadows
Of the treasures left behind you,
Deep in your soul.
Long you’ve plumbed the dark for answers.
2. Long you’ve begged from
beggars’ empty hands
Gifts of life they too were seeking:
Gifts none could share.
Friend, how long will you wander?
Friend, as long as you seek your home
In a land where all are strangers,
Love locks her door.
Leave to the weak his craven life!
To the coward leave his dreaming!
O my saint, wake up!
Reclaim the light.
Seek the truth behind all seeming.
Leave to the weak his craven life!
3. To the coward leave his dreaming!
O my saint, wake up!
Reclaim the light.
Seek the truth behind all seeming.
Turn, turn, turn within:
In silence of soul, in cave of love
Find My abode.
Listen! Listen!
Whispering within your soul:
Hints of laughter, hints of joy;
Sweet songs of sadness,
of quenchless yearning
For the Light,
For My love, your true home.
Let’s Meditate in Silence Together…
Be Willing to Stand Alone…
When you are in search or seeking the truth … We can’t come from our own thinking, we have to be able to face God without our minds, emotions or our opinions of how to achieve this perfection… Swami Kriyananda said that we must love God alone… What did he mean by this...
Let's spend some time thinking about what does it mean to “Love God Alone” and what might it involve to achieve this truth.
What came to me was it might mean not being around family and friends, letting go of preconceived ideas of what we think God is or what we believe about God, and experiencing an ego death…. Embracing a new way of seeing God, standing up for the truth about God, learning to love again, becoming a channel for God's love for others and experiencing that God accepts us for who we are.
I realised that standing up for God alone doesn’t mean that we have to be lonely it is the opposite. It means that we have found our true friend, our true love with God. As long as we are in his unconditional love, his unconditional acceptance and presence we are safe, we are protected. Which is easier said than done, but it is the truth…
To go deeper into experiencing God alone and connecting with these truths by swami Kriyananda. Sushumna Chapel will be having a Retreat on Saturday 27th May from Sunset - Sunrise.
The retreat is online, a donation of your choice and is inspired from the book God Alone: The Life and Letters of a Saint by Sri Gyanamata
Online we will experience:
Seclusion, Letter writing, Silent Meditation, Music, Prayers, Fasting - orange juice, water (or you can use your own favourite juice).
We will now have some more music…
Lord I Long to See Thee by Swami Kriyananda
Lyrics
Lord I long to see Thee!
Completion
Divine Mother awakens us in our hearts… She touches us deeply with her warmth and comfort.
If you continue to stand in God Alone.
You shall neither stand, but you shall truly know that you are only standing in the unknown presence of her deep love for you…
In a place of Love, a place of Faith, a place of Devotion,
we stand Alone.
To stay only for you God, only for you …