On Saturday 2 November the birthday of our guru, Swami Ambikananda, was celebrated at Glen Lodge with music, dancing, singing, chanting, eating, drinking and just plain enjoying. In a word it was great. Organized by Shiva Shakti and Satchitananda, the theme of the kirtan was the Guru, so it began with verses from Guru Gita and Mahayogini’s song to the Guru (see previous blog). The atmosphere was easy-going and affectionate, and the continuously flowing music was conducive to meditation as well as to singing and dancing. A lovely kirtan. Thanks especially to Shiva Shakti, Satchitananda, Gayatri, Sarasvati as well as everyone else who made such a great contribution.

Swamiji’s discourse, mainly about the Inner Guide, is from notes taken at different times and sort of pulled together:

Ambikananda sings:
O Mother, Thou my Inner Guide, ever awake within my heart!
Mother says: ‘I am the Inner Atma in the lotus heart of each and every being.’ So if you believe and direct your life on the basis of the belief that the Inner Atma in every being is Her Paramatma, that is enough dhyana [practice] for you… Give a chance to the Inner Voice, let That guide. She could give you a glimpse and run away for 40 years – which is nothing in infinitum. So you must have this patience, and seek no return. Put money in the bank of your heart. Don’t calculate about rubbish money – you will ruin your life. If you have got money you will be heavy, find it hard to levitate after death….

First have one candle, one light, then go about and illumine thousands. As long as this one is not lit you are only a borrower, borrowing from book, from others; you are dependent, you don’t belong to the Independent Universal Ashrama stage of life, isn’t it so? You need to borrow from book to know what is God, but greater than reading is hearing. And greater than hearing is seeing; and greater than seeing is becoming. … It’s no good to go about with candle if eyes are not open, you will set the whole place ablaze and destroy yourself. Isn’t it so, friend?

…There’s nothing much to worry about. Be good, be good devotees. Let everyone struggle hard, do their level best, don’t hanker after name, fame, power, position. You have to earn your wages, but it’s not the acme…But when you make the effort to see the light, when you see the spirit, then your two eyes cannot behold, you need the Inner third eye, the eye of the soul, the eye of wisdom. As soon as God is seen, word finish, can’t express, cascade of tears of love. Love that drowns your worldliness and also takes you to there….

But first you must be ready to receive. Outside is the spirit of detachment, inside is the Inner Guide .There must be awareness of the Inner Guide, the Power. But people have blocked their house with iron against the enemy, so it doesn’t come through. The company of a holy man gives the heat which blasts it…

Your meditation has been forgotten and unpractised. So join your soul to the Inner soul, and “shine forth O shining one” . A Light that is to unite your soul. You take that little soul, that little jyoti light, unite, hold the breath, and merge in the orange colour, your complexion will be changed by the flush of the Inner flame…

…The pure mind sees God, the pure mind is free, and the pure heart is the very first guidance. You receive God through the mind like television, like video. In the video you are there, your [japa] beads are the film. All you have to do is to get the right connection and – my God! you are taken unconscious, unaware. The false tricky monkey mind gets a colour from consciousness of reality of the awareness. But not straight away. God gives you a loose rope of free will, a chain from the time of creation. He says, ‘It’s up to you, my son, whether you seek Me, love Me, or go into the world.’ He doesn’t want to interfere.

…We want you, the you that is unborn. We want the Inner light of you, we want the dweller, we don’t just want the builder. The builder keeps building and selling. We want the tenant, the Indweller. … I love you as brethren and sisters, but I love God inside you more than yourself. If you agree, then become my brother and change yourself.

Today you are born in Sri Ramakrishna’s antar jyoti consciousness, which means Inner light, which is the Indweller. ‘Know, Arjuna, I dwell in every man,’ Sri Krishna has declared. Meditation is to bring all these scriptures into the library of your spine. God dwells in His word, and the scripture is not different from God. Bring these into your vertebrae. It will be a liniment.

…You have to have the grace of God, the grace of your mind, the grace of guru. But as we have no guru, God Himself is our guru; we have to take advantage of God. How? By being very demanding, like a child. You have to feel God as your own, a personal relationship. God is my soul, my soul is God, and my word is what I am belching of the fire of divinity that you cannot see…

Don’t think you will do that in one breath, in one birth… There are two mayas: vidyamaya leads to God, avidyamaya leads away from God. Whatever is leading away from God, switch off. Actually switch-off comes from God, not from you. God is the Inner Guide. It is God who tells you melodies, lyrics and all this, there is meaning in it, you know. And kirtana is very good, it cleanses. The name of God purifies, purifies! You can’t realize what a river of holy water it is to wash away your sins, previous and present, and warning and ward off!

So it is very small-minded to die in a cocoon when you know you are a butterfly. You have beautiful colours – and to die like a caterpillar after you have known your nature! You have heard it and we have told you. You know you are becoming it. Eliminate a bit of body consciousness and pray to Mother, ‘Mother, can you give me divine colours, give me love of divine colours, but please, Mother, never let me be bound by it.’

You are born to be real, but here you are tangled in the cobweb – you have to have super determination, super power and all this. Don’t worry about the dark side – always there will be a dark cloud but you will live in the summer showers, you are not afraid of these things, you are divine colours, divine birth. Vedanta says you are divine by birth. And in his song, Vivekananda says, ‘Thou art That, Sannyasi bold!’ We are all children of the blessed GSR, and GSR says: ‘The Inner consciousness must be awakened through the grace of God.’

…Does God use your guru? Do you think of him as being used by God? God using the guru’s thought to make a ladder to the divine? So make sure you have connected this ladder, so that the eternal guru alights in the individual guru, and then there will be no individual guru, it will be all the eternal Lord, it will be all His will. My child. I am only a mike, a speaker, I am only expressing the means, the appliance, how an instrument can be used to reach infinity. Now it depends on you. The guru shows the path, tells the truth; it depends on the disciple, so watch your sight, watch your hearing, be discriminative… You have been surviving the dangers of life, the crossing of the ocean of existence with the raft of Thy Name. So you are very safe, but you must keep the Name like an amulet. Don’t let go…

It’s gu (darkness) now, but when you have got this it will be ru (light) dispelling darkness. And ru will not be without Shakti, and you will see how the Mother makes the world possible. The Mother is the basis of action, of kriya, of activity, of will. And She is self-willed. Impossible becomes possible. She says, ‘Sit quiet, I will make you see. You don’t have to know anything.’ So just sit quiet when the Mother tells you, and see, watch. You sit so still to watch a whole film, or a television programme. Ah, devotee, can’t you be quiet to watch the real sight of God through your sadhana [practice]?

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