This Monk From India - The Divine Life Society

MOTHER INDIA
visa during the nine years of my continuous stay in India, how he one day said to me, “You should
write an epic about your visa.”
But Chidananda had the final answer about it all one day when a young French woman, D.,
had come to see him. She herself wanted to stay in India and was trying to find a way to do it. She
did not know me, but I was translating for him. “How does Mother Yvonne stay in India so long”
Swamiji replied, “Because she wants to.”
“Yes, Swamiji. But how does she get her visa”
Will.”
And Swamiji, lifting his eyes up and pointing his finger to the sky said, “Because it is His
To Sivananda, love is not just an emotion, a sentiment. It is the very basis of life. The great
sage says: “Love is the law of life. To love is to fulfill the law. And to fulfill the law means eternal
peace and everlasting happiness.
“This world has come out of love. It exists in love. It finally dissolves in love. Love is the
motive power of the universe.
“Love is life. Love is joy. Love is warmth. Love is the golden tie which binds heart to heart,
soul to soul.
“Love is constructive and creative. Love binds and builds. Love is the principle of
regeneration. Love is an actual, subtle substance which you can use with confidence for healing and
helping others. Love is a positive concrete thing.”
This is what Chidananda writes about India—India which alone in the history of the world
has made Self-realisation the goal of human life, and this for perhaps the past many thousand years
in an unbroken line. “This holy land (Bharatavarsha) with its lofty culture has been uniquely
blessed by a continuous and unbroken stream of spiritual teachers, saints, devotees and savants to
guide and uphold the arduous march of its men, ever reminding them of the true goal of life and
preventing mankind from slipping into erroneous tracks at each critical moment. Look at India’s
ancient history, you will find not a single generation which has been deprived of God-sent men who
would ever hold high the banner of truth along with their clarion-call to humanity to remain ever
vigilant and never forget the real purpose of life.
“They never proclaimed anything as a conclusion of mere intellectual activity and labour of
the thinking faculty, but they did so on the basis of the profound authority of direct intuitional
realisation of the Absolute. So whatever these ancient sages and Rishis have proclaimed in the
Upanishads, it is from their direct experience in the core of their inmost spiritual being. They did not
care to adduce any argument in their support or to induce acceptance. They just stated boldly what
they Knew As Truth. And what is it that they have declared It is this: ‘O Children of Immortality !
You are not this perishable physical body, nor this ever-changing mind, nor this reasoning intellect.
But you are the master of all these, the Supreme Conscious Being, the unattached, witnessing Spirit
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