Message of Swami Chidananda to Mankind - The Divine Life Society

SADHANAprayers of this servant, will always be with you, that you may arise victorious and attain full successin this life. May you abound with the glory of God-realisation.HOW TO OVERCOME OBSTACLES IN SADHANAYou must cultivate the flowers of Divine virtues in the garden of your heart. It is from virtuethat one rises to holiness, from holiness to godliness and from godliness to God-experience. Fromimpurity one rises to purity, from purity to sanctity and from sanctity into sublime spiritualexperience.The great Sankaracharya who established the pure monistic philosophy—KevalaAdvaita—in India, in describing the ascent of the individual soul into the experience of theAbsolute, said that in this practical path of Sadhana, three barriers have to be overcome. We are in astate of grossness because our consciousness is bound up in this form in which we dwell, the bodywhich we are occupying, residing in. This embodied state has brought about the state of grossness.Why? Because due to an inexplicable mysterious factor, we who reside in this body-house havebecome totally identified with it in our consciousness and this identification has made us feel thatwe are, ourselves, this body and this body is ourselves.No matter how much we may mouth the words: “I am not this body,” yet the very nextinstant after so saying, our actual life and behaviour betray simply “I am this body.” So, in effect,we demonstrate body-consciousness though in words we may affirm or assert the contrary.Experiment with this for yourself. Observe yourself and you will see that even though your tonguemay assert, your mind may think and your intellect may reason and convince itself, “I am not thisbody, I am the Atman,” actually the intellect may be engaged in a process of discrimination. Youmay feel you have almost risen into a state of Atmic consciousness, while it is so engaged. But atthat moment if someone suddenly comes and says: “You fool! You are wasting your time in sittingthere; why don’t you go and work?”, then your temper will immediately flare up and you will be in astate of anger. Vedanta will vanish and the intellect will suddenly abandon itself to the anger thathas arisen in the mind due to a long force of habit. When this man looks at you and fixes his gazeupon your body and calls you a fool, you will immediately conclude he is calling you a fool. Headdresses a name and a form, pointing to the body and says: “So-and-so, you are a fool!” AndSo-and-so, the immortal Atman, Satchidananda, beyond mind and body and beyond all the pairs ofopposites, immediately gets up and prepares to fight. Your mind is in turmoil. It is agitated and isthinking: “How can I repay this fellow?” Anger flares up and the mind is thrown into agitation, andyou want to go and punch the man in the nose. You have completely and totally forgotten: “I am thepeaceful and ever-blissful Satchidananda Atman, beyond body, mind, intellect, name and form; Iam all-full, complete, one without a second; so who can call me anything; there is no second otherthan me; there is only Satchidananda—Bliss, Bliss, Bliss I am.”Now, this sudden wave of anger which changes our beauty into ugliness, non-violence intoviolence, the truth of your higher nature into the falsity of your lower nature and contradicts all thethree fundamental values of Divine Life,—truth, purity, and compassion,—and transforms youfrom Satchidananda Atman into something totally different, is impurity (Mala). It is an essential11