Each SOUL.is potentially Divine.The manifestation of divinity within us is the goal either by work, or worship or philosophy or any other medias. This is the whole religion.
All our knowledge is based upon experience. What we call inferential knowledge,the basis of which is experience.Religion, as it is generally taught all over the world,is said to be based upon faith and belief.In most cases consists only different sets of theores and that is the reason why we find all religions quarrelling with one another.These theories,again are based upon belief.One say believe him as per his assertion.Another say believe him, but he cannot reject his assertion.This is why religion and metaphysical philosophy have a bad name nowadays.Neverthless there is basis of universal belief in religion,governing all the different theories, and all the varying ideas of different sects in different countries. Going to the basis we find that they also are based upon universal experiences.
If we analyse all the various religions of the world, one can find that these are divided into two classes, those with a book, and those without a book.Those with a book are the strongest, and have the large number of followers. Those without books have mostly died out,and the few ones have very small followings. Some say that all the knowledge of God is confined to this or that book. How dare men call God infinite, and yet try to compress Him within the covers of a little book! Mllions of people have been killed because they did not believe what the books said, because they would not see all the knowledge of God within the covers of the book.Yet, in all of them we find one consensus of opinion, that the truths they teach the results of the experiences of particular persons. In Christanity, Christ said he saw God by experience, the disciples said they felt God and so forth.Similarly, in Buddhism, it is Buddha's experiece. He experienced certain truths, saw them, came in contact with them, and preached them to the world. So with Hindus. In their books, the writers who are called Rishis, or Sages, declare they experienced certain truths and these they preach.Thus it is clear that all the religions of the world have been built upon that one universal and adamantine foundation of all our knowledge - direct experience.Only there is this difference, that by most of these religions, especially in modern times, a peculiar claim is made, namely, that these experiences are impossible at the present day, they were only possible with a few men,who were the first founders of the religions that subsequently bore their names.At present time these exeriences have become obsolete, and therefore, we have now to take religion on belief.This is not correct. If there has been one experience in this world in any particular branch of knowledge, it is absolutely possible millions of times before, and will be repeated eternally. Uniformity is the rigorus law of nature, what once happened can happen always.It is not much use to talk about religion until one has felt it.Otherwise it will lead to fanaticism and so on. Why is there so such disturbance, fighting and quarrelling in the name of God than for any other cause,though it is divine? There has been more bloodshed in the name of God than for any other cause, bcause people never went to the fountain-head, they were content only to give a mental assent to the customs of their forefathers, and wanted others to do the same.What right has a man to say he has a Soul and if he does not feel it, or that there is a God if he does not see Him? If there is God, we must see Him, if there is a Soul, we must perceive it, otherwise it is better not to believe. It is better to be an outspoken atheist than a hypocrite. Man wants truth, wants to experience truth for himself, when he has grasped it, realised it, felt it within heart of hearts, then alone,declare the Vedas, would all doubts vanish, all darkness be scattered, and all crookedness be made straight.For which what we need now is knowledge, knowledge of the Universe, knowledge of the Self.There is only one method by which to attain this knowledge, that which is called CONCENTRATION.How has all the knowledge in the world been gained but by the concentration of the powers of the mind? The world is ready to give up its secrets if we only know how to knock, how to give it the necessary blow. The strength and force of the blow come through concentration. There is no limit to the power of the hunman mind.The more concnetration it is, the more power is brought to bear on one point, that is the secret.It is easier to concenterate the mind on external things, the mind generally goes outwards, but not so in the case of religion, or psychology, or metaphysics, where the subject and the object are one.The object is internal, the mind itself is the object, and it is necessary to study the mind itself - mind studying mind. We know that there is the power of the mind called reflection.While listening, one can think and do his work, while a portion of mind stands by and sees what we are thinking .The powers of the mind should be concentrated and turned back upon itself, and the darkest places reveal their secrets before the penetrating rays of the sun, so will this concentrated mind penetrate its own innermost secrets.Thus will we come to the basis of belief, the real genuine religion. We will perceive for ourselves whether we have souls,whether life is for few minutes, or of eternity,whether there is God in the universe or none.It will all be revealed to us.This is what Yoga teaches.
The human body is the greatest body in the universe, and a human being the greatest being.Man is higher than all animals, than all angels, none is greater than man. Even the Devas(gods) will have to come down again and attain to salvation through a human body. Man alone attains to perfection, not even the Devas.Animals cannot have any high thoughts, nor can the angels, or Devas, attain to direct freedom without human birth. In human society, in the same way, too much wealth or too much poverty is a great impediment to the higher development of the soul.It is from the middle classes that the great ones of the world come.Here the forces are very equally adjusted and balanced.
The term "OJAS" is very important.All the energies that are in the human body the highest is called "Ojas". Now this Ojas is stored up in the brain, and the more Ojas is in a
man's head, the more powerful he is, the more intellectual, the more spiritually strong.One man may speak beautiful language and beautiful thought, but they do not impress people, another man speaks neither beautiful language nor beautiful thoughts, yet his words charm. Every movement of his is powerful. That is the power of Ojas.Now in every man there is more or less of this Ojas stored up. All the forces that are working in the body in their highest become Ojas.It is only a question of transformation.The same force which is working outside as electricity or magnetism will become changed into inner force, the same force that is working as muscular energy will be changed into Ojas.The part of the human energy which is expressed as sex energy, in sexual thought, when checked or controlled, easily becomes changed into Ojas.All this sexual eneregy can be converted into Ojas.It is only the chaste man or woman who can make the Ojas rise and store it in the brain, that is why chastity has always been considered the highest virtue.
REALIZATION is the real religion, all the rest is only preparation -hearing lectures, or readig books, or reasoning is merely preparing the ground, it is not religiion. Intellectual assent and intellectual dissent are not religion.The central idea of the devotee is that just as we come in direct contact with objects of the sensses, so religion even can be directly perceived in a far more intense sense.The truths of religion, as God and Soul, cannot be perceived by the external senses. I cannot see God with my eyes, nor can touch Him with my hands, and we also know that neither can we reason beyond the senses.Reason leaves us at a point unite indecisive , we may reason all our lives, as the world has been doing for thousands of years, and the result is that we find we are incompetent to prove or disaprove the facts of religion.What we perceive directly we reason.So it is obvious that reasoning has to run within these bounds of perception. It can never go beyond.The whole scope of realisation, therefore, is beyond sense-perception.The Yogis say that man can go beyond his direct sense-perception, and beyond his reason also.Man has in him the faculty, the power of transcending his intellect even, a power which is in every being, every creature. By the practice of Yoga that power is aroused, and then man transcends the ordinary limits of reason, and directly perceives things which are beyond all reasons.
According to Yoga philosophy, it is through ignorance that the soul has been joined with nature. The aim is to get rid of nature's control over us. That is goal of all religions.Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this Divinity within, by controlling nature,external and internal. Do this either by work, or worship, psychic control, or philosophy- by one or more or all of these - and be free. This is the whole of religion.Doctrines or dogmas, or rituals, or books, or temples, or forms, are but secondary details.The Yogi tries to reach this goal through psychic control. Until we can free ourselves from nature, we are slaves,as she dictates so we must go.The Yogi claims that he who controls the mind controls matter also.The internal natrure is much higher than the externlal and much more difficult to grapple with, much more difficult to control.Therefore he who has conquered the internal nature controls the whole universe.
The absolute knowledge or the essence of knowledge takes the Yogi across the ocean of birth and death. The whole of Prakriti in all its states, subtle and gross, is within the grasp of this knowledge. There is no succession in perception by this knowledge.It takes in all things simultaneously, at a glance.
" By Pranayama (control of Prana),impurites of the body are thrown out; by Pratyahara (restraint of the senses from their objects) impurities of the attachment;
by Dharana (fixing the mind on a spot ) the impurities of the mind ; and by Dhyana, (meditation) and Samadhi (superconsciousness)is taken off everything that hides the lordship of the Soul. "
MERCY SHALL NOT BE FOR MEN ALONE,
BUT SHALL GO BEYOND, AND EMBRACE
THE WHOL WORLD.
S.S.YOGI (SUBRAMANIA SIVA YOGI)
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