Who is Qualified for Spiritual Accomplishments?
— Akhand Jyoti
(Concluding part of a discourse continued from the previous issue)
Friends! I am very powerful, and I am a person of great stature. The signs of strength and greatness that I have found, the wisdom I have gained — where did I obtain all these? I wish to impart these to you during these few days of the sadhana shivir (a sadhana-oriented training camp), so that you may learn them here and carry them with you. These are precious days for you. I have invited you with great earnestness and desire to enlighten your inner self. You do not know what relationship exists between you and me. You have been connected with me through many lifetimes.
I can speak of myself — what roles I have played in which births. Who were you in your previous birth, and what great deeds were you capable of accomplishing? You have forgotten yourselves. You cannot know. Why? Because the veils of ignorance have so thoroughly enveloped you that they obstruct your far-sighted vision. You cannot see distant matters, but I can. I recognize you; thus, my relationship with you remains as it was in previous births.
We Can Become Whatever We Wish
Friends! When Ravan was dying, Lord Ram said, "Lakshman, Ravan has been slain, but a great misfortune has occurred. A great talented and scholarly personality has departed from the world. He departed, he wandered astray, he lost his way — he did not go where he ought to have gone. Yet, he fulfilled one vow: to awaken and enhance all the latent powers within a person, he accomplished a significant milestone.
Ravan was wealthy. His entire Lanka was built of gold. He was a man of great means, of immense strength and power. He even captured the gods. Ravan was highly learned. When he set out to translate the Vedas, he accomplished it. When he sought to extract the secrets of science, he succeeded. Ravan was, to a certain extent, a spiritualist too. If a person comes to know his own nature, his own capacity, his own powers, and stands up to develop them, I would call him half a spiritualist.
Nothing is Impossible for Human Resolve
In India, the name of Ramamurti is well known. The name of wrestler Gama is renowned. In the later times, Chandgi Ram also became famous. Many wrestlers have been celebrated in India, and in Europe, there was a great wrestler named Shendo. He was an internationally acclaimed wrestler, for he understood the latent abilities and powers within himself, used them correctly, and became great.
Shendo was a frail, sickly boy. He was eleven or twelve years old, constantly afflicted with colds and coughs, his liver enlarged. Once, he went with his father to see the museum of Judas. He saw the museum and asked his father, "Are these statues before us truly representative of those people? Were their wrists really so thick?" His father replied, "Yes, son, they were indeed so."
Shendo asked, "Father, can I become like them?" His father replied, "Yes, you can. Whatever any one person in the world has accomplished, another can also achieve. The path that is open to one is open to all."
As soon as Shendo returned home from the museum, he asked his father, "Tell me, how can I become a wrestler, a strong man?" Sickly from childhood, troubled by asthma, colds, coughs, with an enlarged liver — yet when his father taught him the rules of diet, the virtues of exercise, and how to discipline his thoughts, Shendo began to follow them, and one day he himself became a successful wrestler.
Lakshmana's Remarkable Encounter with Ravan
When Ravan was about to die (after his defeat in the battlefield of Lanka), Lord Ram sent Lakshmana to go to him and ask how we might attain progress in material life. What contribution can our spiritual stature make to our advancement in the material realm?
When Lakshman doubted whether Ravan would respond to an enemy's quest, Lord Ram explained to him that it is only the small-minded and ignoble who cling to enmity. Ram continued, "So what if he was misguided? Ravan was, in himself, a formidable and significant person. He possessed great inner strength, but lacking union with the Divine, he became entangled in material powers. Now, we should go to him and learn how he amassed such immense wealth. Let us learn these methods from him."
Friends! The gist of what Lakshman learnt is that everything is possible by recognition and awakening of hidden potentials, sincere pursuit and unflinching determination. Indeed, the treasures of the world — wealth, prosperity, and supernatural attainments — are all contained within ourselves. We can attain them on the basis of spirituality, on the foundation of inner purity and innocence.
This concludes today's discourse. || Om Shanti ||
"Religion should be a source for reconciliation, for tolerance and for empathy." — Charles Kimball
Tags: #spiritual-accomplishment #human-potential #self-realization #Ravan #Lakshmana #Lord-Ram #Shendo #inner-strength #determination #sadhana-shivir #past-lives #Gurudev #spirituality #willpower #latent-powers #Amrit-Vani #discourse #material-success #divine-grace