Dear friends of Atma Jyoti,

This is the first edition of the email version of the Atma Jyoti Newsletter. Each letter will consist of ashram news, a new article on spiritual life, and news about the ashram's website, atmajyoti.org, including links to new articles and other interesting pages. We hope to send the newsletter monthly, and keep you informed of interesting news.

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The Glorious Way

A Commentary on the Katha Upanishad—by Swami Nirmalananda Giri

The Katha Upanishad is now going to elaborate on the path so we can better understand how to journey upon it.

“The Self-Existent made the senses turn outward. Accordingly, man looks toward what is without, and sees not what is within. Rare is he who, longing for immortality, shuts his eyes to what is without and beholds the Self.” 1

Why?

The first thing this verse teaches us is that the Divine Itself has caused our consciousness to turn outward. This is not the result of any negative force or “fall” on our part. (The fall took place as a wrong response to the outward turn.) What was the purpose of our turning outward? Evolution. We had to enter into relative existence and run the maze of ever-ascending evolution in order to satisfy our innate urge for infinity. (For more on this, see Ladder of Light.) Consequently, there is nothing wrong with the senses turning outward; the problem is when the sense become locked in externalizing. The purpose of our entering the field of evolutionary life was for us to experience the many shades of evolving consciousness while never losing awareness of our true nature or identifying with the costumes we constantly donned and put off as the ages progressed. However it may have been intended, the situation has horribly changed, making us blind to inner realities.

Sunk in awareness of seeming mortality, human beings either seek to distract themselves from the terror and pain which arises from their delusion, or they seek some way to attain immortality. Both searches are based on delusion, so they can only fail. We need not become immortal, but must realize our present, eternal immortal nature. Those who shut their eyes–their consciousness–to the false appearances of external existence and turn within discover the truth of their immortality. No longer do they think that the solution is to be found in some external factor, but clearly see that their own Self is the wondrous answer.

The foolish and the wise

“Fools follow the desires of the flesh and fall into the snare of all-encompassing death; but the wise, knowing the Self as eternal, seek not the things that pass away.” 2

In its true state, relative existence is a vast field of life, but when it is overlain with the veneer of our inner delusions, it becomes death to us. That which is meant to expand our consciousness and free us into Infinity becomes a prison, a killer of our soul–and this is all our doing. The world remains what it ever was, but we have lost sight of its nature just as we have become blind to our own Self.

The urge to expansion of consciousness through upward-moving evolution becomes distorted into a myriad desires arising from our false identity with the body and its illusory mortality. “Seize the moment!” is our despairing cry. Seeking to live, we plunge ourselves “into the snare of all-encompassing death.”

The wise, who have come to know their immortality through the direct experience produced (only) by meditation, turn from the snare and seek only that which cannot pass away because it has never come into being at some point in time, but is immortal–like us. In other words, we seek the kingdom of God that is nothing less than God–and our own Self.

There is a seeking that is necessary, but a seeking for deepening consciousness rather than for something that is not already ours. We must not fall into the facile illusion that we have nothing to do or attain. Certainly there is nothing objective to be done or attained, but in the subjective realm of Consciousness there is literally Everything to be sought and attained. “Strive without ceasing to know the Atman, seek this knowledge and comprehend clearly why you should seek it: such, it is said, are the roots of true wisdom.” 3

To read more commentaries on the Katha Upanishad, as well as other Hindu scriptures, click here.

1) Katha Upanishad 2:1:1 [Go back]

2) Katha Upanishad 2:1:2 [Go back]

3) Bhagavad Gita 13:11 [Go back]

Our Spiritual Marching Orders

A Commentary on the Bhagavad Gita—by Swami Nirmalananda Giri

There are many reasons why a battlefield was the appropriate place for the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita to be spoken. Life itself is a battle, and the world is the battlefield. Those who are developed enough in consciousness to take upon themselves the responsibility for their evolution and ultimate liberation are certainly warriors. Krishna is the voice of the Supreme Commander–our own divine Self and Brahman the Absolute, the Self of our Self. He issues to us our marching orders in a single verse:

“Shake off this fever of ignorance. Stop hoping for worldly rewards. Fix your mind on the Atman. Be free from the sense of ego. Dedicate all your actions to me. Then go forward and fight.”4

It is important to realize that good intentions, dedication, and enthusiasm are not sufficient in the spiritual battle. That is why Krishna leaves the order to fight for the last. Here they all are:

“Shake off this fever of ignorance”

Ignorance is the root of all our problems and their attendant sufferings. Unfortunately, it is not a passive condition like blindness or deafness, but actively produces the “fever” of a myriad delusions which impel us into a myriad of thoughts and acts that proliferate into more delusions and pains. It is horrible to contemplate, engendering in us a sense of utter helplessness–and hopelessness. But that mistaken view is the ultimate delusion which, if we accept it, will ensure our perpetual confusion and misery.

The truth is that all our delusions and suffering are illusions, having no substance other than our own mind or any power other than our own intellect and will. They are dreams from which we can awaken. No external force can produce this awakening–we must do it ourself. Teachers can instruct us in the means and ways of awakening but it must be totally done by us. That is why Krishna tells us to “shake off” the fever-hallucinations of ignorance.

Ignorance is only a shell, a veneer. Beneath it lies the eternal Truth of our Self. The shell need only be cracked open and shaken off. Just as the chick cracks its shell from within and pushes its way outward, breaking and casting aside the shell, so are we to do, becoming, like Buddha, Self-awakened.

“Stop hoping for worldly rewards”

There is no use in facing West to see the rising sun. In the same way there is no point in looking to material existence for fulfillment of that deep longing which impels us into so many frantic and fruitless searches from life to life. We do not expect a stone to fly or sing to us. In the same way we must not expect from the world the very thing it prevents us from attaining.

“Fix your mind on the Atman”

No need to look for fire in water or dampness in fire. The Self and the world mutually exclude one another. So we need not flee the world or even reject it; we need only turn within and enter the realm of the spirit. Then like the chick’s shell the world will fall away, no longer able to confine or hold on to us.

“Be free from the sense of ego”

The ego only exists in the world–or rather in the mind that is absorbed in the world and identifies with the world, thinking the Self is a part of it, capable of affecting it and of being affected by it. That is a sure gateway to frustration and false assurances. The only way to be free from the sense of ego is to become identified with the Self.

“Dedicate all your actions to me”

Everything we do must be seen as serving a single purpose: the revelation of the Divine Self within our own Self. Obviously Infinity needs nothing, and the idea of giving It anything is absurd. But since the intention of the Absolute in manifesting the relative is our ascension to complete freedom in spirit, whatever we do to further that can be considered dedicated to God. Krishna is speaking of what Patanjali calls Ishwarapranidhana, the offering of the life to God.

“Then go forward and fight”

When ignorance and delusion are vanquished, dependence on the world ended, consciousness of the Self established, the sense of ego dissolved, and all our life seen as an offering unto God, we have not attained the goal–we have only then become capable of fighting and conquering the cosmic evil that has dominated and enslaved us from the moment we became an atom of hydrogen.

One of the greatest errors of spiritual life is mistaking mere spiritual fitness for spiritual perfection. Saint Clement of Alexandria lamented that already in the beginning of the third century the Christian Church mistook for perfection and the end of the struggle that which at the time of Jesus was looked upon as just the beginning, only the readiness to begin to path to perfection. The same is true in all religions, today. Those who are hardly qualified novices are acclaimed Masters and even Avatars. This is a tragedy beyond calculation.

But we need not fall into the illusion. We can and will move onward to the real battle; and we will win.

Fighting is going forward, but many people get stuck on their successes in spiritual life rather than pushing onward to better things. There are people who sit and rhapsodize about an extraordinary meditation instead of keeping on and having even more remarkable meditations. Or they go on and on about some incredible incident in their spiritual search, not realizing that they are no longer searching but mired in self-congratulation. It is good to be pleased with our spiritual life and progress, but that must be a stimulus to keep on moving into new territory. Alexander the Great, whose kingdom was but a fraction of the earth, sat and wept, lamenting that he had no more lands to conquer. We must avoid his small-mindedness and press on.

No matter how good things are at the moment, they can become better–even to the extent that what we are impressed with now will in time seem very elementary, and even negligible.

To read more commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita, as well as our translation of the Gita itself, click here.

4) Bhagavad Gita 3:30 [Go back]  

Website News

We are constantly improving and adding articles to atmajyoti.org. Over the past few months, there have been over 40 new articles posted, including commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita, the Gospel of Thomas, the Katha Upanishad, the Aquarian Gospel, and the Gospel of Matthew, and more. To get a full view of recent postings, visit "What's New". A sampling of these postings can be seen by clicking the links below:

• Who Is Jesus? from the Aquarian Gospel Commentary
• The Omnipresent Self from the Katha Upanishad Commentary
• Perspective on Scriptures from the Bhagavad Gita Commentary
• Eat Or Be Eaten from the Commentary on the Gospel of Thomas

During the trip to India which some of our monks made in 2005, we shot over 20 hours of video. We have posted some of this video on the site. We have now put a twelve-minute video called Glimpses of India, which is a a compilation of four short spiritual events which we witnessed during our travels:

1. The Morning Havan by the students at the Vedic Gurukula at Om Shanti Dhama in Karnataka.
2. Rare footage of the spiritual figure known as “Ajja” in Puttur, southern Karnataka.|
3. The evening Nagar kirtan of Ram Nam at Anandashram, made famous by Papa Ramdas, near Kanhangad, Kerala.
4. Devotional Bhajans and dancing by village devotees at the Samadhi Shrine of Jnaneshwar in Alandi, Maharashtra.

To see this and more videos, visit India Videos. Videos are in Quicktime format. If you do not have the free Quicktime player, a link is provided on the Videos page so that you may download it.

In the near future, besides adding more articles on spiritual life, we will be adding many more photos from our journeys to India, as well as more videos. We will also be making more of the books and articles available in PDF format.