Passages from "Meditation and Spiritual Life" - 1019 20th-September-2020

 

 

 

Passages from "Meditation and Spiritual Passages from "Meditation and Spiritual Life" – 1019

 

PART III SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE

Chapter 33 – LIFE IN FREEDOM – 04

Marks of a free soul – 02

 

A jivanmukta is free from fear. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad says, ‘abhayam vai brahma’ (Brahman is fearlessness).⁹ [⁹ Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, 4.4.25] One day the sage Yajnavalkya went to King Janaka, the emperor of Videha. At the request of the emperor the sage taught him about Brahman, the pure Consciousness, which pervades and fills everything. The disciple was himself a highly qualified aspirant and so he could quickly grasp the Truth. Noticing this Yajnavalkya told him: ‘O Janaka, you have verily attained fearlessness.’¹⁰ [¹⁰ Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, 4.2.4.]

 

As Swami Vivekananda says most people live like hunted criminals. Their hearts are not free. They rush through life as if pursued by the devil himself and miss all the beauty and glory of life. They cannot sit in peace or move about fearlessly. In The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna there is an interesting story about a weaver woman. One day a friend of hers came to see her. When she left the room to prepare refreshments for her friend, the latter hid under her arm a bundle of silk thread which was lying there. When the weaver woman returned she at once noticed the loss. She then suggested to her friend that they dance for a while. The weaver woman danced with both her arms upraised, but her friend would raise only one arm, while the other arm was pressed to the body.¹¹ (¹¹ The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, trans. Swami Nikhilananda (Madras: Sri Ramakrishna Math, 1974), p. 435).” A liberated man has nothing to hide and he is fearless.

 

There is a tendency in people to brood over the events of life unnecessarily, magnify the danger and remain full of excitement. This tendency is to be counteracted by cultivating harmonious thoughts and sentiments. Instead of fear we must have courage, instead of morbid helplessness we need a spirit of healthy resignation which enables us to remain calm and follow our path irrespective of changes in the environment. When I sailed from Bergen (in Norway) for America in March 1940, there was the usual dancing and merrymaking in the ship on the first day. On the second day we received a wireless message about the German invasion of Norway and the fall of ports like Bergen to Nazi troops. This cast a gloom on the ship and all music and noise suddenly stopped. The ship’s crew and many of the passengers became nervous and full of fear. There was no hope of going back to their homes in Norway, and there was the additional danger of the ship getting torpedoed or bombed at any time.