Spiritual Thinking is the ultimate insight beyond the Self.
Mathew 6:25
Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not life more than meat and the body more than raiment?
Mathew 6:33
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
Isa-Upanishad
“That” (the Invisible Whole, Absolute), which cannot be seen ( Spirit, Real), creates everything that can be seen ( material, unreal) and felt.
Hinduism, Vedas, Upanishads, and Bhagwat Gita
I will touch on the above to understand how the concepts I have discussed in earlier posts developed through history. I am neither an expert on history nor on Vedas, but I will share some of my understanding. Hinduism is not a religion but a way of life and is one of the earliest in human progress toward organized thoughts. Some of the sages, like the prophets in the Old Testament, taught their disciples about God and ways to live, achieve objectives, etc. They taught orally from four different scriptures called the Vedas. These were later transcribed around 500 BC into dried Palm leaves, which lasted for several centuries until printing presses were developed in the 19th century. The four Vedas were Rig Veda. Yajur Veda, Sama Veda and Atarva Veda. The sage Vyasa is credited with inventing the thoughts on the Vedas. These included living, worshiping God, performing various rites and rituals to attain one’s desires, and achieving happiness and peace. These included how to maintain good health, which is still called Ayurveda. In addition, four paths of worship, called margas, were also prescribed, and the practice of these was called Yogas. These were Raja Yoga (Discipline). Bakti Yoga (Devotion), Karma Yoga (duty), and finally, Gnana Yoga (Knowledge). People could follow any of these paths suited to their temperament. The sages also had leaders called Manus who developed the codes of conduct for people called Manassas, and these codes were called Manusmritis. ( I wonder if the words Man and Manuscripts came from that). The Vedas also pointed out that Gnana Yoga would be the way to attain Salvation.
Upanishads: There are over a hundred Upanishads, and it is believed that these came about when the sages asked their disciples to extract the truths and philosophy of life from the Vedas. These were called the Vedanta. While some differences are based on the writer’s belief in rituals or concepts, the central theme is almost the same. This is mainly because the spirit is the engine that drives the body and its organs; each individual’s core spirit is called Atman. It leads to Brahman (God), the Omnipotent, Omnipresent, and Omniscient Power that is the cause and effect of everything in this universe. The Upanishads use the term OM (or Aum) to refer to the God dwelling in each one of us as a whole and not as a part of the supreme power. This concept makes people difficult to follow, and they would instead worship an idol or image they can see and believe is still practiced. However, all the mantras of worship start with Om signifying the Brahman within each of us though the description may vary depending on the image, idol, or belief. I will go into more detail on this in the next posting. It is essential to understand that there are not many Gods but one in various forms convenient to our imagination.
The Bhagwat Gita, which came much later, is the description of truth and philosophy of life in poetic forms by Krishna to motivate and focus the attention of the foremost warrior Arjuna during the Mahabharatha war. They were fighting for justice to regain a part of the kingdom taken over by the Kauravas by cheating them on a chess game. So Krishna reiterates the one reality while emphasizing the duties we are bound by on earth. I will discuss how Adi Sankara studied the Upanishads in the next posting. After that, Gita and Brahma Sutra developed the Advaita Vedanta philosophy.
Adi Shankaracharya, Jesus, and Advaita Vedanta
In the eighth century AD, Adi Shankaracharya studied the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and Brahma Sutras and pointed out that all the truths were based on the Vedas. He developed the Advaita Vedanta philosophy of one infinite reality and its non-duality (material illusion and spirituality ). To propagate his Advaita Vedanta, though he was based in Kanchipuram near Madras, he traveled throughout India and established four more mutts ( schools in four parts of India to teach Advaita Vedanta and the leaders he appointed were also called Sankaracharyas ( Sankara-teachers) of each of those Mutts. All five of these Mutts are prominent and have their lineage of Sankaracharyas. However, he realized that materialistic beliefs were so ingrained in everyone and the difficulty in understanding this truth in one infinite reality that they cannot perceive with their material eyes. So he explained it as a way to understand one reality. You have to climb all the stairs to reach the truth of only one truth and each one will be able to get whatever level one can. This is what Jesus implied when he said each one is given a specific belief suited to their needs. Jesus also said that what he does is not his own but what his Father tells him to do. He said that at one time, he and his Father were one. In the nineteenth century, other saints such as Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, and Ramana all explained the duality in the same way and united the country. If one wanted to learn mathematics in school when we start with addition and subtractions, multiplication and division, algebra, calculus, and algorithms for programming. Just as students drop out at various levels because they cannot comprehend beyond basic math, it is the same thing with materiality and spirituality. The higher you climb in a tall building, the farther you can see. That is what spirituality and one reality are all about. Jesus said, “take no thought for what ye shall eat, drink or clothe, but seek ye the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added unto you.” When one of Vivekananda’s disciples, Saradananda, was giving a lecture on Gnana Yoga, which is the study of spirituality, in the US in 1896, one of the American audience recorded and later published; you might want to read:https://amp.scroll.in/article/816610/how-adi-shankaracharya-united-a-fragmented-land-with-philosophy-poetry-and-pilgrimage
JNANA YOGA – II
(These were initially recorded by a prominent American disciple of the Swami, Miss S. E. Waldo. Swami Saradananda, while he was in America (1896), copied them from her notebook — Ed.)
There is also a movie on Adi Sankaracharya taken in 1983, produced by GV Iyer in Sanskrit with subtitles in all languages and will be available in all libraries and Amazon Prime Video.
When Adi Shankaracharya was developing the bhasya (Commentary) on the Advaita-Vedanta philosophy of non-duality, he was aware of the difficulty of making materialistic people understand conceptual spirituality, and very few people will have the capacity to comprehend things that material eyes cannot see. If you try to explain Vedanta to a starving beggar, he would only pelt you with stones. You can feed him first to quelch his material hunger and then try teaching Vedanta. But now he would be complete and start snoring hearing the Vedanta. Adi Shankaracharya knew that material things evolve from the Divine Mind and is the creator and cause of everything in this Universe. So he explained that spirituality is an ascending process, and each one can climb up to their level of understanding but as long as they know that the ultimate goal should be the knowledge of only one truth and reality. When they reach this destination, people understand that all supplies, needs,s and abilities come from one source: The Divine Mind, God, the Brahman, and He is present as a whole in each one of us. The one who develops this understanding is getting ready for salvation or Mukti.
Prayer, Consciousness, Human and Divine Will
The fact that some of us pray is a recognition that we seek help from a power beyond us. We discussed this power as God, Infinite Mind, Divine Mind, and Brahman, which are all the same. The next question is, what are we praying for? Is it for fulfilling our needs, for someone’s welfare, for our country, or for achieving your goal? It does not matter. It is a call for help. Let us see how such calls will be responded to and under what circumstances. If we do not get what we asked for, does that mean our prayers were ineffective, or is there no God? We will discuss each one of these.
When we pray, Jesus said to go into thy closet and secretly pray to thy father. The father who sees you in secret will bless thee openly. I did not put these under quote because those may not have been the exact words. However, that means you do not have to pray sincerely for others to hear; God knows all your thoughts and desires, and He will reward thee openly.
For prayers to be effective, whatever you desire has to fill your consciousness, and know that God is already aware of it, and He will guide you to do whatever you need to do. Then, once you have done that, you can let go and let your consciousness and God take care of it.
What if your Prayers are not answered? Sometimes God’s will for you could be different than what you desire. He creates everyone with a specific life purpose that will be fulfilled. What you pray for or desire to do may not fit that purpose. Let us consider the story of Jonah in the old testament. Jonah was a prophet, and God wanted Jonah to go to the city of Nineveh and prophecy the impending decline since the City was immersed in a lot of sinful acts and their morals were getting lower. Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh and thought he would get killed. So he headed in the opposite direction on a ship. The ship encountered severe storms, and the captain feared the boat would sink. Jonah confided to the captain that he wanted to get away from going to Nineveh, which is why God was mad and caused the storm. The captain threw him overboard, a big fish swallowed Jonah, the battery immediately subsided, and the fish vomited Jonah on land nearby. Jonah immediately realized his mistake, returned to Nineveh, and preached there.
In my corporate career, where I had developed an excellent reputation, there was a change in management. Even though I wanted to climb to upper management, I was constantly pressured to compromise my integrity and honesty. My principles were more important than titles, and I chose to leave the corporation and endured many difficulties, which made me stronger and happier as the years went by. God did provide for my family and me through this ordeal. It is essential to realize God’s will for us and not be stuck to our human will, mainly derived from our ego. By eliminating the human ego, we will only understand God’s purpose in our lives. A general rule in what you desire in your prayers will be to see and ask why you want what you want. If it is purely selfless and can benefit others, the chances that your prayer will be answered is very high.
Knowledge, Consciousness, Intelligence, and Wisdom
As I discuss various topics in each post, I will remind you that the key is that no matter what your external circumstances or feelings are based on your mortal senses, they are not real. The only reality is the infinite mind (God) present and acting in your body and mind 24/7 and the coordination of your thinking with that truth that translates into your welfare, health, happiness, and peace. To maintain that coordination, you must file your consciousness with this truth. So your consciousness goes between your mortal senses, brain, body, etc., and the infinite divine mind. But you do have to build up your knowledge, thoughts, health, etc., and then let go.
Knowledge is a storage for all helpful information you can gather by learning, experiencing, reading, listening, etc. It is only beneficial if it gets into your consciousness. I will give you an example. Say you have learned to drive through a school, read all road rules, and practice. All this knowledge will be helpful only if you know what to do in an emergency. You cannot be thinking about applying the brakes, slowing down, etc. You have to act intuitively, requiring your consciousness to be aware of what you have to do from your knowledge, and the infinite mind lets you work intuitively. It is like putting all the information you gather for filing in a computer and retrieving it when needed. First, however, you must know where you stored that information on the computer. That is where consciousness has no limit on how much you put into your knowledge library. As long as you know the only truth about the infinite mind, the retrieval of the information will be automatic, and that is what intelligence is. The ability to do that under complex circumstances is called wisdom. Wisdom can only come by constant practice, prayer, and affirmation of the truth.
A word about misinformation: all misinformation relies not on truth but on the mortal mind and ego and will fail at one time or another. Even if you are unsure whether some information is accurate, as long as you connect with the infinite mind, all false information will be weeded out if your heart is pure and you know the truth of the power of the infinite mind.
There can be intelligence without formal knowledge or schooling in certain circumstances. Let us take the example of some sports where some people excel without proper math, physics, or other scientific knowledge. This is called talent, a gift bestowed by the divine mind. When a player throws a basketball into the ring from a distance, complicated mathematical and physics calculations are involved in the ball falling into the rim. The player may be unaware of all the science involved, but that is what is precisely applied. The divine mind passes this information in a split second to the player to find the ring. I mentioned this is only because the infinite reason is so powerful and is aware of everything, every event, that it can aid you at any moment. Our job is to gather all knowledge, assimilate it, pass it on, and wait for divine intelligence and wisdom for any action.
Power of Almighty OM or AUM and Infinity
We have discussed an almighty power or energy that drives life from birth to death. When this power which cannot be seen, leaves the body, the body has no life and cannot function, proving that the body and organs are only material and cannot survive without that mighty power being present. The Upanishads call this power OM( AUM) and are the creator and cause of everything that happens in the universe. This power, also referred to as Brahman, Spirit, Infinite Mind, or Divine Mind is present in every living being and guides life 24/7. It has absolute control over us, but our body or mind has no control over it, but it gives each of us an option to synchronize our thoughts (human mind) with It. Our attempts to think that we can do anything we want are derived from our Human mind and ego, which will lead only to discord and unhappiness. Therefore, we must synchronize our body, mind, thoughts, and actions with the divine mind or OM; that is why all hymns, rituals, and mantras in the Vedas start with OM (eg. Om Nama Shivaya, Om Narayana, Om Ganesaya, etc., a tacit acknowledgment that whatever we see God in, we address it to OM, the whole God within is (Self). It is this understanding that will ultimately lead to self-realization and salvation. We must constantly be on guard to avoid the opposite AHAM, Ego, or Pride that is detrimental, material, and destructive. We need constant affirmations of the truth through prayers, focus and practice. Only then can we synchronize our human mind with the Divine Mind. This is what Jesus meant when he said,’ Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor for your body, what ye shall put on. Seek ye the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added unto you.
Since the power of God or Brahman is unlimited, we refer to Him as Infinite Mind. In mathematics, infinity with the symbol ∞ stands for something beyond descriptive numbers. Dividing infinity by any number, no matter how large, is also the same infinity. That is why God is referred to as Infinite Mind since He is present as a whole, Infinite Mind in every being. Since the body has no power after death, after OM is gone, it is material and can be represented by 0. The number 0 multiplied by any number is still zero, no matter how large. That is why all content thoughts will amount to nothing. Thinking spiritually means that the ideas are derived from the spirit and lead to harmony: peace, and well-being.
Just as infinity is a mathematical concept to describe a number beyond all calculations and requires conceptual thinking, so is The Spirit, God, Brahman, and the infinite mind. Just as one cannot see the energy entering the body at birth or leaving the body at death and requires a quantum jump in our thoughts to explain the power that drives life, so we need a quantum jump in our thoughts to understand that God, Brahman or Spirit( are all the same and just synonyms is the only reality, He is the sole creator, cause and effect of everything that happens in this universe. No wonder it will be difficult for materialistic people who have to touch, feel and see everything before they can believe and consequently deal with every adverse manifestation in life and be discordant. The pathway to climbing up spirituality is clear, but they have to make that choice in their thoughts.
Affirmations and Prayer- An Essential Component for Divine Mind Synchronization
In my previous posting, I emphasized constant affirmations of the Truth of only one reality, God, Spirit, or Divine Mind, and the coordination of our human mind, body, thoughts, and desires with the Divine Mind, which operates 24/7 in each of us. Because affirmations with that understanding get the Truth into our consciousness and our mind and bodywork in conjunction with the Divine Mind, the actions follow divine directions. As a result, we find peace, harmony, and good health. These affirmations include prayers, meditations, chanting mantras, verses from sacred texts, etc. During my morning walk and reflections, I use several prayers I will cite as an example below:
1 Jesus’ Lord’s prayer. Mathew 6.9-13
2 Spiritual interpretation of Lord’s prayer as given in Science and Health with Keys to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, Pp 16-17.
3 Psalm 23
4 Psalm 91
5 The Scientific Statement of Being, Science and Health with keys to the scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, pp 468
6 Six 1 John 3-1
7 Isaiah 40-31
8 Isaiah 30-21
9 Gayatri Mantra ( From Vedas)
10 Sivananda’s Universal Prayer
https://www.sivananda.eu/en/meditation/the-4-yoga-paths/universal-prayer.html
11 My adaptation from Rev.John’s Golden Key Ministry writings.
[The activity of the divine mind is the only power working on my mind, body, health, wealth, peace, and harmony.
All negative thoughts and false beliefs are entirely dissolved by the wisdom, love, grace, power, and forgiving actions of God
I am prosperous, peaceful, healthy, and harmonious, just the way God created me.]
Since I have memorized these over the years. It is pretty automatic for me to use these affirmations, whether walking, driving, or engaging in any other activity. In addition, as soon as I wake up in the morning and before I go to bed at night, I thank God, the Divine Mind, for taking me through the night and day in peace and harmony.
When you go through these or part of them with contemplation and understanding a few times a day, you will start noticing the difference between you and your personality.
You may use your verses and your language and expression. I know many people who sing hymns and songs and even verbally express their thoughts in affirmations. It is the recognition and understanding of the Truth that matters.
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