Speech of HH Sri Datta Vijayananda Teertha Swamiji during the Datta Kriya Yoga Teacher’s training session – August 24, 2012
Jai Guru Datta!
Sri Ganesaya namah
Sri Saraswatyai namah
Sri Padavallaba
Narasimha Saraswati
Sri Guru Dattateyaya namah
Sri ganapathi Sachidananda sadgurubhyonamah
Yoga vidya chitrabhanum chitrabhanu sharadbhavam
Jnanadam Sachidanandam Sadgurum Tam Namamyaham
Yogajyothi samuddeptham Jayalakshmi Nrsimhayoh
Advayam Sachidanamdam Sadgurum Tam Namamyaham
In this 9th chathurmasya, in this adhika bhadrapada month, we the practitioners and teachers of yoga are having a camp. This is a sacred moment. We’re happy to have it in Mysore. Eluru devotees prayed for chaturmasya there, Swamiji gave permission too. Due to many reasons, primarily because of 70th birthday and Swamiji spending a lot of time in the ashrama, He expressed a view that it would be a good idea to perform Chaturmaysa in Mysore itself. I took his proposal as an order and informed the same to Eluru devotees, and Matru Mandali. They too were very happy and with love agreed to visit Mysore. Swamiji told them “you’ve won by losing”. That is real Yoga. How can there be Yoga without sacrifice(tyaga)? So we ended up having the 9th chaturmaysa here. We’ve had this for 3 years, since the chaturmasya in Bangalore. We have one Kriya yoga camp in at least one of the ashramas, where Swamiji suggests. This one is particularly for all practitioners – Remember -learner or teacher, we’re basically practitioners. Take this wonderful opportunity Swamiji gave us. We should also propagate Yoga to people don’t know of it. Do we need to do this? You may ask. Nowadays we do. Previously propagation was only done by Gurus. And there was word of mouth propagation of the information about the Guru. Even now we need such propaganda. We may not have time or energy to practice Yoga in full scale as per patanjali’s rules, but we should not lose motivation. We should take Guru’s help. Sometimes we see stories of Guru giving Yoga Sidhis to students through placing His palm on the seekers head. We’ve seen evidence of it through these stories. It may not be right for everyone; infact it may only be valid in rare cases. The rest of us need to achieve the same through practice (sadhana). Swamiji has been teaching us Kriya yoga for about 30 years now. Many had practiced and some even had great experiences. Some have become teachers and passed it on to other seekers. They’re bringing new seekers to our Guru. There’s no better opportunity than to share your education with others.
It is your luck that Kuppa Krishnamurthy is here. He held a great “ayur-nada” conference. Appaji is very happy about it. Goplalakrishna and I had discussed a little about what to talk about during this camp and decided that patanjali yoga sutras(rules) are the best suited. Swamiji suggested that the topic of “pranayama” is discussed, but due to conferences and this and that, it got sidelined. Today, Raani Deekshitulu garu is also here. He will be talking about Knowledge(jnana). They say Yoga ends in Knowledge. All past deeds(karmas) burn in knowledge. It is said in Bhagavad Gita that mind control is possible through knowledge. We should control our mind, this is possible through Patanjali’s Yoga Rules. Today we get an introduction to this. There is a wonderful story about Patanjali that I want to share with you today.
One day Patanjali was sitting as an incarnation of the great 1000 headed snake adi-sesha, and teaching to his students. There was a screen before Him. On the other side, a thousand of students were listening and taking notes. Nobody knew who was teaching. Patanjali had set a rule that nobody should open the screen, if they do, their learning will go waste. Another rule was to not leave the arena without permission. One student had to go to the bathroom, so he left hastily, unannounced. Another student who missed a little bit because he spaced out wanted to copy from another student. To his surprise, the other student was writing notes on medicine. This student was engineering. He checked another student’s notes to find that he was writing geology and another was writing about oceanology, another about music. The student got really worried, thinking how is this possible? Is this an illusion? He got really stressed by his curiosity, went straight to the screen and opened it. Inside, a thousand headed snake was making a great hiss that sounded like Omkara. That Omkara from each head was being heard by different student as a different subject.
Just like how Appaji’s speech is heard differently by each one of us. Everybody gets something from the same speech.
Patanjali was unhappy with this development. Just how it happens in Sage Kapila’s story. One day Sage Kapila had seen an orphaned horse in the premises of his ashrama and had tied it up. The horse belonged to a ritual performed by Sagara. His children go to Kapila’s ashrama and try to conquer it while Sage Kapila was in meditation. Due to the noise, He had to come from that state of oneness with the Almighty back to having all organs and worldly feelings and this is a very tough thing to do. Sage Kapila got really angry in the process and from the anger came a great fire that burnt all the children of Sagara. This story was said in Bhagavata.
Similarly in our story, Patanjali was in deep meditation, he had to come back to his worldly figure at once when the screen got opened. In the process a great fire had come about and all the 999 students in the scene were burnt to ashes. Now the kid that went to bathroom comes back to find Guru in a trance and ashes. He gets afraid, identifies himself as the grammar student and prays to his Guru Patanjali who asks him to leave the place at once preach whatever he has learnt. So we got grammar but all the sciences are lost in that incident. Patanjali didn’t want to teach it to a different set of students believing that it maybe God’s will that the effort had to be stopped. However, He went against this very belief and has particularly written a book on Yoga, and that is an indicator of how important Yoga is. We need to practice Yoga. Some people don’t practice. They want shortcuts and magic. That can be done provided you’re very good at all the preparatory qualities needed. That’s why most Vedas and teachings begin with the word “atha” (after). That’s because they mean “after you’ve been prepared to do it”. So we need to practice and get to that “after” state.
You may get a question – does the philosophic thought occur first and we practice to keep it going? Or does practice lead to philosophic thoughts? This chicken and egg problem has been addressed by the great Shankara bhagavatpada in the Prakarana books. Here, for our sake, we say practice first and we need Philosophy(Vedanta) to keep it going. We need this Kriya Yoga for keeping our practice intact. You’re lucky to have it in this place because this ashrama has become very sacred by having Datta Himself here, the daily homas, nama sankeertana, the yoga practice done by saints etc. it has been said in Bhagavata that the place of learning and practice have a great impact on spiritual progress. More importantly, our Sadguru is here. Whatever we do in His presence always has multiplied results. Please follow the rules set by the teachers. Enjoy your stay in the ashrama. Listen to the speeches and ask doubts. Your doubts mean you’re really listening. If you’d go out and teach one day, you’d face questions from your audience. So ask questions carefully today. There is also no wrong in repeating Vedic knowledge. Just like for breath exercise, you’d always have to do them through your nose. One day you get bored and you want to do them with your ear, that’s not going to be possible. Do practice well. May you all be successful in your practice. We may also get Swamiji’s darshan today. “kriya yoga vivardhatam” – Kriya yoga grows with practice.
Jai Guru Datta!