Transcript of a lecture given by SwamiHariharananda, a disciple of Swami Rama of the Himalayas, at theMuseum of European Art in Clarence, New York.
My brothers, my sisters,
I've come from the Himalayas.
Last September I was in Taiwan, and early in themorning, at 6 a.m. Ma Tapasya Bharati, one of our tradition and adisciple of Swami Veda, came to see me. She was very upset and crying-- that's when I found out about the tragedy in New YorkCity.
We, the monks of the Himalayas have assembledlater on in the caves and monasteries and started to discus where themankind is going.
We feel that it is our duty to help humanity. Wereached certain conclusions, and tonight I want to tell you aboutit.
We came to the conclusion that if we can spreadthe message of meditation of the Himalayan tradition to the world,this is the only thing that can save mankind in thefuture.
What is it -- do you want to know what ismeditation?
Do you sincerely want to do effort and to knowwhat is meditation, what is inner peace? And how we can bring thatinner peace to whole mankind?
Do you want to know? Will you go with me into deepmeditation on this first night here, and then we talk?
Are you ready?
Because if you are not ready -- if God is ready,if scripture is ready, if guru is ready -- but if YOU are not ready,then nothing can be done!
Your readiness is needed.
I will ask of you only 70 breaths, that's all. 70breaths.
And if you like, during my 3-day visit here inBuffalo -- you can come and do a lot of meditation withme.
I can take you into deep, deep meditation. For meit is a challenge, because I am a monk of the Himalayas.
I practiced meditation for about 32 years of mylife. This is practical experience that I can give you.
If anybody wants Self-realization, this is mychallenge: if he's ready, I'm ready.
Actually, people want to KNOW about meditation,they do not want to DO meditation ...
Just like they want to KNOW about swimming, theydo not want to JUMP into the river ... this is the main problem thatI came across, wherever I have visited across the world.
I have gone to many places since I came to Americafor the first time four years ago. Back then I knew only a few wordsof English, and it was almost impossible for me to speak inEnglish.
I was to give people some teachings, but I was notin a position to do so, because of the language problem.
After I returned to India, I thought that was myone and only chance. But I do not know what people saw in me, and thefollowing year they sent me tickets again, and I came a secondtime.
And the same thing happened again and last year Icame for the third time.
I'm not a scholar, I'm telling you, I'm just amonk from the Himalayas, and I never thought that I would ever cometo America! Never, never -- this is a miracle of my guru, Swami Ramaof the Himalayas, that I'm here.
And again this year people sent me tickets, and Iam to go on a big tour across the United States, Canada, then toTrinidad, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Holland, Germany and then backto our ashram in Rishikesh in the foothills of theHimalayas.
But this time, I'm in a little better position toexpress my thoughts about what I want to tell you.
My dear friends,
let us go back to the time when the first manappeared on the earth -- he was completely naked in the forest, withno books with him.
How did all these books come to people?
From where did the scriptures come? From where didVedas come? From where Koran? From where the Bible?
This is a mystery .... everybody says that theseare God-creations... but who is God?
Don't you think that this God has become a bigproblem for you now?
Because in the name of God people are fighting andkilling one another: some say that Allah, someone else says thatBhagavan is great -- but people are dying all over theworld!
I was born in Karachi, Pakistan and I have seenthe partition of my country into Hindustan and Pakistan. Millions ofpeople died at that time ... I lost both my parents at the age ofeleven. I have become a 'rolling stone' of this world ... and I amstill rolling and now I came here to Buffalo.
Back then, I also used to sit in a calm place, andthink about why are people fighting? Why don't we let Allah, Rama,Krishna, Mohamed, Jesus -- all of them -- fight it out amongthemselves, and we humans can watch them fight and see who wins, andthen we can say 'yes, you are the great God'...
At that time I was just a teenage boy, and mythinking was limited at that time.
This forced me to think about 'What is the truth?'And these were my thoughts about this:
The first man -- Manu, Adam, whatever you want tocall him -- surely, this was a burning question for him: "From wherehave I come? And where will I go? What is the truth? What is mydestiny?"
It was a burning question for that first man --and whom to ask? Allah? No book was there, he was illiterate at thattime, there was no alphabet and no language at the time! Think aboutthat, certainly he could have gone mad thinking about all this,because nobody else was there ... and he started crying, nodoubt.
And in the same way, for me personally, this wholelife is like a 'question-answer book'.
Here are the questions, and the answers are hiddenat the end of our life.
So, the same thing happened to this first man.When these questions became burning questions to him, he startedcrying, "Who am I? From where have I come?"
And he went inside, to the center of hisconsciousness, and from within the answers started to come tohim.
And that man, by smrti and shruti,memories and by learning, by studies, by working, this knowledge waspassed on to others from generation to generation.
The blood that is flowing through our bodies todayis the blood of that ancient ancestor who was born first, and we arehis descendants.
If I you ask the age-old riddle, whether 'the eggcame first or the chicken came first' ... there is no end to it; youcan keep asking all night and all day -- there is noanswer!
If you sit under a tree, and contemplate thatevery tree bears fruit, and every fruit has seeds inside -- everyseed has the beginning of a new tree in it! This is life.
Suppose I sit under a tree, and take a fruit in myhand, and I say that I see two trees -- one here, and one in my hand-- I don't think this is wrong to say, is it? Because this tree ishere, and if chance is given to that seed, it will grow, and anothertree will appear.
Now we can ask this: did the seed come first, ordid the tree come first?
This is the question, and there is noanswer.
Actually, this whole creation has come fromunknown to known.
All creation came from the sky -- fromspace.
According to Yoga Shastra, all creation came fromunknown to known.
You see, this whole body is made up from space,air, fire, water and earth. And by the five elements you can reach tothe Almighty, or to the center of consciousness quiteeasily.
I live in Rishikesh now, and the town of Haridwaris in the distance of 25 km from Rishikesh.
I used to say to people, 'If you want to go toHaridwar, there are milestones on the road -- you can see "Haridwar10 km", "Haridwar 5 km", etc. That meants, there is distance of 5 kmto Haridwar.
If you get a little closer, it is 4, 3, 2 km ...still you have not reached Haridwar.
But where there is Haridwar, you will seezero.
Actually, this is the ultimate.
Suppose we are sitting here, and go inside. Closeyour eyes, and closing becomes zero.
Sanskrit quote:
'Oh Nature, this is the beauty of yours -- thatyou are the Infinite, and if one is taken from you, you still remainInfinite ...this is the beauty of yours!'
And this is the truth.
And if we add more to Infinitey, again it willremain Infinity.
And if we subtract from zero, will still remainzero.
And from one zero, millions of zeros came out --and this is the life.
And meditation is the art to becomezero.
We in this room are breathing people, exhaling andinhaling. But the Cosmos is also exhaling and inhaling.
Suppose we have 30 candles. When we light them,there are 30 lit candles, and we will see fire. If we extinguishthem, where does the fire go?
It is the same with water. Water comes down asrain -- from where is the water coming? Do you think that the wateris coming from the sky? Wrong! All this water is coming from the sea.You can say that the water went to the sky and is falling down on us,but one day it will reach the sea again.
Again, the same thing: if we collect all the earthof the world, we cannot separate it.
Space is one -- air is one -- fire is one -- wateris one -- earth is one. So, why are we two?
And about the religions which teach us to hate andkill one another -- I don't think that is religion!
If we think only about the last 100 years, howmuch killing have we faced? We faced World War I, the revolution inRussia where millions were murdered, we faced World War II, we facedthe revolution in China, we faced the war between Iraq and Iran, theyare still fighting in Israel and Palestine, there was war betweenIndia and Pakistan, you have seen this bin Ladin -- what was binLadin's concern with America and the towers?
What does it all mean? It means that man is goingto continue this killing day by day!
What can we do about this situation?
This is the message of the sages from theHimalayas:
"What is this human being? If we contemplate it,then we find out that this human being -- you are yourselfGod.
You are the children of God.
You are the seed of that tree, which is thenGod.
This is a true thing I'm telling you: God is notanywhere outside.
Become awakened, become Self-realized!
This is the difference between you and God: youare a sleeping God, and God is an awakened man.
Nothing more, nothing less.
And you will realize this Self bymeditation.
How your whole life will change! It will bring youinner peace, if peace is to be in the future for mankind.
Otherwise, what can we do? When I first came fromIndia to America four years ago, I saw that you have nice roads, eatgood food, live in nice houses -- you are fine people, civilized.
You people have fixed your target purely onmaterial things; for humans, this you made a big progress, no doubt.But at the same time, you people have made many, many blunders.Scientists are saying that this whole world could be destroyed 7times over with the nuclear bombs you have.
Why cannot we cultivate all this energy to savethis world? This is a burning question for humanity!
You see my friends,
the ancient teachers who came before to teachmankind, they all faced many troubles: Jesus came, but we crucifiedhim. Today we are crying, but people killed him.
Mahatma Gandhi came, and other great teacherscame, and we killed them all.
And now we think about that: no, no that is notright! We should do something, because this is the only way to savethe world.
My brothers and my sisters, this is all I ask fromyou -- 70 breaths. That's all.
Please give sincerely your 70 breaths, and Ipromise you that you'll get an inner peace, and you will say, "ah,today we have gone into deep silence, we felt great peacetoday."
Because I'm telling you, if you have never tastedsugar, you will never know what is sugar. I can give you a goodlecture about sugar, but that is not sugar ... only by tasting sugarwill you ever know what is sugar.
Are you ready? Sit in posture, like this...
Are you ready? Sit in posture, like this ...
Transcript of the meditation session, handoutsheets and an audio or video tape can be ordered from the Museum.Contact John Zavrel at:
zavrel@meaus.com