Swami Chidananda’s Letter to Devotees (December ’97)

December ’97

President Swamiji Writes:

TO ‘THE DIVINE LIFE’ READERS AND THE D.L.S. MEMBERS

Blessed Immortal Atman!
My Beloved Spiritual Brethren,

God and Gurudev bless you always and keep you in their Divine Grace. May the light of Gurudev’s teachings illumine your path of practical spiritual Sadhana. May that wisdom teachings Gurudev has left for us, help you to reach your life’s goal of Peace, Bliss and Illumination. Before proceeding further, I request you to refer back to the previous month’s letter of November Issue on page 19, in its opening paragraph. Now, I urge you once again to enter the New Year 1998 with the spirit of courage and determination to strive to do your utmost best to make our planet Earth a safe and livable home for our global human family. Ceaselessly endeavour to live with all harmoniously with mutual goodwill, loving kindness, affection and a spirit of fraternal unity under the spiritual parenthood of the One, Nondual Universal Spirit Divine. I urge you all again to do everything you can to prevent this fair Earth from being converted into a battle field of hostility and hate, violent conflict, aggression and tragic death and destruction. In this context let me call upon you to make yourselves a resolute One-man-campaign to do this task and also to induce your fellow citizens of Bharatavarsha, men and women, young and old to do likewise.

This has become imperative and indispensable because those who are at the helm of affairs and expected to give our country a lead in the right direction have failed to rise to the occasion and fulfill this all important task. Thus, they have left our country and its people in a deplorable state of disunity and dispersal. They have left for our younger generation, our country’s youth, students and junior citizens a most regrettable example of untruth, deception and a degrading pattern of in-fighting and quarreling, cunning and crookedness in the name of so called diplomacy and political expediency and gross disloyalty to the point of treachery. Nurtured upon such food consumed through our TV (Dooradarshan), Radio (Aakashavani), daily News papers, Weekly and Fortnightly Periodical Magazines, what is going to be the quality and the vital content of our present junior generation that is on its way to become the India of tomorrow? Perhaps, as a Sannayasi who has been in the life of renunciation for more than half a century past, the writer is not expected to be overly concerned with the mundane matters of ‘Vyavahara’. Maybe, those who think in this way are not entirely wrong. Their opinion is correct from a certain point of view. But, let me tell you that on the physical and mental level of existence, love for one’s country is a part and parcel of one’s nature. Each one of us, we owe so much to our country, to its heritage we have inherited and to its cultural ideals, that one cannot but cherish feelings of a deep debt of gratitude for India that is our “Matru Bhumi.” This is a fact. This fact is the basis and the natural origin of all the ideas and feelings that have been expressed in the foregoing lines above as the opening portion of this present letter. Now, to continue, it has always been a well thought-out and shrewd policy of the political demi-gods, to din into the ears and drive into the minds of the masses of people that, without them our country cannot survive, without them welfare of the people is impossible, no problem can ever be solved and in short, that they are absolutely indispensable. But, the fact is that in thousands of years in human history on planet earth no one has ever been indispensable. Colossal personalities dominating their contemporary era have come and gone. The world has some how adjusted itself to their absence and carried on through millennia. I give below an interesting little poem composed in order to bring out this point just mentioned.

“NO ONE IS INDISPENSABLE”

Some time, when you’re feeling important,
Some time, when your ego is in bloom,
Sometime, when you take it for granted,
That you’re the best qualified in the room,
Sometime, when you feel that you are going,
Would leave an unfillable hole,
Just follow this simple instruction,
And see how it humbles your soul,

Take a bucket and fill it with water
Put your hand in it upto the wrist,
Pull it out, and hole that’s remaining,
Is a measure of how you’ll be missed.
You may splash all you please when
You enter you can stir up the water galore,
But stop, and you will find in a moment
That it looks quite the same as before.

The moral in this quaint example is
Do just the best you can,
Be proud of yourself, but remember,
There is no indispensable man in this world.

Even as last month November was the penultimate month of the present year 1997, so too the new year 1998 is the penultimate year of this present 20th century. The very next year 1999 after this coming New Year will see the curtain come down on the 20th Century and the world will enter into the 21st Century. Mankind is looking forward to its advent with great expectation and at the same time with some degree of anxious trepidation. At this juncture may we all unite in prayer to the Almighty Universal Being that divine grace may be bestowed on mankind and this transition may take us forward into a new Dawn, ushering in a tomorrow of auspiciousness and blessedness, filled with all that is positive and progressive constructive and creative in the interest of highest human welfare and Permanent peace in this world which is our home.

To this end may we all strive diligently with sincerity. To bring about this desirable consummation may the entire human race sincerely and unitedly dedicate itself. Let all do this without hesitation. Let our entire human race collectively as well as its members individually declare this Intention for PEACE openly with the hand upon the heart. By this means, may we make the world safe and secure for our children of this, our present time that is now witnessing the closing of an era.

Our ancients had this sublime intention for PEACE vibrant and living in every cell of their entire being. They breathed peace. They thought peace. They spoke peace. They dreamt peace. Waking they lived and strove for peace. Peace was in their heart and mind for all creation.

They lifted up their hearts to the universal spirit and uttered and sent forth this prayerful intention on behalf of all existence. Their noble and sublime thoughts spread in all directions and were voiced thus.

“May peace be unto all the quarters,
May peace be to the skies,
May peace be to the earth,
May peace be to the waters of the earth,
May peace be to the medicinal herbs,
And may peace be to all plants that grow on earth.
May peace be to the celestials,
May peace be to Brahma, the Creator,
May peace be upon peace itself.”

Such was their vision. Such were their hearts. In such manner they expressed themselves proclaiming thereby to all mankind the importance of peace. In this way they urged and inspired the entire human world to dedicate themselves to peace. It constituted a call to mankind to strive for the establishment of peace. High and above all other goals was this great goal of peace on earth, through which alone the true and lasting welfare of mankind becomes possible. Our ancients were the well wishers of all living beings. May we their descendants do like wise to carry forward and further the work of realising the Peace in the interest of the entire human society.

This is the single central idea of my communication this month as we move towards Christmas and the New Year.

God Bless you all.

With my regards, loving prayers and Om Shanti.

Swami Chidananda
OM