nirmal baba 3

Sivananda Daily Reading for 26 October

SIVANANDA DAILY READING FOR 26 OCTOBER
IGNORANCE

The mind is a creation of avidya! (ignorance) and it is the effect of
avidya. The mind is filled with delusion -­ this is why it tempts you
and makes you go astray. If you can destroy the cause of the mind by
getting knowledge of the supreme self, the mind is nowhere; it
dwindles into an airy nothing.

The whole experience of duality, made up of perceiver and perceived,
is pure imagination. There is no ignorance apart from the mind. On
the destruction of the mind, all is destroyed. The mind's activity is
the cause of all appearance. On account of illusion you think that
the outside objects are separate from you and real.

As long as there is mind there are all these distinctions -­ big and
small, high and low, superior and inferior, good and bad, etc., ­- but
the highest truth is that there is no relativity. If you can
transcend the mind by constant and profound meditation on atman you
will be able to attain a state beyond the pairs of opposites wherein
lies supreme peace and highest knowledge.

The first thought is the `I-­thought'. As this `I-thought' is the base
of all other thoughts, egoism is the seed for the mind. The idea
of `I' brings in its train the idea of time, space and other
potencies. With these environments, the name `jiva' (soul) accrues to
it. And contemporaneously with it there arise buddhi (intellect),
memory and manas (mind) which is the seed of the tree of desire.

You cannot realise God if you have the slightest trace of egoism, or
attachment to name and form, or the least tinge of worldly desire in
the mind. Try to minimise egoism little by little. Root it out by
self-­sacrifice, by karma yoga, by self­-surrender, or by vedantic self­
enquiry. Whenever egoism asserts itself, raise the question within
yourself: "What is the source of this little `I'?" Again and again
ask this question and, as you remove layer after layer, the onion
dwindles to nothing. Analyse the little `I' and it becomes a non­
entity.

The ego is the Lord for whose entertainment the dance is performed
and the objects of the senses are his companions. The intellect is
the dancing girl and the senses are the persons who play on the
instruments which accompany the dance. The saksi (witnessing soul) is
the lamp which illumines the scene. Just as the lamp, without moving
from its place, furnishes light to all parts -­ so too, the saksi from
its unchangeable position illumines everything situated inside or
outside.

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