Most Important Aspect of the Mission

To: AM-GLOBAL Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2010 06:28:41 -0000 From: NJK Majumdar Subject: Most Important Aspect of the Mission Baba

== MOST IMPORTANT ASPECT OF THE MISSION ==

Namaskar, We all know that in our A'nanda Ma'rga Baba places tremendous emphasis on the dual approach of spiritual sadhana and social service. Both have a huge role to play. For that reason some may be thinking that our spiritual life and our social life are therefore equal in all regards. Without going too deeply into the matter, this might be a logical conclusion one would make: Estimating that both are 50-50-- the same size & of equal value etc. It is easy to surmise how someone might conclude in that fashion. However, Baba's divine teaching is something else. As important as our social life is, Baba here unveils and expresses the vastness & unparalleled nature of our spiritual approach in A'nanda Ma'rga. Baba says, "Our spiritual life is not a part of our social life; our social life is a part of our spiritual life." (Poona DMC, 26-11-79) Thus, Baba's above teaching establishes the supremacy of spirituality as He tells that everything falls within the scope of our spiritual life. That is, our spiritual life is not a subset of our social life; but our social life is a part of our spiritual life. With this is mind, that means that our entire social dealing comes under that great umbrella of spirituality. Or, another way of saying it is that nothing comes outside of our spiritual approach. Everything is part and parcel of that. Hence in Ananda Marga we say that spirituality is the top-most thing-- the summum bonum of life. Baba says, "Spirituality is the summum bonum of life in all its aspects." (Idea & Idealogy, p.77) Here are more points which lead in this same direction-- which highlight the greatness of spiritual life in Ananda Marga. All brothers and sisters should also write in with their perceptions and thoughts also.

AM SPIRITUALITY IS THE VERY PULSE OF OUR LIFE

The path which Baba has shown us-- the path of Ananda Marga is totally revolutionary since it is deeply ensconced in the nectar of spirituality. From birth to death and from morning till night, the life of an Ananda Margii is filled with spiritual practices and cosmic ideation. When one emerges from the womb and enters this world then immediately that infant is drenched in the singing Baba Nam Kevalam. And it continues on from there. Hence in AM spirituality is our very heartbeat.

OUR DAYS AND NIGHT ARE FILLED WITH SPIRITUALITY

By Baba's grace in AM our spiritual approach continues through the whole life. In the morning we greet and start the day with our practices of Guru Sakash and paincajanya etc, and the whole day follows in that flow: Doing sadhana, reciting our bath mantra, taking second lesson before our each and every work, ideating as we say namaskar, singing kiirtan etc. Each and every activity through the day is linked with the Cosmic Hub-- Baba. And then after dark we go for night sadhana and ultimately take rest with His name on our lips-- dreaming of Him. About this holistic ideal, Baba has given one divine sloka:

'Kuru punyam ahora'tram' Meaning: Do virtuous deeds day and night

In Ananda Marga we are ideating on Brahma during the day and performing our various works and duties and then when sleeping we are repeating our Ista mantra or dhyana mantra during the night. In that way each and every second of the life is drenched in the sweet flow of spirituality.

A'NANDA SUTRAM: AM PHILOSOPHY IS SPIRITUALLY BASED

As we know, in Ananda Sutram Baba has outlined the whole of AM philosophy in seed form. In sum there are 85 Sutras in these five chapters. Yet the first four chapters-- or the first 69 Sutras-- deal exclusively with points of spirituality. There is no hint of mention of social life in these sections. Then in His revolutionary approach in the final chapter of A'nanda Sutram Baba incorporates our social life and Prout-- all neatly woven into the context of spirituality. Hence Prout is a sub-set of AM spiritual ideology; Prout is a God-centered philosophy resting on the dynamic force of AM spirituality. By all this we can all easily understand that in AM spirituality is the main thing. This is the divine flow of life in Ananda Marga.

A'NANDA MA'RGA IS A REVOLUTION

The path of Ananda Marga is the top as our Marga maintains its stance of spirituality throughout all the realms of life. This is one of the reasons why we say AM is a revolution-- and far above the rest. In comparison, the dogmatic religions fall way short of the mark. In their most basic and fundamental sense, at best the religions theoretically aim to be spiritual institutions; but in actuality just a tiny partition or a small segment of religious life is for Godly pursuits. And even that small piece has gotten infested with dogma. Hinduism started with some aspects of meditation and other spiritual points of yoga and Bhagavata dharma, but even then it was just a small part of the life. The proof being that the great Shankaracarya himself declared that people could not dedicate themselves towards spirituality until after 75 years of age. And not just that, but step by step, Hinduism has totally fallen away from any pointed spiritual approach. Such that now, the touch of true spirituality is all gone from their religious dealings and their followers just indulge in idol worship in the temples and other dogmatic rituals. To their own degree, Christians may even be less in this regard. They have no meditative practice to speak of and their prayer etc is done on Sundays only. So their religious life is extremely limited and tucked away into a little corner. So in this way each and every religion has partitioned its prayer practices to a small part of life which is hardly even visible and which barely touches the seed of their existence. Rather they are totally governed by materialistic policies Only in the dharma of Ananda Marga do we see that living aspect of true spirituality ensconced into each and every cell of one's existence.

WE MUST TAKE CARE

From top to bottom, spirituality is everything in AM. That is the be-all and end-all of our existence. Even then in this crude era of kali yuga, due to the enormous onslaughts of materialism etc, from time to time we all get pulled and dragged into mundane duties and worldly obligations. We all have huge quotas and lots of pressures to attend to in this regard: Bills to pay, houses to maintain, plus all the negative allurements of the general society to combat. This is the harsh reality which we are facing nowadays. Indeed, we can see that even our Dadas get caught up in this rush of external living and mostly they just do sadhana so that they can eat. Means sadhana is just a ticket to get into the dining hall-- nothing more in many cases. I think we have all seen such things. So we all know that spirituality is everything yet the practical reality is that whether we like it or not on various occasions we are all getting dragged head first into mundane life. No doubt we are all following 16 Points to the best of our ability etc, but the general flow of the world is pulling us strongly in its crude direction. In the face of mundane pressures our sadhana time gets reduced, asanas get skipped, and so many things unfold. No need to list them here as we are all well aware about what happens. Hence even though in Ananda Marga, spirituality is the most treasured aspect of life and as much as we practice it during our days and nights, still the reality is that the mind tends to become extroverted due to the extreme amount of mundane pressures. Taken altogether, we should be extremely careful and take whatever measures necessary to reverse this trend. Baba's following teaching leads in this same direction. Baba says, "This element of devotion, the most precious treasure of humanity, must be preserved most carefully. Because it is such a tender inner asset, to preserve it from the onslaughts of materialism, one must build a protective fence around it, just as people put up a guard-rail around a small tender plant." (NH-LOI) So Baba's divine direction is to safeguard this most precious thing: Devotion, which is the seed of true spirituality. In this regard we can take steps by singing more kiirtan, keeping strict timing for our sadhana, encouraging ourselves and others to be vigilant in 16 Points, and evaluating our lives every 15 minutes to see if we are on the right path or not. On this aspect also, it will be highly inspiring to hear everyone's suggestions and recommendations. By this way, and with Baba's grace, we will be able to maintain and rise above the challenges-- delving deeper and deeper into spiritual life.

SPIRITUALITY IS BEYOND ALL RELATIVE BOUNDARIES

Here Baba once again highlights the supreme nature of spiritual life. Baba says, "That ultimate and absolute ideal is the Cosmic ideal - an ideal beyond the scope of time, place and person. It is the Absolute, without and beyond relativity. It stands with its own lustre for all times and for every factor of the Cosmos." (I & I, p.76)

BABA'S BLESSING

By Baba's divine grace each and every margii will taste the supreme sweetness of AM spirituality & reach unto Baba's divine lap in this very life. Baba says, "The human being's mission in life is movement towards perfection-- towards God. This is one's dharma, or duty. In this struggle, the forces of evil [materialism etc] are bound to be defeated. That has been the case all along, and that will repeat itself." (AV-23, p.81) Namaskar, Nagendra

Note 1: SPIRITUALITY IS UNPARALLELED OUR SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY IS A PART OF THAT

Here Baba reveals the awesome nature of spirituality and that taking this as their base Neo-Humanism and Prout has been formulated etc. Baba says, "Spirituality provides a human being and humanity at large with that subtle and tremendous power with which no other power can be compared. Therefore, with spirituality as the base, a rational philosophy should be evolved to deal with the physical, psychological and socio-philosophical problems of the day." ('The Cosmic Brotherhood', 5 June 1959) Keeping our spiritual ideal at the fore, Baba has given us the way to identify, address, and solve each and every difficulty of our social life. This is His great blessing on the humanity.

Note 2: SPIRITUALITY IS THAT UNIFYING FORCE

In His below teaching Baba pointedly guides us that it is the golden thread of spirituality which will bring together all the various beings of this universe. Baba says, "The Cosmic ideal alone can be the unifying force which shall strengthen humanity to smash the bondages and abolish all narrow domestic walls of fissiparous tendencies." ('The Cosmic Brotherhood', 5 June 1959)

********************************** Brave Persons

Baba says, "Do not remain worried about your individual problems at all. Be prepared to carry your own burden and be prepared also to carry the burdens of others. Then alone are you brave. Be dagdhabiija. Everyone has their own individual problems. Do not try to pass them on to others. On the contrary, bear the burdens of others. No one is your enemy. Be ready to bear the burdens of others." (AV-30, p.4)

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