What Do We Mean by Spiritual Evolution?

What Do We Mean by Spiritual Evolution?
by Swami Jyotirmayananda

Om Poornamadah Purnamidam Purnaat
Poornamudachyate Poornasya
Poornamaadaaya Poornamevaavashisyate
Om Shantih, Shantih, Shantih

The meaning of this beautiful peace chant from the Upanishads is: That (the Absolute, Brahman) is full; this (the world or the entire creation, which is a manifestation of the Absolute) is full. When this (the world process) is taken away (by transcending it through Self-realization), what remains is full (the Absolute). May there be peace, peace, peace!

The brief implication of this peace chant is that this entire creation is full; from fullness it has sprung, and into fullness it must return. May there be peace, peace, peace!

To understand this, think of how water vapor rises from the sea to form the drifting clouds, then rain falls to the earth and creates rivers that eventually flow back into the ocean. Similarly, every soul has emanated from the Absolute — God, the Divine Self, Brahman — and like the rivers, each must return to its source. This “return journey” to one’s essence is what we mean by spiritual evolution.

The Troubles That Afflict Us All

The peace chant concludes with a prayer for three­fold peace. This prayer recognizes that everyone is afflicted by three kinds of trouble which seem to hinder one’s evolution. The first, which is known as adhyatmik tapa in Sanskrit, is the subjective trouble that arises from one’s own body and mind; for example, coughs, colds, pneumonia, flu, mental stress, misunderstandings, wrong imagining, jealousy, hate, and greed. These bother everyone at one time or another throughout one's life.

The next kind of trouble — known as adhibhautik — has its origin in an external source. These are the troubles that you have little control over because they originate in your dealings with other human beings. You may have designed a firm plan to guarantee happiness in daily life, but you never know how things will turn out when you interact with other people. Because there are so many different kinds of people in the world, anything can happen — positive or negative. For example, somebody could mug you the moment you step outside your house; somebody could vandal­ize the home that you have spent so much time and energy to secure and take care of; somebody could sue you because you accidentally stepped on his toes. Interactions with people at any level can lead to great, unexpected complications. Even at home troubles arise from your own children and other close relatives. Misunderstandings give rise to tension and often quar­rels, and then your sincere plans for happiness are disturbed again and again.

And then there is a third kind of trouble that we call adhidaivik. These are troubles that come from great natural calamities — forces that human beings are powerless to handle. These “acts of God” include such phenomena as hurricanes, tornadoes, earth­quakes, or accidents of enormous proportions. A jet plane may come hurtling down upon your house as if from nowhere, crushing everyone — and there is noth­ing one can do about it. Everyone is vulnerable to these three kinds of trouble. Therefore, we conclude the peace chant by saying, “Let there be peace" three times — “Let all these troubles be taken away!”

In spite of all the limitations of the world, though, the goal before everyone remains the same: realizing God through spiritual evolution, becoming one with the Absolute Self. As you mature in spiritual life you come to understand that despite all its limitations, this world is a Divine plan. You gain strength in under­standing that the obstacles thrown before you by the world are aids towards your spiritual advancement.

Spiritual vs. Biological Evolution

Before proceeding further, let us take a closer look at the relationship between spiritual evolution and biological evolution. Usually, when people study evo­lution in school they find themselves confronted with pictures of animals like dogs, cats, monkeys, and frogs. The theories of evolution they study indicate that human beings, over the course of immense periods of time, have evolved from tiny microscopic cells to highly complex, rational beings with highly efficient hands and feet, and powerful brain capacity — and this pro­cess of biological evolution continues at every moment to modify the human form.

But this biological evolution I have been describ­ing is not the “evolution” that Yoga and Vedanta is concerned with. Spiritual evolution implies that no matter what kind of body you possess, you are NOT that body. The body you possess is just a vehicle; your soul is simply using it for its spiritual evolution. It is just a house or a residence. This is a profound point of difference between the biological concept of evolu­tion and the spiritual.

This is not to say that the biological concept of evolution does not have validity in its own right. Your physical body has been created by nature in the course of tremendous experimentation. Countless bodies have been fashioned by nature and thrown away so that souls could occupy them.

The changes that biological evolution produces are similar to the different styles of houses that archi­tects design over the years. If you take a walk through a neighborhood in any big city in the USA you will immediately notice many different kinds of houses. Sometimes you will come upon a mansion that looks very old —perhaps seventy or even a hundred years old — and yet modern and highly sophisticated people live in that house. It just happens to be more conve­nient for them to live there rather than in some other house. In other words, you do not judge the “evolu­tion” of a person by looking at the house he lives in.

When one studies the changing styles of houses, there is a certain chronological precision that must be kept in mind. Cavemen did not build condominiums. It took a long period of social evolution for the com­plex architecture of today to come about. Similarly, when you study biological evolution you see the many precise ways in which bodies have changed over thou­sands of years.

But the soul does not follow this same precision. According to its karmas, it moves from one embodi­ment to another. Certain karmas can place your soul in human embodiment; others in animal embodiment. Just as people may choose different houses, though built at different times, according to their need, so too the soul chooses different embodiments. In its evolu­tion, it may be born as a human being in this birth, and incarnate as a monkey in the next birth. Even in human embodiment, certain karmas place you in situations that are harmonious and enriching; others in conditions that are apparently negative.

So, if you do not confuse the evolution of the body with that of the soul, you can begin to understand what spiritual evolution means. No matter what type of body you possess, spiritual evolution belongs to the spirit; it is not determined by your body. Only to a certain extent while you are evolving is it important to know that your body and mind are interdependent. When you develop spiritual insights, your mind begins to relax. If your mind relaxes and becomes more positive, you automati­cally radiate more vitality to your physical body. This is so because the physical body responds to the nature of the spirit within you.

If you are a joyous person, your home is going to radiate joy no matter what it looks like on the outside. Much in the same way, your body expresses the nature of your inner advancement — although not one hun­dred percent. You may begin to advance rapidly on the spiritual path at age seventy, but externally of course you won’t look young. Yet in spite of your advanced age you will be tremendously dynamic because you will possess a high degree of mental stamina. A mystical radiation and peace will accompany you wherever you go.

But the aging process will continue. Spiritual evolu­tion does not mean that your physical body stops aging, that the body becomes immortal. But what it does imply is that a tremendous change often takes place in your physical body as your mind advances and expresses its advancement through physical vitality.

You Are Not the Body

In ancient India there was a famous philosopher-king named Janaka who held spiritual conferences attended by great sages. At one of these conferences, the sages were all seated on elegant cushions in the great hall of the palace, ready to listen to stirring spiritual expositions. Suddenly, a deformed man named Ashthavakra appeared at the entrance. He was quite odd looking owing to a severe birth defect that had bent his body in eight separate places. As he hobbled into that vast conference hall, everyone started laughing. When Ashthavakra got to the throne, he said to King Janaka, “O King, I thought that you had invited philoso­phers, but to my surprise I see that you have invited cobblers instead.”

“What do you mean, О sage?” King Janaka asked.

“They are just looking at my exterior, the outer me. This physical body is just a shoe, so to speak. Your guests are looking only at my shoe and judging me accord­ingly.”

This important point is touched upon by every religion. For example, the custom of removing one’s shoes and leaving them outside before entering a temple is widely practiced in the Hindu faith. It is an ancient tradition in other faiths as well. When Moses heard God’s voice in the burning bush, the first com­mand given him was: “Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.” (Exodus 3:5) The shoes refer to one’s body. Unless you remove the body-idea from your consciousness you cannot walk upon Divine ground, the realm of eternity.

And it is on that hallowed ground that you hear the great utterance that Moses himself heard: “I am That I am.” The Upanishads contain practically the same utterance: “Soham hamsah” — “I am That I am.” That innermost “I” is the real you. The question “Who am I?” is given a great deal of attention in Vedanta. Yoga is intensely involved in researching this question and guiding the aspirant in discovering the mystery behind his identity. Your real identity is not what you think it is. People who do not understand this are constantly burdened by so many illusions.

Look at the importance that people lend to out­ward appearance. When you step out into the social world, people immediately notice the way you look, the kind of clothes you wear, your hairstyle; they judge you on the basis of your exterior. As a result, people waste a great deal of time just adjusting their appear­ance. Yet this beautifying process is fraught with illu­sion, because even if you could adjust your appearance to the best possible advantage, you would find that internally you were the same person. You have to evolve internally to be happy; external appearances do not last long.

Therefore, it is important for you as a spiritual aspirant to understand that your physical body is not the real you. Just as shoes must be shaken off before treading upon holy ground, so too must this physical body be transcended. Although you cannot cast off the body literally, what you can do is change your point of view by developing the idea that you are spirit, not body. This awareness makes a tremendous change in your outlook, and it becomes the basis for overcoming much of the intense stress that the present culture generates.

You are the Eternal Self

You must remind yourself daily that you are not this physical body and that external situations in life cannot cramp you. You are the eternal Self. “I am that I am.” The eternal “I am” abides in every heart. Your physical body is only a wave, a mere ripple on the ocean of eternal “I am.”

To understand these points more clearly, consider the Divine Self, or God, as the sun. Individual souls are like the reflections of that sun in the countless lakes, rivers, ponds and reservoirs that abound everywhere. Imagine a lake, filled with fish and aquatic plants, reflecting the morning sun. Further, imagine that the reflection in that lake has forgotten its identity with the sun and develops the following train of thought: “Here I am — just a reflection in this lake that is my home. These creatures here are my friends. Sometimes lotuses bloom, and when they do I feel especially won­derful. Life proceeds in perfect harmony and joy. But sometimes ferocious winds blow and conditions are terrible for me and I tremble.”

With thoughts such as these, the misguided reflec­tion seems to be enveloped and controlled by a host of changing conditions. Yet the reflection really doesn’t have any substantiality at all because the reality behind it is the sun — never identified with any of the contents of the lake or affected by any of the varying conditions around it.

Similarly, an individual’s mind is like a lake, and the Divine Self reflects in that mind, giving rise to what we call the soul — the soul that reincarnates, that moves from one embodiment to another led by karma.

But when you move toward spiritual enlighten­ment, the soul within you begins to understand that it no longer belongs to this mental environment. “I am the Sun,” it proclaims. And then a kind of mystic flight ensues, hurtling you from individuality to universality. As this happens you recognize that, as the sun, you are reflecting in countless lakes; you are not confined to one little lake any more. The experiences of other lakes — their joys and sorrows — are also yours. An overwhelming sense of expansion arises within your heart

According to Yogic standards, psychology, as it is usually taught and practiced today, is quite limited. Most psychologists cannot imagine the possibility of stepping beyond one’s own individual boundaries and crossing into someone else’s to glimpse his reality. Everyone is viewed as an island, completely separate. But that is not so. You have the potential to step beyond your body and enter into other hearts, other personalities — not literally, but through spiritual ex­pansion.

This explains how sages touch so many hearts. Since they are not confined or cramped in their little lake of the mind, they can touch the hearts of many. They have gone beyond and have attuned themselves to the sun-like Self and, because of this, they have the possibility of communicating profoundly with differ­ent persons.

This ability in a sage is instinctive in nature. It is similar to a mother’s knowing that she can enter the mind of her child at will and understand him better simply through her intense love. Similarly, if you had a motherly heart towards all human beings you could enter their minds and understand their problems.

It is toward this direction that spiritual evolution should lead you. You are evolving if you can step beyond your limits. This stepping beyond one’s limits is the characteristic of spiritual progress. The goal of spiritual evolution is the complete recovery of your essential nature, which is eternal, infinite, immutable, universal, and unchanging. It is only because of igno­rance that you believe yourself to be the body and are unable to open the window to eternity within your soul.

Discovering Eternity Within

The purpose of all religions and mystical systems is to help you open the window to eternity within yourself. That can be done in deep meditation through tranquility of mind. However, this happens in small measure to everyone — even those who are not Yogis. Instinctively, whenever you are deeply relaxed, you begin to develop happiness without anything happening around you. If you were to promote that subtle process by meditation and other yogic techniques, you could have an internal experience of immense joy at all times. You would touch upon the inner core of eternity which is always there in your heart.

Deep within you never imagine yourself to be non­existent. You are ever aware of a deeper aspect of your­self — the eternal you — that remains the same when you were a child, when you were a teenager, now and in the future. And you will remain the same even when this body is no more.

Realizing eternity within is the purpose of spiritual movement. To the extent you realize it, to that extent the quality of your life changes; the capacity of your mind advances; the brilliance of your intellect increases. Therein lies the greatest secret of living a happy and joyous life and also promoting that type of life for others.

Spiritual evolution is a project that holds the secret for harmony and peace in the world. It is not a selfish project. An aspirant will never succeed if he feels, “Let the world go to hell. I will just attain my evolution.” You cannot evolve spiritually unless you radiate peace and harmony and bring positive changes in others. Spiritual evolution is not an egoistic task. It is a project where ego is transcended and all great qualities begin to unfold.

Dissolving the Mental Clouds of Illusion

To enhance your understanding of spiritual evolu­tion, envision a sky filled with clouds. In the midst of the swirling clouds there is a little patch of blue, a fragment of sky, so to speak, that gives the impression that the sky has become small and miserable, and is ever unstable and changing because of the movement of the swirling clouds. As the clouds begin to dissipate, the patch of blue ex­pands and you may be tempted to say, “Now that patch of blue is evolving.” And if all the clouds have gone — and you look at the sky in its wholeness — you may feel the patch of blue has attained its highest evolution. All the while, however, nothing has really happened to the sky. From the point of view of the sky, it is always the same.

Similarly, mind is like the swirling clouds and the Eternal Spirit within, the Divine Self, is like the sky. Human instability, limitation and bondage exist because of the mind. Evolution is merely a clearing away of the mental clouds of ignorance so that the essential Self — ever eternal, immutable — is gradually revealed.

What is mind?

In Yoga philosophy, mind is considered different from the brain and nervous system. The brain and ner­vous system are the media through which mind operates. Mind is subtler. So therefore, even when your body dies, mind is there, ready to draw matter, ready to create another embodiment through which it can operate.

When you begin to understand that mind is different from your brain and nervous system, you no longer tell yourself, “Oh, I’m in my forties; therefore, it is natural for me to start forgetting things. Soon I’ll be fifty; naturally the brain cells are degenerating and my hands will shake, and my feet will move awkwardly.”

Rather, you must understand that mind has endless powers. If you know and live by that philosophy, your mind goes on advancing. Look at great men like Ma­hatma Gandhi. As time passed, his mind became more and more brilliant. Similarly, if you are evolving spiritually, as time passes the mind becomes stronger and stronger, and the spirit shines brighter and brighter.

As a spiritual aspirant, you must constantly remind yourself that your task is to learn how to tackle the mind. Body you are not; so do not worry about bodily needs beyond what is practical. The body must be kept healthy and strong through nutritious food and exercise — all that is important. But body is not all. The focus of your attention should be the mind.

Opening the Window within Your Heart

Suppose you are living in a house that is built on a scenic height overlooking the ocean. However, due to some personal reason, you have kept all windows closed and surrounded yourself with paintings of flowers and mountains and the beautiful ocean. If, one day, you decided to draw aside the curtain, open one of the windows and look out, you would experience a tremen­dous sense of joy and expansion. Much in the same manner, when you start practicing Yoga, and you learn to calm your mind through meditation and reflection, it is like opening the window to a great view of expansion that was long overlooked, but was always there to be enjoyed.

Most people normally have a highly distracted mind, and trying to calm that mind doesn’t seem like a tangible project. Rather, everything else seems tangible: thinking about social life or the foods you want to eat or the many chores you must perform. But that most important need of learning how to calm the mind is ignored.

Using the Present Moment Well

If you are sincerely interested in controlling and calming your mind, do not develop a sense of contradiction with the conditions and situations that come to you in life. Whatever situation you find yourself in now has come to you on the basis of a Divine Plan — and it is best suited for your evolution. If you were to start to promote spirituality within yourself in day-to-day life without de­veloping a sense of contradiction with the world around you, that self-effort puts you on the right footing for spiritual advancement.

Do not think, “Only when I have more time will I learn to meditate. Right now my situation is not good. So let me wait.” Rather, right now is the best time to begin your self-effort. Everything about the present moment has been well-planned for your evolution.

You may say, “Well, I can understand how happy situations and positive things are wonderful for me. But how can adversity, misery, trouble help me to evolve?” The fact is that all conditions are part of the Divine Plan for you — even your troubles. It is through trouble and adversity that you summon up the greatest resources of your heart by entering deep within yourself. The growth of a rosebush is assisted by its thorns. If you take away the thorns from the rosebush, there will be no rose. Take away adversities from your life and there will be no rose of spiritual advancement.

Therefore, it is important never to develop a sense of contradiction with your life. Every situation has a mean­ing; so wait, watch. In adversity do not let your mind sink in gloom. Ego may find a situation extremely painful — within yourself and you will find it smiling.

With this understanding, begin to adapt and adjust yourself to life’s daily situations and you will find you have abundant time for the spiritual practices which will lead you to Self-realization.

Transforming the Unconscious

Spiritual advancement requires an overhauling of your unconscious. Consciously you may say, “All right, I heard all this and I like the whole idea and from tomor­row I’m going to advance spiritually. And I will not go back to my old attitudes ever again.” But that idea is a sentimental idea; it is not practical — because you are not handled by your conscious mind. A conscious resolve is wonderful, but you have to wait until your unconscious understands it; and that process requires repeated effort.

A short duration of time is all that is needed to begin meditation. And even though you may not know the techniques of meditation, learn to relax yourself. Think of God in any way you wish. Open your heart in prayer.

In Yogic practice there is a special way of helping to calm your mind and transform your unconscious which is called japa, or repetition of mantra. You adopt a Divine Name, according to your religious or personal prefer­ence, and repeat it with feeling and growing understand­ing of its deeper implications.

You can adopt a Sanskrit mantra like OM, or one of the mantras hallowing the name of Rama, Krishna, Jesus, or any other representation of God that has special meaning for you. Having adopted a mantra, you repeat it for fifteen minutes or half an hour everyday.

While repeating the Divine Name, try to feel that it is like a psychic sugar candy, sweetening your mind. With each repetition, feel you are touching God within you and affirm: “God is with me. God is the innermost me.” Even though your repetition of mantra may seem me­chanical in the beginning, as you begin to advance, it will give you increasing joy and peace.

So each time you do a little prayer, a little japa, a little meditation you are creating impressions that enter your unconscious and begin to transform it. The unconscious that has been constantly receiving impressions of distraction and agitation now receives impressions of harmony, peace, silence, and satsanga (good association). These impressions create a tremendous change.

That change, however, is not always easily visible externally. If you try to evaluate your spiritual progress by observing externals, you may become fooled at times.

Suppose you start practicing Yoga and meditation and externally things seem to become worse instead of better. Do not be frightened; things are not what they seem to be. What happens is your sensitivity increases. If you lack good eyesight, when you look around your house to inspect it, you will find your house perfectly clean and free of dust. But suppose one day a doctor comes and starts improving your vision. Now when you inspect your house, you see all the dust around — and you begin to shout in anger at the doctor!

A serious aspirant on the path to liberation must never go after a “smooth ride.” Never think, “Now that I have been initiated into meditation, everyday I am going to be better and better. Today I am flying at a certain height; tomorrow I will fly a little higher. Today I have a rosy color before my eyes; tomorrow I will see brilliant colors. And many more wonderful things are coming without interruption.”

If you have that type of expectation you have not understood the real nature of spiritual movement and you will be frustrated. Spiritual movement will make you more sensitive, and sensitivity brings its own problems. But don’t be afraid. God brings you problems, but He also gives you the strength to move through them and dissolve them. You begin to discover an inner strength that you never knew you had. No matter what problems may arise, you have a Divine Hand guiding you through. You do not have to worry.

In the old days, when simple, unsophisticated villag­ers entered a train, they kept the baggage right on their heads. Only sometime later did they realize that the baggage could also be carried by the train. Similarly, in this world everyone carries the baggage of problems and worries right on their head, without realizing that the Divine Plan is taking care of everything.

You do not have to carry the load. During the night, hours pass by and you are not carrying any load — and nothing really suffers. But consciously, in the waking state, you cannot set the load down. That is the tremen­dous paradox in human life.

Practicing Integral Yoga

Allowing yourself to evolve spiritually, with a sense of security that the Divine Hand is sustaining you, requires a patient and balanced form of persistent self-effort. It is not necessary to do gigantic or miraculous things. That concept stops many people from taking up the spiritual path. They begin to think, “In order to be spiritual I must be like Christ. But Christ was crucified. Am I ready for it? No! Or I should be like Mahatma Gandhi. Well he fasted for forty days. Can I fast? No.” If you think in this way, you have not understood the essence of spiritual evolution.

Rather, you must evolve a daily pattern of harmoni­ously blended spiritual discipline. Do not go to extremes. If your meditation seems joyous, do not close up your office and stay meditating the whole day. But keep up your meditation, japa, and prayer little by little, day by day.

And while doing your duties, do not think that your work in the world is something outside the realm of spirituality. Every work you do — no matter what it is or where you do it — is all related to the Divine creator. In every work you are worshiping or loving God. This atti­tude converts action into Karma Yoga — action performed with a sense of worship, a sense of purifying selflessness. Your actions should not be governed by the thought, “What am I going to get out of it? How quickly can I do it so that I can just sit down in an easy chair and enjoy comfort?” Rather, enjoy doing what you have to do and consider every work that comes as an opportunity to serve God.

If that type of attitude were to develop, performing your duties would help your mind to relax and become joyous. But if you are constantly thinking, “How boring! There are people who have better work than I. They simply sit in their chairs and move their fingers around. But I have to do all this labor, and push the dirt around.” If you continue thinking in this direction, your life becomes filled with misery. But when you realize the true dignity and meaning of action, your life becomes filled with joy and inner fulfillment.

No action you perform should be done for securing anything external. External things are incidental. You perform actions because they allow your life to flow and not be stagnant. A stagnant river becomes muddy. Stag­nation is death to the river. Similarly, stagnation is death to human life. So you begin to understand the beauty of action, and to relate the action to a Divine purpose — purification of your mind. Embellished by this sublime attitude, your action becomes Karma Yoga.

As your actions are transformed in this manner, gradually feelings of devotion begin to develop. You begin to love God while performing actions, no matter where you are. A mother loves her child no matter where she is or what she is doing. She does not have to set aside a special time to love him. Similarly, when God becomes a source of great joy within your heart, automatically your mind flows towards God at all times. That aspect of spiritual movement is called Bhakti Yoga, the Yoga of devotion.

As your mind begins to advance still more, you learn the art of making the mind calm and tranquil through the practice of meditation, and your reason begins to shine brighter. You begin to understand that the real you is not the body, and eventually you become rooted in the knowledge that you are spirit.

When this knowledge dawns, you are no longer pressured by the constant suggestion that has been poured into your mind since birth that you are the body. People always point to your body, suggesting that the physical entity is you. And that creates a terrible type of hypnosis. But, through reflection, you dehypnotize yourself to understand “I am not the body. I am essentially one with the Divine Self.”

If, in your plan of daily life, you learn these four secrets — how to perform your duties with a right attitude (Karma Yoga), how to love God while performing all your duties (Bhakti Yoga), how to keep the mind meditative and relaxed (Raja Yoga), and how to understand “who am I?” (Jnana Yoga) — then you are practicing Integral Yoga in an excellent manner. As you successfully blend these four Yogas — action, devotion, meditation and reflection — your daily life becomes a forceful process of spiritual advancement.

To be helped in this direction you need satsanga — people coming together to listen to teachings which ignite in their mind the fire of aspiration, which awaken spiritual energies that are already there within you waiting to be awakened. Armed with spiritual aspiration born of satsanga, and fortified by your increasing ability to practice Integral Yoga in a harmonious way, you begin to promote a dynamic spiritual evolution.

Measuring Spiritual Progress

As spiritual evolution advances, Divine qualities such as contentment, serenity of mind, and fearlessness develop. If you find these qualities increasing in you, that means you are advancing spiritually. But if you find insecurity and fear increasing, then there is some error in your movement.

Spiritual evolution is not measured by the development of psychic powers or the appearance of psychic phenom­ena. It is measured by the development of Divine qualities within your personality. If someone were to call you names — a donkey, for instance! — and if you are not upset, if you are able to keep your mind balanced, that is a mark of spiritual evolution. If an adversity threatens you and you are able to keep your patience better than you were able to do before, then that is a mark of spiritual evolution. Five years ago, every little thing may have agitated your mind and each time you were agitated your agitation lasted for three days. Today your agitation lasts only for a day. That is remarkable evolution!

So, when you finish meditating, do not look around you for something amazing, such as an aura suddenly surround­ing you or a light coming out of your head. These things exist in their own way, but do not go after them. In evaluat­ing your spiritual movement, the important points to con­sider are the development of Divine qualities, ability to master the mind and control your moods, and the discovery of more patience and faith within your heart. If these are being developed you are steadily advancing — and in this process you will find that the whole world becomes your temple.

The highest state of spiritual evolution is reached when you realize, not intellectually, but intuitionally, that you are one with God. You are like the sun, shining in every heart. You are the Universal Self, and your heart in that state pulsates with compassion for all. You become a saint, a sage, a Divinely realized person. In that state Karma stops.

A sage lives his daily life on the basis of Prarabhdha Karma — the Karmic process which was already in motion when he attained enlightenment, and which must exhaust itself. But after death, his spirit will not come back in a new embodiment, because it has become universalized. That is called Liberation.

That state of Liberation — attaining universality within your heart, attaining Oneness with God — is the goal of every individual and the destiny of all. It may not be attained in one birth, it may not be attained in many births — but that is your destiny and you will attain it just as every river must enter the ocean, every individual must attain liberation, and that is how the world flows on. May God bless you with Liberation!

“International Yoga Guide” Vol. 34, Nos. 7–8, March–April 1997

...