Sadhana and Transcendence

From the teachings of Swami Satyananda Saraswati

Is there an ego and how is it related to Brahma?

There is ego. I discuss things, but on the level of sadhana. I don’t go into all these things. I keep the books in this room and do sadhana in that room. Keep your intellect down, keep your logic off. Just practise like an innocent person.

For a sadhaka there is no ego, no jivatma, no Brahma. He doesn’t know what is what. An innocent person doesn’t know what he is ultimately going to be. The merger can be defined, I am defining it to you because satsang is taking place, but actually I don’t define it to myself. Why should I postulate with myself? I have reached the destination. There is no postulation. What the reality is like, what the experience is like, it is to myself.

I know Om Namah Shivaya, nothing beyond this. I know in one asana I have to sit down, Om Namah Shivaya, Om Namah Shivaya. Anything that is beyond that is not my immediate concern. What is the ultimate experience? For myself I don’t know but for the purpose of sadhana, for the sadhaka, I will have to say, on the basis of the shastras and the gurus.

When I am in sadhana, all my books, all my knowledge, all my erudition is on the bookshelf there, locked. I don’t want to know it. I don’t know whether Brahman is light or anandam. This experience, how does it taste, how does it feel, I don’t know. Let me have an experience, that is all. The path of sadhana is very powerful, bereft of erudition, bereft of all the knowledge you have achieved from the books, shastras, guru or anyone.

The only thing that carries you further is that one little point of sadhana. Maybe it is mantram or maybe your guru has given you something else. That little thing, that little light, alone carries you. If you move with postulation, Brahman is anandam, anandam is ineffable bliss, then you will be lost in your own makings.

My concept of sadhana is this – what guru has said. In one word gurumukhmantra, guru’s mantra, initiation from his mouth. Maybe it is Sri Ram, then that is all. He has not told me how to do it, what to expect, rules and order, what to do. He says Sri Ram, that is all. You can do one minute, ten minutes or twenty minutes, or the whole day, full week or full life, it is up to you.

What guru has told you innocently, simply and unassumingly you must also accept simply and unassumingly, quietly like a seed in the earth. Let it stay there, let it grow into a fine tree and let it bear fine fruit. That is the secret, nothing beyond.