Teachings of Baba Bhuman Shahji
In the small booklet "Mirror of Bliss," Swamiji has written a brief introduction about the life and teachings of his beloved Gurudeva, the great Udasin sage Baba Bhuman Shahji. Although Baba Bhuman Shahji lived more than 200 years ago and did not leave behind any written teaching, Swamiji has had a very deep and mystical relationship with him and through his spiritual intuition has recorded the following aphorisims as the basis of Babaji's teachings:
- The true aim and purpose of human life is the direct and integral Realization of the infinite, timeless, eternal, divine Consciousness. The people of different faiths call this absolute Consciousness “God” and by other different names.
- The absolute divine Consciousness-Bliss is revealed only in the heart which is completely pure, still and silent, alert and passive and totally free of all impurities like attachment, hatred, jealousy, self-importance etc. and which is ever so full of love and compassion.
- The mind becomes impure with desire, anger, greed, infatuation, arrogance, violence etc. which make it tense and turbulent with the result that it does not and cannot reflect the divine Light, Knowledge and eternal Bliss of one’s true spiritual Being. Cleanse thou, therefore, the mirror of thy mind, with total commitment. This is what is called purusharth, or spiritual effort in sadhana.
- The lesser impure and defiled the mind is, with the above mentioned impurities, the easier it is for the seeker of Truth to turn the mind inwards and contemplate on and remember the Divine.
- The uninterrupted remembrance of and contemplation on the Divine is the means as well as the end. The remembrance of God unifies/integrates the consciousness, removes all the infirmities and impurities of mind and makes the seeker fit for God-Realization.
- Man becomes completely Self-Fulfilled with God-Realization. All his doubts and confusions are dispelled forever. As the darkness disappears with the rise of the sun, similarly, the web of ignorance and illusion of man is totally shattered (destroyed) when one is established in divine Consciousness. Then, one remains always absorbed in the bliss of Being, radiating love and harmony in the world spontaneously.
- The Divine is within and without. He permeates the past, the present and the future; He is upwards, downwards and immanent in all directions and space at the same time. And yet, He is transcendent and not bound by time, space and causality. He is the supreme Consciousness, one without a second, the undivided and indivisible. Let Him be the “Be all and end all” of your life. The sincere seeker lives for God and dies for God.
- The Divine is your innermost Being. It is, therefore, most appropriate to seek and realize Him within. The wise seekers, for this reason, turn their attention inward and try to realize Him within first. Once you have seen Him within, it is not difficult to see Him in His manifestation.
- Mind can turn inwards only when its clinging to the outward things, situations and relationships becomes loose. How can the mind turn and remain inward so long as it is trapped and deeply interested in outward phenomena? Should one be able to turn the mind inward forcibly, through some technique, the worldly desires and attachment will drag it out again and again. As long as the rope of the boat is anchored with the peg fixed on the ground, the boat will not move though you may work the sails for whole days and nights. Similarly, the seekers who complain that they have been doing sadhana for years and years without making any spiritual progress are like those who try to row their boats without untying the anchor of their boats.
- The person who always remains aware of his death as well as the uncertainty of the pending moments of its coming, will find his life transformed. As a matter of fact, all infirmities and impurities come into the mind when man forgets his death and does not remember God.
- Help the poor, the needy and sympathetically try to uplift them. Your greatness (and humility) is measured not by how you deal and behave with your superiors and rich people, but instead by how you deal with your subordinates, dependants and poor people.
- To serve the poor and suffering people humbly and without display, and in the name of God, is verily a limb of spiritual sadhana. It helps you remember the Divine and be an instrument in the hands of God for alleviating the sufferings of people.
- Remember! God has installed a secret and infinitely powerful computer in the body of every human being, with unlimited power of recording and storing memory. All your actions, your thoughts and intentions, however subtle and secret, are being recorded continuously and completely in it. And, it is on this basis that the peace and prosperity of you life, here and hereafter, are determined by the law of cause and effect enforced by the Divine.
- A stupid man spends his whole life in the mad pursuit of physical comforts and conveniences by fair or foul means, confusing them for true happiness. The craving for such comforts, pelf and power does promise happiness, but it brings only worries and tension of mind. At the last moment, the mental condition of such people, who have spent their whole lives only in amassing wealth and increasing their bank balances with fair or foul means, becomes similar to that of a person who has deposited all his savings, earned by sweating out his energies, in a bank that fails and becomes bankrupt. How great mental torture such a person would feel in his last moments at the time of his death, who has been forcibly dispossessed of all that he has accumulated during his life.
- The use of non-vegetarian food, wine, tobacco and drugs must be avoided, particularly by a spiritual seeker. These are harmful to one's health, as well as mentally, economically, morally and spiritually. These may create dissentions in the family life, making it unharmonious and unstable.
- Give due respect to the gift of reflection, granted to you by God. Follow the injunctions which saints and sages, as also holy scriptures, have given. Assimilate the teachings of sages and tread the path of Truth. Only then will you find lasting peace in your life here and hereafter. The choice is yours.
- Even mean persons can have wealth, pelf and power, but be sure, their minds are always and invariably starved of peace and true happiness.
- Birds and animals too manage to feed and sustain themselves and their offspring somehow. If a man also spends his whole life to eat, drink and be merry and, in the pursuit of filling his belly alone, he needs must come in the belly (womb) time and again and wander in the vicious cycle of birth and death.
- It is virtually impossible to completely renounce the world so long as you are in the physical body. The physical body itself is a part of the world. The right way to free oneself from the chains of this world is to accept all the objects, situations and relationships in the name of the Divine, and to deal with them rightly for Self-Realization.
- Only by living the sublime art of life divine, is it possible to bring about the perfect reconciliation among the individual, familial, social and moral values, as also the Realization of absolute divine Consciousness-Bliss.
- Humility, speaking softly and sweetly, honesty, tolerance, goodwill towards one and all, and self-discipline make human life full of esteem. Should you be able to attain these virtues, your life too, will bloom and blossom.
- Virtues of self-control, right behaviour, non-violence, love, compassion, patience and mental poise etc. make one’s life meaningful and exalted. The life without these pristine qualities is like a desert, where storms of tension and turmoil blow unceasingly.
- You ask a definition of a gentle person? The one who is needed by all is a gentle person. His/her goodwill and sympathy are available to one and all, without asking. He/she is loved by all, irrespective of their faith. The same gentleness is expected of you by God.
- As long as the awareness of ‘other’ remains, it is virtually impossible to get rid of selfishness completely. Where duality ends, the selfishness loses its meaning and relevance. There is no experience higher than that of Non-duality. In the name of the Divine, all seekers must strive ceaselessly to realize the essential unity of all beings.
- The grace of the Divine is of paramount importance in all the spiritual efforts for God-Realization. Without divine grace it is impossible to realize the Truth firsthand. Blessed indeed are the seekers who conduct their sadhana with the spirit of self-surrender unto the Divine.