In the Light of Wisdom

by Swami Krishnananda

The other part of the spiritual trident is the resolve form. There is a form available of the resolves that we ought to make: “I shall do that this year, and I shall definitely do it. I shall not do these things this year, and under no circumstance shall I do them. There are small weaknesses which should be avoided this year. I am not going to do these things.” It is a vow similar to those that we might take on New Year’s Day or some other auspicious occasion.

In order that we do not forget our own vows and break them in the middle, and also to instil some fear in our hearts, we can take these vows in the presence of Mother Ganga or before the rising sun or in a temple. We would be frightened to break them afterwards, if we have promised in the presence of these “witnesses”. “I cannot break this, because in the presence of Ganga I have said this, before the rising sun I have said this, or before the deity in the temple I said this.” We cannot break these vows because we will naturally be frightened. This is the way of ensuring that the vows are adhered to. The observance of these resolves is implied in filling in the resolve form.

Then we have the daily routine which is the third item. One should not just be hazardous in one’s practice on different days. Today we do a thing, tomorrow another thing, the third day another thing—all unconnected. This will not ensure our success. In yoga practice, a kind of tenacity to routine is very essential. The time of our getting up in the morning and going to bed, and also the time for such simple routines as our breakfast, tea, milk, lunch, walk, study, etc. should be fixed. We will do these things at a specific time. It should not be like today having our breakfast at eight, and tomorrow at ten. Every day we should have these routines at a fixed time. The time for our prayers, for our asanas and pranayama, the time for study, the time for meditation, the time for going to or returning from our jobs, the time for our other kinds of work—whatever be the system that we have been following in our day should be connected with certain specific hours of function.

When these items of the daily routine repeat themselves at specific hours of the day every day, they retain a kind of strength. When we have a habit of making the mind do specific things at certain times, it will do them and it will do them automatically. Like the two legs that walk—when we go for a walk, we do not have to think of the legs. We walk miles and miles without thinking that we have got legs. That is because it has become a habit. Likewise, the mind may make it a habit to follow this routine merely because of the discipline and the system of timings that we follow. If we have different times for things on different days, then we will not be able to stick to them. The daily routine has to be chalked out first: what is going to be our daily routine, and then when are the items to be fulfilled? These are two aspects of the daily routine.

The spiritual diary, the resolves and the daily routine are the three prongs of the trident of Siva. We can remember important precepts of practice, and we will find out how beneficial and necessary they are for us as students of yoga. Discipline is yoga, and where there is no discipline there is not only no yoga, but also no success in any walk of life. All successful people in the world are people who practise self-discipline. We would find it difficult to even discipline our servant if we are ourselves not disciplined, because the world around us imitates us in our conduct and personality and not in the words that we speak. What we are is more important than what we say and sometimes what we do.

A Genuine Personality

Hence, it is necessary to build up the personality first. We have many a time seen that it is as if we had no true personality at all—we shine with borrowed feathers. But these plumes drop off and we end up with no true personality of our own. There are people in the world who appear important on account of an office that they hold, the power that they exert, or the authority they wield. However, when they have lost or given up these positions, they just look like nobodies in the world. Take for instance a senior politician who is thrown out of office. If he has no true personality of his own, once he has lost the power of his office, he will become a non-entity. Today we may be the president of our country, but if we have no genuine inherent personality, we will be nobody after we have left the office. No one will know that we exist at all. We should not become important merely because of the office that we hold or the authority that we wield. This is an artificial importance that we assume, which can be thrown out immediately and cast out into the wind when these positions are not there, and we revert to what we were originally.

The person with a genuine personality will be as important as a big man of the world, for different reasons of course, even if social status is not associated with him. A building up of the personality is to be something by oneself and for oneself. Are we something in ourselves apart from what we are to others? Have we substance to us? Do not tell me what others say about us and what we mean to others—that is a different matter. But what are we when nobody says anything about us, when nobody looks at us, and when nobody will have anything to do with us? What are we then? What we are at that time is our personality, our substance and our vitality. This is our strength and this is the real person.

This real ‘you’ it is that has to practise yoga, and not the politician’s personality or the businessman’s personality. These are not going to practise yoga. The real ‘you’ is something which is not seen in daily life. Mostly we live a public life rather than a private life. People who are very busy in the world and who are so engaged in things have no time to think as to what they really are in themselves. All the definitions of themselves are in terms of others. “Who are you?” one might ask them. “Well, I am the son of so-and-so.” We are nobody by ourselves; we are only a son of so-and-so or a daughter of so-and-so. We may mean something to somebody, and somebody means something to us, but I am asking who you are, not whether you are a son or a daughter of somebody.

We define ourselves in this manner, and we cannot define ourselves without relating ourselves to somebody else. This kind of personality is a false personality, and this is not going to help us in yoga. The social relationships and the possessions that seem to be ours are different from the elements that we have to foster in the practice of yoga. Plotinus, the great mystic, used to say, “Yoga (of course he never used the word ‘yoga’ and I am substituting the word ‘yoga’ for what he said) is a flight from the alone to the Alone.” The ‘Alone’ is the Absolute, and we as the alone have to fly to the Alone. We cannot carry our baggage with us in the practice of yoga. Alone we fly to the Alone in yoga practice without associations of any kind. This aloneness it is that ensures moral strength, as well as the power of will, understanding and feeling. The more we realise that we are alone, the more we gain strength in our personalities. The more we associate with others, the weaker we are in our personalities.

In our daily meditation, a few minutes may be dedicated to realising our true position in this world. What is our true position? Mature minds will be able to understand this quickly. We need not be taught what we are truly. We go by a friend’s smile and words of appreciation too much, but there comes a time in our lives when these smiles and appreciation don’t help us. We seem to be needing something more substantial. A few minutes daily we must spend in order to realise what we really are—not a son of so-and-so, not a prime minister, not an office-goer, etc. We should not define ourselves in this way. We should ask ourselves, “What am I when I am cast to the winds?” This is our true personality, and when we realise this honestly, we will gain a strength from within. “This is my true position. I never knew this.” We gird up our loins in a different way altogether, not depending on others and things outside us which can leave us at any time. The strength of the aloneness is a superior strength, a strength of moral perfection and a strength of our true relation to nature and finally to God. It is only in this sense of aloneness that people become truly devoted to the religious and spiritual ideals.

Many a time a complete isolation from possessions has turned people to God. Everything has been lost and all the family has died—these circumstances occur to many people, and then they turn to God. “Oh, there is nothing in this world!” But we need not always be driven to these conditions, because we can consciously delve into these situations and not have them forced on us under duress. “What has happened to somebody else may happen to me also.” We need not wait for the time for things like that to happen to us. They need not happen, but they can happen. We should release ourselves from the false clutches of psychological associations and be prepared for the worst. Do not take anything to be unexpected—we should be able to expect anything in this world. It is ignorant to not have this degree of expectation. Never say, “I didn’t expect this.” We have to expect the worst, and then we will not be taken by surprise by anything in this world. Everything is expected, we are prepared for it, and we have the strength to bear it.

A recollection mentally of our true aloneness and unbefriendedness in this world, a recollection of our essential personality, of our social atmosphere, of the necessity to be alone and standing on our own legs, and a final realisation in our own minds of the need to look for the higher—these may give us strength enough to practise yoga. “The higher alone has to come to my aid; my present level is not going to help me. All people in the world are like me. Who is going to help me, and what help can they give? They are in the same situation as I am. So there is no point in expecting help from other people. They cannot give me any substantial help in times of need.” The lower can be helped only by the higher, and so to look for the higher is spiritual morality. This is a step higher than merely the moral consciousness to which I made reference previously, which again is higher than mere abidance by the moral code of society.

These are levels of morality. The outermost is mere conformity to the law of society. The inner one is a realisation of the need to practise the moral canon inwardly and voluntarily. The highest morality is the dependence on the higher levels of being. For success in all walks of life, these contemplations, these reviews and these analyses will make us so strong in our personalities that we will smile to the whole of nature. Nothing will be able to shake us up afterwards, because of our confidence in having resorted to this realisation of the higher backing us up at every point of our activity.

This, in a religious sense, is called devotion to God—whatever be our God or whatever our concept of God may be, it is immaterial. Surrender to God, dependence on God and devotion to God, etc. are religious ways of expressing a very scientific and psychological truth of the necessity to depend on the higher level for the sake of success in the lower. Thus, and by these and many other means which we are free to think of for ourselves, we can build up a true personality, and we can face the world confidently without diffidence of any kind. In this firmness of the personality that we have achieved by a gradual daily practice, we will be able to face the facts of life. Perfection, even to an approximate extent in our attempt to build a true personality, is itself a great achievement in yoga.

What I have explained up to this time is one step in the practice of yoga—a very essential limb of the practice of yoga. When we truly consider it, we will find it to be many more things than what it seems to be on the surface. To build up our personality and to be something in ourselves is very essential. Our happiness will rest merely in a contemplation of these values that constitute us, and will not anymore depend on our associations outside. Just to contemplate what we really are would itself be a great pleasure for us—rather than contemplating objects of sense, possessions or relationships.

Maintaining a Background of Thought

We must have a background of thought. We must be able to withdraw ourselves in times of necessity like a tortoise withdrawing its limbs. We should not ignore our background of thoughts. It is not that we may always be able to maintain a poise of mind, and sometimes we are disturbed by certain things of the world. At that time we must be able to withdraw ourselves into a background of thought that we should be able to maintain perpetually, and that would be our home. It may be like a tortoise withdrawing its limbs into its shell, or it may be like going back home. When there is nothing else to distract us, we retire into this profound place. That retirement into the background of thought, which is our permanent reality, will give us sufficient rest.

Everyone should be perpetually maintaining a background of thought to which we are able to retire occasionally in times of need, because the movements of our minds in the outer world are momentary associations and needs. They are not our perennial needs. When winds blow violently from different directions in the world and we cannot stand these winds, we must be able to withdraw ourselves into our home which is our true personality. When we contemplate these aspects properly and in their thoroughness, we will appreciate how important it is for us—not only in the practice of yoga, but also in the many small things that we have to do in our lives. There are many small things that we do, and they will become objects of enjoyment. Even such simple things as sweeping the floor, washing or cooking may become a beautiful art for us when we do them with this firmness of personality and a confidence in what we really are. All our activities will become a beautiful art, and art brings satisfaction and joy.

Work no more becomes a drudge to a person who builds up a strength of personality of this nature. Life becomes a manifestation of beauty, and there is no more such a thing as menial service or undignified labour for that person. Menial service does not exist in this world. There is no such thing as something lower, because it all assumes a beauty of its own when it is done by a beautiful person. The beauty lies in us and not in the work that we do. The work becomes beautiful if we are beautiful. We are so ugly in our personalities, and yet we expect beauty in things that are connected with us. When a beautiful person does the work, the work also becomes beautiful. Convert your personality into a work of art and beauty, an object of admiration and satisfaction, and then we’ll see if the world is beautiful or not. This is how we have to build up our personalities, and then we will realise that our joy knows no end.