Divine Rebirth: Experiential Guidance from an Enlightened Master

By Swami Sri Atmananda

Nothing new can ever be told, for God revealed to Man everything on day One. The story of creation, life and death, birth and rebirth, every concept, every theory, all secrets were revealed to him. But because man always forgets what he knew, he needs to be re-told.

Between the first hearing and the next learning, what has changed is the time; therefore man thinks he learnt a new thing. This is all nonsense.

The concepts explained in this collection of talks are not new. What is new is the experiential angle from which they are presented. This book will be useful not to one who wants to know, but to one who is eager to experience what is God.

If you want to understand God, do not read this book. But if you want to experience God, you must read it now.

~Swami Sri Atmananda

• Language: English
• Publisher: SatPub
• Release date: Jan 20, 2014
• ISBN: 9789381282007

Swami Sri Atmananda

Swami Sri Atmananda is the founder of the Satyachetana International Spiritual Movement. Born in Orissa, India, his inner pull toward spirituality began during childhood and intensified as he progressed through higher education and university. The Bhagavad Gita was his constant companion and guide, and through intense contemplation and practice of Gita’s principles he achieved profound spiritual attainment. He also served at the feet of many enlightened masters, perhaps most notably His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and traveled the length and breadth of India on his spiritual quest.That journey culminated in Pondicherry, where he surrendered to the Divine Mother. She guided him to a cave in the holy mountain Arunachala where he attained the culmination of his sadhana, in 1993. After remaining in the state of pure nirvikalpa samadhi for several days, he regained his awareness and returned to the world carrying the aham brahmosmi (“I am the Brahman”) unity consciousness that enables the yogi to consciously carry the guru shakti.Sri Atmananda’s spiritual work as a master began in 1993. In response to his call for the manifestation of Truth on earth, several non-profit organizations were formed: Divine Mission, established in 1996, serves to guide awakened seekers to the state of highest spiritual realization, while Satyachetana International (SCI), founded in 2001, supports the overall expansion of the Movement and aims to manifest through life the highest truth that has been realized at the individual level. University of Spiritual Research (USR) was founded in 2004 to support and provide spiritual education.Sri Atmananda’s primary residence is Satyachetana Ashram at the foot of Arunachala in Thiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, India, and he travels the globe to show mankind the yoga path of the Bhagavad Gita and to revive the pure wisdom that was lost over time.

Book preview

OM Namo Bhagavate

Divine Rebirth

Experiential Guidance

from an

Enlightened Master

By Swami Sri Atmananda

Founder of Satyachetana Spiritual Movement

Published at Smashwords

By Satyachetana Publications

Practicing the yoga of business, not the business of yoga.

Copyright 2005 Swami Sri Atmananda

Find other ebooks by Swami Sri Atmananda here.

This ebook is licensed for your personal use only.

It may not be re-sold or given away to other people.

Whenever the light of natural law fades away

and there is an ascendancy of darkness,

during those periods I create Myself.

For the protection of the virtuous,

to destroy evil and to reestablish dharma,

I come again and again.

SRIMAD BHAGAVAD GITA

Divine Rebirth

CONTENTS

Preface

I. The Yoga of Manifestation

1. Attain A Dynamic Consciousness

2. Go Through The Full Cycle of Life

3. You Are One With Everything

4. From Awareness To Experience

5. You Have To Put Effort

II. The Mission

6. The Work of The Incarnation

7. Unending Collaboration

8. The Action Plan

9. Be Prepared for this Battle

Parting Word

About Swami Sri Atmananda

Preface

Where are my warriors for

Truth?!

Where are you—

please come.

I know I have not

come alone,

yet so alone am I still.

You must be somewhere!

Come, come.

I am waiting for you.

With all my heart,

to the obscure depths

have I descended and

from which I call~

come, come now.

From every cranny of existence

shaded and mutated by

forces delinked,

I am wrenching and

wringing out the dirt, the

film, shining

the gem, that

you may see the path

Home,

Direct path home.

And then, from all nooks,

I ring out the old

that you may rise up!

and fight!

Have the strength, the

power—to fight,

united we are.

With my whole being

I pray for thee,

seen and unseen…

come, come, come…

I am waiting, I am waiting.

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The Yoga of Manifestation

OM Namo Bhagavate

The aim of these talks is to enable the seeker to have conceptual clarity about the path and the process. There are four topics: the goal, the guide, the path, and effort.

These are sensitive revelations where I am pouring in my experiential wisdom of my own journey. These interactions are for the sincere people who really want to manifest something in their lives, who are sincerely pursuing the path. For them the force is needed, the guidance is needed. It is for them I reveal.

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1. Attain a Dynamic Consciousness

We are told that the goal in the spiritual path is to realize the self, or merge in god. But the goal that I am showing is not to realize the self or merge in god, since for me there is nothing other than God in this creation. It is God only who is continuously manifesting Himself. As long as the ignorance is not removed, a person feels different from God. But when the veil falls, one feels unity with God.

To me, the talk of realizing the self or merging in god is a misconception. Therefore the goal I am showing to mankind is the goal of manifesting God. This is the highest goal. Anything less is a sub-optimum attainment.

When I talk of manifesting Divine, thereby I mean attaining a dynamic consciousness through which one can manifest the divine attributes through mind, life and body. To me, manifesting Divine means to transcend all human limitations and to be a dynamic channel of God. As the animals manifest different qualities of animality, so also, man always manifests the human attributes, like impulses, emotions, desire, anger, ambition, pride, vanity. When we consciously pursue a path that leads to God, we begin from the state of animality and reach the state of humanity. As we ascend further we go through a process of transformation and the undivine forces in us are transformed. Finally we are one with Divine, we are one with God.

The path that I am showing to mankind is a path of transcendence, transformation and manifestation. If you reach the goal, you become a manifesting channel of Divine on earth and this is the highest attainment. As you now feel separate from God, that time you will always feel your conscious union with God. Even while retaining a separate form, you will not feel any different from your creator. Many a time, you will also feel that you are not separate from Him, you are He. Until this state of dynamic union is attained, your goal is not accomplished.

Your goal should not be limited to experiencing the bliss of the being nor to losing your separate identity in a state of static awareness. It should also not be to lose your awareness in the ocean of the becoming. Your goal should be to attain a state when you are able to retain your conscious identity with God. To an ignorant person, you may appear to be a common man, but within yourself, you must always be able to feel that you are not different from Him or He is not different from you. This is the highest goal, and this is the final attainment, which every human should attain.

This is the goal of a sincere seeker in our path. When I use the term seeker, I am referring to those individuals who are consciously seeking to attain something that is not confined to the human experience or the human desire. Here let me make a distinction between the animal, the human and those who are in the heavenly spheres. The animal is mostly a creature driven by the forces of impulse. The animal cannot discriminate; it cannot use its intelligence in a creative way as a human being can. This capacity of discrimination is a power given only to man. In this respect, man is more fortunate than gods, because the discriminatory capacity is not given to gods who live in the state of awarenessional experience. The capacity to discriminate is a unique quality that is given to man. But man cannot utilize this until he is awakened.

I am talking of the goal of awakened human beings, those who can use their discrimination to attain a higher state of consciousness. This is the reason I have repeatedly said that this path of yoga is not for all. Earth’s consciousness has not come to a stage when the majority of human beings can pursue a path of ascension. In this transitional phase, the majority of people are leading a life of passion, a life of impulse.

Every human being is subjected to the threefold pressure of nature that governs the life on earth. These three forces are sattwa, rajas and tamas. The force of sattwa, when predominant, enables man to use discrimination. The force of rajas enables man to expand in the prakriti plane. And the force of tamas enables man to cling to the state with which he was born. Every man, right from birth, is a mixture of animality and rationality. Animality refers to the passion, the impulse. Rationality refers to the creative desire, the aspiration and the harmony that hold man in this middle state of animality and rationality. The majority of human beings spend their lives in this middle state. When we are not conscious of the rationality aspect in us, we are purely animals in human forms. We eat like animals, sleep like animals, lead our interpersonal lives like animals, and we are driven by the fear of survival, like animals. It is instinctive life: to eat, to sleep, to maintain the relationships all out of impulse and to do everything just for the sake of getting rid of fear.

When man is driven by the force of sattwa, he is awakened. Awakened to what? Awakened to a higher possibility, and that higher possibility should not be always concluded as God. Between man and God there is another intermediary zone, the plane of gods. That is why anyone who is awakened should not be automatically accepted as a seeker. Awakening does not necessarily mean one is ready to enter the yoga path. Awakening is not a permanent state. It comes and goes due to the operation of natural law. In every system, the force of sattwa becomes powerful at some point of time. That is the time when man is awakened and carries the possibility of ascending to a higher state of consciousness.

When a dog sees the master and when the dog sees another dog, what is the difference? When the dog sees another dog it starts barking. The animal instinct in the dog is activated by the sight of a fellow animal. As animals activate the animal instinct in other animals, so also, human beings activate the human instincts in other humans. If you will minutely observe your system, you will see that many a time something happens outwardly and suddenly a different feeling, a different vibration, a different thought wave is coming to you. A common man can't find any reason why it comes, but a yogi can. He begins to think, What is it that has suddenly changed my thought pattern? If you will minutely watch within and observe outwardly, you will be able to see that something outside has acted in some definite way and your system is reacting. Our system acts and reacts to prakriti’s signals. If a human being is carrying more of animality, animal passion, animal instinct, and you come across such a person, even if you do not know him, your system starts reacting to the animality in that form. If you are not a yogi, you are very likely to be a victim of this force.

When we are fixing the goal, we should always remember that our goal should be the highest, that we should be consciously carrying the force of Divine that will manifest itself through our mind, life and body. For the sake of your understanding, I say Divine or God is pure knowledge, pure love and absolute awareness. Pure knowledge is jñana. God is jñana. Pure love is bhakti or prema or devotion. So God is prema. And God is truth or satya. God is Knowledge, God is Love, God is Truth. You should not try to find which one is higher and which one is lower. All three are the principal attributes of God. Different masters show the