Welcome to the 2012 Raas Purnima issue of e-Sanai



by Sri Sandip Dasgupta


Welcome to the Raas Poornima issue of e-Sanai.   This is that time of the year, when Sri Sri Babathakur decided to give up His body – but His love for us and His teachings will always be with us.  I am extremely grateful to Him for having given me the opportunity to come close to Him, listen to His discourses, and reflect upon His teachings.  In this issue, I will attempt to reflect on yet another of His teachings using the Light of Oneness given by Him.  Sri Sri Babathakur used to say:

Consider:

Your house to be the Ashram
Your body to be the temple
Your mind to be the priest
Your Self to be the Ishta
Wisdom to be your Realization

In our everyday life, we are constantly going to temples to seek the Lord’s blessings.   We tend to use priests for offering prayers to the Lord and for performing all rituals.  We keep running to Ashrams and Maths to seek peace and meditate.  We do Japa remembering our Ishta Devata.  We pray to the Lord for His Darshan.  We pray to the Lord for miracles.   We pray to the Lord for material benefits – but these do not satisfy us!  When we get what we wished for, we seek the next desire and the cycle continues!

Sri Sri Babathakur has very nicely explained to us that an error made in the very first step of solving a Math problem, will lead to the entire solution being incorrect.  Using this example, He has repeatedly pointed out to us that we are wrong in looking for God within temples and ashrams.  Using the Light of Oneness, He has pointed out that the Absolute I-Reality actually resides amongst all of us as our own substratum.   This is the substratum shared by one and all in this world.  Through this teaching, He has urged us to constantly reflect upon the Absolute I-Reality every day, as if we were visiting the temple for offering prayers every day.

Since we live in our house daily (or in a hotel when travelling, or in the car when driving), consider that to be the ashram where we go to obtain peace.  This will enable us to be transported to a peaceful atmosphere all the time, and follow the rules of an ashram (silence, purity, cleanliness etc.) at home, itself.  The ashram is a manifestation of that absolute I-Reality – so is our home, our car, our hotel room, the park we walk in, etc.

Within an ashram there is usually a temple (with a presiding deity), and a priest who performs the rituals.   Sri Sri Babathakur however has pointed us to the fact that we do not need a separate temple structure in the Ashram.   Our body which is residing in the house (or hotel or car) is itself the temple.   The substratum of the body is the Self, and we should consider this Self to be our Ishta.  He has further stressed upon the use of our own mind to worship our Ishta – i.e. we do not need a separate priest.   We don’t need to visit a temple for praying – our body is residing in the ashram, the deity is really our substratum, and our mind should ever be used to worship this deity.

In conclusion, He is saying that if we constantly perform all actions as means of worshiping this I-Reality within us, we shall become much wiser.  The Knowledge and experience we thus gain will provide us with the ever lasting peace and tranquility that we all are looking for.  Hence He says that this Knowledge and Wisdom is our Realization.

With His Light of Oneness, we can see that a peaceful life can be led as long as we live in “SamaSar”, and not “Samsar”.  So, can we all begin to practice what He has asked us to do – be it even for a few minutes, everyday?

Joy Babathakur