The Secret of Inner Serenity - Swami Chidananda

Radiant Atman! Beloved sadhakas engaged in spiritual sadhana while leading a spiritual life of seva, bhakti, dhyana and atma-jnana as propounded by Guru Maharaj Swami Sivanandaji! You are living a life of service, selflessly and motivelessly done, without any desire for attaining personal gain, a life of devotion and worship with an intention of drawing down the grace of God, a life of daily meditation to proceed towards a deeper and deeper understanding and a higher vision of the Reality, and a life of constant philosophical enquiry and discrimination to remove the veil of ignorance and attain illumination, enlightenment and Self-realization, atma-jnana. For Gurudev propounded and declared a harmony between these paths—the Yoga synthesizing all of them—integral Yoga.

Gurudev embodied all these things. He was a jnani. He was a parabhakta. He was a hatha yogi as well. And throughout his whole life he was nothing if not a selfless karma yogi, a servant of all, ever wishing to serve. In him we found the personification, the living embodiment of all that he preached and taught. Samatvam yoga uchyate (Evenness of mind is called Yoga), yogah karmasu kausalam (Yoga is skill in action), yogaschitta-vrittinirodhah (Yoga is control of the modifications of the mind)—all these things he had within him. His mind was perfectly under his control. He knew how to be in the midst of activities and yet above activity, always serene, always actionless. He knew the secret of akarma (non-action) in karma (action), and at the same time, we found in him a wonderous, amazing example of absolute samatva (equanimity). He was a sthitaprajna (one whose wisdom is steady) personified. We found in Gurudev tulyaninda-stutirmouni santushto yena kenachit (one to whom censure and praise are equal and who is content with anything). We also found in him that samatva, equanimity, resulting from sukhe duhkhe same kritva labhalabhau jayajayou (having made pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat the same).

© "Divine Decade" published by the Divine Life Society, Shivanandanagar Post, Tehri-Garhwal District, Uttarakhand. Reprinted with permission.

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