The Sermon on the Mount According to Vedanta
Swami Prabhavananda
Sunday 28 February 2016
Self-Realization!
All religions are true inasmuch as they lead to one and the same goal: God-realization. But arguments will not prove this truth. You have to experience it; then only will you be convinced. 23
Seek perfection! Realize God! 69
In all religions, two principles: the ideal to be realized, and the method of realization. 26
The love of God has to be won through self-discipline, which we have neglected to practice. We have forgotten the aim of life – to realize and see God. … We cannot love God and hate our neighbor. If we really love God, we will find him in everyone; so how can we hate another? If we harm anyone, we harm ourselves; if we help anyone, we help ourselves. 50
How can a spiritual aspirant who is longing for the truth be satisfied with theology, with philosophy, with doctrines and creeds? 73
In the long run, there is only one way to verify the actuality of God, and that is to see him for oneself. All attempts to arrive at a proof by means of reasoning are futile, because what we are trying to establish is only the existence of our idea of God. 87
Our goal in this life is to experience union with God and all beings. We can make this end the means of realizing God. If we practice trying to see the unity, if we do unto others as we would have them do unto us, our consciousness will eventually be transformed. Then we will actually see the one God vibrating in every atom of the universe and love him in all beings. 117
Further Reflections
I tell you one thing –
If you want peace of mind,
do not find fault with others.
Rather learn to see your own faults.
Learn to make the whole world your own.
No one is a stranger, my child;
this whole world is your own.
—Sri Sarada Devi
Since coming to Sri Ramakrishna, M. had lost all relish for lectures and for books written by English scholars. The only thing that appealed to him now was to see the Master day and night, and hear the words that fell from his blessed lips.
—The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
I feel when I travel in a rickshaw through the crowded lanes that everything I see around me does not happen outside me, but within me. The skin enveloping my body has expanded infinitely. It includes everything. I am suddenly reminded of the peculiar physical feeling I had when I saw Ma for the first time. I felt, as if my heart—a physical muscle in my breast—had grown to double its size.
—Melita Maschmann, on Sri Anandamayi Ma
That’s the essence of my relationship with Maharajji: to love him, to open myself to his presence, to surrender to him. That’s my Bhakti practice, a practice of Guru Kripa. But those qualities of love and openness and surrender are the essence of every Bhakti practice. We find some being that draws our heart: it could be Maharajji or Anandamayi Ma, Christ, or Krishna, Allah or G-d. You pick the name. Then we invite that being in. We install that being in our hearts, and we offer ourselves to it: We sing to it, we chant to it, we pray to it, we bring it flowers. We love and we love, and we open and we open. And then we watch, as slowly, slowly, but surely, surely, we love our way into becoming it.
—Ram Dass
