by Swami Vimalananda
“It’s All His Name, It’s all His Form, It’s all His Deed, and It’s All For Good” – Sri Swami Satchidananda
It may seem like the world is going to hell very quickly. The natural and the human created disasters seem to be growing exponentially. It looks like many of us are just barely holding on. Pain seems to be everywhere.
So how could Sri Gurudev state,”It’s all His name, it’s all His form, it’s all His deed, and it’s all for good”?
I feel we have to reach back to remember the purpose of our lives.
Do we believe the world’s agenda of competition and grabbing all that we can get in spite of hurting others? Or do we believe that we are born to grow spiritually; to become selfless, and not depend on the world for our happiness?
The pain of the world is so easy to get caught up in. It is so easy to slip into an angry/depressed state of mind. The 24 hour news cycle spews out all the disasters of the world and the commentators repeat the same negatives over and over.
The world feels frantic and chaotic right now. As I drive on the freeway there are many angry speeding drivers. One of my cousins shouted at another driver in a parking lot. The man came up to my cousin and socked him in the face through the window.
How can we have mastery over our lives instead of feeling that we are victims of the world’s agenda?
I have seen Sri Gurudev and how he lived in the world. He maintained his calm centeredness, and was not swayed by the turbulence of the world. As he said, “we are in the world but we don’t have to be of the world.” This could be interpreted as not caring, but it really means that the world is our classroom. Are we learning to manipulate the world for our selfish ends or see the world as a place to learn to give selflessly? Through selfless behavior and formal practices to calm our minds, we realize we are the source of our own happiness. We are free from the world’s turbulent hurricanes and at the same time we can be of service for the peace of the world. As Sri Gurudev stated, “The world is our university.” He also stated, “as in all universities people are at different stages or grades, the freshman, who is still in the dark, to grad students who are working at advanced degrees.” He gave many other examples of the process of spiritual growth. One is the fritter that is just put in the hot oil in the frying pan, that makes a lot of noise and feels abused, to the completely fried fritter that is quiet and is taken out of the pan, well done.
We can be vigilant by being kind to everything that we encounter, take personal responsibility in doing the things we can do. We can deeply understand the purpose of the world—the humanities university. For example, my friend spends a morning each week picking up trash. We can begin to consume less. We can simplify our lives. We can cultivate harmlessness for all things. We can open our hearts, realizing our oneness and treating everyone and everything with love. We can open our hearts to feel pain with compassion. We can be open to the process of experiencing personal pain as a wakeup call, a signal that more growth is still needed.
The other night, on the way to the symphony, I was at a street corner, waiting for the signal to turn green. I was planning on pressing the pedestrian button when I realized that there were deep holes surrounding the area. There was a heavy yellow safety fencing that was very askew and no longer covered the dangerous areas. The signal turned and I started to cross but I thought to myself that it would be so easy for someone to fall, and it would probably be pretty disastrous. I decided to go back and adjust the fencing. I relearned a few things from this one situation. It felt good—it reinforced the idea that we can be of service to the world in very practical ways. We can learn to be an instrument of our Guru. It is possible to live in our hearts. We are truly empowered by serving.
My prayer is that we may all join together and experience the feeling of empowerment and joy that service provides. May we know in our heart of hearts that there is a purpose. It is to realize that, “It’s all His name, it’s all His form, it’s all His deed, and it’s all for good.”
Swami Vimalananda Ma, RYT500, is an Integral Yoga sannyasi – monk. She has been involved with Integral Yoga since 1971 and was Director of the San Francisco Integral Yoga Institute from 1992-2011. She specializes in teaching yoga philosophy and spiritual counseling.