Every day is a sacred day when you chant the name of God, yearn for His proximity and experience the bliss of His grace within you. The supreme quality of Emperor Bali is his spirit of surrender and sacrifice. Emperor Bali surrendered himself totally to the divine. Under his reign, all the subjects were happy and led godly lives. Saddened by the thought of having to go away from his people, he told them, "Dear people! I cannot be without you and you cannot be without me. Every year I shall appear before you and give you joy." Onam is the day on which Bali fulfills his promise. People wake up early in the morning, take a bath, wear new dresses and worship God, and partake a feast to mark the Onam celebration. What is the significance of wearing new clothes (Vasthra)? Vasthra also means ‘heart’. Wearing new clothes (Vasthra) signifies purifying the heart. God dwells in a pure heart.It is not the same just sitting together as it seems often practised in sharing something, whatever it is what we want to share, if we call it experiences or even human values, it is another word for socializing.
If we don’t have the one-pointed focus on the words of a self-realized authority, the energy will not be uplifted and in the name of study circle all kinds of things are done, only not sitting together and studying Swami’s words.
The circle is only a circle if he is in it, a circle is another word for holy, it is whole and that is only present if we have him in it and not the mind.
If we are in the mind we have many types of half circles, but it is never a circle. To make it a circle we have to study his words and put him in the center of it what means one-pointed focus on his words and by that what is purified is the ideal and the field of the heart.
In that thought for the day he talks about Onam and the tradition of it, the background. We experience with Swami what people experience with emperor Bali, in that story is a reflection.
Every day is a sacred day when you chant the name of God, yearn for His proximity and experience the bliss of His grace within you.
As Swami said in the interview room that all mantras are okay and in our meditation practise, even if it is not loud, it is a way of chanting the name of God. I went into meditation because it is a silent way to be in touch with the divine or higher self and to be able to integrate it in our culture and to purify the mind.
After I got the Bhagavad Gita I went to the Hare Krishnas hoping they would be able to tell me more about it and most of all why it was a holy book and at the same time a war. They chanted the name of God on the streets and they were singing and dancing and it was too much my feeling or not enough about our cultural values and traditions. I wanted something that we could integrate in our western society and meditation was inside and in silence and we didn’t need to go on the streets and sing and dance. If we are chanting and singing on the streets in the West it is not only about love for God, but mostly we show everybody that it is not our culture, no matter what. They are what they are, the Hare Krishnas, but they are not part of our culture.
When he said that all mantras are okay it took care of it that there is no real difference between root mantras and the mantras with the OM. If we use the OM as it is Soham, the Soham mantra we think with the breath, we inhale so and we exhale ham and it is the OM when it resounds in our inner awareness, it is present as OM. If we have the OM, we have love and the divine and the focus is on divinity and that was not the case with meditation, we focused on the purification of the mind.
The supreme quality of Emperor Bali is his spirit of surrender and sacrifice. Emperor Bali surrendered himself totally to the divine. Under his reign, all the subjects were happy and led godly lives. Saddened by the thought of having to go away from his people, he told them, "Dear people! I cannot be without you and you cannot be without me. Every year I shall appear before you and give you joy."
It is the same we see reflected in Swami, the spirit of surrender and sacrifice. It is total surrendering to the divine. The divine is omnipresent love, it is in the Atmic principle. Like with that emperor all were happy and led good lives in his presence and when he had to go, he told that he will give them joy and in that Onam festival Bali fulfills his promise, that is a nice story and tradition, isn’t it?
Onam is the day on which Bali fulfills his promise. People wake up early in the morning, take a bath, wear new dresses and worship God, and partake a feast to mark the Onam celebration. What is the significance of wearing new clothes (Vasthra)? Vasthra also means ‘heart’. Wearing new clothes (Vasthra) signifies purifying the heart. God dwells in a pure heart.
There are different ways we can purify the field of the heart, what we do with meditation is here the significance of wearing new clothes, taking a bath and worshipping God with a feast.
Meditation is like taking a bath and putting on new clothes and worshipping God in one, only it is silent and not a tradition. If we purify the mind with a mantra what is at the same time in touch with the divine, it is like taking a bath for the mind and putting on a new dress to start every day new.
What matters is to understand how we can purify the heart and that we need to purify it, no matter how it is done, by the tradition of Onam or in silent meditation, what matters is that we don’t forget to purify it to start the day new again.
Here we have the value of tradition and purification together. It means it is creating good energy and it is rooting us in the tradition and that is stabilizing the mind. The memory of the joy of Onam makes us go on to the next festival we should enjoy again and hold up high in that tradition, it makes us always remember how precious God is so that we don't forget him. In the West we are taken in by our activities and forget God that means the mind takes over. Holy festivals are helpful to not forget the divine and to live in the environment of good energy. Everything what we do with the divine has the aim to create good energy and joy and it is purification of the mind in remembering him or thinking over the thought for the day or his words, it is a good energy and the insights grow and he was present as the man coming in our dreams to awaken and there were two small Swamis, one was the insight and the other was the following step. We think it over and get an insight and the following step is that we think it over again and someone who is not living it, not aware of it, who is stupid and destroying the energy if aware of it, but he is on the other side of it. Someone who takes only advantage of it or like a vampire sucks the good energy and by that is destroying it or even feeding from it, some years ago I didn’t think that would exist and that is just what happened and the result of that relationship was Swami as vampire in my dream, that was kind of scary, not the picture, but the reality in it. It is not our friend, as we want good energy, that is why we meditate every day and it results in joy, Swami's presence is felt as joy.
It is the same in the study circle, if it is a circle and we have that one-pointed focus on his words, it is joy and it creates for all good energy. We can see it when the circle happens, it lightens up in all the faces when the ideal gets purified and joy takes over, that is the experience of a circle, everything else is only half a circle. No matter how serious people are doing a kind of therapy work in allowing people to talk and they listen to them as long as it is not enlightened by the words of Swami it is not a circle and that is the same meaning with emperor Bali, he had created that tradition of Onam to give joy to people.
If we don't have the same holy value in Swami's words and we listen to his words and think it over, we are not a circle.
Therefore, that example of Onam and emperor Bali shows us the value of tradition, why tradition and how tradition can help to purify the mind, but in the essence it is about purification, only with a festival and not just sitting down and meditating. The festival is something we can enjoy together and it is still present in our memory, meditation we can do alone and we forget about it as soon as it is done.
If we purify the heart, we create good energy and fill our life with love and positive dynamic feelings and we meditate every day to keep the energy on a sathvic level. If we are in the same household with someone who is tamasic, he is destroying every step we make in that direction and it results in constant conflict and inner disturbance. If we meditate on a regular basis we purify the mind and that means we try to live in a state of sathva.
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