Ways of Duty and Dharma

Shankaracharya, in the fifth century A.D., travelled by foot from Kerala to Kashi, Badri, Kashmir, Kedarnath, Kailash, Puri, Sringeri, etc! And he lived only until the age of thirty-two! Imagine the tremendous amount of work that he did - writing, expounding, propagating, establishing, organising, inspiring, teaching - all in about fourteen or fifteen years of active life! Activity is the verysine qua non of life. Be active, welcome activity - that is the message that God gives man at birth. The breath teaches you Soham all the time, 'so' when it goes in and 'ham,' when it is exhaled. Choose that activity which is conducive to your spiritual progress, judging yourself the stage in which you are at present. There is no high and low, in the activity. The eye must see, the ear must hear, and the hand must hold. That is their duty (Dharma). So also each of you must conduct yourself, according to your own Dharma and progress spiritually.

After the beautiful picture about the sky and the stars in the sky and the moon and the sun in the heart and the clouds in Swami's thought for the day yesterday, today we go back to the incredible holy tradition of India and he talks about Shakaracharya. He was very exceptional and very holy and I translated once a book and I did that in the time I was here working as I had no much to do really in waiting to go back to Swami.

Shankaracharya, in the fifth century A.D., travelled by foot from Kerala to Kashi, Badri, Kashmir, Kedarnath, Kailash, Puri, Sringeri, etc! And he lived only until the age of thirty-two! Imagine the tremendous amount of work that he did - writing, expounding, propagating, establishing, organising, inspiring, teaching - all in about fourteen or fifteen years of active life.




It is incredible how much work he did in his short life span writing all the commentaries while walking and being on the road a long time. He opened the Shankaracharya Maths in the north, the south, the west and the east and the Maharishi is in that tradition, his master, we called him 'Guru Dev' was the Shankaracharya from Jothirmath.
Swami mentions here the Shankaracharya in another sense to make people aware that activity is important in life. We should be aware that he talks to India and that in this country there is a lot of inactivity not like in the West, where we have too much activity usually and lots of stress.

Activity is the verysine qua non of life. Be active, welcome activity - that is the message that God gives man at birth.


And then he mentions our breath and that the breath teaches us Soham all the time, so when it goes in and ham when it is exhaled and he is telling us to see that as activity as it is conducive to our spiritual progress.
That example looks very easy as it is done by our nature, it is the nature of the body to breath and as long as the breathing is going on we are alive. Only when the breathing stops the life breath is leaving the body and what is left is just a corps.
The Soham is therefore difficult to be understood as activity as we don't do it, the body does it and therefore from that to judge the stage in which we are present is also not really possible or we just have to get aware that we actually are nowhere as we forget the breath constantly.

The breath teaches you Soham all the time, 'so' when it goes in and 'ham,' when it is exhaled. Choose that activity which is conducive to your spiritual progress, judging yourself the stage in which you are at present.


Swami talks about that activity without a high and low, it is just activity and needs to be done, no judgment in the activity itself only in the state of progress we are in the present as most of us will not be aware of the activity of the breath. We forget it as it is that natural, the breath is going on breathing even if we are not aware of it.

There is no high and low, in the activity. The eye must see, the ear must hear, and the hand must hold. That is their duty (Dharma). So also each of you must conduct yourself, according to your own Dharma and progress spiritually.


And Swami relates duty to the eyes, the ear and the hand, it is their duty and Dharma to see, to hear and to hold. It can give us a feeling for the sense of duty and in that sense it is the same for man and our Dharma that we progress spiritually and don't forget the breath. The breath is here an ideal for us, showing us how it performs its duty constantly going on as long as the body is alive.