Hindu Ashrams Ashram in India Presence of a Realized Master

Vijay Kumar:
You can find many Ashrams in India particularly in Haridwar and Rishikesh in the state of Uttaranchal, India ... yet, none of them may be able to impart you the absolute knowledge ... the essence of Bhagavad Gita ... the one and only document representative of the complete wisdom Jnana contained in the Cosmos). As I never propose to build an Ashram I shall not be able to able to accept you as a seeker of knowledge ... all that this is Spiritual.

It is only a period of time that I am unable to do so ... after my family is fully settled ... my two daughters settle down in their professions ... get married and so on ... only after that I shall be able to accept people from world-wide ... only the serious absolute seekers of truth ... to my abode. I am merely an instrument in the hands of God ... I shall be able to impart all that God has bestowed upon me.

In my lifetime I shall only be able to accept one or two pupils ... who have the eagerness, capacity, patience and all that which is desired from a true seeker. Ramakrishna Paramhansa had only one pupil ... Swami Vivekananda and I shall also have probably one among the multitudes ... one who can understand what is being imparted. Presently amongst all the people who assemble for my discourses not even 1% are able to fathom the inner depths of the Spiritual wisdom being imparted. Many relate Spiritual wisdom as a means to earning money ... bountiful material riches which can give them the best of physical comforts they can enjoy.

Yet I shall narrate one incidence in the life of Lord Mahavira - Lord Mahavira the moment he Realized God came to know from his inner inhibitions (intuition) that none on earth except a spiritual seeker and a teacher Gautam was only competent to understand the meaning of his words ... yet, Gautam had taken a vow that he shall never meet Lord Mahavira in his lifetime as he considered himself equivalent to him in the Spiritual knowledge. He had a bloated ego, which did not permit him to accept the truth.

It so happened that destiny made some knowledgeable persons of the society who understood the logical reasoning behind the happening make a decision ... they approached Gautam with some sayings of Lord Mahavira suppressing the fact that in fact they had come from Lord Mahavira ... they were queries of the highest order which only could have come out from the mouth of a person who had Realized God ... having gone through the words Gautama became so inclined to meet the person who had written them that he soon followed the wise men.

As the total retinue of the wise men and Gautama and his followers neared the place where Lord Mahavira stood without giving the discourse (no words floating out of his mouth) ... the senses of the Gautama felt fully energized ... he understood his folly and bowed before Mahavira. The might of a god realized soul made even the bloated ego of the Gautama melt away ... soon after Lord Mahavira disclosed all the essentials to Gautama ... the only person present among the millions who understood what Lord Mahavira was saying. Subsequently Gautama preached to the masses what he came to understand from Lord Mahavira.

The prime reason why we need to have Spiritual masters to convey the meaning of the realized souls to the masses. In Jainism, the foremost Prayer of the Religion (Navkar Mantra) ... contains words which express our initial offerings to Arihantas ... those who Realized God within their lifetime. These god realized souls when they leave their immortal fame are known as Tirthankars. The first Prayer is thus addressed to the Arihantas for the prime reason that had it not been for the Arihantas to be present ... the common masses would not had been able to decipher what was being said by the would-be Tirthankars. and the second Prayer is subsequently offered to the Tirthankars.

In the Spiritual hierarchy ... Tirthankars (the god realized souls ... those who have completed their cosmic journey and liberated themselves from the cycle of birth and death forever) is highest ... next comes the Arihantas (one on the path of gaining absolute wisdom ... the would be god realized souls) ... then the Spiritual masters, the Acharyas who head Spiritual institutions ... the centers for imparting of the Spiritual wisdom ... and finally the Spiritual teachers (Upadhyayas).

The brief distinction between an Arihantas who is also a god realized soul and Tirthankars (the status of a god realized soul after he has left his mortal frame) is that having Realized God ... one has to keep a limited impurity within the self without which soul the atman within would leave the body immediately. One day one person casually asked Ramakrishna Paramhansa why he was so fond of making and relishing food ... he replied that unless he keeps this 1% impurity within him ... he would be forced to abandon his body and leave for the ultimate goal ... and in order to retain this body for a certain period of time ... he shall be able to impart the Spiritual knowledge so earned within his lifetime.

In my own life one day ... after having Realized God in 1993 ... I was going up the lift to the head office of the organization of own I had been the managing director ... I was seriously concentrating on God while traveling in the lift ... somehow my soul the atman within started to lift itself (leave my body) ... and as the soul atman within my body started to lift itself I could see my legs folding as if made of rubber and crumbling down ... immediately within a fraction of the second I had to forcibly within my mental frame blurt out some unsavory words against an employee who had committed a mistake the earlier day. This immediately straightened out my legs for I had within me a small percentage of impurity otherwise having achieved full impurity ... my mortal frame would have left that very day.

I would like to express here that no student ever can truly identify his Guru ... yet, real Guru is always able to distinguish among the masses ... the right candidate for imparting the Spiritual wisdom. It is most unlikely that I shall make a mistake ... yet, what has been destined for me by God ... shall be implemented in totality. Everything in the cosmos is a making of God Almighty ... where and whence is the cause for worry! Everything gets executed as per the will of God!

In Haridwar (Uttaranchal state), India ... a place about 32 kilometers from where I live ... there is no dearth of good Ashrams ... the only problem being that gurus spiritual masters who can impart the absolute knowledge are not available ... these institutions have been merely reduced to religious centers of learning (Religion and Spirituality are absolutely different aspects of the same absolute truth) and it is the field of Spirituality which we want to follow if we desire to know God at a certain stage in our life.

Religious centers are the places where the wisdom is imparted from the books ... true wisdom can never be imparted from books ... every true master invokes all wisdom contained in the Cosmos through the process of Shruti Jnana (more on Shruti Jnana can be read here- Shruti) ... he is not required to read any text ... yet he is able to explain the inner meaning of words contained in Bhagavad Gita ... Upanishads ... Bible ... Koran and all other Spiritual texts of all Religions of the world as if he is the master of all wisdom.

After having reached the source of all wisdom through Shruti Jnana ... the reservoir of Mind Plus (more on the power of mind can be read here- mind a universal phenomenon) ... there is nothing else to know. My advice is that you can start from an Ashram which may be able to impart you the basics of Spiritual knowledge ... subsequently as you proceed higher on the Spiritual path ... you shall yourself be able to distinguish for yourself the right from wrong ... I covered the journey leading to Self Realization without a Guru ... I had God as my Guru and the master ... the hidden factor which is extremely difficult to practice ... yet, the results were astonishing.

In Rishikesh, there is one Ashram now maintained by the followers of Saint Sivananda ... though Swami Sivananda did not Realize God within his lifetime yet he was a very highly acclaimed religious preacher of his time ... he was only one meaningful life away from Self Realization. You can visit his Ashram to complete the goal you have set in your life.

An incident in the life of Eklavya (one who belonged to a lower caste and neither had the means of the money to accomplish the goal of his life yet, achieved everything he ever wanted to do) will explain further- Eklavya was very eager to learn archery and he approached Guru Dronacharya to accept him as his Guru. This violated the principles being followed during that era as no person less than a Brahmin was ever considered competent for gaining the Spiritual knowledge.

As Guru Dronacharya refused to accept Eklavya as his student having belonged to a lower caste ... Eklavya had no choice but to follow the path which I came to follow early in my life. In spite of my best efforts when I was not able to locate a Guru in my life ... I had to ask God to accept me as his pupil ... a devoted soldier ... he accepted. Eklavya became the foremost archer of his time ... much ahead of the best pupil even Guru Dronacharya had trained ... the famous Pandava king Arjuna. This truly is an unbelievable fact yet true. One can learn everything living wherever one may be ... it is not essential to venture out as In present times availability of a reliable Guru is considerably reduced. Most have become money minded and follow materialistic trends.

What actually Eklavya had done was ... unknown to the Guru Dronacharya ... he created a clay replica of the Guru Dronacharya and practiced archery considering the clay model as the Guru. He used to watch from a distance the knowledge being imparted by Guru Dronacharya to Pandava king Arjuna ... his power of concentration ... his desire to become number one in the field of archery ... and his bulldog determination to achieve the desired goal (the determination which the British premier Winston Churchill had) ... nothing less were the ingredients of which Eklavya was made of! His faring even better than Pandava king Arjuna is a unique example in the history of mankind.

In present times ... students have become so dependent on the teachers that if the teacher is not sincere enough then students do not care about giving a thorough reading on their own and mastering the subject. Everything is possible in the Spiritual domain ... God is always there to guide those who truly believe in him ... 100% faith system of God is a must!

One cannot expect to start the engine of our spiritual life at 99° temperature. Water will only boil at hundred degrees in order to generate steam just sufficient to start the journey ... once there is a full thrust ... there is no looking back. I have practiced all this in my life ... I know what is essential for a true spiritual seeker ... to distinguish false from truth is something which I practice in daily life ... none is able to cheat me for I am able to read the thoughts of every person around me.

Do not despair. I am always there to assist you in your queries ... you can send as many number of queries as you desire ... as the queries within you dissolve ... you shall rise higher and higher on the Spiritual plane leading towards your goal. Following the process of Neti is an essential ingredient on the path to God Realization.

Neti is the process followed by Maharishi Ramana ... it involves negating everything in the Universe. Not this ... Not this is the best form of inquiry one can ever follow on the Spiritual path ... if we desire to have one-to-one dialogue with God in present lifetime then we need to search for God ... and if we finally negate everything in the Cosmos we know is not God ... then what remains is only God ... this was the path I subconsciously followed and I was successful.

One must always read in depth all literature available on Ramakrishna Paramhansa and Maharishi Ramana ... In the last 150 years ... these are the only two persons who Realized God ... following the path they have taken gives vital clues which are required to be followed on the path of spirituality. There are no shortcuts ... we have to practice patience to its limit ... only then can one hope of becoming a Buddha, Jesus Christ, Lord Mahavira, Prophet Mohammed, Ramakrishna Paramhansa or Maharishi Ramana one day.

I will again emphasize here that reliable Spiritual gurus In present times is extremely difficult to search for ... yet nothing is impossible in this world. You can take your own decisions and proceed on the path of spirituality with full faith in God ... you shall accomplish the dreams and goals in your life without fail.

Always there to clarify your queries ( send your query),

Essay by: Vijay Kumar "Atma Jnani" ... The Man who Realized God in 1993!

Full text of query: hi dear friends I realy woul like to recieve any information from you I also would like to know if there is a ashran where we can have Satsangs,to be in the presence of the realized one,please let me now I am planing to live in india,inspite of any problem,I believe that to be in the presence of te alive master is the best thing to do for me in this life thanks

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