"Man is like a river on his way towards the ocean, towards the divine. The drop has a thirst, a longing. The drop knows nothing of the ocean, but the drop longs to become one with the ocean. The drop cannot find fulfillment until it becomes on with the ocean, the divine. This book is a journey to the ocean, to the divine." - Swami Dhyan Giten
This book is a compilation of lectures from satsang with spiritual teacher and best-selling author Swami Dhyan Giten on the Upanishads, the ancient wisdom of India, between March 2016 and July 2018 in Stockholm.
In this spiritual book Giten talks about The Upanishadic vision of life, which is a universe in an organic whole. We are all existing in togetherness. The trees, the flowers, the stones, the birds, the mountains and the stars are all interlinked. The part representsthe whole. Nothing is lower, nothing is higher - all is one. The smallest blade of grass is connected with the farthest stars.The Upanishadic vision of life has never become part of human consciousness. It has remained thevision of a few mystics, which is the basic reason for the misery of the world. The word Upanishadic means to sit in deep communion with truth. It means to sit in satsang in a deep communion of the heart. The Upanishads is a silent communion from heart to heart. That is the meaning of Upanishad. Sitting in silent communion of the heart, and something transpires. This transmission beyond words is the meaning of the word Upanishad. The Upanishadic approach is individual. Organized religion, tradition, dogma and ideology are bound to be against the individuality.
"Satsang with Giten is heaven. Satsang with Giten about the Upanishads is so exciting. Satsang with Giten is likea scent, a flowering of This is it! Satsang with Giten has thesame taste as satsang in India. Suddenly meditation is not dry and sterile, but an experience of love, silence and prayer, of being one with life."
"I was so afraid that Iwould lose the silence that I had found during satsang in India, but I found the silence again in satsang with Giten. Samadhi is like dying. The fear that I experienced in the beginning in satsang when I went into samadhi, when I disappeared into the silence, has now disappeared totally. Satsang with Giten is like coming home. I went into samadhi three times during a satsang weekend with Giten - and I got a map and an understanding for how to go into samadhi again. Before I started to attend satsang, I did not think that enlightenment was possible, but now I feel that it is possible. Satsang with Giten confirms what I have really always known. I never thought that samadhi was possible, but in satsang with Giten, samadhi is knocking on the door.” - Padma, participant in satsang with Giten
Excerpt:
Karma
Your actions bind you, because you think that you are the actions.
Actions bind you, because you think that you are the doer. The "I", the ego, behind the actions goes on binding you to those actions.
Through countless past lives, this feeling of being the doer has become strengthened.
You think that you are a great doer, while in reality there is no other doer than existence.
How can you drop this attachments and karma?
If someone becomes conscious that he is not the doer of the actions - all actions are the will of the whole and he is only a flute in existence hands. In that moment, he is free of karma.
If the bondage of karma is not destroyed, there is no freedom.
A meditator says: Now I am not doing anything, everything is done by existence.
If someone receives this insight both the bondage of present karma and the bondage of all past karma will vanish.
Karma can be dissolved only when cut from the root - and the root is the ego, the sense of that "I" am doing.
So the doer, the "I", has to dissolve.
It is not necessary to focus on the actions, only the "I", the ego, has to be dissolved.
Whenever there is a feeling that "I am doing this", remember that, you are only the seer, the witness.
Be a watcher. Whenever the feeling of "I" is there shift it to the watcher.