SUPPLEMENT FOUR:

Our Experiences of the Phenomenon
that Omkarananda Saraswati is
in our daily Life with Him

By Two Ashram Inmates: Dr. Strauss and Dr. Eckert

 

 

We need a God-man who holds in his heart inexhaustible resources in Wisdom, in Love and in the Power of Light. Be that Europe or Asia, America or Australia, Russia or Africa, be that any continent, any nation, or even any religion, or any culture, or any social group, or any economic organisation or educational institution, or political party, or an old peoples' society, or a youth association, or all of them in one, the whole world it needs above all, above all, and first of all, first of all, a God-man. Here is one: Omkarananda Saraswati.

Philosophical schools founded on theorizing about the Truth we have since before the times of Aristotle. We need someone who lives in the Truth, experiences the Truth, is established in the Truth, and therefore, speaks to us in simple words, flames of living fire that arise from the fact that he lives in Truth, and Truth has made its habitation in him. Here is one: Omkarananda Saraswati.

Scientists we have by the several thousands, and among them Nobel-Prize bearers, and yet we have not seen the Face of the Truth. For all their labours, we are also no nearer to peace and happiness, wisdom and goodness, abundant life and blessedness. We need a scientist who is rooted in the Reality of realities, the Truth of truths, the Substance of all that is existent, and speaks to us of the Truth that does not change, that can be experienced, known and expressed, a Truth that is universally the same, eternally the same, and can be proved anywhere, and everywhere, in all circumstances. Here is one: Omkarananda Saraswati.

Priests we have many, brilliant and good, but we need a prophetic soul with the credentials in daily Character and Work from the all-seeing, all-knowing, all-blessing, all-loving, all-pervading Divinity. We need urgently one whose heart is one with the Heart of the all-transforming divine Presence, one whose soul is absorbed in the Soul of the Goal of all religions, all cultures, all human aspirations. Here is one: Omkarananda Saraswati.

So-called, or self-styled, or self-appointed world-redeemers and world-redeeming organisations we have, and yet mankind groans in chains, and the redemption helps no one, except the redeemers. We need a redeemer whose presence is transforming, whose words are the words of Life eternal, touching and elevating us into our essential element of infinite Peace, Joy, Existence. We need one who redeems men by his mere presence, merely by his breathing. Here is one: Omkarananda Saraswati.

Here he is a theocentric, Reality-centred man of universal Love and life-transforming and all-uplifting Wisdom, an all-problem-solving example. He is here, not to receive our services, but to serve us; not to be attended to by us, but to attend to us; not to be loved by us, but to love us; not to depend on anything we can do for him, but to go on doing everything in his power for us.

In the preamble to the UNESCO constitution, it is written: "... since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed."

The competence to grant guidance, special services and leadership for so rare and difficult a work can be trusted only to a man of God-experience, a monk whose life has been from the earliest boyhood a blazing fire of renunciation, selflessness and devotion to the ultimate Reality. Happily, such a personality we discover in Omkarananda Saraswati, who is, at the same time, a philosopher, a writer of international reputation, a man of vast erudition, a poet, and a person of intellectual and prophetic energies.

Even in words scribbled by him, on an almost forgotten scrap of paper, we discover, and therefore also can describe, his eminent qualifications for so immense and urgent a task as that of constructing peace in the minds of men:

"The God or Soul of Love is my heart. The Soul of knowledge is my mind. The Soul of Power is my will. My whole life is full of the Soul of Peace. I live in such thoughts. I feel so. I experience so. And therefore, silently, I am full of strength. Not fearing in myself, I help others to conquer fears. Not needing peace, being full of Peace, I help others attain peace."

 

Omkarananda Saraswati Is a Fascinating Life Emanating from a Consciousness Permanently Established in the Rich Beauty of the Divine Truth

Omkarananda Saraswati is an embodiment of highest spirituality, in the all-comprehensive sense of the word. He is a Sage, who has reached the experience of the ultimate and all-embracing Truth and is living out of It. Out of It he draws the Wisdom, the Purity and the Radiance of his life; in It he finds the Peace of his being, and the Strength for his untiring service. He is essentially a flame of the spirit of renunciation, with no personal wishes, no desires, no plans, no programmes, no aims totally depending on the Truth, and literally breathing and moving in It. He is first and last a Lover of the Lord, who lives only for the Divine, who works hard in order the Light of the Lord may spread.

He is a man of multiple and permanent God-experience. His constant experience of God as the absolute Reason-Knowledge-Consciousness is the foundation of his philosophy. His idea and experience of God as absolute Beauty is the basis for his aesthetic theories and his art. His ethics are rooted in his knowledge of God as absolute Goodness, absolute Truth, absolute Love. His philanthropy rises from his experience of God as Love, and God as resident in all beings. His services flow from the fact of his life that all humanity is his family. All his works are flowings of divine Grace for the welfare of mankind.

His words constitute great literature. His Love rules the hearts of man. His Wisdom guides the footsteps of mankind towards Peace and Joy, Light and Illumination.


The Greatness of His Thought Rises from His Awareness of the Divine

Omkarananda Saraswati combines in himself a strong intellectual response to spiritual things, and an uncompromising love of the ultimate Truth. Since his eighteenth year he has been a philosopher, scholar and writer of international appreciation.

The many-sidedness and the adaptability of his thinking are extraordinary. His thoughts are permanently rooted in the Absolute -- though they have an astonishing nearness to life. Still more, they are life-transforming. People who read his literature find a new meaning and strength and peace and happiness in life. They are inspired by the powerful ideas, uplifted by the broad, universal, all-embracing views, charmed by the sweetness, kindness, humility and self-effacement of this humblest of the servants of mankind -- Omkarananda Saraswati.

Doctors, professors, statesmen and other persons of eminence have paid high tributes to the Purity of Omkarananda Saraswati's Truth-centred life, the brilliance of his mind, and the excellence of his writings and cultural attainments. His philosophical thought is compared with, and considered complementary to, and is a fulfilment of, the philosophy of Kant and of Hegel. Not unoften was he acclaimed Platonic in the extent and depth of metaphysical thought. His psychology has been favourably set in the context of that of the famous Swiss psychologist, C.G. Jung; and his psychological perceptions in relation to life have been esteemed as greater than anything in the whole of Western psychology since the time of Aristotle. His life is compared to the lives of St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine. As a charismatic personality, a pioneering spirit, he reveals dimensions of personality that are characteristic of the greatest bene-factors of mankind.

As an educator Omkarananda Saraswati is a supreme example of moral and spiritual integrity. He is a man working entirely selflessly and making numberless sacrifices in order to spread amongst problem-laden humanity the Light and the Knowledge of the fundamental values of life. His educational thought is so comprehensively rich and unique that since as early as his twentieth year it has won for him in American academic circles much honour and esteem.

Not only for the highly inspiring and life transforming Wisdom ever flowing from his all-comprehending Truthexperience, but also for the untiring services springing from his universal and compelling love, and for his vast abilities to help everyone become happy, peaceful, luminous, progressive, Omkarananda Saraswati is profoundly revered around the world. On European soil, at present, one hardly encounters a second example of such a life, led in such an ideal spirit and unifying such an intellectual height with such an unconditional readiness for helping and doing good.

 

His Life's Philosophy of Selfless Action Emerges from His Experience of the Divine Reality as Unconditioned and Infinite Love

Omkarananda Saraswati has been encouraging the conducting of research into the causes of human unhappiness and suffering. The highest form of philanthropy and humanitarianism we see in him. In his smallest autobiography in the world, written within minutes, he says:

"There is no greater poverty or human disability than the human ignorance; and therefore, the best way to do the best of philanthropic and humanitarian services is to illuminate the minds and enlighten the hearts of the people. Make them lights unto themselves, and they shall not only be happy, but make others happy, not only be rich, but enrich others, not only give, but give more and more abundantly."

Knowledge of the Divine expresses itself in the hundreds of ways of presenting the ultimate Truth to every kind of man, to everyone, in every stage of evolution, in every culture, nation, race and religion. Omkarananda Saraswati is a universal individual, a genius; and his spirituality is modern and integral, and therefore transcends all religions; with the result, he is the Christian of the Christians, the Hindu of the Hindus, and is capable of leading everyone to tremendous inner spiritual development, through whatever faith a person belongs to, no matter what his temperament is. He is capable of leading everyone to happiness, knowledge, inner wealth, selflessness, inner spiritual development, illumination and enlightenment, because his experience of the one God, the one Truth, has made him one with all mankind:

"When I look at myself, I am not there. There is everything. Everything is One; and One is everything. There is an experience of the multiplicity in the One; and the experience of the One in the multiplicity. I am myself the Germans, the Italians, the Russians, the Negroes, the Indians, the Tibetans, the Chinese, the Americans.
I am the women. I am the children. I am the trees. I am the stones. When I meditate, everything meditates with me. When I meditate, the Heart of the whole of Nature is meditating with me. When I meditate, all the Angels of God, all the immortal Mystics are meditating with me. When I meditate, the whole inner Being and Soul of mankind is meditating with me.

The welfare of all humanity is my welfare. The happiness of the trees is my happiness. The peace of the birds is my peace. The prosperity of the world is my prosperity. Everything belongs to me. I live and labour for everything. I meditate for everyone. I meditate through all. All are dear to me. Every minute, thousands of packets of Love, thousands of gifts flow from my Consciousness to all beings.

Mankind is mine. All Nature is mine. And mine is all the world. I have won them in indestructible and all-triumphant Love, in pervasive and self-maintaining Peace, in services and sacrifices, and above all, in a total dissolution of the little self, in the total triumph of That in me which is the Image of God. I have inherited them in my oneness with That in them which is the same as That which is in me."

Thus, not merely by the prevailing power of his unusual sympathy and boundless love, the sweetness of his speech, his deep humility, but more fully by a power that can come, by a spiritual quality that can grow active, only by an intimate minute-by-minute consciousness of God, does Omkarananda Saraswati bring relief to the suffering, comfort to the most distressed of the distressed among us, a new hope and strength and life to the depressed and the unhappy, and joy to spiritual aspirants. He is a man whose very name inspires in thousands a rare joy, whose influence is his love, whose only weapon is silent Truth, whose only goods are wisdom, understanding, patient hearing, and words that are to any man, in any situation, most appropriate.

Only a holy man can be convincing in his words. Only he can really comfort all kinds of people, in all kinds of troubling and trying circumstances. It is his authority that we need, and that we unfailingly obtain:

"I live in them, not in myself.

I look how much I can give, not what these people can give me in return for my pains.

I bleed to help make them happy and peaceful and strong and self-dependent not dependent on me or on anything external to them.

I constitute them into a tower of strength unto themselves, and give them much power of will for the good and for the practice of disciplines of higher evolution.

I never advise them, but beg them.

I never instruct them, but merely illuminate some phenomena; and they see the instructions themselves.

I do not think I am superior to them. Though I am a monk, a spiritual leader, I have no feeling that I am in any way superior to the meanest mortals who come to me.

Everyone is my Lord and my Leader. I make them feel their essential worth and dignity and greatness.

I may have the wisdom of a Plato and the literary gifts of a Goethe, yet I feel inferior to the unlettered, uneducated, uncultured peasant. He is all to me; I am nothing to myself.

I may have the organizing abilities of a director and the loving kindness of a St. Francis of Assisi, yet I think,
I know, I feel, I experience in myself that I am nothing.

They are troubled and come to me. I give them just what they need, comfort.

They are wise, and come to me with a problem that needs the Light of a greater Wisdom. I give them just that Light, as if that Light were already in them, and they were in possession of it."

When we fail, God seems to fail in us. We consult Omkarananda Saraswati, and know another way to encounter God as Success. When the future before us is black, we find from him an assurance of our future happiness, and a way to work for it. When the astrologers frighten us by predicting calamities, it is he, the super-astrologer, who grants us the right knowledge. When the spiritualistic mediums and little prophets of the world terrify us, it is his assurance that comforts us.

Omkarananda Saraswati is an universal genius, loved everywhere, esteemed everywhere. He is loved, because he is unconditionally loving. He is served, because he needs no one's services and serves others unconditionally and untiringly.

"God is My Life, and I Have No Existence Apart from Him", says Omkarananda Saraswati who is at once a Karma-Yogi, a Jnani-Yogi, a Raja-Yogi and a supreme Bhakti-Yogi. This synthesis in himself of the various Yogas, crowned by the supreme Grace of the Supreme Mother of the Universe, constitutes him into the greatest in our decades, of the men of God-knowledge, God-experience, a Sadguru of rare abilities -- abilities which are not built up by human training, knowledge, experience, exercise, but are a result of the supreme Grace of the Supreme Divinity. There are Gurus who become so as a result of hard disciplines and spiritual realisations, and there are Gurus who are sent as Gurus by the Divine. Omkarananda Saraswati is of the latter kind:

"I am here, not because I wanted to be here, or that I have chosen you, but because you have been chosen by Him, and I am sent.

Whatever I would talk, it is not I; but He is talking, expressing Himself. I love Him; therefore, I do not ask Him: Why have you sent me here, O Lord?

My success with all of you is not mine, but His, and my love for you all is as much as for Him. My powers are not limited, because they are not my own, but are of the One who is in all that you see everywhere and more than you see. My Perfection is not bounded, because it is not my own, but of Him whose Will He alone is executing through me.

Whatever be the nature of my unconscious, I am in the depths formed of the Image of God. I have more memories of the encounters, experience and life with the Godhead, both within the field of my inner Consciousness, and in the outer world without, than memories of the world and life in it. It is these memories of the Godhead that is the secret of the vitality of my life and words.

God is my boundless Love: Love is All. When I look into the eyes of that Love, it is Love looking into Its own eyes. It is as though two pairs of eyes meet, mingle and melt away into one vision. Were the two pairs of eyes a dream, a hallucination, a fleeting nothing? I think not, for it is one among the million possibilities of the Consciousness, which is One and Many, One and not many, Many and not One, and yet always One."

Such is his nature in his attunement with the boundless divine Reality of infinite Peace, Love, Light, here, there, everywhere that he describes his condition in this way:

"Having done so much good, I have done absolutely nothing. Having seen so many people, I have seen none. And every good anywhere in the world is my good."

A thousand ships and motor-boats may furrow the surface of the sea, and yet the sea always remains instantly the same, a surface without any furrow, any mark. Such a sea he is.

 

Omkarananda Saraswati and the Future of Mankind

Great men play many roles in human history. Some rule nations, some found organisations, some lead armies, some produce great literature, some contribute to the arts, some fight and achieve freedom for a country, some labour for human rights and bring about great social changes. Omkarananda Saraswati's realm lies in the Soul of mankind. His greatness emerges from the timeless Reality.

In the transformation of mankind that our age has been long awaiting, the vast and profound knowledge of the divine Reality and of the many techniques for the realisation of that Reality that Omkarananda Saraswati holds in his hands will certainly contribute its own distinctive share. In him we find mirrored the future of humanity, the fulfilment of its aspirations and of God's promises to mankind. Omkarananda Saraswati is not a theorist building systems of thought, but a prophet setting new patterns of life that are in accord with the concealed genius that all life bears.

Dr. Y. Strauss

Omkarananda Ashram, Switzerland

 

"This genius of a mystic, Swami Omkarananda, should be seen as what he is: a unique flame flaring for God, and a living expression of a profound mystical life in God." So wrote an important paper, Der Bund, from the Capital City of Switzerland, Bern, and indeed, this is how everyone, -- from the Heads of the Governments, Ambassadors, Directors of multi-national companies, Scientists, Professors, Scholars, Saints, Priests of all denominations, Shankaracharyas of Kanchi and Sringeri, Mahapandits, people of all nations, housewives and taxi-drivers, -- sees and experiences Omkarananda Saraswati.

Dr. H. Eckert

Omkarananda Ashram, Austria

 

Printed and published by
Omkarananda Ashram
Switzerland, Austria and Himalayas

 

 

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Home Contents H.T. Question 1 H.T. Question 2 H.T. Question 3 H.T. Question 4 H.T. Question 5 H.T. Question 6 H.T. Question 7 H.T. Question 8 H.T. Question 9 H.T. Question 10 H.T. Question 11 Supplement One Supplement TwoSupplement ThreeSupplement Four