I’m the translator and as far as I remember myself I was always interested in translating words from one language to another. Sometimes and very often indeed the matter concerns translating words from one and the same language as everybody has its own one! Being a child I tried translating the words of adults’ language to the children’s one and visa versa. Being a woman I try to translate a women’s language to a men’s one. Actually there are so many languages! So many words! Yogi Bhajan says: «The highest, most effective energy on this planet is the word. There is nothing beyond it, there shall be nothing beyond it, and there was nothing beyond it; therefore, we must consciously understand the power of the word. When we understand the power of the word and we apply the whole mind behind the word, then we create the word which can create the whole world for us”.
Words of the Holy Scriptures have such a big power that it seems not so easy to withstand them. You read, you merge with them, you begin vibrating their energy… Not that easy! Something is absolutely necessary to make this effect happens. I asked myself the question: what? What is this something? And I found the answer that resonates with my own understanding. Below is the wonderful explanation of Swami Venkatesananda.
Words of the Holy Scriptures have such a big power that it seems not so easy to withstand them. You read, you merge with them, you begin vibrating their energy… Not that easy! Something is absolutely necessary to make this effect happens. I asked myself the question: what? What is this something? And I found the answer that resonates with my own understanding. Below is the wonderful explanation of Swami Venkatesananda.
What are the scriptures or texts? What is their genesis, and for whom are they intended? The question is very simple but very interesting because the scriptures have been with us for thousands of years, but our life seems to be the same as if the truths did not exist at all, as if we had nothing to go by. What happens to the scripture? Usually it adorns our libraries and is hardly ever looked at.
You might have noticed that whenever people are asked to read from the Bible or some other text, they go to their favorite passage and keep reading that. It is like wearing blinkers. We don't see the whole truth, so the scriptures don't seem to make much of an impact upon us.
So often we hear the truth, but even when it is spoken by a sage, a holy man, a yogi, a buddha, we pay just a nodding compliment to such truth. I have experienced this in India: someone admires the discourse saying: "Oh, it was marvelous, inspiring." It was not supposed to be inspiring, it was supposed to shatter! I have heard such funny remarks after a discourse where the yogi had exposed the evil of wealth, for instance, and the best part of the audience were wealthy people. It did not touch them at all!
Why is it that in spite of all these great sages and their teachings no change has taken place in our lives? We are still trapped on the same merry-go-round. Probably because we have not undergone one fundamental preliminary, and that is an inner awakening. We seem to be externally awake all the time, but inwardly we are fast asleep. We buy these big tomes of scriptures and use them as pillows, hoping that the message will somehow jump out of the covers and into our heads. It does not happen. And when we go to listen to these great men, we are definitely psychologically asleep, and very often even physically asleep!
Take, for instance, the problem of loneliness and boredom. What do we do in order to overcome this boredom or loneliness? We try to escape into something that only confirms that loneliness. We find ourselves a friend (with whom we are unable to relate) and enter into a relationship. So together there is a boredom, together there is a loneliness. Or, we turn on the tape recorder or record player, but that does not take our boredom away. We are masking that boredom, that loneliness, and trying to escape from it. Thus we enter into a deeper, more dangerous and deadly trap. If that is not clear then the inner awakening is not there.
From morning till night I strive for happiness and I find nothing but unhappiness." The very fact that we continue to strive for happiness shows that we are unhappy. Face it. Whatever we do in order to augment our happiness only destroys it.
And yet intelligent people go on doing this. They want peace of mind and struggle for it. This struggle breaks the mind into several pieces. Then they catch hold of one little piece and think they are peaceful! That is the whole joke. Is that intelligence? Why is it that having understood this sequence of unfortunate events, we still pursue the game?
If it is decided that it is not possible to attain peace of mind or happiness here, give up. Is that possible? No. Something still stirs ' inside: "I am trapped; it must be possible to get out of this; I would like to get out of this." If this twin aspiration is there and if you are not completely stupid or enlightened, then you can proceed to understand the scriptures. And where the scripture is not meaningful, you can also take the help of a teacher.
In the Katha Upanishad there is a beautiful declaration: uttishthata; jagrata—wake up! No one else can do this for you. You can be the disciple of God Almighty Himself, but even He will not be able to wake up on your behalf. If you feel hungry, you yourself must eat. The guru is not going to do the eating for you. The guru may indicate to you, but it is your problem. And if you feel it is your problem, then you awaken, and then you are awake to the problem.
Unless you stop blaming others, including yourself, for the state you are in, you are not awake.
Therefore, a major qualification for the student of yoga is to realise that no one is responsible for the state you are in. No one can bring about a spiritual awakening in you. Someone can help, anyone can help, but you have to do it. This spiritual awakening is brought about by life itself, but even to be awakened by life, a certain grace and a certain inner alertness is necessary.
Waking up is easy, but to remain awake is not so easy. Those of you who have attempted to wake up early in the morning in order to meditate will appreciate this. You set an alarm clock, it rings and you wake up. But to remain awake after that is not so easy. The mind loves to sleep. Why? Because the mind is born of ignorance and therefore it loves sleep and it loves a thick psychological blanket.
Therefore, wake up! That is your problem, your responsibility, not the teacher's. From there on, ever be vigilant. Whenever I use this word 'vigilant', I am reminded of Buddha's famous teaching. In some texts it is said that during one of the Buddha's last sermons, he told his disciples: "Live in this world as you would if you were living in a room with a live cobra at the door." Can you imagine that? If you were in a small single room which had only one door and no windows, nothing to escape by, and you found a cobra sitting by that door in the middle of the night, what would you do? Would you sleep? Would you even nod? How vigilant you would be! Such must be the vigilance of the seeker.
If you are awake and alert, can you not discover the truth concerning life? With what does one discover the truth? Thought and mind cannot discover the truth because they are born of ignorance. What else do we have? There the questioner comes to an end. We can sit and think, but we have already understood that thinking leads us nowhere. We are awake, we are vigilant, but we do not know what else to do. Where do we go from there? Go to some enlightened person and be enlightened. Awakening is our job, our privilege. Enlightenment is possible with the help of the master. (Otherwise the danger is that we might regard ourselves as enlightened because our mind suggests we are enlightened—another trap.) So the commandment of the Upanishads is: uttishthata, jagrata—“awake, remain alert”. Go to the enlightened ones and attain enlightenment.
What comes from the lips of the enlightened person is not a product of the mind, and is therefore can be realized by the Soul. And again and again I go to the words of the wise men and I understand that to translate them to the language of my Soul I must be awaken, I must be vigilant. Moreover this is the question of Self Initiation. And I initiate myself to feel the highest energy of the word and to “create the word which can create the whole world for us”.
