“The spiritual path can withstand all kinds of things.

The only thing it cannot tolerate is egoism.”

Swami Vishnudevananda Giri

Part 1.

THE PRINCIPLE OF TAPAS IN SADHANA

“You cannot remain a seeker all your life.

Then you have to become a sadhu, a sadhu is one who performs sadhana.”

Swami Vishnudevananda Giri

Don't be afraid of tapas

God can only be known by sadhana, only by becoming a sadhu, and a sadhu is not an ordinary person, he is a special being. Then you have a choice: either to be an ordinary person with all his attributes or to become a sadhu. That is, everywhere you have to choose, you need to understand this: - you will only go further with making a choice. Of course, you may choose not to make a choice, this is your own business, but then you will not become what you would like to become.

Any choice presupposes responsibility. Only when we accept responsibility for our choice is this choice actualized.

Suppose you want to achieve something but do not understand these principles, and you are not ready to take responsibility or sacrifice some of your limitations. In that case, you will not achieve this. We should understand that only sadhus achieve success on the spiritual path.

Every living being lives between life and death. The moment of death is an indicator for every creature, it shows a person what he has been meditating on all his life. If a person constantly thinks about worldly pleasures, about the opposite sex, then at the moment of death, his mind will involuntarily focus on this. It happens because it is very difficult to control thinking at the time of death. The texts say that the gaze of the death king Yamaraja is so intense and piercing that all the kleshas and sins come out of the human soul by themselves.

The point of death indicates how a person lived this life. Until a person has pacified his mind and purified it, has not found that place beyond death, he will not be able to be calm at this point. He will not be able to remain aware at this point, and his mind will inevitably become disturbed, clingy, and confused.

However, those yogis and sadhus who have purified their minds through worship of God, acting in a spirit of detachment, through meditation, for them this point does not pose a problem, and they will pass this exam. But in order to pass this exam, you must train continuously throughout your life while your body and soul are together.

Reason logically, if you cannot be aware, in a state of faith, meditative and calm in your ordinary state of life, what are the chances that you will be able to do this at the time of death? No chance. This means that you have to learn to be aware, learn to be in a state of faith and meditation in ordinary life. Not only under ordinary circumstances but also under stressful circumstances, in the circumstances of harsh tapas and harsh tests.

You do not have to be afraid of tapas; on the contrary, you should consider tapas as the most desirable. Only then can you pass this exam. When you enter the path of Dharma, remember that you have come to the monastery to do your tapas. Do not try to make your life very comfortable; do not try to gain anything in favour of your ego. Remember that you are on the path of tapas, and it is your choice, the choice that will temper your spirit.

By avoiding tapas, you are doing yourself a disservice. When you are on the path of tapas, tapas tempers your soul. But when you reject your tapas, when you reject sadhana, when you reject humility, when you reject obedience, when you reject renunciation, when you reject abandonment of attachments, know that your spiritual brothers, sisters, and senior monks will not condemn you. You cannot be forced to do tapas, but you will lose because you will not educate yourself, you will not prepare yourself.

This world may indulge you, but looking honestly and seriously, will Yamaraja indulge you? You should always remember that if somebody can indulge you, if you can indulge yourself, the universe will not indulge you. Even if you do something wrong, they will say to you: "All right, let us not create disharmony, let us not say anything to him, if that is what he wants, all right, let it be so. If you want this and not that, if you refuse tapas, if you ask for more, they will indulge you, but the law of karma, Yamaraja, will they indulge you? - "Well, okay, you do not want to die, - do not, okay. All right, you do not want to go to hell; you can go to heaven..."? The law of karma does not work like that; you must be ready to accept that the law of karma acts harshly and inexorably. You will not get pity from him; human emotions mean nothing to him. Your depression, your sadness, means nothing. So, get used to doing tapas in this life; as long as you are in a sober mind and have a clear memory to do tapas, it is easy to cut off attachments, and it's easy to cut off your ego.

Get used to being real sadhus, get used to being strong, and detached. Because if a fighter during a training battle does not have a strong opponent, then in a real battle he is killed in the first minutes. On the contrary, the fighter who constantly trains himself with a superior opponent, who trains himself to the edge of his capabilities, he has every chance of staying alive and winning. Your whole life is training, if during training you do not give all your best, speaking in the language of athletes, "slack off", how can you win in a real fight? In the real universe, ruthless forces operate, they can be pacified only with your spiritual wisdom, your spiritual strength.

But now you are educating yourself every day and every moment in relationships, in service; this is your training battle. You have to live so that every day in this training battle, you act as if it is real.

A real sadhu remembers his tapas, he is strict with himself, not with others, but with himself. A true sadhu remembers his choice 24 hours a day. A real sadhu never cherishes worldly desires, attachments, or thoughts of the world. A real sadhu does not live for himself but for others and for God. All this is tapasya, spiritual austerity. Do not encourage the ego in yourself, do not encourage attachments in yourself, do not encourage anything in yourself that does not belong to the Dharma, do not encourage maya in yourself, do not encourage unclean thoughts, criticism of others in yourself, do not encourage laziness, absent-mindedness, do not encourage yourself to be irresponsible. You are yogis; your concentration should be many times greater than that of other people. Be focused and alert. Sometimes you can see another person acting neglectfully, not concentrated, not focused, not organized, but calling himself a yogi, how can that be?

Make efforts to fulfil the instructions of your guru, to fulfil the instructions of the senior monks, to fulfil the instructions of the sadhu culture. But do not contract your mind, if you want to make efforts and create some image of yourself as a perfect sadhu, start doing it from an egoic state, you will only contract your mind, it will become a new form of your ego: "I want to appear good to others, so I am concentrating on that". But a sadhu acts from an open mind, from a state of awareness, and it comes naturally.

Learn to develop such qualities in you that you can be entrusted with any service and handle it. This field of cultivating concentration and responsibility, it is here, it is now. Concentration and responsibility are optional even if you are engaged in some simple service. It is just that this concentration and responsibility, as opposed to worldly responsibility and concentration, is within the sadhu. Moreover, we must train ourselves to act with full responsibility and concentration.

One person lived in an ashram where he constantly got up at 4 in the morning. At 4:30, the morning group practice of worship (puja) began, and he would always oversleep, and the temple attendant would always wake him up. When he woke up, he would say, "Get up, prabhu! This is very beneficial!" And he answered: "Let it be beneficial in an hour and a half."

Tapas means we have inner zeal. Through this zeal we are freed from karmas and kleshas. The problem is that such inner zeal is most often shown by neophytes, and they have it for a year, maybe two, three, but then their inner zeal begins to blur somewhere, since it is difficult to maintain the same regime for many years. But tapas is precisely the manifestation of inner zeal for many years, perhaps for many tens of years. Such a yogi, who can show inner zeal in spiritual practice, is the best and will have the best results.

So, if you ask the question: "In what way should sadhana be practised? You can answer this way: "By the way of tapas." It was because of tapas that the gods took their position in heaven. Thanks to tapas, Dhruva became the God of the pole star, and Arjuna received the blessing of Shiva and ascended to the worlds of Indra Loka. Rishi Vasishtha acquired the status of the son of Brahma, Rishi Vishwamitra, having changed his caste, became an outstanding Brahmarishi.