Swami Bhoomananda Tirtha

CORRESPONDENCE

[This is an extract from a correspondence that appeared in August 1987 issue 
of the monthly journal ‘Vicharasetu – The Path of Introspection’]

Dear and blessed B.

…………

Then, to avoid vagaries of the mind, one needs some mental, exercise. That will be to remain in a place, chanting something or doing pooja, because we are predominantly religious. Initially there will be difficulty and bitterness. But by persistence, these will subside and you may start feeling a taste for it. The best will be to love a practice. Love is an emotion your mind can and must generate and infuse into the pooja or recitation. Oral and mental, both must be adopted. Vishnusahasranama is a stotra. It has thousand names. Each name represents a quality, virtue, ability or function. Mind you, all these are conceived by man, and meant for him, in his life in the world. Normally one does not have these qualities. Naturally, the question arises as to how he can have. One method is to think of someone or something and say repeatedly that he or that has all these qualities. Then towards that qualitative person or power, cultivate love, respect, regard and devotion. To love something full of qualities, is arithmetically to love the qualities themselves. Once love for anything fills the mind, what will it do? Same will be the outcome here also. These qualities will consciously or, superconsciously begin to trickle into your being, in very deep and subtle ways. Thus are traditions and heritage imbibed and transmitted.

Whatever qualities you can and ought to have in this world, all these are conceived in Mahavishnu, whose responsibility it is to preserve the world. Courage, skillfulness, determination, sympathy, detachment, concentration, power, pomp, greatness, unconquerability, unaffectedness, dexterity, and many such virtues and excellences find place in Vishnusahasranama. Why don't you think in this way?  Every word, though a praise of the Lord, is a confession about yourself, a demand of you for you, a will and resolve in your mind. Imagine your mind, when infused with these assertions!

If it is a mustard now, it will become an elephant-head soon, a hill or a mountain later. For the mind to grow, oral food, or vitamins are not the source. Thoughts, outlook, contemplations, imaginations, assertions, memories, associations – these are the nourishment.

…….

Love and Aashirvad,
Swamiji.

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QUOTES FROM POOJYA SWAMIJI

O mind, be like the ocean. Greatness consists in receiving whatever comes and leaving whatever goes. Let any current flow in to your depths. Also let any expression emerge and proceed from your surface. Be stable, deep and profound, bestowing your grace and ensuring the wellbeing of all.

- Swamiji

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Viraha, separation, is a useful counter to love, and only by viraha real love can be lead to its climax and fruition. Viraha makes the mind shrink and close up within itself, whereby the outgoing urges abate. Is not the Soul inward to the mind? So by the pangs of separation, the mind has a greater chance to meet the beloved in the form of its own subject – the Atma.

- Swamiji

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