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A HINDU
hermit from the Himalayas has come out of the tiger and cobra ridden jungles
of India to counsel materially-corrupt urbanized man why he is today facing
world-wide violence, misery, crime and impending annihilation.
Mahatma
Yogeshwarji (62) who studied the 'Self Enquiry" (Vichara) Path of the Great
Sage Ramana Maharishi paid a visit to South Africa this month to deliver a
series of talks on attaining inner spiritual peace and bliss in a rat-race
world of ruthless ambitions and corrupt materialism.
“One need
not flee to the Jungles and mountains to find inner bliss," the Mahatma said
in an interview in Lenasia. "One needs to flee from one's own ignorance out
of which arises all errors and evils.
"We need
to divorce ourselves from false and transient values such as material
possessions which serve no good and lasting purpose. We need to flee from
lust, greed, ambition, anger, envy, jealousy, hatred and attachment to
immoral and evil passions” Mahatma Yogeshwarji said.
He said
man forever desired material, possessions and false love. He ran after these
things, and once he possessed such, became a slave to them. Man's troubles
began when he became attached to these fleeting non-lasting things, because
when he lost them (be it love, money, clothing, cars and other property),
his whole world crumbled around him and he was plunged into misery and
grief.
The saints
and sages of India were blissfully happy eternally because unlike ordinary,
ignorant man, they rose above false values and instead sought the lasting
values that came from meditation and contemplation of God and through
selfless service to humanity without seeking recognition and rewards, This,
he said, was true Bhakti (Devotional) Yoga.
Mahatma
Yogeshwarji said crime, violence, wars, epidemics and other evils were the
results of evil and base passions which were being cultivated in spiritually
bankrupt men who were out of touch with God, the Lord of the Universe. Such
men were the prisoners of ignorance, the cause of all suffering.
People who
practiced yoga meditations daily and studied the scriptures such as the
Vedas and other revealed teachings of saints, sages and prophets, would
become free of the evils of the lower nature in man which flourished in the
darkness of ignorance, he said.
The great
sage Ramana Maharishi who passed on much of his wisdom and light to Mahatma
Yogeshwarji, died in April 1950 in Tiruvanmalai, South India. Mahatmaji
translated a number of Maharishi's books into Gujarati. He has also written
80 books himself. Several of the Maharishi’s works have also been translated
into English by his European disciples of the past like Paul Brunton, Arthur
Obsorne and Muni Sadhu.
Mahatma
Yogeshwarji said he did not belong to any particular sect. He saw good in
all enlightened spiritual paths including the mystical path of the Sufi
saints of Islam.
He said he
has been living in the Himalaya Mountains and jungles for 10 years. He
leaves this retreat when he has to travel around the world on his lecture
tours. "I speak on the Gita, Vedas, Bible, Koran and any other revealed
scriptures," he said. |
