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Discourse by Swami Suryananda
on the 6th May 2007
Given during Sunday
Subramanium Mahabishekam
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Divine friends … welcome to Skanda
Vale.
I’d like to say a few words to you
about coming on pilgrimage and what it means to you. You’ve all travelled
a long way today, many of you from London, from the Midlands and from
all over the country ... and what is the purpose of this journey? Is the
purpose of this journey just to come and see a temple that other people
have told you about … to come and see for yourself what’s going on here,
or to ask for something from God? The purpose of this journey should be
for you to come and identify with God. To identify your paramatma, your
divinity, with the totality of almighty God.
When you come on pilgrimage, you’re
coming to a holy place. Temples all around the world are centers of
pilgrimage because in those temples there is a reservoir of divine
energy, divine grace and power. God comes and manifests in these places
of worship - not just temples but mosques, synagogues, churches – it’s
not an exclusive club. God manifests in these places so that when people
come on pilgrimage they can draw that energy and grace of God into their
lives to help them identify with almighty God.
Why does God come here and manifest?
Why does God manifest in places such as this? It is because we make an
effort in our lives to follow dharma. Dharma is the right way of living.
Satyam, Dharma, Shanti and Prema. Satyam is absolute truth. You have to
have the capacity to be truthful to almighty God, to be true to God
within you, within your life. When you have that capacity and you follow
Dharma, which is the right way of living, which is embodied in every
single religion in the world, then the divinity within you, your true
nature, your paramatma which is Prema, love, can then shine forward …
and your life is filled with Shanti … with peace. This is what Sanathana
Dharma is about. It’s what the timeless consciousness of God is about.
Living in that consciousness. Living mindfully. Being aware of the Karma
- the cause and effect – that you set in motion in your life through
your actions or your inactions.
We have to be so mindful here as
representatives of almighty God. Our job is to set an example in the way
we lead our lives. Our actions are scrutinized by people from all
quarters. Do we just talk good words or do we live what we believe in?
We experience God here. We experience the power, the Shakti and the
Anandam – the love of almighty God. This is why over 90,000 pilgrims a
year come to our temples. And we experience that grace because we rely
on God. We follow Dharma.
It is very easy in today’s day and
age to find excuses not to follow Dharma. It is very convenient not to
follow Dharma. Dharma is very simple … THOU SHALT NOT KILL. Why is life
sacred? Life is sacred because life is the opportunity given by God for
someone to evolve, pay off their Karma and realize their divinity. Only
God can give life. Only God can take life. Paramatma, the divine spark,
is in every single life-force, it is not unique to ourselves. Every
plant, every tree, every animal has this divinity embodied within it,
and is evolving through many cycles of life, as we are in this journey,
in this lifetime, to pay off our Karma, ultimately to realize our
divinity. This is why life is sacred.
In today’s day and age there are so
many people who do not recognize the sanctity of life. You see that all
over the world in the actions that governments take, in the actions that
individuals take. Life is devalued. The sanctity of life is devalued.
What is Hinduism? What is Buddhism? What does it all mean if you do not
follow the fundamental tenets of those religions, of those ways of life.
The sanctity of life is the fundamental aspect of religion, of
recognizing the embodiment of divinity in every single life-force.
Materialism, money, the pursuit of
wealth, the pursuit of property and so-called happiness through that, is
the preoccupation of many people in the world today. This pursuit can
then lead to Adharma. Because ones lower nature – greed, jealousy, envy,
the desire for power – all of that then comes into being to fuel that
desire for materialism. You can either follow Dharma or you can follow
Adharma in you life. There is no in-between. To follow Dharma you have
to have inner strength, you have to make sacrifices in your life. What
is the purpose of your birth? That purpose is to pay your Karma, to
evolve. God has given you an opportunity in this incarnation – most of
you are well fed, most of you have peace in your life, have education,
have stability, and there are millions of people in the world who do not
have this. That is your good Karma earned through many cycles of life.
You have this opportunity to realize that you are part of the nature of
God. You realize by coming to the temple that there is a higher
authority that you are accountable to and you have an opportunity to
form a partnership with God, to help you in your life to pay off your
Karma and realize your divinity.
We are faced at the moment in the
temple by forces of Adharma. By forces of great negativity. And these
forces are manifest in the form of the government. DEFRA, which is the department for the
countryside and rural affairs.
When someone in your family is sick,
when someone in your family is ill, most people would find the normal
way of dealing with it would be to take that person to a doctor, give
them medicine, you care for them, you look after them and they recover
or even if they don’t recover, they’re cared for. That is the action of
someone who follows Dharma. Compassion. Love. Caring. Understanding. You
do not kill someone who is ill in your family. You do not execute
someone who is ill in your family. God’s family embodies every single
life-force. …
We have here in the temple a bull,
his name is Shambo, and he has reacted to a bovine TB skin test. Now
this means he may have been exposed to TB bacteria and possibly have
bovine TB. He is in very good health. None of our other cows have reacted
to the test.
Now Shambo is part of the nature of
God. A cow and a bull in Sanatana Dharma are sacred animals. The
government has issued a slaughter notice saying they want to kill Shambo.
We have explained to the government that we will take every precaution
to safeguard his health, human health and wildlife. We have discussed
with our vet how we can deal with the situation in a positive manner,
however the government has so far refused to work with us and have stood
by their notice to kill him.
We have put Shambo in the Temple –Shambo
is a name of Lord Shiva because Nandi the bull is the vahana of Lord
Shiva. The cow and the bull are so sacred animals. Krishna! The love
that Krishna has for the cow and the bull. Govinda! Krishna’s immense
love for the cows and the bulls his whole life was about the universal
embodiment of Almighty God. We are in Lord Shiva’s Temple. Lord Murugan
is the energy of Lord Shiva. We must take every action to safeguard the
life of this very special member of our family. It is quite a daunting
thing! We do not want to be faced here with a situation where the
government are coming here and trying literally through aggression to
desecrate the Temple to take Shambo out and kill him.
The law of Karma is the law of cause
and effect through both action and inaction. We have a duty and
responsibility not to allow Shambo’s life, our religion and our Temple
to be desecrated by the forces of Adharma. It’s simple as that, you also
have that duty, that obligation to uphold Dharma, to support in any way
you can every effort to uphold Dharma, the sanctity of life and your
religious way of life. There are many people in the government today who
talk nice words about equality, about diversity, about embracing all of
the religions, but when it comes down to economics, when it comes down
to money, all of these nice words don’t mean a thing. They have no
respect for the sanctity of life. Look what happened when we had the
foot and mouth disease. How many millions of cows did they slaughter and
most of them were not sick. The same mass slaughter occurred in the
B.S.E crisis. Why did they not try and vaccinate? Why did they not spend
money trying to develop a treatment? Because it would economically hurt
meat export….That is the reason. Once killing takes place it becomes the
viable easy solution.
Now you have a decision to make, in
your communities when you go back home. You can act or you can not act.
As Krishna taught in the Gita, Karma, cause and effect, is either action
or inaction. If you don’t act and we don’t get support it is quite
likely that the government will come here – we will try our best to save
his life – but he will be dragged from the Temple and he will be
executed. That is a reality which may happen in the next few weeks.
Over 30 years we have been
established here serving the ethnic communities in the United Kingdom.
We never have asked for a penny for anything that we do here. Our life
as monks and nuns is committed and dedicated to serving God in you, in
all of life. Now we need your help, we need your assistance. When you go
home talk to your community groups, talk to your MPs, talk to the Hindu
Council, talk to any Hindu governing body or any Buddhist governing body
and make a big drama because unless we make a big drama the life of this
bull, of Shambo, will be lost. We do not want in any way to be involved
in violence or aggression. This is a peaceful protest but protest we
must, because if we do not make every effort to save his life where is
religion, where is spirituality?
Do you think if you don’t make an
effort to save has life you can then stand in front of Almighty God and
say “Can I have your grace to help me get a new job”, “Can I have your
grace to help me get a new house”, “May I be successful in my
examinations”, when the core of what you are meant to be doing in your
life – following Dharma – is not followed. Follow the core beliefs of
your life. When everything else is taken away what really matters is
your relationship with God, is discovering the Paramatma within you,
discovering the Divine spark within you. That is why you are born. You
are not born to just make money and enjoy life, that’s part of the
process of evolution. But you are born to come to realise your Divinity.
This is an opportunity given by the
grace of God. Why has God allowed Shambo to be involved in this drama
with the threat of his life being taken in this holy place? You may ask
that question. It is part of the divine leela. It is so the Lord can
test the validity of our commitment and of your commitment to serving
and relying on God. For people everywhere to begin to realise who God is
and acknowledge the sanctity of life in a society where life has been so
devalued. The Lord is providing you with an opportunity to serve God,
to really come to know Almighty God, and to follow Dharma.
Bless you.
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