Note: This and the following pages in this section are an extract of Swami Sarveshwarananda Giri's upcoming book,"Holy Life Stories", to be published by the Hariharananda Mission.

Sages and Scriptures

It is explained in the Upanishads that in the beginning God was all alone as One without manifestation. Furthermore, He had the desire to experience joy through His own multiplicity. The Lord projected an infinitesimal part of Himself as the manifested universe, then He covered Himself with the veil of maya so that He, in His myriad forms, would forget His divine essence and slowly awaken from the material dream to the spiritual reality.

Many people have argued about this explanation of divine creation. I once took my own protest to my spiritual teacher, Baba Hariharananda. “This is unfair; this is cruel,” I said. “Why is God creating such complications? If He wishes to be discovered, why is He hiding so well that no one can find Him?”

Baba replied, “Because there would be no creation if not for maya; there would be no trouble. If there were no evil in the world, there would be no creation. The whole purpose of maya is for the joy of God to rediscover Himself, one soul at a time.”

I have read virtually every scripture of every religion, and I have never found a more satisfactory explanation than this. On the other hand, it still falls short of clarifying the supreme mystery of God. We will never understand this until we become God, until we fully wake up to that reality. Fortunately, God did not abandon us completely in the fog of maya. He left two vital guideposts along the way: sages and scriptures.

Scriptures are the manuals for living a God-centered life. Sages are the living example of a life perfectly attuned to God. One is the theory, the other is the practice. If you follow the scriptures, your life will gradually become more pure and more divine. If your life isn’t also associated with a sage: a saint, a master, a teacher or spiritual guide, the scriptures are only words devoid of deeper meaning. Words can be extremely confusing, especially to the limited intelligence of humans. A spiritual seeker needs a teacher who can interpret the scriptures according to the student’s power of comprehension.

In ancient times, the knowledge of reality was transmitted simultaneously by scriptures and sages. Today, most religions tend to rely solely on the written word, having lost almost all connection with the living, breathing, working scriptures—the sages. The role of the teacher, master, guru, tzaddikim, starets, or the rabbi, has decreased. The education has decreased. The teachers became more and more scholarly, and less and less practitioners of the works they studied. They increased their knowledge of commentary and memorized the Holy Scriptures, but they did not understand them from their own experience. As a result, virtually no religion currently teaches the scriptures as they were meant to be taught. Institutions and hierarchies of priests, scholars, and pundits fulfill their roles in society, but they do not transmit the direct knowledge of how to find God.

Naren’s Unsatiable Search for a Real Teacher

Mother Teresa wrote a beautiful letter: “Let us learn to be like our Lord Jesus who spent thirty years out of thirty three in silence and who began His ministry with forty days of silence, and He now teaches through silence after He completed His earthly ministry.” This observation encapsulates the humility of the true master. Spirituality is not about showiness, being popular, clever, intelligent, or well-rounded. It is about reaching the depth of silence where eternal wisdom springs forth, and distributing it freely to all. We need to learn how to exercise our spiritual discrimination so that we can find the real master. Many times people encounter a realized being, a great saint, a mahatma (“great soul,” and do not even recognize it. It happened in the time of Jesus, it happened in the times of Buddha, Rama, Krishna, Guru Nanak, and  countless others. Every great realized saint was misunderstood because of immature students, because of ego. It is our God-given duty to refine our intellects so that we can develop this spiritual discrimination. We should never accept a guru on blind faith. We have all seen the result of blind faith or extremism. A guru should always be tested, and some people test their guru more than others. I did not accept my teacher, Paramahamsa Hariharananda, for many years.

A young man called Narendranath, or Naren for short, was a very rebellious child in his youth, and he went from teacher to teacher asking them all, no matter what religion they were, the same question, “Have you seen God?”

Invariably, they would reply, “No, but I can tell you about Him and His marvels…” Naren would say, “No, thank you.” and would go away.

Naren kept asking and asking until he came across one person who said, “Yes, of course. I see Him just as clearly as you. No, actually that is not quite true—I see Him more clearly than I see you.” That was the great Bengali sage, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. Naren was astounded that someone had dared to say that with such authority, and he was deeply troubled by that answer.

He did not accept Ramakrishna at first. He loved him as a person, but he did not accept him as a guru. In the beginning stages he constantly criticized him, abused him, made fun of him, and ridiculed him. He called him an emotional, pathetic man, full of delusion, always crying to his Mother Kali. Naren was very proud of his intellectual prowess, of his own rationality. Still, he felt attracted to this man, even though he could not understand why. His rational mind violently rebelled against this saint, yet his heart was magnetically drawn to him.

One day Ramakrishna opened a little window in Naren’s soul. Apparently it happened in a very casual way. Many disciples were sitting around Ramakrishna when he called to Naren, “Please come and sit with me on the couch.” While Naren was sitting, Ramakrishna very nonchalantly stretched his leg and touched Naren's body with his foot. Immediately Naren went into samadhi. Merged in the supreme reality, Naren lost all worldly consciousness. Ramakrishna withdrew his foot with a little smile on his face. Slowly Naren returned to ordinary consciousness. “What did you do to me? I didn’t know who I was for a while,” Naren cried. “Are you a magician? Don't ever do that to me again." But that was the beginning of Naren’s transformation. After that, he quickly started to change. He wanted another taste of this reality, so he learned meditation and attained very high states. Because of this incident combined with devoted service to his master, young Naren later blossomed into the famous Swami Vivekananda, the pioneer of yoga and Vedanta in the West.

Sages and Saints

ekam sat viprah bahudha vadanti
“Truth is one, the sages speak of It variously.”
     - Rig Veda

Sages have spoken of this It through two main avenues: their speech (the theory), and their life (the practice). In fact, one rarely exists without the other. Although some sages chose to remain absorbed in complete silence, their lives still spoke volumes about holiness.

Some distinctions need to be made between the actual meanings of “saint” and “sage.” Saints are “works in progress” who provide inspiration for others to develop a quality they have exhibited perfectly in their lives, such as charity, devotion, endurance, forgiveness, and so on. Most religions have their own saints, some of whom may have displayed powers of healing and other miracles. The Roman Catholic Church has a very complicated process for declaring that certain members of their church belong in the category of saints. The first step is beatification; then there may be centuries of inquiries and investigation before the final step of veneration. In Hinduism, “saint” can be a title automatically given to monks of a certain order, or the title might connote honor given by disciples to their master, or conversely by a master to a chosen disciple. Judaism is an interesting exception, as those of the Jewish faith are often hesitant to call someone a saint. Living a good and pious life is the highest priority, this entails knowing and abiding strictly by the many commandments of the Torah and the Talmud. Elevating someone to divine status is less important.

Sages, on the other hand, are perfected beings in permanent contact with the divine source, having turned over all aspects of their lives completely to God. They are not merely manifesting a few attributes; they have ceased to exist for themselves. They have undergone a complete transformation. They are not a torch, they have become the fire. Their position in life is irrelevant to their spiritual status. They can be kings (like Janaka, Krishna, or Solomon), monks (like Buddha or Mahavira), or trench-diggers (like the Baal Shem Tov).

Direct knowledge of God is the only true measure of sagehood—not theological knowledge, political influence, piety, martyrdom, visions, prophecies, missionary or evangelical activity, social reformism, display of miracles, or super powers. Individuals should not be categorized as sages by their power to perform miracles alone, as it could be argued that some psychic powers may be observed in most people from time to time.

God’s creative plan needs both saints and sages to be fulfilled. Saints inspire by expressing a divine quality, while at the same time retaining their fundamental humanness. This is a crucial element, as perfected beings or avatars are too remote from the everyday reality of the general masses. Thankfully, saints may still make dreadful mistakes. Sages (and mystics) on the other hand are guideposts for the more advanced spiritual seekers who have developed the desire to completely eradicate all traces of their human nature and fully realize their divinity. They function as role models for devoted aspirants. These spiritual seekers are ready to completely dive into the reality of God. They are ready to kill whatever trace of animality is left in them in order to fully manifest their divinity. Sages are for everybody, but their most precious teachings and holy presence is mainly for the benefit of a particular group of souls.

Answering the questions “what is a saint? what is a sage? what is a mystic?” is difficult. While examining the lives of hundreds, finally I came across a beautiful definition from a great mother sage from India, called Ammachi:

“A sage is not the same as a saint. A saint is a person who is aspiring for God-Realization and who has reached a high degree of purity of mind. He does experience the Presence of God, but has not attained oneness with Him. He has still to work for Perfection. But a sage is one who has attained Union with the Supreme Reality and has become permanently established in that Consciousness. Such sages are considered austere in the sense of not being frivolous. In other words, they are serious. They are always centered in God. Even if they make jokes, there will be a very serious purpose behind that, to bring people to God. Neither do they lead a luxurious life. They have nothing to do with luxury. Even if they were to live in a palace, it would be the same to them as if they were in a gutter, because they do not have body-consciousness like us. They have only the consciousness of the Self or God. These austere sages are free from anger and desire.”

Likewise, in the Bhagavad Gita, 5:20, there is a description of a sage:

“All around the austere sages, free from desire and wrath, who have subdued their mind and have realized the Self, radiate the beatific peace of Brahman the Absolute.”

The difference between a sage and a saint could also be explained as the difference between knowledge and wisdom. We can gain knowledge of anything, even spiritual matters, but wisdom is beyond knowledge. Wisdom belongs to the realm of super-consciousness attained in deep meditation (paravastha, in Sanskrit.) Knowledge belongs to the realm of what we do in the world right now. We can share knowledge, but can never get wisdom from this kind of reading.

To get wisdom we must shut off all of your senses; introvert the mind, and go to the state that is beyond thought. Lao Tzu, the founder of Taoism in China, gave a beautiful recipe. He said, “For knowledge, add a little every day. For wisdom, remove a little every day.”

Function of Saints and Sages

A very common mistake is to take sages’ lives, works, or sayings, as absolute Truth. Since they have access to the absolute Truth, we think that everything they say must be absolutely true. We must realize, however, that they have been appointed by God to take care of a special group of souls that will be attracted to them in a particular context, in a particular place. Their life, their works, and their teachings are directed toward that group of souls in that particular time. It doesn't mean that they are selling partial truth. They are teaching the eternal Truth, but they are customizing it to the power of comprehension of the particular flock that has been appointed to them.

When we hear Neem Karoli Baba for instance say that the path of devotion is the only path to God, that is true for their group. If you start to compare this teaching with another great master who says the way to God is only through introspection, such as Ramana Maharshi, they seem to contradict each other. How can they be talking about the same Truth? But they are, in a way their own disciples can best understand. This is a very important function of sages. They transmit and adapt eternal truth for a certain time, for a certain group of people.

Each individual life is a metaphor for an invisible story written by God. In the plot of a novel, there are good and bad characters, minor and major roles. Saints or sages play major roles for the Good. Every aspect of their lives is a hidden message for those who have the eyes to see it. They are living scriptures. Every saint and sage also embodies a particular attribute necessary to successfully complete the spiritual journey. Hence Harischandra was tested for his truth, Mira for her love of God, Buddha for his renunciation, Gandhi for his ahimsa (vow of non-violence), Sita for her chastity, Padmapada for his service to his teacher, the Gopis for their self-surrender, Sabari for her patience, and Shams-i-Tabriz for his conviction that he was God. 

How do we find our master? That is the riddle of life that everyone has to solve. When we have found him or her, let us give in to them as if our very life depended on it, because it took our soul millions of incarnations to find that person. For eons, we worked very hard to find someone who has the Reality, who has the eternal Truth, and who knows how to impart It. That is what is extraordinary about having met a master. People who engage in constant spiritual window-shopping do not know what they are missing. They think “the more the better,” so they collect teachers, and thus they collect confusion. Nonetheless, “shopping around” is also part of their karma; through this experience, eventually, they will find their teacher.

Anandamoyee Ma, another great sage from India said:

“A saint is like a tree. He does not call anyone, neither does he send anyone away. He gives shelter to whoever cares to come, be it a man, woman, child, or an animal. If you sit under a tree it will protect you from the inclemency of the weather, from the scorching sun as well as from pouring rain, and it will give you flowers and fruit. Whether a human being enjoys them or a bird tastes of them matters little to the tree; its produce is there for anyone who comes and takes it. And last, but not least, it gives itself. How itself? The fruit contains the seeds for new trees of a similar kind. So by sitting under a tree you will get shelter, shade, flowers, fruit and in due course, you will come to know yourself.”

You will become a tree. That is the promise of all masters and that is our responsibility. Paramahamsa Hariharananda has said many times, “I have not come here to make disciples, I have come to make masters.” At other times he says, “You must become greater than Hariharananda.”

Yes, it is a tall order, but God expects that we all become godlike.
 

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