I will explain the meaning of Response-able at the end, dear ones.
Swami Sivananda advocated for spiritual victory over the self as solution to outer conflicts. He viewed war as the “highest barbarism”, a crowning stupidity of humanity and a disgrace to civilization. He said that the root cause of wars are caused by materialism, forgetfulness of our divine nature and the egotistic actions of leaders. He stated that true peace is not just the absence of war, but a state of inner harmony, insisting that world peace can only be achieved by eradicating individual selfishness, greed and hatred.
His solution was practicing Ahimsa (non-violence) and enabling universal love and brotherhood. He spoke about the inner war with the mind, which was more terrible than the outer war with machine guns.
Dear ones, where does this place us? What should each one of us do?
Inner harmony: How do we accomplish this?
Becoming self-detached by overcoming our desires (pratyahara), changing ourselves by accepting others as we accept ourselves. Do we really practice this reflective behavior? It is an ongoing process.
It starts with Self-awareness. Self-awareness means that we learn to become a witness to our actions. It is not easy as after speaking thoughtlessly and rudely, we realize what we have done. We have to be constantly self-watchful.
The next step is now one must practice breath awareness. All of us are conscious of our breath. It is with us always, now we must treat it with love. Become aware that you are breathing in and out. It is a constant activity; you focus on it. Visualize it going in and out of the nostrils. Count it and start from counting backwards 27 times.
It is very simple because you are visualizing your breath, you are counting it and this results in your parasympathetic system taking over. You are in a relaxed state of mind. Your thoughts are not chilling. They are not happy but you are because you are seeing things as they are. You develop a sense of wellbeing which then develops into becoming response-able.
Please understand it is a Sadhana, which is ongoing. It is the only way we can become spiritually proactive. Spiritually proactive means we intentionally become “response-able” – having the ability to choose one’s response to life based on our inner spiritual maturity. This outcome will lead us to a world of peace, which is our sacred objective.
Aim Hrim Klim