The Flag of Victory

The hoisting of Prasanthi Flag on the Prasanthi Mandir (Hall of Worship) is the inaugural function of all festivals celebrated at the Prasanthi Nilayam. This has become an event looked forward to with eager expectation and enthusiasm by the thousands of devotees who gather here. But, most people do not know that the hoisting of the Flag is a meaningful signal of victory, and, even those who know, do not often recall to their minds what the victory is that is indicated by the hoisting of this particular flag.

Of course, as all of you have realized, the Dasara Festival marks the triumph of the forces of good over the forces of evil, of Parashakti (Supreme Divine Energy) in Her three Forms of Mahadurga, Mahalakshmi, and Mahasaraswati, subduing and destroying the demonic embodiments of lust, greed, hate, and other Rajasika (quality of pride and passion) and Tamasika (quality of inaction and ignorance) vices.

But, what is your share in this struggle and this victory? What impact should this ceremony have on you? This Prasanthi Flag symbolizes the victory that each of you has to achieve over the demonic urges that infect and torment you. The triumph that deserves to be celebrated here by you is the one accomplished over the forces of ignorance and delusion that, by their subtle and sinister influence, veil your true nature and reality and lead you into the desert wastes of the sensory world.

All That Are Created Undergo a Process of Change

Of what benefit is it to know everything about the ‘object’ while knowing nothing about the ‘subject’? Such incomplete knowledge is of no avail at all; to boast of it is tantamount to making oneself the target of ridicule!

Examine any object of Nature; examine anything, alive or inert, in Creation. You will observe that they all undergo a process of disintegration, transformation, and transmutation; they are never one moment what they were the previous moment! It is a flowing river; you cannot dip in the same water more than once! A seed fallen on the ground soon becomes different: a sprout! It fast becomes a sapling, a tree, with a variegated equipment of trunk, branch, twig, leaf, bud, bloom, and fruit! Each of these manifestations has a distinct color, got evidently from nowhere; it has a distinct feel, form, taste, and name, and so, it has a unique purpose and use. The seed itself disappears from the ground but is found multiplied a thousand-fold in identical forms, encased in each of the thousand fruits! What a grand mystery is this!

The same heap of clay is transformed by the deft hands of the potter into a vast variety of plates and pans. The one nugget of gold is transformed by the artistry of the smith into a fascinating array of beautiful jewels. These facts are within the experience of everyone. The fruit, the pot, and the jewel are ‘effects’; there can be no effect without a ‘cause.’ The seed, the heap of clay, and the nugget are the material causes, the gardener, the potter, and the goldsmith are the instrumental causes; the manipulative causes. So far as the creation of the manifoldness of the Universe is concerned we call Him, God.

When the Cosmos manifested through the Will of God, who is the Universal Absolute, It arose from the Absolute only since there was then, only ONE, just as even now there is only One, in spite of all this seeming variety. That Will which emanated from the Absolute persuaded us to see and experience Many; that is all that has happened. The One Reality is still the One, it has not undergone any change. We have superimposed on the One, the illusion of the Many!

Nature is God’s Body, Cosmos is His Will

God, therefore, is the material cause as well as the instrumental cause, the gold and the goldsmith, the potter and the clay, the seed as well as the tree. “Bijam mam Sarva bhutanam,” Krishna says in the Gita: “I am the seed of all the elements and all beings.” Nature is His Body; the Cosmos is His Will; the Vedas are His Breath.

The Sankhya School of thinkers declares that the objective world arose out of the conglomeration and conjunction of disparate atoms; but they do not pursue the matter and explain what induced the atoms to join with their kind in particular designs and groups. How does this urge arise? How does this awaken, within the minute atom? Who has planted this desire in the tiny heart of the atom? These questions are bypassed.

Most philosophers, especially in the West, ignore the problem of identifying the cause of all the effects we find every moment all around us. The Upanishats (integral wisdom of Vedas) declare, “Ekoham bahushyam—” “I am one, let me become many,” willed God; and God became all this, in response to that divine desire, the primal urge.

He became all this. He is, therefore, the Antar-atma (the Inner Reality); and the Antar-yami (the Inner Motivator). The Vedas declare “Vasudevah sarvamidam—” “All this is Vasudeva, God.” They all say, “Neha nanasti, kinchana—” “There is not the slightest trace of many-ness here.” Ekam eva—There is only ONE; advitiyam,—’Without a Second.

Realising and experiencing this basic Truth, becoming blissful and aware of one’s native Divinity is the victory that this Prasanthi Flag denotes.

Have you won that victory? No. Why then am I hoisting it for your exhilaration on this Festival Day? I am only hoisting it to instruct you, to inspire you, and to remind you of the precious heritage of Upanishadic wisdom, that your forefathers have earned and left for you. You are basking today in the sunshine of their glory; you have the chance to live on the fortune they have left behind for their children and children’s children. This Flag invites you all to share in that immeasurable treasure.

Prasanthi Nilayam, 16-10-1974.