ADVAITA-SAADHANAA
(Kanchi Maha-Swamigal’s Discourses)
33.
The four components of the armour of spirituality
The entire SAdhanA regimen
is a four-pronged army to fight the bad elements and capture the kingdom of the
Atman. The last of the four prongs was ‘mumukShutvaM’.
‘mumukShutvam’ has been all
along described as something to be achieved. What was there as a trace in the
beginning, slowly got intense and that intense desire for mokSha is to be
finally, at this stage, culminated to its peak intensity, by the intellect. Now
and then it might have happened that one has slipped into the depressing
thought: “Release of Bondage? Realisation? Not for poor me!” One should not
give way to such a thought. Not only that. One should develop the positive
attitude: “It is possible to achieve; to know the Truth. Why would it be
inaccessible, if persistent efforts are made? Guru’s Grace will manage all my
ups and downs. So let me yearn for the Release, for the Truth, with all
earnestness”. This should be done as an exercise. “Was I not a total ignoramus
once? Even for me the ascending steps of discrimination, dispassion, sense
control, shraddhA became gradually accessible. Guru’s Grace that has
brought me so far would not let me down. It should certainly be possible for me
– if only I intensely yearn for it”. This is the exercise of mumukShutA.
Advaita-saadhanaa 110
Here
ends the SAdhanA-chatushTayaM. But remember, this is only the
middle stage – second stage. Higher than this is the third stage.
34.
Prior to the three components of the third stage
After practising well the
four parts of SAdhanA-chatushTayaM, one obtains through a Guru
the Ashrama of Sannyasa as also the teaching of the mahA-vAkya, and learns from
him all the traditional Shastraic knowledge along with direct experiential
information. All these are learnt by the intellect, churned and digested into a
heart-felt experience by constant meditation. These are the componenets of the
third stage. After such persistent meditation , one attains
Brahman-Realisation. That is the Release from Bondage; the Realisation of
Truth.
These are usually sequenced
as three components: ‘shravaNa’, ‘manana’ and ‘nididhyAsana’.
So naturally you would
expect me to take up the topic of ‘shravaNa’ now. But I am going to disappoint
you. However you cannot fault me for that. Because the Acharya himself has
‘disappointed’ us at this stage. I am only following him in this disappointing
act!
See the Viveka Chudamani.
We have been following that in all these discourses so far. Because that is the
Acharya’s own magnum opus. After talking about mumukShutvaM, and then saying
words of encouragement to the low-level and intermediate level sAdhakas, then
he says at the point of winding up the SAdhanA-chatushTayaM,
(shlokas 29,30 or 30,31): “ It is true that, if dispassion and mumukShutA are
not intense but mild, then the Atman will not show up. In that low level, even
if there is an appearance of the mind calming down, it is only a mirage-like
show.But don’t lose heart. Don’t lose faith. Try to intensify the dispassion as
well as the mumukShutA. Then, even the low-level as well as the intermediate
level people can rise to the peak of excellence of controlling the mind. And by
that means one can reach success also”. Thus he ends the SAdhanA-chatushTayaM.
This is where one expects
him to go to the topic of shravaNaM. But he starts a new topic, namely, Bhakti!
Maha-swamigal’s Discourses 111
35.
Bhakti and its place in the path of jnAna
Viveka-ChudaMAnI (#31 / 32)
mokSha-kAraNa-sAmagryAM
bhaktireva gharIyasI /
svasvarUpA-nusandhAnaM
bhaktir-ity-abhidhIyate //
mumukShu is one who longs
for mokSha. To help in the obtaining of that mokSha there are many procedures,
many instruments of help. The processes of ‘shravaNa, manana and nididhyAsana’
(hearing, thinking and contemplation) are of such kind. All the components of SAdhanA-chatushTayaM
(the set of four disciplines of the SAdhanA) that we have been
talking about all along are only such instruments of help. Collectively they
are all called ‘sAmagrI’. It is not ‘sAma-kriyA’ as is wrongly spoken of in the
Tamil world; it has no connection with ‘kriyA’. When several things form
necessary accessories to a certain object to be attained, they are together
called ‘sAmagrI’. We use the same word in the sense of ‘instrument for help’
(upakaraNa). Here the word used is *mokSha-kAraNa-sAmagryAM*. This therefore
means ‘among the instruments of help for the obtaining of mokSha’. *gharIyasI*
means ‘that which has weight’. Among the eight siddhis the process of becoming
heavy like a rock is called ‘gharimA’. ‘gharIyasI’ means ‘heavy’ and ‘heavy’ implies
importance and connotes ‘the best’. This is the meaning carried into the word
‘ghanavAn’ (a prominent figure). So here the Acharya says: ‘the best among such
instruments of help that lead to mokSha’. And what does he indicate as ‘the
best’?
This is where he brings in
‘Bhakti’!
It is the Acharya who
delineated for us the SAdhanA-chatushTayaM, followed by shravaNa,
manana and nididhyAsana. That completes the path – is the general
understanding. But here he suddenly brings in something which is not there and
says that is the most important instrument of help!
Whereas jnAna and
bhakti are known to be two distinct paths to mokSha, it is he who wrote the
Viveka-chUDAmaNi for us and chalked out the SAdhanA regimen, which is
supposed to take us along the jnAna path. But in that very path, he
gives so much importance to bhakti! He says the prime instrument of help for
mokSha is bhakti!
In the jnAna path,
that he presents and publicly preaches for the world, it is not as if there is
no place for bhakti. But that place is at the very beginning, at the baseline.
In other words it comes even before one starts the four-component-SAdhanA.
Even before one gets admitted to his college
of JnAna, karma
and bhakti are subjects that should have been Advaita-saadhanaa 112
finished!
The eligibility for proceeding on the jnAna path is a mind which is pure
and potentially capable of one-pointedness. Only then can entry be made in this
path. In order to get that very eligibility, he prescribed desireless action
for purifying the mind and also worship with devotion for disciplining oneself
to become one-pointed. In sum, Bhakti is something that is an external
component of (advaita) SAdhanA, far removed from the core regimen.
Among components there are
what are called external (*bahiranga*) and internal (*antaranga*) components.
The internal ones help directly in achieving the objective. External ones stay
far away and help indirectly. For example, take a large dinner arrangement. The
direct causes are the host and the occasion for which it is held. The farmer
who produced the groceries used in the dinner, the officer who procured them,
the shopkeepers who sold them, the cook who prepared the food, the one who
supplied the vessels and crockery -- are they not all of them a cause? Among
these, perhaps the cook and the servers may be included in the list of
‘internal’ components; but all the others are only ‘external’.
In the same way it is well
known that, in advaita tradition, jnAna is the internal SAdhanA-component
for mokSha, and for that jnAna to arise, the internal components are
shravaNa, manana and nididhyAsana, and, though not to that extent internal, but
still to be included as ‘internal’, the four of ‘SAdhanA-chatushTayaM’.
Outside of these are the ‘external’ components, namely karma and bhakti.
When such is the case, the
prime-most proponent Acharya of advaita declares the external component Bhakti
as a very important accessory (*sAmagryAM gharIyasI*) and makes it get the
status of an ‘internal’ component. How is that? Why so?
You might have expected a
Swami of advaita mutt to talk only of advaita; but it appears I have been
talking too long elaborately and in this process of my extensive talk, only
some of you might remember what I told you long ago: namely, the matter about
the two ‘grades’ – ‘lower’ and ‘higher’ – in both shraddhA and bhakti.
The Bhakti that was spoken of as a component for attaining one-pointedness of
mind, is the ‘lower grade’ bhakti -- a subject at the high school level. In
that context it is an ‘external’ component of advaita-SAdhanA. Now we
have come to the level of a post-graduate Ph.D. level; at this point, the
bhakti that is spoken of as *sAmagryAM gharIyasI* (the heaviest component)
belongs to the ‘higher grade’. Mark it; there is ‘the highest’ also. That
bhakti is what is done by a JnAni who has attained Enlightenment. Why he
does it, for what purpose and in what manner – these are questions for which
answers are known only to him! Maybe even he does not know. Only the
Maha-swamigal’s Discourses 113
Almighty
who makes him melt in that Love knows. That matter is outside of our
expositions.
What comes within our
exposition is the bhakti which is an ‘internal’ component-SAdhanA for
mokSha and which is spoken of *sAmagryAM gharIyasI*.
In order to know why the
Acharya brings it in this fashion, we have to first understand what Bhakti is.
36.
What is Bhakti?
A well-known general
opinion about Bhakti is that it is to think of the ParamAtmA as a ‘devatA
murti’ (form of a divine) with name and attributes and to lovingly worship that
form. It is difficult to keep that love at the mental level only; so we have
added to it certain actions like PujA (Ritual worship), darshan (of the deity)
in the temples, and recitation of devotional hymns. There is nothing wrong
here. But at the higher grade level of bhakti, one need not have to think of
the Almighty as a Divinity with a form: one should get into the habit of
showing love to the Almighty even when the latter is formless. When the deity
of devotion has a form with eyes, nose, ears and hands – four hands, eight
hands -- with decorative dress materials visible to the eyes, when we get to
know their attributes, glories, infinite compassion and grace through the
various puranas and hymns, it is easy to direct and focus our love on such a
divine form. Love is Bhakti. Among all expressions of Love, it is the highest
Love shown towards the Lord that is termed as Bhakti. It is easy to express
Bhakti which is nothing but Love towards a Divinity with form, that has attributes
pleasing to the mind. Whereas, to show Love towards a formless attributeless
ParamAtmA that is incomprehensible even by the mind, is certainly difficult.
Maybe it is difficult for
us at our level. Let it be. Left to us, let us be content with a divinity with
form, a PujA and a pilgrimage to pilgrim centres. But to those sAdhakAs who are
refined by their progress in SAdhanA-chatushTayaM (SAdhanA-set
of four), it is easy to place their Love on something which has neither form
nor attributes. Because, at their stage, it is not true that love sprouts only
towards a form with attributes and glorious deeds. On the other hand it is a
stage where love needs no object of love; it sprouts by itself. If that
sprouting is not followed in reality, even in that refined state, all that SAdhanA
will be swallowed by a burst of ego. Advaita-saadhanaa 114
He
will certainly get his MokSha because of all the SAdhanA he has done;
but that will happen perhaps after crores of years when the total universe goes
through the Grand Dissolution. What is this Ego that I am speaking of here?
What is this Grand Dissolution? I shall revert to these topics later. But right
now we should know what this Love is that I am talking about.
37.
What is Love?
What is Love? The same
Supreme Self has become all the souls. When thus there is a multiplicity of
lives, the mAyic drama of mutual distinctions takes place. And at the same
time, in the opposite direction, there is a welcome supreme force dispensed by
the Grace of the Almighty, that helps to unify all the distinct elements; this
is what is called Love. Usually human tendency is to gain something from the
other person. The opposite cure for this is Love, that produces a sense of
fulfilment by giving oneself to others. This is the difference between Desire
and Love. When we like something it means that we obtain a
satisfaction/happiness for ourselves from it. But when we love something or
some one it means we give satisfaction/happiness to that something or some one.
Desire implies receiving; Love indicates giving. Our happiness happens only
when the other being has some treasure of either form (rUpa) or of quality
(guNa), or, even, of money; only when the other being has one of these or
something similar that we may acquire, we get the happiness that we expect. The
attachment to the other being that we develop for this very purpose is what is
called Desire. This is wrongly thought to be Love.
Love is what arises when
our internal organ (*antaH-karaNaM*) is at its noblest height. Then it is that
the mind and intellect are drawn into the Ego, and the antaHkaraNaM changes its
location to the heart and works from there.
[At this point, the
collator, Shri R. Ganapathy has this note:
“As far as I know,
this thought and the consequent thoughts
that follow this
seem to be new. Except on this occasion, even the Mahaswamigal is not known to
have spoken about these.
Regarding this,
when he was asked to add further details,
he said: ‘Whatever
was said that day, that is all’
and thus put an end
to any further discussion”]
Mother Goddess is Love
personified. So in Her creation, even the most cruel beings have been blessed
to show Love some time. And for those who have refined their mind by SAdhanA
there arises the possibility of Maha-swamigal’s Discourses 115
the
sprouting of Love all the time. And that is when the heart becomes the
permanent location of the antaHkaraNaM.
38:
Inner Organ and Heart
[Note by VK: I found the
translation of the dense material in this Section (and a few following sections)
very difficult. Either my English is not up to the mark or my knowledge of the
subject-matter is not enough (or both!). So, reader, please read carefully and
let me know how the translation can be improved. But let me also tell you. To
my knowledge, these portions have not been so elaborately and so authentically
clarified elsewhere in the literature. I therefore urge even those who have not
been reading through these discourses so far, to read these few sections].
Even though the word
‘inner’ (*antaH*) is there in ‘Inner Organ’ (*antaH-karaNaM*), in stead of
looking inside it is always turned outside. It is termed ‘inner organ’ because
it is subtle inside and not concretely visible from outside like arms, feet,
eyes, nose, etc. Its subject matter is the dualistic world and dualistic
experiences. Generally it is so with all jIvas. It thickens by the dirt of
experience and stays like the dirty and greasy stain attaching itself to
cooking vessels. This is a matter of the inner organ.
The heart that I speak of,
on the other hand, is again not the physical organ on the left side of the
chest of the human body. Nor is it the anAhata-chakra, located in the dead
centre of the chest, in the suShumnA nAdi that is within the spine. This heart
is indeed the location of the very Atman.
[Note by R.
Ganapthy, the collator of these discourses:
Shri Ramana
Maharishi used to say:
“The (spiritual)
heart, which is the location of the Atman
is within the right
chest of a jIva”]
Of course it is true that
the Atman is permeating everywhere in such a way that there is no space for
‘space’ and so no ‘location’ to be specified for the Atman. The words ‘sarvaM’
(all) and ‘vyApakaM’ (permeation) both need for their meaning the concept of
space, but it is true that space itself is subsumed by the Atman as to be
nowhere. However, for the mind (antaH-karaNaM) which is always drawn towards
duality, to be turned to non-duality by the Grace of God, and towards
meditation of the Atman, it needs some kind of a prop, at least mentally. For
this reason if one attributes a form or qualities to the Atman and makes it
totally ‘saguNa’ (with attributes) and dualistic, that is not right. Then
Advaita-saadhanaa 116
how
do we create the prop? The Formless one that is permeating everywhere is
something which surpasses all attempts to imagine it! That is why, even if the
Atman is not attributed with qualities and form, a point has, as it were, been
specified within the JIva’s body itself and the location of the Atman is
to be imagined there. Who has done this specification? No less than the
ParA-shakti Herself! She it is who showpieces all that dualistic MAyA.
And She Herself when She chooses to show compassion by bringing some one into
advaita has kept that unique ‘point’ as the ‘Atma-sthAnaM’ (location of the
Atman), where the antah-karaNaM (Inner Organ) can converge. The antaH-karaNaM
which lives on the strength of the individualistic JIva-bhAva created by
itself, as well as the life-breath which gives life to the whole body – both
merge into that single point, the single root of everything, The enlightenment
of the self as Self also takes place right at that point.
It is a ‘point’, very
small, like a needle eye. *nIvAra-shUkavat*, that is, as slender as the awn of
a paddy grain; it has been said to be that small. Within the heart, which is
like the bud of a lotus suspended in an inverted position, there is a subtle
space. From there spreads throughout the body a hot Fire, the Life-power; and
in the centre of that Fire there abides a tongue of Fire, dazzling like the
flash of lightning; that is the PrANa-agni. That ends up at the point as the
awn of a paddy grain. That point is the locale of the Atman (Atma-sthAnaM) –
says the Narayana SuktaM.
[Note by VK: A
question of language. What would be most appropriate?
‘locale’,
‘location’ or ‘habitat’ for *sthAnaM*?]
By the statement about the
subtle space-point which is the locale for the Atman in the heart, it follows
that all around the point there is the heart. That is also a small locale. The
Upanishads use the two words ‘daharaM’, ‘dahraM’ for this. Both mean ‘small’.
In later times this ‘dahraM’ became ‘dabhraM’. The heart and the Atma-sthAnaM
(location for the Atman) within are called ‘daharaM within daharaM’ and ‘dahraM
within dahraM’ in the Upanishads (Ch. U. VII- 1; Taittiriya AranyakaM XII –
16). The Absolute Reality of Brahman which is permeating everywhere ‘is’ in
such a small space.
The entire universe is the
cosmic expansion of the VirAT-purushha. The heart of this Cosmic Purushha is Chidambaram.
The ChitsabhA (the assembly in the temple there) is the ‘point’. This is the
meaning of the well-known facts: “It is a subtle gate; there is nothing but
space there. It is a secret. Among the kshetras corresponding to the five
elements, Chidambaram is the AkAsha (Space)”. Chit-sabhA is also called
‘dabra-sabhA’. The direct Tamil equivalent of this is ‘ciRRambalam’ (meaning
‘small ambalam’). The popular opinion that ‘ciRRambalam’ and Maha-swamigal’s
Discourses 117
‘cidambaram’
are mutations of the same word is wrong. ‘cit ambaraM’ means JnAna-AkAshaM
(Knowledge-space). The Sanskrit word ‘ambaraM’ has two meanings – one is
‘Space’, the other is, something unrelated to the present context, ‘cloth’. But
‘ambaraM’ never means ‘sabhA’ (assembly). But there is a Tamil worl ‘ambalam’ –
possibly derived from the Sanskrit word ‘ambaraM’; and that has two meanings:
‘space’ as well as ‘assembly’. The principle behind the Space-ambalam (in
Tamil) is also the God Nataraja of the Sabha-ambalam, namely the Assembly of
Dance.
That is the case of the
Cosmic Purushha. But in every one of us, in our hearts, there is a small subtle
gate, which is point-size.
I said the disposition of JIva
goes into that, shrinks and shrinks and finally merges there. This is what
happens when the JIva gets Godhood (of Shiva). It is delightfully called
‘Involution’. It is the submerging action, by a convex caving in, of something
which was expressing itself by expansion. On the other hand, Shiva who is
nothing but Sat (Existence), that is, the ParamAtmA, when he evolves into the JIva
with body, senses and antaHkaraNaM, that happens again in this same heart
by the sprouting of the ego in the expression ‘I am an individual JIva’.
I told you earlier I will tell you about ahamkAra (Ego). That is this matter.
AhamkAra is nothing but the thought of ‘I’ as distinct from Brahman. That
thought is the starting point (dramatically termed as ‘pillaiyAr chuzhi’ in the
Tamil world) of the process of evolution of Shiva into a JIva.
Evolution is called
‘SrshhTi-kramaM’ (the regimen of creation) and Involution is called
‘Laya-kramaM’ (the regimen of dissolution). ‘Laya’ is also known as ‘samhAra’.
But I did not use that word lest you may be scared. The ‘samhAra’ word has no
connotation of freight. ‘hara’ means the action of grabbing. ‘sam-hAraM’ means
the process of the Lord taking us over fully (*saM*) into Himself!.
It is the heart that is the
locale at the time of creation for the ego to make the JIva separate
(from Brahman) as an individual separate from Brahman; it is the same heart
that is the locale at the time of dissolution (not ‘temporary’ but as a
permanent ‘identity’) for the inner organ to converge inwardly to the Ultimate.
Further when it converges further and stays at the sharp point at the centre of
the heart, that is when Enlightenment takes place.
Let it be. Note that both
when the JivAtma separates from the ParamAtmA and when it goes back and becomes
one with the ParamAtmA, the locale is the heart that we spoke of above. The
ordinary Advaita-saadhanaa 118
example
of the door of a house being both the entrance and the exit is good enough!
In the antaHkaraNaM there
are four entities: cittaM, manas (mind), buddhi (intellect) and
ahamkAraM (Ego). Of these the locale for the mind is the neck. That of the Ego
is the heart. That of the intellect is the face. CittaM is specifically
referred as memory power. When it is the memory power its locale is the navel.
But really, the basics of all the three, namely, mind, intellect and ego is
that which is called thought and this originates from cittaM. Therefore cittam
does not need a separate locale for itself. When we vacillate between this
decision and that, cittaM is at the neck. When we finally decide, by our
intellect, to do something in a certain way , cittaM is in the face. When we
establish ourselves as ‘I, the JIva’, cittaM is in the heart which is
the locale for the Ego.
39.
Ego and Love
It is this false ‘I’ that
has to become the real ‘I’. One has to give it some prop of something which can
help it unify with Brahman from which it has separated and now has to be turned
away from the multifarious objects of this dualistic unverse. It is necessary
to make the Inner Organ go back to the Atman-locale in the heart. The Inner
Organ is the conglomerate of the mind, the intellect and Ego. The Ego is the
false ‘I’ which has fattened itself by its appropriation of things and objects
from the pluralistic variety of the universe.The mind and the intellect
function at the basic prompting of the Ego. When somebody has fattened himself
well, how can he go through a small gate? When a fat person arrives at our
house don’t we sometimes make fun of him by saying that our entrance has to be
demolished and redone to admit him?! But this gate (of the heart) cannot be
broken or hammered into a smaller one! We have only to make the whole person
(Ego) leaner! How to make him leaner?
How did he (the Ego) become
fat? Seeing everything as distinct from everything else, he has been annexing
and accumulating from this plurality and fattened himself. All that outer
coating has to be melted/dissolved away now. Not only that. Afterwards that ego
which is making him think of himself as a separate JIva has to be melted
away. Only if it is reduced thus, it can hope to enter that small needle point
through the heart and reach that advaitic bliss of the Atman within. How can
that be done? – is the question. It can be done only by practice of ‘Love’!
The egoistic false ‘I’ has
been amassing left and right all along. That has to be changed to a process of
giving oneself in love – that is the only way Maha-swamigal’s Discourses 119
to
reduce the fat ‘I’ to a lean ‘I’. That, and nothing else, is the route to go to
the locale of the Atman.
One may ask: Did not one
reduce the fatness of the Ego by dispassion, shama and dama? What
was reduced was only the fat in the mind and the intellect. It is true that
they were cleaned, sharpened, churned and reduced. But the Ego is more subtle
than these. It is the one which drags us into the mire of duality, without our
even knowing that it is so dragging us! We may not be outwardly bragging with
pride: “I have got dispassion; shama and dama, etc. have been
achieved by me”. But inwardly without our being conscious of it, this
individualised ego which has separated itself from the ParamAtmA, will be
patting itself on its achievements. Actually the gains in Atma-SAdhanA,
that have so far been obtained, along with the individuality, should be melted
away in the Atman. Instead of that, the ego appropriates all the honours to
itself. And it thus fattens itself! It is the feeling of individuality that is
at the head of all these and that is what prevents it even of thinking to
reduce and merge into the locale of the Atman. In other words, the most important
thing needed for Brahman-Realisation, namely surrender of the ego, never takes
place.
The function of Love – the
noblest attitude of giving oneself up -- is exactly this: it prevents the ego
fattening itself on the great achievements and helps it to thin out.
Fortunately, the acquiring of discrimination, dispassion, shama, dama,
etc. have refined the antaH-karaNaM. So if only one makes the
determination, one can generate the necessary Love. And one can go on to
surrender the ego and the individuality and thus exhibit this Love.
40.
What is the object of Love of an Atma-sAdhaka?
But to whom do we exhibit
this Love? What is the object of this Love? To whom does one give himself up?
If it is to other people, other places, the nation, or the world – these things
are out of place at this stage. For, such an action will germinate an
attachment and a consequent danger! One need not forget the story of
JaDa-Bharata. In earlier stages, service to others, to the nation and to the
world are all good self-effacing acts that will result in the cleaning up of
the mind and so turn out to be very good. That belongs to Karma Yoga. But now
one is going on the JnAna path towards the discarding of everything that
is MAyA and, love or service towards the to-be-discarded MAyA world
is inconceivable. Of course it is true that a JnAni after he has
attained Brahman realisation sometimes does perform worldly service by the
prompting of the Almighty of the mAyic world. Our Acharya himself was one such.
But that was, Advaita-saadhanaa 120
after
the stage of influence by MAyA – in other words, one has established
himself as ‘MAyA-proof’! That JnAni is not doing things on his
own volition; he does them as an instrument of Ishvara. Thus love can be
expressed or exhibited either before one begins any such thing as advaita-SAdhanA
or, after one has attained Realisation, in the form of service to the world
or to individuals – but not at the present stage of advaita-SAdhanA that
we are discussing. One in a million who has engaged in this SAdhanA not
doing worldly service is also not a big loss to the world. In fact it is the
other way. It is we who have to do service to him with the thought: “We have
got ourselves into the mire of samsAra. At least some rare person is
struggling to get the Release. Let us do whatever we can to smoothen his
journey of life”.
Thus neither to individuals
nor to the society does this sAdhaka have to show his love. That does
not mean he has to be inimical to society. There is neither love nor hate.
Non-violence is his first characteristic – by the very fact that he has taken a
promise at the time of taking SannyAsa, that not a single being shall have any
fear of me – in other words, “ I shall not harm in any way any living being”.
So he cannot have any hate towards any being or society. This absence of
hatred, however, which has come as the effect of the strength of his SAdhanA,
is not to be shown as an explicit love in the outside world.
However, when Love is
sprouting from inside, that nectar of love has to be poured to some one to whom
one should be giving oneself up – then only one can hope to reduce the ego and
enter the innermost small recess of the heart. Who should be that some one, if
not the Atman itself?! Atman should be wooed – that is what we said when we
were talking about mumukShutA. The wooing should become a surrender to the
Atman in a spirit of dedication of the self. The Atman should not only take
over the individuality but actually ‘vanquish’ it to nothingness – that should
be the attitude of Love towards the Atman!. Maybe before the Atman reveals
itself, one has to go through severe testing. The readiness for such testing is
to be shown by the attitude: “ Am I keeping anything with me without being
offered to you? Then why all these tests? I am ready to be consumed by you”.
This is where Love turns into Bhakti!
Love placed in the noblest
of objects is Bhakti. Love placed on our equals is friendship. Love reposed in
elders whether they are noble or not, is respect. Love placed in younger ones,
or those below us, is grace. Love placed in those who suffer is compassion.
Love placed in noble ones with humility is Bhakti. The noblest object is God
and so if we humbly submit to Him with Love that is Bhakti. This Bhakti then
becomes Guru Bhakti, Matru Bhakti, PitR bhakti, Bhakti towards our nation and
so on. Maha-swamigal’s Discourses 121
Among
these, only God and the Guru can really take our Love as well as our individual
‘I’ and melt it in the universal ‘I’.
The SadhakA on the jNaNA
path is supposed to have his God, not with attributes, but as the
nirguNa-Atman. So he has to show his Love, Bhakti, only towards that Atman.
41.
Nirguna Bhakti and Saguna Bhakti
Just now I talked about the
Atman that tests, the Atman that reveals itself, the Atman that does the action
of taking over the surrendering self. “Do all these mean that the Atman is not
nirguNa but only a saguNa that does actions? If it is saguNa then that is not
our objective. How can that be so?” – such questions may arise. This is where
one has got to bring in shraddhA (Faith)! Our Acharya, who takes great
care to show us the way, has already created this bodyguard of shraddhA for
our protection! “Don’t ask questions about saguNa and nirguNa. The very
Upanishads which have talked elaborately about the nirguNa Atman has spoken at
this point only thus. Take that in full faith and give yourself up to the Atman
with Love. Thereafter you will be taken only to the nirguNa Absolute, so say
all the Upanishads. So proceed just on faith” – this is what you have to
repeatedly remind yourself and function.
If you want you may believe
that the nirguNa brahman, in order to shower its grace on you, works for just
that moment like saguNa, and then after sending you inside the core of your
heart, within there it remains nirguNa and takes you over. Instead of resorting
to such wishful thinking, the best thing would be to go forward with shraddhA
and shraddhA alone!
Memory does go back to the Ishvara
(saguNa brahman). As long as there is a mental action, thinking of anything
good does bring back the memory of Ishvara, who is the aggregate of all
that is good. Except for advaita, all the other schools of thought earmark him
as the destination. How can an advaita-sAdhaka not think about Him? But
when that thought does occur, start thinking: “Oh Lord, it is because of your
Mercy my mind has ventured into advaita. And by Your Grace I am moving on this
path little by little. I know you are doing all this, in your great compassion,
to take me over finally into your advaitic oneness. So if I now worship you as
a saguNa deity, I will be going against your own sankalpa. Please help me go
forward on this same path” This is a kind of expression of gratitude for the
path so far trodden and a prayer for the path that is remaining, so that the
mind still stays on the nirguNa principle. Advaita-saadhanaa 122
Gratitude,
that is very important. The Bhakti that arises out of this gratitude –
gratitude to Him who has directed us into this most remarkable advaita --
raises its head now and then. Of course we may have to maintain it for a very
short time and quickly resume our journey. However, this Bhakti of short
duration is so intense that all that bhakti that we did long ago for the
one-pointedness of the mind pales into insignificance. When we were carrying on
that Bhakti almost incessantly, it was like a routine, and sometime lifeless.
But now on our jnAna path, a certain bhakti shoots forth as if from an
underground spring, along with a sense of gratitude, and even though it is only
for a moment, it is full of life.
But since our objective is
nirguNa, even from this, the mind has to be turned off.
However, if there is the
thought that it might still be better if there is a saguNa-mUrti for directing
our Love, especially at the beginning of this advanced stage of SAdhanA,
then certainly there is the Guru. Pour all your Love and Bhakti on him. He will
lift you up and make you direct your Love towards the nirguNa. Has not our
Acharya said: *prasAdena guroH seyaM pravRttA sUyate phalaM* (See KDAS-46: Sec.
29) –‘By the Grace of the Guru, the effort will become pravRtta and will give
the desired result’.
After all what is Love? Is
it not what goes and attaches to you wholly? But here the thing to which we get
attached is not for being possessed by us. Instead it should possess us; that
is the anguish with which we get attached. What should go is the so-called
individual self or ego. To whatever we attach deeply for that very purpose,
that is Love, that is Bhakti.
But just because love or Bhakti
is but a deep attachment to something, it does not mean such an involvement in
chess or cricket or being a bibliophile is Love or Bhakti. Because such
attachment is all for fattening the individual ‘I’. In other words it feeds the
‘svayaM’ (the outer self). On the other hand feeding the ‘svayam’ (to the Self)
– that is, the ‘svayam’ is to be fed to the Self -- is Love or Bhakti. This is
the grand ‘svayamvaraM’ wherein the bride is ‘fed’ to the bridegroom!
Maha-swamigal’s Discourses 123
42.
Cooling life-giving Love
Another point to be noted
is this. What we are attached or involved in is something that has life. In the
name of this involvement our little self establishes a relationship. But
afterwards, this relationship, as well as itself are all gone and it becomes
that. This is Love. Life! That is important. Life unites thus with life. That
is Love. Can you imagine chess or cricket having life?
But we know monumental
examples where the practitioners of music, dance, literature give up all their
lives to such arts as if they are divines with life. And when they dwell at the
peak of excellence in their performance, we say “they performed as if in
trance, forgetting their self”. It only means, for that moment they gave
themselves up to those arts. And the ‘life’ within the art makes them reach a
peak of excellence.
In Science also the same
self-effacing ‘intuition’ produces the discoveries attributed to Einstein and
others. One may say that such scientists did not consider their Science as a
living devatA. But all living beings have a super-Being as their common source.
That central source is the root source of all the arts and sciences and of all
knowledge and action. When the scientists devote themselves heart and soul to
their science in a dedicated fashion, it is that common Universal Source of
Knowledge that sparks them with that intuition about new truths and
discoveries. Even in chess and cricket also this might happen. But in all
these, the beauty of the relationship of one soul giving its all to another
living soul is absent. That ‘mAdhurya-rasa’, the taste of sweetness, is what is
missing!
Starting from
nitya-anitya-vastu-vivekaM (discrimination between the real and the unreal),
the SAdhanA that goes through vairAgya (dispassion), shama (sense
control) and dama (mind control) and uparati (cessation), has been a dry
affair keeping everything as well as oneself dry like an inert object. There
has been no trace of a relationship with ticking life. If one goes that way one
will only end up in the emptiness advocated by BauddhaM. But Vedanta’s Brahman
is not emptiness. It is a fullness, full of the quintessence of bliss. The
Taittiriyopanishad has revelled that JIva in its Fullness becomes Bliss
itself (II – 7). It is the cit (Knowledge) that has become Life. It is the
essence of cit and Ananda, Fullness of cidAnanda. The whole concept of Bhakti
is to conceive of it as a living fullness, relate ourselves to it and develop
the thought that we should dissolve in that fullness. That is how through
Bhakti one cools and waters the dry SAdhanA regimen. Advaita-saadhanaa
124
When
we kept it dry, that was also justifiable. There are methods of cure where the
medicine is administered only after one is made to starve. Even among crops,
sometimes they are allowed to dry up and then only proper watering is done to
cool them and make them grow better. It is the same situation here. We usually
are in such a state where, in the mind, intellect and ahamkAra, thoughts,
feelings and determinations arise as food for them. It is necessary first to
dry them all up. By that very drying up the sprouting of love takes place by
which that very ahamkAra becomes ready to be offered as food to something else.
That is when it can be converted into Bhakti towards the Universal Source of
all Life.
Bhakti towards Brahman,
that is, the Atman, bhakti sometimes towards the saguNa Ishvara, bhakti
towards the Guru, all these are a must. One more bhakti is a must. You
remember, after all the four-component SAdhanA, one is now ready for the
SannyAsa and to receive the mahA-vAkya teaching. We are going to learn deeply
all the shAstras and Upanishads. These mantras as well as the philosophy
imbedded in them are equally living things, -- not just pieces of information
to be learnt from writing. They are living divine things. Just as the icons of
the temples which have been ritually invoked by PrANa-pratishhTA, the mantras
etc. are deities in the form of the akshharas (letters). We have to set up a
relationship with them, a sort of love that takes us to that state where we
ourselves melt into nothingness . These principles of philosophy that the Guru
teaches us and which are to be absorbed by manana and dhyAna, are wrongly
considered to be dry philosophy. They should be practised with great bhakti as if
they were equivalent to the icons with life. All along we have been doing SAdhanA
in a dry mechanical way; but hereafter we have to do the shravaNa, manana
etc. with great devotion that breathes a cold air.
The next step being
sannyAsa, one may think that this is the ‘dry’ stage in the SAdhanA. On
the other hand, the wet and cool weather is going to start only now. It is dry
only from the outside. The outside world thinks it is a ‘dry’ world which
discards the ‘outside’. But in reality that is the world that is full of the
coolness of nectar of love. Outside there is only bark and shell, but inside
there is the sweetness of coconut-water. That is the nectar of love which has
to be milked from the Thing that is inside everything. This is the stage of SannyAsa
that the Acharya has shown to us with great compassion. Maha-swamigal’s
Discourses 125
ADVAITA-SAADHANAA
(Kanchi Maha-Swamy’s Discourses)
Om Tat Sat
(Continued...)
(My humble salutations to the lotus feet of H H
Kanchi Mahaswamy, great devotees and Advaita Vedanta dot org for the collection)
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