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The Importance of the Satarudriya

The Importance of the Satarudriya by Swami Krishnananda

Created on Sunday 30 June 2013 14:38

(Spoken on Sivaratri in 1980)

*READ MORE \* The Importance of the Satarudriya

We celebrate the day and the night in honour of the great God whose majesty and glory is described in ecstasy, especially in the Rudra Adhyaya, or the Satarudriya, of the Veda. Every Siva temple has this daily programme of worship and abhisheka to the great Lord Siva with the recitation of the famous mantras known as Satarudriya – also known as Rudra Adhyaya – which occur in the Yajur Veda. It may well be said that these wondrous Vedic hymns known as the Satarudriya are a sort of magnum opus of spiritual ecstasy, an insight into whose significance and meaning should make one’s hair stand on end.

It is difficult to fathom the depth of the revelation and the feeling of the sage or the rishi to whom these visions were bequeathed by the Almighty. We have very few passages, prayers, hymns or stotras in religious literature comparable with this mighty Satarudriya, wherein everything that we can conceive of in respect of God humanly is portrayed in the language of spiritual intuition. Often it would appear that man is not supposed to understand its meaning, on account of the comprehensiveness of its approach and the profundity of the revelation that is contained therein.

No one can recite these Satarudriya mantras without having one’s sins cleansed at once from their very roots, if only one would have the leisure and the patience to go into the internal connections and the suggestiveness that is implied in these mantras. It will it is not a prayer to one God or to any particular God. Satarudriya, the name of the hymn, has several meanings: prayer to the hundred thousand Rudras – or to the Rudra appearing in a hundred thousand forms – who is Siva at the same time. Rudra yatte dakshinam mukham tena mam pahi nityam is an oft-quoted prayer. The power of God is also the terror of the human individual, while at the same time it is the most beneficent blessing that can ever be anywhere. Hence it is that the great Lord is often designated as Rudra-Siva, who has perpetually blended in His being the aspects of creation, sustenance and transformation of all things.

Those who recite these Satarudriya mantras in temples many a time chant them as a kind of routine, without bestowing sufficient thought on their implications. Most of our chanting becomes mechanical in the course of time, and we go on chanting mantras, repeating prayers and singing hymns automatically like the movement of the wheels of a vehicle, but the spirit behind the recitation can easily be lost when it becomes an everyday programme rather than a surge of the spirit or the call of the soul during moments of meditation and communion with the Almighty. A very beautiful English translation almost approaching the original in its meaning and suggestiveness has been published by the Sri Ramana Ashram; and there are very good Sanskrit commentaries, right from the one written by the great Sanyacharya, which gives us an insight into the extent to which some minds in ancient times could reach in their search for the reality of life.

One who recites these mantras of the Satarudriya is apt to feel that the person to whom these were revealed, who had this vision, was breaking up into pieces and his personality was scattered in various directions. He was dancing in madness of divine possession. And one who soulfully recites these mantras cannot afford to miss also being possessed by this power of ecstasy where the body, mind and the spirit are brought together in unison and forced to forge onward in the direction of the directionless Absolute.

Very mysteriously and curiously, the mantra Namah Sivaya, which devotees have been chanting today right from morning onwards, occurs in the middle of the Satarudriya mantras of the Veda. Very few of the normally accepted mantras occur in the Veda Samhita, but this occurs in the very middle of the Samhita. Namah sankaraya ca mayaskaraya ca nama sivaya ca sivataraya ca is the passage wherein the mantra Namah Sivaya occurs.

This morning someone asked me, “What is this mantra? What is the rishi? What is the chhandas and what is the devata?” I tried to explain that the mantra is a magazine of force. It is a hidden potency which is charged with a capacity which comes from various factors that go to constitute the importance of the mantra. The mantra does not necessarily mean merely the letters which are juxtaposed to constitute the formula, just as language does not mean merely the letters or the combination of the letters, but a hidden cementing power which gives the suggestion of meaning as latent inbetween the juxtaposition of the letters.

Therefore, the sound symbol which is the mantra is a compound of various elements that lose themselves in a fraternal embrace, as it were, to form a single indivisibility – just as, to give a very mundane example, when we sip a cup of tea, there is not merely the taste of milk, there is not merely the taste of sugar, there is not merely the taste of tea leaves, but there is a blend which is what is called the decoction. Or, to give another example, when we taste a delicious dish, we do not merely taste the salt and the other ingredients that constitute the dish. It is a new element altogether that crops up as a compound. The same is the case with a medical prescription; the components lose their individualities and enter into the formation of a new significance, which is the synthesis of the ingredients. Hence, the beauty of language, the style of expression and the significance of literature are elements that invisibly pervade the visible characters of the alphabet of any language.

Such is the meaning of what is known as the chhandas, or the metre of a mantra. The metre, or the chhandas, is the method of the bringing together of the letters of the mantra, by which they form a totality of energy and no more exist merely as letters; they melt themselves in the menstruum of what is known as the mantra. In the Alankara Sastra, which is a treatise on the rhetoric of the Sanskrit language, descriptions are given of what are known as ganas. This science has been lost in modern times. Gana is the force that is behind every letter and the significance that it conveys when it is placed in a particular position. If a sloka, a verse, a formula or a hymn is to convey the required significance or meaning, a particular letter should come in the beginning, a particular letter should come in the middle, and so on. The mantras are not haphazard chanting; they are scientifically organised systems of sound formation. So much may be said about the meaning of chhandas that is behind the mantras, whether Vaidika or Tantrika.

There is also the rishi, or the author, we may say. We know what role the author’s mind plays in the meaning that is conveyed by a textbook. The mind of the author pervades the entire book of which he is the writer or the formulator. The force of the author’s thought is to be seen throughout the book which he has written, from the first page to the last. When we read a powerful text, we do not see merely the letters. We enter into an ocean of thought-force, which is conveyed through the symbols of the letters which are visible on the pages of the text. Likewise is the role that is played by the great master, or rishi, to whom the mantra is revealed in meditation. We do not say that the mantra is created or written down or invented by a rishi. According to accepted theories, the Vedas are not written-down texts. The author of the Veda is unknown. The belief is that these mantras are eternal sound symbols, perpetually existing in the ether of the cosmos, never getting destroyed even during the time of dissolution. Therefore, there is no such thing as destruction of the Vedas or destruction of the knowledge, as the Vedas are more than just books. The idea is that the subtle, etheric tanmatric symbols of force, which become grossly manifest in the sound symbols audible to the ears, are indestructible. They are ultimately certain patterns of thought which become patterns of external sound symbols, grossening further into letters which are written on a palm leaf or paper, etc.

Finally, the vibration alone exists, and there is no substance. The Veda is not a solid book; it is not a visible substance; it is not a textbook. It is a symbol of the ethereal energy pervading in the form of the potency which can transform itself into certain patterns of expression at given moments of time. Modern science and modern thinkers on the basis of modern science have almost come to the borderland of accepting this great truth which is revealed in the original science of India known as sphota vada, the doctrine of sound. As I mentioned, all these sciences are becoming lost. Bhartrihari wrote a great book, called Vakyapadiya, on ancient Sanskrit grammar, which goes deep into the significance of sphota. Much of it has been mentioned by Acharya Sankara and others in their commentaries on the Brahma Sutras. However, the point is that the mantra is a super-sensible potency and a latency of energy, which is brought into contact with the mind of the meditator.

We are also told that the mantra is revealed to the rishi. Remembering the rishi gives us a blessing from that person. When we recite the mantra, we are supposed to remember the great person to whom it was revealed. For instance, when we refer to The Commentary of the Bhagavadgita by Swami Sivananda, the very name Sivananda thrills us in a particular manner. The great work The Life Divine by Sri Aurobindo immediately rouses our feelings, which is in consonance with Sri Aurobindo. It is the same with Ramana Maharshi. The moment we hear the names of the authors or the persons to whom the mantras were revealed, we are suddenly stirred up into a spiritual mood. So there is a great point in our being asked to remember the rishi when we recite the mantra, chant the formula or the symbol.

I already mentioned the chhandas. The components of the mantra are very important. I mentioned what are known in Sanskrit rhetoric as Gana Shastras. It is very difficult to explain these things. According to the science of Gana Shastra, the letters of the mantra are arranged in a particular manner by the very power of the intuition of the sage. They are not mathematically concocted or invented.

Then, above all these, there is the devata, or the deity of the mantra, who is embodied in the sound of the mantra. Just as the soul is embodied in this physical frame, just as the idea of the artist is embodied in the painted picture, just as the idea or the thought of the architect is seen in the building or the structure raised by him, the will of the deity – the force and the pattern of the form of the deity – is supposed to be visibly expressed in the vibrations that are produced while the mantra is being recited. Experiments have been conducted and it has been found that when a mantra is chanted very intensely and soulfully, it can produce electromagnetic waves in such velocity that they can scatter sand particles that are spread out in front of the chanter, and these sand particles form a pattern equivalent to or at least approximate to what is supposed to be the form of the ishta devata, or the deity, of that mantra.

Therefore, the great mantra Namah Sivaya that we are reciting today, right from morning until the end of the puja tonight, is not a chant in the ordinary sense. No mantra is to be regarded as commonplace; it is sacred. It is not supposed to be chanted with an unclean mouth – after eating something without washing the teeth, etc. We are supposed to recite it in a holy mood, in a spirit of dedication and sanctity of aspiration, as if we are seated in front of God Himself.

The Rudra Adhyaya, to which I referred earlier, will be recited several times during the course of the worship on this auspicious Sivaratri. But many of you will not know what they are chanting. You will hear only some sound, some chant – that is all. It may sound like noise; but it is not noise. It is the pouring forth of the soul as it was revealed to that mastermind, the rishi.

The Rudra Adhyaya is highly purifying. There are two or three occasions in the course of the hymns of the Veda Samhitas when superb ecstasies are recorded. The Purusha Sukta is one such occasion. It occurs almost in every one of the Samhitas – in the Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda, Atharvaveda – where the incomprehensibility, the all-comprehensiveness and the might of the Almighty is devastatingly described. And I may say that the Satarudriya is even more devastating. It will make us dance in the ecstasy of divine possession if we know what it tells us. Prostration to every blessed thing! Whatever we can see, whatever we can hear, whatever we can touch, and whatever we can think, feel and understand is divine manifestation. God has spread Himself in this variety of the unintelligible creation, which stuns even the highest rationality of the modern mind.

The recitation of a mantra, especially of the type of the Satarudriya, is not merely an ordinary japa in the common sense of the term. It is our moving into the depths of the ocean of that comprehensive outlook which the mantra portrays in front of us.

The Satarudriya consists of two sections, the Namaka and the Chamaka. In the Namaka, which is the preceding portion, namah occurs many times: Prostrations, Prostrations, Prostrations; Salutations, Salutations, Salutations; Surrender, Surrender, Surrender. This prostration is expressed in an infinite way. Then comes the Chamaka: cha me, cha me, cha me. “Everything is to me; everything is to me; everything is mine.” There is nothing which is not ours here. “Everything may come to me.” Everything has to come to us as it has to come to God Himself.

One of the verses of the Bhagavadgita says, apuryamanam achalapratishtham samudram apah pravishanti yadvat tadvat kamayampravishanti sarve sa shantim apnoti na kama kami: “As rivers enter into ocean, everything enters into you.” We should not cry that we are paupers, beggars in this world – as if we have nothing, no friends, and are forlorn and outcaste. Everything is in our possession. Everything has to come to us when our will is expressed. At the affirmation of a single thought it has to materialise itself, provided – a tremendous provision indeed, of course – provided that our thought is in unison with the Almighty’s will. So, everything shall come to us. If everything shall go to God, why should it not come to us? We are amritasaya putrah, children of the Immortal. We are heir-apparent to the resources, the reservoir of the riches of the Almighty Himself.

Thus, the Chamaka portion invokes everything into ourselves in a divine insight into the all-comprehensiveness of God. We first of all surrender ourselves and become the very substance of God’s Being Itself, and then everything enters into us as rivers rush into the ocean. Wondrous! Many a time I become indescribably thrilled even when thinking of these Satarudriya mantras.

And so, on this auspicious occasion, may I request you all to bestow some thought upon these great legacies left to us by our ancestors of yore, the treasures which we are likely to overlook in the humdrum activities of modern comforts and distractions. The Veda Samhitas are reservoirs of all-force, all-power and all-meaning.

As I mentioned, there are a few occasions when such ecstasies are revealed in the Veda Mantras. One is Purusha Sukta; and another is the Satarudriya, which occurs in the Taittiriya Samhita of the Yajurveda and also in the Sukla Yajurveda. Another place where such majestic expressions can be found in the Vedas is a sukta in the earlier portions of the Rig Veda, where the story of creation in terms of the glory of the Sun-god is described. Here occurs the oft-quoted famous verse, ekam sat vipra bahudha vadanti, the one poets sing of in various ways. In the Atharva Veda there is the Skambha Sukta, which is not well known. It is something like the Purusha Sukta where the rishi to whom the mantra was revealed contemplates on the miracle of creation, putting the question to himself: “What is the substance out of which this great citadel of the cosmos has been created? What are the rafters? What is the wood that is used for building this cosmos? What are the building bricks?” etc. There are also other suktas in the Rigveda, such as the Hiranyagarbha Sukta and the Visvakarma Sukta.

How many of us have the time, the leisure, the mood, and the interest to go into these mysteries? We are too busy wasting our time on good-for-nothing things. It is very unfortunate. Our soul is not going to be satisfied by any modern gadget. We must have time in our lives to be a little serious. We should not be like foolish children, running about as if everything is all right. Anything can happen in this world, at any moment, because we do not possess an insight into the purposes of the universe. The universe has been planned in a particular manner by the will of the Absolute, and everything moves according to that plan. Things do not happen because we will or wish them to happen in a particular manner. Hence, we must be prepared to adjust ourselves to any circumstance that may manifest in our experience in accordance with the plan of the universe.

Therefore, it is high time that we seriously contemplate what is worthwhile in our lives. We are souls – not bodies, not even minds and intellects. We are not merely social units, citizens, passport holders, etc. We are something more than that. We are not even this physical body constituted of the five elements. The requirements of the body are not our real requirements. They are only tentative demands felt under certain given conditions. For instance, medicine is required when we are ill, but we cannot say that medicine is our final requirement. We may require food when we are hungry, but that is not our final requirement. That is not the only thing that we are asking for in this world. We are not that which asks for food, we are not that which asks for physical comfort, we are not that which asks for social recognition, and we are not that which seeks authority and position in life. We are something transcendent to all these things. When the time of crisis comes, we throw off everything; and suddenly, to our consternation, we realise that we are the most valuable thing in the world. The most valuable and precious treasure in the world is ourselves, not what we possess – not our dollars and pounds and rupees, not our land and buildings, not even our friends. They can leave us in one second when the plan of the cosmos requires that to happen.

Yatha kashtham cha kashtham cha sameyatam mahodadhau, sametvicham yateyantam tatvad bhutasamagamah says the Mahabharata in a very famous passage: Just as logs of wood in the ocean come together as friends, as it were, but then separate, so also people come together and separate. We know how logs of wood meet on the surface of the ocean. They come together due to the current; and when the current moves in a different direction, they are separated. Likewise is friendship and bereavement. Therefore, the idea that we have friends is a false notion. Our friendships in society and our relationships with anything in this world are like the relationships that one log of wood in the ocean has with other logs. Sometimes one log collides with another – embraces another, as it were, as a friend. And then it is suddenly cast off in a different direction by the current of the water and by the wind that blows. When the wind of the plan of the universe blows us in some other direction, we should not cry that we have lost everything. We do not lose anything, we are only participants in the great plan of God; and one who is ignorant of this will reap sorrow, just as one who is ignorant of any law reaps some grief as a consequence thereof.

May we have the blessedness and the blessing of the mighty Rudra Siva, the Great Lord whom we are worshipping today, that He may bless us with understanding – dhiyo yo nah prachodayat. We ask for nothing from God except enlightenment, understanding, insight and comprehension. We do not want material prosperity or material goods. There is no use in having anything. We have to ‘be’ something. What we ‘have’ is not important; what we ‘are’ is important. A great saying of Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj is, “Be satisfied with what you have, but be dissatisfied with what you are.” But we are the other way around. We seem to be satisfied with what we are, but we are dissatisfied with what we have. We always complain about the goods that we possess and the commodities that we have, and we are always complacent about our own selves, our egoistic personalities.

The truth is, we have to be satisfied with every circumstance in which God has placed us, but we should always be dissatisfied with our own internal achievements. As the Upanishad puts it, neti neti: “This is not adequate; ‘not this, not this’, is the Truth.” Any achievement of ours is inadequate for the purpose, ultimately. The soul is not going to be satisfied with anything that is offered to it. Our soul is the infinite reservoir of forces. It is compatible with God-Being Itself. And so the infinite in us cannot be satisfied with any finite offering. Some little titbits and toys seem to satisfy us occasionally; a wristwatch, a transistor, some sound, colour and movement seem to be satisfying to us. We are ignorant children, moving and groping in the darkness of oblivion in this world. Thus, what we have to ask from the Mighty Lord is the blessing of enlightenment, knowledge and wisdom. And we ask nothing from God except God Himself.

May we all gather our powers, muster in our forces and bring ourselves together into a concentrated attention of devotion to the great Almighty, whose glories are sung in the great Veda mantras, so that we may be burnt and burnished in this austerity of spiritual attitude. May Lord Siva’s grace be upon us all!

[Extracted from Swami Krishnananda Maharaj’s discourses Divine Life Society]

The Gospel of the Bhagavadgita

Hinduism and the Vedanta

Hinduism and the Vedanta by Swami Krishnananda

Created on Friday 28 June 2013 20:42

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I

The word ‘Hindu’ is of foreign origin. It has no association with the principles which are psychologically compounded by habit and tradition with what one vaguely feels when the word ‘Hindu’ is uttered. The history behind this word seems to go back to the time when the Greeks and the Persians came to India, maybe somewhere around the time when Alexander, king of Macedon, invaded India. The barrier which these people from outside India had to cross was the river Sindhu, which today goes by the name of Indus. The letter ‘S’ gets transformed into ‘H’ when it passes through the Persian tongue, and into ‘I’ in the Greek tongue. The word ‘Sindhu’, which is actually the name of the river, got somehow associated with the very people who lived across the river, and ‘Sindhu’, dropping the letter ‘S’, got converted into the word ‘Hindu’, and further on into the word ‘Ind’ in Greek. Thus, even the word ‘India’ has its roots in the word ‘Sindhu’. From this one can gather how both the words, ‘Hindu’ and ‘India’, do not have any real connection with either the beliefs and faiths of the people so called or even the original name of the country itself. The country is traditionally known as ‘Bharatavarsha’ or, simply, ‘Bharata’. This is something about the name itself.

Now, what does one really mean by the word ‘Hindu’, whatever be its origin? To state simply and plainly, it would mean a person who follows or lives according to the canons and principles of the religion known as ‘Hinduism’. But this would raise the question, “What is Hinduism?”

Many definitions have been given by stalwarts like Lokamanya Tilak, and such leaders of Hinduism. The area which the religion called Hinduism covers is so large that it is not easy to give an off-hand definition of it at one stroke, as any such attempt is likely to carry with it a flaw of inadequate characterisation. However, broadly speaking, a Hindu is one who holds and lives according to some of the following essential principles:

There is no necessity to go into further elaborate details of what the word ‘Hinduism’ may suggest, because it would be clear that what is stated above would be enough to provide necessary guidelines to draw the requisite conclusions in matters of detail.

However, it has to be added that the religion known as Hinduism accepts the supernatural origin and final authority of the Word of the Veda, which consists of the Samhitas, the Brahmanas, the Aranyakas and the Upanishads. Hinduism also accepts the validity of the ethical and legal codes known as the Smritis, the Epics of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the Puranas, the Agamas and Tantras, and also the six schools of philosophy known as Nyaya, Vaiseshika, Samkhya, Yoga, Mimamsa and Vedanta. The word ‘Vedanta’ suggests and includes also its variations known as the Advaita, Visishta-advaita, Dvaita, Dvaita-advaita, Suddha-advaita, and Achintya-bheda-abheda. It also includes the religious doctrines of the different schools of Vaishnavism, Saivism and Saktaism. Hinduism accepts and provides for the worship of the accepted Divinities of Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, Ganesa, Durga, Lakshmi, Sarasvati, Surya and Skanda among many others which are all included in the all-embracing pantheon.

II

At the time of death, the individuality does not get dissolved, though the physical constituents may be separated and dissolved. What is it that takes rebirth? It cannot be the body, because it is discarded and it is dissolved into the physical elements of which it is composed. It cannot also be the essential Self, the Atman, because the Atman is a Universal Presence which cannot be said to be subject to transformation of any kind, such as transmigration. What else transmigrates?

The peculiar thing called the individual is neither the body nor the Atman. It is a strange admixture of localised self-affirmation in terms of space and time, and this principle of self-affirmation is impossible to define except as a peculiar pressure-point or force which is generated by the influence of space-time upon consciousness which by itself is indivisible. This point of pressure spatio-temporally occasioned is in fact the centre of what is known as the psyche, often called the mind, sometimes known as the Chitta or the Antahkarana in the Sanskrit language.

This pressure of consciousness causing the individual self-sense may be broadly understood as having three levels of empirical expression, viz., the conscious, the subconscious and the unconscious. Only the conscious level operates when a person is awake, the sub-conscious operates in dream, and the unconscious in deep sleep. The conscious impulses and activities of the individual are limited expressions of the desires which seek to fulfil themselves by way of contact with sense-objects. When the pressure of desires is too much and they cannot be easily fulfilled under conditions prevailing in the waking state, they operate as reveries in dream as a sort of satisfaction of strong impulses incapable of operation during waking state. But the desires of an individual are so immense and complicated that their satisfaction cannot be really achieved in a single life. Such unfulfilled longings get wound up in unconscious states, a specimen of which is deep sleep. It is the power of unfulfilled desires that acts like a projectile and drives like a rocket this complex known as the individual pressure-point in the direction of manufacturing a new apparatus for their fulfilment, under expected conditions, this new apparatus being called the newly formed body. Here is the interesting background of what is known as rebirth.

As a realised soul has no desires, it has no rebirth. Hence the passing of an ordinary person and the disappearance of a person like Lord Krishna have nothing in common. The energies which are elemental that go to contribute to the formation of a new body in the case of an individual with unfulfilled desires do not operate in the case of a realised soul, because rebirth is caused by the magnetic pull exerted by the desiring centre of consciousness upon the physical elements and the forces of nature outside. Such a desire being absent in realised souls, they have no rebirth. They merge into Universal Being. The legacy which acts as the link between the here and the hereafter is desire, which causes reincarnation. The legacy so-called is a mysterious admixture of consciousness and desire, which is the causative factor behind rebirth. It is neither the physical body formed of the five elements, nor the Atman which is all-pervading. It is not true that in death the apparatus through which thinking and feeling act is destroyed; it continues in spite of the body being destroyed. The screen of the television which projects the picture of individuality is the point of consciousness-desire, explained above, and it is not destroyed when the body is destroyed. In a way, our waking life is also a reflection of some anterior existence, which we do not remember now, since we are now in this world in a different space-time continuum, totally different from the space-time complex of the previous life. It has to be reiterated that death does not destroy the link between this life and the other life, because death is only of the physical body, and everyone knows well that a person is not exhausted by the physical frame only. There is something more in man than what appears to the eyes or to any sense-organ.

The modern theory of evolution from matter to plant, plant to life, life to mind and from mind to intellect is nothing but a corroboration of there being a continuous link from one state of life to another. Else, there would be no evolution and there would be no meaning in any form of ‘related’ life at all. All this requires deep study, and a mere cursory reading of one or two textbooks may not be adequate. The principle involves vast areas beyond the ken of the studies provided in our modern colleges and universities.

The principle of karma, or the principle of reaction which conditions the notions of good and bad etc., is not supposed to apply to the sub-human species since they do not have the self-consciousness of personal agency in action and are just guided by the natural forces of evolution. Nemesis cannot be attributed to an individual as long as it is free from personal agency in action. The sub-human species evolve in the same way as there is rise of life from matter to the vegetable kingdom, etc., as mentioned. This is not caused by karma, but by the very pressure of universal evolution.

If there is no transcendent meaning of the human being beyond the present life, no one would lift a finger or do anything in this life unless he is an idiot of the first water, knowing well that the next moment death may overtake anyone and no one can be sure that one can be alive after a few minutes more. Who, on earth, will try to do anything in this world if the next moment is uncertain, unless it is to be accounted for by an unconscious pull of the transcendent ‘Beyond’ which speaks in a language of ‘Eternity’ that there is life further to this medley of uncertainties, anxieties and insecurities here on earth? The point that man is to be restrained from undesirable behaviour and action can have meaning only if there is something more than the meaning seen in earthly life. Else, what is the point of being good or exhibiting good behaviour? Why should there be morality, why should there be anything at all, since everything is going to be devoured by death the next moment?

III

Advaita Vedanta does not naively say that Brahman is real or that the world of dualities is unreal. To attribute this sort of statement to the system would be something like calling the dog a bad name in order to hang it. The sense in which the doctrine asserts the absoluteness of Brahman would also explain the sense in which its relation to the world of experience is to be understood. My feeling is, this doubt arises due to a superficial reading of the philosophical problem involved, just either by hearsay or reading some titbits here and there, without going into the profundities of the subject.

The Advaita Vedanta does not hang on Sruti alone, though it has no reason to doubt the validity of the word of the Sruti. Firstly, take the question concerning the Sruti: The statement that Brahman is the cause of the Veda is not to be understood as if the Veda is an effect proceeding from Brahman as the cause, in which case the Veda would be non-eternal. What this position actually means is that the Veda is to be understood as an embodiment of eternal principles or truths, and here what is to be considered as eternal is the principle involved and not necessarily the way in which it is embodied in word or language. For instance, to give an example, that two and two make four can be taken as a permanent principle which cannot be changed, but the language in which it is expressed or the purpose for which it is applied need not be taken as equally permanent; because the same truth can be expressed differently in different languages and may be applied for variegated purposes. Also, Brahman does not cause the Veda as a potter causes the pot or a carpenter causes the table. Here causation is to be understood in a highly metaphysical sense, and not in an empirical way. The very fact of the existence of Brahman implies the existence of the eternal principles mentioned, even as, we may say, the fact of the existence of a three-dimensional universe implies the validity of the principles of mathematics. We cannot say that mathematics is caused by the three-dimensional world, so that mathematics would be a non-eternal fact. On the other hand, the fact of the validity of mathematics is a logical consequence of the three-dimensional world of space and time, and a logical deduction does not become non-eternal merely because it proceeds from a premise. The premise is in a way the cause of the deduction in a logical process of implication, but the implication does not become non-eternal because it is inseparable from the fact of the premise. Thus, the causation of Brahman in respect of the Veda does not in any way mean the non-eternality of the Veda, if we are careful to see that causation here is understood logically and not empirically in the sense of something proceeding from something else as if the one is different from the other.

Further, it is sometimes suggested that even the word of the Veda is eternal, even as an embodiment of eternal principles. This, again, is to be understood in its proper spirit. We may explain this position thus. Though the expression of a fact in a particular language may be considered as non-eternal, in the sense that it is finite because of its differentiation from other languages, yet the fact of it being possible to express a thing in that particular way should be considered as a permanent possibility, and here the word assumes a sort of eternality, Parinaminityatva, to put it in the language of Acharya Sankara, though not Kutasthanityatva as is the nature of Brahman itself. No one can say that the English language, for instance, is an eternal fact. Yet, no one can also deny the possibility of expressing a fact in that mode of language at any time or claim that the possibility can ever be absent and be non-eternal. I hope you catch the point of this interesting feature.

When Acharya Sankara says that the Veda itself is unreal from the Paramarthika point of view, the same is to be understood in the sense of nothing being eternal except Brahman, and even the Veda cannot be eternal if it is to be understood as something other than Brahman, for there cannot be two infinities or two eternalities. Here you will notice that the two apparently contradictory statements of Acharya Sankara are really not contradictory, for they have to be understood from two different points of view or angles of vision, from which position the statements are made.

The problem of free will and determinism can also be explained by a homely example afforded by the science of psychoanalysis, to give only one instance as to how it can be explained. The patient is made think in a particular manner by the determined will of the psychoanalyst, but patient always feels that he or she is having out of complete freedom of choice, notwithstanding the determinism of the will of the physician that is at the back of it. Perhaps you remember the interesting statement of Spinoza that a stone which is thrown into the sky by someone may feel that it is moving up of its own choice, if only it had consciousness of its movement. We feel that we eat a particular diet out of our free will and nobody compels us to eat such and such a thing, though it is well known that the choice of diet is determined by the physiological condition of the person; so where is free will here? Swami Vidyaranya, in his Panchadasi, says that free will is the way in which the omnipresent will of the Absolute (or you may say, Isvara) operates through the individuality of a created being. Here, again, it is a question of viewpoint or standpoint. The consciousness of agency in action is what is known as free will, though this consciousness itself may be impelled by a law that is operating in the universe. So, where is the contradiction between determinism and free will? Man will not be held responsible for his acts if he is conscious from the bottom of his heart that the universal law is operating through him, but he will certainly be responsible for what he does if he knows that he exists as an individual and therefore actions proceed from him and not from the universal reality. No one can do wrong unless this doing proceeds from individual consciousness which contradicts the fact of its being determined by another. Thus, there is a mix-up of arguments here, when doubts are raised as to how man can do wrong if he is determined. The doubt arises from a fallacious argument.

The problem of evil, again, is an old, hackneyed theme, which has been explained by masters of thought already. It exists in the world even as illness exists in a human organism. But do you believe that illness really exists in a person unless there is a maladjustment of the parts of the organism? The evil does not exist except as a condition of operation, and it is not to be understood as a thing hanging over us from somewhere outside. All this difficulty arises due to an anthropomorphic conception of God as somebody sitting in heaven and controlling the destiny of the universe. If God is understood as universal Omnipresence or Absolute Being, the very question of evil will be a self-contradiction, because that would imply the finitude of God. Here, again, the flaw in the argument that raises such questions can be seen.

[Extracted from Swami Krishnananda Maharaj’s discourses Divine Life Society]

The Gospel of the Bhagavadgita

The Inner World (2)

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The Inner Worldby Swami Krishnananda

Created on Sunday 16 June 2013 20:44

All desire is a tendency to unite with externals. And this external may be a physical object or a psychological condition. Physical objects constitute the usual attractions of sense, we may say, on the animal level. We should not forget that man has also the animal in him, though kept in check due to social restrictions and one’s own egoistic ambitions which temporarily forget the requisitions of the senses. But this, the egoistic level, is often far more weighty than the sensory, at least in a class of people whom we term the intelligentsia, though this weight is outweighed by the sense-urge when the individual is not in the good books of society or is cast out as an unwanted element or is disregarded for some reason. Those who always live in social circumstances and wind round themselves some sort of prestige – you may call it false, if you like – develop an exteriorised self and adore it as the real one. Others who are mostly accustomed to solitary life have a chance of confining themselves to the voices of the within, whether this within is the sense-world or the spiritual. This is why spiritual seekers, ascetics, hermits and the like, have, in the pursuit of the higher ideal of the Spirit, to face the dangers of the downward pulls of sense on being presented with the least opportunity for their manifestation. And this may be due to lack of vigilance – remember, no one can be always vigilant throughout one’s life, and there are moments of slackness of watch even in the most powerful aspirants of the religious Ideal – or the excessive impetuosity with which the sense-objects reveal their attractive natures. The ego has, generally, no meaning when it is not associated with society to offer it adulations, though, very rarely it can pronounce grand judgments on itself, even when it is alone, sheerly by imagination of the extent of its achievements. But the senses do not require social approbation or patting; they are happy even if no one would know them. In fact they hate being known to others. Their essence is a selfishness of the narrowest kind, restricted to the personality or the individuality alone. Animals do not want praise from others; they are satisfied if their senses are satisfied. And the animal man, who is the sensual man, needs no society for his delights. He would rather wish that the society know not his enjoyments.

But the purely social man is the egoistic man who would hide his sense-passions for another ideal which he regards as superior to the merely sensual. Thus we have patriots who would die for their country, the so-called reformers of the community, the ‘public’ men whose self is in what others think of them, the rulers, the lords, those who wish to be carried on palanquins along the synagogues, the lovers of name and fame and power. Here the lower sense-urge is put down by the ego-urge. Let it be pointed out that this urge of the ego is in no way superior in quality to the sense-urge, though the society is prone to think so. For the sense-urge has physical objects for its target, while the ego has psychological objects for its aim. The obsession, as far as it is a factor of personal bondage, is the same in both the cases. The ego may manifest itself as the assertion of prominence as a head in the family, as an important person in the community, as a leader of the nation, as an international figure steering the course of large groups of mankind, as a renowned scholar or an advanced Yogi. It is all the same – just so many layers of the ego. Physical objects tie down the senses to their promising shapes and contours, and the psychological conditions of importance, honour, respect, fame, authority and superiority over others confine the ego-sense to their tantalising greatness. The sense and the ego are like the devil and the deep sea, between which the seeking individual is caught, and whichever way it moves, its fate is sure to be destruction.

Desires, again, have three degrees: the brute, the rational and the spiritual. The first is the subhuman side of passions that are bent upon having their fill, though the world may go to dogs. Such violent desires of the animal nature, the savage instincts, have no regard for the good of the individual concerned, for their objective is only satisfaction, even if the individual is to die immediately after the satisfaction. These are what we call the immoral natures, so much condemned in the science of ethics and morality, for they have no concern with the welfare of others. Their motto is ‘each for himself, and devil take the hindmost’. This is naturally an intolerable attitude, and no one would like the behaviour of such a person. This is not good either for oneself or for others. This is the extreme side of desire.

But there is the higher aspect of desire, which is refined and is necessary as a prophylactic in the evolution of the lower man into the higher. As in homeopathic doses, so in the fulfilment of these controlled desires, man achieves a gradual mastery over them, not by utter and downright negation, which is not practicable, but a restrained satisfaction of their demands with the full consciousness that its aim is the final overcoming of all desire, for the devil must have its due when we have not yet seen the face of the Divine. It may look like a shrewd tactic of the intellect to get out of the clutches of desires by befriending them, as a policeman would catch a thief by identifying himself with their group. But this is just what it is, and it is a necessary stage, though not the final one. This is also the instruction of the Bhagavadgita, that one should be moderate in enjoyment and restraint, activity and self-absorption, wakefulness and sleep, sport and seriousness of conduct, and not go to extremes either way, for it is not the Yoga way of life. Equanimity, harmony and balanced conduct is Yoga. It is the teaching of Aristotle that the mean is virtue, and virtue is not either indulgence or starvation.

The good and the virtuous is just what is essential for a healthy life of body and mind and spirit, and inasmuch as there is no universally laid down standard for this mean or the via media of action and conduct, its test has to be a personal sense of freshness and buoyancy of spirit, a feeling of health and joy within, together with a continuous stream of the flow of unforgetting consciousness of the supreme Ideal of life. Aristotle differs from the extreme rule of Plato that all poetry, art, music and enjoyment is a vice and that virtue is a strict puritanistic abstention from enjoyment. Practical men know that too much of puritanism has its undesirable reactions, and we should avoid extremes, as the Buddha felt and taught. And there is no one to tell us which is the extreme and which the moderate course in any given instance; this has to be judged by oneself personally with the greatest care and understanding. Hence the need for adequate education and training for leading a successful life of personal upliftment and social work in the light of the Divine Ideal towards which all creation is moving. When this Ideal is forgotten, virtue has no value and is as bad as vice. Either one should have a proper Teacher to guide him at every step or one should be well endowed with an understanding to enable him to stand on his own legs and walk unaided to the goal. Else there is the chance of miscalculation and losing grip over one’s senses and the ego, and the result is a fall.

The highest form of desire is when it is sublimated into a spiritual activity of the universalised consciousness. This is seen in saints and sages of all countries who do not make a distinction between God and the World. Their enjoyments and their sufferings are not theirs, they are of the universe, they have a universal body, for all that they see is the manifestation of God. They eat and rejoice and seem to have the normal enjoyments of a human being, but their minds are lifted above the realm of personality and the mire of the earthward pull. These are the great saviours, the incarnations, the prophets, the messiahs, the masters and the guides of humanity in its spiritual quest. Such men look like any one else outwardly – they have a body, they have their personal and social lives, they are sometimes householders with large families, they play and talk and laugh and eat and drink and bathe. Yes; but their minds are differently constituted. Sometimes they are seen in silken robes and royal costumes like Janaka, at others they are like insensible idiots like Jadabharata. They may be householders and ritualists like Vasishtha, Yogis and meditators like Jaigishavya and Dattatreya, romantic pleasure-lovers like Saubhari, encyclopaedic writers and teachers of humanity like Vyasa, or unconcerned sages in union with the Supreme Being like Suka. But they have all equal knowledge and the power to create, destroy or transform things at their will (Kartum akartum anyatha va kartum saktah). In the personality of Sri Krishna we have a marvellous blend and synthesis of the inscrutable ways in which the divine superman lives and moves in this world. Their lives, their speech, behaviour and action are all super-rational mysteries, and here they are free from the connotation which is applied to the term ‘desire’ in normal life, for here desire is inseparable from universal existence. It has ceased to be an externalising tendency and is once and for all consumed in the blaze of the light of the Absolute.

But this is a very remote ideal and we need not be afraid that it is anywhere near us. To achieve this all-engulfing and incomparable realisation that melts down the ego is an uphill task. Let us go into some detail.

Rarely does a person get fired up by a spiritual aspiration. We studiedly use the term ‘fired’, because it is often in this manner that the spiritual ideal seems to beckon the human mind. It does not come with long discussions and premeditations, correspondence and notice. It wells up within, one does not know how and when. And when this happens one’s perspective of things suddenly changes, and there is altogether a different psychological world created before one’s eyes. No persuasion or argumentation will succeed in diverting a person away from this changed view of things, once this ‘fire’ catches him. It is indeed a blazing, all-consuming power, and nothing on earth can have the strength to resist it.

There are aspirants, seekers, ‘Sadhakas’, who have been affected by this ‘contagion’ of Spirit, and cannot again be brought round to view life in a different way. When you see a thing clearly before your eyes, no argument against its existence would prevail. ‘The heart has its reason, which reason does not know’, said Pascal. The logic of the heart is more weighty than that of the intellect. And no force under the sun can have the courage to face its penetrating influence. Such is the nature of what the spiritual aspirant sees with an eye that is peculiar to him, an eye which animates from within the eyes with which he sees the world outside. We may say, he is ‘affected’ by something he knows not, perhaps, and perchance knows on rare occasions. But no one, at least in the beginning stages, can know it definitely or understand the way that it is following. It is a difficult situation, and some mystics call it ‘the dark night of the soul’, where the soul is awakened from slumber, but still gropes for some time, not seeing the path clearly. The first chapter of the Bhagavadgita is an epic description of this necessary condition of all seeking individuals on the path.

In exceptionally fortunate souls, there arises, subsequent to this condition of utter helplessness and a self-surrender forced on them due to complete spiritual oblivion attended with a feeling for the need of some help, the higher stage of consciousness where a Teacher, a Master or a Guru manifests himself, as portrayed in the second chapter of the Bhagavadgita, and he points out the way. But we should not forget here the warning that “perhaps one in several thousands of persons strives to reach the Goal; and some one from among those who thus strive, knows, after having attained perfection, Truth as it is.” And there are, therefore, many who do not obtain a suitable Teacher or a guide or see any light above them. They struggle but do not succeed due to some unknown inner obstruction. But their souls do not find satisfaction, they having been ‘fired up’ once in their emotions. The fire seems to have gone and left them cold, but that supernal emotion has left also a peculiar impression, and this makes life unhappy both ways.

Here lies the danger. Here it is that aspirants have what is generally called a ‘fall’. Here it is that they go neurotic and ‘eccentric’, become egotists, gluttons, and victims of passions of various kinds, notably sexuality, irritability and anger. They may even turn into kleptomaniacs without their knowing it, greedy for silly things of the world, develop inordinate longings for what even an ordinary man of the world would regard as unimportant. It would not be a surprise if some of them become harmful anti-social elements, as they have lost grip over their conscious and subconscious behaviours. This is an interesting psychological state which needs careful attention and study. We need not much concern ourselves here with those blessed ones who have had their higher illumination and the path clearly pointed out to them, those Arjunas who have found their Krishnas. But it is necessary to study these more unfortunate ones, who are still in the ‘dark night’, and are groping in a confused state of mind.

Now we do not mean that all men who are regarded as cultured, educated or ‘sane’, as mankind understands these terms, are really normal in the true sense of the word. Everyone is equally affected, and hence it is called normalcy. If there is one who thinks or acts differently, he is called abnormal, or even insane. For us the plebiscite is the standard of correctness. You may call it the herd instinct of the sheep. It is not without some meaning that the great Bhartrihari said: Unmattabhutam Jagat (the world has gone mad). Well, if everyone is mad, there can be no such thing as sanity in a world of such beings, other than what is normal from their own general condition. But we are here referring to a different order of abnormal persons, who cannot fit into the general ‘normalcy’ of the mind of humanity in this world, but who have rather a ‘disintegrated’ psychological personality, wherein one has no control over any part of oneself, there is indeterminacy of behaviour at any given moment, and one has no set conscious goal before one’s vision. To cite certain examples of the strange ways of the minds of such persons:

One might suddenly begin to feel that it is essential to organise a large group of followers and do a lot for the transformation of mankind from its present state. When this effort is launched upon and is easily seen to fail in the achievement of its objective, there might arise the feeling that mankind is stupid and is not worthy of any attention, and precious energy should be utilised for a better purpose. There might come in a period of inward absorption, at least an attempt to effect it, and a segregation of oneself from human society, though for a short period. Now the consequence of this might be a restlessness of spirit, a desire to mix with people again, and talk and talk one’s head off as a reaction of seclusion. There are, again, those who, when they see two people talking to each other would butt in unceremoniously and enquire what the matter is. These are small things, but have a great meaning. However, the society is not going to satisfy the soul which has lost itself and there is disgust and occasionally a feeling of inferiority in the light of one’s not having attained prominence in any field of life. One might then try business, with a strong tinge of love for wealth, supported by the logic that some money is necessary even for a saint to maintain himself. But business fails and it is not everyone that is a good businessman; it requires knack and pluck. Then might arise the idea that everything seems to be a wild-goose chase, and melancholy is the result. The further outcome might be an urge for anti-social acts done publicly or secretly and shame is the one thing to which a disintegrated personality is totally immune. He is not himself, and his acts are not his, from a strictly analysed psychologist’s point of view, though the person concerned, himself, might regard all his acts and feelings as normal and self-directed. Anti-social behaviour is not always successful, for society takes precaution to curb it. Then one may go erratic and insane, for there is no outlet for the urges which have gone amuck. At times he may be brooding, sitting for long hours doing nothing, sometimes speaking loudly and in a raised spirit, sometimes blurting out what he thinks are facts, at other times regarding all others as inferior to himself in some way; or he may get obsessed with a sense of possession even of such trifling articles as a waterpot, a walking stick, a mirror, or a handbag. There are those who suddenly imagine that they have some enemy aiming at them constantly, and very often it happens to be the nearest person or one whom they see very often. There is also the positive side of this obsession by which one gets terribly attached to some person or persons for reasons he alone knows, and begins to see one’s beloved and cherished ideal in that person. This person becomes the obsession of the mind, thinking and dreaming of nothing but that day and night. Now, this is not love or affection in the usual sense; it is an unhealthy attitude, because this attachment may, at the least imaginary opposition or neglect on the part of the other person, change into hatred, and the dear one may become an enemy overnight. These are, of course, extreme cases of behaviour, and are not common even among highly distressed persons on the path. But this chance cannot be ruled out, and is one of the dangers that have to be encountered on the way. There are those who hear voices, see spirits, or persons standing in front of them, visible, of course, only to their eyes, and there is the complaint that these voices, spirits or persons are their enemies who always torment them for no cause whatsoever. If anyone admonished them against the belief in such imaginary causes of trouble, he himself might become their enemy from that day. Everyone is looked upon with suspicion, as if one is caught in an enemy’s camp, and everyone around is set against oneself. These are psychopathic conditions, and may have several causes: (1) hereditary acquirement, (2) frustration or a shock received in early life, (3) buried emotions the expressions of which is taboo in the society in which one lives, (4) desire which cannot be fulfilled under the existing social or political law, (5) misguided and misapplied energies along lines which have led to an all-round failure, (6) the rise of spiritual emotion in an unprepared and inadequate receptacle of mind that does not receive training under an able teacher or has not brought about in any other manner a sublimation of the animal and human urges rumbling and rioting within. Though psychotherapists may be able to handle the first five cases, the last one mentioned is difficult to manage, and may defy even the best doctor. But a spiritual doctor may, with some effort, succeed in reaching some beneficial results. Not that it is easy to acquire spiritual masters of this calibre, but it is not an impossible accident.

Mostly, aspirants become introverts or extroverts, sometimes of an extreme type, to their own peril and self-destruction. They either lock themselves up in rooms or roam about in society, finding no rest anywhere. Now, there are highly advanced sages who would prefer to live in locked-up caves, or distant forests; but these are mature deliberations of understanding minds poised in the higher self-control which sees no necessity or value in things external to the universal Self. The so-called psychological introverts are different altogether; they hide themselves from the human eye due to a morbid inward state, which fact becomes clear from the observation that it has its reactionary phase, viz., the extrovert condition that intrudes itself into the behaviour some day. Let us remember Shakespeare’s wise saying: “Genius to madness is near alike; a thin partition divides them both”.

Blind faith is as bad as an obsession. It is harmful to one’s own inward progress and is a nuisance to the happy life of the society. Sometimes these blind believers are a great trouble to others, especially when they insist on others’ acceptance of their beliefs. All conduct which does not respect others’ views and feelings, which cannot understand others’ problems and difficulties, which has no care for others’ good or welfare, should be considered as unspiritual in its essence, whatever be the importance of the person possessing such a nature. Also, any conduct which is ruinous to one’s own higher upliftment, which is suicidal in any sense of the term, which is psychologically pathogenic and harmful either to one’s body or mind, should be regarded as unspiritual. For spirituality, let it be remembered, is the most wholesome life of an all-inclusive conscious expansion of one’s being in the healthy feeling of a joy and a sense of power in one’s Self, which language cannot express or describe fully. It is the beginning of a universal Self-Possession, where creation seems to seep into one’s existence, and in a flash of consciousness, man achieves awareness that his entire nature, physical and intangible, is bound up with all life that throbs and pulsates everywhere. In the lofty reaches of spiritual experience, one becomes all-inclusive, is included in all, and cognises and realises everything. This experience is super-sensory, super-mental and super-intellectual, and here the personality tends to disintegrate and one feels like being swept into a sphere of vaster implications, plumbing abysmal depths, scaling dizzy heights, viewing vast vistas unknown on earth. There is a sensation of Power which affects every particle of one’s nature, and one is bathed in the Light of indescribable brightness. There is an awareness of the interpenetration of all things, and one is simultaneously in all places. Every single detail is exactly known in its own place, and in its minute detail, in its relationship to the Whole. Everything becomes crystal-clear, light shines separately from each single point in space, not merely from some orb like the sun from somewhere in distant space. One becomes immortal.

We do not hint that spiritual aspirants, in the initial stages, will have any such experience, but this grand ideal is placed before the seeking soul so that it may become its touchstone, its yardstick, in testing and measuring the quality and extent of its experiences and achievements. Unless one’s life and conduct reflects in even the smallest measure an intelligible relation to this Goal set forth, one can be sure that there is something wrong in the whole structure of Sadhana, and a thorough investigation of its fibre has to be done immediately. Else there is every possibility of the rising of that psychological tearing up of one’s life as a whole, as detailed above, a most undesirable thing to be envisaged by anyone with common sense.

[Extracted from Swami Krishnananda Maharaj’s discourses Divine Life Society]

The Laws and the Stages of Life in Hinduism

The Laws and the Stages of Life in Hinduism by Swami Krishnananda

Created on Monday 24 June 2013 12:57

*READ MORE \* The Laws and the stages of Life

The Purusharthas

Life has been always regarded in India as a process of progressive self-transcendence from the realm of matter (Annamaya-Jivatva) to the realisation of supreme spiritual bliss (Parama-Ananda). Human values and ends in life have been classified into the scheme of the fourfold pursuit (Purushartha) of existence, viz., the practice of righteousness and goodness (Dharma), the effort towards earning of the necessary material values (Artha), the fulfilment of permissible desires through honest means (Kama), and the endeavour for the final salvation of the soul (Moksha). This analysis is based on a broad understanding of the different levels of individuals in relation to the Universe.

The principle of Dharma is summed up in the Mahabharata as the attitude of not meting out to others what one would not expect others to mete out to oneself. What is contrary to the welfare of one’s own self should not be discharged or done in regard to others (atmanah pratikulani paresham na samaoharet). Another definition of Dharma is that it is the conduct which conduces to prosperity here (Abhyudaya) and spiritual blessedness hereafter (Nihsreyasa). That charitable disposition by which one regards others in the world as ends in themselves and not mere means to one’s satisfaction may be regarded as Dharma. The practice of Dharma in this sense is more than ritual or ceremony. Morality is superior to external rites. A moral act presupposes a moral condition of the mind within, and the distinction between moral feeling and moral action is the same as that which obtains between character and conduct.

The moral perspective is based on a general view of the world as consisting of a larger family than the one with which we are usually familiar. Our existence is bound up with great mysteries and is more complicated in structure than is apparent from a surface-view of things. The world-view which reaches its logical limits sees all beings as constituting a single unit of a universal cooperative life, and the recognition of this fact in the smaller circle of individual and social life is Dharma, or righteousness. A violation of this principle is Adharma, or unrighteousness. Dharma sustains the organic structure of the cosmos, like the force of gravity which maintains the solidity of a body of matter. Adharma tends towards a rupture of the organism and brings about a condition of what may be called universal ill-health. If Dharma is health, Adharma is disease.

Dharma, thus, is eternal law and not the custom or religion of a country or people. All minor Dharmas, which go by the names of goodness and religion, receive the stamp of meaningfulness only when they are in consonance with this Dharma of the Universe. The pursuit of material prosperity (Artha), the fulfilment of one’s desire (Kama), and even attainment of salvation (Moksha) are all based on Dharma, which is the rock-foundation of all practical life. None of these efforts can be successful if it is rooted in the primary acceptance of the truth that the individual is co-extensive with the Universe.

The Ashramas

The grouping of life into the pursuit of the four Purusharthas is the basis of the ancient ethics of India. Every act of the human being pertains to one or the other of these aims. The ethical system in India is connected with the mode of life to be lived by one as a Brahmacharin, Grihastha, Vanaprastha or Sannyasin, which are the four orders (Asramas) or stages of life. It is the injunction of the scripture that a person cannot remain in a stage which is none of these four strata of society.

Brahmacharya is the first stage of life, which is lived in the observance of the vow of perfect continence and celibacy under the guidance of a preceptor and dedicated especially to the study of the Vedas and other scriptures. The Kshatriya students may also have to be trained in the art of using weapons and administration in general. It is a life of probation and strict discipline. The Brahmacharin is an adherent to the principle of non-violence (Ahimsa), Truthfulness (Satya), self-restraint (Brahmacharya), non-covetousness (Asteya), non-acceptance of gifts (Aparigraha), purity and cleanliness (Saucha), contentment (Santosha) , austerity (Tapas), sacred study (Svadhyaya), and service of the preceptor (Guru Seva). These are the constituent factors in the life of a Brahmacharin. He shines with spiritual splendour (Brahmavarchas), which he earns by way of self-control, and on account of this glowing nature of his personality he is termed a fire-lad (Agni-Marmaka).

While the stage of the Brahmacharin is particularly devoted to the accumulation of Dharma, the life of the householder is for the preservation of Dharma, the earning of Artha and the fulfilment of Kama. He puts into practice the knowledge gained during the period of Brahmacharya. Artha and Kama should be directed by Dharma. This rule is a great scientific prescription for sublimation of desire, as different from its suppression, regression or substitution. The householder is regarded as the hub of the wheel of life, round whom the welfare of the society revolves. His is a life of a balance of forces – social duty, personal desire and spiritual aspiration. His duties in the form of the Pancha-Mahayajnas have already been explained. This is the general rule for a householder belonging to the Brahmana class in society. The Kshatriya has the special duty of subscribing to the administration of the country by military service and the governmental system. The Vaisyas, or the trading community, and the Sudras, or the serving class, have their duties of providing for the economic harmony and needs of the country and the labour that is required for the sustenance of society. The classification of society into four castes is not to be taken in the sense of a rigid mechanical isolation of groups by virtue of birth and heredity alone, as it has tended to be viewed in later times, but a logically developed co-operative system of living instituted for the preservation and prosperity of the whole society through division of labour based on the quality of persons and the proportion of the contribution that people can make for its solidarity in accordance with their aptitude, knowledge and capacity. Svabhava (one’s inherent nature) determines Svadharma (one’s duty as an individual in society).

The third stage of life is of the Vanaprastha and is devoted to the duty of disentangling oneself from the attractions of the world. Artha and Kama do not any more interest the mind which seeks only the final blossoming of Dharma into the flower of Moksha. The duties of life which means a great value to the householder are relative to the phenomenal view of things and, while they are valid for sensory perceptions and mental cognition in the spatio-temporal realm, they do not reveal the Absolute which the soul hankers after and which alone can bring final satisfaction to it. The Vanaprastha girds up his loins to strive for this attainment through austerity (Tapas) and inward worship (Manasika-Upasana). The Aranyakas and some portions of the Upanishads throw much light on the nature of the contemplations which the one dedicated to a life of spiritual discipline practises. While the Samhitas may be said to be relevant to the Brahmacharin and the Brahmanas to the Grihastha, the Aranyakas pertain to the life of the Vanaprastha. The consummation of this discipline is in Sannyasa, or complete renunciation of worldly duty and desire, and living a life devoted to the highest meditations on the Absolute described in the Upanishads.

Though, originally, the order of Sannyasa as envisaged in Manu Smriti and the Mahabharata constituted a purely spiritual condition into which the Vanaprastha entered, and it had no linkage with any special tradition, the order of the monk gradually developed into a system (Sampradaya) by which the renunciates in different groups were related to one another by the allegiance they owed to their own particular orders, and thus formed a section of society devoted to a voluntary discharge of the obligation of the dissemination of knowledge, in addition to the individual duty of spiritual meditation. This compromise with social life arose not only due to the peculiar circumstances of a changing society in the passage of time, on account of which the minds of people in general may be said to have found a life of total isolation impracticable, but also due to the withdrawal of support from society from the way in which it used to be given in earlier days when the monks could sustain themselves on alms received without making their existence felt by people.

In its true spirit, Sannyasa is a spiritual state, and not a social classification, in which established one learns the art of depending on the Supreme Being by withdrawal of interest from the particular sources of support in the world. This condition is, however, not suddenly reached, and four stages even in the order of Sannyasa are recognised. In the first three stages, called the Kutichaka, Bahudaka and Hamsa, the Sannyasin lives in fixed residences – but in an increasing degree of freedom from the need for comfort – and the stages are distinguished by the increasing intensity of restrictions, in an ascending order, which the Sannyasin imposes on himself. The fourth stage is of the Paramahamsa, who is absolutely free from all the wants of a personal life and lives mostly a life of absolute self-dependence devoted to pure meditation. There are said to be two other stages, called the Turiyatita and Avadhuta, wherein fixed one does not pay attention to creature comforts and is satisfied with anything that comes to him of its own accord and remains mostly in a state of consciousness lifted above the body and its surroundings.

Sannyasa is also said to originate from four causes. A Vairagya-Sannyasin is one who enters the order being prompted by the latent impressions (Samskaras) which direct him to take such a step. A Jnana-Sannyasin is one who takes to the order due to his grasp of the import of the scriptures, after a deep study of them, and being convinced thereby of the existence of the spiritual ideal. A Jnana-Vairagya-Sannyasin is one who resorts to Sannyasa after deep learning and also having seen the normal enjoyments of life. A Karma-Sannyasin is one who embraces the order having passed through the stages of the Brahmacharin, Grihastha and Vanaprastha, gradually. But he who takes to Sannyasa directly from the stage of Brahmacharya is called a Vairagya-Sannyasin. One who takes to it for acquiring spiritual knowledge is a Vividisha-Sannyasin. One who embraces Sannyasa being compelled by impending death is an Atura-Sannyasin. One who takes to Sannyasa with a feeling that there is nothing except the Absolute is an Animitta-Sartnyasin.

But Sannyasa is, in the end, as observed above, not one of the modes or orders of social life but a condition of consciousness in which it realises its spiritual absoluteness. Here ethics and spirituality coalesce in the attunement of the individual to the structure of the cosmos. Man becomes one with creation, being freed from the bondage of attachment, convention and anxiety. The soul fixes itself in the Infinite and knows nothing other than it. The duties of the Brahmacharin, Grihastha and Vanaprastha are progressive stages of self-sublimation and self-transcendence which reach their fulfilment in Sannyasa. The three basic cravings, called Eshanas in the Upanishads, which correspond to the psychological complexes in the form of desire for wealth, fame (with power) and sex, are overcome in the graduated educational process constituted by the stages of life.

The plan of life arranged into the four stages is a systematic endeavour for the conservation and transformation of the vital, intellectual, moral and spiritual aspects of human nature towards the purpose of the attainment of Moksha, or liberation in the Absolute. In this fourfold scheme, society is preserved and transfigured for an insight into the reality which underlies it. It is a remedy for the problems and ills of life born of the separation of society into selfish individualities. It is the process of integration not only of the individual but of the family, community, nation and the world at large, through the expression of the great preservative force tending to universal solidarity – Dharma. The great hymn of the Veda, the Purusha-Sukta, makes the four aspects of the caste system limbs of the Supreme Being, thus teaching that the organic structure of society is knit into a single fabric with the threads of diversified personalities.

Here is the philosophical background of the ethics of co-operation by which the Universe is maintained. The four Varnas (castes) and the four Asramas (orders) are classifications based on the three properties (Gunas) of Prakriti – Sattva (equilibrium), Rajas (distraction), and Tamas (inertia) in their different permutations and combinations. The four Asramas are the stages of the progressive overcoming of matter by spirit, externality by universality.

[Extracted from Swami Krishnananda Maharaj’s discourses Divine Life Society]

The Gospel of the Bhagavadgita

The Gospel of the Bhagavadgita

The Gospel of the Bhagavadgita by Swami Krishnananda

Created on Sunday 23 June 2013 17:38

*READ MORE \* The Gospel of the Bhagavadgita

I shall endeavour to touch upon a few salient points which will be of some meaning and utility in our day-to-day life. To apply knowledge to life is the most difficult aspect of knowledge. We have always been accustomed to bifurcate life from knowledge, and vice versa, so that a learned man is not necessarily a happy man nor even a rich man. The reason is that learning, knowledge, has been isolated from the facts of life. This is one of the conflicts that we observe in life. As they say humorously, Sarasvati and Lakshmi never live in the same house, meaning thereby that learning and wealth do not go together. There are many such conflicts, all which are supposed to be solved, in one way or the other, by means of the great teachings known as the Bhagavadgita.

Bhagavan Sri Krishna, when He spoke the Bhagavadgita, intended to resolve a conflict. What is a conflict, may be a question that raises itself before our minds. There are, actually, four types of conflicts, within which every other type or variation of disharmony can be subsumed. The occasion for the delivery of this Gospel was the battle of the Mahabharata, which means a field of conflict with other people. The first conflict one encounters in life is with other people. ‘You do not like me,’ and ‘I do not like you’. When we wake up in the morning and look at the world, we are faced with a conflict with other people, the human society. This is a difficulty which saps the vitality of many in the world. We have to see faces with whom we cannot reconcile ourselves. It may be a boss, a subordinate or an equal, it makes no difference. When we cannot reconcile ourselves with another face, there is a conflict; and we see nothing but faces when we get up in the morning and look at the world outside. The battle of the Mahabharata is a large epic, describing this primary conflict of human nature – conflict of one person with another person, in which can be included conflicts of groups, communities and nations, because all these are nothing but personalities and individualities associating and clashing in certain manners and patterns. What we call a society, or a family, or a nation, or a community, is the way of human beings grouping themselves into patterns. Thus, conflict with other people includes every kind of conflict in the world.

We have the Mahabharata epic, in the middle of which the Bhagavadgita occurs. Where is the Bhagavadgita located? In the middle of the battle of the Mahabharata. What is this epic battle? A conflict between the Pandavas and the Kauravas, cousin brothers in a unitary family. It was a family feud. We may say it was a conflict between Yudhishthira and Duryodhana, which amounts to the same essential situation. So, again, to reiterate, the conflict which Bhagavan Sri Krishna tries to resolve has as its background the conflict enumerated in the long epic poem of the Mahabharata. What is this background? The conflict of personalities! That was the occasion for the war. Huge armies were arrayed on both sides. Thousands were about to fly at the throats of one another. That was the occasion for the giving of this Gospel. The Gospel was not delivered in a school, a college, or a university, a temple, a church, or an auditorium. This most interesting and indispensable Gospel which we try to enshrine in our hearts, in our memory, was given on that momentous occasion of a war that was about to break between large contending armies. Nobody would, normally, like to seek wisdom on such a tense occasion. That is not the time to speak at all; it is the time to act and do something immediately. Who would speak philosophy when there are large numbers of men emotionally worked up into such a heightened pitch of anxiety and wrath that they will hear no words spoken by anyone, and are bent upon a severe type of action! On that occasion who would speak a sublime Gospel or a scripture! But that was the occasion, and there could not be a better time.

Now, the very purpose of this war was primarily to resolve a social conflict. Well; it was agreed that the war was indispensable. The purpose behind the war was not to destroy people but to resolve a social conflict or a political tension. It was impossible to mend people, and so they thought it was necessary to end people. And they concluded that by the ending of the embodiments of conflict, the conflict would automatically vanish. If you cannot untie a knot, you cut the knot. And for memory’s sake I may mention a few specimens who were involved in this conflict – the leaders, the generalissimos of the war. There were powerful veterans on the side of the Kauravas, almost invincible in battle, three of whom, the most prominent ones, were Bhishma, Drona and Karna. Nobody could face them with immunity to their lives. On the other side, that of the Pandavas, we have leaders like Bhima and Arjuna, the brothers of King Yudhishthira, the eldest of the Pandavas. While the most powerful from the Kaurava side was Bhishma, the most invincible on the side of the Pandavas was Arjuna. They knew every tactic of war, and people would shudder in their hearts by merely hearing the name of these people.

Now, on mutual acceptance, it was agreed that the war had to be waged to end a social conflict. But, when the hour of crisis came, when the iron was hot and it had to be struck, when that moment came, what happened? A most unexpected conflict arose within the mind of Arjuna. It was not a conflict with other people, but a conflict within one’s one self. I told you that there are four types of conflicts. The first one is conflict with other people, and to end it they started or embarked upon this perilous adventure of war. But before it broke out or started, the most important of the leaders, the hero of one party, the most renowned warrior, had to pass through a muddle of conflict within himself – his own thoughts, feelings, emotions, and the various tantrums of his psychological organ. You know the situation. All action emanates from the individual, and to do or not to do is to be decided by the individual himself. A decision can be taken only when there is no conflict in one’s mind. Either you do a thing or you do not do the thing. Either you want a thing or you do not want the thing. These are decisions that the mind takes. But if one begins to waver between the two horns of the dilemma, and one does not know which side to take and what steps to put forward, due to a conflict within one’s one mind, there would be no solution at all. A most surprising attitude did Arjuna put on, to the wonder and marvel of everyone there. The most heroic of persons began to speak words of pusillanimity, feelings of pity which would be completely unexpected from a warrior girt up on the brink of a war. Instead of attempting to solve the social conflict for the sake of which the war was to be engaged in, another conflict was added on to it. So, instead of one conflict, we have two conflicts here. Arjuna, the leader, the great warrior, advanced specious arguments before Krishna, his colleague, his friend and guide, who was seated on the very same chariot, and clinched the whole matter by saying, “I am not for this.” It was a very difficult thing to swallow, and only a personality like Krishna could take it in the true spirit in which it arose.

When a person is truly friendly with you, he knows how to take your moods. That is a wisdom of life. Krishna was not pleased; nor was he displeased. A doctor is neither pleased nor displeased with the patient. An emotion will not rise in the mind of a physician. Krishna was not distressed at the agonising condition of the mind of Arjuna. He did not weep, cry or beat his breast. He spoke words of wisdom laden with the profundity of the experience of life which, incidentally, opened up the gates for a solution to all conflicts in life. Not merely Arjuna’s conflict, but your conflict, my conflict, and anyone’s conflict at any time found a solution herein. All problems, all conflicts, all disharmonies, in everyone’s mind, in every pattern of society, and for all times, were dealt with effectively. Thus it is that the Bhagavadgita became a scripture of universal significance. Though it arose on account of a historical context, it gradually bordered upon timeless questions and the eternal problems of mankind, or humanity as a whole. The Bhagavadgita teaches not the Hindu religion, but religion as such. It is not my religion, or your religion, but it is the religion of the human soul that is spoken in the words of the Bhagavadgita. It is an answer to the questions of mankind, not merely the themes of some religion, cult or creed. It is ‘man’ putting a question to God. Not any particular person or any particular faith or association or affiliation raising a problem, but man, signifying humanity, raising a problem before the Maker of all things. And to it, the answer came from all sides. The answer came from all the mouths of the Cosmic Person, not merely from one individual called Krishna. There was no Krishna then, when this answer came. The query was not raised by Arjuna as a historical person. It was not Arjuna that kicked up the problem; it was the humanity present in Arjuna that raised the question. There is a character of humanity in everyone of us, which is neither male nor female, neither eastern nor western. The human element puts the eternal question. Hence, the answer has to be all-comprehensive. The human complexity raised the question, and who will answer the question? Not ‘another’ man. One man’s problem cannot be solved by another man or another person. Because another person is also a human being like this person. You cannot solve my problem, nor can I solve your problem, because both of us stand on the same pedestal of the human outlook. And here was the problem of humanity as a whole, not of one individual; and who will answer this question? Not Krishna, because to utter the name Krishna in this context would be to raise the question of an individual. It was not the historical Krishna that spoke to Arjuna, but it was Narayana who spoke to Nara. This is also known as Nara-Narayana-Samvada, though, indeed, Krishna-Arjuna-Samvada. God spoke to man, not Krishna to Arjuna, as a person. The Universal spoke to the particular. The All-comprehensive began to speak words of wisdom to that which is localised in space and time. Humanity was face to face with the Absolute. With this background of understanding we shall be able to realise the importance of this scripture of Yoga.

Thus, on the background of the necessity to solve a social conflict, an individual conflict arose in the mind of a symbol of humanity, known as Arjuna. As I already pointed out, I cannot answer this question and you cannot answer this question, because we are all persons, human beings, individuals, and it is the individual that raises the question. Then who is to give the answer? Not anyone in the world. The answer has to come from That which is beyond the world. And hence the personality of Krishna began to expand gradually into the All-inclusive Consciousness which covers the entire gamut of the evolution of mankind and the world as a whole. This apocalypse of Consciousness is what is known as Virat, or the Visvarupa. It expanded not merely quantitatively in space and time; it is not the swelling of a body that is called Virat, or Visvarupa, but a humanly unimaginable expansion of Consciousness, which alone can solve the questions of mankind’s conflict.

And what is mankind’s conflict? One person set against another person. This is the first phase of the problem. That each one is at loggerheads with one’s own self is another phase of the conflict. You do not know what you will think tomorrow. You do not agree today with what you thought yesterday. Your understanding cannot go hand in hand with your feeling. Your feelings cannot go hand in hand with your will. Your emotions will not agree with your logical argument. Your logic goes against the facts of human society outside. All this is a description of internal conflict. “I can neither fully agree with you nor fully reject you.” This is also a personal conflict. If I can fully agree with you, there can be no conflict. If I can fully reject you, then also there is no conflict. But, unfortunately, I cannot fully reject you for certain reasons and cannot also wholly accept you for certain other reasons. This is individual conflict. And there are also non-alignments of the layers of the personality itself.

The four conflicts are a, b, c, d. The earlier one is the cause of the later. I am proceeding from the posterior to the prior, from the gross to the subtle, from the visible to the invisible, from the outer to the inner, for the purpose of explanation. The outer conflict of society is an outcome of the internal conflict of human nature. Why has this conflict come? Is there any solution for this? Arjuna fell at the feet of Krishna. “I am confused, and I do not know what I am supposed to do. Bewildered is the condition of my mind. It is true that I have come here for battle, as a general of the army, but now something is happening within my own mind. I do not know, Krishna, what is happening! I am sunk in grief. I am gripped by sorrow. I cannot lift my finger. I cannot raise my hand. My nerves are getting paralysed. I cannot even stand up. I am falling down. My reason is failing.” This is what happens when internal conflict reaches its climax. And here the real Bhagavadgita starts, which is God speaking. Up to this time man was speaking: “I shall wage a war, I shall end these people, crush them and pound them to powder.” That was the boast of man before the war was entered upon. Then the sinking down of the personality: “This is impossible. I shall withdraw, because I do not think that I am fit to adjust myself to this complex that has arisen now in the form of a social conflict, which, I hold, is raised by us due to ignorance, greed and callousness towards the consequences of war.” The answer of Bhagavan Sri Krishna, representing the unity of the cosmos, is simple and precise, though it is apparently a long gospel of many chapters.

Arjuna was thoroughly mistaken in assessing the values of life. “Your understanding is turbid, it is not clear enough to grasp the vitality of life. Nobody asked you to start the war. It is you who started this, and I merely said nothing against it. If you want it, have it, and be done with it. After having started it of your own accord, relying on the strength of your arms, listening to nobody else’s advice, what makes you now sing a different tune altogether, as if you are another person having nothing to do with the previous person that you were who decided to wage the war? The answer of Arjuna was: “I do not know.” There are some students who come to this Ashram. If I ask them why they came, the answer is: “I do not know.” It is difficult to speak to such people. How is it that they do not know anything? You must know something at least. The truth is that you know that you do not know. Don’t you know even that much? Well, it looks something humorous. But, this was exactly what Arjuna did. “I do not know what to do. Tell me what is my duty.” The answer is the Bhagavadgita, which is supposed to be a Gospel on duty.

What is the duty of man? I began by speaking of the four conflicts, which the Bhagavadgita endeavours to resolve. To solve the first conflict, Arjuna thought that battle is the only way. But before the war took place outside, a war broke out inside the warrior. There was a psychological war which fumed up like wild fire within the mind of the hero, even before the outer social war took place. “Do you know why this happens? Do you know why any war takes place at all? Why conflicts should arise at all? The ultimate cause of all conflicts? Do you know this, Arjuna?” Sri Krishna spoke. You do not know anything. You do not know that you have a higher conflict pushing you forward into a further external conflict. Behind the social conflict, is the individual conflict. Behind the individual conflict, there is another conflict which was not apparent to the mind of any person then, but Krishna knew what it was. It was the conflict between the individual and the world as a whole in the form of this vast creation.

Man has estranged himself from Nature. This is the third conflict – the conflict between man and Nature. The world seems to be outside us, and we seem to be strangers in this world. We are not sure if we are really wanted in this world. Sometimes it looks that we are not wanted at all, and yet we, somehow, reconcile ourselves with the hardships of this mysterious creation and pull on in life, “get on”, as we say. The world is not going to be reconciled if we are not going to obey its laws. Because of a conflict of our individuality with the universal Nature we suffer various pains – hunger and thirst, heat and cold, and, finally, death. All these catastrophes of human life, and life in general, are the outcome of an isolation of the individual from the cosmic Nature. Nature does not die; it is the individual that dies. Nature has no hunger and thirst; it is the individual that has hunger and thirst. Nature does not feel cold. Nature does not want a blanket or a sweater; it is the individual that feels heat and cold. The bodily limitations, the vital limitations, the mental limitations, the intellectual limitations, are all the result of this bifurcation of personality or individuality from the universal Nature. If you are to be tuned to Nature, you are to become an integral, vital, universal part of Nature. Then you will have no hunger and thirst, no heat and cold, no death. But why should this difficulty arise? “I never wanted to isolate myself from Nature.” Nobody would purchase trouble deliberately. And why has this happened? Who is responsible for this banishment of the individual from the universal? This third conflict is due to another conflict altogether, viz., the fourth conflict – the conflict between the Universe and the Absolute, between man and God. We are removed from God Himself. That is why every other disease has cropped up. Social conflict or political conflict is due to individual conflict. The individual conflict is due to the conflict of natural forces in respect of the individual. This, again, is due to a higher conflict between the Universal Being and the individual.

The war seen before us is the array of forces which God has unleashed to teach us a lesson. The whole world is up in arms against us, because we have set ourselves against God. Can we expect to have peace and happiness here when we wage a battle with God Himself? But this is the secret that man does not know because of an original ignorance, what we call the original sin of man, the fall of man, the fall of the soul from its Divine Status of Universality. Unless we reconcile ourselves with God, we are not going to reconcile ourselves with Nature. Nature is nothing but the army of forces let loose by God against the erring individual, as a reaction to the rebellion set against Him. When there is conflict with a country in war, we cannot speak to its soldiers, “My dear friends, please do not fight,” for they are not responsible for the battle. They are released by some other force behind them. We must tackle that force, which is the cause of the release of these forces. Why do we talk to the soldiers, because they, poor fellows, know nothing except that they have been ordered; and they act. Thus there is no use of speaking to the world, “My dear friend, Wind, don’t bite me. Water, do not drown me. Fire, do not burn me.” They will say, “We do not know. We are only ordered to act, and we shall do according to the order. You speak to the Person, the Force who has ordered thus. Otherwise, we shall burn you down, cut you, blow you up, drown you, kill you.” So there is no use trying to get rid of the troubles of life, because these are forces released by a higher Nature. Unless we reconcile ourselves with God, we are not going to be friendly with Nature. And unless we reconcile yourself with Nature, the cosmos as a whole, our internal conflicts are not going to cease. And until internal conflicts are solved, the external wars are not going to end. The social peace which we are clamouring for, the national peace, world-peace, the Ramarajya as we call it – all these wonderful things that we are aspiring in life – cannot be had on earth until we solve the original conflict that is between us, within us, with Nature, and God.

This is the essence of the themes described in the chapters of the Bhagavadgita. We are face to face with the Supreme Being in the eleventh chapter; and whatever I have told you now is the inner significance of the contents of the first eleven chapters. The chapters that follow from the eleventh onwards describe methods of practically applying this knowledge in specific contexts of life. Before doing anything, understand well. And think well, dispassionately, taking into consideration all aspects of the question that arises in your mind. Cast a glance around you, and recognise where you really stand in this world, what your difficulties are, and tap the diffiuilties in their roots. Then it is that you will be blessed, and mankind at large reach blessedness and beatitude.

Social collaboration, individual self-control, universal interrelatedness, and Absolute Oneness are the standpoints from which the Bhagavadgita exhorts us at different levels of its teaching. The highest Reality is Aksharam Brahma (the Imperishable Absolute). It is the Supreme Person, or Adhiyajna from the standpoint of creation. It is manifest as Adhibhuta (the external universe) as the object on the one side, and as Adhyatma (the individual experiencer as the subject) on the other side. The Divine Principles organising the relations between subjects and objects is Adhidaiva (superintending Deity). The movement of the cosmic cycle, the inexorable impulse to action, the universal urge of creativity, is Karma-Visarga (the complex of activity determined by interconnected universal factors). No one can escape this duty of ‘All-Life,’ and none can afford to be ignorant of this secret of existence. Here is the Bhagavadgita in a nutshell.

[Extracted from Swami Krishnananda Maharaj’s discourses Divine Life Society]

The Gospel of the Bhagavadgita

Spotlights on Hinduism and Religious Values

Spotlights on Hinduism and Religious Valuesby Swami Krishnananda

Created on Wednesday 21 June 2013 21:15

(1968)

  1. The influence of religion over the masses is definitely on the wane, since religion, unfortunately, has latterly tended to become formalistic, ritual-ridden and church-oriented, with its social rigidities, mechanised disciplines and an emphasis which began to appear more like an external pressure on the individual rather than a spontaneous incentive for the development of the natural spiritual potentialities of the seeking spirit. Corruption and such other pointers to personal and social deterioration can be attributed ultimately to a lack of the true spiritual sense among mankind.
  2. The charge against Hinduism that it is fatalistic is born of an ignorance of the scientific law of cause and effect, traditionally known as karma, upheld by Hinduism as one of its necessary tenets in the field of its vast compass. Very few, even among Hindus, have a correct knowledge of what true Hinduism is. This is perhaps the fate of the majority of followers of the other religions in the world, also. The interpretation of the law of karma that it inhibits progress by making people slaves to the belief in the inevitability of whatever is to happen is erroneous. The law of karma does not mean that. What it actually implies is that every cause produces an effect of equal force, similar to the force of gravitation in the field of physical nature. Inasmuch as the universe is a balance or an equilibrium of forces and it tends to maintain this balance on any account, a disturbance of this equilibrium by any individualistic action receives a kick back by the power of this equilibrium of the universe in its attempt to restore its lost status quo, and this reaction produced by the universe is really the essence of the law of karma. If it implies any sort of ‘inevitability’ as suspected, it is the kind of inevitability that is involved in the fall of an apple from a tree due to the law of gravitation. This cannot be called fatalistic with the shade of the anathema that seems to be suggested thereby. The force of karma can be overcome by purushartha or the higher creative effort which every individual is capable of and can achieve by a gradual approximation of oneself to the nature of Reality.
  3. The charge of fatalism leveled against Hinduism is therefore unfounded. If well-meaning, highly educated people of today, too, subscribe to this erroneous notion, that would be an added credit to the depth of their knowledge and the profundity of their wisdom!

The catholicity of Hinduism, its breadth of outlook, is not equivalent to a featureless uniformity of approach like a common form of diet that may be prescribed to everyone in the world. The catholicity implies that everyone is equally hungry and needs food, but it does not mean that everyone should be served the same kind of diet. While there is a basic unity among fundamentals, there is an infinite variety in the methods of approach and the working out of the details. The principles of dharma, artha, kama and moksha as the foundational pre-requisites for an integral approach to life as also the most scientific psychology that is behind what is known as varnashrama dharma are enough testimony to refute the fallacious argument that there is very little that is common in the form of a prescribed formula of religious observances, obligatory for all. It is doubtful if any other religion has within its bosom such a power of absorption, such a strength of transmutation and such a large variety in the methodology of approach as Hinduism.

It is certainly possible to lay down an outline of certain basic minimum observances for all Hindus. The practice of the five yamas – ahimsa, satya, asteya, brahmacharya and aparigraha – with a proper understanding of what these actually mean and how they are to be applied with the necessary permutations and combinations, under different circumstances or conditions of life, an organic approach of life as intended in the canon of the four purusharthas referred to above, as well as a scientific adherence to the psychological principles enshrined in the vehicle of the varnashrama system are instances on the point.

  1. To equate Hinduism with casteism is again wrong to the hilt. In fact, Hinduism is no ‘ism’ at all, if an ism means a creed or a cult or even a caste. The name Hinduism was not given to it by the Hindus, and this name was not even known to them before the entry of the Greeks and the Persians into India. The eradication of casteism is quite all right and perhaps necessary if casteism means a fanatical sticking to outdated forms, meaningless routines and an unjustifiable social stratification derogatory to the dignity of the human individual. But if the system of caste means merely an allocation of function to individuals and groups according to their knowledge and capacity for the overall well-being of the organic structure of the human society, it is something which cannot be avoided by anyone who has a proper knowledge of human nature, its ways of working, and its aims in life. It is absurd to make it felt that Harijans are to be exposed to ridicule. If this has happened for any reason, so much the worse for it. Psychological classification for purpose of the fulfilment of the necessary stages in the development of an integrated society cannot include any type of social degradation as a part of its programme. The evil of untouchability has to be abolished and the respect and dignity that are due to a human being in his or her own status or station in society should be accorded. Let, first of all, everyone be made to feel that they belong to the religion of humanity. Until this is achieved, the religion of God cannot enter the minds of people.
  2. Though it may be true to some extent that a study of Sanskrit may help Harijans in feeling a sense of elevation in themselves, and to this extent a study of Sanskrit may be regarded as very helpful, the difficulty cannot be solved by a mere study of the Sanskrit language. The solution lies more in a transformation of the mental attitude that people have towards them or they have towards others, which can be brought about by the spirit of education alone, and education cannot be equated merely with the knowledge of a language, whatever be the importance of the study of a language in the process of education. As for the Harijans, the required incentive can be provided if they can be made to properly understand and appreciate the value of Sanskrit literature as also the knowledge of which it is the medium of expression.
  3. The Smritis embody two aspects of dharma or the law: (a) Samanya dharma or the unchangeable basic law of life which cannot be changed and does not stand in need of any change; and (b) Visesha dharma or the special forms of the law of life which have to be changed according to the prevailing conditions, social or personal. This necessity has naturally to be acceptable to all section of the Hindus, for it is unavoidable.

This does not mean that new Smritis have to come into being, but that their interpretation should be newly oriented according to circumstances. Inasmuch as Hinduism has no common organisation or an established social form of administration as there is, for instance, in Christianity, the ultimate deciding authority in matters of doubt regarding the visesha dharmas becomes a little difficult to fix upon. A possible solution is to leave the matter to the heads of the different section of Hinduism, who will decide the nature of the case as applicable to conditions within their own circles. There seems to be no other alternative since there is no single Guru or Head for the whole of the Hindu religion.

  1. In the present context of social and international life, it is necessary that the wide reaches of Hinduism should be allowed to take effect without taking sides of any parochial nature, an unfortunate feature that can manifest itself occasionally due to the characteristic weakness of the human mind in general. Though it is difficult to give a complete list of all the correctives that may require to be introduced into the present attitude that Hindus generally have towards their religion, the following essentials may be mentioned as salient issues:

  2. The emphasis on the spirit rather than the letter of the law, that is to say, concentration on the intention, the purpose or the essential significance of a religious mandate rather than a mere mechanistic adherence to the formality of the law. To cite an example, many perform sandhya vandana as if they are operating a machine, with neither a knowledge of its meaning or a real faith in its efficacy.
  3. The proper role of ritual in religion, that is, its necessity and value at a particular stage of the religious life as well as its absurdity when it is stretched beyond the permissible limit.
  4. An understanding of the meaning of the varnashrama dharma as a principle for the solidarity of human society and an eradication of the mistaken idea that it implies an unjust social stratification attended with the notion of function.
  5. The erroneous notion that religion is otherworldly which can be rectified by a correct knowledge of the compound (not complex) of dharma-artha-kama-moksha as the foundational ideal of life.
  6. Removal of the mistaken idea that the law of karma implies a passive resignation or a fatalistic attitude.

  7. That moksha the supreme ideal of life means a spatial and temporal getting rid of the world or the life in it without the knowledge that it really means a realisation of the Universality of consciousness.

  8. A scientific and logical trend of the teachings of the Vedanta has of course attracted the attention of the rationalistic minds, or the intellectuals in society. But it is not true that the emphasis on jnana which is one of the features of the Vedanta has been able to enter the hearts of the populace or the common man. The masses still conceive of and adore God in the fashion adumbrated in the Mahabharata, Ramayana, Puranas, Agamas and Tantras, and not necessarily in the way prescribed by the Upanishads. Also, the term ‘Vedanta’, though it is usually associated with the Upanishads, came to mean later on any teaching which holds God to be the Supreme Reality. In this sense the teachings of Sankara, Ramnuja, Madhva, Vallabha, Nimbarka and Chaitanya are all Vedanta in its different forms. Even the Saiva and Sakta religions are a kind of Vedanta alone, in their own way.
  9. A Guru is essential for one treading the spiritual path, up to a certain stage, as it is in every field of the educational process. Tentatively we may say that a person whom one regards as the best among all those one has seen or come in contact with in one’s life may be regarded as one’s Guru, until one comes across a greater person whom the religious instinct can recognise by a spontaneous reaction.
  10. Though mantras in Sanskrit have a special significance, we cannot say that a formula in some other language, charged with an ardent fervour of religious feeling, has not such an efficacy. The Sanskrit mantras have an additional advantage of semantic or phonetic structure, in addition to their capacity to rouse a religious feeling. Mantras in other languages are also effective.
  11. Fasting and such other dietetic regulation, etc. have a disciplinary value, and therefore these are necessary. But they have no ultimate value as they are not the essence of the spiritual life.
  12. Rituals in religion are not to be discouraged, for they are like the feet of the religion on which its body is supported. But the feet are not the entire personality and should not be mistaken for the same. The mistake is not in the performance of the rituals but in the overemphasis laid on their mere outer form as if it is the whole of religion. The legs are not the whole body, though the legs are necessary for the body in spite of the fact that they are not the essential parts of the body. As regards the extent to which rituals are to be regarded as essential, our explanations above will give the answer.
  13. The samaskaras prescribed in the life of a Hindu are necessary purificatory processes. Our view on ritual is, again, the answer here.
  14. The Karma-kandas of the Vedas in the section dealing with the necessity for ritual in the observance of religion, in one of its forms. Though every rite prescribed in the Kama Kanda of the Vedas may not have any significance, in the context of modern times, the essentials need not be neglected, at least where they are honestly felt to be helpful. All these peculiarities of religion require personal guidance from an expert and cannot be put in black and while in a generalised fashion.
  15. Hinduism is a way of life. Hinduism is not a theoretical doctrine or merely an intellectual school of philosophy. Hinduism is neither a ritual, a creed, cult, faith, dogma, theoretical philosophy, or even a religion as a mere outlet for emotion or what the psychologists condescendingly call ‘the religion instinct’. Hinduism is a name given to the very science of life, the art of living, and it is as wide, as meaningful, and as necessary as life itself. To the question, what should constitute the way of life in the present context, the only answer we can give is that the proper way of life is the ordering of one’s thought, speech and action in accordance with the principles, a bare outline of which has already been indicated in the preceding paragraphs. Here, again, we should add that the entire science of life, which Hinduism is, cannot be explained in a short article or essay. The standard texts already available on this subject, and the example of the Masters who have lead and are leading this life in their own persons, are the proper guides.
  16. It is possible for all sections of Hindus – Advaitins, Visishtadvaitins, Dvaitins, etc. – to come together and form a single force that Hinduism really is. Why should this not be possible when the essential meaning of the rock bottom of Hinduism is properly grasped by means of right education?
  17. We can confidently assert that the future of Hinduism is a glorious success in the fulfilment and materialisation of its values, as long as these values are in conformity with the law of Truth. For, Truth alone triumphs: satyameva jayate.
  18. The steps that are to be taken in the direction of coordinating the essential values of all religions are, we reiterate, the steps towards right education. What right education is, of course, is a different subject altogether. And we do not feel it worthwhile spending time in writing a few lines on this subject which borders upon the deeper foibles of human nature, since a solution to this problem will perhaps have to be attempted by a collaboration of persons competent in this line, who have to come to a conclusion as regards the modus operandi here.
  19. We do envisage a properly constituted approach of Hinduism in the Western countries at this junction of the atmosphere in this century. What is required is a band of experts who know what real Hinduism is, and not merely pundits and scholars with only an academic acquaintance with the fringes of Hinduism or even the go-getters in religion whose influence on the public mind is bound to be inadequate, sketchy, artificial and even commercial rather than truly religious or spiritual. With the concentrated force of stalwarts endowed with this special capacity, the spirit of real Hinduism can not only produce a solacing effect on the tension-ridden psychology of the West but also hold aloft the banner of the Universal character of Hinduism, not as a religion with its traditional connotation but as a comprehensive way of life.
  20. There is no need for anyone to work upon the idea that proselytisation is necessary to instil into the minds of people consciousness of true religion. In fact, the system of proselytisaiton would imply a distrust in the value or efficacy of religions other than the one which the proselytiser professes. Since no religion can be said to be complete from all points of view or to represent every phase of Truth, it would be improper to arrogate the character of completeness to any religious faith so that it can consider others as standing in need of a transmutation into its own make. Rather it is the duty of everyone really interested in the welfare of people to guide them on the path which they are already treading towards the One Destination which is reached by the many paths from many directions, instead of asking a pedestrian already on his way to retrace his steps or to discourage him by saying that all along he has been wasting his time by walking in the wrong direction. For, every direction is a direction to the Infinite, as every river finds, by its winding movements, its way to the ocean, into which other rivers also enter.
  21. The changes that have been presently visible in Hinduism may be due to its contact with the West, or in the mode of the presentation of its contents, but not in the nature of these contents themselves. The sanatana or samanya dharma does not change, though the visesha dharma has to change in accordance with prevailing conditions, as was noted above. Perhaps, pedantic orthodoxies which stuck to forms rather than essences are giving way to a broader understanding and appreciation going hand in hand with modern scientific thinking and logical analysis of religious principles, a method of approach which may be said to have been inherited, to some extent, by its contact with Western culture. But, at the same time, it has to be added that the Western impact has tended to make the Hindu approach to life more academic, social and pragmatic instead of deepening or even emphasising its true spiritual nature.

[Extracted from Swami Krishnananda Maharaj’s discourses Divine Life Society]

The Bhagavadgita’s Message of Knowledge and Action

The Bhagavadgita’s Message of Knowledge and Actionby Swami Krishnananda

Created on Wednesday 19 June 2013 21:08

(Spoken on Gita Jayanti in 1974)

In the history of the culture of the world, the Upanishads and the Bhagavadgita may be regarded as the central spiritual message to mankind. These two gospels of the spiritual ideal offset each other, as it were; they give us the art of life in consonance with the eternal on the one hand, and in consonance with the temporal on the other. The problem of the human being is principally one of reconciliation between the eternal and the temporal or, to put it in modern terms, bringing about a harmony between the religious ideal and the secular call of duty. This has been an age-old problem, a question that has never been adequately answered. And the Upanishads, while holding aloft the banner of the magnificence of life eternal, seem to absorb into their bosom all the values that may be regarded as secular and temporal – so that we are faced with a lion’s den, as it were. The values that we regard as dear and near in this world of visible perception all seem to be transmuted into the heart of that Reality which is the central theme of the Upanishads. But man is man, whatever may be his ideal.

Now, while idealism is good and it has to always be there before us, it is essential that the ideal never remain as a future. One of the errors that we may commit in any type of endeavour or effort in day-to-day life is to place an ideal in the future so that the present stares at us and demands recognition in spite of the fact that the ideal is there before us transcending the values of all that is immediately real to our senses, our body, and our social life.

We have to reiterate here that our mistake lies in regarding an ideal as a future. “Then what about the present?” is the question. If an ideal is ahead of us in the far-off future, what has happened to us at the present moment? The conflict that apparently seems to be there between the ideal and the real is born of a miscalculation of religious values, a misinterpretation of the spiritual sense in life, and a thoroughgoing lack of understanding in respect of that which can be regarded as the organic structure of the values of life.

We as human beings are born with a prejudice. The prejudice seems to have entered into our very blood and vitals, the prejudice which insists that the present and the future are divided by a large and vast gulf which cannot easily be bridged, and this gulf that yawns before us between the future and the present is also the gulf that is between the world here and God above.

As I mentioned, in one sense the Upanishads may be regarded as a complete gospel, but the temporal values which necessitate a particular type of action or activity on the part of man seem to assume a new orientation altogether in the light of the Upanishads, and we are faced with a similar predicament as a child would be faced when confronted with a genius of mathematics, physics or philosophy. We cannot say that the child’s values are ignored by the genius, but the child cannot understand the genius, notwithstanding the fact that all the values of childhood are comprehended in the values of a genius. Likewise, the values held as ultimately real by the Upanishads seem to go over our heads and speak a language which we cannot understand. We want to be told in our own language, in the tongue that we speak, and with a sympathy that is consonant with that which we regard as valuable and dear to our heart.

Here comes the Bhagavadgita to comfort us, to console us, to solace us, and to tell us that everything is all right. Nothing is wrong in this world and there need not be despair either in the religious attitude or in the secular attitude. It may be emphasised that here in the Bhagavadgita we have an eternal message of the reconciliation between the empirical and the transcendental, the secular and the religious, the human and the divine, the relative and the Absolute, the visible and the invisible, the matter of fact that is before us and the glorious ideal that is beckoning us with its relentless and resistless force ever since the creation of the world. Now, what is this reconciliation that the Bhagavadgita offers us? What is its message to mankind, to humankind, to everyone? The message is precisely the message of duty because we are faced with a problem of what we are expected to do in this world after we are born.

The whole of our life is one of action. From birth to death we are in a network of activity, some meaningful, some appearing to be meaningless. Even babies we active, though to the adult it may look childish, senseless, idiotic and meaningless. It is activity that seeps into the very essence of our temporal being and we are expected to do something; we are impelled to act and do something or the other from morning till evening, whether or not we are inclined to intelligently understand the implications of an action.

This was exactly what Bhagavan Sri Krishna told Arjuna: You have to act and you will act, whether or not you have an inner inclination to be for it or against it. You have not the right to say, “I shall act”; you also have not the right to say, “I shall not act.” And in a similar vein, the great lawgiver Manu tells us in his Smriti: Neither are you to say, “How beautiful is life, how grand is life, how dear is life,” nor are you to say, “How stupid is life, how idiotic is life, how ugly is life,” because both these statements are born of a misunderstanding. Life is neither beautiful nor ugly, it is neither dear nor dreadful; it is an impersonal presentation of values which we have to take in the way in which it is presented before us at any given stage of life under any given moment or circumstance.

One of the difficulties in understanding the gospel of the Bhagavadgita or any such message is that we are expected to think here in an absolutely reoriented fashion. A new educational value is presented to us. One of the things, or perhaps the most important thing that the Bhagavadgita tells us is that we have to think in a new fashion altogether, and the greatest knowledge conceivable is perhaps the art of thinking correctly. Knowledge does not mean the study of Plato or Kant or Sankara or Ramanuja. Knowledge is the system of thinking correctly, and we are masters of not thinking correctly. Why? Because we have been caught up in a muddle of circumstances whose values we cannot properly understand; and the relationship we bear with whom, we understand much less.

To come to the crux of the whole matter, we cannot easily understand our relationship with the world. This is our difficulty; and therefore, we cannot understand our relationship with other people in the world. Therefore, also, we cannot understand our relationship with God. Everything is a confusion, and this confusion is called samsara. In Sanskrit we have a very beautiful word – samsara. “I am caught up in samsara” means, “I am caught up in a mess, a muddle, a mire, a confused state of affairs,” which is what Arjuna cries out at the very outset in the First Chapter of the Bhagavadgita. “I am confused. I cannot understand what is right, what is wrong, what is proper and improper. What am I to do now?” This is the question which Arjuna posed before Bhagavan Sri Krishna, and every one of us is posing the very same question. What is my duty here? There is only one question before us into which we can boil all other questions of life: the question of what we are supposed to do in this world after we are born. What am I to do, what are you to do, what is anyone to do?

The Bhagavadgita is the answer. It is very difficult to give a complete conspectus of everything the Bhagavadgita says, but we can pinpoint the essential emphasis of the Bhagavadgita in this context, namely, our duty is to harmonise ourselves with the environment in which we are living. Harmony is called yoga – samatvaṁ yoga ucyate (Gita 2.48) – and the action that proceeds from our personality on the basis of this understanding is called karma yoga.

What is karma yoga? It is an intelligent action, not a foolish action; it is an action that is engendered by a correct understanding of all the factors involved in our relationship with the entire atmosphere in which we are placed. This is a very difficult thing. You may be thinking, “What is it that you are saying? How am I to understand the implications of all the aspects of my relationship with the total atmosphere in which I am placed? What is this atmosphere?”

The Bhagavadgita tells us sankhya is to precede yoga or, in other words, knowledge is to precede action. In the terminology of the Bhagavadgita, sankhya means knowledge and yoga means action. We should not do anything without understanding what we are doing, but how are we to understand what we are doing? What is the meaning of understanding? Everybody understands what he is doing. Don’t we know what we are doing? When we get up in the morning, take our tea, go to the bazaar and purchase something, quarrel with somebody, we are doing so many things with an understanding of what we are doing, so what is the Bhagavadgita for? Everyone has knowledge of what he is doing, so in that sense the Bhagavadgita is useless.

Well, this is not the type of understanding that is expected of us. Whenever there is tension in our action, it means we have not understood the nature of our action. If an action that we perform, even if we regard it as a so-called duty, brings about an adverse reaction or sorrow as a result, it means we have not understood it, because the good cannot bring a bad result. Similia similibus curentur, as medical people tell us. There is similarity, harmony, between the means and the end. If good proceeds from us, how can the result of it be bad? How can we cry and grieve as a consequence of what we have done? “Oh, I have done so much good and yet people are abusing me and throwing stones at me.” We have not done good. We may be thinking that we have done good, but there has been a small error creeping into our goodness, on account of which Nature has revolted against us.

The Bhagavadgita says that we must act in such a manner that there is no revolt from any side as a consequence of the action that we perform. What type of revolt can we expect? God Himself can revolt against what we are doing, Nature can revolt, our own conscience may revolt, and human society may revolt. These are the four types of opposition that we can have. We must be harmonised: samatvaṁ yoga ucyate. What is the meaning of samatvam? What is harmonisation? We have to be harmonised with what is visible as well as invisible. The principle of right action is mentioned in the Eighteenth Chapter of the Bhagavadgita, which also tells, at the same time, what is wrong action.

As we are concerned with the principle of right action, we may consider what the Bhagavadgita tells us in respect of this issue. What is right action? It is that motivation and activity which is based on a proper assessment in proper proportion of the factors that are involved, factors that are contributory to the success of an action. An action becomes successful when the causes of that action are properly harmonised. If the causes of the action are not properly harmonised, there will not be success of the action. There will be only failure.

What are the causes of an action? The Eighteenth Chapter tells us this in one of its verses. We are wrongly under the impression that we are the causes of the action. Everyone thinks, “I do this work. I go there, I come here, I say this, I want this, I do not want this,” and so on. This is egoistic action, as the Bhagavadgita tells us. If we are convinced that we are independently, individually the source of all the activities that proceed from us, we are egoists because we have disregarded all the other factors that were contributory to the action.

Medical people know that 450 or so muscles are working when we stand up on our two legs. When we stand up, these 450 muscles are very active and very conscious that we are standing; otherwise, we will fall down. But who is aware of this fact? We think we are standing, but it is not so simple an affair. Not merely this, the brain is active, the heart is active, the lungs are active, the alimentary canal, the respiratory system – everything is active when we are merely standing up. In that simple act of standing, so many factors are involved that we are unaware of. And to understand the various factors of an action is even more difficult.

The Bhagavadgita tells us that action does not wholly proceed from our personality, though our personality is the channel of the projection of the action. It is only a channel of the motivation of a wider force which is invisible to the senses. An electric bulb is shining here. Can we say it is only the bulb that is responsible for the light? There is a filament inside which is heated up by a force which is called electricity. Where is the electricity? It is coming through a wire. From where has the wire come? It was manufactured by somebody. And who has fitted it? Somebody else. What is its connection with the powerhouse, and who is working there? So many people. What are they doing? With so many machines, many things are done. And how is electricity generated? So many other scientific factors are involved. With all these considerations, we have a little twinkling of light here.

And the Bhagavadgita tells us, “My dear friend, so many things are involved in a single action of yours, of which you are unaware; therefore, you are mostly not successful in your actions.” Adhiṣṭhānaṁ tathā kartā karaṇaṁ ca pṛthagvidham, vividhāś ca pṛthakceṣṭā daivaṁ caivātra pañcamam (Gita 18.14). At least five factors are mentioned among the many others that can be conceived in this context. Adhisthana is the complex of this psychophysical organism. That must be in proper order. The body should be healthy, the mind should be sane. If there is a sick body with jaundiced eyes and an insane mind, what will happen if activity proceeds from it? We know very well the consequence. The adhisthana, or the basis or repository, should be well prepared. And karta is the individualised form of consciousness which is the medium through which action is manifest. In our case it is the intellect from which the ego is inseparable. The intellect should have made a proper judgment beforehand, prior to the conclusion that such and such a step has to be taken in the form of an action. Judgment precedes action. We do not suddenly rush in where angels fear to tread.

Karaṇaṁ ca pṛthagvidham: The various instruments of action are also to be correct. Suppose a scientist in a laboratory is using a very powerful microscope in order to study atoms, electrons, and so on, and goes on peeping into the microscope very carefully throughout the day. But if the microscope is not properly made, and he himself has cataracts in his eyes, what will he see through the microscope? He will come to a very wrong scientific conclusion, and will proclaim this wrong conclusion to the newspapers. Blunderous results will follow. His eyes must be healthy, and his instruments should be properly fitted. Karana is the instrument. It should be healthy and properly made.

Vividhāś ca pṛthakceṣṭā: The motive behind the action also comes. Why are we doing this action? The motive is the moral force, meaning or significance that is behind an action, and it colours the action to a large extent, if not entirely.

Daivaṁ caivātra pañcamam: There is a very, very important fifth factor. As Shakespeare has put it, there is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how you will. Whatever be our effort, whatever be our sweating, there is something else that decides the fate of our action. Whatever be the argument of an advocate in a court, the deciding factor is the judge. The judge will hear the arguments from both sides and finally, he is the deciding factor. Now, we will have a doubt in our mind: “Will God decide against my motive? Then it is very pitiable. Suppose I do something and God simply disposes of the entire motive of my action; what is the good of my doing anything? This is a sorrowful state of affairs.”

Samatvaṁ yoga ucyate: Again the same principle of action, harmony, is here called yoga. Harmony is the will of God. This is an essential factor in any kind of successful action. God will not act against us if our will is united with the divine will. The law will not punish us if our action is in consonance with the law. Why should the law punish us? It is because we go against it. We curse the law. “Oh, stupid thing, the law is harassing me.” Why does it harass us? Because we do not know what it means and we do not want to follow its mandates. We have a law of our own, contrary to the prevailing law, so why should it not trouble us? Whose mistake is it?

Therefore divine will, God’s dispensation, is not against man’s motivation of action, and God’s will is the ultimate fruit-yielding factor in all activities of the individual. We sow the seed, manure the sapling, take care of the plant and see that the tree grows, but the fruit comes out of the tree due to the will of a universal power, with which our will has to be united.

What is meant by saying we must be in harmony with the atmosphere and environment of our action, with all conceivable factors, in order that our action may be successful? Can we conceive all the factors? No. We are not sufficiently educated. Therefore, we fail in our action. We cannot exercise our mind to such an extent that we can understand the operation of all the factors involved in an action and, therefore, many of our actions go abortive, producing no result whatsoever. Not merely that, sometimes the result of the action that we performed comes back upon us like a boomerang and we cry, “Oh, what has happened to me? Is this the result of my good deeds?” Well, we must have done a very good deed from our own limited point of view, but we have forgotten to put on the ultimate switch. The powerhouse is working, the wire is there, the bulb is fitted, but we have forgotten to put on the switch, so how will there be illumination?

The ultimate switch is the will of God, and the function of God’s will may be hampered by the obtrusive factor of our egoism. This is what we call Satan in religious language, Mara in Buddhist terminology, or Maya in Hindu parlance – self-affirmation. In biblical parlance we are told that Satan fell from the Garden of Eden. How did he fall? By the affirmation of his ego. “I am equal to God, if not greater than God.” He immediately fell into the nether regions. The greatest devil conceivable is the ego. The Yoga Vasishtha says that ahamkara is the self-affirmation of the individual, contradistinguishing it from the universal will of God. But why should we forget the simple truth that anything that is universal should be inclusive of all that is particular? How comes the need for the affirmation of the individual factor called egoism when the universal is operating? Do we want the ego to operate independently of the universal? Wonderful is this knowledge.

What do we mean by universal? That which is inclusive of all the particulars and individual factors is the universal. When that is operating, why should the individual assert itself separately? That very fact of the operation of the individual independently is a denial of the operation of the universal. This is the mistake that we commit in the performance of any of our actions.

So the gospel of the Bhagavadgita clinches the matter by telling us in its clear-cut language that ignorance of the law is no excuse. “Oh, I did not know it. I am sorry.” We should not say that. If we are sorry, well, we have to bear the fruit of it. We touch the live wire and say, “I am sorry; I didn’t know it is a live wire.” Well, all right, if we didn’t know it is a live wire, now we know it.

To reiterate the gospel of the Bhagavadgita, knowledge, sankhya, should precede yoga, action. The reaction of good and bad does not impinge upon the individual when there is rootedness of the individual in buddhi marga, the yoga of understanding. But we do not want to understand because an understanding in the correct or proper manner goes against the pleasures of the ego and the senses. We are more slaves of the senses and the ego than devotees of God. Though we are chanting through the lips, “O Lord, Thy kingdom come,” how will it come? Nothing will come. Only our sorrow will come. Why? Because what we have sown, that alone can we reap. We sow the seed of thistles and expect a beautiful mango to come out of the plant. Nothing will come. Śreyaś ca preyaś ca manuṣyam etas tau samparītya vivinakti dhīraḥ (Katha 1.2.2) says the Katha Upanishad. Sreyas and preyas are two different things altogether. The pleasures of the senses and the satisfactions of the ego are not always in consonance with the delight of divinity or the bliss of God.

The last verse of the Bhagavadgita, which figuratively tells us that Bhagavan Sri Krishna and Arjuna jointly take up arms against the evil forces of the world, incidentally points out that the individual should be united with the universal. In every one of its actions, in every stage of its evolution, at any given moment of time, we are always in a state of yoga. Yoga is not only in the temple or in the meditation hall. It is also in the marketplace, in the shop, and in the bathroom because we may die in the bathroom itself. Do we think we will die only in the meditation hall? That is a very good thing if it happens, but we may die in the marketplace. What will happen then? We are thinking of stupid things in the shop and at that time our prana goes. What will happen? They say the last thought determines the future life of a person.

Nityayukta is the word used in the Bhagavadgita: Permanently united with that which is true, such a person is called a yogi. Who is a yogi? That person who is hiddenly, perpetually united with the real, that which is true, is a yogi. What is true? What is it that we call the true with which we are supposed to be permanently united? Anything that is contributory to the revelation of the next higher stage of the universal in our consciousness, that is the true as far as we are concerned.

There are stages of truth. There are degrees of reality. And every next degree, every higher stage of it is to be regarded as true from the point of view of the immediately lower one. Ultimately, the largest universal is God-consciousness which, again, is not a bifurcation of the religious or the spiritual from the temporal but a recognition of the union of the transcendent and the immanent at the same time – a difficult thing to conceive, once again. Our culture, our religion, our spirituality always insists on a union of the transcendent and the immanent, God there and God here. He is not only in the heavens or in Vaikunta, He is also in every atom of creation. He is the farthest of the far and the nearest of the near. Tad dure vad antike (Isa 5), says the Isavasya Upanishad. And unless we learn the art of this reconciliation, which is the most difficult thing to do, there will be no joy in life.

Samsara becomes moksha. The very thing that is before us becomes divinity shining before us. The veil is lifted when the sensory interpretation of values gives place to a spiritual interpretation of the very same values. The particularised interpretation gives place to the universalised interpretation. ‘I’ and ‘my’ vanish; He or It takes possession of us totally. Like camphor vanishing in the radiance that its flame shoots forth, leaving no residue, the individual will melt into the Universal. Arjuna will melt into Krishna so that he may finally be the only deciding factor and the Reality. Paśya me yogam aiśvaram (Gita 11.8) says the Viratsvarupa: Look at Me. I am everywhere, and in Me is everything contained. Both the Pandavas and the Kauravas are also there – the friends and the enemies are included, the positive and the negative factors are all fused into a single focus of divine radiance.

Thus, the outcome of all this seems to be that yoga is a very difficult thing. It is not for Tom, Dick and Harry. It is a tremendous sacrifice that we perform and a dying to our little self so that we may live in the Eternal that is in us. Die to live, as Sri Gurudev used to say. And we need not despair in a mood of misunderstanding that when God takes possession of us we shall lose the joys of life. Nothing of the kind. The joys of life are reflections of the eternal bliss, and the reflection is naturally contained, if not completely transmuted, in the original.

The Bhagavadgita anticipates, as it were, the famous saying of Jesus Christ: “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” All these things shall be added. They are not going to be removed from us. This is the gospel of true religion, the real spirituality of godliness manifest in humanity, the implanting of the Universal values in every little bit of particular action, mode of thought and speech. This is to bring God down to the Earth, as it were, and to live the life spiritual in the most secular conceivable form of our life. In this sense it is that it can be said that the Bhagavadgita is a universal gospel, not meant for any particular ism or religion but for every created being which aspires to go back to its original source – the gospel of God to man.

With these few humble words may I conclude, simultaneously offering my prayers that the invisible seeing multiple eyes of the Supreme Being bless us all with His abundant grace that we live true to our own selves, which is at once to live true to the values that everyone else also holds as dear, and to the ultimate value that God Himself regards as finally Real.

[Extracted from Swami Krishnananda Maharaj’s discourses Divine Life Society]

Gita Jayanti Message

Gita Jayanti Message by Swami Krishnananda

Created on Tuesday 18 June 2013 16:51

(Spoken during Gita Jayanti in 1972)

We can study a text as a historical document come to us from ancient times, forming a link in the development of human culture and civilisation, and we can also study a text as a piece of psychology of the author, a stage in the development of the human mind, so that the particular text to be studied gives us an idea of our present psychological relation to it, and vice versa. The scripture also can be studied as a piece of literature. For example, the Bible and Shakespeare’s writings are considered to be magnificent English literature available to us.

So from what angle of vision are we to study a book, especially when we take up a text like the Bhagavadgita, the Sermon on the Mount, or the Dharmapada? When we study these, we generally introduce into the context our own personality, viewpoints, and the nature of the interest we have at a given moment of time. The structure of the context also depends to a large extent on the mental constitution of the student. A grieved person who is sinking in sorrow due to the weight of samsara, buffeted from all sides with pains of every kind – if such a person reads the Bhagavadgita or the Sermon on the Mount, one particular meaning will come out of it. But a person who has been born with a silver spoon in the mouth and who has never seen pain and never known suffering has another interest altogether, and sees a different meaning in it.

This scripture, the Bhagavadgita – that which is the subject of our worship, prayer and study today – may be taken as a typical representation of religious literature among the many that we have in the world. It is studied, commented upon by countless people, scholars galore, and each one has spoken truths which are not whole truths and yet not untruths because, as I mentioned, the context in which we study the scripture, the circumstances which impel us or direct us to the study and, above all, the state of our mental evolution determine the extent of knowledge or the meaning that we can extract out of such literature as these.

There is a little difference between writings of scholars, poets, literatures, and writings of this kind such as the Bhagavadgita. Kalidasa has written Raghuvamsa and Kumarasambhava, and Vyasa has written the Bhagavadgita. We cannot say that they are on a par even from the point of view of literary merit because scriptures such as the Bhagavadgita contain words which are more than mere linguistic expressions. We are often told, perhaps the Christ himself mentioned it somewhere, that the words he spoke were not words, but spirit expressing itself. It was spirit that came out from the mouth of Christ. They were not words of language. If that was spirit which came out as the wondrous teaching in the New Testament, similar is the case with the words of the Bhagavadgita. It was spirit that was gushing forth, spirit coming in torrential forms and concretising itself through the stages of para, pashyanti, madhyama and vaikhari into visible audible form.

Thus, when spirit manifests itself as force of language and words of wisdom, it becomes a comprehensive manifestation. Spirit is comprehensive. It is not one-sided in any way. While we can speak one aspect of a matter without touching other aspects because of the incompetency of language and the limitations of words, when spirit speaks, it speaks all things at one stroke because spirit and life are identical. Life has no aspects. It is the one thing that we cannot define in our language. What is life? We cannot define it because it eludes the grasp of definitions through linguistic formulae. And if spirit manifests itself as these scriptures, it covers all ranges of thought.

Today when we were doing the sacred svadhyaya of the Bhagavadgita, the 700 verses, I was trying to glance through the meaning of every sloka, and it appeared to me that there is no subject which is not touched there. The only point is, we should have a little time to think over it deeply. Every aspect of human character, human aspiration and human context is touched on in one verse or the other. But if we read it in a hurry just because it is Gita Jayanti and we have to finish it in two hours, we will make little meaning out of it.

The more we study it in an impersonal fashion, the more meaning does it seem to convey to us. As days pass, the more is the depth into which we can enter. Every aspect of psychological question, every philosophical problem, everything that we can call scientific in its strict sense of the term, everything spiritual, social, political, economic, moral, all these subjects are touched on in some verse of the Gita so that, as Mahatma Gandhi used to say, some verse or the other would come up like a ray of light before his mind when he was drooping in a dark cloud covering the sun. There is no verse which will not throw light on some question of life. It may be my question, it may be your question, but it shall have an answer to every question because the Bhagavadgita is supposed to solve the question of mankind. It is not merely the question of Arjuna that was the point of discussion. The Arjuna was only a type of human nature which was taken as symbolic, representing mankind’s foibles as well as longings.

If Arjuna was taken as symbolic of human character in general, seeking its destination which it has lost in the oblivion of ignorance, Krishna would represent the cosmic answer to the individual problem of man. It is actually Iswara-jiva Samvada, Krishna-Arjuna Samvada, Narayana-Nara Samvada, the universe and the individual commingling with each other in a concourse which is deeper than physical sensory perception. What was actually the intention of the Bhagavadgita, we mortal intellects cannot easily explain because, as I tried to point out, if it was divinity that actually manifested itself as the force of the Gita gospel, it should have had intentions beyond the limitations of, and exceeding the borders of, mere human convenience and need.

Human nature, in its completeness and totality, was what was the object of address in the Gita. When we address human nature, we cannot speak merely to its nose or eyes or physiological organs. Human nature eludes the grasp of pure scientific understanding in its logical sense. Divine character, or divine perfection, was addressing human nature in its eternality. Human nature is a type that is eternal; it will not come to an end. Though Mr. so-and-so, Mrs. so-and-so may come to an end one day or another, their types of human nature will not end. There is a difference between logical types and physical patterns. The physical patterns of individuality have a beginning and an end. They die because they have a beginning; they have a birth. But the types of human nature are perpetually there. We have Duryodhanas, we have Krishnas, we have Arjunas, we have every blessed thing always in some part of the world. The psychological pattern of human nature, which cannot be said to have a beginning or an end, which is there as long as the universe lasts, that perpetual figure of human character and human nature was the recipient of this knowledge coming down from the supreme perfection of a blend of eternity and infinity. Thus viewed, the Bhagavadgita becomes a gospel of eternity.

While students of Indology, Sanskritists and grammarians see in the Gita a historical document of linguistic peculiarity, and political historians see in it a feature of the Indian nation in ancient times, people with a more comprehensive vision see in it an eternal gospel for man as such so that it is a gospel for me and for you, for one and all, at all periods of time and in every place or circumstance. The spiritual connotation of a scripture is, therefore, transcendent to the limitations of spatial, temporal and personal idiosyncrasies or peculiarities. It is not meant only for this place, for India only. It exceeds the limitations of space or place. It is not meant only for that particular age in the Mahabharata. That means to say, it exceeds the limitations of time. It was not meant only for Arjuna. It exceeds the limitations of personality. Space, time and individuality do not limit the significance of an eternal message. It is in this context that we are to look upon the Bhagavadgita, especially as sadhakas, seekers. We are not here as students of history or Indology, or politicians or social reformers who are concerned only with a particular given context at a given moment of time. As seekers of truth, we have to see the gospel of truth in the Bhagavadgita.

One of the remarkable features of the Gita is that while each of its verses can be taken as an independent gospel by itself, and even a single verse gives us enough knowledge to ponder over for months together, yet with all these variegated verses which apparently give us independent conclusive messages for humanity, they form a beautiful architectural pattern of beauty and wholeness. There is a pattern of development of the verses of the Gita, like the limbs of a human body. While each limb of the body can be studied independently – eye surgeons study only the eyes, ENT specialists are concerned with only certain parts of the body, there are heart specialists, brain specialists – we cannot forget the context of this part of the body in the setup of the whole organism. The brain is not somebody else’s; it is of the very same person who has also a heart, who has eyes, who has entrails, and so on. Likewise, each verse of the Gita can be taken independently as an object of study or a subject for our thesis, and an object of meditation, psychological analysis, moral self-discipline. For all these purposes we can take every sloka as a guiding light. Yet, all these slokas go together to perform a beautiful fabric of perfection so that we can take the Gita as a single gospel, or we may take it as a variegated gospel for every level of life.

How many rays has the Sun? They say he is sahastra girna or eka girna; we may say he has thousands of rays, or millions of rays, or only one ray. So is the Bhagavadgita. It is a masterpiece not merely of literature but a masterpiece of spiritual profundity and divine magnificence. If Sri Krishna in his cosmic form, or on the eve of his manifestation of the public, spoke the Gita, it was recorded for us by an equally great person, Krishna Dvaipayana Vyasa. That is a wonder. The author of its present literary form is as great and as competent in every way as the speaker himself. So we have a beautiful blend of masters – the great master spirit of divinity Krishna speaking the Gita, and the mastermind of Vyasa writing it.

The comprehensiveness of the significance or meaning of the Gita gospel as a spiritual treatise for humanity can be gauged from an oft-quoted verse: krsno janati vai samyak, kincit kunti-sutah phalam vyaso va vyasa-putro va (Sri Vaisnaviya-tantra-sara, Gita Mahatmya 3): The meaning of the Gita is known wholly only to Krishna. Nobody else knows it. Arjuna knows a little bit, and Vyasa knows it, and perhaps his son Suka knows it. The others only hear.

We can make out only the word meaning of a scripture, but that is not the real meaning. It is not only one meaning that comes to the surface if we study a verse of the Gita. It has got many implications, connections and relations; thus, it differs from works such as the Raghuvamsa, the Kumarasambhava or even the Panchadasi. They have only a single meaning, because they are written for a special purpose. But scriptures such as the Gita, the Upanishads, the Veda Samhitas, the Ramayana of Valmiki or even the Mahabharata taken as a whole are not ordinary messages given by writers that we see in the world in plenty. They are not simply writers; they are ambassadors of the spirit who speak in the language of perpetual significance. And thus, we have force and energy induced into us when we study the Gita – much more when we actually contemplate its meaning, and if it is studied in the context in which it ought to be studied.

Sarva shastramayi gita is another oft-quoted saying: Every scriptural meaning we will find in the Gita. Nyaya, Vaiseshika, Sankhya, Yoga, Mimamsa, Vedanta, theism, acosmism, pantheism, transcendentalism, absolutism, devotion, knowledge, concentration, meditation, action, what not – everything we will find there. I don’t think that any one of us here had the patience or the time to read the Gita in such depth. Most people study the Gita as a routine of svadhyaya, parayana, or some people keep it only for worship. They keep it in the puja room and do not open it, keep a tulsi leaf on it and prostrate before it every day. That is also good, wonderful, but that is not enough. It has to be made a part of our life. The Gita is a gospel of life. It is a universal gospel given to Man, capital ‘m’, Man as such, human nature, the type of human character which Arjuna represented. It was not one person that spoke the Gita to another person, Krishna speaking to Arjuna. As I mentioned, the gospel of the Gita exceeds the limits of personality significance. That is why it is sometimes also known as Narayana-Nara Samvada and Brahma-vidya Yoga Shastra.

When we take the whole Gita as a complete gospel it becomes a systematic exposition of the sadhana which we have to perform as seekers of God – the various stages through which we have to pass right from the oblivion of the dark night of the soul, as the mystics generally call it, the condition in which Arjuna was as described in the first chapter of the Gita. The soul gropes in darkness, knowing not where it is and what is happening to it. Right from that condition of oblivion, we are taken systematically to the wondrous vision of the Supreme Being as described in the eleventh chapter of the Gita. From oblivion and ignorance, we go to omniscience and mastery in absoluteness. That is the eleventh chapter. Many things are said which we have to study in detail.

No single commentary on the Gita can be said to touch all the aspects which the Gita must have intended, so it is profitable to read at least half a dozen masters so that we may have an adequate knowledge of the various viewpoints with which the Gita can be studied. One of the most beautiful presentations of this spiritual message of the Gita is the work of Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita – most beautiful. He is one of those who have gone to the very depths of the Gita and given its spiritual message, not merely its historical or political or social message, but the spiritual message for all time. And among the ancient authors, we have the great commentaries of Acharya Sankara, Ramanuja, Madhava, and of later authors also who have written in modern languages. All these are wonderful expositions.

What is the message of the Gita? No one can answer this question in one sentence because we do not know how to express an answer to this moot question. It is like asking what Swami Atmananadaji is. We cannot say he is something in one sentence because there are so many aspects of a human being. Likewise, what is the message of the Gita? If you actually deeply think over the answer to this question, your mouth will be shut. Your silence is the message of the Gita, because you cannot say anything. It is everything and anything. When God speaks, you cannot say what He spoke. What He spoke, how can you say? He spoke everything because it was the Infinite that spoke.

However, beginners as we are on the path of the spirit, we would do well to choose a few verses for our daily contemplation such as ananyāś cintayanto māṁ ye janāḥ paryupāsate, teṣāṁ nityābhiyuktānāṁ yogakṣemaṁ vahāmy aham (Gita 9.22); manmanā bhava madbhakto madyājī māṁ namaskuru, mām evaiṣyasi yuktvaivam ātmānaṁ matparāyaṇaḥ (9.34); sarvadharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja, ahaṁ tvā sarvapāpebhyo mokṣyayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ (18.66); karmaṇy evā ’dhikāras te mā phaleṣu kadācana, mā karmaphalahetur bhūr mā te saṅgo ‘stv akarmaṇi (2.47); ajo nityaḥ śāśvato ’yaṁ purāṇo na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (2.20). Such verses can be taken as objects for contemplation, themes for meditation.

Or we may take the whole gospel as a single eternal message to us, God beckoning man: “Come to Me.” Sarvadharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja: Abandoning all relativistic modes of conduct which hang one on the other, not independent by themselves, come to the supremely independent root of all beings. Yadā bhūtapṛthagbhāvam ekastham anupaśyati, tata eva ca vistāraṁ brahma saṁpadyate tadā (13.30). When we recognise the rootedness of all variety in that single Being, we have attained to perfection: brahma saṁpadyate tadā.

But how could we contemplate this rootedness of all variety in that single Being? For that, various touches of sadhana are given to us in various slokas of the Gita. There is the moral or ethical side of it, there is the social aspect of it, there is also the political aspect of it, there is the psychological aspect. We cannot simply suddenly jump into it, ignoring these aspects. When we speak to a person, we consider the situation from all angles of vision; then only can we know how to speak, what to speak, and to what extent to speak.

Thus, when we contemplate the context of spiritual sadhana in relation to the gospel of the Bhagavadgita, we have to take all sides into the picture. Otherwise, we shall be one-sided, which is not the teaching of the Gita. Yuktāhāravihārasya yuktaceṣṭasya karmasu, yuktasvapnāvabodhasya yogo bhavati duḥkhahā (6.17). This is a very necessary caution given to us in the Gita as spiritual seekers: Don’t go to extremes. Extreme is not yoga. Extreme in any respect – extremely talkative or not saying anything at all, too much eating or not eating anything at all, always sleeping or not sleeping at all. Neither this nor that can be taken as a part of yoga. We must be normal. Normalcy is yoga. Abnormality is not yoga. We must be normal in every situation in which we are placed.

Bhagavan Sri Krishna himself is a concrete example as to how such a balanced life has to be lived. We cannot say how he lived and how he conducted himself and what attitudes he had in respect of things in general. It was all-sidedness, touching every aspect. There was nothing which he would ignore from his consideration. He was a master statesman, master yogin, master in knowledge, omniscient incarnate, and centre of attraction, love and affection, yet a relentless master who could terrorise even the terrific gods themselves. What God is, no one can say. God is all things combined – mātā dhātā pitāmahaḥ, vedyaṁ pavitram oṁkāra ṛk sāma yajur eva ca (9.17); gatir bhartā prabhuḥ sākṣī nivāsaḥ śaraṇaṁ suhṛt (9.18). What is He not? Everything He is.

So when such a being is the background of the message of the Gita, we could imagine what it has given to us. It has given to us everything. But the only thing is, we must be able to receive the message of the Gita as Arjuna received it. For that we have to place ourselves in the humble position of Arjuna himself. Neither should we be adamant and stick to our guns in saying “I will not fight,” nor should we imagine that we know things well. We have to put on, assume an attitude of humility in the way in which Arjuna himself did. Kārpaṇyadoṣopahatasvabhāvaḥ pṛcchāmi tvāṁ dharmasaṁmūḍhacetāḥ (2.7): I am confused. I don’t know what is truth. When we actually, in this spirit of self-abnegation, surrender ourselves to the eternal source of wisdom, it shall come to us as a Guru. The Guru will come to us.

So on this very blessed occasion of the Jayanti of the Bhagavadgita which, to speak from purely a historical point of view, was given to us perhaps some 5000 years ago at a place called Kurukshetra, that message is echoing in the ears and the minds and the hearts of all students of yoga and aspirants of truth for all time to come. The Bhagavadgita is, therefore, the central text of religious consciousness. It is not the text of the Hindu religion. It is not a text of this religion or that religion. It is a text of the religious consciousness, the spiritual attitude to things, the comprehensiveness of approach that we have to adopt in our conduct in life. Such is the gospel of the Bhagavadgita.

It is well said that the Bhagavadgita is the milk taken out of the cow of the Upanishads. Sarvopaniṣado gāvo dogdhā gopāla-nandanaḥ, pārtho vatsaḥ sudhīrbhoktā dugdhaṁ gītamṛtaṁ mahat (Gita Mahatmya 4). The science of being is given to us in the Upanishads, and the art of living is given to us in the Bhagavadgita. The art of living naturally depends on the science of being. How things are – that must be known first. This the Upanishads tell us: what things are in themselves. Then on the basis of this knowledge of what things really are, we know how to conduct ourselves in practical life. That is the science, the technique, the methodology of living in the world. So the Upanishads and the Bhagavadgita form a group of complementary texts. Both are equally important for study and meditation. They are also known as the Sruti and the Smriti – the Upanishads is the Sruti, the Bhagavadgita is the Smriti.

The Bhagavadgita, located in the context of the Mahabharata, is also an epitome of the Mahabharata teachings. Just has we have 18 chapters of the Bhagavadgita, there are 18 Parvas or sections or books of the Mahabharata. There is some sort of a similarity of theme treated in these 18 Parvas of the Mahabharata and the 18 chapters of the Bhagavadgita – though not entirely, in some respects. It may be that we are not able to understand it properly. The soul’s incipient stage of ignorance and helplessness is described in the first chapter of the Gita and also the beginning Parva of the Mahabharata, the Adi Parva. In the Adi Parva the Pandavas are like children, knowing nothing, kicked from all sides, suffering all kinds of pains and woes, wandering hither and thither like unwanted children. What a pity! This is mankind in its incipient stage. Then there is a temporary rise into prosperity as in the second chapter of the Gita and the Sabha Parva of the Mahabharata. It is only a temporary rise; it is not a complete rise. When we take a series of vitamin pills, we suddenly feel energised, but afterwards will again droop when the pills are stopped. So such energy is suddenly infused in the Sabha Parva of the Mahabharata when Yudhishthira is crowned king after the Rajasuya sacrifice, but all for his woe and suffering later on. That prosperity of Yudhishthira after the Rajasuya was not real prosperity. It aroused the jealousy of Duryodhana and many others, and we know what happened then. In the Vana Parva he fell down once again. We go into the wilderness, suffer, search for light. The human soul is in samsara in this way.

Sadhakas are of this way. When we come to ashrams, we come in this very fashion. In the beginning there is all oblivion, confusion at home; nobody knows what it is. “We shall go to monasteries.” And suddenly there is an enthusiasm. “Oh, now I have entered a monastery, and now I shall take up the practice of yoga.” The second chapter has come. Yudhishthira has become the crowned king, but afterwards it is all gone. There is nothing. In the Vana Parva we are in the wilderness once again, in the jungle. “Oh, God, where it is nobody knows. I have lost everything – lost the kingdom, lost help from people.” But yet, well-wishers come and speak to us, “Don’t bother. It will be all right in the course of time.” In the Vana Parva Sri Krishna himself comes and speaks, “Don’t bother. The time will come, God willing, that justice will be reinstated.” And in the Virat Parva and the Udyoga Parva of the Mahabharata preparations are made for the coming battle with nature which has not yet started.

The actual battle of life has not yet started. When you enter the ashram, the battle has not yet started. There is only an enthusiastic emotional mood, which will bring you down after some time. But when you are ready, after the proper education that is given to you in ashrams – that education was given in the Vana Parva and the Virat Parva – then divinities come to your aid. All the masterminds came to the aid of Yudhishthira. They didn’t come before that. The battle starts from Bhishma Parva onwards. Bhishma, Drona, Karna, Salya – these Parvas are the Parvas of battle, and they are wonderful things. They are not simply descriptions of a Hitlerian war or any such thing. It is a battle of the spirit allegorically and metaphorically described in epic style – Bhishma representing one character, Drona one character, Karna another character, and Duryodhana a fourth character altogether. This is a battle of characters, types, natures, rather than persons.

Who was Bhishma? Who was Drona? What was their specialty? What was the specialty of Duryodhana? You will study this if you read these Parvas, and how difficult it was to face these people. Different techniques had to be adopted to face each one of them. The same technique could not be used with all people, because Bhishma was different from Drona, and Drona was different from Karna. They were not the same. Likewise, kama, krodha, loba, they are different things, and to deal with them you have to use different techniques. You cannot use a uniform method to deal with every situation. That will not work. You must be a very shrewd person, a very good psychologist, and also a very patient person in this respect. Then comes the real crowning glory of Yudhishthira installed as emperor and blessed with the wisdom of the Shanti Parva of the Mahabharata. Very interesting! All this is to be studied in great detail with a dispassionate mind.

In this wonderful garland of the 18 Parvas of the Mahabharata, the Bhagavadgita hangs like a beautiful pendant. The Bhagavadgita is the epitome of the whole Mahabharata, and we may say the Mahabharata as a whole is a vast commentary on the secret esoteric teachings of the Bhagavadgita. It is said that the Mahabharata is a Veda by itself – pañcamaṃ vedā. The four Vedas are Rig, Yajur, Sama, Artharva, and the Mahabharata is the fifth Veda, perhaps equal to them. Sometimes it is said the Mahabharata weighs heavier than the Vedas themselves. Such is the Kashna Veda, as they call it. Kashna Veda means the Veda written by Krishna Dvaipayana Vyasa.

So we should use all our opportunities, the blessed field created by Sri Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj here for us by his own compassion, in gaining this wondrous knowledge of our culture, this world gospel of the Bhagavadgita, and utilise every moment of our time in this only meaningful duty of aspiring for God-realisation. God bless you all.

[Extracted from Swami Krishnananda Maharaj’s discourses Divine Life Society]

The Stages of Knowledge of the Yoga Vasishtha

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The Stages of Knowledge of the Yoga Vasishthaby Swami Krishnananda

Created on Monday 17 June 2013 16:58

The general condition of human life, which may be said to be one of an acquiesced satisfaction with the world we see with our eyes, is a matter for deep consideration. That some sort of an investigation is called for into the nature in which we live in the world is a necessity not felt by many people. We do not feel the need to inquire into our lives because everything seems to be clear to us.

The longings of the heart and the general pressures of human desire are so very well taken for granted as the most normal things in the world that they do not require any special attention on our part. There is practically no event or occurrence in our life that we feel needs a particular investigative attention, so we have been content in living a life of utter abandon to the condition that has taken possession of us – possession to such an extent that, to any thinking mind, it may appear that we have lost our personalities. We have been sold to the conditions that have bargained to purchase us, and our subjection to these conditions of life is such an utter abolition of our independent way of thinking and willing that often it looks doubtful that we have any independence at all.

To be subject to the pressures of internal impulses is what we call the joys of life. The movement along the current of a river is a satisfaction since we have abandoned ourselves to the flow of the current. The upward movement is not a satisfaction or a joy because there is opposition to our contemplated movements. Whenever we oppose our impulses, the joys are cut off.

Thus, a continuous asking for unending joy in the world will automatically mean a total subjection to the will of the master, and that is the world. An utter subject as slave of a superintending authority has, in a way, no fear because there is no opposition. We have no fears of any kind, or so it looks, as long as we are content to move with any demand that is made by our body or by the conditions of our mind. Whatever is demanded is given, and therefore, the mouth of these impulses is shut by a provision of what is required, demanded, asked for from moment to moment.

But this has not been an easy affair. It would not be a simple matter to supply the demands of a source which changes its attitude and types of demand from moment to moment. If a single stereotyped asking is before us, we have enough time to think that this particular thing is what is expected of us.

The world does not seem to be expecting one particular thing from us. Our neighbours, our environment, the people who are part of human society in which we are living are, in a very important sense, hard taskmasters, so that to adjust ourselves to the requirements of these multifaceted atmospheres tells upon our system. To be compelled to adapt and adjust to conditions which change from moment to moment is a great strain on the mind and the body. The freedom that we speak of becomes a total chimera if it is impossible for us to live in the world without a moment-to-moment adjustment with the environment in which we are living. Whether it is hot or cold, we have no say in that matter. We have to adjust ourselves with it. Whether people are friendly with us or otherwise, we have no say in that matter and have to adjust ourselves with that also. There may be a hailstorm of painful conditions on our heads, and we erect an umbrella of protection against the fall of these hails.

There has been a continuous effort on the part of man to survive irrespective of this utter subjection to uncontrollable conditions and circumstances, and these joys, these satisfactions, these pleasures that are doled out to us as from a master to a servant are the immediate outcome of our willingness to subject ourselves to these conditions. As a dog is thrown a little piece of bread, the joys of life are thrown on us by these relentless powers of nature to which we willingly subject ourselves as helpless slaves. Thus is the joy of life.

But, who has time to think? A continuous subjection prevents even the movement of thinking. Time to think is not given. There is no permission given to us to think because to think would be to assert an independence of our own, and that is not allowed. We are perpetual slaves. Thus goes human satisfaction and human life, human misery.

A time comes, says the great scripture the Yoga Vasishtha, when man begins to contemplate the seeds and the very presuppositions of the conditions of subjection in which we are living. At least before going to bed for a few hours we begin to think: “Am I really living a worthwhile life?” This primitive stage of not being able even to think is not really worth any mention, really speaking. That our need for analytic thinking has not been felt is a great credit indeed to our ignorance and the extent of our subjection, because we are happy and we need nothing else. But why are we happy? Because we have sold ourselves. We have become slaves to such a degree that our life itself is in the hands of powers which we cannot understand, and over which we have no say. Such a kind of misery is the involvement of human life. But it is all a joy for the worm that travels in filth because there is an acquiesced adjustment of the biological condition of the worm with the constitution of its environment. We are ready to live with anything; that is enough for us, provided our impulses are gratified.

Thus, there seems to be a final quintessential conclusion of human enterprises, and it is this much: that human life is no independent, indivisible and standing value. It is a moment-to-moment self-adjusting structure which charges itself regularly day to day with the capacity for such adjustment and adaptation. Our body can adjust itself to any temperature and our mind can adjust itself to any environment. If this is not done, if this adjustment is not to be expressed as a gesture on our part, there would be a sudden eruption of a condition in life which would make our life impossible.

So a desire arises sometime in our lives, at least when we are old enough to think: “Have I lived a worthwhile life in the sense of having gained anything which is meaningful? Have I gained anything from this world? Have I lived for any purpose?” These questions cannot arise in early ages because the impulses of life are stronger in youth, impetuous and unrelenting in their behaviour. Continuously we are pressed down on our necks to the need of this subjection to whatever is expected of us by nature and the environment. But the impulses become weak when we become physically old. Neither we can eat well nor drink well. Neither can we sleep well nor can we have any interest in life with such pep and sauce that we discovered earlier in our youth. Then it is that the grey hair begins to speak in a language of investigation and begins to question itself: What have I done in these longish years of my life in the world?

This condition of an incipient need felt for self-investigation, says the Yoga Vasishtha, is called subecha, a desire for the good: “I must do something good. There is no use merely being a servant throughout my life because there is no saying when the life will end, and whatever has been bequeathed to me as a kind of remuneration for my subjection to life is not lasting. It may have its end any moment. What will happen to me, where will I go, who will look after me and where shall I be placed? Am I going to cease to exist after the body is shed?” It cannot be. The conscience does not permit the argument that we shall cease to be when the body is cast off. We think: “Oh, I am doing some good; I shall have my reward.”

Many a time the good deeds we perform do not receive any reward. They may even receive a condemnation. But man feels: “After all, I have done some good. Maybe man has not recognised it, but my conscience says I have done some good. Will I go unrewarded?” The conscience says, “No, I shall not go unrewarded. Where will I be rewarded, if not in this world? This world has given me nothing. It has recognised nothing worthwhile in me; it has exploited me, put me down, harnessed me, utilised me as an instrument, and given me nothing of value.”

The conscience of a human being says that life shall continue after the end of this body. But what kind of life are we going to enter? This is sometimes frightening, sometimes solacing. It is solacing to those who feel a sense of inner conviction that they have really done some good, and they have not done any harm or bad. “Some good I have done knowingly or unknowingly, whether it is publicised or not publicised.” To such a convinced mind there is a solace that life shall continue after the body is shed. “These good deeds, these charitable gestures, these attitudes of service which I have of my own accord demonstrated here which have not been even recognised by people shall receive attention in my next life.” That is a solace for those who are really convinced of having done something worthwhile and good.

But all are not of this type. We go with a suspicion; we go with a fear: “I have done nothing practically. I have perhaps earned a fat salary, but can this be called a good deed that I have performed, that I have had enough money to put in a bank? I have commuted my pension, I have educated my children, and my family is well fixed. Well, that may be. Is this going to protect me in my future life? What shall guard me, take care of me?” It is the law of the other world. What protects us is law, not man, not a human being, not any particular thing. It is a principle we call the law of sustenance of the world as a whole, which is obeyed implicitly, that will take care of us. “Have I obeyed the law, and what is that?” These types of questions arise some time or other in one’s life, and the Yoga Vasishtha says this is vicharana. We go on thinking: “It is now time for me to do something worthwhile. I may perhaps enter a realm after death where a different set of laws operate. It may be a condition, it may be a country, it may be a land of people who may not have any value for the laws of this world, and what I have done to people, to things here, may not have much value there.” Sometimes doubts of this kind may arise.

But there are universally accepted laws which, if obeyed, will stand by us as a large credit balance which shall be carried forward to our ledger books of the next world. These questions arise in us. Is there anything we can think of in our life today which can be really carried over to the other world? Or is whatever we have done in this world meaningful only here, and not in the other world? Is it a currency that is workable only here and it is non-current in the other world? Then this currency is of no value to us. But have we an international currency with us which we can take to the other world also? Have we anything of that? We shall be depressed, dispirited and agonised to receive answers from our own conscience that perhaps we are not yet ready to meet the contingencies of the other world.

This fear will grip us, and it is a purifying fear nevertheless. Such a fear is necessary. Often such fears purify us instantaneously. We rid ourselves of the memories of the past and decide once and for all not to commit an error in the future because of the fright that is immanent which may descend on us the next day, in a few days, in the next moment. An inviolable, ferocious predicament that may come upon us may purify us, cleanse us of our sins due to the repentance that we feel and the decision that we take to be right from this moment onwards. Often they say all sins, mountainous though they may be, can be washed out and discharged, destroyed, burned to ashes by a moment’s decision which is correctly taken: jñānāgniḥ sarvakarmāṇi bhasmasāt kurute tathā (Gita 4.37).

These investigations of the mind, vicharana conducted thus, compels us to set our foot on a right path. I have done many wrongs. I am very sorry indeed, and I shall rectify myself just now at this moment. I shall tune myself to that obedience to that eternal law of God, and thus I surrender myself.

Actually, these decisions of the spirit of the human being which can be even instantaneous, coming flash-like, can be so effective and purifying in their nature that saints, devotees tell us actions piled up in our minds as memories of several lives led earlier will be set at naught by the piercing flame of this repentance and surrender of oneself to God.

The mind, which is usually fat with its egoism of attention to the body continuously throughout its life, the ego which is rendered fat by pampering with the satisfactions of the world of senses, gets thinned out. The Yoga Vasishtha says the ego becomes stout; it puts on weight. It says how the ego becomes fat day by day. The more we are tied to affection to person and things, the stronger becomes our ego and assertive instinct. By acquiring wealth in the world, by becoming more and more rich materially, economically, by holding property, dissatisfaction fattens the ego. By the gaining of the objects of the lower impulses, the ego gets fattened. By these tantalising phenomenal presentations of the joys of life, mistaking the cool shadow under the hood of a serpent for a comfortable place for rest, with such mistaken views the ego becomes fat. The Yoga Vasishtha compares the coolness of Earthly satisfaction to the coolness under the hood of a cobra. Who will take rest under there? Even if we are parched in the hot sun, will we take rest under the hood of a cobra because there is cool shade there? This is the world, and so is the joy of life which will sting us one day or the other, to our own torment and discomfiture, and it is better to guard oneself before such a stage of utter helplessness takes possession of us.

Here the mind is rejuvenated into a new orientation of thinking. Nothing of the world can satisfy us. There was a king called Yayati. The story comes in the Puranas and in the Mahabharata. He was very fond of sensual gratification. He was getting old, but the desire was not waning. He was in a state of grief. “I am old. My sense organs are not strong enough to receive the joys of life.” He went to his children. “Lend me your youth, my dear children. After my satisfactions, I will hand it back.” Nobody was prepared to give his youth. So he cursed them; he uttered some imprecations. One of them, they say, was agreeable to this request. In a mysterious way by tapas, austerity, by a vicarious suffering, as it were, vicarious transference, we may say, the youth of the poor boy was transferred to this old man. He became youthful again, and enjoyed all the pleasures of the senses. But again old age came. When he returned the youth, he was old again. It is said he went to the heavens due to the effect of his sacrifices, and he was not repentant. He was asked: “What have you seen?” “What have I seen? Nothing can satisfy me. There is no end. The pleasures of life have not satisfied me. All the rice and the wheat, all the gold that is on Earth may not be sufficient for the satisfaction of one man.” This is what he said. All the gold and the silver and the wheat and the rice and the sugar and what not, all the things of the world will not be sufficient to satisfy the cravings of even one person in the world. And what about many of us?

Thus one decides in the end, and girds up one’s loins to lead a life that is really recognisable in the higher realms of being into which we have to enter one day or the other. Sadhana is the stage into which we enter after this condition of vicharana. Subeccha, desire for the good, is the first stage. Vicharana, investigation, self-inquiry is the second stage, and the thinning out of the mind, the threadlike condition of the ego which was earlier very fat with these joys as if it is going to break, that tanumanasi condition is one of heightened spiritual practice or sadhana.

What is sadhana? What is spiritual practice? What is it that can save us from these turmoils of the life of sorrow by an inward communion that we establish with the law of God or, we may say, rita or satya, the law of the universe, which is another way of saying that we sacrifice ourselves at the altar of God’s creation. A yajna is performed by our Atman, a yajna which is jnanyajna, a knowledge sacrifice which is a knowledge of the fact that our very existence is inseparable from the creation of the Absolute impels us to surrender ourselves to this all-being. Towards this sense, sadhanas are practiced by japa, by kirtan, by swadhaya, by puruscharana, by dhyana, by tirth yatra, by study of scriptures, by charitable acts, gifts and the like, by holy baths and what not.

When the mind is thinned out, and the ego is famished almost, the light of the Atman reveals itself. The sun, though he is so fiercely brilliant, is clouded completely by thick layers of water particles as if an eclipse has covered the sun. In dark monsoon, even midday looks like night. Such a condition has befallen us. The light that is within us is beclouded by the layers of clouds of unfulfilled longings, desires which have been carried over into our present life from our earlier ones by non-fulfilment, lodged now in our koshas – anandamaya kosha, subtle body, the linga sarira. They are thick, but they have to scud. The clouds have to move by a fierce concentration directed towards this yajna purusha, the omnipresent reality which is the ultimate reason why we have even these apparent joys of life on Earth.

Light flashes when sadhana is intensified, the mind is purified, the intellect is stabilised. What happens? The clouds of desire disperse. Longings for contact with objects of sense break, and affections for things cease. In the light of the fact that our mind, our ego is only a network of longings for external objects, we may very well understand how they break when the desire ceases. As a cloth is made up of threads, the mind is made up of desires. It has no independent existence apart from the threads. So is the mind, so is the ego.

This beclouding mental awareness in terms of objects of satisfaction is not a real hard substantial something. It is a complex interrelated structure, like a fabric; it can be reduced to nothing when the threads of desire are pulled out one by one, and then the clouds disperse and the sun shines. Yoga Vasishtha considers this condition as sattvapatti. Sattvapatti means attainment of a flash of lightning of spiritual awakening. As we see lightning flashes in the sky, we will begin to see the flashes of the spirit before the vision of the mind. And they come and go. That is why they are called flashes. It is not a perpetual radiation like the midday sun, which of course we shall await. But it has not yet come. There are only indications we are moving in the right direction. When we move in the direction of the vast ocean, a cool breeze blows over our face. We are told we are nearing the ocean. When we near the Ganga we feel: “Yes, I am near the Ganga; I feel the coolness of the water.” So symbols will be presented before us in the form of musical intonations, fragrant smells, soft touches and brilliant flashes. This is what yoga scriptures tell us. These are indications that we are advancing in our sadhana. Superphysical satisfactions will present themselves before us, satisfactions which do not necessarily arise by contact of senses with objects, satisfactions which do not require any object at all. An automatic arising of the joy from the Self itself will come in the form of a flash of radiance, sattvapatti.

Then what happens? There is no necessity for the mind at any time whatsoever to long for contact with anything. The thing called the contact ceases because of the inner permeation of the spirit with the very substance of all things. The awakening that has come now educates us into the understanding that our joys are not the products of the contact of mind with objects. They arise from a spontaneous eternal bottom in our own being, and therefore, all longing for contacts ceases at one stroke. Asamsakti is this condition – no contact with anything. It is a condition of non-contact because the spirit has no contact. It is a non-contactual permeating principle, ethereal like the vast space or sky, and it is present in the hearts of all things; and that being the source of joy really, it needs no contact with anything outside for awakening this joy from inside us. Actually, contact of the senses with the objects will then be realised as a malady that has come upon us, a sickness, a sorrow. It is an illness.

What happens afterwards? Glorious descriptions are given to us in the Yoga Vasishtha which will transport us into ecstasy, which will make us dance in joy that such a thing is possible after all. These things which are told to us by these scriptures are unthinkable to our minds – unthinkable, unimaginable, and beyond the comprehension even by the farthest imagination. We shall not be able to live in this world due to the possibility of having such attainments. “What happens then?” says the Yoga Vasishtha. Padartha-bhavana\ is there. A pithy word is used. Matter vanishes; spirit reveals itself. Matter, the so-called hard world of rock, bricks and iron and steel, this world of such hard substances melts into the liquid of the omnipresent light. Matter becomes radiance. We have heard modern science saying that matter is convertible into energy and light. They are inter-convertible. They are inter-convertible because they are made up of the same substance.

The lodgement of the spirit in sleeping matter is awakened to its own self-independence, and it frees itself from these shackles into which it appeared to subject itself, and matter which appeared as a shroud for consciousness becomes an appendage and a glory, a shakti of the purusha, a light of the sun which is no more a shroud for the sun. So the whole world lifts the veil that it was putting on its face to delude us, to make us feel that it is something different from what really is. That veil which the world was putting on to deceive us, distract us and subdue us, that veil the world lifts, and the glory of eternity in this temporal world is revealed before the all-seeing eye of the spirit immanent. The world vanishes into the Supreme Being. Padartha-bhavana – no world, no object is there anymore, or rather, in another sense, it is the recognition of the true padartha, padartha-bhavana. The real substance is discovered by a direct entry and insight into its reality.

The culmination of this process is the melting down of our very existence in this vast sea of eternity. This is the state of moksha, turiya. Towards this great goal we are moving with our little foibles here, with our little deeds, with our ups and downs, with our little sadhanas and prayers. With our little humble efforts in life we are gradually trekking towards this Might of all mights, the Almighty, the glorious radiance of immortal nectar which is awake in us. The very thought of that glorious attainment is possible for us. After all, it is possible for us. If not today, then tomorrow it is possible. “I shall have it and it has to be had!” With this conviction that it must be had and it is possible and practicable, we shall attain it.

[Extracted from Swami Krishnananda Maharaj’s discourses Divine Life Society]

The Inner World

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The Inner Worldby Swami Krishnananda

Created on Sunday 16 June 2013 20:44

All desire is a tendency to unite with externals. And this external may be a physical object or a psychological condition. Physical objects constitute the usual attractions of sense, we may say, on the animal level. We should not forget that man has also the animal in him, though kept in check due to social restrictions and one’s own egoistic ambitions which temporarily forget the requisitions of the senses. But this, the egoistic level, is often far more weighty than the sensory, at least in a class of people whom we term the intelligentsia, though this weight is outweighed by the sense-urge when the individual is not in the good books of society or is cast out as an unwanted element or is disregarded for some reason. Those who always live in social circumstances and wind round themselves some sort of prestige – you may call it false, if you like – develop an exteriorised self and adore it as the real one. Others who are mostly accustomed to solitary life have a chance of confining themselves to the voices of the within, whether this within is the sense-world or the spiritual. This is why spiritual seekers, ascetics, hermits and the like, have, in the pursuit of the higher ideal of the Spirit, to face the dangers of the downward pulls of sense on being presented with the least opportunity for their manifestation. And this may be due to lack of vigilance – remember, no one can be always vigilant throughout one’s life, and there are moments of slackness of watch even in the most powerful aspirants of the religious Ideal – or the excessive impetuosity with which the sense-objects reveal their attractive natures. The ego has, generally, no meaning when it is not associated with society to offer it adulations, though, very rarely it can pronounce grand judgments on itself, even when it is alone, sheerly by imagination of the extent of its achievements. But the senses do not require social approbation or patting; they are happy even if no one would know them. In fact they hate being known to others. Their essence is a selfishness of the narrowest kind, restricted to the personality or the individuality alone. Animals do not want praise from others; they are satisfied if their senses are satisfied. And the animal man, who is the sensual man, needs no society for his delights. He would rather wish that the society know not his enjoyments.

But the purely social man is the egoistic man who would hide his sense-passions for another ideal which he regards as superior to the merely sensual. Thus we have patriots who would die for their country, the so-called reformers of the community, the ‘public’ men whose self is in what others think of them, the rulers, the lords, those who wish to be carried on palanquins along the synagogues, the lovers of name and fame and power. Here the lower sense-urge is put down by the ego-urge. Let it be pointed out that this urge of the ego is in no way superior in quality to the sense-urge, though the society is prone to think so. For the sense-urge has physical objects for its target, while the ego has psychological objects for its aim. The obsession, as far as it is a factor of personal bondage, is the same in both the cases. The ego may manifest itself as the assertion of prominence as a head in the family, as an important person in the community, as a leader of the nation, as an international figure steering the course of large groups of mankind, as a renowned scholar or an advanced Yogi. It is all the same – just so many layers of the ego. Physical objects tie down the senses to their promising shapes and contours, and the psychological conditions of importance, honour, respect, fame, authority and superiority over others confine the ego-sense to their tantalising greatness. The sense and the ego are like the devil and the deep sea, between which the seeking individual is caught, and whichever way it moves, its fate is sure to be destruction.

Desires, again, have three degrees: the brute, the rational and the spiritual. The first is the subhuman side of passions that are bent upon having their fill, though the world may go to dogs. Such violent desires of the animal nature, the savage instincts, have no regard for the good of the individual concerned, for their objective is only satisfaction, even if the individual is to die immediately after the satisfaction. These are what we call the immoral natures, so much condemned in the science of ethics and morality, for they have no concern with the welfare of others. Their motto is ‘each for himself, and devil take the hindmost’. This is naturally an intolerable attitude, and no one would like the behaviour of such a person. This is not good either for oneself or for others. This is the extreme side of desire.

But there is the higher aspect of desire, which is refined and is necessary as a prophylactic in the evolution of the lower man into the higher. As in homeopathic doses, so in the fulfilment of these controlled desires, man achieves a gradual mastery over them, not by utter and downright negation, which is not practicable, but a restrained satisfaction of their demands with the full consciousness that its aim is the final overcoming of all desire, for the devil must have its due when we have not yet seen the face of the Divine. It may look like a shrewd tactic of the intellect to get out of the clutches of desires by befriending them, as a policeman would catch a thief by identifying himself with their group. But this is just what it is, and it is a necessary stage, though not the final one. This is also the instruction of the Bhagavadgita, that one should be moderate in enjoyment and restraint, activity and self-absorption, wakefulness and sleep, sport and seriousness of conduct, and not go to extremes either way, for it is not the Yoga way of life. Equanimity, harmony and balanced conduct is Yoga. It is the teaching of Aristotle that the mean is virtue, and virtue is not either indulgence or starvation.

The good and the virtuous is just what is essential for a healthy life of body and mind and spirit, and inasmuch as there is no universally laid down standard for this mean or the via media of action and conduct, its test has to be a personal sense of freshness and buoyancy of spirit, a feeling of health and joy within, together with a continuous stream of the flow of unforgetting consciousness of the supreme Ideal of life. Aristotle differs from the extreme rule of Plato that all poetry, art, music and enjoyment is a vice and that virtue is a strict puritanistic abstention from enjoyment. Practical men know that too much of puritanism has its undesirable reactions, and we should avoid extremes, as the Buddha felt and taught. And there is no one to tell us which is the extreme and which the moderate course in any given instance; this has to be judged by oneself personally with the greatest care and understanding. Hence the need for adequate education and training for leading a successful life of personal upliftment and social work in the light of the Divine Ideal towards which all creation is moving. When this Ideal is forgotten, virtue has no value and is as bad as vice. Either one should have a proper Teacher to guide him at every step or one should be well endowed with an understanding to enable him to stand on his own legs and walk unaided to the goal. Else there is the chance of miscalculation and losing grip over one’s senses and the ego, and the result is a fall.

The highest form of desire is when it is sublimated into a spiritual activity of the universalised consciousness. This is seen in saints and sages of all countries who do not make a distinction between God and the World. Their enjoyments and their sufferings are not theirs, they are of the universe, they have a universal body, for all that they see is the manifestation of God. They eat and rejoice and seem to have the normal enjoyments of a human being, but their minds are lifted above the realm of personality and the mire of the earthward pull. These are the great saviours, the incarnations, the prophets, the messiahs, the masters and the guides of humanity in its spiritual quest. Such men look like any one else outwardly – they have a body, they have their personal and social lives, they are sometimes householders with large families, they play and talk and laugh and eat and drink and bathe. Yes; but their minds are differently constituted. Sometimes they are seen in silken robes and royal costumes like Janaka, at others they are like insensible idiots like Jadabharata. They may be householders and ritualists like Vasishtha, Yogis and meditators like Jaigishavya and Dattatreya, romantic pleasure-lovers like Saubhari, encyclopaedic writers and teachers of humanity like Vyasa, or unconcerned sages in union with the Supreme Being like Suka. But they have all equal knowledge and the power to create, destroy or transform things at their will (Kartum akartum anyatha va kartum saktah). In the personality of Sri Krishna we have a marvellous blend and synthesis of the inscrutable ways in which the divine superman lives and moves in this world. Their lives, their speech, behaviour and action are all super-rational mysteries, and here they are free from the connotation which is applied to the term ‘desire’ in normal life, for here desire is inseparable from universal existence. It has ceased to be an externalising tendency and is once and for all consumed in the blaze of the light of the Absolute.

But this is a very remote ideal and we need not be afraid that it is anywhere near us. To achieve this all-engulfing and incomparable realisation that melts down the ego is an uphill task. Let us go into some detail.

Rarely does a person get fired up by a spiritual aspiration. We studiedly use the term ‘fired’, because it is often in this manner that the spiritual ideal seems to beckon the human mind. It does not come with long discussions and premeditations, correspondence and notice. It wells up within, one does not know how and when. And when this happens one’s perspective of things suddenly changes, and there is altogether a different psychological world created before one’s eyes. No persuasion or argumentation will succeed in diverting a person away from this changed view of things, once this ‘fire’ catches him. It is indeed a blazing, all-consuming power, and nothing on earth can have the strength to resist it.

There are aspirants, seekers, ‘Sadhakas’, who have been affected by this ‘contagion’ of Spirit, and cannot again be brought round to view life in a different way. When you see a thing clearly before your eyes, no argument against its existence would prevail. ‘The heart has its reason, which reason does not know’, said Pascal. The logic of the heart is more weighty than that of the intellect. And no force under the sun can have the courage to face its penetrating influence. Such is the nature of what the spiritual aspirant sees with an eye that is peculiar to him, an eye which animates from within the eyes with which he sees the world outside. We may say, he is ‘affected’ by something he knows not, perhaps, and perchance knows on rare occasions. But no one, at least in the beginning stages, can know it definitely or understand the way that it is following. It is a difficult situation, and some mystics call it ‘the dark night of the soul’, where the soul is awakened from slumber, but still gropes for some time, not seeing the path clearly. The first chapter of the Bhagavadgita is an epic description of this necessary condition of all seeking individuals on the path.

In exceptionally fortunate souls, there arises, subsequent to this condition of utter helplessness and a self-surrender forced on them due to complete spiritual oblivion attended with a feeling for the need of some help, the higher stage of consciousness where a Teacher, a Master or a Guru manifests himself, as portrayed in the second chapter of the Bhagavadgita, and he points out the way. But we should not forget here the warning that “perhaps one in several thousands of persons strives to reach the Goal; and some one from among those who thus strive, knows, after having attained perfection, Truth as it is.” And there are, therefore, many who do not obtain a suitable Teacher or a guide or see any light above them. They struggle but do not succeed due to some unknown inner obstruction. But their souls do not find satisfaction, they having been ‘fired up’ once in their emotions. The fire seems to have gone and left them cold, but that supernal emotion has left also a peculiar impression, and this makes life unhappy both ways.

Here lies the danger. Here it is that aspirants have what is generally called a ‘fall’. Here it is that they go neurotic and ‘eccentric’, become egotists, gluttons, and victims of passions of various kinds, notably sexuality, irritability and anger. They may even turn into kleptomaniacs without their knowing it, greedy for silly things of the world, develop inordinate longings for what even an ordinary man of the world would regard as unimportant. It would not be a surprise if some of them become harmful anti-social elements, as they have lost grip over their conscious and subconscious behaviours. This is an interesting psychological state which needs careful attention and study. We need not much concern ourselves here with those blessed ones who have had their higher illumination and the path clearly pointed out to them, those Arjunas who have found their Krishnas. But it is necessary to study these more unfortunate ones, who are still in the ‘dark night’, and are groping in a confused state of mind.

Now we do not mean that all men who are regarded as cultured, educated or ‘sane’, as mankind understands these terms, are really normal in the true sense of the word. Everyone is equally affected, and hence it is called normalcy. If there is one who thinks or acts differently, he is called abnormal, or even insane. For us the plebiscite is the standard of correctness. You may call it the herd instinct of the sheep. It is not without some meaning that the great Bhartrihari said: Unmattabhutam Jagat (the world has gone mad). Well, if everyone is mad, there can be no such thing as sanity in a world of such beings, other than what is normal from their own general condition. But we are here referring to a different order of abnormal persons, who cannot fit into the general ‘normalcy’ of the mind of humanity in this world, but who have rather a ‘disintegrated’ psychological personality, wherein one has no control over any part of oneself, there is indeterminacy of behaviour at any given moment, and one has no set conscious goal before one’s vision. To cite certain examples of the strange ways of the minds of such persons:

One might suddenly begin to feel that it is essential to organise a large group of followers and do a lot for the transformation of mankind from its present state. When this effort is launched upon and is easily seen to fail in the achievement of its objective, there might arise the feeling that mankind is stupid and is not worthy of any attention, and precious energy should be utilised for a better purpose. There might come in a period of inward absorption, at least an attempt to effect it, and a segregation of oneself from human society, though for a short period. Now the consequence of this might be a restlessness of spirit, a desire to mix with people again, and talk and talk one’s head off as a reaction of seclusion. There are, again, those who, when they see two people talking to each other would butt in unceremoniously and enquire what the matter is. These are small things, but have a great meaning. However, the society is not going to satisfy the soul which has lost itself and there is disgust and occasionally a feeling of inferiority in the light of one’s not having attained prominence in any field of life. One might then try business, with a strong tinge of love for wealth, supported by the logic that some money is necessary even for a saint to maintain himself. But business fails and it is not everyone that is a good businessman; it requires knack and pluck. Then might arise the idea that everything seems to be a wild-goose chase, and melancholy is the result. The further outcome might be an urge for anti-social acts done publicly or secretly and shame is the one thing to which a disintegrated personality is totally immune. He is not himself, and his acts are not his, from a strictly analysed psychologist’s point of view, though the person concerned, himself, might regard all his acts and feelings as normal and self-directed. Anti-social behaviour is not always successful, for society takes precaution to curb it. Then one may go erratic and insane, for there is no outlet for the urges which have gone amuck. At times he may be brooding, sitting for long hours doing nothing, sometimes speaking loudly and in a raised spirit, sometimes blurting out what he thinks are facts, at other times regarding all others as inferior to himself in some way; or he may get obsessed with a sense of possession even of such trifling articles as a waterpot, a walking stick, a mirror, or a handbag. There are those who suddenly imagine that they have some enemy aiming at them constantly, and very often it happens to be the nearest person or one whom they see very often. There is also the positive side of this obsession by which one gets terribly attached to some person or persons for reasons he alone knows, and begins to see one’s beloved and cherished ideal in that person. This person becomes the obsession of the mind, thinking and dreaming of nothing but that day and night. Now, this is not love or affection in the usual sense; it is an unhealthy attitude, because this attachment may, at the least imaginary opposition or neglect on the part of the other person, change into hatred, and the dear one may become an enemy overnight. These are, of course, extreme cases of behaviour, and are not common even among highly distressed persons on the path. But this chance cannot be ruled out, and is one of the dangers that have to be encountered on the way. There are those who hear voices, see spirits, or persons standing in front of them, visible, of course, only to their eyes, and there is the complaint that these voices, spirits or persons are their enemies who always torment them for no cause whatsoever. If anyone admonished them against the belief in such imaginary causes of trouble, he himself might become their enemy from that day. Everyone is looked upon with suspicion, as if one is caught in an enemy’s camp, and everyone around is set against oneself. These are psychopathic conditions, and may have several causes: (1) hereditary acquirement, (2) frustration or a shock received in early life, (3) buried emotions the expressions of which is taboo in the society in which one lives, (4) desire which cannot be fulfilled under the existing social or political law, (5) misguided and misapplied energies along lines which have led to an all-round failure, (6) the rise of spiritual emotion in an unprepared and inadequate receptacle of mind that does not receive training under an able teacher or has not brought about in any other manner a sublimation of the animal and human urges rumbling and rioting within. Though psychotherapists may be able to handle the first five cases, the last one mentioned is difficult to manage, and may defy even the best doctor. But a spiritual doctor may, with some effort, succeed in reaching some beneficial results. Not that it is easy to acquire spiritual masters of this calibre, but it is not an impossible accident.

Mostly, aspirants become introverts or extroverts, sometimes of an extreme type, to their own peril and self-destruction. They either lock themselves up in rooms or roam about in society, finding no rest anywhere. Now, there are highly advanced sages who would prefer to live in locked-up caves, or distant forests; but these are mature deliberations of understanding minds poised in the higher self-control which sees no necessity or value in things external to the universal Self. The so-called psychological introverts are different altogether; they hide themselves from the human eye due to a morbid inward state, which fact becomes clear from the observation that it has its reactionary phase, viz., the extrovert condition that intrudes itself into the behaviour some day. Let us remember Shakespeare’s wise saying: “Genius to madness is near alike; a thin partition divides them both”.

Blind faith is as bad as an obsession. It is harmful to one’s own inward progress and is a nuisance to the happy life of the society. Sometimes these blind believers are a great trouble to others, especially when they insist on others’ acceptance of their beliefs. All conduct which does not respect others’ views and feelings, which cannot understand others’ problems and difficulties, which has no care for others’ good or welfare, should be considered as unspiritual in its essence, whatever be the importance of the person possessing such a nature. Also, any conduct which is ruinous to one’s own higher upliftment, which is suicidal in any sense of the term, which is psychologically pathogenic and harmful either to one’s body or mind, should be regarded as unspiritual. For spirituality, let it be remembered, is the most wholesome life of an all-inclusive conscious expansion of one’s being in the healthy feeling of a joy and a sense of power in one’s Self, which language cannot express or describe fully. It is the beginning of a universal Self-Possession, where creation seems to seep into one’s existence, and in a flash of consciousness, man achieves awareness that his entire nature, physical and intangible, is bound up with all life that throbs and pulsates everywhere. In the lofty reaches of spiritual experience, one becomes all-inclusive, is included in all, and cognises and realises everything. This experience is super-sensory, super-mental and super-intellectual, and here the personality tends to disintegrate and one feels like being swept into a sphere of vaster implications, plumbing abysmal depths, scaling dizzy heights, viewing vast vistas unknown on earth. There is a sensation of Power which affects every particle of one’s nature, and one is bathed in the Light of indescribable brightness. There is an awareness of the interpenetration of all things, and one is simultaneously in all places. Every single detail is exactly known in its own place, and in its minute detail, in its relationship to the Whole. Everything becomes crystal-clear, light shines separately from each single point in space, not merely from some orb like the sun from somewhere in distant space. One becomes immortal.

We do not hint that spiritual aspirants, in the initial stages, will have any such experience, but this grand ideal is placed before the seeking soul so that it may become its touchstone, its yardstick, in testing and measuring the quality and extent of its experiences and achievements. Unless one’s life and conduct reflects in even the smallest measure an intelligible relation to this Goal set forth, one can be sure that there is something wrong in the whole structure of Sadhana, and a thorough investigation of its fibre has to be done immediately. Else there is every possibility of the rising of that psychological tearing up of one’s life as a whole, as detailed above, a most undesirable thing to be envisaged by anyone with common sense.

[Extracted from Swami Krishnananda Maharaj’s discourses Divine Life Society]

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