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Your Window to the World of Philosophy, Religion and Spirituality!
This website is devoted to Philosophy, Religion, Spirituality and Science. We bring in articles on teachings by Great Saints like Sri Shirdi Sai Baba, Adi Shankara, Swami Sivananda, Swami Krishnananda, Aurobindo, Mother of Auroville and others.
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Sanatana Dharma
Sanatana Dharma
Sanatana means eternal, never beginning nor ending. Dharma is from dhri, meaning to hold together, to sustain. Sanatana Dharma eternally holds All together. Sanatana Dharma is experience based rather than belief based.
‘Satyam vada, Dharmam chara’ Literally means, Speak the Truth and Practice Dharma. Ancient Hindu scriptures emphasize the importance of ‘Satya’ and ‘Dharma’. Satya is the eternal, absolute and unchanging truth. Dharma is often translated as righteousness, Law or Natural Law. In the Rigveda, the word appears as an n-stem, dhárman-, meaning “something established or firm”
The Upanishads saw dharma as the universal principle of law, order, harmony, all in all truth, that sprang first from Brahman. In the Brihadaranyaka’s own words: Verily, that which is Dharma is truth. In the Mahabharata (12.110.11), Lord Krishna defines dharma as, “Dhaaranaad dharma ity aahur dharmena vidhrtaah prajaah, Yat syaad dhaarana sanyuktam sa dharma iti nishchayah,” meaning, Dharma upholds both this-worldly and other-worldly affairs.
The prayer, “तमसोमाज्योतिर्गमय” Tamasoma Jyothirgamaya, in the tradition of Sanatana Dharma means “Lead me from darkness to light”. Darkness symbolizes ajnana or ignorance; while light symbolizes jnana or knowledge.
The Guru alone is capable of guiding one from the darkness of ignorance to the light of knowledge. It is due to this fact that utmost importance is given to the Guru in Sanatana Dharma.
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Non-duality through Rubin's vase
Self-realization and non-duality through Rubin’s vase
This is the famous optical illusion image devised by the Danish psychologist Edgar Rubin often used to illustrate the concept of figure ground. When two fields have a common border, one is seen as figure and the other as ground. You can see the image as either a central vase, or two faces that are looking at each other. This image is popularly called the Rubin’s vase (sometimes known as the Rubin face or the figure–ground vase ).
The spiritual truth: We see an article. The act of seeing has both an object (the particular article seen) as well as the subject (one who does the act of seeing). These two states (object and subject) are separate and distinct from one another. The body is seen, so it is the object. Atma (soul) sees, so it is the subject. This analogy can be extended to other acts such as perception or consciousness. The body is perceived, so it is the object. Atma (soul) does the act of perceiving . so it is the subject. Thus the body and the soul are separate from one another. He who considers the soul as that which is seen (that is, confuses the object for the subject) can only be termed as an aggyani (ignorant of reality/truth).
The spiritual seeker eventually acquires the intuitive wisdom of direct perception and understands the Eternal Truth and solves the mystery of how the Brahman (divine) is seen at the same time as both manifested in (immanent) and encompassing of the material world (transcendent). He realizes his oneness with God and understands that he himself is a microcosm of immanence and transcendence (Non-duality).
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Shirdi Sai Baba (Maalik Ek) 2010
Shirdi Sai Baba (Maalik Ek) 2010 - Movie Review
Shirdi Sai Baba (Maalik Ek), (October 29, 2010), a spiritual movie is directed by Deepak Balraj Vij, and music has been scored by Anup Jalota, who has also appeared as Das Ganu.
The movie which gives us a glimpse of the Saint Sai Baba of Shirdi, through some real life stories has a refreshing modern day appeal with classic songs like Raham Nazar Karna and songs like Sab ka Ek.
The small budget movie, is not up to Bollywood standards but the crux of the story is very well projected with some good acting performances by Anup Jalota, Suresh Oberai, Dharmendra, Vikram Gokhale, Rohini Hattangadi, Shammi Kapoor, Manoj Kumar, Divya Dutta, etc. And of course, Jackie Shroff, who has played the lead role as Shirdi Sai Baba, has given up his old ways of living and has adopted a different life style.
Through this movie, Baba’s words of “Shraddha & Saburi” along with “Sab Ka Maalik Ek”, continues to resonate in our ears and one’s faith in Sai Baba, whose leelas have spread all over the world, increases manifold. “There are believers and non-believers. And one day, we all become believers.”
Full Movie Link[Source]
Festivals - Ganesh Pooja
Ganesha Pooja
Two to three months before Ganesh Chaturthi, artistic plaster of Paris (originally clay) models of Lord Ganesha are made for sale by specially skilled artisans. They are beautifully decorated and depict Lord Ganesh in poses. The size of these statues may vary from 3/4 of an inch to over 70 feet.
Ganesh Chaturthi starts with the installation of these Ganesh statues in colorfully decorated homes and specially erected temporary structures mandapas (pandals) in every locality. The pandals are erected by the people or a specific society or locality or group by collecting monetary contributions. The pandals are decorated specially for the festival, either by using decorative items like flower garlands, lights, etc. or are theme based decorations, which depict religious themes or current events.
The priest, usually clad in red or white dhoti and uttariyam (Shawl), then symbolically invokes life into the statue by chanting mantras. This ritual is the Pranapratishhtha. After this the ritual called as Shhodashopachara (16 ways of paying tribute) follows. Coconut, jaggery, 21 modakas, 21 durva (trefoil) blades of grass and red flowers are offered. The statue is anointed with red unguent, typically
In Andhra, kudumu (rice flour dumplings stuffed with coconut and jaggery mixture), Vundrallu (steamed coarsely grounded rice flour balls), Panakam (jaggery, black pepper and cardamom flavored drink), Vadapappu (soaked and moong lentils), Chalividi (cooked rice flour and jaggery mixture), etc., are offered to Ganesha along with Modakams. These offerings to god are called Naivedyam in Telugu.
In Andhra, Clay Ganesh (Matti Vinayakudu in Telugu) and Turmeric Ganesh (Siddhi Vinayakudu in Telugu) is usually worshiped at homes along with plaster of paris Ganesha.
Public celebrations of the festival are hugely popular, with local communities (mandalas) vying with each other to put up the biggest statue and the best pandal. The festival is also the time for cultural activities like singing and theater performances, orchestra and community activities like free medical checkup, blood donation camps, charity for the poor, etc.
Today, the Ganesh Festival is not only a popular festival, it has become a very critical and important economic activity for Mumbai, Hyderabad, Vishakhapatnam, Bangalore and Chennai. Many artists, industries, and businesses survive on this mega-event. Ganesh Festival also provides a stage for budding artists to present their art to the public. In Maharashtra, not only Hindus but many other religions also participate in the celebration like Muslims, Jains, Christian and others.
This festival managed to re-establish the unity among the Indians during British Era.
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Welcome to Sai Baba
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Sai Baba of Shirdi holds a unique place in the rich tradition of saints in India. Baba, an embodiment of self-realization and perfection, did not come solely to preach but to awaken mankind through his messages of love and righteousness. The early life of Sai Baba is still cloaked in mystery as there isn’t any reliable record of the Baba’s birth and parentage. It is believed that Baba was born somewhere between 1838 and 1842 AD in a place called Pathri in Marathwada in Central India. Sai Baba arrived at Shirdi as a nameless entity at a young age tempered by the discipline of penance and austerity.
Welcome to Sai Baba! This section of the website gives you different angles on a variety of topics, and helps you learn about our traditions, the lifestyle of enlightened souls, and tools to help you achieve spiritual and religious awakening.
Please feel free to explore. As always, we welcome your feedback!
Welcome to DLS Posts
The Mandukya Upanishad
The Mandukya Upanishad by Swami Krishnananda
Created on Saturday 15 March 2014 21:47
*READ MORE \* The Mandukya Upanishad
Yesterday we observed that the human individual is a microcosmic specimen of the entire creative process of the cosmos. The layers or degrees of reality which constitute the composition of the universe of creation are also to be found in the human individual in the form of the Kosas or the sheaths, as they are called – physical, vital, mental, intellectual and causal-known in the Sanskrit language as Annamaya Kosa, Pranomaya Kosa, Manomaya Kosa, Vijnanamaya Kosa and Anandamaya Kosa. These are the five layers of objectivity which, in a gradational form, externalise consciousness. The grosser the sheath, the greater is the force of externality, so that when consciousness enters the physical body we are totally material in our outlook, physical in our understanding and assessment of values, intensely body-conscious, and know nothing about ourselves except this body. It is only when we go interior that we have access to the subtler layers of our personality – not otherwise. The Taittiriya Upanishad dealt with subject of the five layers, known as the Kosas; and the Mandukya Upanishad, which is another important Upanishad, sometimes considered as the most important, deals with the very same Kosas in a different way, namely, by the elucidation of the involvement of consciousness in these Kosas.
The five have been classified into three groups – the physical, the subtle and the causal. In the waking state in which we are now, for instance, the physical body is intensely operative and we always think in terms of physical body, physical objects and physical sensations. This physical sensation is absent in the state of dream, but three of the Kosas operate in dream. In the waking condition, all the five are operating, concentrating their action on the physical body mostly. In the dream state the physical body is not operating, but the vital, the mental and the intellectual sheaths are active. The Prana is there, the mind is there, the intellect also is there also in a diminished intensity. We breath, we think and we understand in the state of dream. That means Prana, Manas and Buddhi all are active in the state of dream, minus the physical element, namely the body consciousness. In the state of deep sleep, none of these are active; neither the body is operating there, nor the mind, nor the intellect, nor is there any consciousness that we are even breathing. The consciousness is withdrawn entirely from all the sheaths – physical, vital, mental and intellectual. There is only one sheath that is operating in the state of sleep – that is the causal sheath, called Anandamaya Kosa in Sanskrit.
In the waking condition the senses are very active, physically and materially. The Mandukya Upanishad tells us that we enjoy, experience and contact things in nineteen ways in the waking state. Consciousness has nineteen mouths through which it eats the food of objective experience. What are these nineteen mouths? They are the five senses of knowledge – seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching. With these five sensations we come in contact with things in the world outside, and enjoy them with actions and reactions produced thereby, by means of such sensory contact. These five mentioned are called senses of knowledge – Jnanya Indriyas. They are so called because they give us some sort of knowledge – either of sight, or sound, or taste, or smell, or touch. Apart from these five senses of knowledge, there are five organs of action; they do not give us any independent knowledge, but they act. The hand that grasps is one organ of action. The speech that articulates words is another organ of action. The feet that cause locomotion or movement are also organs of action. The generative organ and the excretory organ also are two of the active elements or organs of action. They act, but they do not give any new knowledge. Whatever idea, knowledge, experience, etc. we may have through any one of these organs of action comes through the sensations already mentioned, namely, the Jnana Indriyas. Even when the organs of action act and we are conscious that they are acting, this consciousness is available only through the Jnana Indriyas and not separately though the organs of action, which do not give additional knowledge. It looks as if we have some sensation even through the organs of action, but actually it is not so. The sensation, the experience of the action of the Karma Indriyas as they are called, arises on account of the simultaneous action of the Jnana Indriyas or senses of knowledge. These five senses of knowledge and five organs of action make ten mouths of consciousness.
Then there are the five Pranas – the Prana, or the vital energy in us, operates in five ways. When we breathe out, expel breath, the Prana is acting. When we breathe in, when we inhale the breath, the Apana is acting. The Vyana is a third form of the operation of this energy, which causes circulation of blood and makes us feel a sensation of liveliness in every part of the body because of the operative action of the bloodstream, which is pushed onward in a circular fashion throughout the body by the action of a particular function of Prana, called Vyana. There is another action of the Prana, which is Udana; it causes the swallowing of food. When we put food in the mouth, it goes inside through the esophagus and it is pushed down by the action of a Prana called Udana. Udana has also certain other functions to perform. It takes us to deep sleep. Our ego consciousness, our individualised consciousness is pushed into a state of somnambulism, sleep; that also is the work of Udana. Udana has also a third function to perform, namely the separation of the vital body from the physical body at the time of death. Three actions, three performances are attributed to Udana. There is another, fifth one, Samana, which operates through the navel region and causes digestion of food. It creates heat in the stomach and in the naval region so that the gastric juices operate and we feel appetite. Hunger is caused and food is digested by the action of this Samana. So, there are five Pranas – Prana, Apana, Vyana, Udana, Samana.
Five senses of knowledge, five organs of action and five Pranas make fifteen. There are four functions of the psychic organ. The internal psyche, which we generally call Manas or mind in ordinary language, has four functions. In Sanskrit these four functions are designated as Manas, Buddhi, Ahamkara and Chitta. Manas is ordinary, indeterminate thinking – just being aware that something is there. Manas is the work of the mind. Buddhi determines, decides and logically comes to a conclusion that something is such-and-such a thing. That is another aspect of the operation of the psyche – Buddhi or intellect. The third form of it is Ahamkara – ego, affirmation, assertion, ‘I know’. “I know that there is some object in front of me, and I also know that I know. I know that I am existing as this so-and-so.” This kind of affirmation attributed to one’s own individuality is the work of Ahamkara, known as egoism. The subconscious action, memory, etc., is caused by Chitta. It is the fourth function. So Manas, Buddhi, Ahamkara, Chitta – these are the four basic functions of the internal organ, the psychological organ.
So, we have five senses of knowledge, five organs of action, five Pranas and four operations of the psyche, totaling nineteen. These are the mouths through which consciousness grasps objects from outside, and we feel secure and happy because all these nineteen things are acting at the same time in some form or other, with more emphasis or less emphasis. Any one can act at any time, under special given conditions; and inasmuch as any one can act at any time, it is virtually saying that all are acting at the same time. Therefore we are objectively conscious through the nineteen operative media of the individual consciousness acting in the waking condition. We are aware of this vast world of sensory perception, and we go on contacting these objects of the world through these media.
It is also mentioned, in this connection, that we can conceive this form of perception in a cosmic way. Cosmic consciousness can be conceived to be operating in this manner in a cosmic waking condition. In the same way as we are individually conscious of objects in our waking condition, in a similar manner we can conceive that the universal consciousness is awake to the world of daylight. The whole universe is the object of the consciousness of a consciousness in its manner, similar to an individualised, circumscribed world becoming the object of our individual consciousness in the waking state. The waking state is called Jagrat-avastha-Jagratsthan. Technical words are used, which may be remembered or not remembered. For instance, Visva is the word used to designate consciousness in the waking, individualised state. Our consciousness, the Jiva-tattva, this individuality of ours at this moment of waking, is called Visva. This very waking world of universal expanse in space and time, animated by a universal consciousness, is called Vaishvanara, or sometimes the word used is Virat. There is a consciousness pervading all things, as we know already. If this consciousness, which is universal and hidden behind all things, is to be aware of the whole cosmos as we perceive in our waking condition, that cosmic awaking or awareness of the whole universe may be regarded as Virat-tattva-cosmic consciousness of the whole physical world, the entire cosmos of physicality.
We have heard that Sri Krishna manifested the Viratsvarupa before Arjuna. In the Purusha-Sukta we also have some sort of description of the Cosmic Being conceived as animating the whole physical cosmos. By ‘physical cosmos’ we have to understand here not merely this physical earth, but all the layers of externality which are computerised, as it were, into fourteen categories known in Sanskrit as Bhuh-lok, Bhuvah-lok, Svah-lok, Mahah-lok, Jana-lok, Tapah-lok and Satya-lok. The whole cosmos, in all the levels of its manifestation, is at once an object of the awareness of this Cosmic Being. Such an awakened, waking state, as it were, of the cosmic consciousness is Virat, also known as Vaishvanara in the language of the Upanishads. Individually, the microcosmic aspect of this Virat is Visva – your own or my own waking experience as it is available just now, for instance.
Through nineteen mouths we experience objects of the world in this waking condition. We can conceive for our own intellectual satisfaction that the universe operates also in this manner, and God-consciousness, imagined to be operating through this waking condition everywhere, is an expanded form of our individualised consciousness. While we in our waking state know only certain things, God as the universal consciousness knows all things at the same time. This is briefly a description of consciousness involved in the waking state; a total physical perception in which the consciousness is involved is the objective world of waking state of consciousness.
In the dream state something else happens. The actual physical world which is seen and contacted through the sense organs in the waking state is absent, but by an action of the mind it looks as if it is present even in the dream state. Without the assistance of the gross senses and the organs of action which are active in the waking condition, the mind alone concocts, imagines, projects a world of its own in the dream state, and we see a world in dream. We exist there in the same way that we exist in the waking state. We can see ourselves now, seated here, in the waking state; in a similar way we can see ourselves observing certain things in the dream state also. There is a dream ‘me’ in the same way as there is a waking ‘me’, and there is a dream world. We see all sorts of things in the waking state – mountains, rivers, sun, moon, stars, and people of all kinds. We can see all that in the dream world also. There is space, time and externality in dream, as we have also in the waking state. The difference between the waking and the dream is that the mind has created this entire world of external cognition and perception of its own accord, without the existence of physically external objects or the physical sensations. There, also, nineteen mouths are operating. We have dream eyes, dream ears, a dream nose, a dream tongue that tastes, dream touch; and dream legs, dream hands, dream organs of every kind. We run in dream with the legs, we eat a good meal in dream, we can even live and die – even that experience is possible in dream. One can feel that one is born, or one can feel that one is dead. One can observe one’s own cremation in dream. All kinds of fantastic things can be experienced in dream. A new world is projected by the mind – space, time, causation, objects, people, all blessed things. They are in the dream world because the psyche is operating through the vital energy, the mind, the intellect in a diminished form, not in an active way. The only difference is that the physical body is not there as an object of awareness. Sometimes people sleep with open mouths. If a few particles of sugar are put on the tongue of a sleeping man, he will not feel the taste of it, because his mind is withdrawn. The mind is the main operative organ which causes sensations of seeing, hearing, tasting, etc. Even the ego will react in dream. If somebody calls us, either in dream or in sleep, by a name that is not ours, we will not listen to it. We will not wake up. If John is sleeping and he is called as Jacob, he will not wake up. John must be summoned as John only. That is, the ego is so intensely identified with this particular name-form complex that it is acting even there in a submerged condition of dream and sleep.
So, the nineteen mouths of the waking condition are psychologically projected by the mind in the dreaming state also, and there also we have all these experiences, every blessed thing, as we have in the waking state. The Mandukya Upanishad is a study of these states. It is said that if one properly understands the Mandukya Upanishad and its implications, one need not read any other Upanishad afterwards. Mandukyam ekam eva alam mumukshunam vimuktaye – For the sake of the liberation of the soul, one Upanishad is sufficient, the Mandukya Upanishad, provided it is understood properly in its deep connotations. We should not just read it only to understand of the lower meaning of it. The suggestion given by the Mandukya Upanishad is to take one’s consciousness deeper and deeper into the very root of one’s personality – from external sensations, from body etc. to what one really is in one’s deepest essence.
There is a third state, called sleep, where not only are we not aware of the body, but even the psychological functions are not there. The mind does not think, the intellect does not decide, and we do not even know that we exist. Our existence itself is abolished, as it were; a nothing. It is a nothing of which we are not even aware that it is a nothing. To be aware that it is a nothing is something, but even to be not aware that it is a nothing – that is pure nothing, unadulterated. But, what is happening there? Are we dead? No; very much alive. Who told us that we are alive in sleep when we call it nothing and our awareness is totally obliterated by something? We are totally oblivious of all things happening there. When we did not even know that we are existing, how do we come to the conclusion that we were alive at that time? Nobody told us. We ourselves conclude, “I am the same person now that I was before I slept yesterday. Therefore I conclude that I must have been existing in sleep. Today I am not another person – I am the same person that I was yesterday. Therefore I must have existed in sleep.” But how do we know that we are the same person? We may be another person; every day we can change and become somebody else. This does not happen. A continuity of consciousness is maintained between yesterday’s experience and today’s experience. Is this not interesting and surprising? We are very certain, cocksure that we are the same person today that we were yesterday, and our consciousness is continuing even through the sleep condition, making us feel we are existing today in the same way as we existed yesterday. That is to say, we did exist in the state of deep sleep. The proof of it is only our conviction that we are the same person today as we were yesterday. We have a memory of having slept.
Now, if consciousness must have existed in the state of deep sleep, we must have existed as consciousness only. We did not exist as a body, mind, intellect, or anything else. We did not know even that we were breathing at that time. We did exist as consciousness only. So, do we believe that our essential nature is consciousness? Because minus all these appurtenances of body, mind, intellect, etc., if we can exist nevertheless, why should we imagine that we are the body, mind, intellect, etc.? If I can exist minus something, then that thing from which I am withdrawn is not me, really speaking. If I can be safe without something, that something is redundant. So body is a redundant thing; mind, intellect also are not us. We are pure – Shuddha Chaitanya, as they call it – Pure Consciousness. In that state we existed. There is no other thing which can be regarded as an attribute of our being in that condition. Consciousness was our essential nature. What were we conscious of? Conscious of nothing; conscious of consciousness only. It was a consciousness of existence, about which we heard something sometime back. It was not a consciousness of something, it was a consciousness of consciousness existing. We were aware that we were aware – that’s all, nothing more than that; nothing more, nothing less. It was being-consciousness; and we were very happy, therefore it was bliss also. We know how happy we are after having gone into a good sleep – happy – and we would like to continue the sleep, would we not?
So free we were in sleep that we would like to go to sleep again. All the botheration and turmoil of this world is no more there. “Let me go to bed and forget this devil of this world,” we feel sometimes. So in this state of deep sleep we existed as Pure Consciousness; Sat-Chit-Ananda was our real nature in the state of deep sleep. This consciousness which was Sat-Chit-Ananda was not merely inside the body, as we may wrongly imagine once again after having deduced this wonderful conclusion that we were Pure Consciousness. It is a wonderful conclusion indeed that we are essentially Pure Consciousness. But again we may commit the mistake of thinking that we are inside the body. Pure Consciousness is not inside anything – it is all things. We have already concluded in our earlier sessions that consciousness is all-pervading; it cannot be confined to one individuality only. To be conscious that it is only in one place and not in another place is to accept virtually that consciousness is in another place also. Otherwise how would consciousness know that it is not in some other place unless it has already been there. So the negation of consciousness in some other place is actually an affirmation of it in that place. Negation is determination. Therefore, what is the second conclusion that we draw by this analysis? That in the state of deep sleep we existed as Pure Consciousness; not the little consciousness inside the body, but the pervading consciousness which is everywhere. Cosmic consciousness was there. Universal consciousness was our essential nature in deep sleep. But why is it that we are not aware of such a condition? We come up like fools, as we went also like fools in the state of deep sleep. When we wake up, we do not come like a wise person. Same idiot went, same idiot comes back. What is the matter, in spite of these wondrous conclusions? There is a peculiar operation which is catching hold of us. The impression and the impact caused by this operation is the reason why we come up like fools though it appears that we were not really fools.
We have passed through various lives; we have taken many births. This is one link in the long chain in the births that we have undergone, maybe thousands in number. In every birth we think something, feel something and do something; and every thought, every feeling and every action creates an impression in the psyche. The psyche is nothing but the individualised center of consciousness. This impression is nothing but a remnant of a desire remaining after a particular experience. If we see something, we would like to see it again. If we like something, we want to continue that liking again and again, as much as possible. The like and dislike, so-called, which is the basic operation of the mind of the individual, creates an impression in the mind, a groove, as it were, and creates a compulsion in the psyche to repeat that experience already had earlier. This goes on day after day, every day, and we pile up impressions, one over the other, so that these impressions heaped in that manner, one over the other, become something like a thick cloud covering of consciousness. This happens in one life; but if many lives are taken in this manner, what would happen? Complete darkness like an eclipse of the sun or an utter midnight – like experience when there is monsoon season, even in the waking condition, even in daytime. This thing is weighing so heavily upon us that it does not permit us to be aware that we were aware in the state of deep sleep.
So the transcendental being that we really are in the state of deep sleep is almost a negation of our existence, because of the heavy weight that is sitting upon us. Suppose I give you a very good lunch, very tasty, and five quintals of heavy weight I keep on your head at the same time – will you enjoy the food? Very tasty thing, but the five quintals on the head – unless that is removed, this eating has no meaning. So our own experience of transcendental awareness in deep sleep does not have any signification for us on account of the heavy weight of Karma potentials which compel us to think only in one way, in a stereotyped fashion – like blinkers, as it were – and we cannot think in any other way. Any number of lives we may take, births and births we may pass through, but we are the same person. We do not become different because we are whipped by the desires which were produced by earlier impressions; and as a horse being whipped and compelled to move in one direction only, we are forced to think in only one way – this space, this time, this causation, this object, this person, this me, this somebody else.
The Mandukya Upanishad gives this analysis of our basic nature. But it is said that we will attain Moksha by knowing this knowledge – Mandukyam ekam eva alam mumukshunam vimuktaye. How would we get Moksha by knowing this? It is also added that we are the same foolish persons; we have never become different. This foolishness of ours can be removed by the gradual practise of Yoga. The suggestion of a particular kind of Yoga that is made by the Mandukya Upanishad is the recitation of Pranava or Omkara. It has a simple way, a very easy means of meditation to tell us, not complicated – the recitation of Pranava. OM is the Pranava or the Omkar which is a blend of three syllables, letters – A, U, M. A-U-M becomes OM. When we chant OM, when we articulate the vocal organ in the recitation of OM, all the parts of the vocal organ act simultaneously in such a way that they may be supposed to be uttering every letter at that time. All language is supposed to be included in OM because of this reason. All the articulatory process takes place in the recitation of OM, if we can properly observe it.
The Visva, as I mentioned, is the name given to the waking consciousness. Dreaming consciousness is called Taijasa, sleeping consciousness is called Prajna. The transcendental consciousness is the Atman. So, Visva, Taijasa, Prajna and Atman are the designations of the very same consciousness involved in the physical body and physical sensations, involved in dream perception, involved in sleep, and not involved in anything. In a way, the letters of the Mantra OM – A, U, M – are identified by the Mandukya Upanishad with these three states; A is waking, U is dreaming, Ma is sleeping and OM is Atman. “OM is the name of the Ultimate Reality,” says Patanjali in his Sutra. The name of God is OM – He has no other name. As God is all-pervading, His name also should be all-inclusive. We do not call him ka ka, ga ga, abcd. It is an inarticulate universalised vibration. It is not actually a letter or a word, but a vibration. OM is to be chanted for the sake of the removal of this dross accumulated in our psyche in the form of impressions of past Karmas. Merge waking in dream, merge dream in sleep and merge sleep in the Atman. Draw the consciousness gradually from waking to dream – that is to say, draw it from the waking body consciousness to the psychological consciousness, and from that to the sleep consciousness. How do we do this? In the beginning we have to be seated in a suitable posture and slowly articulate this beautiful name of God, which is OM or Pranav.
The scripture says that, in the beginning, the Vedas did not exist. In the Krita Yuga, the golden age as we call it, the Vedas did not exist; only Pranava existed. That religion was not Hinduism, Christianity, etc. Hamsa was the name of the religion of Krita Yuga. Hamsa means just love of God. It is not love through some ‘ism’ – this community or that community – no communities existed in Krita Yuga. It was total man loving total God, and OM was considered as inclusive of all the three Vedas. From Akara, Ukara and Makara, Prajapati is supposed to have extracted the Rig Veda, Yajur Veda and Sama Veda. The three Padas of the Gayatri Mantra are supposed to be extractions of the three Vedas, and are also supposed to be embedded in A-U-M, so that all the Veda is inside OM – all three Vedas.
To practice this meditation according to the Mandukya Upanishad, be seated properly, without distractions, and chant Aauuuummmmm. Take a deep breath and then chant Aaauuuuummmmmmm, Aaauuuuummmmmmm, Aaauuuuummmmmmm, Aaauuuuummmmmmm, Aaauuuuummmmmmm. When you recite OM like this, don’t you feel a sense of satisfaction inside? In a few seconds you will feel the difference. You feel as if you are a different person altogether. You are not the same body; you were not even aware of that body for two seconds. It was melting, as it were, gradually melting. Every day practice this chant for fifteen minutes, in the morning and in the evening. You will feel as if the body is melting. Actually, physically, it may not melt; the sensation of melting may arise on account of the withdrawal of consciousness from the body. It will withdraw itself from even the mind, and it will withdraw itself from even your personality consciousness. By the chant of OM only you can enter into the bliss of the Atman, is the teaching of the Mandukya Upanishad. All Yogas are combined in this. So do this practice yourself when you are alone somewhere, under the tree, or at the Ganga, or at the temple, or in your room – wherever you are. Sit for a few minutes and chant in the same way as I told you, with a sonorous sound, beautifully, calmly, creating an equilibrated vibration in your personality. You will forget all your worries; you will feel happy inside. You will feel a tingling sensation in the body, as if the consciousness is slowly getting withdrawn from body. This is the practice of the Yoga of the Mandukya Upanishad. God bless you.
[Extracted from Swami Krishnananda Maharaj’s discourses Divine Life Society]
The Gospel of the Bhagavadgita
The Fourfold Vision of Life
The Fourfold Vision of Life by Swami Krishnananda
Created on Wednesday 14 March 2014 16:55
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A more in-depth perception of life is the blending synthesis that has been achieved in ancient times in a concept known as the fourfold aim of human existence.
The aspiration of the human soul cannot be equated with any kind of philosophy or objective evaluation – material, social, or otherwise. The soul of man refuses to be equated with anything in this world. Though it has a connection apparently with all things in the world, permeating all conceivable values of life, it also stands above all available values. The aims of human life have been summed up in a very well thought-out pattern of aspiration designated as Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha.
All values in life which are materially construed are known as Artha. Anything that can be contacted through the sense-organs is Artha. Anything that can be possessed as a property is Artha. Anything that is contributory is considered as a material value. This is Artha. Artha is a Sanskrit word meaning an object of perception, a content of consciousness; that which is the end result of any kind of sensory activity is Artha. Kama is the psychological value of human life. Dharma is the human value which at the same time surpasses itself, reaching beyond itself in a superhuman grasp of a cosmic principle.
An intelligent investigation into the structure of this pattern, namely, the coming together of Artha, Dharma, and Kama, will reveal to us the profundity of this research and its final finding. The spiritual value of life, we may say, is what generally people consider as Moksha, a difficult term to properly understand in its linguistic form or even in its philosophical content. The evaluation of human life is actually from this point of view an evaluation of all life. When the human individual rises to the level of a spiritual aspiration, the human ceases to be a limited individual social unit but an embodiment of a call which is above all individual values or social relationships.
The concept of the values of life as Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha is a masterstroke of genius of the Indian soil particularly, which did not exclude from its consideration even the lowest calls of human nature, but were not satisfied with any of the calls of human nature. While all our desires are permissible in one way, none of the desires is finally permissible. While all that we need and call for, and every thought, every feeling, every vision of life is a permissible and valid evaluation of things from their own point of view, yet none of them is final. All phases of the vision of life are valid from their own point of view – every religion is a right religion, a correct vision of things, every faith is valid in its own way, every vision is complete, every viewpoint has a validity of its own – anything that you think is a valid thinking. But it is inadequate.
Here is the necessity for a charitableness that we have to manifest in ourselves while affirming our own points of view. My point of view and your point of view and everyone’s point of view is a correct point of view, but none’s point of view is a whole point of view. There is something beyond any vision of things, though every vision of things is self-centered and appears to be complete from its own stage, level and operative angle. There is thus a necessity to live a cooperative life. The life that the world expects from us is not so much competitive as cooperative. Things in the world do not argue one against the other; they do not compete in a business fashion, but agree to accept their own limitations and also agree to expect the correlative aspects of their inadequacies from other things in the world, other people, from everything. Everyone is sacrosanct, everyone is holy, everyone is complete, every human being is as valuable as any other human being; everyone is equally valuable, there is no inferiority or superiority among people. Human life is a ubiquitous, equally distributed valuation of aspiration to exist, but no individual human life is complete in itself.
This is to sum up the viewpoint that is placed before us by the pattern called the fourfold Purusharthas – Dharma, Artha, Kama, Moksha. They are not four aims of existence; they are the fourfold vision of a single aim of existence. We are materially located in this body, we are psychologically operating through the mind, we are socially existing in the midst of people; we are also vehicles of an eternity that is permanently acting for the fulfillment of itself in self-realisation.
Om purnam adah, purnam idam, purnat purnam udacyate;
purnasya purnam adaya puram evavasisyate .
[Extracted from Swami Krishnananda Maharaj’s discourses Divine Life Society]
The Gospel of the Bhagavadgita
The Katha Upanishad
The Katha Upanishad by Swami Krishnananda
Created on Wednesday 12 March 2014 17:07
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These are the sentences which the great master Lord Yama spoke to Nachiketas (for the mantras please check the link), the great student whose story occurs in the Katha Upanishad. Certain incidents caused the ascent of the student Nachiketas to the Lord of Death – Yama. He could not meet the Lord when he went there, and for three days he had to stand at the gates of the palace of Yama, not eating and not sleeping. After three days the great master returned and asked for pardon, “My dear boy, you are Atithi, just come to my place, and unfortunately I had to make you stand here without eating and sleeping for three days and nights. As a recompense for this pain that I have caused to you unwittingly, I ask you to choose three boons from me.” The boy Nachiketas said, “I am glad that you have offered to give me three boons.” “Yes, please ask.”
“Now I shall ask for the first boon. When I return to the world from your abode, may I be received with affection by my father, by the world and by everyone.” This boon has also a special, mystical significance. Though the words of the Upanishad are couched in some sort of an epic, mythological style, the borderland of universal knowledge is the death of the human personality. The great Lord Yama, here in the context of the Upanishadic teaching, may be regarded as the Lord over the borderland between the empirical and the transcendental realms. Death is the greatest teacher. Ordinarily even the very notion of death shakes our personality, and we learn the wisdom of life only when we are on the verge of dying. Until that time we are mostly ignoramuses. When we are drowning in water and there is no hope of coming out, when death is immanent and there are only a few more minutes left, or we have lost everything that we considered as our own, at that time we learn the wisdom of life. When everything is gone and nothing remains – even the ground under our feet is shaking – at that time we know what life is made of and what the wisdom of life is.
When Nachiketas asked for this boon as a student of the highest mysticism conceivable, we may understand from this request of Nachiketas that when we return to the world after the attainment of the wisdom of life, the world becomes a friend. At present the world is not our friend – it stands outside us as a glaring, tearing reality of which we have very little knowledge. The world is very heavily sitting on us; too much is this world for us, many a time. We dread it. We cannot consider anything in the world as our real friend because it has its own laws and regulations, and we are obliged to abide by these laws and regulations. It compels us to obey its dictates and mandates. But it suddenly changes its color and becomes part and parcel of our personal life. Jivanmukta is the name that we give to the transmuted personality of the spiritual seeker. Nachiketas may be regarded as a Jivanmukta, especially having contacted that great master of knowledge, Yama himself. “When I return to the world after having seen you, the abode of wisdom, may the world receive me with affection. May there be nothing dissonant, incongruent, disharmonious in this world, and may there be a communion of spirits and purposes between me and the world.” This boon is granted at one stroke. “Yes,” said Yama. “It is a simple thing for me. You shall have what you asked for. Now ask for a second boon.”
The second boon is something more complicated. It is deeper than the one mentioned earlier. “I have heard,” said Nachiketas, “that there is a mystery called Vaishvanara, having known which, one becomes all-knowing, omniscient. May I be blessed with this boon.” “Yes, I shall initiate you into this mystery of the supreme wisdom of the Vaishvanara, the Universal Reality.” The necessary initiation process was carried out.
“Now ask for the third boon.” This was a crucial issue that Nachiketas raised when he asked for the third boon. “What happens to the soul after death – after the death of this body, or it may be after the death of the individuality itself – in either case, what happens to the soul?” While Yama, the Lord, was very eager and quick in the response to the questions of Nachiketas, in the case of the third question he was not willing to say anything. He said, “You should not ask this question. Nobody can understand what it is. The gods themselves have doubts about this matter. Therefore a young boy like you should not raise a question of this kind. Ask for better things – gold and silver, long life, health. The emperorship of the whole world, and a long life, as long as this world lasts, all the wealth of the world, all the glory, all the majesty and magnificence of an emperor of the world I shall grant you. Do not ask this question.”
Nachiketas said, “What good is this, what is the use of this long life? What do you mean by “long life”? How long will it be? One day it has to end. So anything that has to end is to be considered as short. It may be long from one point of view, but it has to end one day. Even if it is millions of years – after millions of years, what happens? It stops. Then why do you call it “long life”? It is short. All the life put together is futile and petty. I do not want long life. And what is the good of all the glory and majesty and the beauty and the enjoyments to which you have made reference? What is enjoyment to a person whose sense organs have worn out? As long as the sense organs are vigorous, things look beautiful, tasty and worthwhile. When the senses wither away, who will enjoy the world? So why do you tempt me with these offerings? ‘Ask for better things,’ you said. What can be better than the knowledge of this mystery of the soul after its departure from this body, this tabernacle?”
Yama was cornered like this from all sides and he found that there is an impossible student in front of him. Yama might have been testing him, the mettle of the student; whatever be the case, it is also an indication as to the difficulty in knowing what the soul is. The answer, however, does not come abruptly from Yama, though he finally agreed to give the answer.
What he says is, there are two ways available for every person in this world – the way of the good and the way of the pleasant. The good is called Sreyas, the pleasant is called Preyas. There are two roads along which we can tread. We can choose what is good, or we can choose what is pleasant. It is proper for a person to choose the good. It is improper for any person to choose the pleasant, because the good does not always look pleasant, and the pleasant is certainly not always good. That which is pleasant is nothing but the reaction of the sense organs in respect of objects outside. The pleasantness is only in the sensations. If we scratch our body there is a little sensation of pleasure, but itching is necessary in order that the scratching sensation may be pleasant. Unless there is itching, there will be no sensation of pleasure when scratching. If we are not hungry, no lunch can be delicious. If we are not healthy, the world looks stupid and meaningless. If the senses are not vigorous, nothing looks beautiful – everything is ugly and black.
So, what do we mean by pleasant experiences? There is no such thing as a pleasant experience as such, by itself. It is only a relative condition created under the circumstances of an action and reaction process taking place between the sense organs, the mind and the objects outside. Would anybody pursue this path which is utter foolishness? He who pursues the path of the pleasant will fall short of his aim. It is good that we follow the good. We understand to some extent that the pleasant is not actually something existent in the objects outside – it is only a sensation, a reaction of the sense organs, and therefore unreliable to the hilt. Will an old person, in a dying condition, have a pleasant experience of anything in this world? The senses are dying completely; there is no appetite of any kind. If pleasant things are really pleasant, they should be pleasant even at the last moment of our departure. Where is the pleasantness at that time? The condition of our body and mind and sense organs determines what we call pleasant; and also, what is pleasant to us need not be pleasant to another person. If there is real pleasantness in things, there should be pleasantness for all people equally. Why should it be attractive to us and not attractive to another person? Why is it that what we like is not liked by somebody else? This shows there is no such thing as pleasantness in anything. The pursuit of the pleasant therefore is a folly on the part of any individual.
The good is the proper path. What is the good? While we know something about the pleasant, what is the good, then? “I will not follow the path of the pleasant; I will follow the way of the good. But I should understand what is good.” This also is a little difficult question. The ultimately good is to be considered as really good. He who will help us at the time of the death of this body is our real friend. That which will come with us when we are departing from this world is our real comrade. Anything else is not our friend. That which appears to be good now and is bitter tomorrow may not be considered as good. We should be always good. As they say, “A friend in need is a friend indeed.” So also is the case with the good. The good should be always good, like a well-meaning mother. Nothing in this world, as far as the objectivity of things in the world is concerned, can be regarded as always good. There is nothing in this world which can be considered as always good. It appears to be good for some time only, for some reason. We have covered ourselves with blankets because it is cold; it is good to have a blanket over the body. But will it be good always, all the 12 months, all the 365 days of the year to cover ourselves with blankets and woolen clothes? No. It is relatively good, under certain conditions only; under other conditions, it is not. All appetites, all needs, all requirements, anything that we consider as necessary – all these are relative to conditions, circumstances prevailing within us as well as without us. Therefore, nothing in this world can be regarded as finally good.
Yet, there is something that is the good of the soul of an individual. That which is permanent can be regarded as good; and as things in the world are transient and passing, they cannot also be regarded as finally good. We also pass away as far as our body is concerned, but the soul will not pass away. Therefore that which is commensurate with the needs of the soul of a person may be regarded as really good – and there is nothing in this world which can feed our soul. The world can feed our sensations. Our mind and intellect and ego can be fed by the diet of this world. But the soul is suffering. The soul is hungry. Its appetite cannot be met properly by anything in this world, because the impermanent cannot satisfy that which is permanent, and the permanent cannot be obtained through that which is impermanent. That is, that which is relatively good cannot be set in tune with the soul which is ultimately good. So one has to follow the path of the good.
Now, here the good does not necessarily mean an ethical instruction that is being given or imparted to Nachiketas. “Here is a good person.” When we make a statement like this, we mean that in conduct and character and behaviour the person is socially adaptable to conditions, and therefore we say, “Here is a good person.” But the goodness that we are referring to here in the context of the Upanishadic teaching is a spiritual good. It is not a conditioned good – under such circumstance we have to behave in this way, under another circumstance we may have to behave in another way. If this is the mandate of ethics and morality, all ethical and moral instructions stand relative to circumstance. But the metaphysical good, the spiritual good, the ultimate transcendental good is that which is good for the soul. It is not good only for some time, or only for some people, or only for certain conditions – it is good for all conditions and all times and for all individuals. This is the soul, and Nachiketas was asking what happens to the soul.
A wavering answer comes forth in the Katha Upanishad to this great question. A complete, satisfying answer can be found in certain other Upanishads, such as the Chhandogya and the Brihadaranyaka Upanishads. Tentatively Yama tells Nachiketas that when the body is shed, one takes rebirth. One can become anything according to the thoughts and the feelings entertained by the person during the tenure of this life. Our thoughts and feelings will congeal into a solid substance, as it were, of the personality which we will assume in the next incarnation. The process of incarnation is actually the process of the evolution of things. As I mentioned sometime earlier, the evolutionary process is the process of the cessation of one condition to bring about the birth of the subsequent condition. Something has to die in order that something may be born. If nothing dies, nothing will be born. There will be no transformation and no improvement of any kind if death does not take place. Many parts of the body have died in order that we could become this adult personality that we are now. If evolution is something worthwhile, death is also worthwhile. Unless some previous condition dies, the new condition cannot be born. So everyone will be reborn because of the fact that the birth of a body, such as this body of ours which is now with us, is the instrument manufactured by the psychological organ within us for the fulfillment of its needs, desires and wants.
Our desires have no end. We cannot count our desires. Though today, at this moment, we may feel that our desires are half a dozen, when these half a dozen desires are fulfilled we will find that another half a dozen will present themselves forth, and there will never be an end to this. Infinite are the desires of man due to the infinitude that is hidden in the recesses of the being of man. Inasmuch as the longings, desires and needs of the mind are infinite, a finite body cannot be a suitable instrument for the fulfillment of all these desires. An infinite series of incarnations may be necessary in order that infinite desires may be fulfilled through these instruments. What are the instruments? This body. What kind of body will we assume in the next birth? It will be exactly commensurate with the thoughts and desires that we entertain at this moment. Whatever thought enters our mind at departure, at the time of death, that will concretise itself and will be extracted out of our personality like butter being sucked out of milk. Will we be entertaining a hope that at the last moment we will have a suitable thought, and now we can think whatever we like? No. The last thought is the fruit of the tree of life that we have lived in this world. We cannot have one kind of tree and another kind of fruit. So, whatever kind of life that we have lived through this body in this sojourn of our existence in this world, that will become the solid substance of the thought that will occur to our mind at the time of departure of this body. So do not be foolish enough to imagine that now we can live a merry life, and there is no need to bother as to what will happen to us because the time for the passing has not come – there are many years remaining, so we shall think a good thought at the time of going.
Two mistakes are committed by this kind of imagination. Firstly, it is not true that many years are ahead of us – no one can say that. So no one should entertain the idea that only after fifty years we shall have the need to think a good thought, because it is said that the last thought determines our future. But who tells us that we will be living for another fifty years? It may be another fifty minutes, or even less. The second mistake about this thought is that the last thought is nothing but the essence of all the thoughts entertained in this life, so a person cannot be a good person at the time of dying and a bad person previously. Whatever goodness that we entertained in our thoughts and feelings will congeal – as whatever was in the milk, that alone will come out as butter. We cannot get butter from a substance other than milk.
So Yama, in one sentence, says that everybody will take birth if Self-realisation does not take place before passing. If we realise the Self before the end of this life, no birth will take place. Why? Because the need for birth will not arise. Why do we take birth? Because we have a necessity to fulfill the desires that we could not fulfill through this tabernacle. The desires were many, the body was feeble and finite, and an infinite number of desires cannot be fulfilled through a finite, feeble instrument such as the body. So another body, another series of bodies has to be undergone. But in the realisation of the Self, which is universal in its nature, desires get extinguished. There is the Nirvana that people speak of. Nirvana is the extinguishing of the flame of life. This flame, which is the transitory movement of the succession of human desire, vanishes; it is extinguished completely. This is Nirvana that is taking place.
If there is even a single desire, rebirth is unavoidable for the fulfillment of that desire. If we have fulfilled all our desires in this birth itself and nothing more is left, that would be good for us. All our desires melt here itself in the light of the Self. No desire can stand before the blaze of the knowledge of the Self. As the cloud of mist cannot stand before the blaze of the sun, this muddle of the cloud of desires cannot stand before the light of the Self, which is the Atman.
Therefore the question raised by Nachiketas is, what happens to the soul after death. The answer is that ordinarily rebirth takes place, and most people in the world are ordinary people because everyone has a desire of some kind or the other. Everyone is filled with egoism and a self-assertive nature, and therefore everyone will be reborn. Even if we are reborn, it is good to be reborn in a more advanced circumstance. If we live like a tree, we may become a tree. If we live like an animal, we may become an animal. If we are humanitarian, we will be reborn as a very good human being. But why should we not live like an angel? We can live like a veritable god in this world, and we will be reborn as an angel, a divinity in the heavens. We will enter the heavens – we may go to Brahma-loka. But no entry of any kind will be there if the Self is realised. “Athakamayamanah, yo’kamo niskama apta-kama atma-kamah, na tasya prana utkramanti, brahmaiva san brahmapyeti,” says Sage Yagnavalkya to King Janaka in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. In the context of the transmigration of the soul, Yagnavalkaya mentions here that whatever one’s wish is, that will be fulfilled.
Remember very well that no wish of ours, even the pettiest, will be unfulfilled. If we think that we want something, it shall come to us. If it is a very strong desire, it may be fulfilled in this life itself. If it is a mild desire, we may have to take time for the fulfillment of that wish – it may be the next birth, or after two or three births. What happens to the person who has no desire? Now I shall speak about the man, the person who has no desire of any kind, who is bereft of any desire, who has fulfilled every desire, who loves only the Self. Only he who has love for the Universal Self can be said to have fulfilled all desires; every other person has some extraneous desire. Such a person, when he departs from this body, what happens to him? He will not depart. We generally say the soul departs. In the case of the Self-realised soul, no departure takes place. It sinks then and there into the Absolute like a bubble in the ocean. When the bubble in the ocean bursts, it does not travel some distance – it dissolves itself into the bosom of the sea, then and there. There is no space and time movement of the soul of that great being. He becomes one with the very existence then and there, here and now. One neither has to go to heaven nor to Brahma-loka, nor to the Garden of Eden – nothing of the kind, because the question of going arises only due to the concept of space and time. A timeless eternity, which is the true essence of the soul of a person, does not travel to any place. He melts here itself into Pure Existence. The soul is the Absolute, and therefore it enters the Absolute. This is what we gathered from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. So much detail cannot be found in Yama’s answer in the Katha Upanishad, but many other things are casually mentioned by way of a tentative elucidation of the answer expected by Nachiketas from Yama.
The Katha Upanishad is a most beautiful Upanishad. It is worth committing to memory, if possible. There are some Ashrams in India where the residents of the Ashram are expected to recite it the whole day. It is, first of all, a very pithy introduction to spiritual life. The very first chapter of the Katha Upanishad is something like the first chapter of the Bhagavadgita. It places before us the conditions preceding the quest of the spirit, as we have it in the first chapter of the Bhagavadgita. The second chapter of the Katha Upanishad begins with similar circumstances, as in the second chapter of the Bhagavadgita; and as the Bhagavadgita goes on, so also does the Katha Upanishad. There is some resemblance, people think, between the Bhagavadgita’s approach to things and the approach of the Katha Upanishad. Literally also, from the point of view of the Sanskrit language, it is melodious and artistic – a lyrical beauty is there. A very fine, melodious style is the passage of the Katha Upanishad. Inasmuch as it touches our soul and is relevant to our own predicament at the present moment, we seem to be something like Nachiketas. We are perhaps searching for an answer of the same kind. Nachiketas expected three types of boons, and we perhaps also expect the same thing, in some way, in some measure. The Katha Upanishad is the best introduction, equal to the Bhagavadgita and all the Upanishads.
So, with these words, the major point that is raised in the Katha Upanishad may be said to be complete. Something more about the Upanishads I shall try to touch upon at another time.
[Extracted from Swami Krishnananda Maharaj’s discourses Divine Life Society]
The Gospel of the Bhagavadgita
Adhyatma Vidya
Adhyatma Vidya by Swami Krishnananda
Created on Tuesday 11 March 2014 17:27
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[Swamiji leads the audience in chanting]
The Upanishads are well known as what is known as adhyatma vidya, meaning thereby, an insight into the Self, the wisdom of the Self, knowledge of the Self – an experience which cannot, in any manner whatsoever, alienate itself into other than what it is. Our experience in this world today, normally speaking, is involved in what can be designated as anatman, the non-Self as it is called, because it is our daily experience – an experience of what we are not. We see the world; we see people; we see human relations. And, all that we can consider as ‘life’, in today’s parlance, is far removed from the true Self.
The characteristic of a Self is what usually eludes the grasp of the sense organs in their search for the Self, of a true satisfaction of themselves. In this world of anatman, or non-Self, we are actually searching for the Self – very mysteriously, maybe very unfortunately. Though inasmuch as the world appears as an object of our sense organs, it has to be considered as an anatman, or a not-Self. The intention behind our pursuit of the anatman is actually the pursuit of the Atman. Unknowingly, groping in the dark as it were, we are searching for our own selves, and search for the Atman in a locality where it is not.
The characteristic of the world has to be distinguished from the characteristic of selfhood. This peculiar distinction between the two principles is what becomes difficult for the mind and the senses to grasp. And it is precisely this difficulty that compels the senses, together with the mind, to run in a direction totally opposite to the Self – though for the purpose of the grasp of the Self only. In the commentary on the Brahma Sutra, Acharya Shankara, perhaps while expounding the meaning of the fourth sutra, he makes a reference to three kinds of ‘selves’, to which we have made some reference earlier in our sessions.
That is to say, there is a self which we pursue through the sense organs, which is the object-self – the vishaya, the anatmantatva, the gaunatman as it is usually called, the secondary self. An object of affection is also an object of such attraction and self-identification, in an empirical way, that it mostly passes for the Self. The object of love, which is called the gaunatman – is apparently a kind of self for that state of affairs where the concerned object is erroneously attempted to be identified with the true Self – erroneously because of the fact that what is outside the Self cannot be identified with the Self.
The outsideness of the object is the difficulty involved in the actual possession, identification, and the expected enjoyment thereof. All objects which are beloved to the sense organs are incapable of that identification which they are actually expecting in their adventure or pursuits. The sense organs externalise the consciousness: parcaci khani vytranat svayambhus tasmat paran pasyati nantaratman. The force of the movement of the senses is so very powerfully extrovert that the consciousness, which otherwise cannot be so extroverted, is charged with this velocity of movement in an externalised fashion; and the Self also moves – as it were, though not really – in the direction of an outside object; envelops it, as it were, in terms of the activity of the mind, and is supposed to feel itself in that object in a totally inverted fashion – topsy-turvy fashion. The king, acting as a fool, as it were, in a drama – the Atman becomes the fool, to some extent we may say, in a metaphorical style, when it begins to behold itself in what is itnot. The whole of our life in this world is this picture of dramatic activity of the sense organs – a tomfoolery, we may say. This is the whole of life. It is the pursuit of a twofold non-_Atman_. On one side it is known as the gaunatman, to which I made reference just now – the object of attraction, love, affection, attachment; then this body, which is called the mithyatman.
This is the whole of life in the world. All our projects and plans of work in the world, throughout the day and the night, concern themselves with values that are related to the physical body, which is the mithyatman, and related to all things connected to the body, namely, the gaunatman. The protection of this body, the ego-individuality, and the protection simultaneously of everything that is connected with this bodily individuality – we may say family circumstances, for instance, and every other related object and condition conducive to the satisfaction of the ego-individuality – is the picture of empirical life.
In one sense, we may say this world is a dream. It is a dream because it is a drama played by consciousness in the same manner as it plays it or enacts it in the well-known dream world. An otherwise impossible phenomenon takes place, namely, the projection of a Self in the location of the non-Self. It is well known that the Self cannot become the non-Self. The very meaningattached to the word ‘Self’ is such that it cannot become what it is not; and non-externality is the characteristic of the Self. Consciousness cannot become unconsciousness. It cannot see itself as a distant object, separated by space and time. That is, beholding consciousness as an object of itself, as it were, is an impossibility, logically speaking; according to common sense also it is contrary. But such a thing happens in dream. The perceiver of the dream becomesthe perceived object also – a well-known phenomenon, into which region we need not traverse now.
A similar structural involvement takes place in the waking world. The structure of dream is the same as the structure of waking. That is, the pattern of the operation of consciousness in dream is similar to the pattern in waking. There has to be a location which perceives; and that perceiver has to be a centre of awareness. There has to be another thing that is outside, which is the object thereof. And there must be a medium of perception: pranamana, a pryatakshana for the time being. The same is the structure of waking awareness. There is an object that is known in the world with all its contents; and there is a subject: yourself, myself, everyone from one’s own point of view is the perceiver of the world. But, the perceiver is neither the gaunatman nor the mithyatman.
The body is constituted of the five elements: earth, water, fire, air, ether – prithvi, jal, tejo, vayu, akash. The object that is perceived also is constituted of the very same elements. It is as if a material embodiment collides with another material embodiment. In the language of the Bhagavad Gita: gunah guneshu vartante. The three gunas of prakriti, which constitute all bodies, subjectivity as well as objectivity, are unconscious in their nature. Prakriti is non-conscious. And all the bodies constituted of the prakriti – the physical body of ours, and the embodied form of all objects – are equally constituted of the gunatraya: sattva, rajas, tamas. By an analysis of our experience, we will know that neither the body nor the mental operations are actually the conscious principle. A consciousness that is responsible for the vision of life is not that body, not even the mind. The avasthatraya vishesana will tell us that, though in the waking condition we appear to be physically conscious, we are not so conscious in dream; there is only a mental operation taking place. But in the deep sleep state, even the mind subsides, but we exist still. We exist – just that much onlyand nothing more can be said about ourself in that state: asti tevo bala dhavya. That particular essentiality of our being, which is the true self of ours, can be designated only as asti – It is.
What were we in the state of deep sleep? We were!But what were we? What were we at that time? The definition of that particular state is impossible because there is no quality or adjunct which can be associated with that condition, which was just be-ness. But, it was a state of be-ness associated with awareness. We are generally unconscious in the state of sleep. But, the usual well-known analysis and comparison of the waking state with the sleeping condition brings out the fact that the memorythat we have of our having slept the previous day is accountable only on the acceptance of the fact of there being something like consciousness even in the state of deep sleep. Because, no memory is possible unless there was a preceding experience, and experience is always associated with consciousness. Unconscious experience is unthought of.
So there is a mysterious stifled consciousness, as it were, in the state of deep sleep; that is our essential nature. It is because of the fact of our having sunk into that essential nature of ours in sleep, we feel refreshed and vigorous when we wake up from sleep – strong in ourselves, more strong than we would feel even with a good lunch given to us, because the nearer we go to ourselves, the happier we are, and the more comfort it is that we feel in ourselves.
What is the illustration amounting to? The point that is made out here in the analysis of the three states is that we are neither the body, nor the mind; we are pure Awareness. But, what are the characteristics of this awareness? It has only one characteristic, if at all we can call it one – namely, indivisibility. It cannot be divided into parts. There cannot be a fraction of consciousness; it is a whole by itself. The imagination, even a supposition of there being such a thing as a fraction or a division in consciousness, implies the presence of consciousness – even in that gap that is so imagined. The finitude of consciousness is unthinkable because a consciousness of finitude implies the acceptance of the exceeding of that consciousness beyond the fact of finitude. The awareness of finitude is the acceptance of Infinitude.
This analysis is the proof of the fact of our essentially being infinite in our nature. Our true being is astitva – pure being, which is one with consciousness. It is sat and chit – not ‘and’, but sat-chit – as an indivisible compound. And that being-consciousness, which we are, which is the true Self of ours, which is not the gaunatman and which is not the mithyatman, is not merely beness-consciousness, sat-chit, it is also indivisible in nature. That is to say, it is non-finite. It is not located somewhere. It is not true that it is inside our body. It is ubiquitous – all-pervading – because the notion of its being in one place is impossible unless it exceeds itself from the very notion of that finitude. Because of this fact, it is unthinkable how consciousness can become an object and can become a gaunatman, which is actually what is happening in daily life. This is the reason why we say the world is like a dream. Because, in dream, the actuality of selfhood becomes an apparent externality of objecthood; the apparent nature of the object-perception in dream makes it a dream. Otherwise we would not call it a dream at all; it is a reality by itself. The dream character of what we call ‘dream’ arises because of it being impossible for a perceiving consciousness to become other than what it is. Because consciousness is infinite, it cannot become an object of itself. Infinitude cannot have an object before it.
Thus, on this foundation of an analysis of the indivisibility of consciousness, the infinity of consciousness, it will follow – the infinitude of the perceiver of anything in the world. Thus, the world cannot stand as an object in front of consciousness. But, it has stood as an object; we see it before us. But, if it can be conceived as a really existing thing there, in front of our perceiving consciousness, as an object thereof, certainly we should describe this world as a dream object, because having known that our true perceiving awareness is infinite in its nature, the world cannot stand before it as an outside something. So the outsideness of the world is dreamy in its nature but it has a reality of its own from another point of view – namely, the astitva, which is the character of the infinitude of consciousness, is at the back of even the so-called appearance of the world.
Appearance cannot be there unless there is a reality behind it. The so-called analogy of the snake in the rope points out that the appearance of the snake is possible only if there is the reality of the rope. So, there is something real even behind the appearance of the world. That is the thing that summons consciousness in the direction of sense-perception – raga-dvesha. It is the Infinite actually that is summoning the Infinite in all forms of perception, even love and hatred. This is a psychological blunder actually taking place in usual perceptions, which are afflicted with sorrow from beginning to end, due to which reason this world-perception is characterised by Maharishi Patanjali as a kleshta vritti. It is a painful operation of the psyche, painful because of the fact it is wrongly beholding things – not as they are, but as they are not.
Apart from these two mentioned: the false Atman – namely, the gaunatman, and the mithyatman – the bodily individuality on the one side that is the mithyatman and the external object which is the gaunatman, there is a third one which is the true Self, called mukhyatman. This is the true Self into which we apparently sink in the state of deep sleep. The unity with this Self is the work of yoga. When we say “we have to practice yoga” and “we want Self-realisation”, we are aiming at the realisation of God. When we make statements like this, we are actually, knowingly or unknowingly, referring to this Universal Self which is within us and without us. It is within us as our knowing consciousness; it is without us as the basis for the appearance of all the forms: nama-rupa prapancha.
Asti, bhati, priya, nama and rupa are supposed to be the fivefold features of everything in the world. Asti means ‘be-ness’ – ‘be’ – everything ‘is’; bhati – everything is known; priya – everything can be a desirable thing. It has a name because it is nama. It has a form, and it is rupa. But the nama and the rupa – name-form complex – is not the real character of anything.
The particular configuration of personality is due to a peculiar permutation and combination of the three gunas of prakriti. And the combination factor changes from one time to another time, from one birth to another birth, from one cycle to another cycle, so that no individuality can be said to be encased in a particular formation only. Hence, nama-rupa prapancha is not a final reality, it is a fluxation; it is a transitory movement; it changes from moment to moment – not merely from day to day; it is a continuous flow – like a flame of a lamp or the movement of a river, as they usually say. The world, which is visualised as a medley of names and forms, is not the true nature of it. But the astitva and the bhatitva and the priyatva – the satchidananda rupa, as we call it, the true universality that is behind the diversity of forms, is the true Self. So even when we look at things, we are actually looking at the universal Self – wrongly, because we behold it through the sense organs.
When consciousness, when spirit, is beheld through the sense organs, it may look like material objects. But, it has to be beheld through itself. The soul has to behold itself through itself, by itself, and cannot be visualised through any external instrumentality, because thereby it is ceases to be what it is. When the Self is attempted to be beheld through sense organs, it becomes anatman – it is an object – and you are an object for me, and am I an object for you in ordinary sense perception. But, basically, we are ripples and waves, as it were, of a vast sea of awareness which is commonly present everywhere, that is – asti, bhati, priya, satchitananda svarupa. The unity with it is yoga. Various systems of practice have been advocated for the purpose of this communion of the apparent form of ours with the true form of ours.
The apparent form is infested with various components which are the building bricks of the individuality of a person: the body, which is made up of the five elements; the pranas; the sense organs; the mind, with its different functions; the buddhi, the intellect; and there is a causal sheath inside called anandamaya kosha. The consciousness is hidden inside, as it were, covered with a bushel, by a smoke, completely smothered by the activity of this accretion so-called, which is the well-known pancha kosha: annamaya, pranamaya, manomaya, vijnanamaya, anandamaya. The extrication of our true Self from involvement of these accretions is the work of yoga. The schools of yoga differ in the manner of the handling this particular matter.
One thing is common among all the yogas – namely, it is necessary for every student of yoga to realise the error committed by consciousness in its involvement objectively, through names and forms. So, freedom from raga-dvesha is supposed to be the first step in the practice of yoga. Love and hatred is a psychological error, because there is no point in our loving anything individually exclusively, or hating also anything exclusively, because of the well-known fact that all forms which we love or hate are configurations of same triguna of prakriti: rajas, sattva, tamas.
This segregation of forms into the desirable and the undesirable is the work of the peculiar operation of karmic potencies in our body, in our mind, in our pancha-koshas, namely – prarabdha karma. A particular potential called prarabdha is said to be responsible for the manufacture of this body, this body-mind complex. It is so manufactured, so constituted and so formed, as to be fitted into the structure of certain objective relations only and not to all formations in the world. This is the reason why certain persons have certain likes and certain other persons have certain other likes. So there is no universal like or universal dislike known anywhere. It is totally a relative apprehension of the psyche of people.
Knowing this fact, it is essential for the yoga student to gradually learn the art of what is known as pratyahara, or the withdrawal of the powers of the sense organs, together with the mind, in order to centre it in the Self. The difficulty in the practice of this art of self-withdrawal is well known because the senses are vehement in their nature: indriyani pramathini haranti prasabham manah. Wind-like, gale-like, tempest-like, tornado-like – the senses force the consciousness to go out of itself and behold itself in something other than itself in the form of objects. The power of the action of the sense-organs is such that it is impossible ordinarily for anyone to be free from this impulse. So when we wake up in the morning, we open our eyes and we look outward. No one beholds anything inward. The eyes, which are instruments of visual perception, are made as the means of the surge of this consciousness outwardly due to the desire to see, desire to hear, desire to smell, desire to touch, and desire to taste.
The whole of our life is a bundle of this fivefold desire. We work hard for the fulfilment of these various forms, the fivefold desire, until the body mechanism gets worn out, it gets rusted, and the psyche, which is the manufacturer of the prarabdha karma, feels that this instrument is of no utility anymore; it is shed. This is what we call death. But the desire is not over. It does not mean that on the death of the body the desire also dies. It is not taking place like that. The desire potential will again erupt, like a tendril of a plant, in another form altogether, and another set of karmas, a new group of prarabdhas, will be taken out from the original sanchita – the abode of karma, the reservoir of karmas – and new birth takes place.
Hence, it is impossible to get rid of this torture of moving in this cycle of birth and death merely by getting on with the world as we generally do. A herculean effort is called for here – day in and day out – with great deliberation of reason, application of the higher reason by analysis, by power of will, by sequestration, isolation, contemplation, even fasting where it is necessary when the senses are very turbulent, and vigilance, day in and day out. ‘Vigilance’ is the most important, is the watchword of the yoga student – vigilance in the sense that he does not become unwary of the movement of the senses, subtly in the direction of their own particular objects, in spite of the great effort of withdrawal, concentration.
By philosophical self-analysis in the manner we have conducted now, the mind can be taught the lesson that it is futile on its part to pursue pleasure in the world – which is not going to fulfil its promises. The world can promise many things, but it can fulfil not a single promise. That is the nature of this world. So is the delusion of life. It is running after these promises which are expected to be fulfilled. Never will any object of desire extinguish the desire thereof: na jado kamah kamana upabhogye nishamyati – the desire cannot be extinguished by a fulfilment of desire. It increases, like flaming fire on which you pour molten butter. The yogi, therefore, is vigilant in the observation of the movement of the senses in the direction of their objects.
Because of the detection of the evil in the attachment to things, the evil of there being no such pleasure as expected in the objects, the evil of there being no possibility of the Self being another object outside itself, and the evil of there being no chance of the indivisible Self being divisible as the subject and the object – detecting this threefold evil, at least, the person becomes vigilant. The yoga of concentration commences with this analysis of the situation of Selfhood – the true Selfhood independent on the gaunatva and the mithyatva thereof; and when yoga commences, there is concentration automatically, spontaneously arising, on the true nature of the Self, the all-pervading nature of the Self.
This is the bhakti yoga method of pouring out love on that which is everywhere – God all-pervading, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent. It becomes bhakti, or devotion, or love, when the devout student pours out the whole of the personality on that deity which is beheld everywhere as one’s own God. The devotee’s God is the only God, because of the fact that there cannot be another God outside that God. Hence, it is an all-consuming object. The divine object of meditation is all-consuming, but the object of sense is not all-consuming. It is a subtle subterfuge adopted by the sense organs to deceive the Self, to defeat its purpose, and to give it nothing in the end, like a dacoit’s operation. But, the true Self which is ubiquitous God Almighty, who is the all-_Paramatman_, all-including Paramatman, is the consuming Self. So the love of the devotee is poured upon an all-consuming, all-inclusive, all-blessing – paramatmatattva, wherein is the analytic method, the Self, or the meditator itself is beheld in the Self that is all-pervading.
The all-pervading nature of the Self precludes a separate existence of the meditating principle. The will comes in as an active force of operation to assist the reason in the meditational practice. So reason, will and emotion or feeling come together as an insight. An intense longing arises in the whole personality at the time of the concentration of consciousness on that great ideal of yoga.
Intense longing is usually not a common feature in our daily life. We long for things, no doubt, but we do not so intensely long for one thing independently of other things. We always exclude certain other things. There is a parochial attachment even in our so-called longing for the worthwhile things of life. But, this longing is not parochial, it is not one-sided, it is not exclusive. Here is an inclusive awakening of the whole of oneself in the totality of one’s being. All the koshas rise up in their cooperative activity with the surge of the Self in the direction of what it actually seeks. It is the Atman seeking Brahman, we may say in one sentence.
The yoga student, in a seated posture, collects the energies which are physical, neural, muscular, sensory, psychic and rational, as well as emotional, together into a menstruum, as it were, converting them into a liquid of operation, and he stands there as a ‘total person’ – strong in will, strong in understanding, strong in feeling and strong in aspiration. The practice has to be continued. How long is it to be continued? – is a question that is raised in some place in the Brahma Sutras. Humorous is the answer: you continue it it till death, or continue it until you attain your attain your goal, whichever is earlier. Anyway, this is to say that sadhana is to be continued forever and ever.
In most cases, the realisation does not come in one birth. Maybe it is possible in one birth – if the ardour is so very genuine, burning is the longing, and insatiable is the desire for God, no other thing distracts the mind, you want nothing else, flaming is the aspiration. If that is the case – so genuine is the longing – the realisation of God, the Self, can occur in this very life. But mostly, the difficulties being manifold: manushyanam sahasreshu kaschidyatati siddhaye – very few in this world will actually feel the need for God, and even among those who feel the need, some one will really succeed in this great attainment; this is a well-known caution exercised to us in the words of the Bhagavad Gita. But tasya ham sulabaha also it is said in one place: “I am easy of approach.” But, to whom is He sulabha? Who is nityayukta, who is perpetually united with that ideal, to that perpetually united spirit, this attainment is easy, simple, and possible in this very life. Because it is our own Self, it has to be not a very difficult affair. It is our Self, it is me that I am pursuing finally. It is not somebody that I am pursuing and I am asking for. How is it difficult for me to know my Self? But, that is exactly the difficulty of it.
The nearer an object is, the more difficult it becomes to understand; and, the most difficult object is myself. I can investigate scientifically the structure and pattern of everything in the world, but I cannot know myself – because there is no means of knowing myself. There are instruments of perception and observation and experiment in scientific fields. Where is the instrument for observation and experimentation of my Self? The higher Self has to act here as the means, if at all you call it a means, to withdraw this lower self into Itself: uddhared atman atmanam. The absence of any external medium or instrument in the operation here becomes the actual difficulty. The Self is the knower, the Self is the seeker, and it is also the sought; here is the difficulty. Most difficult indeed, because the subject and the object are identical here – the one who seeks is also the one that is sought. But it should be easy also, because it is so near. It is an ascharaya, great wonder: ascharyavat pasyati kaschid enam ascharyavad vadati tathaiva canyah. Ascharya – a wonder, this is a great wonder indeed; very difficult because it is very near, it is me only, but very easy because it is me only.
This is the intriguing situation of the true selfhood of a person. Yet, the glory that is ahead of us, the magnificence of it, and the necessity for it, and it being the only Truth of existence, should preclude the possibility of any hindrance on the path, and should enable us to gird up our loins for this purpose. Yoga is ‘all-life’ in one sense. Every form of life is capable of transmutation into the true yoga of the Self. God is pervading everywhere – in every particle of sand, in every nucleus of an atom. That being the case, it should be possible to visualise God in anything and convert any form into the true substance thereof, and transmute our perceptions into an insight of the Self.
Thus is the glory thereof, the difficulty mentioned, and also the quickness of the achievement made practicable because of its imperative necessity in one’s life. Glorious is yoga, and that is perhaps going to be, and it ought to be, the principle occupation of every person in life. Yoga is all-life.
Om purnamadah purnamidam purnat purnamudacyate
purnasya purnamadaya purnameva ‘vasishyate
Om santih santih santih.
[Extracted from Swami Krishnananda Maharaj’s discourses Divine Life Society]