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The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad by Swami Krishnananda
Created on Monday 22 July 2013 20:03
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We have been going through various important themes of the teachings of the Upanishads, and many subjects have been covered. There was a great sage called Yajnavalkya. His name occurs in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. He was a master of spiritual wisdom. One day, when he had become aged, he told his wife Maitreyi, and another wife known as Katyayani, that he was retiring; and he said: “Whatever property I have, I shall divide between both of you. I shall take to sannyasa and go for meditation, and you take my property.”
The younger wife, Katyayani was very happy. “Good riddance, now the old man goes,” she perhaps thought; but the other wife, Maitreyi, was very mature. She said, “Sire, you want to offer me all your wealth? May I ask you one question: Can I become immortal through wealth? With all the treasures that you are now prepared to offer to me, can I become immortal?” Yajnavalkya said, “Far from it. You will be a well-to-do person like any other in the world, but there is no hope of immortality through wealth.” To that, Maitreyi said, “Then what for is this wealth that you are are offering me? What shall I do with it, if through that I shall not become immortal?”
There is a very important psychological truth hidden in this query of Maitreyi, the consort of Yajnavalkya. Immortality is timeless existence. It can also mean, for our own practical purposes, a very long life that is not going to end easily; and if immortality cannot be gained through wealth, perhaps long life also cannot be assured through wealth; and this would mean that our life can end at any time, even with all the wealth that we may be having. If tomorrow is the last day in this world for a person possessing large treasures, what good is that treasure? If the owner or the possessor of the wealth is not to exist at all, what can wealth do? What is its utility?
Do we love wealth, and what is this love of wealth for? “Your question is a very important one,” said Yajnavalkya. “You are very wise in raising this point. You are very dear to me. Come on; I shall teach you something. Sit down, and I shall speak to you.”
Na va are patyuh kamaya patih priyo bhavati, atmanas tu kamaya patih priyo bhavati; na va are jayayai kamaya jaya priya bhavati; atmanas tu kamaya jaya priya bhavati; na va are sarvasya kamaya sarvam priyam bhavati; atmanas tu kamaya sarvam priyam bhavati (Bri.U. 2.4.5): Nobody loves anything for its own sake. Here is a masterstroke of genius from Yajnavalkya, the great sage: Nobody loves anything for its own sake. We are accustomed to this slogan of love, and we consider that as something very pre-eminent in our daily life. We love people, we love wealth, we love land, we love property. There is such a thing called love in this world, but who does love want, and what is the purpose of this love?
Psychologically, as well as metaphysically and philosophically, there seems to be an error in our notion that anything can be loved at all. The word ‘love’ becomes a misnomer when we investigate into its essences. If by love we mean affectionately clinging to something that is other than our own self, then love does not exist in this world. If love means asking for something other than one’s own self, clinging to something other than one’s self, feeling happy with that which is not one’s self – if that is the definition of love, then love is hypocrisy; it does not exist. But if we say that love does not always mean love for something other than one’s own self – it should be love for one’s own self – who will love one’s own self? That is, again, a psychological problem. Neither does love for another seem to be justifiable, nor does love for one’s own self seem to be meaningful.
For the sake of the Self, everything is dear – is a very precise statement of sage Yajnavalkya. This statement is so precise, so concentrated, that its meaning is not obviously clear on its surface, because it does not appear that people love themselves, and it is difficult to make sense of this statement if you just say you love property because you are loving your Self. Nobody will understand what exactly this statement means. Am I loving myself when I love property? It does not look like that. I cling to something that I regard as my belonging. It does not mean that I am clinging to my own body when I am clinging to something which is my belonging – property, wealth, treasure, relation. Yajnavalkya says: “You do not understand things properly. That is why the meaning is not clear to you.”
We have, in our earlier discussions, concluded that everything in the world has a pure subjectivity in itself. It is not true that things are objects of perception. They are also subjects from their own point of view. If you, as a perceiver or a cogniser of a thing which you consider as an object, remain as a subject for that particular thing which you regard as object, that other thing may consider you as an object from its own point of view when it beholds you as something outside itself. When I see you, I am a subject perceiving you as an object of my perception. So, you are an object and I am a subject. But when you perceive me, you are a subject and I am an object. Now tell me: Who is the subject and who is the object? Is there anything that we can permanently call an object?
The analysis of consciousness, into which we entered sometime back, has shown us that the nature of the subjectivity of anything is essentially consciousness. You have to bring back to your memory this analytical study that we conducted in the course of our going through the Mandukya Upanishad, etc. Consciousness is the essence of the subjectivity of anything. There cannot be a ‘perceiving’ of anything unless there is a consciousness of perceiving. This consciousness, as we noticed by an analysis of its nature, is incapable of being limited to a finitude of existence. Consciousness cannot be finite. That is to say, it cannot be located in any particular place. It cannot be even said to be inside somebody, because consciousness is the knower of the fact of its being inside someone. If someone says “consciousness is inside”, it is consciousness itself making this statement possible. The so-called consciousness, which appears to be inside, seems to be asserting that it is inside. Minus consciousness, no assertion is possible. Therefore it is consciousness that is apparently holding the opinion that it is inside; that is to say, it is not outside.
I am just repeating briefly, in outline, the processes of analysis that we conducted earlier on this issue. Consciousness is inside, and therefore it is not outside. How does consciousness know that it is not outside? The process of perception is the commingling of consciousness with that which it considers as its object. Consciousness has to contact the object in order that it may become aware that the object is existing at all. The contacting of consciousness in this manner, in respect of the object, would preclude the old opinion that it is only inside. If it is locked up within the personality of an individual, no one can know that there is anything outside one’s own skin. You will not know that there is a tree standing in front of you. Consciousness has to be capable of outstripping the limitations that it appears to be imagining around itself. All perception is an obvious demonstration of the non-finite character of consciousness. It is not merely inside, it is also outside; that is to say, it is everywhere. It is infinite; this is the point.
Yajnavalkya tells us that when we love somebody, some thing, some object – whatever it be, that which pulls us in the direction of the object so-called, is not the object by itself, because this object is a subject in its own status. Its essence is not objectivity; its essence is as much a center of consciousness as our own subjectivity is a center of consciousness. In all love, in all affections, in all attractions, the Self pulls the Self. The Universal that is hidden in the so-called object outside, pulls Itself (present in the subject) – as it were, in its own direction, and towards whichever side the action that is taking place. I hope you understand the point. It is as if one part of consciousness collides with another part of consciousness in perception.
As the Bhagavadgita tell us in another context, Sri Krishna, in one context, says that all perception which is sensory is actually the gunas of prakriti coming in contact with the gunas of prakriti. Gunaha guneshu vartante (B.G. 3.28): The gunas of prakriti – sattva, rajas and tamas – which are the constituents of the sense organs, come in contact with the very same properties of prakriti which also constitute the object of sense. So the object and the subject come in contact with each other because of the fact that both are constituted of the same substance, prakriti – sattva, rajas, tamas. On a deeper level, we may say that consciousness is the subject and it is also the object.
In technical language, the subject consciousness is called vishayi chaitanya. Vishayi is a Sanskrit word which means something or someone which is conscious of a vishaya, or an object. Vishaya means object, and the object consciousness is called vishaya chaitanya. The process of perception of the object by the subject is called pramana chaitnaya, or perceptive consciousness, or we may say perceptional consciousness; and the coming to be aware of the existence of an object – our being aware of the existence of an object – is called prameya chaitianya. The decision that we arrive at that ‘we know the object’ – the conclusion that the object has been known – is also a consciousness; and that conclusion consciousness in respect of an object being known is called prameya chaitanya. The subject consciousness, which is vishayi, is also called pramatr chaitanya; and the object, which is also essentially consciousness, is called vishaya chaitanya; and the process is called pramana chaitanya. You can forget all these words. I am just casually mentioning these technologies of perceptional psychology.
The idea is that in all attractions, in all processes of contact of the subject with the object, it may be true that that the gunas of prakriti collide with the gunas of prakriti; but more profoundly, we may say that consciousness collides with consciousness. The sea of consciousness is everywhere in the universe. One eddy or wave of this consciousness is touching another.
Why are we so much attracted towards things; and when we are pulled in the direction of something lovable or dear, we seem to lose our senses? We become crazy and mad. Why does it happen? It is because the whole universe is at the back of even this little drop of consciousness which appears as the object. A little wave that is rising up on the surface of the ocean has the entire sea at the back of it, which wells up as this eddy or the wave. The power of the entire sea is behind the wave. The infinite is incapable of resisting, because nobody can resist an attraction. This is because attractions, which are also loves, arise on account of a psychological impasse created unconsciously by the involvement of consciousness in the sense organs and through the sense organs coming in contact with the object, not knowing the fact that the sense organs themselves are propelled by an inward consciousness of the subject and that there is also something in the object which is basically consciousness.
There is another psychological factor in the process of attraction. We do not get attracted to everything so easily. A rock on the bank of the Ganga may not attract us so powerfully as the rose flower for instance, that is blossoming in the garden, and so on. There are varieties of circumstances which differentiate one kind of perception from another kind of perception. Attractions are the outcome of a sympathy that is established between the subjective consciousness and the contour that is presented by the object outside, notwithstanding the fact there is consciousness. Now I am touching upon another aspect of the matter altogether – not the metaphysical one.
There are three aspects of this issue. Why is it that we are pulled towards something? One is what has been already told in the Bhagavadgita – gunas propel themselves toward gunas. Prakriti, as the subject, working through the sense organs, is pulled towards itself, as it were, outside, in the form of an object, which also is constituted of the very same prakriti. That is one answer to the question of why one feels pulled or drawn towards another object. The other one that I mentioned is that the consciousness that is infinite in nature is ‘infinitudinously’ – to take one’s understanding beyond ‘multitudinously’ – pulling the subject consciousness, and there is a vice versa action; subject and object pull each other. The third aspect that I am mentioning is that the attractions are conditioned by certain features of the object. The Atman, the Soul, the Self, the consciousness in us is a perfect symmetry in perfection. It is the most beautiful of things. The Soul is the most beautiful thing. Nothing can be beautiful like the Soul. Nobody has seen the Soul, but if you can imagine what beauty is, if you have seen any surpassingly beautiful thing in the world – not a little beautiful thing, but enchanting, absorbing, enrapturing beauty – if you have seen that anywhere, you may say the Soul is something like that. Now, the Soul cannot be attracted to anything unless it sees some sympathy, that is to say, unless some quality of it is also present in that object to which it is attracted. Symmetry is one of the qualities. Any kind of hotchpotch arrangement cannot attract us. We are attracted to methodological arrangement, symmetry, proportion and meaningfulness. A meaningless object cannot attract us as much as a meaningful object can.
You may ask me what ‘meaningful’ is. Meaning is that character in the object by which we can consider that object to be of some utility to us. If it is totally non-utilitarian, if it is a meaningless hotchpotch, then our mind cannot be attracted. Thus, symmetry of contour, perfection of presentation, precision and orderliness, together with the meaning that we see in it, pulls the subject towards the object. However, considering any aspect of the matter, it does not mean that we love the object for its own sake. There is some subjectivity involved in it. Unless a meaning is seen in the object, we will not be pulled towards that object. We want to put that object into some utility. If there is no meaning at all, no attraction takes place. So, na va arey sarvasya kamaya sarvam priyam bhavati; atmanastu kamaya sarvam priyam bhavati: Nothing is dear for its own sake; for the sake of the Atman, everything is dear. When we love a thing, we are loving our Atman. Now, you may again make the mistake of thinking “My Atman is inside. How is it that I am loving something outside?” Do not make that mistake. Again and again the same idea will come to the mind: “How can I say that I am loving my own Atman when I am loving something outside?” This Atman is not inside you only. Here is the point that you should always remember. The Atman is somehow or other masquerading in the form of all things outside. The Atman is infinite existence. The Infinite pulls the Infinite. The Supreme Self it is that pulls the Supreme Self.
Therefore Yajnavalkya says to Maitreyi, “Nobody loves anything for its own sake.” All love is love of the Self, in the pure spiritual sense. Not this self or that self, myself or yourself, itself – this kind of self is not the point. It is the universal Self that is actually pulling you in some form, and you are not able to catch the point. There is an illusion that is presented to the sense organs, and under the impression, due to the delusion you go to the object thinking that it is beautiful, that it is necessary, that it is meaningful. There is no meaning in anything in this world except the meaning of the Selfhood of that object. If the Self is absent in that object, it is a non-entity, and a non-entity cannot attract you. So if the Self it is that pulls you, it is yourself only that is pulling you.
After having said this much, Yajnavalkya continues by saying, “After departure, there is no consciousness.” “I cannot understand,” Maitreyi says. “What are you saying, ‘There is no consciousness’? You are confusing me by saying this.” “No, Maitreyi. I am not confusing you. You do not understand what I am saying. When I say there is no consciousness, I mean that when the consciousness departs from this individuality of the bodily personality, there is no particularised consciousness.”
To us, all consciousness is psychological consciousness; to us, every consciousness is sensory consciousness. When we make a statement like “I am conscious”, we mean that we are conscious of something – which is psychological perception, sensory perception. Consciousness by itself does not perceive anything. It is the Self, the universal perceiver. “So why did you say that there is no consciousness after the absolution of consciousness from entanglement in this body?” The reason is: yatra hi dvaitam iva bhavati, tad itara itaram pasyati (Bri.U. 2.4.14). ‘You will see another only when there is duality’. If there is something outside consciousness, consciousness can see something; but if there is only consciousness everywhere, what will it see? What does God see, for instance? You can put a more poignant question to yourself, in a more intelligible manner: Does God see anything? What does He see? If the entire creation is pervaded by God, what does God see? He sees nothing; He sees Himself only. The awareness by God is awareness of Himself. The so-called omniscience of God, which we attribute to Him, is actually an all-knowledge of Himself. The very quality that is attributed to God is actually connected with Himself, His own existence.
Therefore when there is no duality, no consciousness outside Its Self – It is Itself all things – there is no knowledge of anything. It is pure Being-awareness.
Yatra tv asya sarvam atmaivabhut, tatra kena kam pasyet, tatra kena kam jighret, tatra kena kam manvita, tat kena kam vijaniyat? vijnataram are kena vijaniyad (Bri.U. 2.4.14): Who will know the knower? Who will think of the thinker? Who will understand the understander? Who will be conscious of consciousness? Yad vai tan na pasyati, pasyam vai tan na pasyati. You will be wonderstruck. What kind of thing is being told? No knowledge of anything? All-knowing and yet not knowing anything outside? Knowingly It knows not anything, not-knowing, It knows all things. It knows all things because It alone is everywhere. It does not know anything because outside It, nothing is. You understand the point. God does not know anything, because outside Him nothing is; but God knows everything because He Himself is everything. That is the meaning of this interesting instruction of Yajnavalkya at another place: yad vai tan na pasyati, pasyan vai tan na pasyati; na hi drastur drister viparilopo vidyate (Bri.U. 4.3.23). There is no gulf between the seer and the seen. Therefore the seer alone reigns supreme.
These are all Sanskrit verses I am quoting. You may not be able to understand them. Anyhow, they are interesting.
Salila eko drashtadvaito bhavati, esa brahma-lokah, samrad iti. Hainam anuhasasa yajnavalkya (Bri.U. 4.3.32): This is the sole seer, the sea of consciousness. Salila: Like the ocean it is. It spreads itself like the sea. Eko drashta: Single seer is that. The entire sea of consciousness, the universe, which is all seeing, is aware of itself. Eko drashta bhavati, esa brahma-lokah: This is called the supreme Brahma-loka, the region of the Absolute. Yajnavalkya tells Janaka here, in another context, esa brahma-lokah samrad iti: O your Highness! This is Brahmaloka. Esasya parama gatih: This is the goal of life. Esasya parama sampat: This is the greatest treasure that you can think of. Eso’sya paramo lokah: This is the greatest possession you can imagine. Eso’sya parama anandah: This is the supreme Bliss. With a drop of this universe of Bliss, the entire creation is sustained. All the joys of this world, of all the creation put together, are said to be one drop of this universal Brahman Bliss, the Bliss of the Absolute.
Having said this, Yajnavalkya retired. This is a famous conversation in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad called Yajnavalkya-Maitreyi Samvada: conversation between Yajnavalkya the sage and Maitreyi, his consort. No teaching can go beyond this. This is the highest pinnacle of human thought. All philosophy is crushed into the essence of this teaching. However much we may think philosophically, our mind will not go beyond this thought. Indian thought has reached its peak in this teaching of Yajnavalkya, recorded for us in his conversation with Maitreyi.
Can we attain this state? This question will arise in your mind. Why should you ask such a question? It must be attained, because it has been already declared that this is your goal, this is your aim, this is what you are asking for. Even when you are asking for the silliest joys of life, you are actually asking for this infinite Bliss – asking unknowingly, not knowing what is happening to you.
How will we get it, if we want it? Great discipline of the consciousness is necessary. At the present moment there is an outward trend of consciousness. We are extrovert sensorily, objectively, spatially and temporally. We are causation-bound, and we are living in a relativistic world – one part hanging on something else. A daily practice of the abstraction of consciousness from its involvement in the senses is to be practiced. It can be done as a natural habit of your life, if you are mature enough and your mind is strong enough – that is, it can think only in this way and there is no other way of thinking. Now why should you not think in this way, when this is the aim of life? Have you any suspicion that there is something else also in this world other than this?
Or if your mind is not strong enough that it can think only in this way, you can find a time for your own self. This analysis that we made just now should be the analysis that you to carry on during the process of this wisdom meditation. Be seated in a particular posture and deeply think over this issue. “What do I want?” One hundred questions will arise in the mind. “I want all kinds of things.” Yajnavalkya has given the answer to your question. Do you really want all kinds of things? What are those all kinds of things? “So many things, so many objects.” Do you love objects? “Yes, Sir.” Is it true that you are in fact loving the objects? Now comes Yajnavalkya to your assistance. You are not loving objects for their own sake. Neither building, nor land, nor property, nor relatives, nor people, nor any blessed thing, not even this body itself. You do not want any of this. It is the great Bliss of Universal Existence that is summoning you, and the establishment of oneself in that Consciousness is the liberation of the spirit, moksha. This is moksha yoga that Yajnavalkya speaks – the yoga of the liberation of the spirit.
This sage, Yajnavalkya, is very famous in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. Very powerful person was he. I can tell you a little story as an example of how powerful he was. Yajnavalkya was one of the disciples of a sage called Vaisampayana, and Vaisampayana was the promulgator of the Yajurveda Samhita. There are four Vedas – Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda and Atharvaveda. Yajurveda was the prerogative of this particular sage called Vaishampayana. They say there was a conference of sages on a mountain, and they stipulated a condition – all the invitees should come. If any invitee did not come, he would incur the sin of killing a Brahmin. This Vaisampayana somehow or other could not attend that conference. He had some other occupation that day, and the sin came upon him. He called all his disciples. Yajnavalkya was one of them. “You see, my dear boys, this sin has come upon me in accordance with the ordinance, because I could not attend that meeting. Will you do some prayaschitta, something to expiate my sins? All of you!”
Yajnavalkya stood up. “Why these little boys; I can do it myself,” he said. “These are little boys. What can they do? I will do it myself.” His Guru got very upset. He said, “You are a very proud boy. You are insulting the others by saying that they know nothing and you yourself will do everything. Give back all the Yajurveda, whatever I have taught you!” Yajnavalkya vomited out the Yajurveda in the form of some exudation from his mouth. The other disciples took the form of some birds – tittiris as they were called, -and sucked up that which he vomited. That black stuff which is the embodiment of the knowledge which Yajnavalkya gained from his Guru, which he vomited, was partaken of by the tittiris – the form assumed by the other students assumed, and so that particular Veda became Taittiriyaveda. Tittiri’s Veda is the Taittiriyaveda, and it is also called the Black Veda because he vomited some black stuff.
Yajnavalkya decided: “I shall not have any teacher any more. I shall go to the supreme teacher for getting new knowledge.” He went to the Sun directly and prayed to the Sun: “Give me fresh knowledge of the Vedas which nobody else knows. Whatever I learnt from my Guru, I have given back. I do not want to have any further Guru. Surya Bhagavan! You are my Guru. Give me a fresh Veda.” And it seems that Suryanarayana appeared before him in the form of a horse and spoke unto him a new Veda, a new Yajurveda – white Yajurveda, not black – and it is called Shukla Yajurveda. It is also called Vajasaneya – connected with ashva, or horse – because he came in the form of a horse. The last Skanda of the Bhagavata Purana narrates this story, and a beautiful prayer that Yajnavalkya offered to the Sun also is recorded there – worth committing to memory. Yajnavalkya then became the teacher of a new Veda, called White Yajurveda or Shukla Yajurveda. He also wrote a Smriti, called Yajnavalkya Smriti, and there is also a yoga text under the name of Yajnavalkya, which is not very much known to people. It is called Yoga-Yajnavalkya, and a special psychic method of meditation is described there.
Yajnavalkya is the highlighting feature in the central portion of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. He once went to the court of king Janaka. Janaka was a learned person, and he invited learned people to his court to have discussions – learned discussions or arguments on lofty themes in spirituality. Hundreds of these great learned Brahmins were seated there in the audience, and the king stood up and said, “Great ones! Lords of learning! Here is large number of cattle, with gold decked horns, looking as big as bulls or elephants. Whoever among you considers yourself as the best among the knowers may drive all these cattle to your house.” Nobody uttered a word; all kept quiet, because who can get up and say “I know everything” and “I am the best”? Yajnavalkya stood up and told his disciple. “Boy, drive all these cows to my house.” All were agitated. “What kind of person are you? You consider yourself as the most all-knowing here. We will put questions to you. Answer all the questions. Let us test you.” One of them stood up. Another stood up. Some eight people bombarded Yajnavalkya and threw arrows of complicated questions at him, which were difficult to understand ordinarily, and every one of them he answered on the spur of the moment. So Yajnavalkya actually justified the driving of the cattle to his home. We will not go into the details of all these arguments, as it is not necessary for you. I am just mentioning casually, for your information, the greatness of this wonderful master Yajnavalkya.
The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad is the vehicle of the teachings of this great master. Many questions were put to Yajnavalkya. One of the questions raised by a person in the audience was, “What is it that is inside and outside? What is its nature?”
“Yes, I know that,” said Yajnavalkya.
“What is the good of saying ‘I know that’?” said the person asking the question. “Tell me what it is. Everybody can say ‘I know that, I know that’. Let me hear what it is.”
Then Yajnavalkya gives a description of antaryami brahmana, as it is called. Much of the Vaishnava theology of Ramanuja Sampradaya is based on this doctrine of the interconnecting consciousness, or antaryami consciousness delineated by Yajnavalkya in one of the sections of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. Everything is connected to everything else.
To Maitreyi, he told something different, which actually landed us in the conclusion that all existence is scintillating with awareness, and One Reality alone sees itself, and it loves itself, and nobody loves anything else. Now here, he gives another sidelight of this issue: The fact of the unitary existence of this sole sea of consciousness also implies the interconnection of all things. There is one entity in us – the Atman. Because of the presence of this Atman, which is the consciousness in us, every limb of the body appears to be connected to every other limb of the body. Isn’t there interconnection of the limbs of the body? There is an organism, which is our physical personality. The word ‘organism’ implies an interconnected body, an organisation which is complete in itself, of which every part is connected to every other part. Modern science has confirmed this truth of everything being connected to everything else. Scientists today tell us that every cell of the brain of a person is connected to every atom in the cosmos. Can you imagine this astounding conclusion? Every cell of your brain is vitally, organically connected to every atom in the cosmos, so that in your head you are carrying the entire cosmos, but because of a blockage, you are not omniscient.
So Yajnavalkya mentions here, in answer to another question, that everything is connected to everything else. The inwardness and outwardness of things is a fallacy. There is a totality of interrelation, and all things are everywhere; you can find anything at any place. Everything is everywhere at any time. Remember this interesting recipe: Everything can be found at any place, at any time. You need not go to any distant place for getting things; it is just here. Wonderful is Yajnavalkya! Glory to his teaching! Blessed are you all!
[Extracted from Swami Krishnananda Maharaj’s discourses Divine Life Society]
The Gospel of the Bhagavadgita
The Principles of the Bhagavadgita
The Principles of the Bhagavadgita by Swami Krishnananda
Created on Sunday 21 July 2013 21:24
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Consciousness cannot be externalised because consciousness is indivisible. If you imagine that consciousness is divisible, you have also to imagine that there is a gap between the two parts thereof. Who is conscious of this gap? Consciousness alone is conscious of this gap between the two parts. That means, consciousness is present even in the gap in between. This is another way of saying that consciousness is universal.
Everyone in this world refers to ‘himself’ or ‘herself’. This ‘selfhood’ is applicable not only to organic, but inorganic bodies and objects also. If ‘selfhood’ is applicable to the whole world, it means the whole world is filled with selfhood alone, and since selfhood is inseparable from consciousness, it means that the whole world is filled with consciousness. But on account of ignorance, we imagine that objects are outside the self. This idea of object outside is itself a misconception. There is no object external to the self. What you call the object is self itself. Let us take the example of a dream in which a tiger chases a man. He runs in fear and finally climbs up a tree. The tree, the tiger, the chase, etc. are all a projection of his own mind and his dream-personality also is a process of his mind. So the one mind becomes every one of these in the dream. It is subjective as well as objective. This is what is happening in the waking condition also; and, even as the one single mind became all objects in the dream, the universal mind has become all these external objects around here even in waking life. They are nothing but the universal mind ultimately. You would not know that the tiger in the dream is unreal till you wake up. Even so, there is another waking up from the present waking consciousness. That higher awakening is called God-consciousness. In that condition, you will see that all the objects of the world are your own universal self. The efforts of man for material prosperity, and the like, are an indication of his deeper urge to reach up to the universal consciousness. From social consciousness, you go to individual consciousness and from the individual consciousness to the universal consciousness, and from there, again, to the Absolute. From social aspect you go to the mind and from the mind to the intellect and from there to the universal consciousness. This is the process of universal history as well as natural evolution. Thus the whole universe is struggling to attain the self-realisation of itself. Socially, it goes through the historical process, personally through the psychological process, and naturally through evolution. The society, the individual and nature are simultaneously moving towards the Absolute. As a matter of fact, the society, the individual and the world are not three different things; they are three aspects of a single universal whole; there is only one world having only one single purpose in life. When your activities are directed to this ultimate purpose, your activities become what is called Karma-Yoga.
The main gospel of the Bhagavadgita is Karma-Yoga, because it converts every activity into a meditation on the Absolute. The Bhagavadgita teaches that worldly activity is itself a spiritual activity in the end, because any activity is finally inseparable from the movement of the Absolute, and, therefore, it is, in truth, spiritual activity. For the Yogi, there is no difference between worldly and spiritual activity. Everything is spiritual for him. The highest insight does not make any difference between the temporal and the spiritual, ultimately. Established religion does. So there is an apparent conflict between the sacred and the secular, the holy and the profane, the Church and the Government, each wanting to control the other. Even today, due to these misconceptions, religions are failing us. The religious teachers insist that God is above the world and blessedness is a promise of the hereafter. But God is not merely transcendent to the world; He is in the world. So everything in the world has to be considered spiritual in its ultimate essence. God is not only in the world, but is the world. He is both immanent and transcendent.
Arjuna was not yet fit for Yoga. So, Lord Krishna takes him step by step until he is qualified for Karma-Yoga. Notions have to be analysed. The senses have their own notions about things; one is, that things are outside and the other that the things are localised in time and space. That a thing can be at one place only and not at two is an inveterate notion that the senses have. They do not know that things are interconnected among themselves. If they did, they would not go for certain things only. They, thus, have a notion that things are physical, external as well as localised. But this is a misconception of the senses. In the ultimate analysis, we find that things are not diversified, but have a deeper underlying connection between them. Reality will always assert itself. It is difficult to define reality. Reality is not diversity, but coordination and unity. In the beginning, it appears that things are different, later that they are interconnected and later still, finally, that they are compounded of one and the same substance.
The Bhagavadgita has 18 chapters and they are grouped into 6 each. The first part of the first six chapters solves the problem of the conflict of the division within the individual. The second deals with the coordination of the individual with the universal, and the third the unity of the universe with the Absolute. The solutions of the conflict of the individual, the universal and the absolute are given in these various chapters, stage by stage. The subject is very vast and a bare outline alone is given. The entire gospel will take a long time to learn.
As long as the conflict between God and man is not solved, no other conflict can be solved. The root of the trouble is the separation of the individual from the Supreme Being. The aspiration for the coordination of the individual, the social and the universal is only an indication of the individual’s need to reach the Absolute. We are trying to achieve external unity through institutions like the United Nations Organization, for instance. But broken pieces of glass cannot be put together by the use of even the best gum. You have to melt the pieces and recast them to make the glass whole once again, and this is what has to be done by these organizations. We do not, however, know the secret and hope to succeed merely by conferences, etc. The individuals have to be melted into the Absolute, and only then can there be real unity. The Bhagavadgita tells you how this can be achieved. In the beginning, you have a hasty aspiration for the Supreme, the Absolute. But this cannot materialise so easily as it requires a long period of training and discipline to mature into experience. It seems almost impossible. This is what is described in the first chapter of the Gita. You feel like doing something, but you cannot really do it. The majority of the people in the world are in this condition only. They want truth, but cannot get it because the subconscious mind revolts against the higher aspirations.
In the second chapter, the Gita tells us that this fear can be conquered through a guide or a spiritual teacher. The spiritual path is very difficult to tread without a proper guide, and this proper guide cannot be had by study of books either, because you need the guidance of a person who has already walked the path. This chapter introduces us to the great Yoga which the Master of Yoga, Sri Krisna, imparts. Here the Master tells us that all our efforts should be based on knowledge. Action without knowledge will not succeed, for what succeeds is not the activity, but the knowledge that directs the activity. As a matter of fact, the whole gospel of the Gita is nothing but the blending of knowledge and activity. We have wrong notions about both these; we assume that knowledge means no activity, while activity is divorced from knowledge. Sri Krishna tells us that neither notion is correct. It is very difficult to understand what knowledge and activity are. Action is the outward expression of knowledge and knowledge is the inner reality of action. This may be said to be the central theme of the Gita. Action is rooted in knowledge. Then you gain the requisite inner trend to conduct yourself rightly in the outer world.
In Chapters II to VI, we are told how the individual personality can be disciplined in the process of blending knowledge and action. In the blend of knowledge and action, one can enter into the state of meditation. Chapter V explains at the end what meditation is in a short aphorism. It does not mean that in your ardour for meditation, in life, you can ignore the activities of the world. Many think that meditation is an individual and private activity which has nothing to do with the world outside. But it is not so. The two go and work together, like the wings of a bird.
Chapter VII tells us that meditation is a coordination of the individual with the universe. So meditation is not a private act, but a universal process. Chapters VII to XI give the technique of gradual unification of the individual with the universal. As a matter of fact, when the individual unites itself with the universal, the spiritual manifests itself, automatically. So, in this sense, the individual, the universal and the spiritual mean one and the same thing.
Chapter XII provides the technique of the various spiritual practices to bring about this unification, the four Yogas proper. Chapters XIII to XVIII give a beautiful exposition of how you can live in the world after acquiring this universal knowledge. It is only with this knowledge that one can redeem the world and do social work for the welfare of people: Sarvabhutahita. All this means that one cannot do real good to the world unless one is a truly spiritual person. You need the necessary qualifications even to get a job; and to do social work worth the while you need training in the field of the spiritual, in order to succeed in the sphere of human solidarity and material prosperity. The Gita gospel, therefore, prepares you for leading a universal life in this world. The Yoga of the Gita is inclusive of social work, humanitarian service, individual peace, as well as God-realization. This is the most complete exposition of Yoga available anywhere in the world. It is a veritable ocean placed before you. Drown yourself in it; save yourself with this vitamin tablet of the Gita. The difficulty in practice arises because of old habits persisting which can be cured by everyday meditation without a break. Satya, Ahimsa, Brahmacarya, in their larger sense of freedom from tension and conservation of energy, are the pre-requisites for meditation. Whatever you do in this world is equal to an adoration of God. God is to be seen in everything visible in the world. Truth is everything, and the knowledge of the nature of Truth is at once harmony with all creations. It is an instantaneous communion of meditation and action, grace and effort, the divine and the earthly, the relative and the absolute – Krisha and Arjuna driving forward, seated in a single chariot which is this body, and this universe evolving towards perfection.
[Extracted from Swami Krishnananda Maharaj’s discourses Divine Life Society]
The Gospel of the Bhagavadgita
The Concept of God in Hinduism
The Concept of God in Hinduism by Swami Krishnananda
Created on Saturday 20 July 2013 20:08
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The earliest statement of the Nature of Reality occurs in the first book of the Rig-Veda: Ekam Sat-Viprah Bahudha Vadanti. “The ONE BEING, the wise diversely speak of.”
The tenth book of the Rig-Veda regards the highest conception of God both as the Impersonal and the Personal: The Nasadiya Sukta states that the Supreme Being is both the Unmanifest and the Manifest, Existence as well as Non-existence, the Supreme Indeterminable.
The Purusha-Sukta proclaims that all this Universe is God as the Supreme Person – the Purusha with thousands of heads, thousands of eyes, thousands of limbs in His Cosmic Body. He envelops the whole cosmos and transcends it to infinity.
The Narayana-Sukta exclaims that whatever is anywhere, visible or invisible, all this is pervaded by Narayana within and without.
The Hiranyagarbha-Sukta of the Rig-Veda declares that God manifested Himself in the beginning as the Creator of the Universe, encompassing all things, including everything within Himself, the collective totality, as it were, of the whole of creation, animating it as the Supreme Intelligence.
The Satarudriya or Rudra-Adhyaya of the Yajur-Veda identifies all things, the high and the low, the moving and the unmoving, the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, nay, every conceivable thing, with the all-pervading Siva or Rudra as the Supreme God.
The Isavasya Upanishad says that the whole Universe is pervaded by Isvara or God, who is both within and without it. He is the moving and the unmoving, He is far and near, He is within all these and without all these.
The Kena Upanishad says that the Supreme Reality is beyond the perception of the senses and the mind because the senses and the mind can visualise and conceive only the objects, while Reality is the Supreme Subject, the very precondition of all sensation, thinking, understanding, etc. No one can behold God because He is the beholder of all things.
The Kathopanishad has it that God is the Root of this Tree of world existence. The realisation of God is regarded as the Supreme blessedness or Shreyas, as apart from Preyas or temporal experience of satisfaction.
The Prasna Upanishad says that God is the Supreme Prajapati or Creator, in whom are blended both the matter and energy of the Universe. God is symbolised in Pranava, or Omkara.
The Mundaka Upanishad gives the image of the Supreme Being as the One Ocean into which all the rivers of individual existence enter and with which they become one, as their final goal.
The Mandukya Upanishad regards the Supreme Being as the Turiya, or the Transcendent Consciousness, beyond the stales of waking, dreaming and deep sleep.
The Taittiriya Upanishad regards the Reality as the Atman, or the Self, beyond the physical, vital, mental, intellectual and causal aspects(sheaths) of the personality. It also identifies this Atman with the Supreme Absolute, or Brahman.
The Aitareya Upanishad states that the Supreme Atman has manifested itself as the objective Universe from the one side and the subjective individuals on the other side, in which process, factors which are effects of God’s creation become causes of individual’s perception, by a reversal of the process.
The Chhandogya Upanishad says that all this Universe is Brahman Manifest in all its states of manifestation. It regards objects as really aspects of the one Subject known as the Vaishvanara-Atman. It also holds that the Supreme Being is the Infinite, or Bhuma, in which one sees nothing else, hears nothing else, and understands nothing else except the Self as the only, existence.
In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad we are told that the Supreme Being is Pure Consciousness, in which subjects and objects merge together in a state of Universality.
The Supreme Being knew only Itself as ‘I-Am’, inclusive of everything. As He is the Knower of all things, no one can know Him, except as ‘He Is’.
The Svetasvatara Upanishad says, ‘Thou art the Woman’, ‘Thou art the Man’, ‘Thou art Girl’, ‘Thou art Boy’, ‘Thou deceivest us as the old man tottering with the stick’, ‘Thou movest everywhere, in the form of everything, in all directions’, ‘Thou art the dark-blue Butterfly, and the Green Parrot with red eyes’, ‘Thou art the thunder cloud, the Seasons and the Oceans’, ‘Thou art without beginning and beyond all time and space’, ‘Thou art That from which all the Universes are born’. ‘That alone is Fire. That is the Sun. That is Air, That is the Moon, That is also the starry firmament, That is the waters, That is Prajapati, That is Brahman.’
That Divine Being, who, though Himself formless, gives rise to various forms in different ways with the help of His Supreme Power for His own inscrutable purpose, and Who dissolves the whole Universe in Himself in the end – may He endow us with pure understanding.
He is the Great Being who shines effulgent like the Sun, beyond all darkness. Knowing Him alone one crosses beyond death. There is no other way of going over there.
The One God, Creator of the heaven and earth, is possessed of all eyes, all faces, all hands, and all feet in this Universe. It is He who inspires all to do their respective functions, as if fanning their fire into flames of movement.
Manu says in his Smriti: In the beginning, all this existence was one Undifferentiated Mass of Unmanifestedness, unknown, indefinable, unarguable and unknown in every way. From this Supreme Condition arose the Universe of name and form, through the medium of the Self-existent Creator, Swayambhu.
The Mahabharata says that Narayana alone was in the beginning, who was the prius of the creative, preservative, and destructive principles, the Trinity known as Brahma, Vishnu and Siva – the Supreme Hari, multi-headed, multi-eyed, multi-footed, multi-armed, multi-limbed. This was the Supreme Seed of all creation, subtler than the subtlest, greater than the greatest, larger than the largest, and more magnificent than even the best of all things, more powerful, than even the wind and all the gods, more resplendent than the Sun and the Moon, and more internal than even the mind and the intellect. He is the Creator, the Father Supreme.
The Bhagavadgita in the Mahabharata, says: The Supreme Brahman is beyond existence and non-existence. It has hands and feet everywhere, heads, mouths, eyes everywhere, ears everywhere, and it exists enveloping everything. Undivided, it appears as divided among beings; attributeless, it appears to have attributes in association with things. It is the Light of all lights, beyond all darkness, and is situated in the hearts of all beings.
He is the sacrifice, He is the oblation, He is the performer thereof, He is the recitation or the chant, He is the sacred fire, He is what is offered into it. He is the father, the mother, the grandfather, the support, the One knowable Thing, He is the three Vedas, the Goal of all beings, the Protector, the Reality, the Witness, the Repository, the Refuge, the Friend, the beginning, the middle and the end of all things. He is immortality and death, existence as well as non-existence. He is the Visvarupa, the Cosmic Form, blazing like fire and consuming all things.
According to the Bhagavata and the Mahabharata, God especially manifested Himself as Bhagavan Sri Krishna, who is regarded as the foremost of the divine Incarnations, in whose personality the Supreme Being is fully focussed and manifest.
Srimad Bhagavata says: He is Brahman(the Absolute), Paramatman(God), Bhagavan(the Incarnation).
According to the Pancharatra Agama and the Vaishnava theology, God has five forms: the Para or the Transcendent, Antaryamin or the Immanent, Vyuha or the Collective(known as Vasudeva, Sankarshana, Pradyumna and Aniruddha), Vibhava or the Incarnation, and Archa or the symbolic form of daily worship.
According to Saiva tradition, God is Pati, the Lord who controls the individuals known as Pasu, with His Power known as Pasa.
According to the Sakta tradition, God is the Divine Universal Mother of all things, Adi-sakti, or the original Creative Power, manifesting Herself as Kriya-Sakti or Durga, Ichha-Sakti or Lakshmi, and Jnana-Sakti or Sarasvati. But the Supreme Mother is beyond all these forms. She is One, alone, without a second.
According to the Bhakti tradition, God is the Supreme Object of Love, in respect of Whom love is evinced as in respect of one’s father, mother, friend, son, master, or one’s own beloved, in the five forms of affection, known as Shanta, Sakhya, Vatsalya, Dasya and Madhurya.
To the Vaishnavas, God is in Vaikuntha as Vishnu. To the Saivas, God is in Kailasa as Siva, or Rudra. To the Saktas, God is in Manidvipa, as the Supreme Sakti or the Divine Mother. To the Ganapatyas, God is Ganesa, or Ganapati. To the Sauras, God is Surya, the Sun. To the Kaumaras, God is Kumara, or Skanda.
To the saints like Tulasidas, God is Rama; to those like Surdas, He is Krishna. To those like Kabirdas, He is the Impersonal, Attributeless One, known by various names for purposes of worship and meditation.
All the Vaishnava saints worship Him as either Rama or Krishna, Narayana or Vishnu. The Saiva saints worship Him as Paramasiva. The Saktas worship Him as Adi-sakti. The philosopher-saints worship Him as Brahman, the Absolute, as Isvara, Hiranyagarbha, and Virat or the Cosmic Being.
The Virat-Saivas worship God as Siva, especially manifest as the Linga(symbolised in the rounded sacred stone which they wear round their necks).
The symbol of Vishnu is the Saligrama, the symbol of Siva is the Linga, and the symbol of Devi is the Yantra(sometimes, a Mantra).
According to the Nyaya and Vaiseshika schools, God is the instrumental cause of creation, like a potter fashioning a pot of clay, but not the material cause of creation.
The Samkhya school holds that there are only two Primary Principles, Purusha and Prakriti, and creation is only a manifestation or evolution of the constituents of Prakriti due to the action of Purusha’s consciousness. There is no other God than these two Principles.
The Yoga school of Patanjali accepts God’s existence as a Special Purusha free from all afflictions, Karma the effects of Karmas and impressions or potencies of a binding nature. But this Purusha, known as Isvara, according to Patanjali’s Yoga System, is not the creator of the world, but a Witness thereof. Nor is He the goal of the aspirations of the Jivas or individuals.
The Yogavasishtha defines Reality as the Consciousness which is between and transcends the subjective and objective aspects in perception and cognition, etc. Consciousness is the Absolute, Brahman, the only existence, of which the world is only an appearance.
The Brahmasutra states that God is That from Whom this Universe proceeds, in Whom it subsists, and to Whom, in the end, it returns.
Kalidasa, in his Raghuvamsa and Kumarasambhava, points out that God is the Supreme Being, is prior to the forms of Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, who are three aspects or phases of God, and that Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, being three forms of one and the same Reality, are equal to one another in every respect, without inferiority or superiority among them.
Bhartrihari prays to that Infinite Consciousness, which is Peaceful Effulgence, which is undifferentiated by the interference of space, time and causal relation, etc., and whose essence is Self-Experience alone.
Madhusudana Sarasvati blends Advaita Vedanta and Bhakti-Rasa, and he is the author of the most polemical and authoritative Advaita text, known as the ‘Advaitasiddhi’, and of an unparalleled compendium of the various processes and stages of devotion to God, known as ‘Bhaktirasayana’. His commentary on the Bhagavadgita is a monument of a fusion of knowledge of the Impersonal Absolute with devotion to the Personal God.
Religions are founded on a metaphysical rock-bottom. There is a philosophical import behind every ethical canon.
Generally, the tradition of worship of Deities in India is according to a sort of protocol which the devotees associate with the importance of the Deities. For instance, worshippers of a particular Deity, such as Ganesa, Siva, Vishnu, Surya or Skanda, will place their own Deity as the first in importance and every other Deity as secondary. There is another tradition according to which the order of worship places Ganesa as the first, to be worshipped on any occasion, and then Devi, Siva, Vishnu, Surya and Skanda. This order may get slightly changed in different circles of religious belief. But the discourses recorded in this book do not follow any of these patterns but a chronological arrangement according to the festivals that come one after the other, seriatim, during the course of the calendar of the year, that is, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. The functions and festivals repeat themselves every year on specific days or dates. Thus, the order in which the functions or the Deities of worship are mentioned here follow their calendar-wise chronology.
[Extracted from Swami Krishnananda Maharaj’s discourses Divine Life Society]
The Gospel of the Bhagavadgita
Sun – The Eye of the World
Sun – The Eye of the World by Swami Krishnananda
Created on Friday 19 July 2013 19:24
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In Sanskrit, Makara Sankranti means the time when the sun crosses the tropic of Capricorn. The day is of special significance to all those leading a spiritual life and mention has been made of the commencement of this new period in such scriptures as the Upanishads and the Bhagavadgita. The sun comes to the North, energising and invigorating all life wherever it is, and on whatever he sheds his light. In esoteric parlance, in mystic terminology, the sun is regarded as the presiding deity over the self of man, while the moon is the presiding deity over the mind of man. The self or the soul is different from the mind; the Atman and the Manas are differentiated by their metaphysical and psychological characteristics, respectively. The self of man is presided over by the sun or Surya. The sun is designated as Atmakaraka. “Surya atma jagatas tasthushascha,” says the Veda. The Rig Veda proclaims the spiritual presiding principle in the sun as the invigorator, energiser of the self of all created beings. That is the meaning of the Vedic prayer mentioned above. Of all the things that move and do not move, of all that is organic or inorganic, of everything in creation, the solar principle is the self, as it were, the pivot around which all individual energies revolve. We live by the sun and die if the sun is not to be. Spiritually envisaged, esoterically conceived, the sun is not merely a huge orb of atomic energy as the physicists would tell us, but a radiant mass of life-giving vitality to everyone. The sun is not merely a heating principle, like an electric heater or a fire-like burning mass, or a huge conflagration of fire, because these cannot give you that energy which the sun supplies to you. I shall give a small analogy to give you an idea as to what the sun can contain and does contain.
Do you know what the earth contains? Can you imagine what energy, what vitality, what abundance, what resources are contained in the earth? You have there gold, you have diamonds, you have mineral resources lying under different parts and bowels of the earth, you have gas and petrol and what not; and where do you get this energy from, for the sake of the living beings on earth? The trees vigorously rise from the earth, sucking energy from the bottom of the earth, and they seek energy from above – from the rays of the sun. When we geologically and physically look into the structure of this earth, and chemically examine its contents, biologically investigate into its resources, as a pure scientific mind, we will realise that the earth is not dead matter. It is energy-embodiment, on whose bounties we are alive here. The food that we eat is not dead matter, otherwise it cannot give us energy. From where do we get energy? From the food that we eat. From where do we get the food? From the earth. If energy is to come from food, naturally the source of it must be full of energy. The earth cannot be inanimate, as we generally dub it to be. It is not inorganic; there is something organic and living, meaningful and significant in it, and even many millions of years ago the earth had been declared to be a part of the solar constitution. As our wise men tell us, once upon a time a mighty gigantic star happened to rush by the side of the electromagnetic field of the sun – some light years away from the sun, of course, not merely a few miles. The impact of this upon the orb of the sun was such that it broke off a little piece of the sun. That little piece, being a flaming, diverging, powerful energy-block, rushing from the sun, boiling with the flame of what the sun is, is supposed to have come down after thousands of years, cooling down gradually from the flaming condition in which it was to a cooler condition, and from the cooler condition to a still cooler condition, then from that condition into the gaseous condition, from the gaseous to the liquid condition, and from the liquid condition to the solid condition that we see today. So, all this wonderful earth is nothing but a part of the sun, and its greatness can be traced back to the greatness of the sun which cannot be, by logical deduction, a mere physical or inorganic form as uninformed science may tell us.
There is something wonderful and mysterious in the sun and there is some great significance in connecting the principle of the sun with the self of man, as there is also equal significance in connecting of the moon with the mind of man. You may know that during the full moon and the new moon days the mind gets affected. Those who are weaklings and who are not mentally strong will feel this impact more than normal persons. Normal persons do not feel it, but those who are not normal in their minds will feel the effect strongly. The moon, the stars, the sun and all the stellar system exert a mutual influence amongst themselves. You may know that during the full moon the ocean rises up, wells up as if to greet the rising moon and, naturally, the pull must be felt everywhere on earth, but you cannot see it.
Such is the invisible impact of the higher forces of nature, whose father is the sun. When the sun’s influence is felt more and more, the self is supposed to also exert influence in its activity, operation. So, this particular day, we call Makara Sankranti, is holy.
The Upanishads and the Bhagavadgita tell us that those who die during these six months of the northern course of the sun, rise from the earthly entanglements to the higher regions presided over by noble deities, finally piercing through the orb of the sun. Crossing the barrier of the sun, the soul crosses still higher regions of resplendence and spiritual magnificence. The Upanishads and such scriptures describe that while the passage of the moon during the six months of the southern course of the sun is the passage of return to the earth, the passage through the sun is the passage to salvation, liberation of the spirit.
Those who cross the barrier of the sun come not to this mortal world again. They go to higher regions until the soul reaches universal salvation, until the soul becomes everything, enters into everything everywhere, as the Mundaka Upanishad tells us. Seekers of Truth, aspirants on the path of Yoga, devotees of God, lovers of mankind – all these have to pay tribute to the supreme father of energy, vitality, deathlessness, which is Surya. “Suryah pratyaksha devata”: The sun is the visible God. If you have any visible God, it is the sun before you. You cannot see God in His pristine excellence, but you can see God through the operation of his powers in nature. In the Purusha Sukta, the sun is compared to the eyes of the Virat Purusha, the Cosmic Person. These are true comparisons and symbols which give us an idea of the magnitude and the importance of the sun in our life. People pray that their death should take place during the six-month period of the northern movement of the sun. In the Mahabharata we are told that Bhishma waited for his departure until the sun moved to the north. So there is not merely an astronomical or physical significance to our lives in the movement of the sun towards the north, but there is also a biological, vital and psychological as well as spiritual meaning in this northern sojourn of the sun. Devotees and seekers of Yoga have, therefore, to bring to their minds this internal world and its significance which is beyond and farther than the physical world. The inner world is deeper than the outer.
In some of the scriptures we are told that there are twelve suns. Where are the twelve suns? We see only one sun in the sky. We can regard these twelve suns as the principle inherent within the physical sun, one behind the other. Just as we have the vital body behind the physical body, the mental body behind the vital body, the intellectual body behind the mental body, and the spiritual principle in us behind the intellectual body, so also there are energies behind energies, powers within powers, one transcending the other, until the twelfth sun is reached. It is identified with Maha-Vishnu or the Supreme Benefactor of Creation, the Ruler of the Cosmos. The twelfth sun is Vishnu Himself. He cannot be seen with the physical eyes because these esoteric suns are internal to the physical sun. You cannot see the vital body or the mental body, intellectual body or the spiritual principle in yourself. You cannot see anything inside the body. Inasmuch as we live in the physical body and see a physical world, we see also a physical sun. When we enter the vital body, we will enter the vital world and see a vital sun, and so on and so forth, and when we reach the ultimate principle within us by the practice of Yoga, we will see the hidden essence behind the world. It is not a country; it is not a realm, a village or a city, or any locality populated by people. A marvellous ocean of light and energy is presided over by the twelfth sun, says the scripture.
There is much behind these great observances such as the Makara Sankranti and many others of a similar nature, in the spiritual destiny of man. We live a material life, not knowing what we really are, what the world is. We seem to be so ignorant of the values that are inherent and within us that we are dashed hither and thither by the winds of fate, controlling the physical world and the physical body of people. The more you move inward into yourself, the more you will also see the inner mystery of the world. When you go to the vital body within you, you can see the vital body of other people seated here. Because you are now in the physical body, you see the physical body of others. When you enter your mental body, you can see the minds of other people, and when you enter your intellectual body, you can see the intellects of other people seated here. And when you enter your spiritual principle within, you can see the spirituality in the world and the spiritual principle in the whole cosmos.
The twelve suns described in the Srimad Bhagavata and other scriptures are not twelve physical suns hanging in the sky, but twelve layers of principle, one behind the other, culminating in the spiritual Reality as the sun, wherein the individual, the world and God become one. In the physical realm you are different, the world is different and God is different. There is no connection apparently between one and the other. When you go deeper, the three principles come nearer and nearer to one another. The world is absolutely isolated now. You have no control over it; it threatens you every moment. You are afraid of the world. Why? Because it is physically isolated from your physical body. And so God is also a transcendent something of which you have no concept today. But when you go inwardly by a power of concentration and meditation, you simultaneously, as a parallel movement, also enter into the subtler realms of the world outside, so much so that the outsideness of the world becomes less in proportion to the internal experience that you have in your own self. The more you are physically conscious, the more the world also is external to you. The more you are inwardly conscious, the nearer is the world to you. The inimical world, the so-called unfriendly world, becomes friendly when you enter into the subtler and subtler realms of your own being. And when you reach the divine principle within you, the world does not merely remain as a friend but becomes an inseparable experience of your own. The world ceases to be an outer phenomenon. There will be no world as such. The thing called the world ceases to be the moment you enter into the spiritual principle within you, which is the same as the spiritual principle within the world, which is also the same as the spiritual principle of the universe. It is only here that God, world and the soul become united. This is the liberation that we are ultimately seeking.
So there is much of a message in this religious observance of Makara Sankranti and we shall all, as humble seekers of Truth, do well to contemplate this inner divinity presiding over the solar symbol in our creation and endeavour to be more and more spiritual in our life – which is not to change to a different order or kind of life from the one in which we are, but to enter into a new meaning of life in this very life. To be spiritual, to enter the realm spiritual, is not to enter into an order of life as people mistakenly imagine. It is not shifting from place to place, moving from one corner of the earth to another corner of the earth, or changing the mode of living in this world. This is not spirituality. What is really meant is to enter one step inward into your life rather than move outwardly, diametrically. It is not a horizontal movement but an inward gesture of the soul towards its own centre.
It is difficult to understand what spirituality is, however much you may read philosophy. Spirituality is not a kind of life that you lead. It is the inner meaning of all kinds of life in the world. It is not isolated from other types of life. It is the meaning and significance behind every kind of life, whatever be your profession or the duties you perform in the world. There are people who imagine that spirituality is for the later period of one’s life. It has nothing to do with ‘doing’. As I mentioned to you, it is the significance behind what you are and what you do. So you cannot fix it for a period of time – tomorrow or the day after. No such thing is possible in spirituality, because the spiritual is the meaning behind things. How can you fix the meaning to a distant future, as if you do not want to live today? The meaning behind existence and activity is what is meant by the spiritual. If there is any worth in what you are and what you do, that is spirituality.
This is what the Upanishads and other scriptures like the Bhagavadgita speak of. They speak of the interpretation of God in the world – such as the sun whose northern movement commences today, and on account of which we regard this day as auspicious Makara Sankranti. So, you should take all this seriously to your heart on this auspicious day and contemplate for a moment the deeper truths of your own personal lives, the deeper truths of nature outside and the deeper truths implied in the relationship between yourselves and the nature outside. There are three implications, three meanings, three significances or three hidden realities – the one within ourselves, the second in nature outside, and the third which is implied in the relation between ourselves and the nature outside, which is called God, invisible to our physical perception.
Those who are Brahmacharis may do more Gayatri Mantra Japa, which is presided over by the sun, from today onwards. Those who have other Mantras as their Ishta-Mantra may do more Japa of that Mantra from today onwards. Those who are advanced enough to take to pure contemplation and meditation will do well to bring the true God into their lives – not the visible God or the imagined God, but the real God in the sense of what spirituality is – into their own lives as the meaning and the significance behind what anything is and what anything can be in this world. The spiritual reality, finally, is the significance behind what anything is and what anything does, whatever we are and whatever we do – which means to say, there is no life without spirituality because life without spirituality is a misnomer; it is meaningless; it is absurd. This is the kind of life that every individual being has to endeavour to live, and we should utilise this opportunity as another happy occasion to contemplate God in His real nature, thus accelerating the speed of our movement towards Him, approximating ourselves more and more nearer to that Supreme Absolute and making our life blessed by living it practically in our day-to-day existence, and thus also to assist the atmosphere around so that we and all people in the world may become fit for the supreme union with that ideal Godhead, the Absolute. We pray that by this influence which we exert in the world, love, solidarity and peace may prevail everywhere.
[Extracted from Swami Krishnananda Maharaj’s discourses Divine Life Society]
The Gospel of the Bhagavadgita
The Path of Devotion in the Epics and Puranas
The Path of Devotion in the Epics and Puranas by Swami Krishnananda
Created on Thursday 18 July 2013 21:02
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Devotion, or love of God, is a renowned way of the saints and sages who could speak to God as one could speak to a human being. While all saints and sages were of this special character throughout the world, India, especially, has been known since ages for the practicality of religion and the very intimate relationship that a devotee can maintain with God. Always, in most of the religions, God has remained a distant object of reverence and obedience to divine law. We have, here, a religion that has come to the homes of people and become a part of the daily life of the individual; and religion becomes a living feature in the world only when God becomes something vital in one’s daily life – for religion is love of God. The daily contact that we inwardly establish with God is religion. Our personal relationship with what really is, is religion. And while cultures of the past in different countries had towering philosophies and scientific achievements of their own, it is rarely that we find God coming to the hearts of people and speaking in the language of man. The lives of saints and sages are a more elaborate commentary on the nature of the working of God than all the scriptures and revelations that we hear of, because the saints it is that bring God to the world in a living flame of experience rather than through the vehicle of language and words, textbooks or even scriptures.
It is this interesting theme which is dear to the heart of man, to the intellect rather, that is the preoccupation of a very interesting and prominent set of religious literature in this country, known as the Epics and Puranas. The country is filled with people who adore God in terms of the description in this type of religious literature. We have always a name given to God. We have always a heart-to-heart feeling of relationship with the God that we worship, whether in temples or in our homes. We can cry before God. We can sob and weep before Him. We can represent our petitions before Him, and we need not merely fear Him. This is what the Puranas tell us. While it is often said that religion commences with the fear of God, we may also say that religion culminates in the love of God. It is not merely a philosophic love that the Puranas and Epics speak of; rarely do we find love being philosophical. It has, of course, a philosophy of its own, which rationalistic philosophy cannot understand. All our loves are super-rational. A mystical feature characterises all affection in the world, mystical in the sense that they are purely private, and we will not explain, nor can we explain, this feeling of ours to other people in the world. All love, whatever be its nature, is inexplicable. The moment it becomes explicable in a scientific language, it ceases to be affection charged with vitality. It has a very uncanny feature, which also is the characteristic of the love of God.
The way in which we contact God in our life – ‘in our life’, is the phrase to be underlined – is our practical religion. That which the scriptures speak of, is one kind of religion which only keeps us in a sense of reverence and awe and creates in us a particular type of Bhakti called Aisvarya-Pradhana-Bhakti, that is, the love of God as Creator, Father and Sovereign Supreme, the love of God as Isvara or the Master of all Creation. Aisvarya-Pradhana-Bhakti is one type of devotion which is especially to be noticed in the later Sri-Vaishnava literature of the South, initiated by the great Vaishnava theologian, Ramanuja; but we have another type of internal contact that the devotee established with God, more intimate, we may say, in one sense. Sometimes, it goes by the name of Madhurya-Pradhana-Bhakti, the devotion which was emphasised by certain other teachers of the Bhakti schools, especially Nimbarka, Vallabha and Gauranga Mahaprabhu, as well as the Tamil saints, the Alvars, who preceded Ramanuja. Here, all intellectuality, ratiocination and analytical approach ceases, and the soul speaks to God in its own language. It contacts God in the vitality of being, rather than the words that the tongue speaks. As already mentioned, love does not want any philosophy, nor does devotion to God. It can feel the presence of God. Why should we try to analyse Him? When I can touch Him, see Him, hear Him, contact Him, and imbibe whatever He has, why should I try to subject Him to scientific analysis or philosophical disputation?
Thus it is that in a symbolic language the Puranas speak of such saints as Narada going to all the worlds including Vaikuntha, Satyaloka and Kailasa. These analogies of saints like Narada penetrating through all the realms of the cosmos, contacting God on one side and meeting man and even the demons on the other side, is a representation of the significance of divine devotion – the extent to which devotion can reach in practical life. One of the peculiarities of the representation of God’s activity in the Cosmos, in the Puranas and Epics, is that creation is said to be constituted of different layers – the fourteen worlds, realms, or Lokas as they are called; and to make the theme interesting, catching and vibrating to the soul, to make you have a stir in your personality and to make your hair stand on end even by listening to the glories of God, the Puranas employ a technique of making God a personality similar to your own. He also lives in a realm, as you do. He has certain features as you also have, and He sees you. Not only that, He sees through you. He sees your past, your present and your future, Not merely that; God is the repository of supreme compassion, pity and mercy. He is not merely a judge who is pitiless to your representations, who reads only the textbooks on law and says, ‘I am not concerned with justice but only with law,’ as some of our judges may say today.
God is not concerned not only with law but also justice. There was an Englishman, a Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court. It is said that one of the advocates stood up and said: “Your Lordship is, after all, bound to do justice”. The Chief Justice remarked: “Far from it; I am here to dispense law”. This shows the way in which man’s mind works, and the way Dharma works in the world. Dharma is not law merely; it is also justice. If there are five hundred witnesses against an innocent man, he can be hanged, though he has committed no crime. This is law working, but it is not justice. And this happened actually. This is not merely an illustration. A poor man was hanged once during the British regime and the mistake was realised much later, some ten years afterwards, that an innocent man was hanged; and the then Government, in order to hush up the fuss that people might create, paid a sum to the wife of the victim and asked her to go to Bangalore and settle down there. But there was no mistake on the part of the judge, because he had evidence.
Well, the point is that God is justice, it is true, not merely law; but He has also a very tender feeling for man. This is what the Puranas want to make out, which even the Vedas and the Upanishads do not properly explain. Your heart begins to melt when you think of God in terms of what the Puranas describe of Him. Nothing can be more effective than the method which touches your heart. If I speak to you in a way in which your heart responds, you are mine at the very moment; but if I speak to you as a lawyer, as a scientist or a metaphysician, you may nod your head, but, then, go your way.
This psychology of the human mind was very quickly realised by the authors of the Puranas who were not just interested in telling you something which is not a fact, as people there are who will merely cajole you by non-factual information. The Puranas tell you of the factual relationship that you have with God and which you have forgotten. It is not that the Puranas recount only grandmother’s stories, as our so-called educated, modern youth might think. Not so. It is not a sweet lie that they tell us. It is a new type of truth which you have forgotten in your pride of intellectuality through a wrong type of education into which you have been introduced and which began to instruct your intelligence with an erroneous logic of God being subject to understanding and intelligence and having nothing to do with the private life of the emotions of the human being.
The special emphasis of the Epics and Puranas is that God can hear you and speak to you, and you speak to God. All the stories, analogies and symbols that these scriptures employ for describing man’s relations with God and vice versa, signify that God is nearer to us than we imagine; and He shall help us even if we do not know Him. This is another speciality which this religious literature reveals to us. Even if you forget God, God shall help you. It is not that He thinks of you only if you think of Him. That would be a very legal way of looking at Him. God is not merely a legal man. He is, therefore, portrayed as not merely the Pitamaha (Grandfather) or Pita (Father) abut also Mata (Mother) and Dhata (Supporter). ‘I am the Saviour, the Protector, the Generator, the Withdrawer, the Sustainer, the Onlooker, the Supervisor and many other things of that nature’ – these are magnificently described in the pregnant words of the Bhagavadgita.
What God is, man is not supposed to know; but enough it is if you understand that it is easier to contact God than any other thing in the world. This is what the Puranas and the Epics want to tell you. Other scriptures of a more logical character may argue that God is difficult of approach, more difficult than anything else in the world; but here you are told that other things are more difficult of approach than God. Other things may be far away from you, but God is nearer to you than they. Your own wife and children may be very near you, but God is nearer still. Even such relations who are your own kith and kin may not help you in your difficulty, but God shall help you instantaneously. People help you only when you ask for help, but God helps you even when you do not ask for help, because God is one who knows what you want. You are not always in a position to understand what your needs are. Mostly you are in a confused state of mind. You cannot ask what you want, but God’s speciality is that He can know what you would need even after hundreds of years, and those things are provided for even now. Provisions are made for your journey that has not yet commenced. He is like a very good tourist officer or travel agent – whatever you may call Him! He is more than all the people, who only show a lip-sympathy to you. His love for you is more than your love for Him. This is another speciality of the divine devotion portrayed in the Puranas. God’s love for man is much more than man’s love for God. He wants you more than you want Him. Who can understand this mystery? It is also said with great meaning and significance that when a devotee takes one step towards God, walking, God takes one hundred steps towards the devotee, running. While the devotee walks one step, God runs one hundred steps towards the devotee!
The stories of the Puranas and the Epics illustrate this important point of the divine relationship that eternally subsists between God and man. No one can read this literature without a stir in one’s nerves and rapture in one’s mind. No one can read this wondrous literature without a tear in one’s eyes, because here it is that you know how to touch God through your soul, through your feelings, through your affection. When do you shed a tear? When your feelings are stirred; not even the best scientific argument can make you shed a single drop of tear. The heart should be shaken from its very roots, and then even the philosopher kneels down on the floor.
This is how God is brought to the home of man by the Puranas. A very interesting incident is recorded in the Drona-Parva of the Mahabharata, which shall simply strike you with wonder, and actually make you sob for the Iove that God has for man. During the war, after Jayadratha is slain, Arjuna is speaking to Bhagavan Vedavyasa on many a matter. One of the surprises which Arjuna expressed to Maharshi Vyasa was: “O Maharshi! Can you explain to me one interesting thing? Whenever I was up in arms in battle, I used to see some mysterious figure moving in front of me, which I could not decipher properly, sometimes visible, sometimes not visible, but not touching the ground. I saw a figure like that of a human being, now corning out of the mist as it were, making himself slightly visible to my eyes, now going into the background of the misty atmosphere of the war field, but his feet were not touching the ground. He was just a few feet above the ground level. He was doing nothing, just looking this way and that way, moving to this corner and that corner. The only speciality that I observed in his feature was that he had a trident in his hand, he had a knot of hair on his head, and I saw some snakes round his neck. These were all the things that I could see of him in the personality. I could not understand what it was, who he was, and what was the meaning behind it.” Vyasa smiled and replied: “O Arjuna! It is very good that you spoke to me about this mystery that you saw, and I shall take this opportunity to tell you something of this miracle, which you cannot understand, nor can any man understand. Do you know who fought this war, and who it was that worked through your arms? Do you know that you have, yourself, no power to stand the ferocious warriors like Bhishma, Drona and Karna? Do you know the power of Bhishma? Not all the three worlds can stand before him, what to talk of the Pandavas! Arjuna! Can you stand before this mighty ferocity like that of a Bhishma who could defeat Parasurama, who learnt the art of warfare from Vasishtha himself? Is there a man in all the three worlds who can stand before Drona? Who defeated these warriors? Well! It is the greatness of those beings whom you cannot see with your eyes. They have worked this miracle for your sake, Arjuna, and remained always in the background. Do you know whom you saw? It was Lord Siva. You are indeed blessed. He knew the pitiable condition in which you all were. He came down from Kailasa to help you, not telling you what His intention was; and He knew that it was humanly impossible for any person to stand these – Bhishma, Drona and Karna. Not all of you, Pandavas, put together, can face them, even if they are to fight throughout their lives. ‘What would be the fate of these poor children?’ Siva knew this, and He is moving in the midst of the Kaurava forces sucking the energy of them all, not taking any direct action. Who could stand before Him if He were to take action; the very odour that emanated from His body was enough to paralyse all the Kauravas. Arjuna! I need not speak to you more about this wondrous being that you saw. Blessed thou art that you could see Him.” And, after this narration, there is a beautiful prayerful description of the mighty Lord of Kailasa, which Vyasa speaks to Arjuna.
God works thus; and there are other incidents which we shall see, in what followed, to the same effect, as on occasions when Bhishma himself spoke to persons like Duryodhana many a time. Every day Duryodhana came after sunset and wept before Bhishma. “What is this? What is happening, Grandsire? Thousands of my people are being killed every day, and you are yet alive”. Bhishma said: “My dear child! Do not tease me and taunt me like this every day. You are under the impression that I am only pretending to fight. It is not so. I would have pounded all these Pandava forces including the Pandavas themselves, in a single day, but for the presence of a single person there, who is sitting in the chariot of Arjuna. But for Him, the Pandavas would not have been there on the first day itself. I alone am sufficient; all your army is not necessary. Duryodhana! You do not know my strength. But what can I do! You do not understand the difficulty into which you have been involved. I have told you many a time that you should not engage yourself in a conflict with those people whom Krishna is helping, but you would not listen to me, and now you come and taunt me. Well! Tomorrow I shall do my best”. This happened twice or thrice. Bhishma did his best. He went to the extreme of his ferocity. Like fire blazing he began to fight through the forces. Thousands were massacred by a single arrow that Bhishma shot, but not a single Pandava could be killed. Again Duryodhana cried at night: “What is all this? You could not kill even one Pandava, Grandsire, and I have depended upon you people. After so many days of battle, you could not bring down even one of the Pandavas”. Again it was the same reply that Bhishma gave: “My dear child! I do not want to get angry with you, though you try to irritate me. But I shall tell you the truth again. You shall not win what you have in your mind as long as Govinda is on the other side”. “Well! This is the old story again”, said Duryodhana, “and I am not here depending on you senile people. I have my comrades like Karna”. And there was a cutting reply from Bhishma. Bhishma held his tongue, however, because there was no use frowning at the stupid man, Duryodhana.
And how does God help? The Mahabharata, again, is an instance on the point – Asvatthama’s ferocitv, to give another instance. We are told that Asvatthama, one day, approached his father Drona and said: “You teach everything to Arjuna, whatever you have taught me. What is the difference between a disciple and a son? No difference at all? The son naturally is dearer than disciples. You teach Arjuna everything. Will you not teach me something which Arjuna does not know?” Drona thought: “This is a very foolish son, not as wise as Arjuna, and I should not teach him mysteries that may enable him to work havoc”. But Asvatthama went on pressing the father with importunities: “Teach me something which Arjuna does not know, otherwise what is the good of my being your son.” All the Astras Arjuna was taught. There was nothing that Arjuna did not know, because of instruction from Drona. But on account of a fatherly affection for even a stupid son, which every father has, Drona finally agreed. “All right, come here, I shall give you something, but beware. I am giving you fire in your hands by which you can burn the worlds; but my child, do not use it against devotees of God, because it will not work against devotees of God. It will work against real enemies. This is the Narayana-astra, the missile that is invoked with the power of Narayana. I am telling you this today, and I am initiating you into this mystery. If you release this, all the world can be reduced to ashes; but do not use this. I am warning you, lest you should be yourself in danger when you misuse it.” Yet Drona was cautious. He did not tell him how to withdraw the missile, because if he could withdraw it, he would go on using it again and again. He knew the lack of understanding of Asvatthama and the eagerness of his to use it one day or the other! So he could use it only once. Once if is let off, it is let off forever. It could not come back for a second use. But there is a method of withdrawing it also, which in this particular case, Drona never told Asvatthama.
And you know, the occasion came for it. When Drona left his mortal coil, the fury of Asvatthama knew no bounds. He said: “I know the secret; today the Pandavas shall not be in this world. My father has told me something, and today there shall be none remaining on the Pandavas’ side, not Yudhishthira, not Bhima, not Arjuna; and he took out his ‘cat out of the bag’, and he let it out with the invocation of Narayana-mantra. Well! You know what happened? Not even an atomic bomb can work such havoc. It multiplied itself into a million-fold. Everywhere, the whole sky was filled with burning missiles; and there were no stars, no sun, no moon, no sky. It was all fire. That was all. And when Arjuna saw that sight, Krishna was accosted: “O Lord! What is this that is coming? I cannot understand it. Some new thing is coming which I have not seen up to this time.” Krishna said: “I know what it is, and there is no remedy for this. No one can stand against this. The best thing for you all is to stop fighting. It shall not do any harm to those who will not fight it. It is destructive only to the enemies. Those who prostrate themselves before it are not its enemies, and so the best thing for you would be to cast down your arms and offer prostration to it, and then it shall exhaust itself” Nobody knew what this mystery was, what it was that was coming; but then Krishna said that there was no fighting with it; and to all it was proclaimed loudly: “Cast down your arms, prostrate yourself before this Fire that is coming; that is the only way of saving yourself.” And all did this except Bhima. He retorted: “I am not a coward. I, a Kshatriya to cast down arms – nothing doing! I shall see to it.” He took up his mace and began brandishing it. Krishna and Arjuna went there and told him: “This is not the time to show your valour, friend, please listen to us.” But he would not listen; then he was pulled down by Krishna and Arjuna. “Come down, stupid man, you do not know what you are doing.” Since there was nobody to fight, the Astra went here, there, everywhere, seeing and searching for a single enemy. Nobody was there to fight with it, and so, finally, it extinguished itself. Thereafter, the flame entered the body of Krishna, because He was Narayana Himself. It entered the body of Narayana.
Asvatthama was gazing from the top of a tree to see what was happening, to see the heap of ashes of the Pandavas. But no such thing happened. He saw no ashes anywhere! They were all fighting as before. “What is this? What is the matter? My father also told a lie, Rishis tell lies, God tells lies, the whole world is a lie, fie upon all things, fie upon even parents, fie upon truth, there is no truth in this world,” he cried and went back cursing everyone. And he met Vyasa on the way. ‘‘Whom are you cursing? What is the matter?” asked Vyasa. “What is the use of saying anything? The earth is not worth living in when even a father can tell a lie; my father told me a falsehood that he initiated me into a mystery which Arjuna did not know, but when I used it, it proved futile. Can there be anything worth depending upon in this world? Is there such a thing as truth in this world?” wailed Asvatthama. Vyasa said: “Your father has not told you a lie. He had initiated you into a tremendous mystery regarding which he has already given a caution to you – to use it not against devotees of God. You used it against Narayana Himself. It has gone to Him, from whom it came. It was the Astra of Narayana and it has gone back to Narayana. You have used it against Krishna and Arjuna who are the manifestations of Narayana and Nara in this world.”
Use not your power against God. You may be wondering why these stories, these histories are recorded in the Epics and Puranas. Yes; it is to stir your feelings as to how God can help you and save you. Krishna had a private conversation with Arjuna; they were very, good friends, you know, they used to go for walks together, dine together, sleep together, work together. And, in comradeship, when Arjuna talked about the mighty beings that were felled down in the war and the mysteries about such people like Karna and others who had powers and weapons which were invincible, Krishna spoke: “My dear friend! Do you know how anxious I was as long as Bhishma, Drona and Karna were alive? Do you know that I did not sleep properly as long as these three were alive in the world; and do you know what I did? Do you know why Karna did not use his missile against you? If he had used it, it would have been difficult for you to face it. He had a Sakti that he was daily worshipping for your destruction. He would tell himself; ‘Tomorrow it shall be used’. Many tomorrows passed; everyday he used to say, ‘What has happened to me? I forgot about it. Tomorrow morning I shall use it’. Arjuna enquired: “Krishna, why did he not use it for so many days?” He actually never used it. It was used against a wrong person later on, due to a mishap that took place. “Do you know, Arjuna, why he did not use it? Everyday, in the morning, when he was to face you in battle, the first person that he would look at was myself. I was in front of you, and the moment he looked at me, I hypnotised him; and his mind became muddled. He would not remember anything, and until I foiled his Sakti, I did this work of hypnotising him every day so that he would not remember anything. And I know that you have no idea as to why I sent Ghatotkacha. But you know, the Sakti was used against him, though it was kept for a different end. Not knowing all this, you and your brothers were weeping that your man was killed.” If you read the Mahabharata you will know how the incident happened.Draupadi called out: “Krishna! Krishna!” when in the court of the Kauravas, Duhsasana was trying to strip her of her clothes. The Supreme Lord at once saved her modesty by willing the apparel on her person to be endless! It is said Duhsasana fell down in a faint with the fatigue of unsuccessfully disrobing her. It is also believed that Krishna Himself became the unending clothes.
Again, egged on by Duryodhana, Durvasa, the great Tapasvin, would have reduced the whole clan of the Pandavas to ashes with his anger, but Lord Krishna saved them. Durvasa came with his eighty thousand disciples to the Pandavas and asked for “Bhiksha” for all of them to be ready when they had taken their bath and returned for it. The Pandavas had just finished their midday meal and Draupadi had washed clean the Akshaya-Patra (the inexhaustible dishing bowl) which would keep filling up as it was emptied by serving the food from it. But this could be so only until the Patra (vessel) was cleaned after Draupadi had finished her meal – after that, this miracle would not happen. So Draupadi was in the greatest fix. And she turned to her Saviour, and prayed to Lord Krishna. There was a knock at the door in a few minutes, and, lo, Krishna was there most unexpectedly. Suddenly He wanted something: “Oh! I am terribly hungry! Give me food! Quick, I am dying of hunger”. “But, Krishna, we have finished our meal and I have washed the vessel. That is why…” “Oh! Bring me the vessel. I know there is food in it.” It was vain to keep protesting, and Draupadi brought the vessel. Under the rim of the vessel there was a leaf, remaining from the vegetable, sticking to it. The Lord ate that; ate it as the Virat that He was, and the whole Cosmos was fed! Durvasa and his disciples mysteriously felt their bellies full! When Bhima went to invite them, at Yudhishthira’s behest, for their meal, they vanished in fright, lest they should incur the displeasure of Yudhishthira for not being able to accede to his request. No one could know the mystery. Such is the miracle the Lord works to save the devotees.
The Pandavas had been exiled to spend twelve years in the forests as the result of the game of dice that they had lost. When in the forests Krishna came to enquire after their welfare, Draupadi shed burning tears, relating to Him the humiliation she had been submitted to at the Kauravas’ court and how neither her husbands nor the elders present there stood up to avenge the wrong. Krishna wiped her tears and it was He who took, then, the vow to destroy the herd of the Kauravas and avenge the wrong she had suffered. And He did this without lifting a single weapon against them! Who but He can save His devotees in His unbounded mercy and love for them!
It is again Krishna that defends Bhima who had to use a so-called unfair means to kill Duryaodhana by splitting his thighs. Yudhishthira accused Bhima in the name of Dharma that a true warrior does not win by unfair means. Then the Lord Krishna points out how time and again Duryodhana had been most meanly unfair, why Yudhishthira himself was unfair in playing dice and in his attitude of letting the Kauravas humiliate Draupadi and preventing the other Pandavas from acting. Bhima had taken an oath to avenge the wrong done to Draupadi by killing Duryodhana. In avenging a wrong, the end justifies the means, He hinted. When God becomes fire, He burns; when He is ice, He freezes. He is war and peace, the worst and the best, for opposites become reconciled in universality.
Galore are such instances in the great epic, the Mahabharata; and all these incidents related now are detailed variously in the Sabha, Aranya, Bhishma, Drona, Karna, Salya Parvas.
And now, behold, the Srimad-Bhagavata Purana. Look at how the Lord rescued Ambarisha from Durvasa’s anger. You will find it narrated in this Purana as the Ambarisha-Upakhyana. Durvasa fancied an insult and a disregard in the matter of etiquette in entertaining an honoured guest who had been invited for ‘Bhiksha’ on a Dvadasi Day, by king Ambarisha. Durvasa dashed on the ground one of his ‘Jatas’ and thus created an ogre to eat up Ambarisha. Instantaneously, Sudarshana-Chakra, the Discus, came swishing like a ball of fire to destroy Durvasa. The supremely merciful Lord Narayana had sent it to save His great devotee and destroy the wrong-doer, even without being asked by the devotee himself. Durvasa ran for refuge to the three worlds and none could protect him from the Sudarshana. Finally he was advised to seek refuge at Ambarisha’s feet itself. He did, to his humiliation, and was saved.
The Bhagavata relates the thrilling anecdote of Krishna’s sports when He put Brahma in the proper place. Not a soul knew of this Lila. Brahma saw it after a whole year. He was humbled and realised that Krishna was no cowherd but the Supreme Being above whom none exists. Brahma hid all the calf-herders and all such things in a cave unknown to any one, telling himself that Gokula will come begging of him, the great creator. Lord Krishna quietly multiplied Himself as every calf-herder with exactly his dress, his ornaments and his mannerisms and the staff each carried which had identical bends, and crooks and the number of knots the staff had, and every one of the calves. In the evening the calf-herders and the calves (the substitutes) returned as usual to Gokula. A cow can spot its own calf amongst a thousand of them! Yet every cow accepted the substituted calf, with even greater love and affection. Every mother of the calf-herder was thrilled in a new and mysterious way at her (substituted) child, she loved him deeper, and she failed to realise that it was not of her flesh and blood. Brahma, rather mystified, came to the cave and found all he had shut in there! Yet Gokula was not the less even by a calf herd’s staff! Brahma released all, and, falling down at the Lord Krishna’s feet begged His pardon for the arrogance he had shown as the creator.
Such are His unfathomable and inimitable acts of love He has for His devotees, and for all that are His.
The point is that these miraculous occurrences, the subtle working of God, above the ken of the human mind, physically portrayed in the Epics and Puranas, bring out that God is conscious always of what our needs are, and He takes incarnations, not merely as a four-armed Krishna or a Rama or a Narasimha or some such person, but in all necessary forms and manifestations as the occasion may demand. He works the miracles that are needed, and if you truly come to know of it, every incident of our life is a miracle. Nothing can be regarded as natural, if the truth about it is investigated. That we are breathing is a miracle. That we are alive in this world is a miracle. That the cells of our body have joined together to form this personality is a miracle. That the earth does not go and dash itself against some other planet is a miracle. That the ocean does not exceed its limits is a miracle. That the stars do not fall on our heads is a miracle. That you are able to stand on your two legs is a miracle. That your heart does not stop working is a miracle. What is not a miracle in this world? What power has man over even the smallest occurrence in this world? Have you the power to lift even your finger, if all the nerves of your body are not to collaborate? Do you know what wondrous co-operation there is among the internal mechanisms of our body to make even a finger lift itself? If you have seen a huge mechanism, do you know how many parts collaborate to make a small part tick or move or touch? A very humble cog is moving somewhere, unknown, unseen perhaps, but you know what co-operation it receives from all the other parts of the machine. Do you know that all the muscles, all the nerves, all the cells have to collaborate even to enable the eyelid to go up and down, what to talk of breathing which is a more complicated process? Are you sure that the next early morning you will wake up? In what confidence is it that you can say, “tomorrow morning I shall do this”? Who keeps this heart beating? What is this miracle? Life is a miracle, indeed. It is not an equation of mathematics. It is not a formula of science. Life is a miracle, because God is a miracle, all that is connected with God is a miracle, and that is why the creation of God also is a wonder, A human being himself, being a part of this creation, is a miracle, and when man begins to know this miracle which is God and His creation, he becomes humble before this gigantic machinery of the cosmos. What is this puny, tiny human body before the relentless movement of the astronomical universe? What power has this tiny being? The purpose of the teachings of the Puranas and the Epics is to humble down man’s ego before the greatness of God. God’s wondrous powers are portrayed in the description of His Avataras, in the instantaneous actions that God takes, and the premonitions of man’s needs God has always in His omniscience.
It is difficult to go into the vast field of the teachings of the Itihasas and Puranas, but all of them in their beautiful and grand personification of God as Father, Friend and even Mother, speak in a single language of God’s love for man. As already mentioned, it is not man’s love for God that is so much emphasised as God’s love for man. Yes; it is the other way round. They say, rather than your running after God, when God starts running after you, then it is that your devotion is complete. You know Eknath Maharaj’s story, wherein we are told that Sri Krishna became a servant as Srikhandia and washed the saint’s clothes every day until He was discovered; and He vanished afterwards. He used to grind wheat for Sant Sakkubai. Such instances are countless as sung in the Epics and Puranas.
Sceptics may laugh at these stories, but what is scepticism but ignorance of the mystery of God. You will easily believe me if I tell you that God shall see to it that even a spoon of sugar is supplied for your tea, when it is needed. This is not a joke or an exaggeration. Even the smallest needs shall be looked to. Your cup of tea shall come to you at the proper hour, if God sees to it, and He does. It is not human effort that works in the end, God’s grace it as that works, so proclaim the Puranas, which is another way of saying that God alone works. Nobody else can work, because nobody else really is. The others are only secondary existences who exist only by sufference. The real existence is God’s. While the portrayal of God existing in Vaikuntha, Kailasa, Satya-Loka, etc., and many other descriptions of this nature, are available in the Puranas and the Epics, they tell us, too, that God can reduce Himself to the level of human relationship also, if need be, and it is futile to think that God is only supra-rational, transcendent and qualityless.
There are some philosophers who say that God is only Nirguna, abstract attributeless being. How can He become Saguna, endowed with attributes? How can He become man? How can He take an Avatara or incarnation? Why do you ask “how He can”, when you hold that He is omnipotent? To say that He is only Nirguna, that He is only this or that, is to bring about a limitation on God. You say that God is limitless in every respect. You have to look upon God only with awe and love. You should not try to describe Him through your logic. Some say: “There are no fourteen worlds. There are no hells and heavens. This is all a fiction of the brain.” Someone said that Ganga flows only through the nose – perhaps in the rainy season when we catch a cold! People have such stupid notions that the river Ganga is only the Sushumna nerve and Yamuna and Sarasvati are Ida and Pingala nerve-currents. There is no Ganga outside. This is extreme mysticism that misses its point. Mysticism is the truth of all things, but when it misses its aim and takes only one side of the issue, it goes wrong. As long as the external bread can satisfy your external hunger, the external Ganga also exists in which you can take an external bath. If the bread is purely mystical and you take only psychological bread and pulse every day, which is only flowing through the Sushumna, then of course, Ganga also does not exist outside, it is true. But there is an error in the application of logic many a time, though logic is good by itself. Mostly, we go to extremes in our application of the logical categories to principles of life. It is not that rationality is bad or logic is futile, but it should be properly applied by a properly trained mind. Then it is that we take both the sides of an issue into consideration. God is inside as well as outside, and you must speak only in the logic of the given realm in which you are, the state of evolution in which you find yourself. And in the dream condition, you must speak and use only the dream logic. So, to say that God is this or God is that, that God cannot take Avataras, or God cannot become a human being in his incarnations, would be to misapply the philosophical logic by a transcendent use of the categories, while the argument is from the lower level. There is a misapplication of the system of logic, when you speak from a lower level by applying the logic of the higher level. This should not be done. What is really meant is that there is no delineating of God’s powers and God’s glory.
This fact of God’s greatness, put in a humanised language and by a humanised application of fact, the Puranas and the Epics try to bring out in their beautiful, mellifluous style, and they speak to you in such a feasible and acceptable way that it goes into your heart. The method they apply by which the meaning enters into your heart is so effective that you think in terms of what they say, and there is no other way of thinking. This is how art works in a more effective manner that science and logic. The Puranas are artistic expressions of spiritual truth, and that is why they appeal to your heart more than philosophical treatises. The Harikatha Kalakshepa system (discourse by song and music) of which many of you may be familiar, is more interesting and appealing, more capable of bringing truths into your mind, than a scientific exposition of philosophy, because here there is intimacy established with your feelings rather than with your understanding. This is to say that the Puranas and Epics speak in the language of feeling and love, rather than in the rules of understanding and intellectuality. This is the speciality of the Itihasas and Puranas – God coming to man in feeling, in practice, in symbol, in art, in visualisation, in practical contact rather than merely a possibility of the future. God is today, not only tomorrow, and He is with us just now, capable of blessing us with His bounty.
The Puranas make out that there is nothing that God cannot give us, and God does not take time to act. He does not say: “Let me see tomorrow, come afterwards”. Such an excuse God will not trot out. God has no time factor, and He has not space factor. He does not take time to travel. He does not take time to act. And there is nothing that He cannot give us. He is the superabundance of all the blessedness that the human mind can think of. He is not merely what He can give to man, but He Himself is the embodiment of what He gives. Devotion is the way to God.
[Extracted from Swami Krishnananda Maharaj’s discourses Divine Life Society]
The Gospel of the Bhagavadgita
The Stages of the Integrated Life According to the Brahma Sutra
The Stages of the Integrated Life According to the Brahma Sutra by Swami Krishnananda
Created on Wednesday 17 July 2013 21:13
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We must know that things are not moving according to our prejudices, according to our religion, our custom, our cult and the cultural background into which we were born. All these have no connection with the truths of life. Usually, we do not want to know the truth as it is. We are men or women, we are from India or America, we are religious or not religious, socialists or Marxists, philosophers, businessmen, or merchants.
These things have no meaning if we look at things from the point of view of the whole world. We should transfer our mind to the total world, as if the world alone is thinking. We should not think like a person belonging to any place, but should think like the whole world thinking. The world has no men and women; it may not even know that we are existing as persons. The world has no difference of any kind within itself; the world is a big organism, like our body. It has no caste, no religion, no philosophy; it is just what it is. Can you live a life like that? Just be what it is.
I am saying all this because one aphorism in the Brahma Sutras is very intriguing, which no commentator has explained properly. This sutra is based on the following concluding passage in the Chandogya Upanishad: ‘One who has studied the Vedas from the teacher according to rule, in the time left over from doing service to the teacher, he, who after having come back, settles down in a home, continues the study in more detail, who concentrates all his senses in the Self, who practises non-hatred to all creatures, he who behaves thus throughout his life, reaches the world of the Creator.’
‘Kritsna-bhavat-tu grihinopasamharah’ (III.4.48), is the sutra used to explain the life of a householder. The meaning of the sutra is that the life of a householder is integral. Unfortunately, all the commentators on the Brahma Sutras are Sannyasins. No Sannyasin will accept that a householder is leading an integral life. They will say Sannyasa is higher. Here also there is some prejudice seen. We should never bring ideas of higher and lower in the scheme of things as they are. Sannyasins abhor the word ‘householder’, so how will they write a commentary on this sutra? They are handicapped in saying anything here. They cannot say that the life of a householder is wholesome; the general idea is that the life of a householder is one of attachment to family, property, and relations. Then what does this sutra mean? How is a householder integral? Neither can the Sannyasins accept that the householder is integral, nor can they say that the Brahma Sutra is saying something wrong, because everyone has high respect for the Brahma Sutra. It would be like Christians saying that the Bible is wrong, the New Testament is wrong, Christ’s teachings are wrong. One cannot say that, since these are holy words. You may disagree with them, but you cannot say they are wrong. So, what the commentators do is that they glide over this sutra. They write only two lines according to the Upanishads: The householder’s life is considered as integral. They won’t say anything more, and pass on. I read many commentaries to understand what this secret is. No commentary went into the depth of this sutra.
We have cultural prejudice, linguistic prejudice, ethnic prejudice, anthropological prejudice, man-woman prejudice, and we cannot get over these easily. In this condition we can never reach God; it is not possible. God is neither a man nor a woman. He is neither a Brahmin nor a Ksatriya; He is not an Englishman or a Frenchman or an Indian. In what capacity are we going to God? “Oh, I am Christian, my God, I have come.” “I am a Brahmin, my God, I am coming to attain salvation.” God us just I-AM-WHAT-I-AM.
In what capacity will anyone go to God? Any idea we have about ourselves is basically wrong; and it is not possible to free ourselves from this habit as long as we have a pre-oriented individuality born into a particular family, culture and morality. Morality also differs; it is not a universally unanimous thing working everywhere in the same way.
There is free life in America and Europe; everybody is free and a broadly unconditioned life is allowed there, barring what is illegal. In India, there are great restrictions. For eating there is one restriction, for washing one restriction, for moving one restriction, as for standing, sitting, looking, and reading. There is an ordinance for everything. The West has a free culture. Because of an instinct in every person to be free and not to be shackled by anybody else, everyone wants to follow the trend of Western culture. Even an orthodox Brahmin does not like his religion; he removes his hair and puts on a tie. People think that it is high culture. What is it that attracts a person like that? Freedom, indeterminism, a kind of non-restriction of behaviour. Who does not like freedom? These days the world is following Western culture everywhere. Whatever country it is, all have the same Western dress, the same tie, the same way of thinking. Why? There is something deep in us which is not in accordance with our adopted religions.
We were discussing earlier the nature of moksha. What is liberation? Where do we go when we reach the state of perfect freedom and immortality? All sorts of answers are given. Some say we can only be near God; others say we can be in the vicinity of God, or only in the kingdom of God, or just sit near God, or be God Himself. All these ideas arise because of our way of thinking. “As you think, so will you become.” The kind of freedom we expect will be the freedom we conjure up in our minds. As the kind of freedom we are expecting is conditioned by our empirical way of thinking, we cannot answer the question of what liberation is. If we have a logic which is pragmatic, empirical, and practical, we cannot go beyond it. Now, is God thinking in the same way? Has he a logic that is inferential or deductive? Does God argue? Does He require an argument to establish His existence?
Now I am coming to the point of the householder. All this that I have said is an introduction to this interesting subject. A householder is not to be considered as a man of attachment; he has to lead a purely integral life. He is a highly disciplined person. A married man is not necessarily a man of attachment. Attachment is prohibited everywhere. A person should marry for reasons of a different nature altogether. He cannot be attached to his wife, though he has a duty to her; he cannot be attached to his property, or even to his son and daughter, but he has an impersonal duty to perform. That there is such a thing as duty without attachment is normally hard to conceive. The word ‘householder’ has a special meaning in India. There are four gradational achievements or attainments conceived in ancient India for the development of the person. In the beginning it is conservation of energy, which is called Brahmacharya. The study of holy scriptures, service to Guru and maintaining self-control are the duties at this stage. Ancient Brahmacharins were great and powerful persons; if they uttered a word, it would immediately materialise. Brahmacharins are feared; one cannot irritate them or play jokes with them. They are a magazine of energy.
Brahmacharya is the initial stage consisting of conservation of energy. In ancient days, it was believed that a person would live for a hundred years. Therefore, the calculation is that for twenty-five years one must live like a Brahmachari, with energy arising out of self-control and the study of holy scriptures, and the service of Guru. After that one enters married life and he fulfils the duties of a householder. The duties of a householder are interesting to note. It is not attachment to family; that would be far away from the truth. In Indian culture, attachment is never allowed. Duty is emphasised as the very purpose of life. The fulfilment of the means of personal and social relationship is the duty of a householder. In the early days of a Brahmachari, he is concerned only with himself. However, it is not always possible to be living only by oneself, because there is society also. There are impulses of self-restraint and also impulses of social relation. There are impulses of acquiring wealth, there are impulses of seeing beauty, and there are impulses of being charitable to people. This is why the sutra says the householder’s life is integral. He is a highly respected person, not because he has a family but because he is engaged in doing his duty. Such a person is difficult to find these days. The principle is not at fault merely because it is not followed due to the insistence of the lower instincts. Nobody has time to think over this matter, because there is no one without prejudice and selfishness. The integral life is a life of non-attachment on one side and freedom from hatred on another side. That is why it is called integral. When the social relationships are well fed and taken care of, and the needs of the instinct of living a family life are also matured systematically, impartially, the householder retires from this duty of having relations with society, relations with anybody. Retirement means the freedom from the necessity to be involved in social relations. Social relations are very important; nobody can free oneself from this truth of life. But once one has passed through that stage and has graduated from that stage, then a tendency to super-individuality creeps in.
Up to this level, people were individuals. Brahmacharis are individuals of one kind, the householder is an individual of a different kind. Now, there is a concept of the super-individual who does not think in terms of personal self-restraint, study, Guru-seva, etc.; nor does he think of social relations, but dedicates himself to uniting his mind with universal relations. This is a higher stage above that of a householder. This stage has nothing to do with any kind of dress or gesture. One must be careful and impartial in thinking, be highly dispassionate and true to one’s conscience. There is a grandeur in universal relations. All that the Brahmachari did in his individual capacity, all that the householder did in his social capacity are all transcended in the super-mental operation in terms of universal relations. That is the Vanaprastha, a stage staggering to thought.
Then comes Sannyasa. A Sannyasin does not just mean a person who is wearing ochre cloth, which is again a social restriction, a social distinction. A person whose mind is centred in the Universal Absolute is more than a super-individual; he is a Cosmic Individual, known as a Jivanmukta. Sannyasins are respected as God Himself, not because they have a shaven head and have put on the cloth, but because their minds are centred in Absolute Being.
All this is the reason why the Brahma Sutra is saying that the householder’s life is integral. I was thinking I must touch this point; it is certainly better to be impartial and free from prejudice. Don’t be afraid of the restrictions set by religions and cultural distinctions and ethnic patterns. Science cannot be belittled merely because it makes bombs. Science is not a way of producing destructive weapons. It is rather a system of thinking and an operation in terms of the law of the universe.
Here is the commentary that one can find on this intriguing sutra, difficult to understand. Even an understanding of the Brahma Sutras will purify the mind. We are not what we are thinking ourselves to be. We belong to another kingdom of eternal values.
Truly understood, the ideal householder’s life is almost a miracle. He conserves energy like the Brahmachari in a more widened way. The self-restraint of the Brahmachari is personal and individual. The householder’s self-restraint is more difficult because he has to maintain self-restraint personally on the one hand and also be restrained in family relations and the wider human society by restrained behaviour of non-attachment, coupled simultaneously with duty towards everyone in every field of duty. He feeds the Brahmacharis and Sanyasins, very important to note, and feeds guests with love, even sacrificing his own meal when necessary. He takes care of nearby animals and would not hurt even ants in the house and lead them out peacefully. He worships God like the Sannyasin, reads the holy lore like the Brahmachari, and is detached from emotional contacts like the Vanaprastha. His life is a continuous sacrifice. Rightly, the Brahma Sutra mentions him specially as the one whose life is perfectly integrated.
The scheme detailed above is a scientific system which frees a person from psychopathic reactions and turbulence of emotion that may result from overdoing things and erroneously asking for double promotion in one’s spiritual search, which ends in anger, disgust, vengeance, vindictiveness, and hatred towards everything. The mentioned scheme avoids these pitfalls and healthily enables one to rise to the level of a veritable God walking on Earth.
The attempt to overstep the householder’s duties and seek the universal aspirations of a Sannyasin directly from the Brahmacharya stage is, indeed, a highly ambitious and laudable enterprise, but here is also a danger. The universal will reject the entry into itself of any element alien to its nature. It is difficult to believe that the individual sense of the Brahmachari can suddenly effloresce into the universal longings of the Sannyasin. People, mostly, suffer a shipwreck here and turn into arrogant and irate specimens due to conjuring up a false imagination of high achievements, while there are actually none. Great things require a great price in the form of determined meditations.
[Extracted from Swami Krishnananda Maharaj’s discourses Divine Life Society]
The Gospel of the Bhagavadgita
The Consecration of Eternal Values
The Consecration of Eternal Values by Swami Krishnananda
Created on Tuesday 16 July 2013 21:10
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The modern man in search of Truth has come across many a wonder of creation which he has been rejecting day by day upon what he calls his newer and newer discoveries. Centuries of human investigation on scientific and logical lines, which are the proud achievements of man’s herculean efforts and the results of the employment of his best powers of understanding and work, have created the present-day world. And what a world! The man of today himself is a great commentary on these strenuous efforts of science and philosophy, and, as we know the tree by the fruits it yields, the prevailing conditions of mankind are a standing attestation of the labours of centuries of past history.
Today we are in a world of the general complaint that no one is happy, because no one is doing the right. This, because no one has the right knowledge, and all the sweating that man has been subjecting himself to has been in the wrong direction. There has been a great advancement in the world of the senses, in the field of matter and force, in industry and in technological horizons. But why, with all this, is man restless and does not seem to have achieved anything, and appears to be at daggers drawn even with those whom he should consider as his nearest in kind? The reason is not far to seek. Man is enmeshed in a snare of illusions created by his own misdirected thoughts, illusions which he has mistaken for facts. It has all along been believed that the reality of life can be unearthed by probing into the sense-world. Yes; this has been done, and man today is finding himself in an impasse which is threatening him like the Frankenstein monster.
But there have been rare souls, whom we regard as the sages of ancient history, who were blessed with the vision with which to realise that a fact which has an eternal meaning in itself cannot be an object that can be handled by someone else as a tool or an instrument of observation and action. The minimum that one can expect of a fact in itself is that it is true to itself and does not hang on something else for assuming a meaning. It has to exist by itself in order that it may be permanent. When it is not permanent, it ceases to be a fact but only a tendency to something else which should be the fact. The world of objects in order to be a fact has therefore to be something by itself and not merely an object of man’s experiment and enjoyment. The test of reality is independence, and what is the world in itself when it is envisaged as a fact not dependent on man’s observation of it or assessment of it? This is difficult for man to conceive, because the moment it is conceived it becomes an object and gets charged with the processes of perception by the subject, and the object as it is in itself is never known. The fact as such eludes the grasp of the senses and understanding, because it refuses to stand outside of the subject and be judged through the instrumentality of the subject’s cognition and perception. We do not seem to be living in a world of reality.
The discovery of the ancient sages is usually regarded as the great revelation – the Scripture. In India, the Vedas have been held as the sacred lore of divine knowledge of supersensible realities. The Vedas are regarded as apaurusheya – with no human author. It is believed that the sages in their deep meditations and in communion with Reality had Its impress on their souls which they endeavoured to express in purified language, so that the knowledge is not their invention or creation but a true reflection, in their minds, of the eternal Fact of existence. It is thus the voice of God manifesting itself as Word. Another view is that the Word is eternal and it never perishes even at the time of the dissolution of the world, the process being that the Word is not merely the written letters but a force, a potency which is usually known as sphota. This is the energy behind the Word, just as we may say a permanent form of electrical energy is the stuff and substance behind the atoms and molecules of matter. The Word of the Veda is thus not a group of letters in Sanskrit language but a permanent energy-compound which lies in a seed form even at the time of the dissolution of the world and manifests itself again in the next cycle of creation. This is akin to the concept of Jivas or souls lying potential in Ishvara on the dissolution of the cosmos. Knowledge is eternal though it may be manifest in many a concept and spoken through different tongues.
The essential significance of the Vedas is that it reveals superphysical facts of life which are inaccessible to the mind of man. The Vedas, especially the Mantras_,_ are not merely indicative of the nature of truth by means of connotation and denotation but also suggestive by way of the vibration they produce when they are recited with their proper intonation (svara). The Mantras of the Vedas have a Rishi or a sage of realisation to whom they were revealed, whose thought-force is behind the Mantras. They have a Chandas or a metre in which they are composed – a way of juxtaposing words in a sentence by which they produce a kind of chemical reaction, as it were, when chanted with the proper modulation of voice, which charge the Mantras with a novel force. They have also a Devata or a deity to whom the Mantras are directed, the form of whose presence is implied in the shape of the vibrations which the Mantras produce when chanted. With these means the Vedas take the mind of the seeker of Truth from the objective material world gradually to the Universal Being hidden beneath the names and forms of sense-perception. Western orientalists have done yeoman’s service in discovering the historical, archaeological and sociological background of the Vedas and bringing out critical editions of the Vedas by way of arduous research for many years. But all these efforts have not made man better because this is something like describing a human being in his relation to his family, to the society, his country etc., without touching the essential aspect of what he is by himself when all these relations are cast away. The knowledge of the inner meaning of the Veda is more important than an assessment of its historical value or an appreciation of its philological structure. This inner meaning of the Veda is being lost today, slowly, due to the impact of mechanised forms of education in the fields of science and psychology, which has made man think that he knows much while he is empty within. The inner meaning of the Veda is not its language, its word or its verbal form. The inner meaning of the Veda is spiritual in a very broad sense of the term, in the sense that it is a way of living in contact with Reality in all its grades of manifestation – physical, social, psychological and universal – which comprise the objectives of life which are usually known as Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha. Recent researches in the ‘inner circle’ have revealed that the Vedas contain in themselves surprising knowledge of the science such as mathematics and many other mysteries whose knowledge is hidden within them – all methods which man can employ for his blessedness, both here and hereafter.
It is also held by many that the Vedas believe in many gods and uphold a kind of polytheism. This is definitely the outcome of a superficial view of their contents, for the manifold accostations to divinities one sees in the Veda-Mantras are but the many forms of the admiration of the human soul for the One Reality behind phenomena. Historians forget to take note of the famous Mantra in the very first Mandala of the Rig-Veda which proclaims the One Being that the sages call by various names (ekam, sat viprah bahudha vadanti). It is the great glory of the Vedas that they take a twofold view, of the cosmic (Saprapancha) and the acosmic (Nishprapancha) view of Reality. The cosmic view accepts the multiformed universe as a veritable vision of the many faces of the One Supreme Being (Sahasrasirsha purushah) as the Purusha-Sukta declares. The many gods are thus the one form of the one Purusha. The acosmic view is to be seen mainly in some of the Upanishads which form the concluding portion of the Vedas wherein the glory of the majestic Absolute is sung in ecstatic terms. The four sections of the Vedas-Samhita, Brahmana, Aranyaka and Upanishad represent a composite whole of an integrated view of life (Veda-Darshana). The Vedas are not merely an incomparable source of the divine knowledge of God and Creation but also a standard text of human morals and an exhortation to goodness in conduct and mutual cooperation in life, with which stirring note the Rig-Veda concludes (sam gacchadhvam sam vadadhvam sam vo manaamasi, jaanataam).
[Extracted from Swami Krishnananda Maharaj’s discourses Divine Life Society]
The Gospel of the Bhagavadgita
Samvarga Vidya
Samvarga Vidya by Swami Krishnananda
Created on Monday 15 July 2013 20:56
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| om āpyāyantu mamāṅgāni vākprāṇaśckśuḥ śrotramatho balamindriyāṇi ca sarvāṇi | sarvaṁ brahmaupaniṣadaṁ māhaṁ brahma nirākuryāṁ mā mā brahma nirākarodanikāraṇamastvanikāraṇaṁ me’stu | tadātmani nirate ya upaniṣatsu dharmāste mayi santu te mayi santu |
| om śāntiḥ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ |
Samvarga Vidya is the vidya that was taught by the sage Raikva and is contained in Chapter Four, Sections 1 to 3 of the Upanishad. It is the nature of the subject that is indicated by the word samvarga, which is actually the process of absorption. The knowledge of the all-absorbing one is the actual meaning of Samvarga Vidya.We are introduced into that which is all-absorbing. What is that? How is it taught? Let us see. The story is like this:
Section 1
| jānaśrutir ha pautrāyaṇaḥ śraddhādeyo bahudāyī bahupākya āsa, sa ha sarvata āvasathān māpayāṁ cakre, sarvata eva me’tsyantīti | 4.1.1 |
There was a king called Janasruti who was supposed to be the great-grandson of the emperor perhaps called Janasruta. This Janasruti was a reputed ruler who was well known for his immense charity. He was a great giver and had immense faith in the act of giving. And he used to give in plenty. He was very happy that he was in a position to give much in charity. What is more, he gave with great respect. His kitchen was always active. He used to have a lot of food cooked in his kitchen so that he might give it free to people. Such a king was he. He had built several rest houses everywhere. He must have been a very good man to do so much charity. He maintained not only rest houses, but also choultries, inns, etc., built everywhere with the feeling that people would come and stay there and eat food in his name. “They will eat my food,” he used to say with great exaltation. Such a great king was, according to this Upanishad, not merely famous in the social or political sense, but also was an advanced soul inwardly. He was a highly religious person and spiritually well trained due to the purity of his mind, the goodness of his heart, and the great charities that he was doing. Thus, he was an exceptionally great person outwardly as well as inwardly.
| atha ha haṁsā niśāyām atipetuḥ, tadd haivaṁ haṁso haṁsam abhyuvāda: ho ho’yi bhallākśa, bhallākśa, jānaśruteḥ pautrāyaṇasya samaṁ divā jyotir ātataṁ tan mā prasāṅkśīs tat tvā mā pradhākśīd iti | 4.1.2 |
The story tells us that perhaps on a hot summer night the king was sleeping on the terrace of his palace. He was lying on his couch and some swans were flying across the sky. One of the birds which was behind called to the one that was flying in front, “Oh, stupid one! Do not be careless.” It used the word bhallaksa. They say bhallākśameans wide open-eyed, well-seeing. It is an ironical way of saying that you do not see things properly. “You have got big eyes, you can see well, but you are not seeing that some danger is ahead of you. Do not rush like this. There is the great king Janasruti just below you. His effulgence is rising to the skies and his glory is reaching up to the heavens, as it were. Do not cross this effulgence lest you should be burnt by this glory of his. He is such a great man and you are crossing him. Do not go carelessly with your eyes closed.” This was what the bird behind told the one that was flying in front.
| tam u ha paraḥ praty uvāca kam vara enam etat santaṁ sayugvānam iva raikvam āttheti. ko nu kathaṁ sayugvā raikva iti | 4.1.3 |
But, that other one which was told like this retorted back: “You are referring to some Janasruti whose effulgence is rising up, which I should not cross! Who is this Janasruti? What sort of man is this that you are speaking of, as if he is as great as Raikva with the cart? You speak as if this man is so great that his effulgence is going to the sky and I shall be burnt by the greatness and glory of this man. Who is this gentleman? What is he in comparison with that Raikva with the cart?”
This was the conversation that went on between the two birds that were flying above. The king heard how he was referred to by the two birds, the one praising him and the other saying that he did not deserve the praise because there was someone who was greater than him.
| yathā kṛtāya vijitāyādhareyāḥ saṁyanti, evam enaṁ sarvaṁ tad abhisameti, yat kiñ ca prajāḥ sādhu kurvanti, yas tad veda yat sa veda, sa mayaitad ukta iti | 4.1.4 |
In the play of dice, there are numbers marked on each face of the dice, number 1 in one face, number 2 in another, number 3 in the third, and number 4 in the fourth one. Now in this play of dice whoever casts the highest throw is called krita. He wins all the other ones. Four includes three, two and one. So he who has won the fourth throw has automatically won the other three also. He need not go on winning the other three one by one. The other three are automatically included in the fourth one which he has won.
In a similar manner, all the virtues that people do anywhere in this world are included in the virtue of this great person called Raikva. His virtue is like an ocean which swallows up all the dribbles, rivulets and rivers of the little virtues that other people do anywhere. So one can imagine what sort of person he must be. His goodness, greatness, virtue, righteousness is like an ocean which swallows all the other virtues of anybody, anywhere in this world.
We have got four ages called krita, treta, dvapara and kali. According to the traditional calculation of the calendar, kali-yuga – this present age in which we are living, sometimes called the iron age – is supposed to extend for 432,000 years. That is the duration of kali-yuga. Twice the duration of kali-yuga is the duration of dvapara-yuga. Thrice the duration is treta-yuga, and four times the duration is krita-yuga, which is the longest in duration. Its extent is such that it includes all the other yugas in it. So, in comparison with these four ages krita, treta, dvapara and kali, the dice numbers in the dice play also are called by the names krita, treta, dvapara, and kali. This is only by way of example.
The point that is made out here is that Raikva was a very great person and Janasruti, the king, was nowhere before him. He was nobody compared to that great man. This was a pointed insult to the king no doubt, who was hearing it. He was all along feeling very happy and legitimately proud that he was doing his best in giving charity and leading a good life. But he was encountered with this very unpleasant conversation that went on in the sky between the birds. So he passed a restless night thinking over this matter as to what sort of person Raikva would be, where he was, and whether he could see him. “What is the use of my charity, what is the use of my virtues, if all this that I do is nothing in comparison with others who are still greater than me?” – thus Janasruti was thinking in his mind.
| tad u ha jānaśrutiḥ pautrāyaṇa upaśuśrāva, sa ha saṁjihāna eva kśattāram uvāca, aṅgāre ha sa-yugvānam iva raikvam āttheti, ko nu kathaṁ sa-yugvā raikva iti | 4.1.5 |
| yathā kṛtāya vijitāyādhareyāḥ saṁyanti, evam enaṁ sarvaṁ tad abhisamaiti, yat kiñ ca prajāḥ sādhu kurvanti, yas tad veda yat sa veda, sa mayaitad ukta iti | 4.1.6 |
Kings wake up in the morning hearing the sounds of beautiful music and bards singing their glory. Janasruti when he woke up in the morning heard his glories being sung in his palace. On this particular morning he was not pleased. He was grieved, very unhappy, indeed. “What is the use of this praise?” thought he. He called his attendant, Kśattā_,_ and asked, “Do you praise me in the same way as one praises Raikva with the cart?” The idea was that the attendant should go and find out where that man was, and tell him that the king wanted him. That attendant asked, “Master, who is this Raikva? You ask me to go and search for him?” In a mood of irritation, as it were, the king simply repeated the very words he heard from the bird. “Just as the fourth cast in the dice includes every other cast, all the virtues of people are included in the virtues of this person. Whatever anybody knows, he also knows and what he knows, that only others also know. This is the greatness of Raikva. There is nothing which he does not know, and no one can know what he does not know. Such a person you find out.” Well, very astounding indeed! The kśattā_,_ the attendant, went in search of Raikva in all the cities and in all important places.
| sa ha kśattānviṣya, nāvidam iti pratyeyāya, taṁ hovāca yatrāre brāhmaṇasyānveṣaṇā tad enam arccheti | 4.1.7 |
He could not find a man of that kind anywhere. Raikva with a cart could not be discovered. So he came back to the king and said, “I cannot find him.” The king said: “You search for such great people in cities and marketplaces? You should go to such places where great men live. Such men as Raikva will not live in cities. Go to solitary places, temples, river banks and such other sacred spots – isolated, sequestered regions. There alone such great people stay. Where knowers of Brahman would live, you know very well. Go there and search.”
| so’ahastāc chakaṭasya pāmānaṁ kaṣamāṇam upopaviveśa, taṁ hābhyuvāda, tvaṁ nu bhagavaḥ sa-yugvā raikva iti; ahaṁ hy are; iti ha pratijajñe; sa ha kśattā, avidam iti pratyeyāya | 4.1.8 |
So this attendant went and after much searching found, in some corner of some village, one poor man sitting under a cart, scratching himself as if he had no other work to do, with no one around him, looking very strange indeed. Such a grotesque-looking person this attendant saw. He suspected this must be Raikva, as he was sitting near a cart. It was difficult to make out the connection between him and the cart. Might be that was his only property. There are some people who move about with carts. They have no other property except a cart. Or, it might be by chance that he was sitting near a cart, but there must be some connection between him and the cart. Otherwise he would not be referred to as ‘Raikva with the cart’. So naturally the attendant concluded that it belonged to him, and he was the person whom he was searching for.
Humbly and reverentially this attendant sat near the gentleman and asked him, “Are you Raikva with the cart?” “Yes fellow, I am that,” he said in a very callous and careless manner.
So the attendant came back and told the king, “I have found him. He is in a corner of that village.” The attendant might have told the name of that particular village.
Section 2
| tad u ha jānaśrutiḥ pautrāyaṇaḥ ṣaṭ-śatāni gavāṁ niṣkam aśvatarī-rathaṁ tad ādāya praticakrame, taṁ hābhyuvāda | 4.2.1 |
| raikvemāni ṣaṭ śatāni gavām, ayaṁ niṣko’yam aśvatarīrathaḥ, anu ma etāṁ bhagavo devatāṁ śādhi, yāṁ devatām upāssa iti | 4.2.2 |
The king was very happy. He collected a lot of wealth and reverentially went to this great man sitting under a cart, scratching the eruptions on his skin. He took with him six hundred cows, a gold necklace, and a chariot driven by mules. He addressed Raikva: “O Great One, here are six hundred cows, here is a gold necklace, here is a chariot driven with mules. Please accept these things and initiate me into the meditation on the deity whose worship you are performing, and on whom you are meditating. I want to be initiated into the great vidya which you possess, knowledge of that deity whom you have known.” The great man was not pleased. He did not accept those gifts, nor was he prepared to give any initiation.
| tam u ha paraḥ pratyuvāca, ahahāre tvā, śūdra, tavaiva saha gobhir astv iti; tad u ha punar eva jānaśrutiḥ pautrāyaṇaḥ sahasraṁ gavāṁ niṣkam aśvatarī-rathaṁ duhitaraṁ tad ādāya praticakrame | 4.2.3 |
“O sudra, take back all these things, useless man,” he said, as if he was not at all interested in them. “Get away from here. Take your cows, your chariot and gold necklace. Do not talk to me.” This was what he said.
The word ‘sudra’ mentioned here has been a target of great discussion in the Brahmasutras as to whether sudras can be initiated into Brahma Vidya. This is one of the points discussed in the sutras of Badarayana and much has been made of it by commentators. Sudra means a low caste belonging to the fourth category of the social order. Can such a person be initiated into Brahma Vidya? Here is a context where the word sudra occurs, and afterwards the person is initiated also. Well, the argument is very long and prolonged and it is not of much use to us to go into the intricacies. But the interpreters make out that sudra does not mean a low-caste man, in this context. One who is sunk in grief is called a sudra. This is the etymological meaning drawn out from the word sudra. He was in great grief because he found that there was a person greater than him and his knowledge was very little compared to the knowledge of the other one. So he was sorrow-stricken and he rushed immediately in the direction in which he could get this knowledge. He was a king and a kshatriya.How could you call him a sudra? So sudra here does not mean a low caste man of the fourth order, but is only a symbolic, metaphorical way of referring to that person, indicating that he came in sorrow, in search of knowledge. This point is irrelevant to our subject, but anyway I made mention of it because it has been discussed in great detail in the Brahmasutras.
The king was grief-stricken. He went again with a larger quantity of wealth. This time he came with new things. He came with one thousand cows instead of the previous six hundred, the gold necklace, the chariot driven with mules, and he brought his daughter also to be offered to Raikva.
There is something between the lines which the Upanishad is silent about. There is a sudden shift of emphasis to the main question, from the descriptions of the king coming to the great man with all these offerings. Raikva felt that there was some sincerity in the king and that he had done something which ordinarily a person would not do. He was trying to offer his daughter to him. No ordinary man would do that. So there must be some tremendous sincerity in this person. He had come here a second time. If he was not sincere, he would have got fed up and gone back. He was not like the rich man who went to Jesus Christ and who was asked to sell everything he had and come back, but never did come back, because he did not want to sell everything. Janasruti was a person who was very particular about the knowledge which he wanted to gain. So he made a proposal to offer that which ordinarily one would not offer. This was an occasion for Raikva to recognise the sincerity of this person.
| taṁ hābhyuvāda, raikvedaṁ sahasraṁ gavām, ayaṁ niṣko’yam aśvatarī-rathaḥ iyaṁ jāyāyaṁ grāmo yasminn āsse: anv eva mā, bhagavaḥ śādhīti | 4.2.4 |
“I have brought all these things. Will you kindly initiate me into the great deity on whom you are meditating, due to which you are so great that your glory is spreading to all the corners of the world? Will you kindly give this knowledge to me?” This was the prayer of the king.
There was another greater man than this king Janasruti and that was Janaka, who offered even himself as a servant to the great sage Yajnavalkya who initiated him into Brahma Vidya. He offered the whole kingdom to the sage and he said, “Here I am as your slave.” Such were our great kings in this country, who valued the wisdom of Reality much more than temporal wealth, renown, and greatness in this world. To that category belonged Janasruti also.
| tasyā ha mukham upodgṛhṇann uvācā: ahahāremāḥ śūdra anenaiva mukhenālāpayiṣyathā iti; te haite raikva-parṇā nāma mahāvṛṣeṣu yatrāsmā uvāsa sa tasmai hovāca | 4.2.5 |
“With all this that you have brought before me as the means, you want me to speak! Well, I shall speak, recognising your honesty and sincerity of purpose,” said Raikva. The king was highly pleased at this condescending attitude of the great master and he gave him a set of villages in charity. The king said: “O great one, this village, in which you are seated here, is yours. I give it as a gift.”
It appears he gave several villages. Those villages are called Raikva-parna, after the name of this great man, Raikva, in the country of Mahavrisha. So Raikva became rich in one moment with land, gold, attendants, and whatnot. The king also became richer by becoming the disciple of the great Raikva. Now the initiation was given by Raikva, the great master to the disciple, King Janasruti, into the mystery of meditation on the all-absorbing Being. Because of the character of all-absorption, this great Being on which Raikva was meditating is called Samvarga. It is a peculiar Upanishadic term which implies the absorbent into which everything enters, that which sucks everything into itself. That is Samvarga. There is a great ‘wind’ that blows everything into itself. Into that Raikva initiated the king. This is not the ordinary wind that blows here. It is not an ill wind that does good to no one, but it is a tremendous ‘wind’, a symbolic term used in respect of the great Reality on which Raikva was meditating. His meditation was on that which withdraws everything into itself, which blows over everything, and absorbs everything into itself. Raikva then spoke of this great knowledge to Janasruti.
Section 3
| vāyur vāva saṁvargaḥ, yadā vā agnir udvāyati, vāyum evāpyeti, yadā sūryo’stam eti vāyum evāpyeti, yadā candro’stam eti vāyum evāpyeti | 4.3.1 |
Raikva said: “There is this great cosmic air or wind which is an absorbent of everything. Everything is absorbed into it, everything rises from it, everything is maintained in it, and everything goes back into it. When the fire subsides, it goes into it. It is absorbed into this great wind that absorbs everything into itself. It is on this vayu, the great deity, that I am meditating.”
When you blow a lamp, where does the flame go? No one knows where it goes. That it is not the ordinary wind which is spoken of here, is clear from the fact that Raikva refers to it as an absorbent of even the sun himself. The sun cannot be absorbed by the ordinary wind. He says even the sun is absorbed when he moves in any particular direction, or sets. His rising in one place is equal to setting in another place. So the point is: what is it that makes the universe rotate or revolve in this manner? It is here referred to as cosmic ‘wind’ that blows in particular directions, compelling the planets, the stars and the sun to direct their courses in a given manner. Due to the fear of this Being, they are moving in a symmetrical fashion. The planets move around the sun, the sun is rushing towards the Milky Way, and so on and so forth. This is what we hear even in our modern scientific parlance. The fire burns due to fear of It and the rain falls due to fear of It. The sun also shines due to fear of this all-absorbent Air. Death performs its duty due to fear of It. This is the controlling central government, as it were, which is the object of meditation. The sun sets into It. If the sun and the moon rise and set and move in their orbits and maintain their position in a perfect manner, it is all due to this great Being, the absorbent of everything which, by its very existence, controls the movements of all things.
| yadāpa ucchuṣyanti, vāyum evāpiyanti, vāyur hy evaitān sarvān saṁvṛṅkte, ity adhidaivatam | 4.3.2 |
When the water dries up, it goes there. It is this Being which absorbs the water into itself and makes water vanish into nothing, as it were. From the objective universal side, this is how the great deity, the cosmic air which blows everything into itself, is described.
Now from the internal microcosmic side also, it is being described.
| athādhyātmaṁ: prāṇo vāva saṁvargaḥ, sa yadā svapiti prāṇam eva vāg apyeti, prāṇaṁ cakśuḥ, prāṇaṁ śrotraṁ, prāṇam manaḥ, prāṇo hy evaitān sarvān saṁvṛṅkta iti | 4.3.3 |
Just as in the universal it is called air which absorbs everything into itself and dries up every effect into itself as the cause, so in the individual also it works in a similar manner, and it is called prana. When you go to sleep the mind is withdrawn by the action of the prana. The prana draws the mind into itself. The speech and the senses are all drawn into it. Every organ, whether it is eye, or ear, or any other which operates in the waking condition, is also withdrawn. All these are regulated by this Supreme Principle which works as prana inside. It controls everything and draws everything into itself. So it works outside and also inside. It is the brahmandand the pindanda. It is the macrocosm and also the microcosm.
| tau vā etau dvau saṁvargau, vāyur eva deveṣu, prāṇaḥ prāṇeṣu | 4.3.4 |
These are the two great absorbents in the whole cosmos. Inwardly it is the prana that works as the absorbent of all effects into itself, and outwardly it is air, the cosmic prana, the sutratman, hiranyagarbha which absorbs everything into itself. These two have to be brought together in conjunction in this meditation, as is the case with the Sandilya Vidya to which we have made reference earlier. The inward and outward have to come together in meditation and be envisaged as one single Reality. Among the gods it is vayu and among the senses and the internal functionaries it is the prana. This is the initiation.
The initiation is now over and Janasruti must have understood the import of it, as we are told nothing further as to what happened to him later on.
In ancient times, initiations into mysteries of this kind were not regarded as mere teachings in the ordinary sense. One would be surprised in modern times at the very easy way in which the Supreme Knowledge was communicated to people by the great masters through such simple instructions as this. Even if we hear these things one thousand times, we are not going to be benefited by it. The point is, how it is taught, who teaches, and to whom it is taught. What is taught of course we know very well. But the other factors should not be ignored. The receptive capacity of the disciple, the intellectual calibre that is behind it, the need felt for this knowledge by the individual concerned, and the circumstances which govern the entire process of initiation are more important factors than a mere parrot-like repetition of the words. Initiation is not mere utterance of words. It is a communication of an energy, a force. It is the will of the Guru, as it were, entering into the will of the disciple, where both have to be on the same level. Otherwise, there cannot be initiation. This is a short initiation, the meaning of which cannot be clear outwardly by mere reading the words thereof. But, it is a fund of wisdom taking the mind deep into the mysteries of creation and the Reality as such, into which the great Raikva, the so-called poor man, initiated the great King Janasruti Pautrayana, about which another story is mentioned here which we shall now take up.
There was a brahmacharin who was a great meditator on the Samvarga, a practicant who worshipped this great deity, into the knowledge of which Raikva initiated King Janasruti. This brahmacharin, who was a disciplined student of this vidya, a great meditator and a seeker who felt that he had practically identified with the deity on account of the depth of his meditation, one day went about begging for food. He happened to go to the abode of two renowned persons. At the time of his approach, they were just being served their meal. So he asked for food from those two persons who were sitting for their meal, but they turned a deaf ear to this man’s asking. No food was given. They kept quiet as if nothing was happening. This is an anecdote once again introducing us into another aspect of the same Samvarga Vidya.
| atha ha śaunakaṁ ca kāpeyam abhipratāriṇaṁ ca kākśaseniṁ pariviṣyamāṇau brahmacārī bibhikśe, tasmā u ha na dadatuḥ | 4.3.5 |
The Upanishad says that two great men, Saunaka and Abhipratarin, were about to sit for their meal, and a celibate student who was practising meditation in the Samvarga Vidyaapproached them and begged for food. They would not give food to this person who asked for alms. Now, observing that he was not being given food and these great men were about to ignore his very presence altogether, the brahmacharin made the following statement in their presence.
| sa hovāca: mahātmanaś caturo deva ekaḥ kaḥ sa jagāra bhuvanasya gopāḥ. taṁ, kāpeya, nābhipaśyanti martyāḥ abhipratārin bahudhā vasantaṁ. yasmai vā etad annam, tasmā etanna dattam iti | 4.3.6 |
The brahmacharin said: “You, gentlemen, great ones, who are about to take your lunch here, Saunaka and Abhipratarin, please listen to what I am saying. There is one great god who swallows up four others. Who is this god? He is the protector of all the worlds. No one beholds the presence of this great god. O Saunaka and Abhipratarin, you two great ones do not realise that all the food of this world belongs to this god, and it is to this god that you have refused food.”
This is literally what the brahmacharin said. Here, something else seems to be in his mind when he made the statement. He was a great meditator, no doubt, and a meditator in an advanced stage. He was practically identical with the deity on which he meditated. He had in him the power of the deity, and to a large extent, he could do whatever the deity can do. Now this deity is the Universal Being, the great Samvarga. And when the worshipper who had through meditation identified himself with the deity asked for food, it was as if God himself was asking for food. It is as if the deity was asking for alms.
“The entire food of all creation belongs to that Deity only, and when It is asking for the food which belongs to It by right, you great men do not give it! So you understand the consequences of your action. You have done a great offence in ignoring my presence. You did not at all listen to what I am saying. You have not given me the food I asked for and you are keeping quiet as if nothing is happening. Now be prepared for the consequences of this ignorance on your part in regard to this great Deity,” said the brahmacharin.
By this the brahmacharin meant that he himself was the deity manifest there in an embodied form. So it was a kind of threat he administered to the two persons who were about to take food by themselves without giving it to him who had asked for the same. Well, the consequences were serious, no doubt, if what he said was correct. They would be finished if the deity was wrath with them. This was, of course, the intention behind the enigmatic remark made in a threatening way by the brahmacharin who was refused food. After the brahmacharin spoke like this, Saunaka, one of the two who were seated there, got up.
| tad u ha śaunakaḥ kāpeyaḥ pratimanvānaḥ pratyeyāya ātmā devānāṁ janitā prajānām, hiraṇya-daṁṣṭro babhaso’nasūriḥ: mahāntam asya mahimānam āhuḥ, anadyamāno yad anannam atti iti vai vayaṁ brahmacārin, idam upāsmahe, dattāsmai bhikśām iti | 4.3.7 |
Saunaka approached the brahmacharin and replied: “You are saying that food has been refused to the great deity, the all-pervading one. Listen to what I have to say on this. You are speaking like this because you are under the impression that you are a meditator on the Samvarga and that we know nothing about it. You made a remark that we are ignorant of the presence of this great god to whom all the food belongs. Then what is it that we are meditating on? I will tell you. There is a great Soul, the Self of all beings, the source and essence of all the gods, the creator, the progenitor of all things. He is the one who eats through the mouth of knowledge itself. It is not an ordinary mouth with physical teeth and physical tongue. He has teeth which are shining with the lustre of knowledge. It is the essence of knowledge which is the essence of His being and He swallows all things. He is a great devourer. There is nothing in creation which He cannot devour. Everything is food for him and He consumes it through his own being, not through any external instrument. He is the wisest of all existences. His glory is great indeed. He cannot be eaten or swallowed by anybody, or not even affected in the least by anyone, or contacted and contaminated by any other in any manner whatsoever. But to Him everything is food. He eats non-food also, not only the ordinary food. The eaters themselves are eaten up by Him. This is what we are meditating upon.” Having made this remark he told his servants, “Please give this boy food.”
This conversation conceals something very interesting. Its meaning is very hard to comprehend. We can however follow the interpreters and the commentators and make out, to some extent, the sense implied in this conversation. The implication of this discourse between the two parties seems to be that from the point of view of the brahmacharin it was wrong on the part of the other two persons to ignore his presence altogether and pay no heed to his request for food, especially as it was well-known that he was no ordinary person, having attuned himself to the cosmic deity. That was his point of view. The point of view of the others who retorted in reply seems to be that they were not so ignorant as he imagined them to be. But, what is the point in refusing food to him? There must be some reason behind it. There is a meaning which we have to read into the words of the scripture to understand the reason. What we are told is that they merely wanted to test the brahmacharin to find out his depth of knowledge and the stuff out of which he was made. So they gave a reply which suggested that they possessed a knowledge, perhaps comparatively superior to his own knowledge.
In what way was it superior? This superiority is only suggestive and it is not openly stated. Samvarga is cosmic as well as individual, as it has been told in the earlier mantras. As the cosmic counterpart it is vayu, and as it functions in the individual it is prana. Now,the four great ones who were swallowed up by the god, as the brahmacharin pointed out, are the other lesser deities – the fire, the sun, the moon and the water who are all comprehended in the being of vayu, hiranyagarbha, the Supreme Reality. In the individual aspect also He is devourer of four things that are inferior to the prana, namely eye, ear, mind and speech. It is possible for such a meditator to have a mistaken notion that the cosmic is different in some way or other from the individual, or at least that there is a line of demarcation between the universal and the particular. In spite of the fact that the two are one, there seems to be a suggested difference between the outer and the inner, vayu and prana. But in the meditation that Saunaka and his friend practised, this difference seems to be obliterated completely, because they seem to be contemplating on that Being who has not this suggested difference between the outer and the inner, the cosmic and the individual, but is one single Reality. This can be the implication of the reply given by Saunaka to the brahmacharin.
“Well, anyway we have tested you. You are a good boy; take food.” This seems to be the final conclusion of Saunaka who told the servant to give him food. Or, it may be that there is no such implied meaning. Their intention might not be to suggest that there is some defect in the meditation of the brahmacharin. Perhaps it was merely a kind of examination that they conducted in respect of him. Whatever it is, the whole section is a glorification of Samvarga Vidya and also a phalasruti, making out that the exalted effect of this meditation is identity with the deity. One becomes possessed of the same power as is possessed by the deity. He becomes self-confident, and whatever is subject to the domain of the deity is subject to the rule and will of this meditator also. He becomes a superior person in every manner as the deity itself is. This is in the form of a sequel, a glorifying conclusion of the section dealing with Samvarga Vidya In this Upanishad.
| tasma u ha daduḥ; te vā ete pañcānye pañcānye daśa santas tat kṛtaṁ, tasmāt sarvāsu dikṣv annam eva daśa kṛtaṁ, saiṣā virāḍ annādī, tayedaṁ sarvaṁ dṛṣṭaṁ, sarvam asyedaṁ dṛṣṭaṁ bhavati, annādo bhavati ya evaṁ veda, ya evaṁ veda | 4.3.8 |
So they gave him food. Now follows a very complicated passage. It is peculiarly archaic, as many of the mantras in the Vedas and the Upanishads are. I give you merely the literal translation of what it is. This five and the other five make ten. This is the enigmatic meaning of this sentence. This is called the krita. Therefore, food comes from all the ten directions. The virātis the eater of everything. Whatever it sees, it eats. The food itself is the eater of food. This is the effect that follows in respect of anyone who knows this secret.
Now, what do we make out of this? We cannot make out any sense if we read it literally like that. But it has a significant mystical meaning. The five are the eater and five are the eaten. The eater is vayu cosmically, the absorber, the supreme deity into which everything enters. The other four are the articles of diet for this supreme deity. According to some it is fire, sun, moon and water. If we do not want it to be so complicated, we may say that they are the four elements – ether, fire, water and earth which are absorbed into this Supreme Absorber. Inwardly the prana is the eater, and the food is the sense-organs, speech, eye, ear and mind. So the four items which are regarded as food or which are the eaten, together with the eater, constitute the five. The five in the macrocosm and the five in the microcosm make ten. And this is the krita.
Here, krita is another difficult word. As we said earlier, it is the name of a cast of dice in a game. There are numbers inscribed on this cast and they are four, three, two and one. Now if you add up these numbers, four, three, two and one, they make ten. So it is said that even as all the numbers together on the dice make number ten, likewise, outwardly and inwardly, this deity together with the stuff that is eaten by it constitutes ten.
Another very interesting word that is mentioned here is virat. In the Veda, virāt is a metre which has ten letters. So there is a comparison introduced here between the metre virat having ten letters, and the number ten which has association with the deity as the eater of food and the eaten, and also the total number in the krita, the dice cast which is ten. Or, in a more general way, it means virat, the cosmic Person, is the All-Being, the most comprehensive Reality to which everything is food. In the virāt you cannot say which is the eater and which is the eaten. There is no object-subject difference in the virat. Food flows from all directions to the virat and in the form of the virat. The virat is the name that we give to the all-comprehensive Reality where subject-object distinction cannot be made, as it is no more. The seer and the seen are indistinguishable. There is no difference between the eater and the eaten. The eaten itself is the eater, and the eater is the eaten. We can look at it either way. Whatever perceives is the stuff that is eaten, and whatever is eaten is also that which perceives. One who knows this mystery also becomes like this. What is this mystery will be clear to anyone who has read and understood these passages.
Here we conclude the Samvarga Vidya with which we also conclude our study of the ChhandogyaUpanishad. We have covered practically every essential point in the prominent sections of the Chhandogya Upanishad.
[Extracted from Swami Krishnananda Maharaj’s discourses Divine Life Society]
The Gospel of the Bhagavadgita
Sandilya Vidya
Sandilya Vidya by Swami Krishnananda
Created on Sunday 14 July 2013 20:35
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| om āpyāyantu mamāṅgāni vākprāṇaśckśuḥ śrotramatho balamindriyāṇi ca sarvāṇi | sarvaṁ brahmaupaniṣadaṁ māhaṁ brahma nirākuryāṁ mā mā brahma nirākarodanikāraṇamastvanikāraṇaṁ me’stu | tadātmani nirate ya upaniṣatsu dharmāste mayi santu te mayi santu |
| om śāntiḥ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ |
Sandilya, the great Rishi, had this revelation of the Supreme Being. Vidya is a meditation, an art of thinking on the Supreme goal. This meditation begins with the proclamation of the all-comprehensiveness of Brahman: “Sarvam khalvidam brahma – All this is verily Brahman.” This vidya is contained in Section 14 of Chapter Three of the Upanishad.
| sarvaṁ khalvidaṁ brahma tajjalāniti śānta upāsīta | atha khalu kratumayaḥ puruṣo yathākraturasmipuruṣo bhavati tathetaḥ pretya bhavati sa kratuṁ kurvīta | 3.14.1 |
This is a very famous passage in the Upanishad. This is how we have to meditate, calmly, quietly and peacefully. We have to meditate that everything comes from That, everything is sustained in That, and everything returns to That. That which is the origination, the sustenance and the dissolution of all things is this Brahman. Inasmuch as it is the cause of all things, naturally, every effect in the form of this creation is contained there. We too are effects of creation. So, we too are contained in it. There is a great justification in the assertion that everything is the Supreme Being. Logically and naturally, when the effects are all contained in the cause, one should be able to appreciate the all-comprehensiveness of the ultimate cause. This cause only is, inasmuch as no effect can be separated from the cause. There is an undifferentiated relationship between the effect and the cause. There is no gap between the one and the other. We are, therefore, not isolated from the cause. There is no vital cut or gulf between this universe of effect and its cause which is Brahman. This means to say that even now we are vitally connected with the Absolute. We are maintaining even at this moment an organic relationship. The difficult part of this meditation is that we ourselves, as thinkers, are associated vitally and organically with the Supreme Being on whom we have to meditate. We cannot think like this, for the mind refuses to think. We can think something outside us and we can think of the whole universe practically, but we cannot think something in which we ourselves are involved, because there it is that the mind finds itself incapable of functioning. There is no such thing as mind thinking itself.
Aristotle said that God is thought thinking itself. It is very difficult to understand what it means. How can thought think itself? It always thinks something else. So, Brahman cannot be thought by the mind, and yet this is the injunction of the Upanishad. The highest kind of meditation is sarvam khalvidam brahma. All this manifestation which you see in the form of individuality, whether organic or inorganic, visible or invisible, wherever it be, is That. Nothing but That is.
Again to reiterate, the most difficult thing to swallow here is that we ourselves are a part of That. The meditator is part of that which is meditated on. How is one to even think? It requires a tremendous psychological preparation and an extraordinary type of purity of mind to appreciate what this instruction is. This is not an ordinary type of meditation. It is most extraordinary in the sense that you are contemplating yourself, as it were, and not something or somebody else. That is implied in the statement that everything is included in That, not excluding oneself who meditates.
Thus should you meditate: “Sarvam khalvidam brahma – all this verily is the Supreme Absolute Brahman.” How do you contemplate Brahman? The whole universe – you can imagine what the universe could be – has come from That. It has not come from That as something different from That. The very substance of this creation is the substance of the Absolute. That is one aspect of the matter. The other aspect is that there is no disconnection between the effect and the cause. So you can imagine how hard it is to entertain this thought.Everything is That because of the effect being non-disassociated from the cause. It is connected with the cause. It is sustained, even now at the time of the apparent creation, in That only – and it will go back to That. So there is no place for anything to exist except That. Also, there is nothing other than That. Thus, one should meditate.
The word kratuhas several meanings. It means an effort of the will, an action of the mind, a determination of the understanding and a meditation that you practise. All this meaning is comprehended by the word kratu_._ The whole of one’s life is nothing but a determination or willing in this manner. Throughout our life we will in some way or other. The individual is an embodiment of action performed through his will. And whatever we will, that we become, because of the intensity of the will. As we affirm, so we experience – and that we become. Our experiences are nothing but our affirmations through will. We have affirmed something very intensely in our previous lives, and the reward of those affirmations is the present series of experiences we are passing through here. So this is a caution, again administered to us. Inasmuch as whatever we think intensely and continuously, and that we are going to become, what should we think throughout our life if we want to become Brahman? We want to become the Absolute Itself. What should be the kind of thought that we should entertain? What should be the type of affirmation that we should make? How should our will work? This need not be explained further, because it is obvious. Therefore, my dear readers, spend your time in absorption of your thought in Brahman. This should be your meditation throughout your life. The Upanishad gives some further details as to how we should conduct this meditation in our life.
| manomayaḥ prāṇaśarīro bhārūpaḥ satyasaṁkalpa ākāśātmā sarvakarmā sarvakāmaḥ sarvagandhaḥ sarvarasaḥ sarvamidamabhyatto’vākyanādaraḥ | 3.14.2 |
The whole mental world is permeated by this Being. The light of the mind, the light of understanding, the light of intelligence, is the light of Brahman. It appears to be embodied through these pranas and the body. They are a vehicle, an embodiment to particularise this infinite consciousness. And as I have mentioned already, even these as effects are not different from consciousness, the cause. So, this mental body or vital body of ours is not to be regarded as distinct from the Absolute. They are only occasions for the meditation on Brahman. From the particular we have to go to the universal. Though the particular is limited in comparison with the expanse of the universal, qualitatively it cannot be different from the universal. Just as from a drop you can know the ocean, from the particular we can reach the universal. Thus is the meditation. It is effulgence in its nature and light is its character. It is the glory of consciousness that is effulgence.
Whatever is willed through this consciousness is materialised at once – satyasamkalpa. This is what we studied in the last chapter of this Upanishad.
The Self of this Being is as vast as space. It is not a limited individual self. The whole space itself is the Self – akasatma. As vast as space is, so wide is this Self which is Brahman. It is, therefore, all-comprehensive.
All actions are its actions – sarvakarma. It performs everything. Whatever I do, whatever you do, whatever anyone does, whatever happens anywhere in all the levels of creation – all these are activities of that Being. It is the fingers of God working through all these phenomena of nature. All the ways in which the mind thinks are the ways He thinks.
Sarvakarma – all the wishes in your mind, all the desires, are the desires of the Self ultimately in some way or other. Every kind of desire, whatever the nature of the desire be, is nothing but a movement of consciousness towards universality in some way or other. This subject is discussed in some detail in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, which describes how every desire is universal desire ultimately. Anything that you smell through the nose is again an activity of That Being only – sarvagandhah. This again has been mentioned earlier, in the last chapter of the Upanishad. The objects as well as the means of cognition are both Itself only appearing objectively on one side in one aspect, and subjectively in another. All the tastes, anything that you contact through the organ of taste, is nothing but Its activity – sarvarasah.
Everything is enveloped by That – sarvamidamabhyatto. What further can we speak of It? It is enveloping all – isavasyam idam sarvam as the Isavasya Upanishad puts it. Inside and outside It is there as the antaryamin. It does not speak, but It can convey Its message and It is free from agitation and eagerness – avaki adarah. It has no desires in the ordinary sense. It is not eager to grasp things, grab things and have things, because It is all things. This is not merely a teaching giving some information, but it is instruction about meditation, the way in which a mind has to be organised in daily meditation so that it may not wander from place to place and may not think of many things. The many things do not exist. What will the mind think when it knows this truth!
| eṣa ma ātmāntarhṛdaye’ṇīyānvrīhervā yavādvā sarṣapādvā śyāmākādvā śyāmākataṇḍulādvaiṣa ma ātmāntarhṛdaye jyāyānpṛthivyā jyāyānantarikśājjyāyāndivo jyāyānebhyo lokebhyaḥ | 3.14.3 |
This great Being, the Supreme Brahman is in one’s own heart as fine and subtle as one can conceive of. It is the subtlest. It is most subtle even among those that we regard as very subtle in this world. Subtler than a grain of rice or paddy, subtler than a grain of millet, subtler than the kernel of this grain, so small, subtler than a mustard seed is this great Being who is seated in one’s heart. But does it mean it is as small as a mustard seed? No, it is at the same time as vast as the whole of creation. So, objectively also it has to be contemplated, in the same way as we contemplate it subjectively as our own deepest Self inseparable from the whole cosmos. This little thing referred to as one’s own Self here is bigger than this vast earth. It is not merely as fine as a millet seed, but also vaster than this whole earth and this entire atmosphere. It is vaster than all the worlds, not merely this one atmosphere. It is larger than even the sky and the heavens. It is vaster than all the fourteen worlds of creation which cannot comprehend its magnitude. So vast is its objectivity and magnitude, being infinite in its expanse, and yet it is in me, in you, and in every one of us, as if it is so little like a small flame of light!
This symbology is given only for the purpose of contemplation, because it has to be taught to us that it is not merely an infinite expanse outside us, unconnected with us as a transcendent something, but is identical with our own Being also. The Upanishads are never tired of hammering this idea into us – that the Supreme Being is both objectively infinite and subjectively the Self of everyone. This is the principal meditation of almost every part of any Upanishad. It is the vast infinitude, incomprehensible to the mind, and yet nothing can be so near to us as That. It is so distant as the distant horizons themselves because of its infinitude and vastness, and yet so near as to be well nigh inseparable from us because it is the Atman itself.
| sarvakarmā sarvakāmaḥ sarvagandhaḥ sarvarasaḥ sarvamidamabhyātto’vākyanādara eṣa ma ātmāntarhṛdaya etadbrahmaitamitaḥ pretyābhisaṁbhavitāsmīti yasya syādaddhā na vicikitsāstīti ha smāha śāṇḍilyaḥ śāṇḍilyaḥ | 3.14.4 |
Sandilya, who was a great sage, proclaims this great knowledge: “This great Being whose actions are all actions, whose desires are all desires, whose functions are all functions through the senses, is inside me and It is that which is inside everything.”
The reason why the Atman is called Brahman is because it is the Self of all. As the Self of each one, it is called the Atman. As the all-comprehensive Self, it is called Brahman. The doubt that may arise in the mind as to the localisation of the Atman is removed by the assertion that it is the Self of all. It is a contemplation on the all-pervading Self, the universal Self. Therefore, the Atman in one is the Brahman everywhere.
”This Brahman is what I am” – thus we should meditate. The moment we get up in the morning this thought should come to the mind. The progress of our life in spirituality can be judged from the first thought that occurs to the mind in the early morning when we get up. What is the first thought that comes to our mind the moment we wake up from sleep? That will give us an idea as to what we have been thinking throughout the day. The conscious mind remains suppressed and the impulses alone work in the deep sleep state, and these impulses will thrust up certain ideas the moment we get up. It may be something which is connected with this world or something which is related to our sadhana. It may be a thought of anxiety or it may be a thought of freedom. It may be a thought of anything, depending upon the thoughts during the waking state. From this we can have an idea, an inkling as to how we have been conducting our thoughts.
The Upanishad tells us that we have to meditate in this manner throughout the day. As much time as we can spare for this purpose, we must utilise. We have to grow gradually, stage by stage, to that state of Being, when we will be able to give all our time for meditation. Many a time we have difficulties in finding time for meditation, because of the vocations of life. So, in the earlier stages, the advice is that as much time as you can spare should be set apart for the purpose of meditation, even if it be only for half an hour or forty-five minutes, or even less than that because it is not easy for the mind of the neophyte to accept that everything that it thinks can somehow or other be reconciled with spirituality. It always regards the ordinary life of the body and the senses and social existence as different from spirituality. This is the habit of the mind, although it is not correct. This is what it believes. In the beginning, therefore, it is necessary to give some time to meditation – conveniently, of course, not with great effort and hardship on oneself. The life of the spirit is not one of suffocation or stifling of the mind. It is a gradual growth of the mind spontaneously, like the growth of a baby into an adult without any kind of stifling of functions. We should give as much time as is conveniently possible, with satisfaction to the mind. Then the time has to be increased by reduction of external activities, sleep, and the unnecessary things that we do in life which are not actually essential. You may be going to a club or to a picture, or you may be having a chat with some friends. All these can be gradually curtailed, because they are not essential. Essentials alone should be maintained. And still later on, in a more advanced stage, we must learn the art of seeing no distinction between our ordinary life and spiritual life. That is what is actually expected of us as spiritual seekers.
There is no such thing as an unspiritual life, finally. This has been told to us again and again in the Upanishad. Things look unspiritual on account of our peculiar way of evaluation. The idea of ‘I-ness’ and ‘my-ness’ is the cause of this peculiar notion in the mind, of there being a distinction between the ordinary life and spiritual life. We should not however do things which we regard as wholly unspiritual, or irreconcilable with our ultimate aim. We should not do also that which is wholly irrelevant to our life. We should not have any kind of despondency or diffidence in our heart that the most part of our life is spent in unnecessary work. There is always some connection between our work and the spiritual purpose that we are having in our mind. But the wisdom lies in understanding what this connection is. The connection is one of non-distinction. Though this connection is there, we are not able to keep its awareness. When this awareness arises we enter into a flood of an all-comprehensiveness of approach through every aspect of our life.
So meditation should be a continued practice. How long should we continue the meditation? We must continue until we attain Self-realisation or until we die, whichever is earlier. Whoever has such intense faith, as is mentioned here, shall get it. If we have intense faith, we will get it! You should not have a shaking mood of the mind. There should not be any doubt or suspicion. “Am I fit for it?” “Will I get it?” “What is the good of it?” – this kind of doubt should not arise in the mind. “I must get it.” “I am doing the best possible thing.” “I am putting forth all my effort to the extent of my possibility.” “I am doing my duty.” Such a doubtless attitude should be maintained throughout life. If one has faith of this kind, one should certainly attain it. There is no doubt about it. This is what the whole Upanishad is teaching, which is compressed in this vidya called Sandilya Vidya.Though it is very short, yet it contains everything.
The meaning of this vidya, meditation, is very profound. The more we think about it, the greater and deeper are the meanings that we will discover in it. And these meanings will be discovered as we go deeper and deeper into meditation. So here, we have got in the Sandilya Vidya the whole subject of the Upanishad clinched, as it were – kept inside our fist for the purpose of daily habituation of the mind to spirituality and God-awareness.
This vidya contains the art of adjusting the mind inwardly as well as outwardly in the beginning by alternate processes, and then finally grasping the comprehensiveness of Brahman, the Reality in its simultaneously dual aspect of universality and individuality.
Dādau brahmāhamasmītyanubhava udite khalvidah brahma pascat, is a passage from Acharya Sankara’s ‘Satasloki’ wherein he makes a reference to this vidya. He mentions how the consciousness rises gradually from the level of individual perspective to the universal one. It is not easy to understand the meaning of what Acharya Sankara is saying here because of the fact that we cannot distinguish between our personality or individuality and the Atman, to which reference is being made. We always mix up the two. The Atman is myself, and we know very well what we understand by the word ‘myself’. It is an inveterate habit of the mind to think in terms of the body. So, whatever be the thing that is associated with individuality is at once identified in meditation. The kernel that is within us, the essence that we are, is to be separated from the body that we appear to be in this technique of meditation. In the beginning, there is consciousness that one’s own self is all. Now, this is not merely a statement that is to be studied grammatically or linguistically, but is a matter of experience. One’s location in all things in addition to one’s own body becomes a revealed truth in the advanced stages of this meditation. There are some examples to show how this happens.
It is something like the space within a vessel realising that it is everywhere. Just compare yourself to a little space that is contained in a small glass tumbler which has got obsessed with a notion that it is inside the glass tumbler only and that what is outside as space is not itself, but an object of itself – something external to itself. It has to elevate itself to the awareness of the non-distinguishability between itself and the external space. That is the real meaning perhaps of what is in the mind of Acharya Sankara. I am the all! The space within the vessel realises that it is all-space. It does not mean that it has become all-space by any effort of its imagination or activity. It is just a rising to the awareness that the wall around it, namely, the tumbler or the glass, is not going to limit its all-pervasive nature.
Then the realisation comes – khalvidah brahma pascat. It is not merely the ‘I’ that has become all, but every one is the same all. The Self that is in me is not in me only. The assertion, “_aham brahmasmi _– I am Brahman” can be made by each centre of individuality in a similar manner. This is a larger realisation, says Sankara. It is a rise from the limitation of one’s individuality upto the cosmic Reality of one’s essence, with a simultaneous awareness of the identity of every self, the so-called multiplicity of selves, with this single Self. So it is the total of all the selves in an indistinguishable mass rising to a single comprehension of the great Absolute Brahman. This is the actual inner import of the meditation which is called Sandilya Vidya.
[Extracted from Swami Krishnananda Maharaj’s discourses Divine Life Society]
The Gospel of the Bhagavadgita
From The Panchadasi Explained: Analysis of the Self
From The Panchadasi Explained: Analysis of the Self by Swami Krishnananda
Created on Saturday 13 July 2013 20:44
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(Addressed to government officers and published in the Yoga Vedanta Forest Weekly of Feb. 2, 1950.)
Human consciousness is characterised by objectiveness. It is more a cognition or a perception than simple consciousness. The cognitions and perceptions are the processes of knowing through the mind and the senses. In the waking state of ordinary consciousness, the different senses receive different kinds of knowledge, and the function and knowledge of one sense is quite unconnected with those of another. For instance, the eye alone can perceive forms and the ear alone can know sounds. Knowledge differs with regard to the different senses. But, even if these different kinds of sense-knowledge are entirely cut off from one another, the person experiencing this sense-knowledge is one and the same. The person is the synthesizer of sense-perceptions which, by themselves, (are not interrelated). The same person experiences forms, sounds, touches, tastes, smells, etc., and feels: “I am the seer, the hearer, etc.” and does not feel that the seer is different from the hearer. The ultimate knower must, therefore, be an absolutely indivisible whole of consciousness. Even if there is the slightest distinction within the constitutive essence of the knower, i.e., if the knower is made up of parts, complete synthetic knowledge would never have been possible. If there is a division within the knower, what is the relation between one part and another? The question cannot be answered, as knowledge does not admit of space within itself, because knowledge is presupposed by the idea or conception of space. If these parts within the knower are not differentiated by anything other than the knower, then the knower does not become a composite whole of parts, but an undivided dense existence of pure consciousness, which is absolutely identical with itself. The nature of the knower must be knowledge itself. If not, what is his nature? This question, again, cannot be answered. The most fundamental experience is consciousness or awareness, pure and simple, free from all self-contradictory divisions and fluctuations of thought. None can experience anything greater than or equal to consciousness as the ultimate basis for all experiences in life.
Hence the knower of sense-perceptions cannot be the mind, though the mind is able to know without the help of the senses and is able to coordinate, arrange, and systematically synthesize sense-perceptions. Thoughts differ in different places, times and conditions. Hence, there must be some other synthesizing agent of even mental cognitions. Otherwise a person cannot know that he is the same individual experiencing different kinds of thought. Mental cognitions and sensuous perceptions are heterogeneous in their nature. Therefore, the possibility and the experience of a unified completeness of self-identical, absolutely immediate and direct consciousness shows that the true Self is Pure Consciousness in its essence, which is not affected by the revolting activities of the mind and the senses. The essential nature of the Knower or the Self must be simple consciousness, because in the state of deep sleep it is seen that when the body, the vital currents, the senses, the mind, the intellect, the ego, the subconscious, and everything that goes to make the individual gets suspended and denied its validity as an existence, the person still exists as is testified to by the following experience which, with great certainty, identifies the person who has woken up with the person who slept previously. The existence of the essential person, the Self, in the condition of deep sleep, was one of “awareness of nothing”, “awareness together with nothingness”, which means “mere awareness”, as “nothingness” has no value whatever. Further, the existence of the experience of the Self is corroborated by the subsequent remembrances of the existence of oneself in deep sleep. A remembrance is not possible without previous experience, and as experience is never possible without consciousness, we have to conclude that the Self does exist in deep sleep as mere Consciousness. This Consciousness, therefore, exists in the waking state as the unchanging basis of the changing mind and the senses. In the dreaming state it exists as the synthesizer of mental cognitions. The objects in the waking and the dreaming states differ from one another, but the consciousness of objects is one and the same; it does not differ in relation to objects. The only difference between the waking and the dreaming states is that in the former, experience is the effect of the function of the mind with the help of the senses, whereas in the latter experience is the effect of the function of the mind alone. But the consciousness is the same, both in the waking and the dreaming states. As this consciousness is proved to exist in the deep sleep state also, it is evident that this One Consciousness endures without even the least change in itself in all the states of experience, during all the days, nights, weeks, months and years, i.e., till eternity. It does not differ from another consciousness, nor does it differ from itself now and then, here and there, in this or that experience, as objects and mental states do. Consciousness is always one and is ever secondless. We cannot conceive of two consciousnesses, though mental states may be two or more. Hence consciousness must be eternal. Metaphysically, anything that is eternal must be infinite, unlimited. Consciousness is unlimited, for the consciousness of limitation shows that consciousness is greater than limitation. Hence, the Self is eternal, infinite, Absolute Consciousness. The ignorance that is said to exist in deep sleep cannot really exist or have any value, for, if it does, it would be an eternal antagonist of consciousness, and consciousness would be limited and perishable, and not infinite or Absolute. The illogicality of the existence of ignorance cancels its validity and posits the existence of the Absolute Consciousness. One experiences consciousness, and not ignorance, as his fundamental being or Self. This Self is, therefore, different from ignorance in the sense that consciousness is not ignorance, but it does not mean that the Self is a witness of ignorance as real existence.
The Self neither dies, nor is born, nor has any modification. If it has these changes, they have to be experienced by some consciousness. And this ultimate experiencing consciousness, we term the Self. This Self is self-luminous, non-dual, self-conscious, independent and the sole Being.
The way we should live in our own personal and public life
Inasmuch as you are officers, you cannot have an isolated personal life, entirely; you are socially related. In fact, there is no such thing as an absolutely isolated life for any person; everybody is socially connected. You are a social entity. You belong to the world. You cannot say that you have absolutely no relationship with anybody. So, personal life is only a tentative definition of your nature. You have a relatively personal way of living, but it is inwardly connected with various factors that are super-personal, impersonal, you may call them, social, national and international; it may even go further into the universal. You are not an individual as you may imagine yourself to be. There is an old saying of a poet: “No man is an island.” An island is surrounded by the ocean and cut off from the main land from every side, but not so is a human being. He is not an island; he is not cut off from the main land of the cosmos like a piece of land in the ocean.
No man can be happy unless he discovers the sources of happiness. Happiness does not drop from the skies, suddenly. It is an expression of perfection. Wherever there is perfection, there is happiness. There is happiness in health, there is happiness in mental equilibrium, there is happiness in social solidarity, there is happiness in national security and so on and so forth. Wherever there is harmony among the constituents of a particular pattern of living, there is happiness. Happiness is only a name, a designation that we give to the perfection attained on account of a harmony brought about among the constituents of a particular setup. You are District Collectors, for example, and you have a jurisdiction over a particular district. The jurisdiction implies your relationship with the constituents of the district. The constituents need not necessarily be human beings; they can be even geographical conditions, and so on. It is a very complicated system. So, first of all, you have to be clear in your mind as to what sort of progress or perfection you are expected to introduce in the jurisdiction over which you have control. A District Collector is an all-in-all person. He has every kind of responsibility and is like a king without a crown on his head. He has a tremendous responsibility.
First of all, the District Collector must understand that people around him are like him. He is a representative of the people in the district, just as the President may be regarded as the representative of the whole country. You are a small President in your own district. Though it may be a smaller jurisdiction, your calibre and your responsibility are of a similar nature. What you have to understand is that people around you are not inferior to you in any way. There are also capable of being Collectors, perhaps, if the necessary circumstances and facilities are provided for them. They have aspirations like you; they have desires like you, they have weaknesses like you, and they would like to achieve what you would like to achieve. Only they are not provided with the same facilities as you have been provided with by circumstances of society, and they feel the pain of things as you feel, and what you wish they also wish. They are just like you in every respect. You are a human being, and they are human beings. But circumstances of the society have made you the head of a group of people, towards whom you have a responsibility, and not a right. You should not think that you have a right over people. You have a responsibility, and obligation; and wherever an obligation is properly fulfilled, a kind of right also automatically comes. You need not ask for rights, they will come automatically. You shall only be careful to see that you fulfil your duties and you should not pay too mach attention to your requirements. You must always pay attention to your obligations.
So, in this effort of yours, in the fulfilment of your duties, you must consider also that you are a unit of the whole country. You have to work according to its constitution. I am driving at another point altogether which is different from the merely official responsibility of a person, as the ultimate aim of every organisation is security and happiness. You do not become officers merely because you want to become officers. That is not the purpose. The purpose is to achieve an end which is superior to officership, to bring about perfection, security, happiness and prosperity, internally as well as externally.
Now, if we have a parochial outlook merely, that will defeat our purpose. Suppose a District Collector thinks: “I am concerned only with my district, the other districts may go to hell.” If he starts thinking like that, you can foresee the consequences. The neighbour is connected with him in a very vital manner. It is true, in a very narrow sense, that you are concerned only with your district. But it is wholly untrue that you are concerned only with that and nothing else. Suppose the whole country is in sorrow and in a state of insecurity and everything is shaking at the bottom, what is the use of your efforts in one district merely? So you must have an eye to the larger dimension of your responsibility as a citizen of the whole nation also in addition to your responsibility as a Collector in a district. But, this, too, is not sufficient. You are in an international set-up. The country may be prosperous internally, but it may be threatened by outside dangers. So what will you do about that?
Perhaps you have no jurisdiction as wide as this: but little drops make the whole ocean. If everyone thinks that he is not concerned, well, then everything is doomed to chaos. As drops make the ocean, so individuals make the society. Each person is a unit of responsibility in the whole country. He may not be an officer in the technical sense, but he is a centre of responsibility. Every citizen has a responsibility for the whole nation. The democratic system is nothing but a system of each one being responsible for everything. That is called democracy. But people think: “It is the government’s concern, what is my responsibility for it?” If you think like that, it is a defeat of the purpose of democracy. There is a danger in the understanding of the subtlety behind the democratic administration. People do not understand what it actually means. Sometimes it appears that everyone’s responsibility is no one’s responsibility. It may look like that. If everybody is concerned with a matter, it means no one is concerned. Suppose a government’s water scheme is flowing through the road and the tap is open. Will an individual be concerned with the wastage of water or not? If he thinks: “It is the government’s water that is flowing, I am not going to be the loser, let the water flow!” then he is untrue to his citizenship in the country. He thinks that the government is outside him. He is a very foolish man indeed. The government is not outside the constituents of the nation. What is a government? It is only an ideological force that the entire setup of citizens has created for its own good. The government is not outside you and you cannot see it anywhere else. If you go on looking around, where is the government? You cannot see it. It is only in the minds of the people. It is a power that you have created by thought. So, ultimately, the government is in the minds of the people, it is not physically visible. You go anywhere throughout the length and breadth of India, but you will not see the government; yet it is present everywhere. It is like God existing. God is everywhere, and yet nowhere. So, this is an analogy to explain to you that every citizen is a small unit of responsibility, and government is nothing but a name for the total responsibility of the entire nation; and what is totality if the individuals are not there! If the part is absent, the whole cannot be there. So, there can be no government if each individual is irresponsible. So, this is the philosophical background, we may say, behind the governmental system, democracy and life as a citizen.
Ultimately, perfection, security, prosperity and happiness will be ensured to us only if we are in harmony with the forces that govern life. These forces, which are not merely social, are the determining factors of human happiness, for man is not merely a social unit. When you are at home, you have a personality of your own. When you go to bed and sleep, you do not sleep as a collector sleeping. You have got an individuality and a personal status of your own. You forget all your associations and you begin to realise yourself as an independent person, a unit of reality and that has some relationship with similar such units constituting the whole world. So, the inner essence of man has also to be attuned to the inner essences of all people. We are not merely political people like the M.L.As., M.L.Cs., etc.; we are not merely social units, we are also physical bodies, we are minds, we are intellects, we are also spirits, and all these have to be set in tune. So there is a necessity to bring about a vertical as well as a horizontal harmony. Horizontal harmony may be said to be harmony in family, harmony in society, harmony in the community, harmony in the nation, harmony in the international set-up. This is a kind of horizontal harmony. But vertically, there has to be harmony in the physical body, harmony in the vital breath, harmony in the mind, harmony in the intellect, harmony in the Spirit.
If the internal harmony is not there, the external harmony will not work. Suppose a man is mad, is out of his brain and his physical health is breaking and his consciousness is aberrant, what is the use of his social association? Individuals should be healthy in order that the group may be healthy. The group is nothing but a totality of individuals and so no international organisation can succeed, not even the UNO, if the individuals are not complete in themselves. They must be perfect individuals, representatives of total responsibility. We are citizens, not merely of India, but of the whole cosmos. We belong to an international set-up, no doubt, but also we belong to a universal set-up-God’s creation. So you are a child of God, a citizen of the universe, and so if you are not in harmony with the natural forces and the divine laws operating, you will be overcome in the end. You may be apparently successful in your efforts in the beginning, but finally it will collapse as did the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire was politically very strong, perhaps it was an ideal Empire manifesting tremendous organising capacity, but it lacked the spiritual note! The soul was absent while the body was perfectly healthy. It appeared to be healthy. Suppose you take away the soul of a man and the whole skeleton is left, what happens? It falls down. The Roman Empire did not fall on account of the invasion of the Huns, as historians tell you. Even microbes cannot ask you if your body is perfectly in balance. Even tuberculer germs cannot enter your body, if your body is perfectly maintained. But if you are susceptible to invasion, they attack you. The susceptibility to invasion of any kind should be avoided. People make themselves vulnerable on account of certain inner lacunae.
Together with the strength of the defence forces of the country, there must also be the strength of internal maintenance and security, by which I do not mean merely economic security, but also intellectual, moral, ethical and spiritual acumen, and you are representatives of that aim and ideal. By God’s grace you have been placed in such a position that you can instruct people, and so you must be very friendly with people. I began by saying you are human beings like anybody else. So when you are the heads of an organisation or of a jurisdiction, you have to behave as a father behaves in a family. The Collector is the father of the District. And how does the father behave with the members of the family? Great responsibility, and yet great affection. He is strict in the administration of system and discipline, but very affectionate like a mother, a parent like father and mother combined. So this is the way in which we have to envisage things in general, spiritually enlightened within, cosmically harmonious in our thoughts, and politically responsible as units of governmental organisation. This is only a short outline that I have given to you. You can go on enlarging upon it for a lifetime. I pray with an invocation to the Almighty that your adventure in life in every respect may be a total success. May God bless you!
[Extracted from Swami Krishnananda Maharaj’s discourses Divine Life Society]