DEIVATHIN KURAL # 106 (Vol #4) Dated 25 Nov 2010

DEIVATHIN KURAL # 106 (Vol #4) Dated 25 Nov 2010

(These e-mails are translations of talks given by Periyaval of Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam, over a period of some 60 years while he was the pontiff in the earlier part of the last century. These have been published by Vanadi Padippagam, Chennai, in seven volumes of a thousand pages each as Deivathin Kural. Today we are proceeding from the start of page number 588 of Vol 4 of the Tamil original. The readers may note that here in 'man/he' includes 'woman/she' too mostly. These e-mails are all available at http://Advaitham.blogspot.com updated constantly)
101. Looking for comfort and pleasure, we fall into all sorts of problems! Thinking something to be giving us happiness, with all expectations, we end up in trouble. Desire leads to agony and pain. Unhappiness results not only when we are faced with failures in our expectations, but also when our desires are fulfilled because, we want more of it or do not want to lose it! Then we are subjected to fear that what we have may be lost. Invariably it does happen as we feared. The person we are fond of dies. Money is taken away by a thief or a cheat or the bank itself is bankrupt! Or what we have saved loses its value due to inflation. Then we feel bad that, “We saved with great self denial. We were so strict with ourselves that we saved thinking that one day we will be able to construct a house and give dowry for our daughter’s marriage! But now the money is not enough for either!”
102. We wish to have something that will hopefully give us ease and comfort. It is obtained at a great cost, like so many of the electronic goods nowadays. Then having got it, there is a running cost and maintenance cost and repair charges! We wish to see a movie and enjoy for which, we have to stand in the queue for hours. Then the a/c may not be there or it may be dis functional or the sound system is not OK or the movie is not as good as was expected! We want to visit a Cricket Match and enjoy, but look at the problems that could be there. Having stood in the queue for hours, the match may fizzle out! ‘Anything is easier getting into than getting out of’, is an adage universally applicable to most of these so called enjoyments! Thus whatever we desire for, the cost seems to include money and enormous discomforts! Even good things! For example, we wish to attend a pooja in Sri Rangam on the Vikunta Ekadasi day or Arudra Darsanam in Chidambaram or BaraNi - Kaartigai in ThiruvaNNamalai. Think of the untold difficulties with the crowd, the scuffling, pulling and pushing; waiting in queues, may be the whole night in the open suffering the cold and dust with no toilets or dirty ones to even pass urine! Oh, the problems can be aplenty! Even take this visit to this pooja in the Matam! You come here with the intention of watching the Pooja, listen to my talk and get that UddriNi Theertam, of a spoon of sacred water as the ‘paada udakam’, for getting some Punyam! I make you wait till two or three in the afternoon before you can have anything to eat! Even with the best of intentions, any Yoga Aasana, Saadhana or effort for ennobling and cleansing ourselves and our mind has many elements of difficulties in them! Try to sit in Padmaasana, the legs will pain as though there is a fracture of the bone! To do pooja, you need some ‘patram, pushpam, palam and toyam’, meaning, some leaves, flowers, fruits and water, that is all! But, wait, not this flower for this God and not this leave for that God! There are too many Do’s and Don’ts and ifs and buts! Then Neivedyam! This Brahmin Vaadyaar Purohitar, has the innate ability to make any simple procedure, full of complications! If this was problematical, to fast is a greater problem. If you normally have breakfast at 8.30 AM, on the day of fasting, you will feel hungry at 7’ O Clock itself! Then there are so many methods of self abnegation in the path of Saadhana, such as keeping a vow of abstinence for 42 days before going to a holy place; which are all mighty difficult! Does it mean that we should not observe these things at all? I will come back to this point of persevering in the path of Saadhana despite the difficulties some time later. (KTSV Adds: - There are some modern self proclaimed Gurus who claim that since we are essentially the same material as God, NirvaNa, Self Realization, Atma Anubhava and such, should not be through efforts and perseverance! They recommend free sex, hashish smoking and such methods! If you were destined like Bhagawan Sri Ramana Maharshi, Realization may occur quite effortlessly, once again as per destiny. But the point to understand is that even they must have taken super human efforts and died short of the final level, in their past life! Relate this to Bhagawan Sri Krishna’s promise in the Bhagawat Gita, that if you die short of totality of Gnaana and understanding, you will be born again under such circumstances as to enable you to proceed further along the path, from where you left off in your previous life! Refer to Slokas 40 to 47, in Chapter 6 in Bhagawat Gita.)The point I was making here is that, even for a noble cause, the moment there is an element of desire, there are always problems galore!
103. Happiness & Satisfaction. Think of why do we wish or want or desire! It is always in search of happiness through the fulfilment of the desire. Aanandam is the correct word for happiness. Other synonyms such as bliss, joy, fun and santosham are also used. All that happiness is basically Aanandam, where as Santosham would mean satisfaction. Tosham means being satisfied. Santosham means good and deep satisfaction. Though to be satisfied and to be happy are closely related, they cannot be said to be one and the same. They become one, only when, nothing more is required. That is, you are fully satisfied and also totally happy. Till then there is still some difference. There is a beautiful breeze making us happy. But we will not say that we are satisfied. When expected desire is fulfilled, we say that we are satisfied. When we get some unexpected bonanza, we are thrilled and do not say that we are satisfied.
104. We desire something because we expect to be getting some happiness by that. But that desire either gives some sadness or some happiness and mostly sadness or equal amount of both. Instead when we get pure Aanandam without any unhappiness, it does not last long, but is only temporary! Then we are again sad for want of the lost happiness. We could have been better off without this experience. Having tasted the happiness, we start missing it, deepening our expectations for it to recur.
105. Expecting to get rich and thereby get happy with money, we go to the race course. There we lose even what was in our pockets and start crying. This is a case of desire giving only unhappiness. We go to see a movie to get some pleasure for the eyes, ears and the mind. There if the movie is filled with scenes of rape, murder, fights, scuffles, bombing and horror with poor direction and still poor editing; the cinema might have been awarded the Oscar; you cannot help a feeling of being deceived and made a fool of, while losing your money for it! When the singer in a music concert happens to be suffering from a bad throat, you have to suffer it in silence. It is sheer bad luck! Looking for gratification of your sense of aroma of the olfactory nerves and taste buds of the tongue, you go to the club and order for Masala Onion Dosa! The server brings you a plate of it with the chutney slightly sour, Dosa not sufficiently hot and made of oil in which some fish had been fried earlier and you are hungry! The whole question of existence now hangs around the dilemma of, “To eat or not to eat”! You end up swallowing it just to satisfy the hunger temporarily. The matter does not end there. The thing can lead to loose motions, vomiting and gastro-entetinal disease! Then looking for the feel of cold water on the body, you stand under the shower bath. The water happens to be ice cold! For some reason the hot water tap is not functional. By the time you close the tap and get out, instead of a pleasant shower, you have had a dunking, leading to catching cold accompanied with head ache! These are all examples of pure suffering without any pleasure. Thus these are all, instead of being the food for the eyes, ears, tongue, nose and touch; prove to be only negative food for thought!
(To be continued.)
Sambhomahadeva.