DEIVATHIN KURAL # 110 (Vol #4) Dated 03 Dec 2010

DEIVATHIN KURAL # 110 (Vol #4) Dated 03 Dec 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 last para on page number 609 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)
128. Even when we know that all the problems are due to our desires, it is still difficult to be rid of our desires. Without our running after our desires, there are occasions when we experience pure bliss. We go to the beach or the open terrace in the upper floor of the house. That day we did not know that it was full moon. We lift our head and notice that the moon is serenely beautiful and looks like a blob of butter floating high up in the sky, showering the absolute pleasant brilliance all around! We feel happy without any expectations or effort for it. That experience is not going to give any untoward bad effect either. Everything is just right! But, even this experience cannot be forever. Can we keep looking at the moon the whole night? Maximum we can be sitting there for an hour. By then we may get a pain in the neck! Looking at the moon that one evening may cause us to look for it again the next evening. By then moon is late in coming up and then it is not as round when it does! We feel slightly let down. Then we look for the next full moon to happen. Though we did not originally look for the full moon, that very thrill of one look creates the desire of expectation. Whatever the cause of that happiness, further instigates our desires and makes us expect. Not being a permanent entity, it is available sometimes and not available most of the other times and causes the aspirations, expectations and perspirations.
129. This is equally so in all matters good, bad and ugly. An aspiring devotee gets the supra mental and out of this world experience of oneness with God for a split second and then goes blank. That one experience makes him go mad. That is considered an excellent type of agony of separation or what is called ‘uttama viraha taapaha’! It is in that mood that VaLLalaar, MaNikka Vaasagar, Bhakta Mira Bhai, Sri Krishna Chainya, Rama Krishna Parama Hamsa and such people have cried, whimpered and swooned!
130. Sadness in Everything Other Than Adwaitam! In this creation, God has not created anything that could give pure happiness. Even the vision of seeing God does not end in happiness but in the agony and pain of separation. Even if we were to get opportunities of seeing and interacting with God, like Naamadeva or Sundara Murthy Swamigal, who could do so everyday often, they also have had to go through the agony of repeated separation. It is said that the Krishna is the life of Radha. Even she has had to undergo extreme torture like the fish on the hook or the moth in the fire. This is so arranged by God’s decree as though that if you desire, you have to cry. May be the lesson to be driven home is that as long as we keep God as something to be set apart from us and ourselves as something else, and try to enjoy or be happy, it will only be transitory and not permanent.
131. Those who have given their minds to literature, music, arts and such things, when they come across some divine beauty of rare and subtle intelligence; they remain searching for that rare something through the rest of their lives! Searching and researching, it is a life of pain, agony and deprivation only. The worst habit forming experiences too in some moments of clarity causes the slave to those habits, curse himself for having demeaned and abased himself!
132. One of the biggest pitfalls in this whole thing is that, once we have set our minds to obtaining or enjoying something, we are ready to do so at whatever the cost! For our self satisfaction, we are ready to put others to any amount of trouble! Just for the taste of our tongues and filling of our stomach, we could not care less and let our old mother sweat it out in the kitchen over a stone grinder for making the batter! That may be one end of the spectrum in severity. There could be many more cruelties that we inflict on others for our flimsy cravings. All these things over time accumulate to a sizeable debit balance with interest in the Karmic account!
133. When we think about this deeply, we realise as to how cruel we are in seeking our own satisfaction at the cost of other’s agony and distress. Even in very good intentions of ours, it is interesting to note as to how deceptively this Maya participates. We do social service, where the intention is to try and make others happy at a premium to our own comfort. Inadvertently, without our becoming aware of it, in doing social service too, our own happiness somehow becomes the priority. Actually we may not be able to get many opportunities of being useful to others. On occasions when we are feeling bad for not getting a chance to be able to do service by our body or material, if someone approaches us with a request for help, think of the thrill of satisfaction we get at being given an opportunity to provide assistance! You get the satisfaction of giving help in cash or kind. If somebody says, “Sir, I am in deep trouble. Since morning I have not had anything to eat. Can you please help out with some cash”, we feel happy to be able to help! We are driving along the road and we are halted by some crowd. Someone says, “Sir, there has been an accident. Somebody seems to have fallen from his bike and broken his leg bone. We need to give first aid and evacuate him to the hospital”. The demand for help thrills our bones!
134. That is, if this social service man carefully analyses the situation, though to his own inner mind it may not be acceptable, because of his desire to do social service, without being aware of it, he is receiving a vicarious pleasure in being the helping kind! To satisfy this urge in him, someone else has to suffer. He is not really expecting that to happen so. No altruist will ever wish for calamities so that he could be of help. However it almost seems so! When returning after a few days of being engrossed in social service related to flood relief, if you feel bad that the next day, one will have to return to the dull drudgery of normal day to day life, there is at least an element of regret at not being able to be of service! So, even in such noble ventures, this element of desire is an aberration! In not so noble a venture, desire comes out more powerfully, putting selfishness on priority one, bordering on sadism!
135. The moment, we passionately desire for something, when that thing slips out of our hand, because of our love of it, we wish to lay our hands on it again even at the cost of hurting others. Desire is the reason for many such wrong doings. Thus I have spoken about many of the problems faced by the desirer. These however become next to nil in comparison with the problems faced by others because of these people desiring something! Desire is the cause of deceit, cheating, dacoity, murders, rape, and other corruptions. The wars were the result of kings wishing to expand their empires. Hitler and Mussolini in trying to expand their areas of influence were the cause of the Second World War, in which many millions of people had to pay with their lives! When a person inflicts misery on others because of his desire for whatever, that action also has to have its equal and opposite reaction on the perpetrator! They will all add up with compounded interest for which he has to pay for, in hell or in his subsequent lives on earth. Nobody can walk away from that burden of such responsibility even for irresponsible behaviour!
(To be continued.)
Sambhomahadeva.