DEIVATHIN KURAL # 116 (Vol #4) Dated 15 Dec 2010

DEIVATHIN KURAL # 116 (Vol #4) Dated 15 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 second para on page number 645 of Vol 4 of the Tamil original. The readers may note that herein 'man/he' includes 'woman/she' too mostly. These e-mails are all available at http://Advaitham.blogspot.com updated constantly)
177. In good sleep the mischief by the mind is not there. Only Aatma is there sans an awareness of ‘aatma anubhavam’, that is, an experience of our real being! Mark my words sans an awareness of ‘aatma anubhavam’! We are aware of having had a good sleep, as we say so when we wake up, after we wake up. But, we are not aware of the comfort or peace that we had, during sleep. At that time we were lying like a piece of wood. We ourselves have reduced ourselves to the state of an inanimate material, happily! We feel highly insulted when anybody else calls us, “Hey! You Jadam”! Then how can it be that, we demean ourselves to the status of a piece of a log and do so happily! Is it not an insult to the very fact of Creation that the human being as the system of Body – Mind – Intellect complex should put itself down to such low levels one third of the time every day?
178. You may have your reservations on the following lines. “As Man has evolved from the inanimate state of materials (of a Jada), from single celled beings to multi cellular beings; one sense beings to animals with five senses; to the human being with the sixth sense also; Man is at the top of the ladder of creation! It is not in the rightness of things for him to deny his eminence and behave like a piece of lifeless matter and aspire for becoming thoughtless, actionless and inert!” I would agree with all that. But please also note that, his being endowed with all the six senses is also sometimes the source of many of his problems, especially the thinking, analysing, recording, calculating, remembering, imagining and processing capabilities of his mind / brain / intellect conglomerate! That conglomerate of ‘mano – buddhi – chitta – ahankaaram’ is also the source of many intricate philosophical conceptualizations; classical music and dance; minute and magnificent sculptures; works of arts and crafts; capable of social service, love, compassion and sacrifice! So this mind has to be delinked from all the things that derail it and directed towards such super human efforts above the six senses and not permitted to be wasted in the crass cycle of catering, pandering and gratifying the senses and animal instincts!
179. As instructed by Bhagawan Sri Krishna, we have to use the two pronged tactics of Vairaagyam and Abhyaasam that is ‘Dispassion and Practice’! Repeatedly the devilish forces have to be kept under the thumb and divine forces have to be encouraged to prevail. That is the starting point for this process of ‘Return to Reality’! Preferring something and discarding something else, we are ourselves getting in to the grip of untold number of Love – Hate relationships. Instead, to train ourselves to stand apart from such selectivity is Vairaagyam or dispassion. Without giving in to the likes and dislikes of this mind, while training ourselves to be dispassionate, we should also endeavour to act for the sake of ‘Dharma Samrakshana’, that is, for the upholding of moral values and our own refinement and ennoblement, by the ways as given in the Saastraas. In doing so there will be many Do’s and Don’ts; victories and losses; embarrassment and praises. These have to be accepted with equal felicity. That is Vairaagyam. To repeatedly and relentlessly persist with dispassion is the ‘Abhyaasam’ that Bhagwan is talking about. Practicing exercises is called ‘Deha abhyaasam’ in which, over a long time, we have to train every part of the body to do those exercises, bending and stretching. Then over time it becomes easy and second nature to us. Is it not so? That is how this mind which is running in beastly and ogre like pursuits has to be restrained and pulled back to move in the right directions by relentless persistence and repeated practice!
180. Thus the six senses which are all above the inert and inanimate existence, have to be successively made to rise from base tendencies of ogre, animal, human to the level of divinity and finally dissolving it in the highest one of Aatma. Finally we have to drop all these six senses also. But that will not be the same as being like a log of wood; but much above that, as the firmament on which all these senses are based; without which these senses cannot function; to be well aware of that Aatma of peaceful state of Samaadhi! When we have worked hard and become tired or worn out because of all the intellectual and cerebral gymnastics, we need to have some rest due to which we may sleep for some time. This should not be misconstrued as ‘gnaana nishtai or shaanta samaadhi’ !
181. The Peace of Happy Awareness. The peace of the inner core of our being is not the same as, quietness and nothingness of death. The Nirvaana that Buddha talked about is the peace and quietude of nothingness known as Soonyam. But what our Sankara Bhagawat PaadaaL showed up from the Upanishads is that the peace and quietude of our inner core of our being of the Aatma is all Bliss, Truth, Knowledge, Awareness and Peacefulness. That is the PoorNa Anubhava, that is, the totality of all experience and not experience of Soonya or Nothingness! How else can this experience of Life Principle be, which is never dead, even after the body is no more? It has to be Sat – Chit – Aanandam; of Being – Awareness – Bliss. When we say that the Aatma is an embodiment of Gnaana; we mean that it cannot be an inert, inanimate, thing devoid of gnosis. So it is the life of life, knowledge of knowledge where awareness, life and being coalesce, inclusive of all noble feelings! That is God, Aatma and also Gnaana!
182. I told you earlier that Atma is not connected or related to anything else. So there is nothing for it to know or be aware of. So the only thing it can know or be aware of is itself! No other mind or instruments of knowledge can know it because, there is no other thing. So when the mind ceases to be, in Samaadhi, the being is aware of itself and that experience is known as ‘Aatma Anubhava’! ‘Aatma Anubhava’ is not known or experienced in sleep.
183. If your question is, “How can Aatma be Aananda (Happiness)”, I am tempted to counter question, “How else can it be”? When something is without any restrictions totally free, there is no way that it can be unhappy. The compulsions of mind, instigations of the senses, and imperatives of duties towards family, society, nation and humanity are the things that bind us and cause all the sorrows and problems of our lives. Aatma has no such compulsions. At the same time it is not devoid of knowledge or feelings. It would certainly know of its boundlessness. Such supreme state of freedom has to be supreme state of unlimited happiness too. Even within limitations, we do feel happiness temporarily. So the state of eternal, unlimited freedom of the Aatma cannot be anything other than pure happiness forever! Aatma, that does not have the feelings that we have towards others such as anger, annoyance, fear and disgust; is eternally purely happy.
184. We have someone to lord it over us always. Over everything else, we are slaves to our external and internal nature. Then there is an officer controlling us in all walks of life; who in turn is controlled by his wife. Everybody and everything including Nature is controlled by Lord God Easwara. Even He, when He is Easwara and Devotee, is said to be manipulated by the devotee’s wishes. So, He is also not free after all! As I said before, the moment there is Dwaitam, there is no freedom (Swaadeenam); only slavery (Paraadeenam)! When there is nothing to Lord it over and no partition to divide and distribute; that Akhanda, Adwaita, Aatma, alone can know of the Akahanda – aatma – anandam that is the indivisible total happiness of the Self! In our day to day lives, we get just a glimpse of that illimitable ocean of eternal bliss! With one or two drops of that vastness, Maya enables the individual to experience some amount of thrill with his five senses further amplified by the mind by imagination! The whole world is running in circles after that sense of thrill and happiness, not knowing that the source is hidden here inside each one of us!
(To be continued.)
Sambhomahadeva.