DEIVATHIN KURAL # 117 (Vol #4) Dated 17 Dec 2010

DEIVATHIN KURAL # 117 (Vol #4) Dated 17 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 649 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)
185. In fact there is no happiness due to things outside us. The light of the Aatma is reflected on our inner self and falls on the things outside through the senses and by Maya are seen as attractive. In Dakshina Murthy sloka this idea is well explained by our AachaaryaaL. Think of a pot with a number of holes in which a lamp is lighted. Similarly inside this physical body there is subtle and causal bodies, at the centre of which is Aatma as the light of Awareness and Bliss. The light is reflected by Maya as ‘Happy – Rays’ (Ananda Rasmi) through the (five Indriyas ) holes of the tools of cognition. On whichever thing this Ananda Rasmi falls on, gets lighted. Without knowing that the items are getting lighted up by the source of light within our own inner being; we tend to think as though the attraction is from outside, like the sparrow which fell in love with its own image on seeing it for the first time in the mirror! It is a fraction of gnosis and bliss of the Aatma that the Jeevan (the Living Being) gets from within, which is ignorantly thought to be awareness and bliss from those things outside!
186. There is a thatched roof made of intertwined coconut leaves. The Sun’s rays are coming in through the holes in the roof. A child under the Pandal Roof is likely to think that the light is from the roof. The child is not aware of the Sun outside and its light coming through the holes in the roof. We are like that child, unaware of the source of the light of knowledge and happiness, as Aatma Jyoti from within ourselves. In this body that hides the source, the five senses are like the holes in the Pandal. We are deluded to think that the light and happiness experienced are from things outside ourselves! Our expectation to get happiness and satisfaction from the body is similar to wishing to get the light of the Sun from the thatched roof that is actually hiding the Sun! As, it is all bright light when the intervening Pandal is removed, if we drop the idea of being the body, we can become and know ourselves to be the ever effulgent Aatma!
187. A little bit of investigation will reveal that none of the things outside of us can give us the happiness by themselves. If a cashmere shawl were to be the source of our happiness, it should do so at all times, is it not so? But however much soft and nice it may be, in summer time we will not be able tolerate even its touch. So happiness is not in the shawl. There may be a Raga named Aananda Bhairavi, wonderful to hear at all times. But, even that Raga may not be welcome when we are grieving the death of someone close to us! When someone is running a fever, will good sweets and ice-cream be acceptable? We can carry on in this vein to show that happiness in not from things outside. The mistaken notion that happiness is from these things foreign to us, is from the mind! When this mind is at a standstill in sleep, is there anything that gives happiness? No! One is sleeping sans the working of the mind. There is something recording the fact of his being however.
188. For so long (as also during so many e-mails), I have been discussing the fact that, whatever the happiness as can be felt or discerned by the mind, is not lasting and that with some amount of happiness, at once many times more discomfort, uneasiness and sorrow are caused and felt. Like we saw or happen to notice some rays of the light through some gaps in the Pandal which otherwise is only preventing Sun light, the mind is only capable of small bits of happiness in an otherwise environment of sadness. Only when we rise above the manipulations of the mind and go directly to the Aatma, can we have some idea of what can be the eternal bliss! Being the very embodiment of happiness, this man Jeevan the Aatma is constantly running helter skelter for happiness. In our books on Adwaita this fact has been compared with the musk deer, which was roaming around the forest in search of the fragrance without knowing that the smell was emanating from its own naval. When the mind is dead in Samadhi, this complete happiness of Aatma Aananda will be fully known; but it cannot be captured in words and conveyed or communicated to each other!
189. The Peaceful Bliss Not Comprehensible by the Mind! In the state we are in, in which we know our minds and not the Aatma, Happiness is seen as a state bubbling with energy and Peacefulness seems to be a state of inaction. So, these senses of sight, smell, hearing et al being some powers / forces; one is likely to wonder as to how happiness can be felt in the total peacefulness of the Aatma?! But at the same time how can we expect that the ways of Aatma, its peacefulness and bliss should be a matter within our range of comprehension? After all, we have already noted that this Aatma is beyond our minds! So, its gnosis, senses, feelings, happiness and peace can only be known to it and not to the mind. Within our own body, can we see with our ears or hear with our eyes? If we continue with this logic, we can see that there can be such pleasures as not known to our senses. It can be full of peace, quiet and happy at the same time!
190. What is Saantam? To abide with oneself sans movements is this peacefulness or Saantam. Since the happiness of the mind is ever dependent on other things; that is because of experiencing something other than itself; and since, it is ever pining for those objects; it is never capable of abiding within. But for the Aatma there is no other and all are within. So, there is no objectivity, but only subjectivity! So there is happiness, lasting, eternal and permanent sans aspiration, expectation and perspiration!
191. When the mind gets super human capabilities, successively there are Gandarvas, Pithrus, Devas, Indra, Bruhaspati, Prajapati and Brhma; each capable hundred times greater quantum of happiness; says the Chapter on Ananda Valli in Taitreeya Upanishad. Every time it increases the level, it also increases the level of happiness a 100 times to the previous. Then it goes on to say also that at each step, the happiness of the Man versed in the Vedas and not smitten by passion is the same (‘sa eko brahmaNaHa aanandaha srtriyasya cha kaama hatasya’ ). So, finally what is in Brhma is, 1,00,00,00,00,00,00,00 times more than a Man’s; which is however the same as of the one who is versed in the Vedas and is not smitten by passion! We cannot know it just now, but we can attain to it when we live by the Saastraas and have overcome ‘Kaama’, that is Desire and that is what I have been talking to you for so long; under the heading of Adwaitam! Man feels a certain pleasure in drinking a cup of coffee or listening to a good song. Can a cow or a monkey know that happiness? Thus at the end of many levels of happiness, the highest of it all is what is called the ‘Aatma Aanandam’!
192. Even Parasakthi’s Aanandam is in Saanta Aatma. In Lalita Sahasranama, there is a name for her as, “swaatmaananda lavee boota brhmaadyaananda santati:” , which means that all the happiness of all the life forms from the lowest to the highest Brhma becomes only a fraction of her ‘Aatma Aananda’! The reason why our own level of Aananda is so low is due to the fact there are many good and bad influences on us. We cannot help being subjected to all of them. But higher the Devata under whose control we are subjected to; the lower levels will have no influence on us and our level of happiness increases. So finally there is Brhma, whose level being very high, his happiness level is also higher. But even he is lower than his Father Maha Vishnu! So he is also bound under some control. But then MahaVishnu’s happiness too is made light of, in comparison to AmbaaL’s. There is another ‘But’!
(To be continued.)
Sambhomahadeva.