DEIVATHIN KURAL #148 (Vol #4) Dated 17 Feb 2011

DEIVATHIN KURAL #148 (Vol #4) Dated 17 Feb 2011

(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 middle of page number 826 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)
432. While commenting on this sloka, our AachaaryaaL explains as to how the devotee gets to know about God, “yaavaan” – ‘what’ He actually is; in devotion the devotee gets to know that the God is the ‘Jagat KaaraNa – the cause of all existence’, then as the Chief Executive, the controlling, managing, protecting, sustaining and providing power in being! AachaaryaaL uses a phrase, “upaadi kruta vistara bhedanaat”, to mean, ‘as defined by many qualities, attributes, duties and purposes; occupying all the time and space involving all the people and living things both mobile and static’! Then on further analysis, he gets to know that there has to be the one unitary knowledge cum power as the causal reason behind all this variety and multiplicity! He gets to know of it as the “Adwaitam, Chaitanya maatra eka rasa:”, ‘as the one and only singular awareness’! This sounds as though the mind of the Jeeva approaches the cosmic mind as yet another mind; Easwara removes this perspective and grants him unitary vision.
433. What sounds as though it is about Adwaita Anubhava, becomes crystal clear, a little later, when Bhagawan says – “mat prasaadaat avaapnoti shaasvatam padam avyayam” – meaning, ‘Doing all actions always having taken refuge in me, by my Grace he obtains the eternal indestructible state of being’. That is the Adwaita Moksham. As the devotee approaches the SaguNa Brhmam, by the blessings of that SaguNa Brhmam, he attains to oneness with the NirguNa Brhmam. It is the power of the Easwara that brought this devotee under effect of the Maya and He is very much capable of removing the influence of Maya too, by which the devotee experiences the oneness with the Aatma!
434. Here having revealed His Paramatma Swaroopa, another five slokas later He reveals that He is the ‘Antaryaami’, the indwelling divinity in all static and mobile life forms of all types. He says that from the heart of all living beings, He is making them dance to his music of Maya like the puppeteer does, calling Himself the Easwara here! Let us look at these two slokas and their meaning! “Easwara: sarva bhootaanaam hruddeshe - Arjuna tishtati I bhraamayan sarva bhootaani yantraa roodhaani maayaya II” B.G Ch 18, Sloka 61. It means, “The Lord dwells in the heart of all beings, O Arjuna, causing all beings, by His illusive power, to revolve as if mounted on a machine. In the next sloka he says, “Tameva charaNam gachcha sarva bhaavena Bharatha I Tat prasaadaat paraam shaantim sthanam praapsyasi shaasvatam II” B.G Ch 18, Sloka 62. It means, “Fly unto Him for refuge with all thy being, O Arjuna; by His Grace thou shalt obtain supreme peace and the eternal abode.”
435. (KTSV adds: Bhagawan RamaNa Maharishi was asked by some devotees to select some of the important slokas of Bhagawat Gita as it was too long, containing 700 slokas! He selected 42 slokas from among the whole of the Gita and put them in order not exactly as they occur in the Gita. I notice that these two slokas quoted above are the last two of his selection too! That may give you some gravity of their message and the importance given to them by RamaNa too!) So, whatever anybody of any Siddhantam may say, Moksham is the only eternal state of peace. With your mind, body intellect and all your past, present and likely future; just surrender unto Him; drop that small mind before the cosmic mind; as His blessing (or Prasaada) accept whatever is in store for you and that will be eternal, permanent peace!
436. The mind of the Jeeva by the path of Karma gets cleansed, proceeds on the path of Bhakti in handing over itself to the cosmic mind, the Easwara with love and thereby gets face to face with Atma. There is no balance left as the recipient mind and Aatma as the thing being obtained. This narrow, partite and limited being of the mind just dissolves in the indivisible Aatma. We have to learn to stop identifying ourselves with this limited mind and being a slave to it while enabling it to dissolve itself into sublimation!
437. Till it was separate, this mind has been all the time relating all the experiences into me and mine; you and yours; they and their! In such a situation there can be not Love and compassion, but only pride, jealousy and passion! When this mind is to be dissolved with love, with great reluctance it will slowly agree to drop its defences one by one. Love is the antidote for this disease of selfishness. From being too self centred, when it starts loving whosoever it may be, it starts doing things for the sake of pleasing, satisfying or protecting that object of love. Even here when it has to decide between that object of love and selfishness, the latter always wins! So it is important that there should be no selfish interest if it is to be pure love. Otherwise, it is desire or passion and not love! All that contributes in further fattening the individual’s indulgence and boosting of his ego; are all part of Kaama and not Love. Whatever melts the mind and softens it capable of dissolution is what is love and compassion. Before the mind can melt, it has to spread in all directions in expansiveness. Altruism and acceptance of others ideas comes with a liberal attitude, capacity for tolerance, an ability to understand other’s views with sympathy and sensitivity. Then only this mind can one day melt in that Paramartha Tatva without a trace.
438. Earlier I gave the example of the iron ball which was heated up. Another example is that of the water. When it becomes light and evaporate in to water vapour, then only it can disappear. Such spreading and sublimation is love. Instead of becoming light, it hardens in to hard ice in the lack of warmth. Even that hard ice can melt when the situation permits. Even the frozen continents of Arctic and Antarctic they say are melting. But this mind hardened by selfishness does not melt ever! It is worthwhile to note here that Thayumaanavar says in one of his songs, “Oh! Even a stone one day may melt, but my mind is so hard that it has not even softened let alone melt!”
439. It is love that makes the mind expansive, amenable, tolerant and accommodative. If this love, instead of being directed towards other animals and human beings, is directed towards Easwara it becomes special and is known as devotion. That is what is required also. Because if directed towards other human beings there is a risk of it becoming a crass desire! If nothing else it may contribute in boosting one’s own ego as how great we are in being kind to others. We may sacrifice much for them. Then we get a desire for other’s appreciation and a craving for recognition, name and fame! Then we want awards, national level awards and international awards and adulation. Once you go in this line there is no end! When we do not get name and fame; we get irritation and become disgruntled. These are all methods of regressing only. Instead of enabling and ennobling those who come into our contact, we start criticizing and become cynical. Or instead of expanding horizons, it may become restricted to that one other person. That love of that one can mean harming others. Out of our love for that one person, we may recommend that person to a job to which he or she may not be really suitable or deny some other worthy of that job! There are many pitfalls when our love instead becoming expansive, becomes restricted to a few who become our pets or fans!
440. When our love is for the Lord God Easwara, then and only then, it becomes possible for the minds of ours to become light capable of melting and expansiveness. This is special value of His Blessings, that He calls “mat prasaadaat” or “tat prasaadaat”. It is His Blessings that the mind that got in to the habit of Loving Him for His sake is made expansive enough to encompass the whole world in its ambit of Love, while completely annulling a separate identity of this individual totally forever with his or her mind erased! With the loss of the separate mind, the individual is not a zero but, becomes one with the very reality of existence as the NirguNa Brhmam and that is the speciality of the Blessings of Anugraha!
441. How do we know about this? This we know from the ‘n’ number of great saints that have been there, scattered all over the world but concentrated in this earth in the area known as Bharath Varsha, the Indian Subcontinent! We will talk about them in the next issue of Deivathin Kural!
(To be continued.)
Sambhomahadeva.