DEIVATHIN KURAL # 70 (Vol # 5) Dated 21 Oct 2011

DEIVATHIN KURAL # 70 (Vol # 5) Dated 21 Oct 2011

(These e-mails are translations of talks given by PeriyavaaL of Kanchi Kaamakoti 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 No 422 of Vol 5 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)
201. Having identified that the battle had to be fought in the minds of the people, it was decided that the method had to be by giving spiritual instructions with apparent display of how it is to be done. So God decided to take an Avatara as a Gnaani and live and demonstrate as a Sanyaasi. It is not that only a Sanyaasi can be a Gnaani. Our AachaaryaaL himself has said, “Even the worst born Chandaala, in the lowest caste in the social order, if he happens to be a Gnaani, he is my Guru”. We will see later on that story about when he said that. To become a Gnaani is very rare indeed. Nobody can be trained easily to become a Gnaani. Upadesa Guru, whether he teaches Vedas or Physics or Chemistry as a subject or how to make a cart or a wheel as a carpenter; he has to systematically teach, instruct and give practice in what is being taught. So this Guru who is to teach his disciples to become Gnaani-s should preferably be one who has become a Gnaani by method as prescribed in the Saastraas and not by any short cut, intended or otherwise. Though rarely Gnaanis may happen to come about in any situation by whatever process, generally to get that maturity, the process as laid in the Saastraas is, that having gone through the Ashrama of Brhmachayam or Gruhastam in an exceptionally faultless manner, one has to take Sanyaasa from a Guru and then repeatedly meditate on the Maha Vaakyaas of the Vedas which tell about the Aikyam of the Jeeva and Brhma (that is the oneness of the individual soul and ultimate divinity of the Parabrhmam), till the truth of those Maha Vaakyaas is imbibed in the very core of one’s being! God considered this to be the correct method to be adopted for this Avatara.
202. In the conditions obtaining those days, when everything was going on against the methods of the Saastraas, the main aim of the Avatara was to regenerate people’s faith in the disciplined approach of the Saastraas. When such is the case, if the very Avatara seems to indicate that a Gnaani can come into being without any system by whatever means, that will defeat the very purpose of the Avatara, isn’t it? Gnaana being the highest pinnacle to be reached by the individual man, dropping off all assumed unrealities about ones’ self, if it can be realizable by any hook or crook, then it will mean that there is no need for the Saastraas or Upadesa or an Avatara! Or in other words, this Avatara would have ended up creating one more religion, like many of the so called religions of those days, which were all not as per the Saastraas or the Vedas! The ‘dharma samsthaapana arthaaya’ that Krishna spoke about was about re-establishing the ways of the Vedas only. In that also, this particular Avatara was meant for the end teaching of the Vedas, the end of the Nivrutti Marga that is the supremacy of the principle of Adwaitam as the aim beyond compare and relativity! So the Avatara Murthy had to be shown to have systematically taken Sanyaasa and attained to Gnaana. After all even those who were dedicated followers of Buddhism and Jainism had to be Bikkus. So, the Avatara had to be a Sanyaasa Guru.
203. Krishna who was not a Sanyaasi did give Gnaana Upadesa. But, that was only one of the things he did. In his time that was the last of the requirements. He had many other tasks to fulfil such as herding the cattle, playing Raasa Leela with the girls of Brindavan, lifting the Govardana mountain, fighting playfully but effectively with ogres sent by Kamsa to kill him, dancing on the hood of the poisonous snake Kalindi, sorting out the Asuras like Naraka, creating and ruling over Dwaraka, living as a householder with 16,000 wives, being sent as the messenger, acting as the charioteer and so on, thus demonstrating his miraculous and divine powers, through all of which he has taught many a lesson to many. Only in the latter half of his Avatara, his advises to Uddhava known as Uddhava Gita and to Arjuna on the battle field known as Bhagawat Gita were good enough to get him the title of ‘Jagat Guru’! Now, 2,500 years later, God decided that his Avatara had to have an entirely different approach and thrust, that is to be a Sannyaasa Guru and mainly give Upadesa of Devotion and Gnaana!
204. In the Saastraas the householder Gruhasta has been entrusted with many responsibilities. He has to do daily three times Sandya Vandanam, once Brhma Yagnam, Agnihotram, do pooja to the Devatas; and at various days of the year periodically conduct various Yagnas for Devatas, Rishis and Pithrus; and also conduct or get conducted 40 different Samskaaraas in one’s life time. Then he has responsibilities towards elders and youngsters of the family, village and society. More than all this he has to take care of guests and visitors, known as Atithi Satkaara. In the protocol of responsibilities, after Mother, Father and Guru; it is the ‘Atithi’ who is to be considered as a Deva! All the Sanyaasi-s of the world can roam about freely without any care in the world, only when the householder is ready to take care of his needs also, isn’t it? Then social service is the ultimate responsibility of the householder. All this means that he has to earn enough to be able to take care of himself and others in the society. If after doing justice to all these responsibilities as a householder, if he has to also be a Gnaana Upadesa Guru, that would have been quite impossible, especially in the conditions existing those days. He had to go all over the country if he were to argue, debate, disprove all the other religions existing those days and re-establish the Sanaatana Dharma based on the Vedas.
205. So he had to be a Sanyaasi without any need to do all the multifarious Karma Anushtaanaas. For him Upadesa was the Karma and the only responsibility for which he had to be totally dedicated. How could a householder Gruhasta who had to take care of his family and society have gone roaming all over the country? Whereas a Sanyaasi is required by the Saastraas not to stay in the same place for more than one night, so that he may not get attached and put down roots, as though. This was another reason for the Avatara to be a Sanyaasi. Amongst the four Ashramas, Sanyaasa is the most suitable for a roaming ambassador’s job. Brhmachari is called the ‘antevaasi’ as he is supposed to live with the Guru. As he is to live in Gurukulam, he cannot be a transient nomadic character. Gruhasta is anyhow ruled out as described already because of his responsibilities. Vanaprastam also precludes roaming about, as he has to stay in the forest in one place doing his ‘Vrata – Niyama – Tapa – Anushtaanaas’. Sanyaasi is the only one who instead of staying in one place, is required to keep moving from place to place, as per the Saastraas. So, such an Avatara was what was required through whom the job of advising people all over the country could be done.
206. Krishna of course did Gnaana Upadesa. But he did not go about all over the country and address all the erudite scholars of his time. Only Uddhava and Arjuna were lucky enough to receive his Upadesa. In between Gitopadesa he revealed to Arjuna that he is the very God that is Parabrhmam in the form of Krishna. Uddhava knew that he is not only his friend from the days when they were together in Gurukulam under their Guru Saandipani, but also God in human form. To Arjuna, he revealed his immaculate form by a display of his ‘Viswa Roopa Darsana’. Anyhow both Arjuna and Uddhava, without analysing whether he is God or another mortal human in Gruhastam, simply accepted his advices with supreme devotion. Then later, after Krishna dropped his mortal coil, the whole world knew him to be God. It was during Parikchit and Janamejaya’s time that through the words of Vyasa AachaaryaaL, Krishna’s Upadesa-s became known to the whole world through Bhagawata and Maha Bharatha Upanyasas. (Note: After the period of Pandava-s, Parikchit took over the reins of governance. At the end of his period, Vyasa-s son Sukha told him Bhagawata in which Uddhava Gita was narrated as having been given by Krishna to Uddhava. Later Parikchit’s son Janamejaya conducted a Sarpa Yaaga, in which Vyasa’s disciple Vaisampayana told him the whole of Maha Bharatha, in which Bhagawat Gita as advised by Krishna to Arjuna in the battle field of Kurukshetra.) As the words of advice from God, people accepted them without questioning as to whether he was a Gruhasta or what. It was also God’s plan I suppose that having playacted as a human being during the Avatara, he arranged to reveal his Godhood subsequently after the passage of one or two generations.
207. Now it was time that when the ‘house is under fire it had to be quickly doused with water’! During Krishna’s time, there could be delay between the time of Upadesa and its spread to others after people had realised that he was an Avatara. Now was the time that such delay was not acceptable. The fire of Adharma and Agnaana was in a state of conflagration when instant measures of the rain of Gnaana Upadesa were needed. So, without compromising the aims (Lakshya) of Avatara and the required character qualities (Lakshanam) of how the Avatara should be, during the period of existence of the Avatara itself, he had to give his Upadesa for all, for which it was best that the Avatara Purusha was a well known celibate Sanyasi.
(To be continued.)
Sambhomahadeva.