DEIVATHIN KURAL # 77 (Vol # 5) Dated 04 Nov 2011

DEIVATHIN KURAL # 77 (Vol # 5) Dated 04 Nov 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 463 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)
267. Police Stations are located in various parts of the city to prevent crime and maintain Law and Order. But unless somebody complains or lodges a First Information Report known as F.I.R., for short, is lodged Police may not take any action mostly. Like that Easwara was also waiting to receive some petitions it seems. Not that he was standing on formalities, or for assuming some importance for himself, but so that both the divine bureaucracy and people of the world may know the procedure. One petition from the governing bureaucracy of various divine office holders that things are going awfully wrong, especially in the case of Dharmam being stolen away which was serious and critical enough for direct intervention by the chief executive himself! Another petition had to come from the parents to be. God the Easwara, who has no need to go through the cycle of birth and death, cannot just be born to some father and mother, though he is the indwelling reality in every iota of existence. The parents have to be worthy enough and they should be putting up a heart rending appeal for him to be born as their child. That is the petition on receipt of which he will go there and be born to them as a child!
268. It has happened every time there has been an Avatara – that is, the fact that there has to be two petitions. You know what happened at least in the cases before the birth of Rama and Krishna, don’t you? All the Devatas had gone to God and complained about the intolerable and atrocious behaviour of Ravana. Then Dasaratha the great king of Ayodhya having been a great ruler caring for his citizens and a man of excellent character qualities had one personal complaint of not having any children of his own. So he had got the huge Putra Kaameshti Yaaga conducted. So God had decided to be born as his son. In the case of Krishna the story is like this. Many Yugas back there was a Prajapati by the name Sutapas and his wife Pruchni, who for long periods did much Tapasya of abnegation with the wish that God himself should be born as their child, not only in one life time but in three successive lives! For the third time they were husband and wife as Vasudeva and Devaki, when Krishna was born as their child. In their previous life they were Kashyapa and Atiti. That time it was Vamana Avatara. When Mahavishnu had been so careful about selecting suitable parents for his Avatara-s, why should Easwara also not be selective about his parents? In reality there is no ‘playing hard to get’ sort of a game. But to get God himself as your son is a rare honour indeed!
269. The Kind Heart of the Actionless – Nishkriya DakshiNa Murthy. Quietly sitting under the shade of the banyan tree, the absolutely unmoving DakshiNa Murthy with unseeing eyes and mouth that does not speak, is however full of enormous compassion and kindness. He has no Manas (mind) alright as, to be the Aatma sans mind is Adwaitam. He is Adwaita Swaroopa. That is, if you can visualize an embodiment for the principle of Adwaita, it is in the form of DakshiNa Murthy. But out of kindness for the people of the world, who are all God’s children only, his heart was melting. He was thinking, “How sad! The children are going astray so compulsively! I must do something about it!” (Describing this while visualising the scene PeryavaaL laughs.) How can there be a form for the Adwaita principle? That is also out kindness for us, the people of the world, isn’t it? So, let him have a heart also which he was melting out of love and compassion!
270. There is a spoken expression, ‘the wife who does not cross the steps at the entrance to the house’. In these days when women are doing all sorts of jobs in the offices, shops, police and even in the three services of Army, Navy and Air Force; people may not be able to understand as to what is meant by saying, ‘the wife who doesn’t cross the threshold’! May be ‘Gosha’ or ‘Purda’ will be understood. That is, women of the house do not go out of the house, but remain inside unseen by the outside world wearing a wail that covers the face and may be the whole body. Even their voice will not be heard outside! But say, the child has run outside and is standing on the steps. It is raining outside and the any moment the child may step out and get wet and dirty or even fall and drown. What will the mother do? Out of care for the child the Mother may not bother about Gosha or any other restriction. She will just rush out and catch hold of the baby isn’t it? DakshiNa Murthy was in a similar quandary!
271. His nature is to be ‘not doing anything’! The greatest advice like a ‘Mantra Upadesa’ from a Guru to a disciple is, ‘keep quiet’ or ‘summaa iru’ in Tamil; or ‘oorika undu’ in Telugu; ‘kuch naa karo’ in Hindi! There is a proverb which says, ‘summaa iruppade sukam’ meaning ‘to be quiet is pleasant’! There is another one which goes, ‘sindaiai adakkiye summaa irukkindra thiran aridu’ meaning, ‘the ability to control one’s mind and keep quiet is rare indeed’! So, for him to see the people suffering, not being able to control their minds even a wee little bit, not only agonizing themselves but also troubling others; he felt the inner urge to teach them the art of ‘doing nothing’! Normally before this, the problem used to be one of lack of religiousness or not practicing what is taught by the religions. Now the problem was qualitatively different. There were too many religions, points of views, principled stands, procedures and rituals leading to utter confusion; each considering their own method to be best affecting the very social fabric.
272. It is not that because you are not able to keep quiet, you suffer due to physical overwork, but by your mind also you can create much chaos and create a whole lot of befuddlement. So, it was not enough to stop physical labour but the order had to be effected at the cerebral level. Out of his infinite kindness he decided to teach the common man the art of controlling one’s own mind and bring in peace and quiet. That is, to stop thinking and thus to be without a mind is Adwaitam! How is duality experienced? Or how is this Dwaitam recognised? Only by the mind is the second seen. In sleep, are we aware of anybody else other than ourselves? No! As at the time of sleep our mind is quiet and subdued, nobody else is seen and so it is pleasantly happy. The moment there is the second, all the peace and quietude is gone, instantly! Say you are in love with that second, or it is your loving child, immediately you are motivated to do something. May be you want to kiss, cuddle or feed or do something. Come to think of it the ‘priyam’, the love is not by the second. It thrills us to be kind and loving to the second entity when it is likely to give us happiness or when it is about to become our own or related to us in some way. The second entity normally mostly, causes fear, hate, competition and doubt! In the bargain, it is us who feels the anger, hate and disappointment. We end up suffering the most as a result!
273. It can be easily deduced that it is the second entity that causes both attraction and repulsion. If one can do away with the second, there will be no more attraction or disgust! What? Are you suggesting that we do away with all the seconds? Who can ever destroy the whole world? Even if you have the power that you can kill all living things alright, but what can we do about the material world? If we do away with the world also, where are we to live? The lack of peace is not only due to the living things other than our selves, but due to the inanimate world of things also! If we see a mango, we wish to eat it. Flowers, breeze, natural scenery, sky, mountains, valleys, dales, oceans, rivers and seasonal changes in nature; they all take your breath away by their splendour! Then if we see a thorny plant we are afraid of hurting ourselves! Further, thunder and lightning, floods and tsunami, earth quake, humidity, dryness, heat and cold; the list of disturbing things are endless. How to get rid of all these things?
274. Let us say that by some means, we have got rid of the second entity of both the animate and inanimate world. Then can we sit quietly and be happy with ourselves? Supposedly, let us assume that there is nobody other than our own selves and there is nothing else also! Even then, we will feel the hunger, thirst and so many such things by which we will be troubled! If nothing else, memory can give us lack of peace. A thought of passion, anger, fear, insult or an imagined lack of respect; is good enough to vitiate our peacefulness! These are all coming at us from within only. Even a word that we uttered on an occasion or not uttered or failed to utter is good enough to make us agitated. So where is the peace and what is all this due to? So now the question remains, how are we going to achieve that state of oneness with Adwaitam? How are we going to make it happen in our lives that there is no other?
275. (PeriyavaaL in all his kindness lowers his voice, makes it more sweet and pleasant and continues!) My dear, the ‘other’ – ‘one more’ – ‘second entity’ – is not any other animate life form or inanimate thing in the whole world. Then your question can be, “What are you talking about then?” I am talking about our minds, the ‘Manas’! That is, if one can come to realise that all that is seen as the second is by the mind and that all that is seen as something else and foreign to us are all the creation of the mind; will there be priyam or apriyam? Will there be love or hate then? We will analyse this further.
(To be continued.)
Sambhomahadeva.