DEIVATHIN KURAL # 84 (Vol # 5) Dated 18 Nov 2011

DEIVATHIN KURAL # 84 (Vol # 5) Dated 18 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 505 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)
329. God’s Grace is the essential pre-requirement for anyone to get the qualifications for leaving the never ending cycle of ‘work – effect – more work’ and enter the Gnaana Marga! So if you are not interested in this release from the work related involvement, it is tantamount to refusing God’s Grace! Having refused God’s Grace, we go about claiming that we will do the needful for the welfare of others! Who are these others and who has the responsibility to take care of them, us or God? Even if we say that we will care for others, we need God’s Grace, isn’t it? That we have already refused! We will end up being ‘non-starters’ and will never get going! Without Easwara Anugraha, can anybody do anything, let alone doing social service! It is God who makes use of each one of us as tools in his grand scheme, including all sorts of transactions and Loka Vyavahaar! Having made use of us for a period in social service God may decide to make use of other tools for that purpose and put this man on the u-turn inwardly to go back to one’s origins. At that opportune moment this up-start is talking about devoting his all for the upliftment of the society at the cost of God’s Grace! Then how can he hope to draw on the same God’s Grace for his intended social service? He will be a double loser in the bargain, by this wasteful attitude!
330. There is a subtle dichotomy in our understanding of this word ‘selfishness’! When this man thinks that ‘I am ready to even give up on my personal attainment of Gnaana, so as to be able to keep doing social service’, let alone say or claim to be so; there is a thick layer of ego instigated pride there! In god’s arrangement, what this man thinks of as social service for others, there is in-built ‘adrushta’ (unseen) returns of cleansing and ripening of one’s own mind. His own part of the work may end in Upakaram or Apakaram for others, but he will benefit anyhow. ‘You take care of your own self and I will take care of my creation. In that if I use you as a tool, it is meant to be for the purpose of cleansing you of the debilitating pride and ego. So do not say in all ignorance that you do not wish for Moksham and that you are only working for other’s benefit and welfare, in some mistaken notion of priority. Though it may not look like a problem created by your ego, it is nothing else but that. So, do not miss out either way.’ That is what Bhagwan likely to say to such a devotee.
331. Why should you bother about those whom you consider as others? Are you wishing to take over God’s portfolios? Please bother about your own attitude and behaviour. Having not taken care of your own mind, to launch on some rectification and correction of the world and people’s behaviour is simply over stepping your appointed role! Till your mind is not under control running helter-skelter, it is unfit to do Aatma Vichara. Till then you have to keep at it through Karma Yoga. But when your usefulness is over, you have to know as to when to call it quits. Instead, to be continuing as though you are a critically essential king-pin, can only be due to a deluded sense of importance and nothing else!
332. After all this explanation, if you were to still ask if it is not being selfish to only take care one’s own self not caring for others, the answer is an emphatic ‘No’! What is Self? Thinking of you as a separate individual, being interested only about obtaining more and more gold, properties, titles, materials, position and power is being selfish. This greed is to be abhorred as all wealth is meant to be shared. When you have shed your greed, ego and pride, you are just your Aatma or Self and then there is nothing that is mine or others’. I and mine are gone forever from your mind. At that stage there is no chance for greed or stinginess. Now true Selfishness comes to the fore. At this stage to be opting for Self-Realization will prove to be a wonderful boon and example for others to study and emulate! At this point in perusing the meaning of the words self, selfishness and self realization; I cannot avoid laughing!
333. Till we are not able to keep quiet doing nothing, we have to immerse ourselves in work only. Why are we not able to recognise the fact that we are not some separate entity but the same as all existence everywhere, the Aatma the reality beyond the confines of space and time? It is because of the fact that we have moved away from our original innocence to a confused state of lack of clarity as though we have put a screen between ourselves and our perception. Thus we have become deluded. To undo our own past misdeeds, we have to patiently tear off that screen by present actions, good actions as directed by the Saastraas. The good Karma Anushtaanaas as approved by the Saastraas are, ‘playing our appointed role to perfection as a child, as a junior, youth, adult and old aged person; as a member of the community as a student, bachelor, house holder (husband or wife), king, worker, soldier, trader, and so on; towards our parents, relatives, others in the community, village, city, country and the world respectively; with love towards all including all forms of existence animate and inanimate; as far as possible, to the extent we are capable, true to the dictates of rules of the land and most importantly our own conscience; never getting flustered, disheartened, disappointed or hopeless’!
334. But to say, ‘Let the curtain be there. I will sit behind the screens and keep doing service’, is also not very correct and not acceptable to the God either. He has clearly said (in Bhagawat Gita VI – 5), “Uddharet aatmanaa aatmaanam na aatmaanam avasaadayet I Aatmaeva hi aatmanor bhandu: aatmaeva ripuraatmana: II” “Uddharet aatmanaa aatmaanam” – ‘try your level best to improve and raise yourself by yourself’. “Na aatmaanam avasaadayet” – ‘do not demean yourself’. Instead of raising yourself from ignorance, do not be stubborn that it is alright to remain in darkness of Agnaana! When you try to improve and refine yourself, then you are your best friend – “aatma eva hi aatmano: bhandu:” When you are not trying to raise and refine yourself, you are being stubborn, in which case you become your worst enemy too – “aatma eva ripu aatmana:”! That is God’s words for you. It is your own choice as to whether you want to help your own refinement and progress or prove to be a stumbling block and an enemy for yourself! To say, “Let whatever happen to my Aatma, I will only be interested in carrying on working for the welfare of the world”, on the one side is not very sensible as the result is uncertain being not in your hands; and even if it happens to be good by chance, is still only a mirage being part of this world of Maya. Anyhow your decision is not likely to have God’s approval or sanction!
335. If some great Mahaans, saints and sages have thus sacrificed their own self realization and Aatma Anubhuti, for the sake of the society’s welfare and said so also; we must understand that they have been so utilised by God for the sake of motivating the common man wallowing in ignorance and crass selfishness! May be as a result some of us who are all the time killing others’ happiness for the minor pleasures of life may be suitably motivated and weaned away from bad and evil behaviour! If there are some examples of Mahaans who have sacrificed even their own redemption, as a counter to it, we also have many examples of great souls who have opted for absolute detachment and aloneness at the zenith of their career of social service!
336. So, in the state we are in, though we have to remain on this side of the screen in pre-ordained darkness, our efforts to remove the screen must continue at the inner level, through Naama Japa or Nidhidyaasana. As the screen starts getting worn out giving glimpses of illumination of Gnaana, we have to arrive at absolute inertia some time or the other; instead of persevering in muddled thinking that, “I am doing social service for the world” and thus pulling back the dark screen of ignorance and ego over our eyes. When the slight rays of Gnaana start becoming discernible and visible, we should be curtailing our involvement in Para Upakaram too by cutting on our intoxication obtained by being a workaholic! Our analysis of the situation should be like this, as follows. “In this huge world, when the rule is that so many billions of people are predestined to enjoy or suffer as per their own Karma, what we can do is infinitesimally negligible. We should not carry an impression that the world will go to smithereens if our contribution is withdrawn. Let us not prevent the possibilities of attaining the Aatma Anubhava. Let us not plan to do this and that. Let the world go the way it goes. Let us delink from further involvement being aware of the fact that what happens to the world and people is very much in God’s very capable hands!” Thus we should be developing a detached attitude, being only deeply involved in Dhyana and Vichara of the Aatma, knowing very well that our stillness of inactivity by itself is a great Upakaram for the world!
(To be continued.)
Sambhomahadeva.