DEIVATHIN KURAL # 33 (Vol # 6) Dated 03 Aug 2012

DEIVATHIN KURAL # 33 (Vol # 6) Dated 03 Aug 2012

(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 going ahead from page No 227 of Volume 6 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)

ADWAITA SADHANA
The Essence of Religions
1. There is a cause of all existence. That is the cause of our being also, that has created us. We as individual human beings are negligibly small and miniscule beings known as the Jiva Atman. Whereas that causal being is the big, huge, mighty, all capable, all knowing Parabrhmam. We have to go back and rejoin that Paramaatma. Then only this Samsaram, of the repetitious cycle of birth and death again and again; the grip that Karma has on our lives making us do things; this mind’s never ending wants, likes and dislikes and vacillations; will all end and we could attain the blissful state of the highest release from this wheel of life and death. That is Moksham, or Nirvana, everlasting peace of immortality. The Religions are there to say this and tell you the way to reach God. Religious Siddhaantams, meaning different points of views, are all different approaches to the same goal.
2. Each religion has given God, a different name such as Siva or Vishnu or Shakti. If you do this and this, you can go to Vaikundam and that is the world of Moksham says Vaishnavism aka Dwaitam. But Saivam says that the final destination is Siva’s place Kailasam only. To reach there, you have to do such and such things. Similarly there are religions which say; ‘PiLLaiyar’s Aananda Bhuvanam is Moksham’; ‘SubrahmaNya Swami’s Skanda Giri is the real Moksham’; ‘even Sri Rama and Krishna did not go to Vaikundam, for Rama there is a Saketam and that is the place to reach’; ‘Sri Krishna is the resident of Go Loka and that is the real heaven’; similarly every sect and sub sect claim their own God is the Paramatma and that their place is the final destination on reaching which you can be rid of all the problems of life and be in eternal comfort, they all claim!
3. To the question as to what will be the inter se relationship between Jivaatma and Parmaatma, each religion, or Siddhaantam and or sect have their own interpretation. One Siddhaantam that is Dwaitam says that God is God and we can never be him, but remain separate individuals as Jeevaatma apart from him as the Paramaatma, permanently devoted to him and enjoying eternal happiness. Though the above will be the general arrangement, the difference between the Jeevaatma in Ignorance in the world of Maya and the Jeevaatma in Vaikundam is that, the latter will know that the indwelling essence permeating the whole of existence is God only as the ‘Antaryaami’ in all life forms as well as those that are apparently inanimate. That is Visishtadwaitam. After Sunrise, all the stars seem to disappear in the effulgent glory of the Sun but are not erased out of existence, isn’t it? Similarly, in heaven too, Jeevaatma instead of being erased forever remains with some residual identity of separateness that is fully aware of the enormous greatness of the Suddha Chaitanya of the Paramaatma, totally absorbed in it! That is Saiva Siddhaantam.
Adwaitam Different From All Other Points of View
4. Aadi Sankara Bhagawat PaadaaL, our AachaaryaaL established a Siddhaantam known as Adwaitam. It was not that he created that concept or something! What it says is that, it annuls and cancels all other Siddhaantam in one stroke! It negates the existence of this world and that world of ‘Iham’ and ‘Param’, Bhulokam, Vaikundam, Kailasam and or any other type of heaven or hell. To say that the Jeevaatma escapes from this world and goes to Paramaatma’s world and joins him there is all so much imagination only as Adwaitam sets aside the concepts of Space & Time as not being absolute and Matter as immaterial! There is no Iha Loka whatsoever. It is only a mirage, seemingly so. Moksham is also not a place. When the Self or Atman is free of the mind, that state is Moksham. That can happen here and now. So we need not think that Moksham happens after death. One can be free of the constraints of the mind while still living in the body. Such a person is known as Muktan or Gnaani. Though he may look and sound as though he is in a world of his own, in truth he is in Moksham only!
5. Let us analyse as to who is this Jivan, who thinks that he is something special, as an individual apart from all others. This is the creation of the mind. To proceed further, we have to exactly know as to what is this mind, from which all thoughts generate. In what we call the Mind, there are four things, namely Manas, Buddhi, Chittam and Ahankaaram. Manas is like the subtle core of the computer with sensory inputting and outputting devices in the body. Buddhi analyses the input data and arrives at conclusions and so is almost synonymous with the word Intellect. Chittam is that which wills and the word Ahankaaram is the complex of the sense of me, mine, pride and haughtiness! These four words are synchronous and at times play each other’s roles too! With reference to the context, we should discern the meaning.
6. About the joining of Jivaatma and Paramatma and the relationship between them, there is no joining or relationship between them whatsoever. Because there can be joining or relationship only when there are two or more different entities or parts. In fact Jeevaatma and Paramaatma are not two different beings. It is one and the same Brhmam / Atman seen as this or that. It is all the worlds in one entity without anyone alien to it. It has no other experience other than being itself, which is mentioned as ‘NitguNa’ Brhmam. Still based on that very Brhmam, there is this Maya which has the power of wailing that Brhmam. The magic show by the Maya is all that is seen as the world and universe.
7. Cinema runs on the white screen or console, without which you cannot see the movie, isn’t it? But that scene projected itself is hiding the white screen. Though hidden, the white screen is unaffected by all that happens on its surface and so remains as it is. That is how the drama of worldly life happens to be played on the white screen of Brhmam. One additional miracle is that Brhmam while remaining as Brhmam on one side, on the other, by its own power of Maya has replicated itself as so many Jiva Atman-s with a sense of individuality and uniqueness despite being replicas! They are all with separate ‘AntahkaranNam’ with their own minds, intellect and body, becoming so many Jiva Atman-s. As they go through life, they further complicate the situation inexorably and irretrievably by their will and Karma and the positive and negative effects of good and bad actions!
8. If the Jiva Atman does Sadhana and learns to set aside his Antahkarana of separateness, then the Jiva himself will become the Brhmam or rather instead of becoming, will know himself to be none other than the Brhmam! There is no joining of Jiva / Parama Atman at all. This one knows himself to be that one. The one when he was not aware of his reality thought himself to be Jiva and on getting to know his self realises himself to be Param! Till one is bound by the ties of the Mind, he thought himself to be some other entity, like everybody else that he sees in this world and once the mind is annulled, the ties are no more and he knows the truth of reality with a capital R! There is no joining somebody else and no relationship either! Moksham is resolving of all the knots and ties that were keeping us bound as though. So, there is no place to talk of Moksha Loka as though it is a place – says Adwaitam in one clear blast!
9. The very thought that just by delinking with our minds, we could realise our oneness with the primordial causal being and the Moksham can be here and now, is too much to gulp anyhow! Instead of thinking of God as something like an omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient super-human and ourselves as mere insignificant mortals who may aspire for a side long glance of his grace that may lift us to launch us on that arduous path of much Karma, Devotion and perseverance towards that unattainable Moksham; It is just too good to be true for Adwaitam to be saying that ‘We are already that’ and we have to only get rid of our ignorance to know ourselves to be a Gnaani! It is as though we are too fond of our own ignorance, inefficiency, pet foibles and weaknesses!
Though Seemingly Easy, It Is Very Difficult!
10. But, it is too big a condition – to do away with or delink with one’s own mind and then deserve the attainment of Adwaita Siddhi! Once the first part has been done, then the second part is a cake walk! But, to delink from the mind is just not easy. If we are wearing a loose dress, we could easily remove that. If it is a tight fitting one it is more difficult. But if you tell me to peel off the skin of my body, how am I to do that? That is how thickly are we identified with our minds. However, the point to understand is that like a dirty cloth or the surface of a mirror that is covered with dust, the mind is either clean or full of dust. Once the dirt, dust and cob-webs of the mind are removed it becomes translucent to let the inner effulgence shine. Then the same man becomes or rather knows himself to be Mahatma! To clean that mind is the Brhma Prayatnam or like the effort of Bhagiratha who brought the River Ganges from the heavens!
11. The mind cannot be got rid of easily. What is mind? It is a data base full of recordings of past experiences. It is the generator of thoughts. If it stops running, it ceases to exist also. But, it is very difficult to stop its flow. Sleeping is the only time it becomes sort of sluggish. Even then it creates the dreams. Then before the body wakes up, the mind is up and about. Then like a cheetah or a horse, it is on its four legs running hither and thither! Time and distance is no criteria for it. At one stroke it can go back years or even dwell on some smells of the past lives and in another it can project into the future years hence! Then each one of us has gone through many life times in the past! Manikka Vachagar says, “Oh God! I have been through many lives as grass, weeds, trees, as many types of animals, as birds, as creeping insects and snake, as stone, as human beings, as angels, saints; I have gone through every type of existence and I am tired and fed up!” Not all of us know our past so clearly and not all of are fed up either. But rather we want more of this experience or that! Those impressions are deeply imbedded in our minds, causing many thoughts to prop up any time! The Perungayam or Asafoitida a type of a gum from the trees that is used to flavour food is kept in a tin normally. Even after it has been fully utilised and the tin thrown away, the smell will linger in the tin even years later. Similarly the mind’s Vaasanaas (smell) from the past lives called ‘Janmaantara Vaasanaas’ of past actions and experiences ‘Samskaara Vaasanaas’, will keep arising in the mind, causing us to plan regaining those experiences. Till these Vaasanaas stop, the mind will not stop!
(To be continued.)
Sambhomahadeva