DEIVATHIN KURAL # 67 (Vol # 6) Dated 13 Oct 2012

DEIVATHIN KURAL # 67 (Vol # 6) Dated 13 Oct 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 the middle of page No 463 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)

344.  When ‘Ahambhaavam’ is got rid of you become absolutely light hearted.  As otherwise, if the idea gets into one’s head that Gnaanam is revealed or made known only to some rare persons of superior worth and merit as Uttama Adhikaari, all his worth and merit gets evaporated in a jiffy! So, it is essential that we bring in a subservient attitude of compliance with devotion and implicit obedience towards Brhmam through Bhakti.  ‘However much it may be sought by us, unless it decides to reveal itself, we can never know’, should be the conviction in ourselves.  To inculcate such a mentality, only devotion can be of any use.  Not only that the highest experience of Self-Realization is yet to happen, whatever progress we have made so far in Saadhana, is also God’s Grace only.  Ours is only to make the effort, the result or return is all God’s blessings.  Even our efforts and intention to do so, is Paramaatma’s Anugraha only.  If such is our attitude, as it is essential that we are to sacrifice all our possessions and properties shortly as we take up Sannyaasa, we will be able to offer our Ahambhaavam as the most important property of ours at stake!

345.  The Place of Pride in Saadhana: Two Stages.  When we talk of love and relation, there has to be two persons.  So, it is Duality / Dwaitam that should come nowhere near in Adwaita Saadhana, is the general opinion.  From the time we start this Saadhana process, for long that is how it will be.  Till our understanding of Love is a matter of liking, wanting, wishing and a transaction of some kind; it is taboo only.  This is the initial stage.  Then as the process of our Saadhana starts bearing results and the Saadhak matures enough to comprehend the real meaning of Love, there are no two entities as the giver and taker of love and it is understood that what is being offered is oneself and what is being obtained is Oneness!  When this sense or idea is inhered and being practiced, then there is no resolution or dissolution, but only diffusion without difference!  Such a love when matured and ripened by constant practice, it becomes unconditional and universal Anbu – அன்பு.  That is the end stage!

346.  With what Aim does one start this process of Saadhana?  He does so with the aim that he should reach and become Brhmam himself.  Then he carries on as per the suggested steps of Saadhana.  Then on reaching Brhmam, does he become the Brhmam?  No, not at all!  Actually neither does he reach, nor does he become.  He realizes that he is not what he thought he was and that he is already Brhmam only.  All that he thought that he was goes.  He is no more what he thought he was, to start with.  When Ahamkaar is erased, he realizes that he is already that!  More as a courtesy, symbolically he is said to do Aatma Saakshaatkaara of seeing the Aatma directly before his eyes.  Actually he can do nothing to the Brhmam. What really happens is that the Saadhak is no more at the end stage.  He dropped all that was not Brhmam through all that effort of Saadhana.  One is only reminded of the story by Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, of an idol made of salt which went to measure the depth of the ocean!  The salt idol dissolved in to nullity without a trace and became the already existing ocean, losing his or its original wrong identity!  Thus he has to be ready and keen about being swallowed without a trace; that is the higher grade of Bhakti required here.

347.  ‘I have to be released from the binding ties, I have to reach the Brhmam and I have to become the Brhmam’.  Such thoughts with a lot of ‘I’-ness is there at the start of Saadhana.  At that moment, his will and intention has to be there.  Then, that is to start with, he could not be thinking of sacrificing himself.  One will be afraid of such an eventuality.  I have come across many aspirants from India and the West, intelligent and physically well to do people, cringing at the idea of losing their individuality!  Even if one is courageous to start with, the Jiva Bhaava, the sense of being a unique individual will not go at once.  That will go only when all the Karma ‘vinai’ ‘வினை’ (residual good and bad effects of past Karma-s) are cancelled out and lingering taste and smell of the past known as Vaasanaas go.

348.  Saadhana Chatushtyam is there for this very purpose of getting rid of the residual Karma effects and Vaasanaas of the past.  You have to persevere with the intention that, ‘I have to have Viveka’, till you feel, ‘I have attained a fair degree of Viveka’. Similarly you have to work at attaining and then strengthening your Vairaagya. Point to note is that, in all these activities, your Ahankaara has to be there, not only for motivating oneself, but also for correcting oneself when you slip and slide from the path.  “Oho!  I have erred.  I have to be more careful and practice steadily, strictly and regularly!”  Such a thought will be there only when your sense of individuality is there.  Instead if you are going to talk half-baked philosophy, you will end up saying, “After all, this ‘I’ is not there!  The whole world is a Maya.  What is progress and what is retrogression?  Whatever happens does happen for the best.  Why bother at all?”  Just imagining as though one has reached the highest level of clarity of having mastered one’s own ego, while simultaneously be buffeted by flimsy old Vaasanaas, without any effort to get out of the clutches of the past, would only mean hypocrisy and a one-way-ticket to a pathetic doom! 

349.  All the Saadhana is meant for this man who thinks of himself as an individual, so that he may get rid of his Ahankaara only, isn’t it?  If you do not even make an effort towards that, it is a sheer waste of time and energy!  Does Aatma need to make any efforts to know or reach its own self?  All the efforts are required only for getting rid of the superfluous addenda.  The Saadhana is meant to starve this Ahankaara / Ahambhaavam to zero and so during the progress, Ahambhaava will be there, as we make an effort to control senses, mind, intellect and Ahankaara keeping them under strict vigilance.  After having been successful to a large extent in getting most of the garbage out of the system, finally having had the Upadesa about the Aatma, at a stage when to constantly meditate on Aatma should be our total interest and prerogative; we have to throw overboard all other things including this Ahankaara.  From here onwards, instead of attaining or achieving, all that happens are due to God’s Grace only and not the aspirant’s efforts.  That is why our AachaaryaaL has finished the Saadhana Chatushtyam with Mumukshutvam.  All that happens after this are not his earnings or remuneration or gain.  The SravaNa, Manana and Nidhidhyaasana; are all meant for annulling this man’s separateness and mistaken identity.

350.  How are the fire-works bombs prepared?  The explosive chemicals are mixed and packed tightly in containers, detonator placed, initiating fuse-wire kept in place partially hanging out-side, for setting fire and giving time delay for us to get out of the way.  The whole thing is nicely wrapped in colourful decorative tin foil.  Finally at the time of fire-works display, once lighted, everything explode in to smithereens, leaving hardly a trace in to thin air, don’t they?  Similarly the Ahankaaram explodes leaving no forwarding address!  Though from the beginning everything happens only by God’s Grace / Bhagawat Krupa; in the initial stages the Jivaatma has to make certain preparatory moves of self-purification when the intention and effort, play an important role.  There is no doubt that even that had to have Bhagawat Krupa.  Now that cleansing part is over, the inner Antah KaraNam has to move towards the Aatma Anubhava, step by step.  Here surprisingly, instead of obtaining by the aspirant, it is giving or sanction by the object!  It looks like a clever transaction in that, the aspirant is giving away his Jiva Bhaava and in turn getting Siva Stiti, that is Saayujyam! 

351.  Though MaNikka Vaasagar says about this with poetic licence:  – “தந்தது உன்றன்னை; கொண்டது என்றன்னை; சங்கரா ஆர் கொலோ சதுரர்“?  MaNikka Vaasagar is saying, “Oh God!  You gave yourself to me and got me in the bargain.  Tell me as to who is cleverer?” But in fact, there is no body left in balance to get Siva.  Jiva goes or vanishes, leaving Siva, as it always was, as before and afterwards.  In the interregnum we thought that we were also something worthwhile!  That is why Bhakti is reintroduced here, to prepare the aspirant for the total annihilation of his Ahankaara, as though our AachaaryaaL is saying, “You have earned a lot of assets by Saadhana, such as Shatka Sampathi, Vairaagya and Viveka.  Now you have to learn to vacate by giving yourself as an offering to God / Aatma.  So, I have kept the higher Bhakti here.”

(To be continued.)

Sambhomahadeva