Vivekachudamani-Post 85

He who has destroyed the shark called 'sense objects' with the sword of mature dispassion crosses the ocean of samsara unobstructed. (80)

Continuing the idea, it is said here that he alone, who has destroyed the shark of desire lurking in the ocean of samsara, can safely cross to the other shore. In order to kill the enemy we have no other instrument save the sword of discriminative knowledge. 

Suviraktyasina; powerful vairagya

what is the powerful vairagya?  I do not want to hold on to anything in the world for the sake of my security and happiness. If I will be around them; it may be giving security to them; I may give them security; that is different thing; I may love them; that is different thing; but I do not want to take anything from them; the moment I hold on to anything; I am in trouble. 

Either hold on to yourselves or next option is hold on to God; other than God or yourselves, holding on to anything else, is risky. And not taking that risk is called suvirakty. suvirakty asi; asi here means sword or knife.

Visayakhya grahaha ataha; the crocodile of viṣaya. So here visaya should be taken as visaya asa. The crocodile called visa asa should hataha; be destroyed, if you want to be strong; if you want to avoid risk; if you want to be independent psychologically, it should be destroyed. And ena; whoever accomplishes this, whichever person accomplishes this; this means what? 

The destruction of viṣaya asa  by the sword of vairagya; whoever accomplishes, saha param gacchati. He alone can cross over; he alone can reach the shore; param means shore. Of what? bhavambhodheḥ- Bhava means samsara; ambodihi means sāgara; he alone can reach the shore of samsara.

That means he alone can attain moksha . How, pratyuhavarjitaḥ; without any obstacle. pratyuhaha means pratibandah; vignaha is called pratyuḥ varjithah; without any obstacle; he alone can attain mōkṣa.

With viveka alone can we end our desires. Desires can come and sabotage our happiness only when the discriminative faculties in us have, as it were, gone to sleep. So long as the pure intellect is awake, the whims and fancies of the mind cannot emerge to loot and plunder the peace of the inner kingdom. 

Only in the darkness of the bosom, when the illuminating intellect has disappeared behind the cloud of ignorance, can the temptations and desires of the heart walk out of their hideouts to steal the wealth of peace and tranquility which the individual enjoys. 

Once in the grasp of these minions of the moon, the person identifying with desires gets choked and drowned in the stormy sea of plurality. 

To live intelligently with discriminative analysis,  ever conscious of the fallacies in each thought and not getting  victimised by fanciful desires, is to live in viveka. Where viveka is  steady, the desires, however strong they be, will not dare to attack. 

So if we ultimately see all these verses are only commentary upon the word vairāgya; which is one of the sadhana catuṣṭaya sampatti .

Love

Vicvekachudamani- Post 84

Those who have only an apparent dispassion and are trying to cross  the ocean of change are caught by their throats by the shark of desire  which violently dragging them along, drowns them in the middle of  the ocean. (79)

Suppose there is a person; who wants to cross a river or a lake; a water, water pool he wants to cross. And he is a swimmer and somehow he has struggled; and he has almost crossed the river; 75% over; but what happens? there was a crocodile; this crocodile pulls him back, catching hold of his neck; the crocodile pulls him back and again immerses him into the water.

Similarly, a person by the study of scriptures etc. is trying to cross the river of saṁsāra; āśā is a crocodile; which we do not know when it will come; again it will catch without our knowledge; if you are complacent, it will just catch and pull a person down.

And therefore, let a person be alert with regard to āśā or vairāgyaṁ. Therefore he says: mumukṣun, so there are some mumukṣus who are interested in spirituality.

With regard to materialistic people, we need not discuss at all, because they never attempt to cross the river; like the buffalo; they are enjoying the dirty pool of wateritself. So we are only talking about those people who have felt that this water is a dirty pool and I want to cross.

Therefore, mumukṣun, they want to cross over; but what is their problem. Āpātavairāgya vataḥ; so they have got vairāgyaṁ but it is not intense enough.

A spirit of detachment and a craving for dispassion may be generated in us as a result of repeated tragedies. A tragic bereavement, a shocking disappointment, a painful failure, an agonizing physical pain, all these have been found, either individually or collectively, capable of creating a temporary sense of vairagya, termed in Sanskrit as 'smasana vairagya' - an aversion to life and its finitude which is usually generated when one has occasion to visit a cremation ground.  

True dispassion is a wise condition of the ego created from a deep intellectual conviction, which in its turn, has its roots in perfect discrimination. Only in the maturity of an individual's spiritual florescence, can one hope to gather the fruits of wisdom. 

False vairagya has ruined more men than even atheism has ever done. Hundreds and thousands of indiscriminate people, in almost all the religions of the world, reach the sanctuaries of their respective monasteries. 

In the long run, however, they discover that they are not fit for a life of total renunciation and perfect self-  control. Many of them who find sufficient moral courage return to the marketplace and the world of contentions to fight for and acquire and enjoy material wealth. 

But some come to live a choking life of frustrations and sorrows, with neither the capacity to live the life of renunciation nor the daring to return to the world of cut-throat competition. 

Sankara has briefly pointed out these dangers by comparing men of insincere vairagya to those who are ship wrecked on the 'ocean of change' which is infested with ravenous sharks of sensuous desires. 

These desires jump at the throats of the poor victims and drag them down and drown them midway on their pilgrimage to the Beyond.

How, kaṇṭhē nigr ̥ hya; catching hold of this person by his very throat; like some of the sharks which catch their prey by their neck. When the neck is caught; you cannot even think. 

Similarly when the attachment is powerful; then this person's thinking power is also gone and if somebody wants to give an advice; he says who are you to be an advice; I know what I am doing and I am very sure about what I am doing. 

Vinasakale viparitha buddhi; like our Ravaṇa who never listened to anyone; he was very sure what he does is right; nobody can help. Only thing is let him perish and come back again.

Rama could not change Ravaṇa; Krishna could not change Kamsa; we also end up as Ravaṇa and Kamsas; does not mean that we should become raksasas; materialistic itself is raksasatvam.

Love

Vivekachudamani-Post 83

He who has liberated himself from the terrible bonds of desires for sense objects, (indeed), very difficult to renounce , is alone fit for Liberation;  none else , even if he is well versed in all the six schools of philosophy. (78)

Sankara says vishaya asa is maha pashah; attachment to the vishaya and remember Vishaya does not mean objects only; all the physical bodies in the world also come under vishaya. Any pancha baudikam vasthu is vishaya; whether it is an inanimate thing or living physical body which includes my own physical body. From vedantic angle my body is also a vishaya; because it is pancha baudika. Vishaya asa is not an ordinary shackle but it is very very strong bondage.

And yaḥ vimuktaḥ; suppose a person transcends that weakness; he is able to detach from the physical body; that means he gives the physical body the importance that it deserves. Here giving up is not destroying; but he does not want to give up more importance than it deserves; that he puts it in its appropriate place.

We have been told again and again that vairagya is an essential and salient factor in the study of Vedanta. So, without total and  complete vairagya, the energy in us which is being spent in wrong pursuits will not be conserved for greater purposes of self-culture and ultimately of Self rediscovery. 

Indeed, the Masters of Vedanta were not impractical men, being ignorant of the ordinary man's sense attachment. They certainly realized that to control the sense organs and to avoid their gushing forth into their respective sense objects is very difficult for an ordinary man. 

And yet, where viveka has come, vairagya is natural, and he who has gained a certain amount of freedom from the charms of sense objects is fit for Liberation. 

The idea is that so long as the individual thirsts for anything, his entire energy will be consumed in its acquisition and possession and there will be nothing left in him to supply him with the required dynamism for listening, reflecting and meditating upon the contents of the scriptures. 

That such a one alone is fit for Liberation' is a very positive statement denying sensuous people any hope of success in spiritual life. Not even men who are erudite scholars in all the six schools of Indian philosophy are recognized by the sastras as fit for total Liberation from ignorance and ignorance-created misunderstandings in themselves. 

With mere book learning, without the purity of the heart, tranquility of the mind, the application of the intellect and body's self-denial, no progress in spiritual life, which can take us towards complete Liberation from our limitations is ever possible.

Love