Saturday, June 3, 2017

Introduction to Vedas and Vedanta - Part 21

VIVEKA Continued....

A King was hunting in the depths of a forest from dawn until early afternoon. He was afflicted by intense thirst. At last, he found a hermitage where he took refuge. The inmates gave him cool clear water to drink. 

That was the medicine which he needed most. It made him fresh and fine. If the drink intoxicates him, robs him of reason and degrades his personality, it is the cause of many other diseases. Discrimination will reveal the dangers lurking in becoming a bond slave of the senses.

We have dealt with discrimination in detail in the MBCA posts when we dealt with Buddhi, one of the 4 Antah karanas.



The special instrument that God has allotted man, namely, Buddhi or the Intellect, has to be used by man to become master of these down-dragging senses. The Intellect has to be used to judge and decide the means for the upliftment of the human to the Divine. It has to help man to realize God and nothing less. 

We learnt in MBCA posts that only those actions which are undertaken by using one's intellect / Buddhi, which is unaffected by our stored impressions of the past (chitta) or our Attachments and hatred (Ahamkara) will be in the right path, with a clear understanding of what is right and what is wrong. 

In practical life, we are very shrewd and we easily make the distinction between what is good and what is bad for us.

For example, if we are walking on the street and there is a manhole left open, our instinct immediately makes us cross that place without falling into the manhole. Here, there are no thoughts involved and our basic instinct works.

However, when it comes to actions taken out of thoughts, then our thoughts get colored by our Ego (Ahamkara)  or our impressions of the past (Vasanas) and we lose our discrimination and end up taking up actions which are bound to generate fresh / newer vasanas or impressions.

In spiritual sadhana, 90% of us fail to witness progress, ONLY and ONLY due to our failure to use our discriminative intellect or viveka.

We just seem to be carried away in our life, taking up actions with the influence of our ego / vasanas, without breaking this chain, without sitting in quietude, without using our intellect, without discriminating between real and unreal, right and wrong.

Without developing and using viveka or discriminative intellect, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO PROGRESS IN SPIRITUAL SADHANA.  This is a fact beyond any doubt. 

The author has seen few spiritual seekers in the world, some of them well known to him as well. He has seen them stuck up, stagnant in their spiritual journey in spite of efforts made for few decades.  The reason- "when they face the world after their prayers / meditation, when they have to think and act, then, the discriminative intellect is overpowered by their subtler vasanas / subtler ahamkara which propel their mind to act, with their Buddhi blinded.

The author has not taken up this issue with them in depth because, "they may lack the viveka to really understand that the author is speaking the RIGHT for them"!!

Love.




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