Introduction to Vedas and Vedanta - Part 14

Jiva, in search of perfection/ completion

·	The first defect is the pain involved in making any effort for any fulfillment and in accepting its result. Effort involves physical and mental strain and diversion of the available material resources and time.
·	As for the results, they are unpredictable owing to impediments arising from oneself, the world and the natural and supernatural forces. As a result, we may achieve less than what we intended or something entirely different from what we sought or even the opposite of what we wanted. Even in respect of what is achieved, we have  to  exert  towards  its preservation.
·	What we gain is also not permanent as everything deteriorates and becomes unusable eventually.
·	Even when something is fulfilled and we derive enjoyment, the mind discovers monotony in objects and we get tired of the very thing that we considered pleasurable and seek fresh avenues of gratification. To desist from it as and when we want, we enjoy the freedom of either doing it or of not doing it.
·	A stage comes in life when we are not satisfied with the relationships, with our friends, without relatives, with those whom we considered as “bosom friends”.
·	We cannot explain what is going on inside us but even as we make the world believe and make ourselves also believe that we are the happiest person in this world, there is sense of vacuum/ loneliness inside us and we seem to be lost in this world.
·	The world is not divided into persons and things that are desirable and undesirable. It is we who impose such distinction on them. Owing to our personal predilections, we make similar subjective assessment of the nature of things, persons and situations all the time. We do not usually take them as they are without any personal judgement.
·	Our concern is naturally about the solution to this problem. Since we are ourselves the problem, we have to first examine as to whether the basis for our self- judgement is correct.
·	Let us also examine happiness. We do not find any object that can be called as happiness. No object can also be considered as the source of happiness since no object delights any of us, at all times.  This was dealt in detail in the first theme “Purpose of Birth” in which we started with the fundamental part of a human, “The search for happiness”.
·	In that, we learnt the following 2 things clearly:
	1. A thing that gives happiness to one person, cannot/ need not provide the same happiness to the other. We read an example of a South Indian filter coffee which is indispensable for a South Indian Brahmin where as a pathan from Kabul may hate to take that coffee. For a pathan, Tea is everything.
	2.  Even the same thing cannot give happiness to the same human throughout his life. We dealt with this in detail, citing various things which gave happiness to a human in his childhood, in his boyhood, as a student, as a college going , as youth, as a person seeking career, on getting married, on having child, on growing one’s child, on one’s child’s marriage etc. (It would be worthwhile to go back and search for these posts in Dec 2016 posts )

It means that the whole world, which consists of objects, places and time, is not the cause of happiness. If the world is not the source, then we are left with only ourselves as the source of joy. But immediately the question comes up as to how we can be ourselves the source of happiness when we are happy only occasionally.

Continued……..

Love.

“Embodiments of Love, Students!

Whatever you have learnt here, share it with others. It is not enough if you share it with others, you too should put your knowledge into practice and derive benefit therefrom. We prepare many delicious items at home and serve them to the guests. Is it not necessary that we should also partake of them?

Likewise, we should digest the Vedic knowledge we have acquired and also share it with others. All types of knowledge have originated from the Vēdas. That is why the Vēda is extolled as sarva vijñāna sampatti (the treasure chest of knowledge). But unfortunately, we are not making proper use of such a treasure. Share your knowledge to the extent you have acquired. Never forget what you have learnt. With sincere effort, you will certainly be able to attain sākṣhātkāra. Those of you who wish to have the vision of God should digest the Vedic wisdom you have acquired and share it with others.”

Bhagavān Sri Sathya Sai Baba – Discourse on 19 October 2004

Rajneesh

Dear All,

Old timers who have been to puttaparthi  many times, witnessed Swami's discourse many times, would have seen Swami holding his handkerchief and telling, " This is my handkerchief, so I am not this handkerchief, I am different from the hand kerchief which I am holding just now"

This " ME" or "I" or "AHAM" 9 which is different from all the objects in this world (compared to the handkerchief)  is me the pure consciousness, me the divine, me in which God resides in His full divine essence.

The moment ME the divine starts seeing or recognizing me as Jiva, the duality starts, the duality about which  the  Master has said in the above quote.

The only reality is that we are all Divine. We are all sparks of one absolute consciousness, call it as God or Atman or Brahman or consciousness or what ever. 

All our problems in this world starts only and only when we start thinking that we this body, this mind, this intellect, this doctor, this house wife, this CA, this manager, this and that.

Dont we know the saying, " Adam ate the apple and our teeth still aches"?

In vedanta, this is explained with the example of a rope and a snake. 

There is a rope lying on the ground and some one mistakes this rope for a snake and is afraid of the snake and cries. Is the snake  really there?? No. 

But for the person who has mistaken a rope for a snake, the snake is very much there. 

Similarly, we the divine our consciousness (Rope in the above example), super impose our physical identity upon ourselves ( like the super imposition of snake on a rope) and then we live with the mistaken identity for ever that we are this physical frame. 

Even after witnessing dozens of deaths in our family/ circle and even after lamenting every time standing near a dead body and crying out " what is there in this body, how unreal is this body and this life, see this person was alive yesterday and today, his body is to be burnt to ashes", still, after 2 days, we get back to our own life and we glorify our own physical existence and do everything in life, right or wrong, to gratify our identity with our physical identity and our mental fancies!!!

Arise, O man, be aware that you are the one whom you think you are, whom the world think you are, but you are the one who is in reality, the divine essence, which was never born and which will never die!!!!!!

And.. that is  not the end......, Rush, run towards realizing your divine essence eternally, not for 5 minutes, not for half day, not for one  day but for ever!!!!!!

Once you reach THERE and Exist as THAT divine essence, then, it is in REAL sense that one can look up to you and exclaim, " And.. then, He lived Happily (Real happiness/ Joy of divine consciousness)  for ever"!!

Love