Sadhana Panchakam - Post 13

In previous instruction, we dedicated all our actions to God.

 

Let us fully appreciate the value of dedicating all actions, including desire filled actions, to God.

 

By doing so, at least he starts moving from self-centeredness to selflessness, a big move indeed. We should not underestimate the value of such a step.

 

There is no restriction to give up Kamya Karma in previous instruction. The only condition is that it, too, has to be dedicated to God. This makes us mindful of what kind of desires we permit in our mind. If we are going to offer them as worship, we had better keep them clean!

 

Sadhakas may recall the “Kaye na vaacha” talk in which this was clarified. If all the instruments of actions, the antahkarana, the gross body, the sanskaras, everything has to be offered to God, then, what should be the quality of all these things to be worthy of being offered to God?!

  

In the current instruction, Kamya Karma is specifically targeted for restriction, renunciation or better still, elimination. This may be very difficult for most people, but it is absolutely necessary from the point of view of our training. 

 

The question we ask ourselves is: “Can Kamya Karmas also be dedicated to God?”

 

Apart from our daily duties and special occasional duties, we are quite happily performing many other things simply because we like them. We do not have to do them, but we do them only because of a personal preference for them. These classify under Kamya Karmas.

 

Our eating habits are almost exclusively our own choice. We don’t really eat out of a sense of duty, but because we enjoy food. That makes it a Kamya Karma. 

 

We go in for the best foods we can afford. The choice depends on our taste and affordability. We may have an expensive taste, but that is beside the point. As far as the scope of dedicating all action to God as per previous instruction, we are permitted whatever we like to eat and drink, as long as we place some on our altar for God as well!

 

Now in the current instruction, we apply the brakes on Desires. Our aim is to introduce Desirelessness into our lives. It is quite logical. Hence, Kamya Karma is put under the spotlight, as it were.

 

We are required to do something about it.

 

When we apply brakes in a moving car, the car does not stop at once. It takes a while before it comes to a standstill. So it is with applying brakes on actions, and even more so on applying brakes to desires. We cannot give up our actions all at once, much less give up desire all at once. It is a slow, painstaking process, as we shall soon see.

  

The spirit of Sadhana Panchakam is not to impose rules to dictate our life. That is not the aim of current step or any other step in Sadhana (40 steps/40 instructions). 

 

We cannot renounce desires just by imposing a rule on ourselves. Resolutions can assist us to change, but in themselves they do not produce change.

 

Sankara prods us onward, not through coercion but conviction. No one can be forced to give up desire. Desire will not allow us to do that. Try it and see how it springs back at us with vengeance. The mind recoils and snaps back at us. It is like pulling the bowstring back; the further back we pull it, the greater the force imparted to the arrow.

 

We need to spiritually evolve ourselves out of Desire. Spiritual progress cannot come through regimentation, but only through deep intellectual conviction based on deeper knowledge and experience.

 

Through inner conviction alone can we succeed in this life-long struggle to check on our desires.

 

Renunciation comes in the wake of personal experience we gain in seeing desires for what they are. Experience in life teaches us that there is no end to desires, no matter how much we satisfy them. The same Vedas which gave their consent to certain Kamya Karma at an early stage in our growth through the Karma Kanda and Upasana Kanda, also point the way to its renunciation later on in the Jnana Kanda. It expects us to grow out of Desire gradually.

 

The Acharya at the Gurukula imposes certain limits, but he knows full well that all are not going to become Sannyasis. (In the case of instructions/satsangh/sessions given by the author to few select aspirants, he also knows the limitation/level of each aspirant as to how much they can really follow.)

 

In the beginning the instruction permits some laxity. Later, one can make it as stringent as one likes. The bar of Sadhana gets raised as we progress in Sadhana. 

 

Sankara is not saying, “Renounce Kamya Karma”, He is saying, “Renounce all desires in the mind,” i.e. renounce Kama!

 

The abandonment of the desire-prompted actions must be accompanied by the abandonment of the desires themselves in the mind. So we see that there is a lot of depth in this Step in Sadhana. When we grasp the full implication of this Step, we see that it calls for a major change in our mental disposition towards objects outside. 

 

The task is a mammoth one, and calls for every ounce of determination we can muster in our mind and our will.

 

This Step, when inculcated at an early age, reaps dividends later in life. It calls for patience and perseverance. No effort is wasted. Effort has to be sustained to avoid stagnation. As we progress in other Sadhanas, this one Sadhana goes on in parallel to the very end of our spiritual journey. In fact, it is the single true measure of our spiritual progress. It determines our overall progress in all the other steps henceforth.

 

Sadhakas may recall that the origin of Kama or desires, the process flow of desires, the manifestation of desires to action, the consequence of such actions in terms of fetching us new (red) arrows or fresh karmas - all these things have been most elaborately given through the Karma and the Manas Buddhi Chitta Ahankara sessions which are also available in youtube for listening and introspecting at any point of time.

 

Love.