Dharma Vahini - Post 30

Dear All,

After taking us through the Vedic and the Upanishad eras, Swami goes on to elaborate on the Puranic age thus:-

The Puranic age

The seeds of devotion found scattered in the Vedic texts sprout in the Upanishads and begin to grow with many a blossomful branch in the Puranas.

Well, many are yet confused when it comes to deciding what exactly devotion (bhakthi) is, what the nature of the attitude called devotion is! It is impossible for anyone to demarcate what exactly devotion is and what it is not. 

Devotion has infinite facets. Only pure, tender, tolerant, calm

and loving souls, the very cream of spiritual aspirants (sadhus), the swans (hamsas) sporting ever in the company of kindred devotees, can understand its purity and depth. 

Others will find it as difficult to discover devotion in a person as discovering softness in rock, coldness in fire, or sweetness in the margosa (neem) tree. Devotees hold the Lord dearer to themselves than life, and the Lord is attached to them in equal measure.

Some great people even declare that the devotee is superior to Bhagavan; the farmer loves the clouds more than the ocean, though the clouds only bring the ocean waters to their fields. 

The ocean does not come directly over their crops. This is how Tulsidas describes the relationship between the devotee and God: The clouds bring the mercy, the love, the grandeur of the ocean, and the fragrance of the atmosphere and shower them over the entire land; so, too, devotees carry these great traits wherever they go. Just as gold is dug out of mines, these virtues are part of the divinity in humanity.

The sage Durvasa arrived one day in the court of Ambarisha to test the efficacy of devotion to God. For this purpose, he created out of his anger a demoness, Krithya, for his destruction. 

But the Lord’s discus (chakra), which demolishes the fear in the hearts of devotees, destroyed Krithya and started pursuing Durvasa to the ends of the earth. He fled over hill and dale, lake and stream, and leaped across the seven seas; he tried to take asylum in the heavens, but the foe of a devotee could get asylum nowhere. 

At last, he fell at the feet of God (Narayana) in Vaikunta, an exhausted penitent. However, the Lord declared that He was always on the side of His devotee and that He would never give up the devotee who relies on Him as his only refuge. “I follow the devotee as the calf follows the cow, for the devotee gives up for Me all that is considered desirable by the worldly-minded.”

Continued...

Love.

Dharma Vahini - Post 29

The Upanishadic Age

Swami writes,

"Meanwhile, the Upanishad Age dawned.

The Upanishads rejected material objectives as devoid of permanent value; they condemned them as inferior. In fact, the ritual portion (Karma-kanda) of the Vedas was transformed and revalued in the Upanishads as vehicles for the liberation of people from the bondage of birth and death and as vessels for crossing the ocean of worldly existence (samsara). 

The vision of the Upanishadic aspirant (sadhaka) breaks through this “external sensory objective world” and centres itself on the “inner world”. The Upanishadic sages (rishis) collectively confirm the nature of the highest Principle thus:

In the basic depth of this name-form world of change (nama-rupa jagath) there is the One eternal permanent being (Sat). That is the Absolute, the Highest Brahman (Para- brahman). The Highest can be grasped by means of the wisdom of yoga (jnanayoga).

Therefore,

Inquire into That; That is Brahman (Thadhvijijnaasasva; thadh Brahma).

This is knowledge of Brahman (Brahma-vidya) taught by the Upanishads (the Vedanta). 

Besides, the Upanishads also declare:

The Vedas, though mainly concerned with the human objective of attaining heaven, also provide the basic training for achieving liberation (moksha). 

The attainment of the Absolute does not depend entirely or solely on mastery of this knowledge of Brahman (Brahma-vidya). It is beyond the reach of study, scholarship, or intellectual conquest. Only by devotion (upasana) it can be realized.

If the scholar, with all the weight of learning, also gets immersed in devotion, his life is indeed sanctified!

 

Before such aspirants, the Lord will be manifest in His real glory. This is the meaning of the following declaration in the Brihadaranya Upanishad about the bond between the individual and the Universal (jivi and the Paramatma):

The Universal is the individual’s highest goal, highest wealth, highest elevation, deepest joy.

Eshosya parama gathih-Eshosya paramaa sampath; Eshosya paramo lokah-Eshosya para- manandah.

The Taithiriya Upanishad proclaims thus:

The Highest Atma (Paramatma) is the source of contentment, for He is the embodiment of the purest emotion (rasa). Attaining Him, the individual (jivi) can be immersed in joy. If the Highest Atma is not shining in the firmament of the heart, who is to taste, who is to live? He feeds all, with bliss (ananda). "

Author's note

Dear All,

Right from post 1 in the first theme "Purpose of Human birth" till now and also all future posts have one underlying essence which is the essence of that supreme God without name, without form, without attributes who is the essence / the subject of the entire upanishads. 

If readers can go back to posts 13 to posts 18 in the theme "Vedas and Vedanta", they can read through one single question raised by the author from all themes posted in the blog and then the author has tried to give you the ONE answer to all questions, all the curiosity as to "WHAT GOD REALIZATION IS ALL ABOUT'.

The answer to the above question is what Upanishad is all about.

The answer is pregnant in the following verses

The Isavasya Upanishad says that the whole Universe is pervaded by Isvara or God, who is both within and without it. He is the moving and the unmoving, He is far and near, He is within all these and without all these.

The Kena Upanishad says that the Supreme Reality is beyond the perception of the senses and the mind because the senses and the mind can visualize and conceive only the objects, while Reality is the Supreme Subject, the very precondition of all sensation, thinking, understanding, etc. No one can behold God because He is the beholder of all things.

The Kathopanishad has it that God is the Root of this Tree of world existence. The realization of God is regarded as the Supreme blessedness or Shreyas, as apart from Preyas or temporal experience of satisfaction.

Love.

Dharma Vahini - Post 28

Dear All,

Swami continues in another discourse on the inner significance of Vedas/ Vedic rituals

Sri Sathya Sai On: True Significance of Yajna in Vedic Culture

(The commencement of the Veda Purusha Saptaha Jnana Yajna at Prasanthi Nilayam)

 Swami says,

"The Veda Purusha is the Purushottama (the Supreme Person) for by His Will He manifested Himself as the cosmos and its components, out of Himself. There is nothing that is not He; so, how can you be different? In these matters, faith comes first; it has to. Believe that you are Divine; conduct yourselves in accordance with that sovereign status; then, you will be blessed with the Anubhuti – the experience, the vision, the realisation, the awareness, the bliss. And, as a result, you are merged in that everlasting Ananda.

The only one God can be reached by a thousand Names

Remember, you cannot have the Anubhava (experience) and the Ananda (Bliss) first. And, you cannot postpone faith, until you get them. You cannot bargain: "Give me the Ananda and then, I shall have faith." See the Purushottama in all purushas. Purusha means, he who lives in the Pura (port, city, or town). Each one of us is the resident and the sole resident of a distinct house of God. But, the Purushottama - the Supreme Resident in all the cities is God. You can recognise this Purushottama, if you educate yourselves properly.

Take this Yajna performed here. In this One Fire, offerings are made concurrently with the recitation of the names of God, enclosed in elaborate hymns. More than 3560 offerings are made each day, for seven days. Each name describes God as having a special form. But this One Fire consumes all the offerings, and through its intermission every one of the offerings reaches the One God, the One that really IS.

Or, consider this: you perform worship with 1008 Names, a rite called Sahasranaama Archana. You keep an idol or picture before you and offer one flower at a time at the feet of that symbol of God, repeating the names, one at a time. The one symbol of the One God is only One, though He can be reached by a thousand names.

Though you are acknowledging only One in all these rites, proclaiming the One Advaitic (non-dualistic) Divine, your sense and your intellect and your mind, its pack of desires, insist on running after the Many. This is the Maya (delusion) that casts its enchantment on weak and ignorant men. It urges man towards wild prolific greed of the many-faced senses.

When you take food, do it in a prayerful mode

To realise the One, the Universal Absolute, which personalises itself into God and Creation, there is no discipline more valuable and more effective than SEVA. All the 1008 Names of the Sahasranama Archana reach the One. All the 1000 names of thousand-faced society connote only the One God that plays in those 1000 roles. The One appears as if it is enshrined in the 1000 bodies. This is the truth you have to realise and cherish as the most precious in life.

You have observed that the Vedic Pandits (priestly scholars) are pouring ghee into the Fire, every time the recitation of a hymn is over. Every day, when you take food, you are offering eatables to the Fire that God has lit in you to digest food. You have to eat in a prayerful mode, in profound gratitude. The Geeta says that the fire which cooked the meal is God, the meal is God, the eater is God, the purpose of eating is to carry on the work entrusted by God or pleasing to God, and that the fruit of that work is, progress towards God.

You must perform another Yajna too, every day. Pour the egoistic desires and emotions, passions, impulses and acts into the flames of dedication and devotion. In fact, that is real Yajna, of which these are reflections and prompters, guides and prototypes. This Yajna is only the concrete symbolic representation of the abstract underlying Truth. Just as a child is taught to pronounce the words, head, net, wave, garland, by making it associate the sounds and the letterforms with pictures of the objects so named, through this Kshara (temporary) symbol the Akshara Tattva (the Eternal Principle) is brought before the consciousness.

Make every thought a longing for God

The Poornahuti of the Veda Purusha Saptaha Jnana Yajna on Vijaya Dashmi Day.

This Puja, this Yajna, and this Homa, are arranged here every Dasara, in order to help you to learn that other, ever-lasting, abstract Yajna, which every one of you has to do, to save yourselves from fear, grief and anxiety. You must have noticed that the Pandits close each day's Yajna with a prayer that calls for World Peace, peace for all mankind, peace and happiness, for there can be no peace without happiness and no happiness without peace. Loka Samastha Sukhino Bhavantu, they pray. "May all the world have happiness, and peace".

Peace of mind cannot be gained by wealth or fame or scholarship or skill. For that, you have to clean the mind, purify the heart, yearn for service of the divine forms that move around you. Do every deed as an act of worship; make every thought a longing for Him; change every word that comes from your tongue into a hymn in His praise. This is the lesson that you have to learn from Prasanthi Nilayam, every Dasara, during the week the Yajna is celebrated.

(Source: Divine Discourse during the Navaratri Festival – October 11, 1970, Prasanthi Nilayam.)