Jnana Vahini - Post 5

Swami continues, describing the state of Jivanmukhta

"The Jivanmukhta is established firmly in the knowledge of the Atma. He has achieved it by dwelling on the Mithya of the world and contemplating its failings and faults. By this means, he has developed an insight into the nature of pleasure and pain and equanimity in both. 

(Author’s note - Spiritual journey is always and has to be always starting with a conviction that only Brahman is Sathyam / Eternally true and this world / creation is an illusion / Mithya. 

This is required because, it is in this world and its objects that one has got attached for several births. Unless one is convinced that whatever he was drawn to all these years / births is a mere illusion, he / she will be never able to detach from this world and its objects. 

And, one is not just left high and dry there. One has the real truth to hold on to, upon rejecting world as an illusion. One is awakened to the truth that Brahman is Sathyam (Sathyam Jnanam Anantam Brahma- Same SAI sang for all of us).

He knows that wealth, worldly joy and pleasure are all worthless and even poisonous. 

He takes praise, blame and even blows with a calm assurance, unaffected by both honor and dishonor. 

(Author’s note - Wealth, worldly pleasure, praise, blame, blows- are all for the Ego, the individual identity of a jiva. Once jiva transcends that ego and becomes a mukhta, along with that transcendence, all these aspects identified by the jiva as ego, are also gone).

Of course, the Jivanmukhta reached that stage only after long years of systematic discipline and unflagging zeal when distress and doubt assailed him. Defeat only made him more rigorous in self-examination and more earnest about following the prescribed discipline. 

The Jivanmukhta has no trace of the 'will to live'; he is ever ready to drop into the lap of Death.

(Author’s note - This is the real test to know where we are in our spiritual sadhana. Are we ready to welcome our death any time?? 

Once, recently, the author called few devotees and asked them- “Suppose, you wake up and know that all your kith and kin, dear and near ones, are all dead previous night. No one is left in your family. What will be your state then?

The same question must be put up by all of us 'to ourselves" and we should try to find answer to this earth-shattering question truthfully.)

Aparoksha brahma jnana or Direct Perception of Brahma is the name given to the stage in which the aspirant is free from all doubt regarding improbability or impossibility, and is certain that the two entities, Jiva and Brahman, are One, and have been One, and will ever be One. 

When this stage is attained, the aspirant will no longer suffer any confusion, he will not mistake one thing for another, or superimpose one thing on another. 

He will not mistake the rope for the snake. He will know that all along there was only one thing, the rope.

He will not suffer from Abhasa-avaranam also; that is to say, he will not declare that the effulgence of Brahmam is not in him. 

In the heart and centre of every Jivi, Paramatma exists, minuter than the minutest molecule, larger than the largest conceivable object, smaller than the smallest, greater than the greatest. 

Therefore, the Jnani who has had a vision of the Atma in him will never suffer sorrow. The Atma is there, in all living things, in the ant as well as in the elephant. The whole world is enveloped and sustained by this subtle Atma.

The Sadhaka has to direct his attention away from the external world and become in-sighted, he has to turn his vision towards the Atma. 

He must analyze the process of his mind and discover for himself wherefrom all the modifications and agitations of the mind originate. By this means, every trace of 'intention' and 'will' has to disappear. 

Afterwards, the only idea that will get fixed in the mind will be the idea of Brahmam. The only feeling which will occupy the mind will be the feeling of Bliss, arising out of its establishment in the Satchidananda stage.

Such a Jnani will be unaffected by joy or grief, for he will be fully immersed in the ocean of Atmananda, above and beyond the reach of worldly things. 

The constant contemplation of the Atma and its glory is what is connoted by the terms, Brahma abhyasa and Jnana abhyasa, the practice of Brahma or the cultivation of Jnana."

Love.