Sadhana Panchakam - Post 15

As per the earlier instructions, the Brahmachari (student) has been equipped with secular knowledge and life skills, and spiritual devotion and renunciation. 

 

The path towards success in both lies ahead of him. He has had the character building training deemed necessary by the Indian sages.

 

Now comes the real test of all that he has learnt and imbibed at the Gurukula. The most productive period of his life lies ahead, and it would take him from age 20 to age 55, the grahastha ashrama.

 

The object of entering the householder’s life is to achieve Chitta Shuddhi or “mental purity”.

 

How is this to be achieved? Mental purity comes from reduction of desires. Herein lies our ultimate spiritual good. This stage can be utilized for the gradual thinning out of desires as taught in the Brahmacharya Ashrama. 

 

While we would get into each instruction in this sacred panchakam of Sankara, let us get more into this Grahastha Ashram as given in the Brahma Sutras, the highest treatise!!

 

 

Swami Krishnananda says,

 

Kṛtsnabhāvāttu gṛhiṅopasaṁhāraḥ 

(B.S. 3.4.48).

 

The meaning of this sutra is, the life of a householder is integral. 

The general idea is that the life of a householder is one of attachment to family, property, etc. Then what does this mean? 

 

How is the life of a householder integral? 

 

The word ‘householder’ has a unique meaning in India. There are four gradational achievements, or attainments, for the development of the person, which were arranged in ancient times in India. 

 

The duties of a householder are interesting to know. It is not attachment to family; that is far from the truth. In Indian culture, attachment is never allowed. Duty is necessary. The fulfilment of the needs of personal and social relations is the duty of a householder. In the early days of a Brahmachari, he is concerned only with himself. But it is not possible to live only by oneself. There is also society outside. 

 

There are impulses of self-restraint, there are impulses of social relations, there are impulses of acquiring wealth, there are impulses of seeing beauty, and there are impulses of being charitable to people. This is why the Brahma Sutra says the householder’s life is integral. 

 

The householder is a highly respected person not because he has a family, but because he is doing his duty without attachment. Such a person is difficult to find. Everybody is attached. But the principle is not at fault merely because it is not followed due to the insistence of the lower instincts. "

 

Aitareya Upanishad describes 3 births in life of a human being.

 

First birth

 

At the time of physical union with one’s spouse, man creates himself inside the foetus of his spouse, or, the father creates himself inside the foetus of the (future) mother. This is his first birth. 

 

Here, the Upanishads beckons the husband to hold his wife at the highest esteem, as she is actually holding/ nurturing her husband within her foetus.

 

Second birth

 

While the mother protects the unborn child in her womb, the father takes care of the child after delivery till it gets fully grown up and becomes a sound person in the society. 

 

This act on his part is for maintaining the continuity of the race. This coming out of the womb and taking birth as a child is his second birth. 

 

Third birth

 

The father himself becomes the son as it is clear in the above 2 exposition. When the son comes of age, the father entrusts him with all the family duties and responsibilities and feels free from parental debt. 

 

After this, the life span of the father gets shortened and he departs from the earth. Then according to his karma he is reborn again somewhere else in another womb. This is his third birth. 

 

This way the chain of birth and death continues so long as the man does not consider this chain as a bondage and torture and till he does not make effort to get released from it during his birth in the human form. 

 

While the second chapter in this Upanishad gives the essence and instruction for a man to get released from all the three births, it is wonderful to also take home the lesson, after understanding the 3 births, as to how,

 

-  A man must nurture/ respect his spouse for carrying himself within her when she conceives and how a woman must nurture and respect her husband for having given himself to her in the process.

 

-  How, both together, as father and mother, must bring up their children who/which is nothing but they themselves. 

 

When and if at all one can enter this sacred grahastha ashrama with such grand revelations, the attitude, the dimension with which  the man and the woman approach and revere each other brings out the beauty of this most sacred relationship where, each one acts as a true spiritual companion to the other.

 

And, the beauty of this sacred relation gets manifested in all its  grandeur in this most significant conversation between Yagnavalkya and Maitreyi, when Yagnavalkya sets forth for Sanyasa Asrama and is about to leave his wife maitreyi to take care of his kingdom.

 

“Yajnavalkya: ‘Maitreyi, I am resolved to give up the world and begin the life of renunciation. I wish therefore to divide my property between you and my other wife, Katyayani.’

 

Maitreyi: ‘My lord, if this whole earth belonged to me, with all its wealth, should I through its possession attain immortality?’ 

 

Yajnavalkya: ‘No. Your life would be like that of the rich. None can possibly hope to attain immortality through wealth.’

 

Maitreyi : ‘Then what need have I of wealth? Please, my lord, tell me what you know about the way to immortality.’

 

Yajnavalkya: ‘Dear, to me, have you always been, Maitreyi, and now you ask to learn of that truth which is nearest to my heart. Come, sit by me. I will explain it to you. Meditate on what I say.’” (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 2:4:1-4).

 

(Yajnavalkya calls Maitreyi priya, which means dear, beloved, and pleasing. He does not mean it in the small-minded egocentric way we are so inured to.)

 

Yagnavalkya’s reply, which is one of the greatest revelations in Upanishad.

 

“It is not for the sake of the husband, my beloved, that the husband is dear, but for the sake of the Self.

“It is not for the sake of the wife, my beloved, that the wife is dear, but for the sake of the Self.

“It is not for the sake of the children, my beloved, that the children are dear, but for the sake of the Self.

“It is not for the sake of wealth, my beloved, that wealth is dear, but for the sake of the Self.

“It is not for the sake of the Brahmins, my beloved, that the Brahmins are held in reverence, but for the sake of the Self.

“It is not for the sake of the Kshatriyas, my beloved, that the Kshatriyas are held in honor, but for the sake of the Self.

“It is not for the sake of the higher worlds, my beloved, that the higher worlds are desired, but for the sake of the Self.

“It is not for the sake of the gods, my beloved, that the gods are worshipped, but for the sake of the Self.

“It is not for the sake of the creatures, my beloved, that the creatures are prized, but for the sake of the Self.

“It is not for the sake of itself, my beloved, that anything whatever is esteemed, but for the sake of the Self.

“The Self, Maitreyi, is to be known. Hear about it, reflect upon it, meditate upon it. By knowing the Self, my beloved, through hearing, reflection, and meditation, one comes to know all things” .

 

(A very profound, rather 2 or 3 sessions were given to smaller group of sadhakas on the above grand revelation which takes the entire relationship between a husband and wife to the quest for self or rather, the reverence of SELF itself)

 

Love.