Dear All,
A satsangh talk on chapter 1, verse 26, Yoga sutra is sharted
The verse goes like this
Love
A treasure hidden deep below under the earth can be found only when the exact site is known, excavations carried out and the earth, stones and so on, hiding it are removed; never can it come out if merely called by name.
Similarly , the pure truth of the Self which lies hidden beneath our delusion and its effects can be attained through the instructions of one who is a knower of Brahman, followed by reflection, meditation and so on. But never can the Self emerge and manifest itself as a result of repeating perverted arguments. (65)
In the course of the last several verses, Sankara has been trying to bring home to us the utter necessity and urgency for self effort undertaken in the right direction.
That no amount of study and philosophical dialectics can take one, even by a fraction of an inch, nearer to the divine experience which is life's fulfillment, has already been elaborately discussed.
The same idea has been brought out here which, we may consider, is the summary of a library of books on spiritual literature.
In order to explain this idea, Sankara paints the picture of one digging for a treasure. One may wonder how the treasure hunter's activities can be a theme by which spiritual technique can be explained but a poet always sees much more meaning in a factual happening than an ordinary matter-of-fact observer does.
Sankara says, three stages are required to own up the richness. Three stages are required to own up the richness; the wealth; the first stage is somebody must come and tell that the treasure is underneath; and he should give enough proof and enough data to convince me that there is treasure.
Otherwise initially I will say you are bluffing; you are pacifying; how can there be treasure what is the source; I will ask umpteen questions; so the first stage is somebody should inform that there is a treasure and not only inform, convince also; this is called aptoktih; or apta vachanam; statement of a reliable person; a trust worthy person.
And what is next stage required? Now I know that there is treasure. So, I need not beg from anyone; I need not work to get money; it is already mine; and what is required; I have to acquire it; therefore what is the second stage; khananam; khananam means what digging; to remove all the earth which is covering the treasure.
So, the earth is the obstacle, and therefore the earth has to be removed. So previously lack of information or ignorance was the obstacle; now the ignorance- obstacle is gone; because I know there is treasure; but the obstacle is now what? mud is there; therefore, I should go on removing the mud and after removing the mud, the job is called khananaṁ.
Then there is a third stage involved; what is that? When the actual treasure comes; for further protection lot of rocks are placed; protect it; and therefore final stage is removal of the rock covering the treasure; siladi utkarshanam; sila means rock; which are solid; previous obstacle was mud; which can be removed; relatively easily but later pratibandas are solid rock;
once you remove the rocks also; then the wealth is in your hands; all the ornaments and diamonds jewels you can put on yourselves; all the money you can use for buying food and you can eat sumptuously.
So what are the three stages; removal of the ignorance regarding the treasure, removal of the mud and removal of rock??
Continued...
Love
Dear Reader,
If you have ever suffered insult / humiliation for no fault of yours , if you have complained to God ever as to why such things should happen to you , then , this talk is a must for you to listen and experience total freedom !!!!
Love
Without eliminating his enemies and without bringing the entire land of his kingdom under his sway, by merely repeating I am the emperor ', one cannot become an emperor. (64)
Even God is transferring the self-knowledge to us only by one method; what is that; the upaṇiṣadic words. And therefore remember, words are extremely important; but what Sankara says is words are important as a means but words are not ends in themselves.
Therefore do not hang on to words; do not hang on to books which are only containers of words; and what should you do? Give sufficient importance to the words as a means but do not give it more importance than that. From the words you have to come to what; from the śabda, the sādhanām, you will have to come to the artha, which is the sādhyam.
But generally what happens? in the case of seekers is: there are two extremes. One extreme is a person says knowledge is important, words are not important; so they do not study the śāstra itself. This is one extreme. Those who claim knowledge is important, words are not going to give liberation; therefore I would not go a guru; I would not study scriptures, etc. and I would do meditation; this is one idiot.
So without words coming from the guru; if the means is not there; how can a person get the knowledge? Therefore one extreme is what; those people who reject the words totally.
And there is another extreme group; those who hang on the words and words and words, study the upaṇiṣads by heart; bhāṣyams by heart; there are people who tudy the sub-commentaries byheart; all that is not necessary; but they hang on to the words and continue to be a samsāri; that means what; another extreme hanging on to words.
Who is the right person? The one who does not totally reject the scriptures and the one who does not hang on to the words of the scriptures, but the one who uses the word, grasps the meaning and drops the words.
In this verse, the Acharya is throwing a flood of light on the previous declaration. By an apt example, he is trying to make us understand that by mere verbal repetition nothing will be accomplished. A fool who, without annihilating his enemies and without bringing with his own might and power, all the provinces under his sway, just repeats that he is the emperor, can never become one for all his loud claims.
Certain necessary conditions must be fulfilled before he can hope to gain the scepter and the crown and be recognized as the emperor. An emperor has no enemies within his own empire and everyone living in his empire is directly under his will and command. If these conditions are accomplished, he need not even announce or declare that he is the emperor, the world will do it for him.
Similarly, if a seeker has successfully destroyed all his inner enemies of desires and thoughts, physical demands, mental appetites and intellectual wanderings and if he has established mastery over the vast province of the waking, dream and deep sleep states of consciousness, he need not thereafter repeat 'I am Brahman'. For every cell in him, every thought and every idea that rises in him will sing in chorus his sovereignty overall, always and in all conditions.
The idea that man's self-effort in the right direction alone can make him rediscover for himself the spiritual essence in him to be divine and all-powerful, is vividly brought out by the following exquisite verse, pregnant with suggestion, rich in melody, perfect in flow and rhythm.
Love
Without achieving the disappearance of the entire pluralistic world and without realizing the real nature of the Self how can one achieve full Liberation by a mere repetition of the word, 'Brahman'? Surely, it will end only in a wasteful effort of speech. (63)
The conditions preceding the full state of Liberation are explained here. In the white heat of intense meditation, when the mental rays of the individual have been made single pointed and turned completely inwards to recognise the Self within, the world of perceptions gets eliminated in the experience; just as the world of the dream naturally rolls away from the waker's comprehension.
We perceive the pluralistic world from the levels of the body, the plains of the mind and the peaks of the intellect. With the body, we recognize the waking state world of names and forms; with the mind we perceive the world of feelings and emotions and with the intellect
we recognize and experience our world of ideas which has no declared boundary.
Let us get deeper into the initial line of today’s verse- “Without achieving the disappearance of the entire pluralistic world”
The appearance and disappearance of pluralistic world is analyzed with reference to “dream state” in almost all Advaita treatise.
A verse from panchadasi says, “This world of duality is like a magical creation, with its cause incomprehensible. What matters it to the wise man who does not forget this, if the past actions produce their results in him?”
As a daily practice one ought to recall to the mind the dream one has experienced and analyze the dream. Questioning the reality of the objects experienced there in dream one arrives at their unreal nature.
This questioning involves considering how the dream objects and events appeared ‘so real’ but only vanished, ended, when the waking occurred. They were ‘as real’ as the waking objects and events; their reality was never questioned, doubted, then. Yet, upon waking, they all ended.
Now, let us connect the two lines of the verse –“ Without achieving the disappearance of the entire pluralistic world and without realizing the real nature of the Self how can one achieve full Liberation……”
Let us see what Sri Ramana has to say on these lines exactly, which is a revelation itself from the Maharishi
Bhagavan said, “It is said that Brahman is real, and world an illusion; again it is said that the whole universe is an image of Brahman. The question arises: how are these two statements to be reconciled?
In the sadhana stage, you have got to say that the world is an illusion. There is no other way, because when a man forgets that he is the Brahman, who is real, permanent and omnipresent, and deludes himself into thinking that he is a body in the universe which is filled with bodies that are transitory, and labors under that delusion, you have got to remind him that the world is unreal and a delusion.
Why?
Because his vision which has forgotten its own Self, is dwelling in the external material universe and will not turn inward to introspection unless you impress on him that all this external, material universe is unreal.
So long as a man does not see his own Self which is the origin of all, but looks only at the external world as real and permanent, you have to tell him that all this external universe is an illusion.
However, When once he realizes his own Self, and also that there is nothing other than his own Self, he will come to look upon the whole universe as Brahman. There is no universe without his Self.”
Regarding the wastefulness of merely repeating “Brahman” in speech/ talks, we have already dealt with the same in the previous 2 verses and hence, we wont get into detail of the same.
Love
Dear all,
A beautiful incident shared by an ardent devotee, Geeta Mohan Ram where, Swami explains what is "Amara Prema" when a discussion on an old movie titled "Amar Pram" comes and up and the discussion itself is very interesting!!!
Love
A talk on connecting with SAI every moment is brought to you on this new year day.
Love
A disease is not cured by merely repeating the name of the medicine and without taking it. Without direct Realization, by a mere utterance of the word, 'Brahman', none can be liberated.(62)
Jnana is the knowledge learned by applying the mind, senses, and intellect. In contrast, vijnana (wisdom) is the knowledge gained through spiritual practice, it is a direct experiential realization; and should not be misunderstood for intellectual knowledge. An example to explain this is honey kept in a sealed jar. We have heard that honey has the sweetest taste that is incomparable to any other sweet. But unless we open the jar and taste it, we will not get the experiential realization of its sweetness.
Likewise, the Guru gives us jnana, which is the theoretical knowledge of the scriptures. Yet, we need to practice sadhana as per the acquired jnana, which would consequently purify our mind. Only then, vinjana (wisdom) knowledge, through self-realization will be attained.
Swami chinmayananda writes:-
How and why mere chanting of a mantra is by itself, considered impotent is explained here. Any person suffering from ignorance cannot expect to be cured by merely repeating the word 'Brahman', the name of the absolute Reality. Repeated utterances of 'aham brahmasmi' or a mechanical murmuring of endless 'sivoham' cannot by themselves produce any cure. However effective the medicine may be, no patient is known to have been cured only by repeatedly reading a prescription.
By merely repeating for hours the word 'aspirin', when one is suffering from headache, one can only increase it. The only cure is to take the medicine and assimilate it till it becomes one with the patient. By this alone can he get complete relief.
Similarly, a mere repetition of the sacred Truth of Vedanta is futile without the struggle to raise ourselves to the subtler joys of a higher culture and a divine way of living, by individually assimilating the Truth of the Upanisads and becoming one with it by intimate personal experience. Subjective Realization, most intimate and immediate, total and permanent, is called 'aparoksa anubhava' of the Self. No doubt, this must be preceded by an intellectual understanding of the Truth called in Sanskrit 'paroksa jnanam'.
Paramahamsa Yogananda wrote:-
“Knowledge of the scriptures is beneficial only when it stimulates a desire for practical realization; otherwise, theoretical knowledge gives one a false conviction of wisdom. Unrealized knowledge of scriptures may thus become a detriment to the practical realization of spiritual truths.
But when theoretical scriptural knowledge is continuously converted into inner perceptions of wisdom, that knowledge is a source of redemption. Many pundits and learned professors—for all their mental acumen— daily demonstrate by their uncontrolled lives their failure to put philosophy to any practical use.
A man without scriptural knowledge or inner realization is sadly ignorant. A person with a theoretical knowledge of scriptures but without Self-realization is like a man who eats much food but cannot digest it.
The man with divine realization, even if lacking scriptural knowledge, has attained God and is a worthy example to society. A man possessing both scriptural knowledge and Self-realization has not only attained God but is an admirable teacher for imparting God-consciousness to others.
Right study of the scriptures (svadhyaya) leads to emancipation. A true devotee does not suffer with mental indigestion as does one who gorges himself on scriptural lore without understanding its meaning and without assimilating it into his life. Theoretical study is helpful when it inspires a devotee to practice the holy teachings. Wisdom thoughts are faithful guides and protectors when they become one's constant companions.
Most intellectualists thus become bound by their own conclusions. Seek knowledge from a true guru. Decide upon the best and quickest method of meditation as taught by the great saints and God-realized gurus of India, and then meditate deeper and deeper every day, praying to God with a burning heart, "Reveal Thyself!"”
Intellectual appreciation is the way to reach Truth and a full subjective apprehension of the Self is the goal. Liberation from our delusions can come only when they have ended in pure Knowledge. Darkness can end only in the presence of light.
When Sri Ramana was asked, what all scriptures one must read in order to progress towards self realization, Maharishi asked the devotee, “How many mirrors you need for your shaving”?. The devotee said, only one.
Maharishi said, you may study few treatise for gaining intellectual knowledge of what Brahman is. Thereafter, you must engage in meditation to ultimately realize SELF.
From own experience, author can share that he had read only few treatise- Vivekachudamani, part of Yoga vasishta, Ribhu Gita and may be one or two Upanishads and then went on to meditate on the essence of all these treatise continuously, day and night, for the next 2-3 months before God graced him with the subjective experience of SELF.
Love
