Jnana Vahini - Post 27

To entitle one for embarking on the inquiry into the Atma, one must be endowed with the Sadhana Chatushtaya or the Four Qualifications. 

Scholarship in all the Vedas and Sastras, asceticism, mastery of ritual, dedication to japa, charity, pilgrimage - nothing will help in granting that authority. "Saantho Dantha Uparathi Thithiksha...", says the Sruthi; so equanimity, self-control, withdrawal of the senses, steadfastness - these alone confer that title; not caste, colour, or social status. 

Be it a Pandit versed in all the Sastras, a Vidwan or an illiterate, a child or youth or an old person, a Brahmachari, Grihastha, Vanaprastha or Sanyasin, a Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaisya, or Sudra, or even an outcaste, man or woman, the Vedas declare: "Everyone is qualified, provided one is equipped with the Sadhana Chatushtaya".

Mere reading of the Sastras does not entitle one; the attainment of Sadhana Chatushtaya mentioned therein is essential. The doubt might then arise: how can a person who has not read the Sastras attain Sadhana Chatushtaya? 

My answer is: how does the person who reads them attain them? "Because he knows the Sastras, he does act in a spirit of dedication to the Lord, gets mental purification thereby, and acquires Vairagya, renunciation, and other qualifications in increasing measure". 

Now, how can these be cultivated by one who does not know the Sastras? it is asked. Why can he not cultivate them? 

By the accumulated fruits of the educative influences and good deeds in the past births, it is possible to become qualified for Atmavichara in this birth, even without the initial back ground of Sastric study.

It is the mind which is a limitation on the Jivi; it has to be conquered; the body-consciousness must disappear; steady faith has to be cultivated in Jnana.

The human personality has to be discarded by inner devotion and discipline and the acquisition of the Divine; then the knowledge dawns that one is divine. Limitation of the Jivi has to be overcome before Brahman-hood dawns.

Experiencing identity with the Lord, the Jivi declares, "I am Brahman, where have all the changing worlds fled? How deluded I was to be caught in the tangle of Jiva and Jagath! 

Past, present and future do not really exist at all. I am the Sat-Chit-Ananda Swarupa, devoid of the three types of distinction". 

He is immersed in the Bliss of Brahman. This is the fruition of Jnana.

(Author’s note - The first step in the path of wisdom / jnana is equipping oneself with the 4 qualifications - viveka, vairagya, shad-sampat and mumukshatva.

The mansion of Spiritual sadhana, reaching up to the top most roof of Moksha, is impossible to be sustained without the 4 strong foundation pillars of these 4 qualifications.

Man, believing in his intellect, takes up discourses in this path, reads few books here and there, goes through Upanishads and thinks that he has understood this path. 

It does not work this way. Why? Because, in most cases, intellect is not pure, it is mixed up with our ego, our vasanas. So, we end up understanding the Upanishad truth with the coloring of our ego, our vasanas and ultimately, we end up nowhere and we leave the path more faster than anyone else.)

 The prescribed path is 

The contemplation has to continue till the time, the teachings / revelations of the Shrutis given by Guru is experienced subjectively within the disciple's heart.

Guru can even be someone who is an acclaimed realized Master, who may not be alive now, only if one is not fortunate to get / find  a Guru living in contemporary world, available to him physically, to go through all spiritual instructions one to one, to get all doubts cleared one to one and to see the Guru living before his eyes as the proof of all the vedanta teachings!!

Love.

Jnana Vahini - Post 26

JIVA

Who is this Jivi calling himself 'I'? Reflecting on this problem, he will see that the 'I' is the immutable permanent-witness, the Atma, which forgetful of its real nature considers itself affected by change, through sheer ignorance. 

Caught up in the coils of change, it is very hard to realize one is just the witness of all this passing show. 

SAKSHI

The Sakshi has no Ajnana and so has no need to get rid of it! The ignorant alone need to take steps to remove it. Qualities like ignorance or knowledge attach themselves only to the Jivi, not to the Sakshi. This is proven by actual experience. Because the Sakshi who is the apparent basis for Jnana and Ajnana, is devoid of both, while the Jivi is actively bound to these two.

Some may doubt, how this distinction came to be. "Does the Sakshi know the Jivi, the I, which changes and gets modified and agitated? And who is this witness? We are not aware of it", they may ask. 

JIVA BECOMING SAKSHI

When a Jiva deliberately spends thought on his identity, he will know, "I am not a Vikari, I am the witness of the ego," the ego that suffers continuous modification; then, from this step, he will proceed to identify the immutable Seer or Witness (or Sakshi) with himself. 

Undergoing the sorrows of Ajnana and seeking solace in the study of Vedanta, one infers that there must be a Witness, unaffected by the passing clouds. 

Getting a glimpse of the king inside the fort does not help the beggar acquire wealth or power; so too, the Jivi must not only know the Sakshi, (the Sakshi, more ethereal than the sky, beyond the three-fold category of knower, known, and knowledge, eternal, pure, conscious, free, blissful) but must become the Sakshi. Till then, the Jivi continues as Jivi, it cannot become Brahman.

Later, the Sakshi or Atma, which one knew by reasonings, is realized in actual experience, when the superimposition of the illusion of the world is removed by Sadhana.

The Sakshi is the inner core of everything, the 'immanent', the embodiment of Sat, Chit and Ananda. There is nothing beyond it or outside it. 

The Akasa in the pot is the Akasa that has filled everything everywhere. The Akasa in the pot is the ever-full immanent Akasa. 

The wind in one place is the wind in all places; the sunlight in one place is the sunlight everywhere; the God in one image is the God in all images. This type of identity has to be grasped.

Love.

Jnana Vahini - Post 25

The Atma is always content and blissful. To you, one thing appears more attractive than another and so this sensual attachment and affection are the results of delusion and desire. 

The attachment to the Atma will not undergo any modifications; even when the senses and the body fall, the Atma will remain and infuse bliss. It is unlimited and indestructible. Everyone has attachment to the Self, or Atma. 

It is of the nature of Paramananda. For this reason, it is also described as of the nature of Sat, Chit and Ananda.

Are these three the characteristics or qualities of the Atma? Or are they its essence, its nature? A doubt of this type may arise. Redness, heat and splendor are the nature of Fire, not its attributes. Atma, too, in the same manner, has Sat, Chit and Ananda as its very nature. Liquidity, coldness and taste are of the very nature of Water; yet, water everywhere is the same, not diverse.

(Author's note - Swami clarifies here that Sat-chit-ananda is not the characteristic of Atman like we describe all other objects in this world with their characteristic but sat-chit-ananda is the very nature of Atman, not mere attributes of Atman)

The Eternal Knower - Chaitanya

Atma is Chit and all else is jada. Atma alone can know, nothing else is capable of knowing; and Atma knows that all else is Atma. Can the pot know the Akasa inside it? 

Though it does not know, the Akasa is there all the same. But the Atma in man knows even the inert that is of the senses. Thus, the body, the house, the field, the village, the country, are all "known"; so too, the unseen items like heaven etc., are 'understood'.

In dream, though one experiences multiplicity, one knows that they are unreal creations of one's own mind; this is clear to the witness of the dream. Similarly, the experience of the waking stage also is a mental picture, at the most. 

Some people declare that they have had Realization! How can it be taken as true? When according to the statement, "Aham Brahmaasmi", one understands that "I am Brahman", the Jivi who is the 'I' is a mutable entity, a Vikari. How can he possibly grasp it? A destitute cannot realize that he is a monarch; so too, a mutable entity like man cannot grasp the immutable Brahman or posit that he is Brahman.

(Author’s note - In the last para, what Swami is revealing? He is drawing our attention between idam and aham which we understood in Upadesa Saram, He is teaching us the difference between Aham which is pure and Ahankara which is Ego.

So, till the time one exists as pure Aham or Sat-chit-ananda, he cannot say that he has realized SELF / Brahman. And, when one actually roars that he has attained realization, then, there is no thought, no mind, no ego involved there. Such a roar is from and as the source and not from the Jiva.

How is that roar?? 

Janaka reveals about His… ne... THAT state, in Ashtavakra Gita when He says,

aho ahaṁ namo mahyaṁ

vināśo yasya nāsti me

brahmādistaṁbaparyantaṁ

jagannāśo’pi tiṣṭhataḥ

How wonderful am I! Adoration to myself, who knows no destruction, surviving even beyond the destruction of the entire world from Brahma down to a clump of clay.

aho ahaṁ namo mahyaṁ

eko’haṁ dehavānapi

kvacinna gantā nāgantā

vyāpya viśvamavasthitaḥ

Wonderful am I! Glory to myself who, though with a body, am One, who neither goes anywhere nor comes from anywhere but abide forever, pervading the Universe.

aho ahaṁ namo mahyaṁ

dakṣo nāstīha matsamaḥ

asaṁspṛśya śarīreṇa yena

viśvaṁ ciraṁ dhṛtam

Wonderful am I! I bow down to myself! There is no one so clever as I, who is bearing the Universe for all eternity without even touching it with my body!

aho ahaṁ namo mahyaṁ 

yasya me nāsti kiṁcana

athavā yasya me sarvaṁ 
yad vāṅmanasagocaram

Wonderful am I! I bow down to myself! I who possess nothing at all or possess everything that is thought or spoken of.

It has to be known clearly that all along when Janaka says "I am" in the above verses, the I referred is beyond his body, mind, intellect, vasanas, senses. It is the Pure SELF, SAT-CHIT-ANANDA which is the very nature of "I" when Janaka roars - "How wonderful AM I".

Love.