Bhagwad Gita- Post 154

Quality # 23

Tulya nindaa Stutir maunee  

Equal in censure or praise

Ninda and stuti mean the same thing to him. “You are the worst of fellows”— “all right, accepted”. 

“There is nobody like you in the whole world”—"that is also good, fine”.

He takes both of them as prasad. 

Chinmaya writes,

“A situation is judged by the intellect as honorable or dishonorable with reference to its own existing values and cultivated habits of thinking. 

That which is ordinarily considered dishonorable can itself come to be estimated by the same person as honorable in a new pattern of circumstances ordered by a change in time and place. 

On the whole, these are all different tides in the intellect; and those who are living in that realm  ( of BMI) are affected by them.”

Dear All,

When the world praises you or curses you, actually what is that they are praising or cursing?? 

They are looking at you as a person, as an individual, with a BMI, with a personality of your own, a nature of your own, acting in the society with desires, expectations etc.  

This is the world of beings , they can look at you only with their limited mind , their limited vision of seeing you with limitations, since they see themselves also with limitations.

Here is the true devotee who has surrendered to the lord, who takes up no action with expectations, which we have understood in earlier qualities. 

He exists moment to moment, acts moment to moment, propelled only by intuition and not by Ego, hatred, attachment  or inherent tendencies. 

So, when any praise or any dishonor/censure is showered  at him, he is not able to even recognize that they are pointed towards him, as he does not exist as a human being.   Will the SELF that he exists as, have any mind  to grasp any praise or censure??

Sri Chinmaya , in  his commentary  on a verse in viveka chudamani on Stitaprajna writes, “Adoration and censures, flowers or a garland of slippers, when heaped on him/ presented to him, all of them, the praises as well as censure, disappear from his bosom in no time  and there , he exists, rooted in consciousness (Stitaprajna).

How wonderful is it to note that all the qualities described as that of a true bhakta in this chapter, exactly matches all the qualities of a Jivanmukhta, in Jnana!. 

The path is different but the  culmination, the end result , the inner state of the one who has pursued path of devotion and reached the goal or a sadhaka who pursues the path of jnana and reaches the goal, are  exactly the same.

Love

Bhagwad Gita- Post 153

Quality # 21 

Na sochati na kaangkshati  

Neither grieves nor desires

Grief is generally experienced while parting with a beloved object, and desires are entertained when one yearns to have and to possess something unattained at present. 

Needless to say, the root cause is again “ EGO”.

A Man of Perfection is one whose beloved object, the Self, can never be apart from him. ( Hence, no GRIEF)

And he has no sense of attachment with any other object. (Hence no Desire)

Having attained the Self, the inhabitant of his heart, he has such a complete sense of fulfillment that he has no more any desire for attaining anything that he has not attained. The Self being the All, he has attained everything.

With all the understanding gained by us so far, shall we re arrange the line as " No desire and hence, no possibility of grieving ever"?

Quality # 22 

Shubha Ashubha parityagee          

Renouncing good and evil

The happenings in the world around us can fall under these two categories, according to whether they arouse in us a feeling of joy or sorrow. 

To any person who is living away from the realm of the dualistic experiences, and who has learnt the art of drawing inspiration from something beyond, none of the happenings, here at the level of the mind and the intellect, can be of any serious consequences.

A verse from Ashtavakra Gita is recalled here, which applies to all dualities dealt in the 26 qualities of devotee in this chapter as much as it applies to the present quality- “Renouncing Good and Evil”

Janaka uvāca 

ākāśavadananto'haṃ ghaṭavatprākṛtaṃ jagat 

iti jñānaṃ tathaitasya na tyāgo na graho layaḥ  

Janaka says to Ashtavakra,  

“I am infinite like space, and the natural world is like a jar. To know this is knowledge, and then there is neither renunciation, nor acceptance or cessation of it.”

Dear All,

This verse also beautifully aligns to the talk posted for devotees in an Oman Sai centre, where, through different analogies, it was expounded by the author, “You are the space, ( pure consciousness), unaffected by anything that exists in you, anything that goes in in your mind, good or bad"!!

Janaka says that in His state, he has nothing to accept and nothing to renounce as he has risen above the level of any object awareness to accept and renounce any object in this creation. 

He exists like the space in this creation which is like a jar. Inside the jar, surrounding the jar, prior to the jar being made by the potter and after the pot is broken, in and through all  situations, he exists as pure space- pure consciousness. 

Love

Bhagwad Gita- Post 152

Quality # 19

Sarva arambha parityagee        

        

Renounced all undertakings and all  Commencements

The phrase sarva-arambha-parityagi means renouncing all endeavors that are colored with ego. 

He does not take initiative. If something happens, he acts in accordance with that happening. If nothing happens, he keeps quiet. 

He does not plan what he will do tomorrow or the day after that. He remains quiet, as if nothing is happening and the world itself does not exist. 

Why would a True devotee will not make a beginning in any thing?? Will he just sit idle?? 

For such apparently contradictory verses, Sri Chinmaya’s lines  always illumine and clears the confusion when we read such verses

He writes,

“To perceive any definite beginning in an undertaking, the individual actor must have a solid and gross egoistic claim that he had begun it himself. 

He must have the strong feeling that he is beginning an activity, for the purpose of gaining a definite goal, whereby he will be fulfilling a specific desire of his, or will thereby be gaining a positive profit. 

One who is a seeker of the Divine, striving to reach the higher cultural perfections, must renounce this egoistic sense of self-importance and work on in the world."

An example would clarify this state of “not beginning anything on his own ( with ego)"

The series of Samarpan bhajans taken up in a Sai centre in Oman. somewhere in 2007, was stopped after taking up bhajan teaching as well as satsangh for 251 bhajans, few years before.

Never did an Idea strike to the Author that he should re-start the same. After nearly 5 years or so, when the Sadan talk series on Realization through the path of devotion, Attraction to Atma Nivedanam got over, one of the devotees messaged, “ Why don’t you start the Samarpan again?”. 

There was no time space gap between the suggestion received and his replying, “ yes, we will start”.

This shows that, on his own, a true devotee may not rush to start any thing on his own, which is propelled by ego, any thought that “ I will take the initiative”. 

However, it does not mean that he will never rise to take up anything. Everything that he starts, does, is based on intuition and the decision to start, when the intuition is received, is instant and then the work is taken up with  highest spirit. 

Quality # 20

Yona hrishyati na dweshti         

Neither rejoices, nor hates

Again, both these qualities owe  their state of existence to  the devotee’s transcending the root cause- EGO, which has been sufficiently explained , yet, it deserves a recap.

Clouded with ignorance ( Avidya)  of our divine nature, developing the “ I” or “ mine ness”( Asmita) , when we usually encounter a situation or obtain an object, we are either attracted ( Raga)  to it, repulsed (Dvesha) by it. 

Attraction generates desires that are stored in our mind, and repulsion generates negative desires, a list of things we would like to stay away from. If we eventually get the favorable object, or hold on to the favorable situation long enough, we become “harshita”, we rejoice. 

But if we lose that object or situation, which is bound to happen sometime, we become “shochita”, we grieve. Attraction, revulsion, desire, hatred, joy, grief – this is how most of us usually operate.

 
The perfected devotee has tackled this problem at its root, he has transcended Avidya and has become one with the Lord.

He has stopped labelling any object, person, situation or thought as either good or bad, because it is exactly this labelling that starts the chain reaction of attraction, desire, joy and sorrow. The perfected devotee accepts all objects and situations as Easwara’s blessings, does what he has to do, and moves on. 

Love