Sadhana Panchakam - Post 57

 

The vedic scriptures, Upanishads and all the spiritual documents have one thing in common, that is the goal which the fragment has for the whole, and the rivers have for the oceans. 

Chhandogya Upanishad specifically enjoins that ‘here in the city of Brahman, there exists an abode, like a small lotus flower, within it is a small place. What is within that should be sought, for that assuredly is what one should desire to understand’. That is what one should be propitiate.

 

In Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, Yajnavalkya clarifies that as the ocean is the one goal of all waters, as skin is of all kinds of touch, as nostril is of smells, as tongue is of all tastes, as eye is of all forms, as ear is of all sounds, as mind is of all resolutions, as heart is of all forms of knowledge, as hands are of all actions, as organ of generation is of all joys, as excretory organ is of all evacuations, as feet is of all movements, as speech is of all Wisdom …so verily is this great being, infinite, limitless, as aggregate of Wisdom, Arising there from they disappear there into. 

When one thus goes forward, there is no more to be known. And finally when all the aggregate karmas cease, the self loses its individual identity in the vast and ever encompassing Brahman even as a lump of salt loses its individuality when it sinks in the vast ocean.  

When such event occurs then like the juices which are reduced to honey do not know the tree from which they were sourced, the Self ceases to know the form which it had before it became one with supreme, luminous, the immortal Brahman, designated as  SATHYAM - the Prime Existence.  

Katha Upanishad says let the wise Brahmin after knowing SELF, practice wisdom and not waste time in reflecting on many words, for that is, verily, weariness of speech.

 

Mundaka Upanishad delving on the subject says that seers having realized the enlightened wisdom, being content, established in Self, freed from attachment and composed in mind, realize the all-pervasive One in all directions, and merge into that all.

 “I am Brahman” stands here for complete identification with the Supreme Source of our existence. It is the very opposite of “I am the Body”, which stands solely for the material aspect of existence. 

The realized person passes through his Prarabdha Karma with complete balance, unaffected by joys and sorrows that are brought on by Prarabdha. He simply witnesses them passing through him. 

‘I AM BRAHMAN’ - In the sentence, ‘Aham Brahmasmi,’ or I am Brahman, the ‘I’ is that which is the One Witnessing Consciousness, standing apart form even the intellect, different from the ego-principle, and shining through every act of thinking, feeling, etc. This Witness-Consciousness, being the same in all, is universal, and cannot be distinguished from Brahman, which is the Absolute. 

Hence the essential ‘I’ which is full, super-rational and resplendent, should be the same as Brahman. This is not the identification of the limited individual ‘I’ with Brahman, but it is the Universal Substratum of individuality that is asserted to be what it is. The copula ‘am’ does not signify any empirical relation between two entities, but affirms the non-duality of essence. This dictum is from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. 

An extract from talk delivered by Swami Vivekananda in San Fransisco, on 23 rd March 1900. 

“I am the one Existence. Nothing else exists. I am everything. 

Go on saying “I am free”. Never mind if the next moment delusion comes and says “I am bound”. 

This truth is first to be heard. Hear it first. Think on it day and night. Fill the mind with it day and night: “I am it. I am the Lord of the Universe. Never was there any delusion…” Meditate upon it with all the strength of the mind till you actually see these walls, houses, everything, melt away until body, everything vanishes. “I will stand alone. I am the one”. 

Struggle on! Who cares! We want to be free. We do not want any powers. Worlds we renounce. Heavens we renounce, hells we renounce. What do I care about all these powers? And this and that! What do I care if the mind is controlled or uncontrolled! Let it run on!. What of that! I am not the mind. Let it go on!. 

The sun shines on the just and unjust. Is he touched by the defective character of any one? I am He. Whatever my mind does, I am not touched. The sun is not touched by shining on filthy places. I am existence. 

This is the religion of non-dual philosophy. It is difficult. Struggle on!. Down with all superstitions!. Neither teachers nor scriptures nor gods exist. Down with temples, with priests, with gods, with incarnations, with God himself!. I am all the God that ever existed. There, stand up philosophers! No fear! Speak no more of God and the superstition of the world. Truth alone triumphs, and this is true, I am the infinite. 

All religious superstitions are vain imaginations.  This society, that I see before me, and that I am talking to you- this is all superstition. All must be given up. Just see what it takes to become a philosopher!. This is the path of Jnana Yoga, the way through knowledge. The other paths are easy, slow. But this is pure strength of mind. No weakling can follow this path of knowledge. You must be able to say “I am the soul, the ever free, I never was bound. Time is in me, not I in time. God was born in my mind. God the Father, Father of the Universe- he is created by me in my own mind…” 

 

With this we come to the end of this sacred treatise “Sadhana Panchakam”.

 

 

Love.

 

Sadhana Panchakam - Post 56

Cause-effect is an in-alienable and un-avoidable Cosmic Law. ’Prarabdha” is the result of the aggregation of all previous actions. Krishna says that the all-pervading Self does not take on the sins or the merits of any creature. It is only for the one born to terminate the effect of the actions performed in earlier life, and no amount of divine intervention would put end to them. 

Therefore, the sages seek to find the reasons which turns cause in to effect and ways how to disengage and neutralize the cause from being transformed as effect. 

Continuity of primordial life become palpable when one observes the aggregate karmas, the sanchita karma - being transferred as arrows  from one life to the other, with body deteriorating, decaying and dying and a new body taking over the same, as Prarabdha karma. 

Deliverance comes not only when entirety of the sanchita karma ceases to be transferred but also when new karma cease to bear fruit. It is like burning the seeds to prevent further fruits coming forth. 

Krishna points out that performance of actions is natural for every creature and no one can remain even for a moment without performing action. Therefore in one who has restrained the tendency of senses turning cause transformed as effects, only his intelligence is considered firmly established. Only he who has abandoned all desires and lives and acts free from craving, without any sense of I and mine, attains peace within, becoming released. 

For those who desire a deeper philosophic insight into the way a sage sees the world, an Acharya obliged with the following unusual explanation: 

1. No Duality: A new term is now being introduced – Akhandata. It means “no dichotomy between subject and object”. In ordinary perception, there has to be a subject and an object. In God-realization, the sage has the Akhandata vision. He sees an unbroken mass of Reality. There is no two (subject and object); there is only the One Reality. 

2. No Ego: In normal experience, the ego is the subject, and the world is the object. In God-vision this is not the case. Oneness cannot co-exist with the ego. In the state of Oneness, the ego gets dissolved completely and one experiences Oneness with the whole world. Subject and object become unified. 

3. No Karma: The implication is that at one shot, the Sanchita karma is totally annulled. Let us take the example of a dream experience. 

Suppose one has this fantastic dream: He is a tycoon, not an ordinary tycoon but a super-tycoon, the sort that one can only be in a dream! Real tycoons are known to buy out islands; but the dream-tycoon is presently dreaming of buying off the whole continent! At that point he suddenly awakens from his dream. However promising the dream was, does it not all simply vanish into nothingness? It is the same with the Sanchita karma of a realized saint. 

4. No Cause & Effect: The very nature of the experience of existence suddenly changes – it has no semblance to ordinary existence as we know it, which has to follow the cause-effect rule. From a worldly standpoint, It is impossible to have any non-causal situation; to us, anything has to have a cause. We cannot comprehend the Absolute plane which is a “Karma-free Zone”. There are no Karmas in the Absolute plane! 

5. No “Death”: In normal experience, when Prarabdha Karma is exhausted, the body has done its work and, without exception, it has to fall off. The ‘pot’ space merges with the universal space. But in the case of the sage, there is no separate space in the first place. So death itself has no significance to him; he is already ‘dead’ to the world from the moment he had realized. Hence, in his case, the term death is not used. Instead, he is said to have attained Videhamukti, or “liberation from the body”.

 

Let us go through a conversation between Sri Ramana Maharshi (M) and Maurice Frydman (M. F.).

 

M. F.: Narada Bhakti Sutras say that the path of devotion is best, as all paths lead to devotion. Cannot the same be said of jnana or yoga or nishkama karma?

 

M.: Why this differentiation?

Jnana is bhakti; vairagya is jnana.

M. F.: To know is to love. If we love, we know more, and vice versa.

M.: Yes.

 

M. F.: Ashtavakra Gita, Chapter IX, verse 4 says: “Things come by themselves.” Does anything come of itself without the operation of some cause behind it?

 

M.: That which comes to a man without present effort or desire is the result of past efforts or desires — Prarabdha karma. Even a jnani who has no desires has to meet such events, as they are the result of his Prarabdha karma.

 

M.F. Some one: “Jnana burns away all karma,” says the Bhagavad Gita; so the jnani’s jnana could not leave Prarabdha unburned. Is that so?

 

M.: In the jnani’s view all karma has gone. But in the world’s view, the jnani’s body is seen subject to some karma and this is attributed to Prarabdha.

 

M. F.: The Ashtavakra Gita says, “The jnani does not remember what he has done or not done.” How to understand this?

 

M.: He is in Brahman, so he does not feel that he is the agent who has acted or not acted.

 

M. F.: If the jnani is subject to Prarabdha, he may have to face desires, which are also a part of Prarabdha karma. Desires cloud jnana. How can he then be a jnani?

 

M.: The desires that float before the jnani do not affect his jnana.

 

M. F.: The Puranas say that jnanis warred against jnanis. That must be due to Prarabdha then?

 

M.: Yes. Krishna fought against Bhishma.

 

M. F.: But should not the jnani have vairagya, while it is desire that leads to conflict?

 

M.: Perfect vairagya is Jnana.

 

M. F.: How can we judge from the outside whether a man’s vairagya, or surrender, is perfect or complete?

 

M.: Of perfect vairagya and jnana, who is there outside to judge?

 

M. F.: Instead of constantly pursuing the enquiry ‘Who am I?’ why not constantly ask ‘Who are you?’

 

M.: Either enquiry that tends to still the mind is good. But ‘Who am I?’ is the shortest and most direct method. The others lead up to it.

 

Dear All,

 

All about Prarabdha Karma and how it is exhausted and how a jnani does not perceive any Prarabdha karma even while exhausting the same - have been covered in the posts under the theme " theory of Karma".  Much more clarity is given in the 4 parts of Karma session which is available in the author's youtube channel.  Readers who are not aware of his youtube channel may just surf youtube with "Journey deep within+karma" or leave a comment seeking the same and then the same shall be posted in a post.

 

Love.

 

 

 

Live Session Tomorrow on "Spiritual Journey to God Realization through Sai Student's Experiences"

 

https://youtu.be/pGlknHj4nMI