Sathya Sai Vahini - Post 60

 

Unity of individual and cosmic spirit

 

All sparks are fire. They cannot be declared separate, nor is there a need to assert that they are not separate. So too, people or individualized beings are not separate from the Universal Absolute (Brahman), nor is there a need to assert that they are not separate. There is only one caste, humanity.

 

The relation between Brahman and the individual soul (jiva) is not one of identity or oneness but of cause - effect. Until liberation is attained, the particular is distinct, separate. When liberated, since the cause of individualization is absent, the individual soul (jiva) is one with Brahman. Separation and oneness of the individual soul and Brahman are the consequences of the delusion of bondage and the awareness of freedom.

 

Brahman is self-effulgent, self-illuminating. It is not the “object” of consciousness; It cognizes all objects. All things and beings belong to the category of “seen” or “observed” or “known”. It is the seer, not the seen. When the form is the “seen”, the mind is the “seer”; when the mind and the activities of the intellect are the “seen” or “observed”, then the witnessing consciousness is the “seer”.

 

This witness can be seen by no one. All things cognizable are the body of the Atma, not the Atma. They are name-form combinations like pots and pans of clay, which impinge on the consciousness as “seen” or delude it like the “silver” on “mother of pearl”. The Atma is; It exists by and for Itself. The universe is the “other”, for others; it is “real” and available for others. The universe has no innate reality. It emanates from Brahman, and its reality is based on the reality of Brahman. So, its reality is lower than that of Brahman.

 

The illusion created by a magician for deluding others cannot affect the magician himself. In the same manner, since the universe is contrived by Brahman, it is clear that it cannot affect Brahman Itself.

 

Maya: ideational superimposition of Reality

 

The universe appears to have emanated, as being experienced as such, and as disintegrating. These three are but superimposed ideations upon the One modification-less reality, just like the snake superimposed upon the rope, at dusk. This ideation is illusion (maya), for it hides and reveals at the same time. Illusion cannot be said to be unreal. 

The rope appearing as snake is known again as rope when the snake disappears. But the universe does not disappear in the same manner. Its existence cannot be explained away. It is a unique phenomenon; we cannot compare it with any other. We cannot dismiss it as unreal or accept it as real. It is truth-untruth (sat-asat), not untruth. That is to say, real-unreal, not unreal.

 

It persists for some time and is therefore real. It does not persist for all time and is therefore unreal. A thing can be true only as long as it is not something different; while dealing with it on the temporary practical relative level, the universe remains as universe. It is relatively real. Truth is one, it has one feature only. The universe has manifold features through time, space, and causation, so it is unreal. 

 

Sankara proclaimed the universe (jagath) to be unreal. When the highest truth is known, the universe is revealed as but an appearance on the Real and as distinct from the basic Brahman. Since the universe is imposed by the mind on the Brahmic truth, it too is to be treated as a Brahmic phenomenon. “All this is indeed Brahman (Sarvam Khalvidham Brahmam).”

 

Continued...

 

Love.

 

 

Sathya Sai Vahini - Post 59

Dear All,

This glorious journey of this vahini is coming to an end, as we are starting the last chapter of the vahini today.

 

Chapter XXIV

 

 The Divine Body

 

Fourfold division of mankind 

 

The sociological basis of Indian (Bharathiya) culture has to be clearly understood. Mankind falls into four groups, when innate nature and inclinations are considered. They are named brahmin, warrior (kshatriya), trader (vaisya), and labourer (sudra). 

 

This demarcation is not a selfish, crooked conspiracy designed to make the “superior” trample upon the “inferior”. Nor is it the consequence of an envious plot to obstruct human progress. It is best to judge it as a plan to promote the expansion of human achievement by fostering the trends and traits of each person. 

 

It is the royal road for the attainment of human progress. It works only for the promotion and regulation of human activity in such a manner that harmony and social well-being are ensured. 

 

As readers already know, the teacher of the Gita, Lord Krishna, declared, I created the four castes (varnas), the brahmin, the warrior (kshatriya), the merchant (vaisya), and the laborer (sudra), on the bases of natural disposition and vocation of each. Know Me to be author of these, as also the non-author, the Unchangeable. 

 

Chaathurvarnyam mayaa srishtam, guna karma Vibhaagasah, tasya karthaaramapi maam Viddhi akarthaaram avyayam. The system of caste is thus founded on attributes and activities. 

 

The world was in the very beginning predominantly pure (sathwic) in nature and, as a consequence, all were only brahmins. 

 

Later, through the adoption of various vocations and the development of various inclinations and preferences, types of people got demarcated as castes. 

 

The one and only brahmin class of sages (rishis) had later to be sectionalized, in the interest of social justice and harmony, when qualities of character varied.

 

In the Santhi Parva (Mahabharatha), Sage Bhrigu elaborately answered a question raised about this development by Sage Bharadwaja. 

 

It runs as follows: 

 

“Brahmins who are fond of worldly pleasures, affected by egotism, and subject to anger, lust, and other passions have passionate qualities (rajoguna) mixed with their innate pure (sathwic) nature, so they were classified as warriors (kshatriyas). 

 

In fact, all brahmins cannot be predominantly pure (sathwic) in nature, nor can all of them be devoted to pure ritual activity. 

 

Those who do not adhere to the pure (sathwic) ideal of truth and who evince the qualities of dullness (thamoguna) mixed with passionate (rajasic) traits, those who are mostly both dull (thamasic) and passionate (rajasic), were classed as merchants (vaisyas). 

 

The rest, who spend their lives in occupations involving violence, who don’t practice cleanliness, and who are bogged down in passive (thamasic) means of livelihood were classed as laborours (sudras). 

 

Thus, the brahmins denoted various castes and ensured the safety and security of human society. This is the assertion of the revealed scriptures (sruthis).” 

 

Those endowed with pure (sathwic) characteristics are brahmins. 

 

Those with passionate (rajasic) qualities and, as a result, equipped with courage and heroism, are warriors (kshatriyas), who can protect mankind from harm. 

 

Those who have neither valor nor heroism but who are proficient in persuasive talent and the tactics of commerce and eager to use these skills in proper methods are traders (vaisyas). 

 

In this class, the passionate and passive qualities (rajoguna and thamoguna) are blended. 

 

The others, who have no inclination for undergoing asceticism or acquiring scholarship, who do not practice spiritual discipline (sadhana), who have no physical stamina and mental courage necessary for battle, who do not possess the special skill needed for trade and commerce, are passive (thamasic) in nature and so engage themselves in thamasic professions. These are laborer (sudras). 

 

They fulfil themselves by their labor, through which they contribute to world prosperity and peace.

 

Continued...

 

Love.

 

 

Sathya Sai Vahini - Post 58

Atma is eternal

 

One who is born cannot escape death, some time, somewhere. Every moment, many are born and many die. But one has to discover how to “avoid” death. Now, the Atma, which is the core of humanity, is not born; since it does not take birth, it does not meet death. Death happens to the body with which it is associated, with which it mixes. The delusion that the body is the core, that the body is real, that verily is the death. When one believes that the changing body is oneself and starts referring to it as “I”, that “I” dies, but the real “I” is deathless.

 

As intense elevating activity and fearless inquiry into one’s truth are practised more and more, the conscious ness that the “body is oneself” can be overcome and negated. Consider the fruit of the tamarind tree. When unripe, it is not easy to separate the rind, the pulp, and the seed. So too, those who have stuck to sensual desires and to fondling and feeding the body cannot earn the awareness of the Atma. When the tamarind fruit becomes ripe, the rind can be broken off, the pulp detached from the seed, and the seed isolated without effort. Inquiry and unselfish activity ripen the consciousness, and the Atma can be isolated from the body, clear and pure.

 

Five encasements of the body

 

The body has five encasements, which hide the Atma. These are grouped under three categories: the gross, subtle, and causal. The physical case (flesh, blood, bone, etc.) and the vital case (breath) form the gross (sthula) body. When these two sheaths — the gross body — fall or disintegrate, the body also falls and cannot rise.

 

The word sukshma, which is generally translated as “subtle”, means “small” in Sanskrit. But it has another meaning: that which expands. Air expands more than water; space is more expansive than air. Compared with the expanse of the liberated soul, even space has to be considered “gross”! Steam is more expansive (subtle) than water. Although a block of ice and a lump of camphor appear “gross”, they become subtle when heated or lit.

 

The rule of the world is that the seen causes the unseen, the manifested explains the unmanifested. But the rule in the realm of the spirit is different. The latent Atma causes the patent world. Being is behind becoming, and finally, becoming merges in being; the patent is absorbed into the latent. 

 

Like milk from the cow, the power of relativity (maya) flows from the supreme Person as the five-element constituted cosmos, the patent manifestation. The cosmos is cognized as a composite, just as milk is a composite of cream, curd, and butter, which can be got out of it by the action of heat and cold, the addition of sour drops, and the process of churning thereafter. Churning separates the butter from the milk. In the same manner, through cosmic processes and upheavals of heat and cold, the five fundamental elements (earth, water, fire, air, and space) were separated and Earth, this ball of butter, emerged as the product of the churning.

 

Three character traits, five basic elements

 

If a person or thing has one of the three character traits (balanced, passionate, dull) predominant in the make- up, we denote the person as having that trait. So also the element that is predominant in any created entity gives its name to it. This is why the world on which we live is called the Earth (bhumi). The realms in space where the element of water predominates are known as the atmosphere (bhuvarloka) and the celestial plane (swarloka). The materials therein flow in currents and streams.

 

In short, what appears as the five element-constituted cosmos is only the superimposition on God of the non- real individual Self and the five elements. God seen in and through the non-real appears as nature. This is but a distorted picture of Reality, this ever-changing multiplicity. 

 

When God is reflected as nature, the reflection becomes illusion (maya). Just as milk curdles into yogurt, God becomes the world (jagath) of incessant transformation, the image (maya) of the unchanging Divine. His will causes this unreal multiplicity on the One that He is; by His will, He can end it. He is the Master of illusion.

 

God is omnipresent, omnipotent. God has no wants or wishes. He is the fullest and highest attainment. 

 

His words to Arjuna in the Gita are, “I have no duty to discharge, O Partha, in the three worlds.” He has created duties only to foster the consciousness of all living beings. He has no activity and no obligation. He brings about the result of every activity. Without Him, no activity can yield result! He decides which result should accrue from which act.

 

Love.