Bhaja Govindam - Post 14

Verse 13

का ते कान्ता धनगतचिन्ता वातुल किं तव नास्ति नियन्ता ।

त्रिजगति सज्जनसङ्गतिरेका भवति भवार्णवतरणे नौका ॥ १३॥

kāte kāntā dhana gatacintā

vātula kiṁ tava nāsti niyantā,

trijagati sajjanasaṁ gatiraikā

bhavati bhavārṇavataraṇe naukā.

(O distracted one, Who is your wife? Why this engrossment in thoughts of wealth? Is there none to guide you? 

There is only one thing in the three worlds that can save you from the ocean of transmigration. Get into the boat of holy company to cross this ocean of becoming.)

Man’s Universal need for Support 

Sri Sankaracharya now addresses the deep-seated need felt in the human psyche for some form of support. Usually man looks for this support in the outer world, in wife or is wealth. But are our worries over them really going to help us? 

Man is wrapped with a cloak of Maya as it were, which, through its inscrutable power, distorts his vision of reality. 

Most of his thoughts shuttle between women and wealth. This verse is addressed to such a sensuous man whose worries take away most of his time and leave him a slave of his desires.

He who allows himself to be overpowered by thoughts of lust and passion becomes a prey to mental weakness and moral depravity.

Such a man has to be aware that there is a higher Power that is taking care of everything in creation. We should just surrender all our concerns to Him. The Divine Source of all creation would make the best support that will meet all our need. So, we can afford to let go of wife and wealth, and look to the Lord Himself for all support. Since He is so vastly more empowered than one’s family or one’s property, His support would not fail us. Besides He knows our need more than we do. He will provide for us even without our asking. 

A spiritual aspirant should relentlessly curtail such unproductive, self-draining and injurious thoughts with Shraddha. He should hold on to God with a firm will. 

He should have his will-power strengthened with dispassion, self-control and purity.

An example

Look at the birth of a child. How is it prepared for birth? Who took care of it before birth? Thank God, it wasn’t the mother. Imagine the extra worry on mummy’s head if she had to direct all the instructions to supply the necessary food items to the fetus in her womb. She must be the most relieved person to know that all that is being taken care of by a higher Power.

We just have to do our duty and relax. The One above will see to the rest. In that spirit we will relieve ourselves of bearing unnecessary burdens on our head. We do not have to start panicking for any reason. Who is there to stop us from taking His Name even while we do our actions? We should never feel that we are alone in handling our burdens. 

We should bury our worries before the worry buries us. 

Good Company Ensures a Safe Journey 

The second line of this verse provides a practical alternative to “wife and wealth” as a support for one’s life. It is the company of good people, saintly people, and fellowship with spiritually elevated persons. Why is this, such a powerful alternative? 

The former tends to be a selfish association and one’s boat is always in a state of permanent anchorage to the rock of worldly life. However, good, saintly company can be very uplifting. 

Constant association with good people flushes out all bad thoughts, fills his heart with noble and elevating thoughts and makes us pure and holy, humble and gentle.

Such company is completely free of all attachment and so the “boat” of our life can move across to the other shore of Liberation without being held back by any anchor or worldly mooring. 

The boat analogy, on being explored a bit further, reveals how insightful the choice of such a simile is to good company. 

i) Evil company will make us sink further into dangers, whereas good company lifts us safely over the waters of life. This is compared to the ocean which is deep and dangerous with many hidden rocks and sharks, with mighty waves and hidden currents. 

ii) Upon the surface where the waves lash, the boat absorbs all the jolting shocks, bears the impact that a traveler inside hardly feels the fierce tossing and remains comfortable throughout his journey 

Similarly, when crossing whirlpools of life, evil company will allow us to spin in any direction according to the current. Good company, on the other hand, sticks to the Godward direction in spite of any whirlpool. The single-pointedness we develop due to good company steers us safely to freedom. 

iii) Heavy winds or storms can easily tip our boat if it is not controlled well by good company.  

A man blessed with holy company safely passes through the ocean of births and deaths and reaches his destination on the other shore, without the ocean / waves of worldliness wetting him in the journey.

Love.

Bhaja Govindam - Post 13

Verse 12

दिनयामिन्यौ सायं प्रातः शिशिरवसन्तौ पुनरायातः ।

कालः क्रीडति गच्छत्यायु स्तदपि न मुञ्चत्याशावायुः ॥ १२॥

dinayāminyau sāyaṁ prātaḥ

śiśiravasantau punarāyātaḥ,

kālaḥ krīḍati gacchatyāyuḥ

tadapi na muncatyāśāvāyuḥ.

Day and night, dusk and dawn, winter and spring come and go again. Time sports and life ebbs away, and yet the gust of desire never leaves (us).

When Sun rises in the east, day starts; when sun sets in the west, night starts; days and nights are thus passing away one after the other incessantly.

One period starts winter; another period starts spring time; they too are coming and passing away incessantly.

Some wise men call it the Kaala chakra, the wheel of time.

In the wheel of time, days and nights, winters and springs are passing away and coming back again and again. In the endless flow of time, your life time is passing away, almost unnoticed, and we do not know what awaits us on the other side of death.

Are we conscious of that, which can carry us through these life tides successfully?

Similarly, wants are infinite. As each want is satisfied, another takes its place…

Life thus goes on as an endless stream of wants and desires.

Can we avoid desires altogether? No. It is neither feasible, while in this body nor even required.

Know their nature; Stay in control; Stay as their master; not as their slave.

Every time we experience joy, we must realize that sorrow is just around the corner in pursuit. This cycle is also never-ending – it lasts as long as we are trapped in the birth and death cycle.

In childhood, author read a line somewhere, “Life is like a pendulum, betwixt a tear and a smile”.

Even when the pendulum of a wall clock swings to the right side, we are sure that it is bound to now swing to the left side.

Exactly in the same manner, life teaches us time and again that any joy is short lived in life and it is followed by sorrow. 

Why worldly joy is short lived??

The answer is simple. All joy derived in world are in essence limited by/ subject to the following:-

A particular location/ environment – DESA

A particular time – KALA

A particular object/ set of objects – VASTU

And, if we observe, all the three – Desa, Kala, Vastu - by their definition, keep on changing.

So, any experience derived from anything in this world which are limited by Desa, Kala, Vastu - is bound to be short lived because, they themselves are subject to changes and are not eternal.

Readers can close their eyes and think of any best experience / joy, they derived in their lifetime. They will realize that the joy experienced was in a particular place / environment, in a particular time frame / phase in life and derived due to their association with some object(s). Even human beings and their relationships also get covered in object.

ETERNAL JOY

Merger with God in the path of devotion 

and 

Living in the light of knowledge and discovery of our true nature of spirit in the path of Jnana 

These two inner experiences can only give us eternal joy as both God and SELF are one with just two different expressions and most important, God with form with whom we have to merge or Formless Brahman to be discovered within us as SELF / Atman - only these experiences are NOT subject to the limitation of DESA, KALA and VASTU as explained above.

Love.

Bhaja Govindam - Post 12

Verse 11

मा कुरु धनजनयौवनगर्वं हरति निमेषात्कालः सर्वम् । मायामयमिदमखिलं हित्वा ब्रह्मपदं त्वं प्रविश विदित्वा॥ ११॥

mā kuru dhana jana yauvana garvaṁ

harati nimeṣātkālaḥ sarvam,

māyāmayamidamakhilaṁ hitvā

brahmapadaṁ tvaṁ praviśa viditvā.

(Do not take pride in wealth, friends and youth. Time takes away all these in the blink of an eye. Free yourself from the illusion of the world of māyā and may you know the abode of Brahman and enter it.)

Dhana, Jana and Yauvana: These three are perhaps the gross manifestations or props of man’s ego - wealth, fame and desire; or Kanchana, Keerthi and Kama.

These three are the classical obstacles to all spiritual endeavor. They represent the very opposite of spiritual life. They cannot co-exist with spiritual Sadhana. 

WEALTH is the First: Earning, safeguarding and using enormous wealth gives people a false sense of greatness. But, money does not accompany you when your time to go comes. Money does not accompany you even when you are alive. It can go from you any time and it anyway goes from you, when the time comes for you to go.

FAMILY & FOLLOWERS is the second: People boast of being leaders. You may be proud to have a big family, large number of followers etc., who sing your praise often. But, time either takes them all away from you or takes you away from them all.

Extract of a post from Narada Bhakti Sutras is repeated below:

A poet wrote:

"Veedu varai uravu, Veedi varai manaivi, Kaadu varai pillai, Kadaisi varai  yaro".

(When a man  dies and his body lies there and is about to be taken for cremation, family members cry at home, sit for sometime and leave, the wife cries and walks up to the end of the street and no further, son goes up to the forest, performs the cremation rites, lits up fire for the body to burn and then returns, he does not even wait for the body to  burn fully, as it will take few hours, so, who is there for a man till the last? 

(Here, last is to be construed as, till he attains moksha and reaches and merges with God, in some birth)

However, realizing the futility of this world with all its limitation, when we look towards the almighty God, He blesses us and assures,

"I will protect you like the eyelids protect the eyes"

Only God is qualified to assure us that He will protect us because He is not the support for one or two or few or many but he is "JAGAT ASHRAYA", the ONLY support for the entire universe!!!”

YOUTHFUL VIGOUR is the third: A little more strength or a little more beauty makes people feel much bigger and greater (than others) in their own eyes and possibly in the eyes of equally unknowing people.

But even as they are feeling bigger, stronger and more beautiful, their strength and beauty are being sapped away by the passage of time.

All these are the play of Maya; they are illusions. They are given to you; and taken away from you by time, in moments. You don’t know when these are sapped away from you. The play of time on you creates big illusions in you.

It is never said – that these are useless or unnecessary for life. They all may be useful and needed for life. But, know that they come and they go. They are not permanent. Do not be proud of possessing them. When you do become proud, you are not possessing them; they are possessing you. They have enslaved you.

Brahmapadaṁ tvaṁ praviśa viditvā

May you know the abode of  Brahman and enter it!!

Aho..! The power and the mesmerizing impact of this one line, this one expression, only those who had taken up the path of experiencing Brahman with mumukshatva (craving for realizing the TRUTH) can actually realize. 

This one expression can leave a fired up sincere spiritual aspirant / seeker in ecstasy for hours together.  

Sankara did not bless a sadhaka saying “May you know the Brahman”. 

He adds, “….and enter it”!!

We can know about the location, about the daily program, about the grandeur of Swami’s Birthday program etc., by reading about Prashanti Nilayam, through devotees sharing their experience of being in the abode of peace, Prashanti Nilayam.

All these are not even half-way through in our spiritual experience.

We need to travel to Bangalore, take a cab, drive through the highway, enter into the “Sathya Sai Taluk” gate, pass through Super Specialty hospital building, Airport building, College and hostel buildings, music collage etc., cross the bus station, park our car, take up a suitable accommodation and then.., in the next 2 days, attend the Bhajan program and then the Birthday program, feel the divine aura of Swami enveloping us wholly while seated in the hall, transcend even that hall, those soulful bhajan rendering and reach or at least get a glimpse of that inner SELF!

The entire travel described above is our spiritual journey. The guide posts from airport right up to Puttaparthi which we keep seeing and traveling are the spiritual sessions given by our Guru / Acharya. 

Sitting in the hall is our “mananam and nidhidhyasanam, contemplation on all the teachings of our preceptor, the final glimpse of SELF is the "ENTERING THE ABODE OF BRAHMAN", by Sankara.

And, 

In that blissful, eternal state of Brahman, all your suffering and delusions come to a permanent end. They don’t touch you anymore!

Love.