Sadhana Panchakam - Post 11

The Brahmachari / spiritual seeker, following the previous 2 instructions, 

 

§ - has studied the Vedas and obtained some basic knowledge; 

 

§ - has diligently acquired the skills to attain success and perfection in work.

 

With these two, he is equipped with Knowledge and Skill. As important as they are, they are not sufficient. On their own, they are secular in nature. 

 

These first two Steps are the two secular coaches of the train. They concern the vast information in the Vedas, and the preoccupation with work.

 

In case the student gets too carried away by them, Sankara has thoughtfully introduced further spiritual coaches into the education train. They are:

 

§  Dedication of actions to God,

§  Renunciation of Desires 

     and

§  Finding God.

 

In this instruction, we are driven by Devotion to God.

 

When Perfection is perfected, so to say, i.e. when it has done its job, we should open the doors of our life to Devotion.

 

As much as Perfection is a very important step, Devotion is found to be greater than it. We do not give up Perfection, but we offer it to God and place it under His direction.

 

A caterpillar does not leave the leaf on which it lives until it gets a firm footing on the adjacent leaf. Then it crawls over from one to the other. It is the same with us when we crawl from Perfection onto Devotion.

 

Dedication superior to Perfection

 

It is very important for us to be convinced that Devotion is superior to Perfection, otherwise we will not be motivated to shift from one to the other. Here are some reasons that show the superiority of Devotion over Perfection.

 

     i.            Perfection itself can be dry, not emotionally satisfying. When Love or Devotion enters the picture, we see clearly the difference between the two.

 

  ii.            What was hard work in aiming for perfection, becomes effortless in the presence of love. With love, one never comes to the state of boredom in work. Ask a mother if she ever gets tired of cooking for her family.

 

iii.            What love can bestow, discipline can barely reach. 

 

What do we mean by offering or surrendering our actions to God? What is being expected of us? 

 

During a havan, we say “idam na mama” after making each offering into the fire. 

 

In real life how do we say “idam na mama”? By delving a bit deeper into this question, we find that two things are expected of us:

 

1.    Pleasing God: Now we are asked to divert our attention from the Ego and place it on God. Hence the immediate change required is to do everything to please God.

 

The God to whom we make our offerings could take many forms. The only point to bear in mind is that it must be someone or some Power greater than our Ego. 

 

2.  Surrendering Ego: Surrender is not a slavish mentality as some people may imagine. It does not mean cowing down to a person in authority for fear of criticism or any other such notion. It is the voluntary surrender of one’s ego with the full knowledge of all its limitations and defects. From the highest standpoint, such a thing as an Ego does not really exist, so we should give no importance to it. 

 

We should voluntarily surrender it. By all means possible, self–centredness has to be thinned out and selflessness has to be installed in our heart. This is the essential meaning of Surrender.

 

Now, we shall go more deep into “God” in vedantic sense 

 

Swami Sivananda writes, 

 

"At whose command does the sun rise punctually in the morning and set in the evening? The sun is miles and miles away from the earth. What a great wonder it is that from such a long distance the sun is able to send light, heat, energy and vitality to all living beings inhabiting this fair earth? 

 

There are countless millions of suns much larger than the one that we see but which appear to us as tiny stars on account of their being remoter than the sun with which we are acquainted. It takes millions of years for the light to reach this earth from these stars. Velocity of light is 1, 86, 000 miles per second. Light from distant stars has not yet reached us even now.

 

What a marvel it is! All these stars, planets and satellites are revolving in the sky in fixed orbits from day to day, month to month and year to year under immutable definite laws.

 

Now the question arises whether all this organisation is the work of some intelligent Creator behind or is the product of a fortuitous combination of particles of matter, Anus, Parama Anus, Dvi Anus, atoms and molecules? It is the former hypothesis that appeals to our intellect. 

 

The Vedas also quite endorse the verdict of our reason. They emphatically declare that the sun and the moon, heaven and earth were created by God.”

 

What is the means to find such a God?  We shall see, in the upcoming post.

  

Love.

 

Sadhana Panchakam - Post 10

Swami continues...,,

 

"A great sage used to say, "If you sing hymns of praise to the Lord and offer a light to him, then the entire world will shine with the effulgence of that light." In your worship you take a flaming lamp, and offer the light to the Lord. 

 

Your mind, which is made up of many desires, can be likened to the oil, the wick can be likened to the sacred wisdom you have gathered. 

 

When you join these two together, using your wisdom to turn your desires to God, then you get the effulgence of divine light blazing forth from their union.

 

For this oil and wick there must be some holder. The body can be thought of as the container which holds this oil of desires and the wick of wisdom. 

 

The blissful joy that you feel is the effulgence of the light coming from this sacred lamp. If there is only a wick and you try to light it, it will not burn. Or, if you want to light the oil itself, you will not be able to do it. But when the wick is associated with the oil, then it will be able to burn, and you will have light.

 

Another way of seeing this oil and the wick, is to think of action or work, which is associated with the mind and its desires, as the oil. 

 

The buddhi, or the intuitive intellect, which is associated with wisdom, can be thought of as the wick. When you combine these two, namely, action and buddhi, in other words, when you make all your actions sacred, following the dictates of your highest inner motivator, then the light will shine forth. This light is the eternal light of the atma. 

 

When all your actions become sacred, you will come into awareness of your eternal truth, you will be basked in the light of the one immortal self. 

 

Now, the flame in the lamp has a number of individual characteristics. When there is a breeze, the flame will flicker. When water comes on it, it will sputter, making some sound. If there are impurities in the oil, it will give forth smoke. It also gives off heat; if you touch it, it will burn you. 

 

And, depending on the type of oil and the flow of air there will be different colors to the light emerging from the flame. These various characteristics belong to the flame, but they are not associated with the radiance that emerges from the light of that flame. 

 

There is only one characteristic to that radiance; that is, it envelops all it touches in the splendor of its effulgence. The flame has a number of different attributes, but the effulgence of the atma has only the one attribute of illuminating and removing darkness. 

 

That immortal inner light of the atma is given equally to all people. That is its one all-encompassing quality. But, for the flame of life, there will be many individual characteristics. Many changes and problems will come into it. 

 

The three Types of Actions

 

There are the ordinary actions which lead to ordinary results, which in turn, lead to more actions in an endless cycle. This is like a flame that burns steadily one moment and sputters the next, or burns in various hues and at various temperatures. 

 

Then there are the good actions, those which always bring good results. These good actions are like an unchanging flame which is ever steady. 

 

This second type of activity applies to performing your worldly duties in a righteous manner, being active in good causes, engaging in devotional practices, etc. These are all good actions but along with them, there will still be a clear interest in the results. 

 

The Vedas have declared that even the best and most beneficial actions performed with interest in the results can only take you as far as heaven. You should not be under the impression that heaven endows you with immortality; when the merits of the actions have been consumed, you have to come back down to earth. So, this second type of action, also perpetuates the cycle of birth and death. 

 

Lastly, there are actions which are not related to the attributes of the flame. This third type of activity is associated with the pure radiance, the effulgence of the atmic light. For such actions, interest in the fruit is not relevant, at all. Such actions emerge out of your inner nature, your deepest truth, which is divine. 

 

You perform all your actions as an offering to the divinity, knowing that the one divinity is in everyone. Such sacred acts can be called yoga, for then you are engaged in karma yoga. This is purity in action where there is no attachment to the outcome.

 

Realize that when you are interested in the fruits, they soon become exhausted, and new actions have to be undertaken again and again, in an endless cycle. 

 

As long as your merits last you enjoy heaven, but as soon as they get exhausted you must again descend into birth. 

Therefore, while describing the doctrine of karma to Arjuna, Krishna said, 

 

"Instead of aspiring for the temporary result of an action, which keeps you bound to the cycle of birth and death, aspire to realize the supreme divinity which is your own true self. When you know that the one divinity is the immortal self of all and act from that knowledge, then your actions are aligned with the divine will and they will be sacred. 

 

Then you will never have to come back into birth again. But, if instead, your actions are motivated by the results, which, in turn, leads you into to life after life and you are perpetually coming and going, then how will you ever be able to reach your permanent goal?" 

 

(Sai Baba Gita)

 

Love.

 

 

 

Sadhana Panchakam - Post 9

  

It is common for all animate and inanimate creatures to perform actions and no one can remain without performing them.

 

However, in spite of the creatures generally performing their actions impelled by attributes and inclinations, the human beings have a distinguishing attribute, viveka, which distinguishes them from the others in animate world, the sense of discrimination between what is Proper (Shreya) and what is Pleasant (Preyas), and  perform their actions on the basis of their sense of discrimination.

 

This distinctive characteristic makes the human beings superior to all other creatures. Karma, as a philosophical concept, represents both the Cause as well as the Effect of the performance as well as non-performance of actions, according to which one becomes responsible for the actions performed as well as for actions not performed. 

 

Each action is performed with definite intent in Mind, many responses being in conformity to each one’s guna (attributes) and svabhava (inclination/ tendency).

 

When actions are spontaneous then they become sourced from the one's essence, the self within, uninfluenced by the attributes and inclinations, like a dancer would perform his/her dance, the movements and gestures responding and conforming to totality of the dance. In a dance, each movement and gesture is as important as the dancer is. 

 

Each movement and gesture emanates from and owes its existence to the essence which is within the dancer. Once the dance begins, each movement and gesture weaves its own individual and distinct pattern. 

 

The dance ends as one common, composite and comprehensive form, the movements and gestures not remaining as distinct and independent. 

 

The movement and gesture cannot be the dance, cannot have affinity with or can they be like the dance, even as luminous rays cannot be the Sun. 

 

They can be part of the essence without having the fullness of the essence. Once the dance ends, the act of performing and the person performing cease, only the dance remaining eternal as composition.

 

The Cause and the Effect are essentially cyclical. Therefore, it is difficult to say whether Karma as Cause was earlier or the Effect, whether Karma as Effect initiates further Karmas. 

 

Swami says,

 

"Embodiments of Love,

 

For every action there is an outcome, and subsequently, this outcome gives rise to another action. This ongoing cycle of action and result, result and action, manifests itself in a way similar to the cycle of the seed and the tree. 

 

The seed and tree also follow one after the other, with the seed giving rise to the tree and the tree giving rise to the seed. Without a seed you cannot have a tree and without a tree you cannot have a seed. The same thing is true for an action and its result. 

 

These are natural cycles in the world. When this is so, with one always following the other, why should you take a special interest in the outcome? 

 

Your duty and responsibility is to perform the right action; have no concern about the result. Krishna told Arjuna, "In this battle, you should be indifferent to what happens to your own people or what befalls you. Do your duty without letting your mind to dwell on the outcome." 

 

Every Worldly Experience can be traced to Karma 

 

Action is called karma. You are born in karma, you develop in karma and you die in karma. It is karma, or the actions you perform, which are responsible for all good or bad, sin or virtue, profit or loss, joy or sorrow. 

 

Truly, karma is responsible for your very birth itself. Karma is really the creator for mankind. It shapes your life. It follows then that you should not look upon action with carelessness. Your entire life is associated with action. Therefore, recognize the importance of right action and engage in that, unwaveringly. 

 

Do not think that action is just a small thing. It may start as a small sapling but it will grow into a very big tree. Before a seed can become a tree, it has to break out of the soil in which it was sown. Then, once it has become a big tree, it will offer you its fruit. 

 

Whether this fruit brings you joy or sorrow depends on the seed that you have sown. To get the very finest fruit, the seed of action which you have performed must be of the highest quality and it must break out of the soil of egoism. Then this action can be transformed into yoga. Yoga is union with God. 

 

(Source- Sai Baba Gita) 

 

 Continued......