Vivekachudamani - Post 35

  Verse 29   

वैराग्यं च मुमुक्षुत्वं तीव्रं यस्य तु विद्यते ।
तस्मिन्नेवार्थवन्तः स्युः फलवन्तः शमादयः ॥ २९ ॥

 

vairāgyaṃ ca mumukṣutvaṃ tīvraṃ yasya tu vidyate |
tasminnevārthavantaḥ syuḥ phalavantaḥ śamādayaḥ || 29 ||

 

(Calmness and other practices have their meaning and they bear fruit indeed, only in him who has an intense spirit of renunciation and yearning for Liberation.) 

 

In the previous sloka it was said where vairagya and mumukshutva are there; there alone samadi satka sampatti will become fruitful. This is positive presentation; anvaya.

Now he presents in negative form; vyatireka; where vairagya and mumukshutva  are not there; in that person even if he has got samadhi satka sampatti , concentration is there, intelligence is there; all these qualifications are there also, they are like mirage water. 

 

One cannot get moksha through mere shad Sampatti. Make sure that you are a seeker. Then alone it will become a spiritual pursuit, when mumukṣatvam and vairagya are there. 

 

Therefore he says; mumuksutvam vairagyam cha. So when interest in moksa and disinterestedness in all other things, they are tivram. When they are intense, yasya tu vidyate; in a particular person, the other qualifications will become valid. 

 

There are many seekers who, having practised for long the six requirements such as calmness and so on, complain that they have not progressed at all. 

 

The practices of Vedanta are not a training  in ethics or morality. These great qualities are mainly to create an ethical and moral atmosphere in the psychological field of the neophyte. There are many spiritual cowards who ask, 'Merely by living an honest life can we not reach the perfection which is explained as godhood?' This question has become very common these days and people in confusion and perhaps intellectual fatigue refuse to make a thorough study of the sastras. 

 

Such people claim for themselves a 'true living' in their honest endeavours in life. They say, 'I am very dutiful, I earn honestly, I look after my home and my dependants and to the extent I can afford it, I share my wealth with others in a spirit of charity, I believe that I am a nobler soul than those who practise the so-called spiritual discipline.' 

 

This wrong notion has been blasted by Sankara in his  statement that the qualities of self-restraint, self-control, purity  and so on, can bear fruit only when they are in an individual who  has a complete sense of detachment born out of discrimination  and a burning aspiration to surmount the limitations of his mortal  existence. 

 

So in the pilgrimage through life whenever they come across a ditch of hatred or amount of challenge, they sit back fatigued and weary and blame religion and their own philosophy based upon hollow and meaningless ethical living. 

 

Since spiritual evolution is not the outcome of their 'pure' living, whenever the scheme of things around them changes, they find themselves lost. 

Without spiritual stamina, no one can stand up to the threats and onslaughts of circumstances in life. It is, therefore, that sama, dama and so on, cannot bear fruit unless they grow in a heart watered by detachment and ploughed by an intense wish for Liberation.

We see people who say, I am controlling my senses, I exercise restraint on my desires, I practice Titiksha etc.

All these qualities are good in themselves and those who practice any or most of the six qualifications deserve huge appreciation.

But being in the world, without renouncing the world, without dispassion for everything in this objective world, liberation is a far-fetched dream.

Without Viveka, Vairagya and Intense craving for liberation, mere practice of the six qualifications, that too in various degree, will never lead oneself towards the ultimate purpose of human birth- Liberation.

Sage from Ananda kutir says,

 Sadhana Without Vairagya Goes To Waste

 

"When Vairagya appears in the mind, it opens the gate to Divine Wisdom. From dissatisfaction (with the sense-objects and worldly sense-enjoyments) comes aspiration. From aspiration comes abstraction. 

From abstraction comes the concentration of the mind. From the concentration of the mind comes meditation or contemplation. From contemplation comes Samadhi or Self-realization. Without dissatisfaction or Vairagya, nothing is possible.

Just as water, when it leaks into the rat-holes, instead of running into the proper channels in agricultural fields, becomes wasted and does not help the growth of plants, grains, etc., so also, the efforts of an aspirant become a wastage if he has not got the virtue Vairagya. He gets no spiritual advancement.

 

Intense Vairagya Necessary For Moksha

There must be intense (Tivra) Vairagya in the minds of the aspirants, throughout the period of their Sadhana. Mere mental adhesion will not do for success in Yoga. 

It was only Raja Janaka and Prahlada who had Tivra Vairagya (intense dispassion). This kind of Vairagya is necessary for quick realisation. It is very difficult to cross the ocean of Samsara with a dull type of Vairagya. The crocodile of sense-hankering (Trishna) for sense-enjoyments and sense-objects will catch the aspirants by the throat and, violently snatching away, will drown them half-way"

 

Love.

 

 

Vivekachudamani - Post 34

  Verse 28   

 

मन्दमध्यमरूपापि वैराग्येण शमादिना ।
प्रसादेन गुरोः सेयं प्रवृद्धा सूयते फलम् ॥ २८ ॥

 

mandamadhyamarūpāpi vairāgyeṇa śamādinā |
prasādena guroḥ seyaṃ pravṛddhā sūyate phalam || 28 ||

 

(Half-hearted and mediocre aspirations in a seeker may also come to bear fruit, being increased by the grace of the Guru and by means of renunciation, calmness and so on.) 

 

The burning desire for redemption from one's known weaknesses and limitations can be increased and kept at its highest tempo when, through slow but steady pursuits of the six qualities enumerated above and through detachment, one develops them. 

 

By developing a capacity to discriminate between the Real and the unreal, when one has gained an easy control over oneself in renouncing that which is unreal, when one has psychologically cultivated by steady and conscious effort the qualities of self-control, tranquility of mind, inward peace, endurance, faith and mental poise, then one's aspirations gain an edge and an irresistible effectiveness. 

 

These four great qualities have among themselves such a relationship, that having developed one, the others too come to flourish in the personality. So even if one has only half-hearted or mediocre aspirations, one need not despair. If one sincerely cultivates any one of these qualities, one will definitely feel a greater longing for the Highest. 

 

A true Teacher of inner vision and perfect life cannot, by any logic, come to dispense a greater share of his grace on people of his choice nor can he withhold his grace from some others. In fact, the distribution of grace is not controlled by the Guru but depends upon the capacity of the recipient. 

 

The perfected man, living absorbed in the Self, equally disseminates joyous perfection, cheer and bliss to all, at all times. It depends upon the equipment that approach him to take a greater or a lesser share of it. 

 

The ocean does not put a ban upon the quantity of water that you can carry from it, the limitations are the limitations of your own pot. The sun does not ration its light from house to house or from room to room, but it is the walls that deny the entry of sunlight into a room. The river flows, everything depends upon the canals that you can cut to take its water to your land. 

 

Similarly, the Guru living in perfection, gives out knowledge in the language of his own intimate experience and it is up to the individual seekers to get for themselves as much benefit as they can. 

 

This shows that when a seeker has developed in himself viveka, vairagya and shadsampatti, his mumukshutva increases automatically and he who has these four qualities can come in contact with the Guru more profitably. The greater the degree to which they manifest in an individual, the more will he be in tune with the Master and he will be able to understand the significance of the Teacher's words completely and exhaustively.

 

yasya deve para bhaktir  yatha deve tatha gurau 

tasyaite kathita hyarthaḥ  prakasante mahatmanah

 

Two things will make vedanta clear to the student; what are those two things; deve parabhkathi; intense devotion towards the Lord and tatha gurau, so much intense devotion to the guru, as much as he has for the Lord; to such an extent, he does not differentiate guru and God. 

 

Guru is a sincere well-wisher that the sishya should gain this knowledge; motive less wish; without any self-interest; not that I am going to get any benefit; motiveless wish will function because it comes from a purer heart. And when a purer heart such a wish comes, that wish is not fulfilled by the teacher, but that wish is fulfilled by the Lord through the teacher.

 

Love.

 

 

Vivekachudamani - Post 33

  Verse 27   

अहंकारादिदेहान्तान् बन्धानज्ञानकल्पितान् ।
स्वस्वरूपावबोधेन मोक्तुमिच्छा मुमुक्षुता ॥ २७ ॥

ahaṃkārādidehāntān bandhānajñānakalpitān |
svasvarūpāvabodhena moktumicchā mumukṣutā || 27 ||

Mumukshutva is the impatient and burning desire to release oneself by realizing the real nature of one's Self from all bondages of egoism to the body and so on , which are bondages created by ignorance.

 

So far, we have dealt with:-

(1) Discriminative capacity to separate the Real from the unreal, 

(2) Capacity to detach ourselves completely from the false which we have now rightly understood as unreal, 

(3) Calmness, self-control, inner peace, forbearance, faith and self-centeredness, which are the positive qualities of the head and heart to be consciously developed. Now, last in the series, 

(4)  A complete definition of the spirit of seeking that is essential in every neophyte is given. 

The burning aspiration of a seeker should not be an idle enthusiasm to gain some unknown goal through some mysterious intervention of a God or a Teacher. He should definitely know what are his limitations and also the causes for them. He must be clear about his goal and the various techniques and paths by which he can attain it. All these points are hinted at in this small, pithy verse. 

He who has understood the logic of the true philosophical concept of the Self and the explanation as given in Vedanta of his seeming sense of finitude and limitations is the true seeker. 

Therefore, it is evident that a mumukshu is not a blind seeker vaguely wanting some unknown pleasure or development within himself by the practice of some pseudo spiritual activities, pursued only at a given time during the day. 

 

Swami Sivananda writes

Mumukshutva is aspiration or burning desire to attain God-realization or Self-realization. God is the one true aim of all human aspirations. Aspiration is earnest longing or an earnest wish for that which is above one's present reach or attainment, especially for what is noble, pure and spiritual. 

 

To aspire is to rise or reach upward. To aspire is to have an earnest desire, wish or longing for something high and good not yet attained, and is usually accompanied by endeavor to attain it.

 

Mumukshutva is intense desire for liberation or deliverance from the wheel of birth and death with its concomitant evils of old age, disease, delusion and sorrow.

 

If one is equipped with the previous three qualifications, -Viveka, Vairagya and Shad Sampat - Mumukshutva will come by itself. The mind moves towards the source of its own accord, because it has lost its hold on external objects. It has no resting place in this objective universe.

 

Purification of the mind and mental discipline is the rock-bottom foundation of yoga. When this is effected, the longing for liberation dawns by itself.

 

Mumukshutva must be of a burning type. If burning Mumukshutva is coupled with burning Vairagya, Self-realization will come within the twinkling of an eye.

 

Generally the vast majority of people have got a dull type of Vairagya and Mumukshutva so they do not succeed in their attempts.

 

If one finds that he has not got burning Mumukshutva he must practice the other three Sadhanas vigorously till he acquires intense longing for attaining salvation or immortality.

 

Analogy for Mumukshutva is that of the man under water. Suppose you keep the head of a person immersed in water. He will be struggling for breath. He will intensely desire to get out of the water, so that he can breathe. Such intense desire for God-realization is called Mumukshutva. 

 

Love.