Mysorean

There was a talk on “What is Success in Life?” by Swami Dayananda Saraswathi yesterday at K.L.N. Prasad Auditorium, Hyderabad. I will try to articulate the 40-minute speech here. The learned and well-versed Swamiji laced his speech with characteristic humour and made it sound quite down-to-earth. Though I felt he could have avoided unnecessary swipes at other religions, as my uncle said after the speech, “Somebody needs to protect Hinduism too”. Maybe it’s true. I am thinking.

The Chief Guest of the evening, Hon’ble Justice L. Narasimha Reddy tried interpreting the topic in his way and gave his ideas on it. He said, “Success is something that is achieved on meeting Goals. An individual fixes a goal before starting out and at the end if he has achieved whatever he had set for himself, then success is achieved.” Fair enough we thought. We applauded.

Then Swamiji began.

What is Success? You have a desire. You achieve it. If the means of achieving that desire are within the confines of Dharma, then it is a success. That’s all. That’s why you need people like hon’ble Justice! [Pointing to the chief guest of the day!Audience is impressed. Laughter all around. Appluase follows!]

In life, we play multiple roles. A father, an employee, a son, etc. There are homes in which “Father is coming” is announced as if some ghost is coming. And as if on cue, the children rush into their rooms hiding from their father. Everybody is running to take shelter somewhere. The only person to come out is ‘the dog’ of the house! Ah! What a success! [Audience is in splits! Applause follows!] In some cases, even the dog runs for shelter! [More laughter, more applause!] With the tail in between its legs! [Laughter! Applause!]

There are some religions where it is preached, “Don’t have any desires. Be desire-less. The state of desireless-ness is happiness. Between the fulfilment of one desire and the beginning of another desire is defined as happiness.”

Don’t have any desires is like saying,”You are having an headache? Cut off your head!”. Ha! Ha! Ha!

Now you laughed. What desire did you fulfill you tell me?! You were happy, you laughed. Sometimes, happiness can also be achieved by not fulfilling any desire.

Have desires. It is healthy to have desires. If you have desire you will experience failure. You will learn how to come out of it. You will grow as a person. But make sure the means to achieve your desire is within the confines of Dharma.

We, human beings, have two things to do. We have to survive, and take care of ourselves to follow Dharma. Because there are predators all around. Be careful. They are waiting to prey on you.

But we have one more thing to do. “Make-up”. If we don’t have hair, we do some farming on our head to help hair growth. If we have some hair left, then we need to comb it from one side to another. If we have to hear a swamiji speak we need to comb our hair, put on a good dress and come. So, that means we have three things to do. Survive, take care and make-up! [Audience is almost on the floor laughing!]

What is Dharma you might ask. The Dharma being referred to here is Samanya Dharma. Lord Krishna has said, “I manifest myself in the form of desire in you. I am desire”. But before that he says, “I manifest myself in you as Samanya Dharma”.

What is Samanya Dharma? In order to have a desire you need to examine if it falls under the confines of Samanya Dharma. It is something like the “Law of Gravitation” that a baby monkey knows. Have you ever seen a Mother monkey tell it’s baby monkey, “See, you will need to hold on to me tightly. Otherwise gravitation will pull you down and you will fall”. Have you ever seen a baby monkey ask, “What is gravitation?”!

Similar to the knowledge of gravitation to a monkey, is the Samanya Dharma to a Hindu. Why is it called “Samanya”? Because it is “Samana” to all. “Samana” means common to all. It exists in everybody. In Hinduism, ends does not justify means. Never. The means have to be as righteous as the end being achieved.

Finally, success is following Dharma to achieve a desire.
[Applause! Applause! Applause!]

Quoting my dear friend Arjuna, on the strength of desire to see God. He quotes an incident involving Sri Ramakrishna Paramahmsa.

Once when Ramakrishna Paramahansa was standing in a river along with a disciple. The disciple told that he wanted to see God immediately. Ramakrishna then pushed the head of the disciple inside the river. The disciple could not hold it for long. But Ramakrishna did not relax his grip. But finally, the disciple gave a mighty push and emerged out of water. He asked why Ramakirshna did that to him. Ramakrishna then told that, if he had a desire to see God equal to that of him to emerge from water he had before, then God would immediately come before him.

Seeking the Divine is the goal of life. Reaching the Divine is the realization of life.

Sloka 17:

In this infinite Brahman which is beyond time, five types of souls reside. They are

1. Gandharvas: Celestial Singers
2. Pitrs: People who have departed from this World.
3. Devatas: Constitutional and law abiding souls like Indra, Brahma
4. Rakshasas: Unconstitutional
5. Asuras: Unconstitutional like the Rakshasas. For eg. Ravana and Indrajit.

The infinite space is also resting in the Atman. The Atman supports the sky (representing the five elements) and all the jivas of the Universe.

The Rishi who has realized the Brahman is the Soul. The Soul and the Brahman are one and the same. The point of contact with the Brahman is inside us – our Atma. All our Atmas are connected to the Brahman. Sage Yagnavalkya (who is the originator of this Sloka) says, “I am considering myself as the immortal Brahman”.

When we know the immortal Brahman we become the Brahman. This is the difference between knowing material and knowing Self. On knowing the Self we become the enlightened Soul. Youngsters believe in the Atman. That’s why they say I can do everything.

Knowing Brahman is becoming Brahman. Sage says, when you meditate on God, you will get the nature of God. You will get Divine nature. When you meditate on God, you find yourself improving because you are God yourself. When we realise God, we become God.

This was Swami Vivekananda’s philosophy too. He said, “Every soul is potentially Divine”.

Tomorrow: An excerpt from “I am a Voice without a Form”

I was under the impression that, having missed the previous Sunday’s discourse, I would have to skip slokas. But surprisingly, the Swamiji started with a recap of the 14th and 15th sloka from where we had ended the lecture on 7th August. That was good! Since we have already touched upon the 14th sloka in our previous post, we can now move to the 15th sloka. This is the 15th sloka from the 4th section of the 4th chapter of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.

Sloka 15:

When the realization that the Supreme – The Creator of the Past, Present and Future and we are one and the same, we move beyond the boundaries of time. And with that brings a vision of oneness. We see ourselves as infinity. The infinite nature of the Supreme is what we begin to feel. We feel oneness with everything. We see God in everybody through our Soul.

We are all individual minds with an infinite soul. There is no individual soul. We get different ideas of self because of different minds that we have. But, we have an infinite soul. We are all hiding from the fact that the infinite God exists. We are living in ignorance. The enlightened man realizes this and sees oneness everywhere. He realizes the infinite nature of Soul.

Tomorrow: Part – II

In this very miserable state of the body, we started out, we realized that infinite soul is inside us. If I hadn’t realized I would have lived in tremendous difficulties. Whoever knows the Atman goes beyond the stages of death. They become eternal. Those who remain in ignorance will come back to this world again and again.

(As told by Swami Gautamananda in his discourse on “Brihadaranyaka Upanishad” at Ramakrishna Ashram, Chennai)

Swamiji stopped here as it was time to wrap up. We shall continue when I attend the next discourse. I will not be attending the Sunday’s (14th August) discourse as I am in Bangalore for my cousin’s engagement. So we will lose continuity. My apologies for that. I will anyway update the blog daily. Thanks for reading.

Tomorrow: India and the last mile

Advaita says “I am brahma”. The body has created all ills. The body makes us ill. We think we are ill if our body is ill. Getting into a body is like gettting into a dense forest thinking I will come out easily. But actually, It is difficult to get out of a dense forest. The entering of a body is equalled to getting into an inaccessible forest. The Atman has entered the perilous body. There is no way to escape the miseries associated with this body.

Anything that is achieved by one man, must be possible to eb attained by everybody. When the awakened soul realizes that he is the infinite soul he realizes that he is the creator of the World. A person who has realized God, sees God in everyone.

For example, there was a lady called Gopalamma (Gopal is Lord Krishna’s another name, Amma is mother) who used to live on one end of River Ganga. The other side of which was Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa’s abode. Gopalamma was a widow ostracized from the society. But she had benevolent in-laws who would give her Rs. 500/- a year towards her livelihood. Gopalamma would donate that to a temple in her neighbourhood and also serve there. In turn, the temple would feed her with two meals per day. She used to stay in a haunted house. Haunted as considered by the local villagers.

One day, Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa & a few of his disciples crossed the river and walked into Gopalamma’s haunted house. Once Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa entered the house, the ghosts became very restless and went and requested Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa to leave so that they could stay comfortable. When the spiritually enlightened enter, the lesser ghosts couldn’t even exist peacefully in His presence. So, Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and his disciples left the house. He had not informed the disciples of the incident lest they get scared and create a commotion.

Gopalamma would live in this house peacefully. She was a powerful spiritual person. She would do lots of penance and it helped her gain control over the ghosts. The Ghosts’ presence wouldn’t bother her at all. Gopalamma attained such heights that she was able to see Lord Krishna everywhere. The Lord would appear in the form of a small child and play with Gopalamma for hours together. Such sessions sometime extended upto months together.

During such sessions, Gopalamma would answer questions from the villagers regarding spirituality and other issues. Lord Krishna would actually answer the questions through Gopalamma. As long as Lord Krishna was there, Gopalamma would be able to answer all the questions. But once the Lord left, Gopalamma would say, “I can’t answer anymore. My Lord Krishna has left”.

Such is the power of spirituality. The enlightened being feels the oneness with Lord Brahma. This comes to people through hard spiritual exercises. All can escape misery through the knowledge of self.

Do we like whatever we do in our life? For example, if you are living in Mumbai, you have to get up at 4AM and catch the 5.02AM train. Is it enjoyable? Certainly not. This is the misery of our body. When spirituality wakes up, the miseries go away!

(As told by Swami Gautamananda in a discourse on “Brihadaranyaka Upanishad” at Ramakrishna Ashram, Chennai)

Tomorrow: Sloka 14.

The Atman has no fear. Fear comes with the possibilityof destruction. Atman full of joy. When we think that this world is infinity and we are one with that world, there is no fear. Attachment to the body, will get us only sorrow. We should realise that we are different from the body. That’s when the grief becomes attached to the body and not to the Atman.

An enlightened man, if he realises that he is the Atman or infinity, will never be unhappy. The realisation that “I am one with Brahma, the creator, the protector and destroyer”. A man is enlightened if he realizes he is the Atman. He will not have any desires. Desire arises out of attachment to worldly pleasures. All pleasure & all joy is in our soul.

A person who has infinite joy gets detached from the worldly joys. Like the saints who don’t want wealth and name, while we struggle for wealth and name throughout our lives. We want promotions and hikes to prove that we are better than the other. It’s an unending game of one-upmanship. Aspiration for higher things is always there. Whereas we are higher than everything else. We should realise that.

Physically, many things might not be possible. But spiritually we can go beyond all and everything. We can reach the highest point which is being one with the Divine. We are the divine.

For example, there was this kid who was studying in the school where the Swamiji was the Principal. This kid was exceptionally brilliant. So, Swamiji gave her a double promotion from Class 3 to Class 5. In Class 5, she would still top the class beating the closest contenders by 25 marks. So, she was given another double promotion to Class 7. So on and so forth, the kid went on till the tenth standard. Then from there she went to college and joined corporate organisation.

The point that Swamiji was trying to drive home was that, if you think that you are the body then you can grow only to a certain level. There is a limit to which you can grow. But once, we realise that we are the soul which is the infinite, why do we need to struggle in this body? Enlightened people decide to leave the body once their mission in Life is achieved.

Swami Vivekananda wanted to leave the body for two years upto the age of 38 as his mission in life was achieved. Once the desires of the body are fulfilled the body may be left. And we can go the God from where we started. We are in this body by the will of God. We are here for a specific Mission. Once the mission is achieved, we shall all go back to God.

This shows that everyone of us can escape from this world of misery to an infinite World of joy.

(This is as told by Swami Gautamananda in the discourse on “Brihadaranyaka Upanishad” at Ramakrishna Ashram, Chennai)

Tomorrow: Sloka 13

The discourse was on “Brihadaranyaka Upanishad” by Swami Gautamananda. Swamiji started of with a recap of the last shloka of last week’s discourse. We had ended on Sloka 11, last Sunday.

Sloka 11:

The external actions have to bring in inner development. We do so many rites and rituals (for eg. Going to temple, etc.) without knowing our spiritual self. Once we get into the rites and rituals in a mechanical way, such rituals will take us to the abode of misery and darkness. A person who does not evolve himself into conscious spirituality decays into a world of ignorance and darkness.

For example, we go to tirthyatras, say Amarnath. We go keeping our mind above everything, seeing infinity everywhere, chanting the name of the Lord. This automatically takes our mind to a higher state. We should be able to retain the state of mind even after coming back. On our way, there are co-passengers. We should treat all ofthem equally. All of us are in pursuit of the Lord. This equality should be maintained when in our daily life too. Otherwise, there are no lessons learnt from the pilgrimage.

Rituals become mechanical activities if we do not do it with concentration bhakti. We should become one with the divine while doing them, that’s when the rituals have meaning.

We are not mere human beings. We are Gods. We should realise that. If we don’t, we will continue to live in misery. We get attached to the Worldly pleasures and think that there’s nothing higher than that. But on attaining realisation, we attach ourselves to something higher. The highest joy of the “Atman” (soul) is not attached to this world.

This was a recap of what we heard last week. From tomorrow let’s understand the subsequent slokas, the ones that Swamiji touched upon yesterday.

Tomorrow: Sloka 12, Brihadaranyaka Upanishad as told by Swami Gautamananda at Ramakrishna Math, Chennai.

C. Rajagopalachari in his English translation of the Bhagavad Gita has this to say about the Soul:

The first step in religion is the realization of the existence of an entity behind the apparent body, i.e., the soul. The visible body is not the whole reality. There is in it an unseen but ever-active master of the house, the Dehi, the possessor of the body, whose existence we should realize before we can live the true life. This entity, the Self, should not be confused with the intangible functions of the brain. It is not mere thought, perception, emotion, will or discriminative intelligence. These are all but functions of the physical body. The Soul is an entity apart from and behind all this functions. It is not seated in any particular part of the body but pervades the whole of it and all the senses, unaffected by the law of “extension” even as ether was taken by physicists to pervade the whole of space and matter. Not only man, but every animal and plant, every living thing, has a Soul. The body is but the field of action, the Kshetra in which resides the soul, who is the Kshetri or Kshetrajna.

The Soul does not cease to exist when the body dies and is buried, burnt or eaten up by wild birds or beasts. Grief over death is foolish, the Soul being incapable of death. It is the body that is cast off in death even as we cast off old clothes.

Translation of a Shloka from Chapter II, Shloka no. 11.

The Lord Said:

You grieve for those who are not to be grieved for, yet you speak words of seeming wisdom. The enlightened grieve neither for the living nor for the dead.

Tomorrow: Mr. Geelani: Who did we acquit?

Swami Harshananda quotes in his book on “An introduction to Hindu culture”:

A human being is the conglomeration of several parts, apparently different from one another, but acting cohesively for a common purpose, that of a jivatman or the individual soul (a conscious entity) inhabiting them. They are: the physical body including the sense organs, the faculty of speech, the mind and the spirit. A proper training in culture has to tackle each one of these singly, but in a way that it does not interfere or overshadow the natural faculties of the others.

Such a training as envisaged by a holistic attitude towards the development
of the human personality can be on the following lines:

1. Meticulously observing the rules of health and sanitation. Physical culture
   including yogasanas. I need to start learning Yoga.
2. Cultivating the faculty of speech through the study of languages and grammar
   of those languages. Practising the art of speaking the truth at the right time and place, including the knack of presenting even unpleasant truths in a manner that is gracefully accepted.
3. Training the mind in developing discretion and discrimination so that the right decision can be taken at the right time within the limitations imposed by the circumstances. Exercising the intellect by the study of science, philosophy and logic.
4. Trying to develop a taste or interest in some of the arts such as classical music and dance, good and elevating literature, drawing and painting, drama and other theatrical arts that can rouse our finer sentiments and so on.
5. Faith in God and a regular habit of prayer.

Tomorrow: Definition of culture