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A Practical
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(This web site is under
reconstruction. Please reach Contents to
reach any part of this Book) 96. Some minions create
and exploit the fear of sin to make demands upon the faithful. The
minions' punishing God, with His rigid code of right and wrong that
declares petty crimes as sins, as presented by the minions, can prevent
all man's effort to reach Him by a fearless life. Scared parents make
children toe their line that destroys children's happiness. Children
need psychiatric counselling in adulthood. The minions become brokers
for heaven by instilling in the faithful fear of sin. The minions cause
wars of religion and sectarian conflicts all over the world. The
minions and their scary dogma have to go, not the loving God who frees
us from our fear of sin. 97. The revelation to
sages that God is inside us and available to us was found assuring on
its experience. That God can take any form makes attractive his worship
in the form of the devotee's chosen deity. This worship develops our
love and yearning for, and response from Him in and through that form.
The revelation that God performs miracles in escapes and cures of the
incurable strengthens our faith in His reality and His love. That God
ignores sins as errors in ignorance and, as a mother, loves us with all
our faults to improve us and to redeem us becomes our succour. This
belief becomes our incentive to repent our past and surrender it to
Him. We trust Him to help us correct our conduct in the present without
fear of past or future sin. This resolve to eschew error makes us the
master of our fate with God's grace. (Geetaa 9:30) 98. Man can live in a
faith or a religion, which has no concept of God in the same manner as
many religions have. Sanaatana Dharma accepts that there are as many
ideas about God, His forms and about the Creation as there are men.
Each man's religion revolves round and his culture and conduct arise
from his concept of God. God for some is a demanding God, a punishing
potentate to send sinners to eternal hell and the virtuous to eternal
heaven. For some, He is not accessible in person because He is
formless. For some He may be a loving mother for saints or sinners both
and reachable by all as a tangible reality. For some God may be
something different from all these. Some may live a virtuous life
without believing in the existence of God or in any concept about Him
or in any religion. God creates this variety of concepts about Himself
and gives experience to seekers in the form of their concept because
God is a reality for all believers. He does not exist for
non-believers. Non-believers are, however, His creation and are,
therefore, in His care and love and find Him a reality when they turn
to Him.
If we so believe, for each of us, God, the omnipotent, becomes a
reality in the concept and form of our choice. We can believe that He
is directly approachable. He is lovable and responds with love to all
whose life is of love and compassion for all. For God there cannot be
an atheist or non-believer because He loves all His children. Having
come out of Him because there is no other reality for us to come from,
we treat Him as our mother and demand a mother's love and refuge and
not fear from Him. We make a mistake only when our actions are not
based upon care and compassion for all. We can resolve not to repeat
mistakes and pray for forgiveness. In a way, that is all that sin and
repentance are nothing more.
Perdition denies the Sanaatana concept that God's love for all is
similar to that of a mother for her baby. She always wants her baby to
come back to her even if it does not care for her, indulges in follies
and in its naughtiness quarrels with and disobeys her. This is because
we cannot know at any age the totality of factors we should know for a
perfectly correct action. Besides, we are too tiny and ignorant to
disobey, insult or hurt the Almighty God. Sanaatana Dharma denies that
we cannot be intimate and close to God. It denies that God must command
our respect full of awe for Him and therefore He cannot love us as our
mother. Sanaatana Dharma accepts that we can intimately relate to God
in the manner of our choice as a friend, a partner or a colleague even
for fun and frolic, like Shree Krishna and His childhood
playmates. 99. Sanaatana Dharma
believes that God loves us and gives repeated opportunities, even
lives, to us all. He disregards our hostility towards Him, till we turn
to Him in our own way and time to reach Him. From any stage of our life
and in any vocation, we can revert to our divinity and sinless nature
from our birth, which we all display in our infancy, to free us from
the fear of sin. Sin is the result of our acquired nature superimposed
over our sinless divine nature. We can get rid of our superimposed
nature to be free from sin and regain our original pure nature. God's
grace helps our effort. This riddance is the reason for the existence
of Sanaatana Dharma. Sanaatana beliefs in the intimacy available to us
with God to rest firstly on His reality for our experience and,
secondly, on the reach of an untrained and undisciplined mind with
which we are all born. If God is not easily available to a seeker of a
pure heart, irrespective of his mental level in the manner of his
understanding, we can forget God’s reality as a truth. Our common sense
rejects any idea that we can reach God only by qualifications or path
prescribed in any revealed scripture because no guru to teach
qualifications or any path can reach all. No scripture can reach all.
No scripture can deny God’s reach to millions who are not aware of the
scripture. Common sense holds that an illiterate and undeveloped man
can also reach God. He is a reality for him too, because it is God Who
makes him what he is and enables him to reach Him, because God is the
destination of all. No one can reach God without His will. No one knows
the extent of His will. 100. If our inward or
subjective experience is not rejected, the concept of God, gods,
goddesses, His incarnations, angels and saints, becomes a tangible
reality for our experience. People all over the world do experience God
in the form in which they can imagine God to be and which suits their
temperament. Our incommunicable subjective experience of pain and
pleasure is recognized. Yet, strangely, the same experience of our own
being, God in us, is often denied today. 101. The objective world
as the creation and the subjective entities as God, His Incarnation and
gods, both can be experienced; the subjective with the help of a
purified heart and mind. These two, heart and mind, are our equipment
for both subjective experience and objective knowledge. If we reject
either, it does not negate the reality of what we refuse to know or
experience. God's own reality is negated by this rejection. We can, or
rather should treat our faith in God as of greater importance than God,
because ordinarily He manifests Himself to us through faith. The
acceptance of experience of faith, and its use move mountains.
An Incarnation of God does not establish a religion or a creed, nor
does He denigrate any, nor preach violence against any religion or path
to God. His message is not for spreading through bribe or coercion. His
message is for our living in it. He lives His message to set an ideal
example for others to wonder, inquire, experiment and experience. His
message of love of all as one in God spreads by itself through His
followers living in it and not by preaching it. God Himself creates the
mind to think of paths in various times and climes. God gives man the
capacity to develop higher concepts for his progress. All paths to God
are good for the follower regardless of his level, his concept of God,
of the creation and of the Creator, which is his religion. If the
objective is God, He corrects our path as a seeker. This belief is the
liberalism of Sanaatana Dharma that gives pre-eminence to the use of
our purified mind for reaching beyond any message or book howsoever
sacrosanct or revealed. (See Geetaa 18:63) 102. According to
Sanaatana Dharma, God responds to the manner of our yearning for Him.
If we do not want to see Him, because we believe that we cannot, God
responds to the form and manner in which we wish to experience God. If
we believe that we can see Him, He appears in person before us. A man
chased by a tiger climbs a tree. A little later, he finds the tiger
lying dead on a dead snake. This man can think of God, his saviour,
only in the spirits of the tree and of the snake, which saved him. If
he cannot visualize beyond them, God is powerful enough to appear
before this man in the manner he can understand. It is absurd for
anyone to say that God does not do this or that. God understands the
yearning in the hearts of His own creation, be it a Nobel Laureate, a
cave man, an animal, a particle of sand or a wave of mere energy. The
choice of the means and the extent of its belief are with the believer.
Our ignorance makes us blind to the relationship of every element in
the creation with its Creator, God, and the form of His response to it.
Sanaatana Dharma treats God's creation as one with us. This oneness in
God is not confined to only men or to believers in our religion. 103. Has God no form or
are all forms His, in His Incarnation, gods, deities and the creation?
Are the changing forms in the creation real? Is reality limited to the
tangible? Can there be one unchanging Ultimate Reality or the Truth?
How are forms related to that Reality? Are sentient and insentient
beings, which are separate in forms, also separate in their reality?
All this is the subject of Vedanta. Vedanta is an inquiry into the
reality of existence, the method of that inquiry and the revelation of
that reality or truth. The knowing of that reality and living in this
awareness to regain our oneness with it is Knowledge. Vedanta, as the
meaning of the word suggests, is the end of the Vedas. It is the
articulation of the experience of and inquiry by ancient Indian sages
into our ultimate belief about our self, the creation and its Creator,
God. This belief is religion. Baba sums up this Vedanta in these words
for our daily practice today. ‘There is only one religion – the
religion of love. There is only one caste – the caste of humanity.
There is only one God – He is omnipresent. There is only one language –
that is the language of the heart. You must recognize this truth and be
prepared to propagate it in the world.’ (SS 76 147) In sum, this is the
oneness of Sanaatana Dharma. Vedanta can be said to be what remains of
Vedic Sanaatana Dharma today in belief, its rationale or philosophy and
its practice by the bulk of the Indian people. Vedanta with Advaita as
its aim is our defined true heritage of The oneness
of Advaita is that of the reality underlying the life principle
in man with the reality of God. Advaitic oneness is not the
oneness of the active human mind with ‘Mind’ (God), with a capital M,
as some modern Western thinkers suggest. (EHM) While man is a part of
the creation, it is difficult to accept that man’s active mind is part
of ‘Mind’ (God) and therefore has all in it that ‘Mind’ (God) has. This
oneness is possible if the substance and nature of the two, active mind
and ‘Mind,’ are identical. The substance being intangible in origin may
be the same but the natures of the two are different.
Active human minds and ‘Mind’ are not analogous to drops of ocean
water. All these drops have both the substance and nature of all that
the water of the ocean has. Men’s active minds are individual by
varying degree of the intangible power of five senses and the six
passions in each mind all the time. This intangible power shows its
palpability as being the cause of all crimes without exception. It
expresses itself palpably in hate, divisive-ness, man-made barriers
called religions, limits to practicality of solutions of human problems
to make solutions discriminatory and sometimes inhuman, and all social
problems being treated not as invariably human but political, economic,
technical or realpolitik. Therefore all such active human minds
are parts of the creation but cannot be one with the universal and pure
‘Mind (God).' The ‘Mind’ (God),' we believe, is not subject to the
power of senses and passions as an active human mind is.
Men’s active minds are impure. The ‘Mind’ (God), we believe, is free
from impurities. When the active mind tries to be free from impurities
by a minimum discipline of motivating every thought and action by love
to bypass the uncontrolled power of senses and passions, it starts
acquiring purity and regaining its spirituality of perfection to reach
oneness with the ‘Mind’ (God). Without this effort to purify the mind,
it can never benefit from faith in the concept of man’s mind being part
of ‘Mind’ (God) because they are not one and have no link with each
other in their commonness in the attribute of purity.
For the minimum discipline of love, conviction is easy by understanding
some eternal verities that the Indian ancients discovered for humanity.
For example, verities give the reason why I should love even my enemy.
A mere scriptural quotation in the age of reason does not carry
conviction for many today that one should love one’s enemy and how to
express that love in practice. The importance of this apparently
bizarre truth is that without love for all our mind is impure and
cannot receive the benefit of oneness with God, Who is pure. We cannot,
however, be dogmatic on love for God’s maximum grace. Love is
pre-eminent as the observable unifying means for humanity. God and His
grace are limitless for a sincere devotee. 106.
In ordinary parlance, anything tangible is a reality. We notice,
however, that every tangible object which has a name and form
constantly changes in its shape and sometimes also in its form and name
and has an end. So, we treat each shape, name and form of an object as
real and true for the time being. For example, forms of the human body
of an infant, an adolescent, a middle-aged man and an old and decrepit
man are all real and true for us. They are different forms of the same
person. Yet, each such truth is replaced by another truth at every
stage and change. That which remains true for all times is the
ever-unchanging Ultimate Truth or Reality. This Reality therefore
cannot have any form. Sanaatana Dharma called this Reality Brahman.
Brahman is different from all tangible and changing realities. So,
Sanaatana Dharma treats all the tangible changing realities as
ephemeral and not a reality or the truth. Brahman is the only Reality
that there is. It is changeless, formless, intangible and so,
imperceptible. 107.
The tangible but changing world appears real because it is based upon
the reality of Brahman, the Godhead. This base is illustrated by the
classic example of a piece of rope, which appears as a snake in
semi-darkness. If the base of the snake, rope, is removed we cannot see
the snake. But the rope does not cause the snake because no snake
exists in reality. The rope could cause the snake if it existed.
Similarly, in the darkness of our ignorance, the creation with its
myriad forms is as a snake and Brahman as the rope. Brahman does not
causethe world because the world does not exist in reality. It appears
real being based upon Brahman. The world is caused by our perception
through our five senses. For a blind man the world as we see it does
not exist. In deep sleep, it is not there for all. 108.
In Advaita, the world is unreal as a dream. Only Brahman and
each aatmaa underlying a being is real and always one with
Brahman. Aatmaa appears to us as separate from Brahman because
it underlies and appears bound by the body of the being. In reality it
is never separate because what appears to bind and separate it is not a
reality but a mere appearance. A man conscious of his ‘I' treats the
world as real. He cannot understand it as a dream. It is foolish to
think ‘I am Brahman' if the ‘I' is active and not annihilated. It is
very difficult to de-activate or annihilate or get rid of this ‘I'
consciousness. So, with our active ‘I,' we have to rely upon the world
as we see it. We have to use the world to seek the other than ‘I,'
which is implied in our consciousness of the ‘I.' 109.
That other than this outward or apparent ‘I,' is Brahman, the
imperceptible God Himself pervasive as our reality or jeevaatmaa
in each of us as our inmost Self or the real ‘I.' This jeevaatmaa
or human soul is immortal but has no individuality for each. Its
immortality is due to its being always indistinguishable and one with
Brahman. The outward active ‘I' hides our oneness with Brahman and with
that of all in their reality with us and shows us as separate from all
beings in our reality. Our being is our Self but our active or
conscious 'I,' whom we associate with our body, is the apparent ‘I' or
self. This ‘I,' shows us as separate from our being or our inner 'I' or
our reality or our inmost Self. To be able to see, experience and then
realize this identity of the apparent two ‘I’s is Self-realization or
liberation from rebirth on the earth. This is the aim of the path of
knowledge of Advaita. 110.
In Advaita, there is no place for the reality of a personal God
or for any embodiment or Incarnation of God as Shree Raama, Shree
Krishna or any god or goddess. As our human body has, they all have a
name and form and are part of the unreal phenomenal and changing world
based upon Brahman. For a man living in the world, however, they are
all as real as the man's physical body. The reality and oneness of
Brahman and of the jeevaatmaa or human soul of Advaita,
is not easy to grasp by the spiritually unaware. Those who have limited
imagination or treat only that as real that is tangible also find it
difficult to grasp the concept of Brahman. Many intangibles are also
real, such as fear, love, hate, dreams, thoughts, concepts, virtues,
character and so on. So, an intangible reality can underlie all that is
tangible, but one tangible reality cannot underlie another tangible
object. 111.
Tulaseedaasa accepts this Advaitic view of Brahman or Godhead
in His imperceptible form being the Ultimate Reality. Tulaseedaasa
advises us to reach Brahman through devotion to Its Incarnation in the
person of Shree Raama. Shree Raama can be perceptible to us as the
world is. The Geetaa, the Shree Raamacharita Maanasa, Swami Ramakrishna
and other men of divine vision advise us to establish a relationship of
the ‘I' being the servant of the master in the Incarnation of God or in
a personal God of our choice. It can be Shree Raama, Shree Krishna or
any god or goddess. All are forms of the imperceptible God or Brahman.
All are as real as we feel and treat our bodies as real. Nothing is,
however, outside God. 112.
Raamaanujaachaarya expounded Vishishtta- advaita or qualified
monism as another 113.
Maadhavaachaarya expounded another 114.
All schools of Vedanta believe this. Firstly, the minimum nature of
Brahman, the impersonal and imperceptible Godhead, or of the
perceptible and personnel God Almighty, Naaraayana or Vishnu, is Satchidaananda.
Secondly, all the differences and dualities of right and wrong, 'I' and
'you' and what appears as the real objective world to us are different
from their reality. This illusion is caused by God's power called maya.
Depending upon our own perception, the world is neither wholly real nor
wholly unreal but is both. For this dual world, the word in Sanskrit is
sat-tasat-ta or mithya. Thirdly, Satchidaananda
nature of the Reality underlying all creatures, sentient or insentient,
is also their inalienable divine nature and latent in all. This innate
nature is, however, dormant or active in varying degrees in each being
in the creation. Fourthly, the aatmaa in each entity is always
one with the Supreme. It originally emanated from Brahman. It appears
to separate itself by being enclosed in the 'I' consciousness of man
and the body of other beings. This aatmaa in a body is called jeevaatmaa.
It has an inalienable urge to break out of the bounds of its instant
body to be with or re-enter into or regain its oneness with its origin,
Brahman. This urge of the jeevaatmaa inspires the body
enclosing it to cause continuous activity called karma. Karma comprises
creation, sustenance, change and dissolution in every object in the
universe. This is the process of evolution culminating in man. With the
end of the last physical body of man and annihilation of its 'I'
consciousness, that encases the jeevaatmaa, the jeevaatmaa
ultimately merges in, or regains its oneness with its origin,
Brahman.
Vedanta is the surviving essence of all ancient research for our
understanding. This understanding creates an attitude that makes its
daily practice easy by all of all mental levels and capacities to get
the best from life. It frees us from need, disease and fear. Vedanta is
the truth that became the attitude and thereafter the second nature of
all Indians because its disciplines for daily practice were consistent
with the base of all eight religions in 115.
In his Book, Tulaseedaasa accepted the different experiences of God by
the three exponents of Vedanta and other visionaries. He gathered the
impersonal Brahman of Advaita and the personal God of Vishishttaadvaita
and Dvaita schools into the person of Shree Raama. This is
because Tulaseedaasa and before him many spiritually advanced devotees
experienced God Almighty in His embodied form in Shree Raama. According
to Swami Ramakrishna's own experience, it is this personal God Himself
who enables the aspirant to have a vision of His transcendent form.
Such a self-realized aspirant dwells sometimes in the personal and
sometimes in the impersonal aspect of God. In the Shree Raamacharita
Maanasa, Tulaseedaasa treats Shree Raama as Brahman in person and vice
versa as the objective of the path of devotion. Interestingly,
Tulaseedaasa almost invariably calls Shree Raama as Brahman and not as
much as an Incarnation of Vishnu. Vishnu is a name for Brahman in the Dvaita
Incarnation of God
Shree Raama, as an Incarnation of God, demons-trates his message of
love through his conduct. God in His imperceptible aspect cannot
perform this role. The Incarnation performs miracles from his childhood
for his task. They are impossible for any man to bring about even if he
acquires many psychic or paranormal powers. Miracles are the hallmark
of all Incarnations of God the world over. The less spiritually
advanced confuse miracles with occult powers. Unlike feats for a
magician's livelihood or pride, miracles are selfless. They are for the
good of the good and destructive of the evil. They are permanent in
their benevolent effect on believers and seekers. 117.
Incidentally, for a believer, a miracle shows divinity. For a scientist
and others, a miracle is beyond present knowledge. Some past miracles
are explainable today. It is difficult to foresee when all phenomena
become explainable when they occur. We have to accept the believer in
the divinity of a miracle and accept others in its denial. For the
former it is experience and for the latter it is illogical. Neither
logic nor experience can disprove or establish the other. Believers and
scientists have to respect each other. We are unable to know through
science the answer to even the preliminary ‘why' of any phenomenon.
With a purified mind of a completely scientific spirit that looks into
both outside us and inside our mind itself, we can, however, experience
all that exists materially and non-materially and can often see the why
of many of them.
God Must be
Experienced
This experience of God in a devotee's concept occurs to the yearning
hearts of some devotees of all religions, times and places. The core of
all religions is love. If we live in it by our conduct based on it, we
have both vision and experience of God’s love by His grace. To reach
this experience, Sanaatana Dharma also advises a question-ing mind to
use common sense. Common sense is the harmony of intellect and heart,
with neither dominating the other. Common sense is to know why we
believe what we believe and do what we do to help us live a life of
good-ness. In addition, common sense and testing protect us from
charlatans posing as Incarnations and Messengers of God and as
claimants of spirituality, reason, expertise or knowledge of our
religion. Study, thought, meditation, and all help a humble questioning
mind. They are, how-ever, not inescapable for a man of faith and
yearning for God who attracts God by the depth of his sincerity.
Karma 120.
All activity and its consequence are karma; one is inherent in the
other as cause and effect. They occur one after the other but are
inseparable. Karma is cause and effect but the law of Karma is not. It
is governed by God's grace because He is supreme over the varying
degree of impact of the inescapable consequence, e.g., a fall, that
each of us receives from Him under the law. Unlike karma, a sin or a
crime, is, however, separate from punishment. As a man sows so shall he
reap. This maxim is an article of faith in Sanaatana Dharma. So, some
technologically advanced people think that karma is a law only for
agricultural society as Logic
cannot prove that good intent invariably brings good in return or that
virtue, morality and ethics have any value. Since spirituality and
relationship with God need virtue and compassion, which logic cannot
provide, the rational-ist adopts virtues perforce by having to rely on
his irrational or blind faith in virtues. Not an argumentative mind but
a loving heart easily reaches God through faith and virtue. Hence
enlightened faith, or shrad-dhaa, is superior to mere intellect
for the path of virtue for success, prosperity and bliss for society
and for reaching God. Not logic, but the law of karma proves that one
virtuous deed brings munificence in multiple measures as one seed
brings a million fruit. Therefore, not logic but faith in the law of
karma makes the pursuit of a virtuous and godly life worthwhile.
Sanaatana Dharma shows how to make use of the law of karma to make us
the master of our fate and of our environment through a purified mind
and selflessness. One wonders if other religions make use of this law
for this purpose though the concept of sin and punishment in all
religions rests on this law.
Our Three Bodies in One
and Our Jeeva-atmaa (Soul) – Their Role in Karma 122.
To understand the aatmaa or soul, we have to know that the
Indian analytical mind gave two separate names to Brahman, the Godhead.
When Brahman is imperceptible, unmanifest and inactive, it is called Paramaatmaa
or the Great Soul. When Brahman brings about or manifests from within
Itself the creation as a tangible entity through its power maya, It is
active as the Creator, is perceptible and is called Paramayshwara.
Paramayshwara is Its personal aspect in Vishnu and
Naaraayana. Brahman as Paramaatmaa and as Paramayshwara
is one with different names for Its different roles. Not Paramaatmaa,
the inactive Brahman, but Paramayshwara, the active Brahman, is
the inspirer, creator, preserver and destroyer of the creation and even
of its smallest particle. So, Brahman is the biggest of the big and the
smallest of the small. The aatmaa or soul is a complete
miniature of Brahman in all Its roles, and underlies each entity in the
creation. In this underlying role it is called jeevaatmaa. The aatmaa
is not a fragment of Brahman because the latter cannot be fragmented. Aatmaa
is the totality of Brahman and appears as Its miniature. 123.
Our jeevaatmaa as a miniature of Paramaatmaa is never
our witness because witnessing involves two realities, the observer and
the observed whereas reality is only one. The same jeevaatmaa
as a miniature of active Brahman in its aspect as Paramayshwara
in Naaraayana or Vishnu or Its Incarnation as Shree Raama underlies our
life in Its impersonal aspect. It is this Paramayshwara aspect
of the Almighty God in His omnipresence as jeevaatmaa that is
the constant witness of our thought, word and action. This witness jeevaatmaa
remains totally unaffected by all that we think, do, suffer or enjoy.
When we talk of God within us, it is this jeevaatmaa in the Paramayshwara
aspect of the Almighty God. 124.
The word jeevaatmaa or the human soul in the Sanaatana concept
is different from what some among the followers of Semitic religions
understand as the soul. Jeevaatmaa is a miniature of Brahman,
which underlies our body, mind and our life itself but is not an
inseparable part of either. Being God in miniature, it neither suffers
nor enjoys nor is affected by the body and mind or their thought, word
or deed. It can neither be nourished, nor rested nor tormented, nor be
blissful nor can it share anything with the body and mind. In the
Western parlance the soul is subject to all that a human being goes
through. Jeevaatmaa is not so subject.
Secondly, the jeevaatmaa is ever free. On the death of the
physical body encasing it, it carries the causal body for a rebirth. It
leaves the body of one who secured liberation from rebirth in life to
regain its oneness with Brahman. There is no heaven, hell or perdition
for jeevaatmaa. According to Advaita
Thirdly, the Indian concept of the subtle body is nearest to that of
the soul of some in the Semitic tradition. Subtle body is antahkarana.
It comprises the mind, intellect, awareness and the ‘ 125.
On death, our physical and subtle bodies die. Their actions arising
from attachment to the worldly attractions in life accumulate memories
and consequen-ces. Without the active ‘I,' this accumulation is inert.
This inert dirt, called causal body, envelopes the jeevaatmaa
and escapes with it from our dead body. The jeevaatmaa carries
the causal body and puts it for its birth in the human body that our
last life earned for us. That is why the causal body or maya becomes
the cause for the rebirth of our ‘I' with its desires and memories in
its subconscious. All these form our artificial nature superim-posed
over our divine nature, which becomes observable in our new life. Our
innate nature is divine and pervades our three bodies as our jeevaatmaa.
The superimposed nature is the link with our deeds and desires of our
past life and the basis of our evolution from where we left. This link
explains prodigies and abnormalities. The jeevaatmaa does not
take birth. It underlies the newborn body with its four functional
mind, including ‘I' consciousness, as explained above. It is this
active 'I' or we who die and go through the cycle of rebirths and
transmigrate. The jeevaatmaa or our soul is not born, nor does
it die nor transmigrate. It continues to underlie changing bodies and
is forever one with Brahman. If we can annihilate our active ‘I' in
life, we, as this ‘I,' get free from the cycle of rebirth. If not,
progress being the normal rule, we are born as a human being at our
last mental and spiritual level, barring rare exceptions. 126.
If deeds were selfless and desires were noble, for example, to serve
God in person, our causal body would take birth in an astral body in
heaven or in other planes of existence or worlds. If the desires were
worldly, our causal body would get a physical body on the earth.
Through detachment from worldly attractions, we accumulate no desires
and by advance dedication of our deeds to God we accumulate no
consequences. Secondly, we sincerely repent our past and dedicate it to
God. Thereafter we resolve to eschew error and seek God's grace to help
us stick to our resolution.
By this method, the impact upon us of our past is wiped out for us. We
bear the remaining consequences and exhaust all consequences from our
past lives in this life. By this course of doing our karma, the jeevaatmaa
has no baggage of our desires, consequences and memories to carry it
for our rebirth. Being free of the burden, jeevaatmaa escapes
from our dead body and regains its oneness with Paramaatmaa.
So, we do not take rebirth. If we did not secure liberation in life,
the jeevaatmaa escapes our dead body with the dirt accumulated
by our ‘I’ for its rebirth in a body on the earth.
From the distinction between the word soul and the word aatmaa
explained above, it follows that it is correct to pray to God to give
peace to the soul of the departed. This is because the soul is the 'I'
that is undergoing the cycle of rebirth and needs peace. It is,
however, incorrect to pray for peace to the aatmaa of the
departed. We should pray for peace for the person, in whichever
plane of existence he may be, and not for his aatmaa, that is
God, Who is carrying the person or the 'I' for its
rebirth.
Man's Unnatural Karma 128.
To avoid incorrect karma, we have to understand what maya does to us.
Maya is the veil of ignorance on our intellect from our birth. It makes
us forget our divine nature. It makes us think that in reality we are
our physical body, with the mind, intellect and individuality. This
thinking makes us a slave of our five senses and six passions for our
pleasures through and for our body because we treat our body as our
reality. If not alert to passions because they work insidiously within
us, their excess or overwhelming power makes us act against our divine
nature. This power pursues our selfish and sensuous desires for
satisfaction. In this unnatural role, we revert to the animal that we
were. The six passions are: 1. Kaama or desire, particularly
lust, 2. Krodha or anger, 3. Lobha or greed, 4. Moha
or the feeling of mine or attachment, 5. Ahamkaara or pride, 6.
Matsara or envy.
Who Bears Consequences of
Karma? 130.
In this manner, we accumulate no consequences to necessitate our
rebirth though we are apparently not different from others. In divine
jurisprudence, ‘A’ gets the deserts of what ‘A’ does, not what ‘B’
does. This awareness of the law makes us unconcerned with what others
think or do. It makes us live in our divinity and in surrender to God.
Surrender is a realization that nothing is mine and all is God's. This
realization and our link to God on this basis invoke His grace. Grace
frees us from fear and suffering as consequences of our past. It makes
our life free from misery and fear and so continually enjoyable for us
to persevere in divine living. 131.
Under the influence of maya, which works through our uncontrolled six
passions, we forget that we are divine. So, our egotism identifies us
with our body and mind and mistakes them as our reality. In this error,
our intellect is not aligned with divinity and becomes one with and
subservient to the mind. The mind, a mere bundle of selfish desires
motivated by six passions, controls the intellect. The intellect ceases
to debate right and wrong. So, we act contrary to our divinity. We
think we are the body and are the doer of our deeds and thereby become
so and bear consequences. This subservience to our desire filled mind
ensures us misery repeatedly and also a rebirth because we distance
ourselves from our divinity. It is our egotistic 'I,' which forgets our
divinity with consequent misery for us. 132.
We are not bestowed with the knowledge of all aspects of the
relationship of a deed with its consequen-ces. This relationship takes
into account all the past lives of a man. The consequences are inherent
in the intent behind the deed. We cannot assert that every act must
bring consequences unlike the law of cause and effect. This is because
God's grace is unfathomable in its administration of the law by His
omniscience. Grace takes into account all our past lives. We cannot
know the extent of His love for us. The knowledge of the law of karma
and consequences would have paralyzed us into worry about each act and
its consequences rather than encouraged us to act without worry or
fear. To act without worry or fear, we surrender our past to God and
resolve not to commit any error by motivating all our acts by
benevolence, non-violence and righteousness. This motive is an
expression of love. This resolve and motivation free us from worry and
fear because we are now living in our divinity of love. Our continuous
prayer for God's grace gives us freedom from the impact of our past on
us and gives us strength for this error-free conduct. This is how we
carve our own good fortune by living in the present. We can also secure
the knowledge of the working of the law of karma but it is difficult. 133.
Prayer, spiritual disciplines or surrender to God are in addition to,
but not a substitute for our duty. One of our duties is our daily work
that we receive from God to do diligently. Geetaa teaches us that to
return good for evil is duty. To avoid challenging wrong and injustice
is its failure. To defend the meek and ourselves is duty. Re-venge or
to hurt in anticipation as offence being the best defence is wrong. We
should try to bring round evil doers by reason, affection and good
means. Failing that, to secure through law punishment of the evil and
of the unjust and the protection of their victims is our duty, which
God Himself demonstrates in His Incarnation. In judging one, our mind
should, however, be free from any trace of the six passions.
Karma and the Devil and
Satan
135.
A minimum of six passions is necessary and that is why we are provided
with them to motivate all actions for our sustenance and survival.
Passions are free in animals. In man they need control. The difficulty
in the control over passions is that they are a part of our
superimposed nature. Therefore, we do not feel that we are under their
pressure. A percipient observer easily points out when we act under
their influence. Though uncommon, a well-wishing member of our family
or a friend who is such an observer to caution us is often forthcoming
if we resolve to improve ourselves and seek one in humility. A way to
overcome passions is to use the law of karma to do good to others and
think of others' good and less of ours. From this benevolence, passions
keep their distance and we do not have to think of control over
passions.
It is difficult to be in control of all passions at all times. Even
spiritually advanced sages have to remain alert to them. We should have
faith that a mind free from the pollution of passions is a pure mind
empowered by jeevaatmaa. It is capable of doing even the
virtually impossible that is noble. This faith sustains our alertness
to passions. So also does the awareness that pollution prevents our
being virtuous in magnanimity, charity and compassion, which are
qualifications for divinity. 136.
The more we think that our reality is our body, the more we live for
the enjoyment of everything through and for the body. This enjoyment
through luxury enervates and makes us a slave of selfishness arising
from passions. This slavery causes troughs of suffering between periods
of enjoyment. When we control our passions, we experience that
selfishness seeks and selflessness thrusts happiness and greatness upon
us. The disciplines for this control are called tapa or denial
of desires, sacrifice or austerity. Tapa secures for us
equanimity in heat and cold, affluence and adversity and honour and
dishonour. Single-minded engrossment of the body, mind and heart in any
noble task, which is yoga is also a tapa. Our discipline needs
God's grace for success. We often find ourselves helpless victims of
maya or passions. This helplessness happens more in our youth and
immediately thereafter than later. So, Sanaatana Dharma teaches through
Brahmacharya alertness to passions to all students to
prepare them for life for continued control over passions till the end.
If we motivate every action by the intent to hurt none and help all and
to be of service to the neighbour and to the needy, we find passions in
our control. Thus, this motive becomes our easy path for controlling
passions. 137. The excess of one or
more of these six passions or Devils leads to all crimes and sickness
of some sections of affluent society and callousness, hate and misery
the world over. These Devils overpower individuals. Other evil causes
spring from these Devils. For example, the excess of lust causes all
crimes of sex and destruction of marriage as a sacred institution, by
destroying care for the spouse. By destroying care for the other and so
our common sense, anger perverts some attitudes into hate and
deprivation of the poor who are under worked and unemployed. They
appear to us as parasites. Excess of greed makes economics the science
that maximizes selfish aggrandizement and prevents our sharing in
compassion by a little sacrifice everything in nature with all as God
intended. This economics often causes exploitation of the weak,
financial and corporate crimes and makes money out of money. All this
destroys humanness from working conditions in the name of efficiency
and competitiveness. Attachment or the excessive feeling of mine,
develops prejudices and causes divisive society to set man against man.
Egotism brings incompetence in leadership. Envy causes unscrupulous
means to secure what others have. Hate, the child of ego and anger, is
the mother of almost all violent crimes. 138.
Our six passions cause selfish thinking. This thinking invites conflict
because it is restricted to 'we' and 'they' and 'what is in it for me?'
This thinking repels solu-tions, which demand a little sacrifice from
us and care for all. This thinking prevents harnessing of the gains of
both social and physical sciences for raising man from the animal to
human and then to divine. The gains either drift rudderless and barren
or are misused by the selfish mind, which is controlled by the six
passions. Hence this mind produces excess of approaches, theories,
solutions, social systems and expert rational structures and the
persistent dissatisfaction with a number of them all over. Control over
passions by each individual shows human society as one family. Its
members have a variety of capabilities and tastes, temperaments,
beliefs and practices. All members need to be united by care and
compassion. All need a social order based on love and care for all. Our
passions defeat that order by making us see care and compassion through
voluntary social service as a haven for parasites. Passions do not let
human society secure the rudder of love to steer it to its bliss and
freedom from misery. Hence, the importance Sanaatana Dharma accords to
control over all the six passions or Brahmacharya (control over
senses and passions). 139. Brahmacharya
is not mere celibacy. It is control over sex as one of the controls
over senses and six passions. The Oxford English Dictionary defines
celibate as an ‘unmarried person, specially one bound or resolved not
to marry.’ If Brahmacharya were mere celibacy, this discipline
would have been only for sannyaasees (recluses) and not for all
students who had ordinarily to become family men as an essential stage
of their Varnaashrama Dharma for the sustenance of society. The
Geetaa does not recommend sannyaasa for all. The
curriculum of Brahmacharya was uniformly for all students. The
comprehensiveness of Brahmacharya excludes need for the study
of a substantial part of philosophy, psycho-logy, social sciences,
humanities, comparative religions and many allied subjects today. This
is because it is the science of living in society in the selflessness
of love with all that no religion can deny and no common sense or
science can prove as worthless. To acquire skills to earn a livelihood
is a part of Brahmacharya curriculum. Brahma-charya
empowers the mind for advancement of science for humanitarian purposes.
The narrow meaning of Brahma-charya in English as celibacy
made the English-educated Indians ignorant of the destructive role of
senses and six passions against which Brahmacharya guarded us
in life and hence of the importance of Brahmacharya.
Karma and Injustice of Fate 141.
The law of karma shows that none can help or hurt us. Men and our
situation are not the cause of our adversity. They are the means to
bring about our deserts from our past deeds. They are God's instruments
to do His will. Our ignorance of the law distorts our perspective,
makes us accumulate guilt, grievance and malice towards persons and
events that appear adverse to us. Our ignorance causes all our strain,
anxiety, fear, depression, complexes, and mental disorders. These
abnormalities sometimes necessitate psychiatric treatment and
coun-selling in life. Ignorance of the law of karma therefore prevents
our being physically healthy and makes us prone to all kinds of
diseases by first making our mind sick.
The law of karma does not absolve us from our duty to defend with all
our might our life, family, property and country and all that we hold
as dear to us. The Geetaa tells how to live by this law as Arjuna did
in the Mahaabhaarata. (See paragraphs 148 to 150
below) 142.
Faith in the law of karma with God’s supremacy over it prevents our
doing any wrong. It makes us repent in expiation of our past. It frees
us from malice towards the offender. It alerts us to act from now
onwards correctly, fearlessly and with confidence in compassion and
love. One form of such acts is the service of all, and particularly of
the less fortunate and needy around us. Our faith makes us see that our
daily work is the best consequence of our past karma, which God could
give us in His mercy and so it is an assignment from God. We should do
it as our duty dedicated to Him. We can but do not have to search for a
better way to serve our interest or serve God. Our faith will show us
opportunities to grasp and change our assignment for our betterment.
Our faith makes us do unto others selflessly because ultimately we do
it unto us. Selflessness is karmayoga. My noble self-interest
makes my mind pure to keep my conduct selfless and my body healthy.
These are ideals for best results for society and for me. We find this
way of living impractical because we do not have faith in the law of
karma and in the reality of God as our succour and H's grace even when
we see the imperfect working of the law in our society in the
punishment of the criminal. Good
Karma Does Not Cancel Out Bad Karma.
Faith in Karma Advances a
Man
145.
This remedial conduct through repentance needs a heart free from malice
by knowing that we earned our hurt and the offender was God’s
instrument, and by faith in the supremacy of God over karma. Karma
frees us from grieving pessimistically over our past. It strengthens us
to overcome odds with faith in God's grace to sustain our error-free
path of love and help for all and hurt for none. We accept all praise
or blame and happiness and sorrow as the best we deserve in the light
of our past. This acceptance makes our mind healthy towards persons and
events that are adverse to us. Nothing, such as grudge, anger or
vengeance as pollution remains in our mind to make it selfish,
inefficient or sick to need psychiatric counselling. Our faith in God's
grace, which gives multiple fruit of goodness if we sow goodness, makes
us eager, dynamic and the master of our fate to progress with
confidence. This is because gradually events start becoming more
congenial than before by God's grace to give us the strength for our
persistence in virtue and to make optimism our nature. 146.
Proper understanding of the law of karma is a well-tried remedy for the
present day sickness of some sections of affluent society in the form
of personal unhappiness and frustration, alcoholism, sexual
harass-ment, broken families, violence and crime. According to
psychiatrists, our grudges, malice, daily fears and strains are often
the result of traumas we receive in life. This pollution distorts our
personality to make us anti-social and destructive individuals. To
remedy this situation, we have to understand that our past karma earned
us our traumas and situation, which included our parents and their
treatment in our childhood. We have to be forgetful of our past hurt
for correct conduct in the present for invoking God's grace for our
relief. 147.
We know that no parent is born with the know-ledge any psychiatrist may
prescribe for bringing up children. God gives us our deserts in the
form of our parents and the treatment they give us. We should not blame
parents. Understanding this, we should do our selfless duty towards
parents by serving them to give them joy. We should change our negative
attitude of grievance, which is our ignorance of the law of karma, into
a positive attitude to benefit from this law. The positive attitude is
in loving service of those within our reach, of whom parents are the
nearest. This invites God's grace. Under the law of Karma, this change
of attitude is solely in our interest of rejuvenation of our mental and
physical health and incidentally benefits others.
What is Right Karma
or Concise Geetaa for Daily Practice? 149.
Even after these checks, if we hesitate, we should make use of another
belief. If we surrender our good act and ourselves to God, He becomes
the real and we the apparent doer of the act. So, we dedicate our
correct act to God and surrender ourselves to Him. All this also
applies to our duty to defend our family, life, property and country.
By our surrender, we become detached from the act and its result both,
because the act is now desire-less for us. Notice that when we thought
of the act, it was motivated by a desire, but the dedication to God of
its specific fruit that we initially desired makes the act desire-less
for us. This constant attitude of dedication and sur-render is
difficult till we realize that no result that we expect from any of our
acts is ever a certainty. 150.
These steps are the concise Geetaa for us. It is for quick and hopeful
decisions for our karma in predica-ments we all face daily. For
predicaments we need guid-ance in scriptures and from gurus. A little
thinking deve-lops our trust in the efficacy of these steps to become
our quick sifting second nature. The steps free us from anxiety, strain
and fear and set us on the selfless and fearless path of karmayoga
of the Geetaa. This path ensures us a successful life filled with the
bliss of the highest order on one hand and on the other makes our life
truly spiritual. Geetaa explains the rationale of our beliefs to
strengthen our faith in these steps. Thus, Geetaa teaches us to
associate God with every thought and act to make our daily working life
spiritual and thereby make God care for, guide us and protect us
because we live in our divine nature or Dharma. (see Geetaa 9:22) The
above steps steer us clear of any intractable situation. The steps
destroy the baseless and unnatural fear of sin and there-fore of God.
This fearlessness is the aim of the Geetaa and of the Indian
Philosophy. Those who always act out of love do not have to think of
control over senses and passions or about right and wrong acts or the
above steps. Love for all takes us above dharma and adharma
both in the manner of a jeevanamukta (the liberated in life).
Following these steps, we get the strength to treat all setbacks as
'this too shall pass.' If we live in love of all, its form is
selflessness. Both constitute bhakti. At the end of the Geetaa,
Shree Krishna advised Arjuna bhakti. So, Arjuna received bhakti
based on jnaana or jnaanabhakti and enjoyed its
indescribable bliss on the earth. This bliss was greater than that of
Self-realization, salvation or of heaven. That is why Shree Krishna
gave it to Arjuna. (Geetaa 18:53-57, :63-66)
Karma and the Varnaashrama Dharma 152.
The second stage of Grihastha or the house-holder demands
selfless duties to the family and to society for its sustenance. The
third Vaanaprastha stage is a retreat from worldly interests
for contemplation and selfless service of society but not necessarily
completely cut off from children. The fourth Sannyaasa stage
requires complete withdrawal from the world for realizing our identity
with Brahman and prayers for the welfare of humanity. Sannyaasa
is total renunciation as a recluse without a fixed abode. Sannyaasa
is also the attitude of our mind, which is available to us at any stage
of our life. This attitude enables us to live in the world without
being attracted to or affected by it. The first stage or aashrama
is for preparation, the second, for service of the family and of
society, the third, for service of society, and the last, for service
of the world. All stages are for us regardless of our situation. The
last two are for decreasing physical and increasing mental and selfless
activity for the maximum use of our faculties for the health of the
body, mind and society. This withdrawal is a practical necessity too.
Longer experience and greater satiety with things outside us normally
makes it easy for us in old age to withdraw for our good health.
Withdrawal is more difficult for the young. 153.
The division of spans of life or aashramas takes into account
our changing physical and mental capacities. For instance, youth can
bear greater physical and mental burden than old age. So, Grihastha
is from age 25 to 50 years. Brahmacharya taught before
adolescence ensures self-control for life. Graceful voluntary
withdrawal with age, in last two aashramas prevents our pride
of knowledge and experience of age from becoming a drag on the next
generation. Self-control for life ensures maximum selfless contribution
in thought, word and conduct to cure the sickness of society, if any.
It makes society orderly, peaceful, healthy and happy. It gives to
society for its enrichment and not grabs from society to make it the
poorer. 154.
The householder sustains the other three stages through service of the
family and society. We should not treat serving the family, earning
livelihood and involvement in the world as bondage. We should treat all
as God's trust with us, as an opportunity for our selfless service of
all in Him and its dedication to Him. Dedication is a simple mental
submission to God that whatever I have done, am doing and shall do is
my service to God for such results to me as He chooses. This dedication
makes us a karmayogi of the Geetaa. A householder needs a
mental attitude that his family, his all and he belong to God. By this
attitude, he becomes detached from his karma and family and free from
consequences. But his loving service of the house-hold makes the family
feel that he belongs to it. So, all scriptures of Sanaatana Dharma give
pre-eminence to the householder in Varnaashrama Dharma because
he can secure continual bliss and liberation even in the thick of life
by a mere change in attitude. Some moderns miss the continual bliss
through karmayoga of the householder stage of life. Instead
they think that Sanaatana Dharma and its philosophy are only for old
age. So, by their ignorance, they go on suffering anxiety, fear and
strain from an early age. They miss to be free and have continual bliss
throughout. 155.
Alien influence makes many of us Indians ignorant of or not believing
in or not interested in our innate divinity and how to avail of it for
our continual bliss. This bliss is the purpose of the four aashramas.
For all these four, we need but are unwilling to discipline ourselves
in Brahmacharya. This ignorance makes us assert that Sanaatana
Dharma and philosophy are not for the active part of our life. This
ignorance also deprives us of our ability to receive an empowered mind
early in adolescence for our limitless efficiency, excellence and an
edge for success throughout life. 156.
There are four professions or Varnas beyond which a society
needs none for its development and survival, security, sustenance and
service in that order. The four professions are Brahmin (thinker), Kshatriya
(defender), Vaishya (entrepreneur) and Sudra (a worker without
the skills for the other three Varnas). Arising from our deeds
in our past lives, each of us is born with qualities for our
advancement through one of these four professions. (See Geetaa 157.
The first profession for the development of society is that of the guru
and teacher, called Brahmin. He studies the scriptures for knowledge in
which he lives to make that knowledge his own by experiencing it. Then
he imparts this knowledge to others as his service to society for its
survival and development. He is an advanced observer, thinker, scholar,
scientist, researcher or consultant, advising even kings. His
dedication to society is total in selflessness in that, as a Brahmin,
he lives upon alms, which he gets, never seeking remuneration. A
Brahmin became one when he attained Brahmajnaana or liberation
in life. Jnaana reflects twenty virtues and imposes nine
disciplined duties according to the Geetaa. A man of these attainments
is a rarity today even among millions born in families in the caste
called Brahmin. In the age of the Shrutis, persons, regardless
of their birth or jaati (caste), could undergo the disciplines
to attain to Brahmajnaana or become a Brahmin. 158.
The second profession Kshatriya is that of the protector of the
people for the security of society. This includes the administrator,
the member of the armed forces, the honorary defence lawyer, the rich
helping the needy and anyone caring for or giving refuge to the less
fortunate. This profession frames and enforces one law in the light of
oneness of all men in their Satchidaananda reality. The
provision by the state of means of livelihood, security and bliss is
for all and not for only the majority or for the greatest number as in
some societies. The motive-tion for this second profession is the
selfless service through the defence of the country, its culture and of
equitable order in society. This service is by enactment and
enforcement of the law for all and particularly for the care of the
weak and needy. This profession takes care of the law because dharma
cannot prescribe for the state, the law, its principles and its
procedure. Dharma does not define crime or its punishment. Dharma
teaches control of our senses and six passions to make society free
from all crimes. Uncontrolled passions cause all crimes without
exception.
The third profession Vaishya comprises the producer of goods
for the sustenance of society and the contented entrepreneur and
trader. The motivation is to provide material things for human needs
and comfort. They serve society by being content with the minimum that
sustains their profession. Excess of greed makes for the scum of
society to make it sick as we see it today in some advanced civilized
countries. The fourth profession was called Sudra or the one without
the skill or qualities for any of the other three professions. The
moment a Sudra acquired any qualification he became professional of
that 159. Varanadharma
rested on selflessness. Only selflessness could give social equality to
all Varnas . This social equality was necessary because all
professions were indispensable. Equality was difficult if any member
nourished a trace of the self or ego or greed. Sanaatana Dharma stands
only on man's innate love and Satchida-ananda nature, which is
best expressed through non-violence and selflessness in the four stages
and four vocations throughout life. Duties change for each age and
vocation but man has to try to live throughout in accord with his
unchanging innate nature for best results. Brahmacharya is a
training for all to facilitate living in their innate nature and for
the proper observance of Varna-ashrama Dharma. 160.
The concept of four Varnas in the Shrutis was unique. A
more scientific, comprehensive and minimal division of innumerable
callings than the four in the 161. In order to accept
and strengthen the equality, oneness and the indispensable nature of
each of the four Varnas, the basis for the division was
qualities and skills. In the Shruti concept a fall from Varnadharma
implied not motivating the chosen profession by selflessness and,
secondly, according social gradation to any profession which Shrutis
never intended. If Shrutis intended social gradation or
hierarchy in professions, there was no difficulty in saying so and
there was no need to find a unique and egalitarian nomenclature of Caste
System in
After the choice of our calling, to perform its duties honestly and
diligently is Varnadharma. Hierarchy in Varnas, in the
form of castes, is obviously a later develop-ment arising from Manu Smriti
or earlier. Being by nature gregarious, man naturally forms groups.
Society gets divided into sections for such reasons as geography,
common habits and customs for congenial social links and so on. These
sections of society harden into forms such as communities, clans,
tribes and castes or jaatis each with its own moral and social
code. This perennial pheno-menon cannot be stopped or reversed. The
curse of the caste system in 163.
To sanctify caste, a Smriti concept, on the basis of 164.
Social divisiveness arose with the fall in Indian society before
Buddhism. Its crust was thickened by eight centuries of Muslim
invasions of the Indian subcontinent. The victor and the vanquished,
the upper and the lower in the feudal order, social discrimination, the
maltreatment of the poor and weak by the rich and the powerful, the
neglect of ancient wisdom and the superimposition of alien influence,
all elements hardened divisiveness. They created the present day
obnoxious practices of the caste system in 165.
Many handicaps and evils of the Indian caste system and of its
differentiation are non-existent in other countries. The forms of
discrimination and in a way a caste system there, however, are the blue
blood, the club, the old school tie, the superiority of race, religion,
sect or community, the guest worker or the alien. No society exists
without stratification for upward mobility by the lowly.
To live in oneness of all castes continually as Mahatma Gandhi did is
living in divinity or in our ancient heritage of oneness. He was
perhaps the unique example of this living among all the educated
leaders in the Indian independence movement. So, he received the power
of which a fraction was not received by others. Consequently the others
were weak in their alien mind-set unlike Mahatma Gandhi, who was
powerful. This weakness, as in many Western-educated Indians in all
walks of life, did damage to our country in palpable proportions and
continues to do so till today, though unwittingly. A
Self-regulated Society Without Rights
The unconcern with or annihilation of the self is our objective. This
objective cannot think of our rights, which are centred on the self.
This is the essence of Sanaatana Dharma, if practised as it should be
practised. All our karma is duty to society for its survival and we in
return receive our all from society. The human race can survive only in
society and each individual has in his own interest to put society
first. This is Sanaatana selflessness or nishkaama karma. The
suckling baby gets nourishment from the mother's duty. Old parents get
support from children's duty. A wife gets chaste love and protection
from the husband's duty to provide them to her. In this society the
question of superiority, inferiority or inequality between men and
women, groups of people, nations and races does not exist. This is
because every work is essential duty for the sustenance of society. One
man's duty to society brings fruit to the other of his karma. The fruit
can be benevolent or adverse. The performance of duty or intent of the
other that results in a benefit or hurt to us is not their cause. Our
past karma caused both. The present day problems arise when the other
mistakenly thinks of that benevolent fruit as his right and the adverse
fruit as undeserved. This mistake arises because we think that only a
particular person can give us that fruit. Under the law of karma that
fruit is our deserts. The means for giving it can be not only that
particular person but myriad. 167.
Injustice arises when we are denied our rights. If we accept
responsibility for injustice, rights cease. Faith in the law of karma
means that we bring with us the totality of our circumstances and
situations in life, including justice and injustice and all. In the
day-to-day life an injustice with a perceptible cause needs
rectification by our effort but without any malice as the Paanddavas
did in the Mahaabharaata episode. Everyone contributes to our
situation on one's own as the instrument of God to give us our deserts,
including injustice. We get relief from God. We cannot claim any rights
on society because without our asking for it, nature denies us nothing
more than, and gives us the whole of, what we earned. While living in
spirituality has no place for rights, human society needs laws for
remedying injustice and crime, duties and rights. Understanding our
position in dharma, while living in society, according to its laws,
life is more blissful in a little more of selflessness than if we are
self-centred.
Defence of our person, dependants, property and those who seek our
refuge is our duty. So also, injustice has to be resisted. Both have to
be done without malice towards the perpetrator. This is because the
circumstance is brought about by our past and our action in the present
should be free from being motivated by our passions or our enemies
within. It is in the same way as a soldier has no hatred for the enemy
but kills him all the same. 168.
Similarly, non-performance of our duty to society or actions contrary
to our divine nature of love for all, deprive another person of some
benefits and may cause him pain. Both the benefit and the pain, which
the other person gets, are not his rights. They are the consequen-ces
of his past deeds. Failure to perform our duties in society, which
results in pain to or deprivation of pleasure from members, is a sin
for which we suffer consequences. Since I get what I earn myself
nothing more or less, my selfish interest is in getting the best for
myself. Under the law of karma, I earn the best through what I do as my
duty as a member of society. A society based on this convic-tion of
giving the best and not grabbing the most is free from greed and lust,
claims and counter claims or rights and from pockets of poverty. These
two of the six Devils, excess of greed and lust, cause most of the
stresses, strains and diseases in the individual and crime and poverty
in society. 169.
The rights in later scriptures called Smritis are social and
civic for an orderly society but are not all prescribed in the Vedas.
The only Vedic rights we have in Sanaatana Dharma make no demands on
society. These Vedic rights are to self-discipline in Brahmacharya
and thereby to purify our mind, to do devotion to God, do our daily
duty to society in Varnaashrama Dharma and surrender it and
ourselves to God. Next, we have the right to pray to God to seek
strength to bear His will. Our right is to pray for relief from our
past karma in their present adverse consequences for us. The worse our
predicament the stronger should we pray. We should not allow our past
unconcern with God to weaken us in our prayers because only God can
give us relief when we pray to Him. It is our right to seek His
guidance, help and refuge. It is as a child's right to pester its
mother for what it wants. In the Vedas, neither the child has any
rights on the parents, nor the parents upon the child. Being inherent
in our deeds, consequences from our past come to us as our inalienable
right. In praying to God, we are, however, advised not to choose
consequences of our deed. We do not truly know the best for us today
and tomorrow because we do not know our future. We have, however, no
right upon God or His grace. Grace becomes our right when we have
purified our mind, controlled our senses and passions and aligned our
intellect with our inmost Self or God.
A Noble Capitalistic Society
From the above it is clear that a society living by Sana-atana
principles achieves the aims of modern communism to their full but by a
noble but selfish motivation of a highly capitalist society. It is time
the modern thinkers researched into the utopia that was lived and
practised for millenniums in the Indian subcontinent but is a
will-o-the-wisp today.
The Path of Karma or Karmayoga 172.
To invoke God's will to wipe out the impact on us of our adversity that
we earned by our past, we surrender ourselves to God. God wipes out
only that which retards our progress towards Him but gives us what
remains for us to live for and also gives us repeated opportunities in
life for our advancement, bliss and redemption. (See Geetaa 9:22) He
does all this because as a reality, he responds to our concept of Him
as our loving mother. For our continuous relief and strength, we should
establish a vibrant link to God by any means of remembering Him. 173.
The intent behind all acts should be selfless and the good and
happiness of all to make acts fit for their surrender to God. Following
this course makes us a karmayogi. A selfless intent to provide
and share with others pleasures of the senses and intellectual
happiness through the mind makes karmayogis of some dedicated
chefs, perfumers, craftsmen, artists, musicians, poets, writers,
professionals and social workers provided they offer their ware
selflessly, that is, gratis. Nishkaama karma (act with no
expectations of recompense) is the mark of a karmayogi. Both
for relief from adversity and securing prosperity, we should be a karmayogi.
Examples of selflessness of karmayogis in the west are
voluntary fire fighters, life guards, honorary workers in hospitals,
old peoples' homes and libraries, the Salvation Army, working for the
homeless and the destitute and feeding the hungry by social
organizations. Seeking
God's Refuge – Total Surrender 175.
It is the general experience of those who live their life in this
manner that the perspective of their situation changes. Their
circumstances improve perceptibly, so also their power to bear
consequences of past deeds. Their joys and sorrows are subdued. Such
people live their life more calmly and contentedly than before. Absence
of sorrow and attainment of contentment are blissful. There are
exceptions to this general experience. No one, however, knows how
horrifying were the past lives of those who form exceptions.
Contentment and detach-ment from the world here mean rejecting the
fulfilment of a desire we can afford and sharing with the needy what we
have, ‘little be it or much.’ Inability to afford or fulfil a desire is
poverty, however rich we may be or think we are. It is not contentment.
To deny an innocuous desire, which we can afford to accumulate only and
withhold the accumulation from the needy, is greed and miserliness, not
contentment. Karma
and Rebirth on the Earth
In the cycle of our lives, death is not a consequence or a punishment.
It is the end of the physical body's task or its ability to complete
what remains to be done. The health and the age of the body are
irrelevant to the end of its role on the earth. Hence, deaths occur by
accidents, crime, illness and other causes at all ages in all states of
health. 177.
A rebirth is not necessary for everyone. Some can first attain
continual bliss and then reach God in one life. They do it after they
feel satiated with all their worldly desires and bear and exhaust all
consequences of their past deeds, which they treat as the best that
they deser-ved as they think God willed for them. By surrender of all
acts and themselves to God, they accumulate nothing in life for
rebirth. They can also get freedom from rebirth by other paths. Our
intent underlying actions, not actions themselves, determines a rebirth
on the earth or stay in hell or heaven, all temporary sojourns, till
the journey ends in reaching our origin, God. No one remains in heaven
or hell forever because in Sanaatana Dharma everyone's ultimate
destination is our loving Mother and Father, God, the Creator of the
universes.
God's Will
Supreme Over Karma Rebirth
or the Transmigration of the Human Being but not of Jeevaatmaa
By deep meditation, acquiring rarefied intellects and seeing beyond the
world, the Indian sages, however, discovered transmigration of the
human being as a universal phenomenon. God has rightly withheld the
conscious memory of our past lives to save us from suffering. We can
imagine the difficulty of living an uninhibited life if we were to
recognize so many in this life as our associates of our past lives with
varying intensity of our relationships with each. When a child
remembers its past, the modern parents suppress it lest the child be
put into an asylum. The same applies to one's psychic experience; for
example, seeing a beloved deceased in his astral form in person. So,
such experiences remain unspoken in a non-believing society. 180.
Modern research in hypnotic prenatal mental regression shows that a
man's memory of his past lives can be surfaced from his subconscious
mind. Different parts of the brain of a hypnotized subject in a
psychology laboratory are given delicate electric shocks. Response from
some part makes the subject describe occurrences in a language of
distant past of a place far from the present place of its birth. On
investigation, the occur-rences are found true to prove the
re-incarnation of the subject. Memory of occurrences cannot be created.
It is etched by experience. More experiments will re-establish rebirth
as a scientific law. Exceptional children who remember their past are
God's Glory. We sometimes forget that knowledge advances by a probe
into excep-tions. It is a pity that they aren't probed to open horizons
unknown to the one overwhelmed by pure reason. These horizons are known
to the disciplined and purified mind and heart that are the source of
limitless power and continual bliss. Where a holy book shuts out these
horizons to, and closes the mind of a society no one dare probe into
them despite the freedom of thought and expression claimed by such
advanced civilized societies. 181.
A rebirth is an opportunity God gives us out of His love to purify us
by making us undergo some or all of the consequences of our past deeds.
Rebirth follows from the law of karma. We do wrong or have an
unfulfilled desire and are born again to bear its consequence or to
fulfil our desire. The cycle ends by our eschewing desires and
incorrect acts for their fulfilment and doing only correct deeds that
are based on love for all and all dedicated to God. This manner of
living accumulates nothing to bear to cause rebirth. 182.
To bring about transmigration of the being in the human or any living
body is the role of the jeevaatmaa or soul underlying the body.
The soul, being Brahman in miniature, performs its role of being the
power, inspiration and grace in every object in the creation. Brahman
in Its miniature as the soul runs the cycle of creation, susten-ance
and destruction of the smallest entity to universes in the creation.
The incessant change in the form of every new creature or object by
time and activity is the basis for evolution. The creature or human
being retains the spirit-ual level of advance of one life in its next
life. Our progress towards God is not lost in rebirths. Barring rare
excep-tions, progress, not regression is the norm. But there is no
exception to the law of each one of us ending in God through
rebirths.
The jeevaatmaa is unaffected by all changes in the form of the
body that encases it or by what our active 'I' in the human body goes
through in each birth. Our being as the 'I' in the body dies and takes
rebirth or transmigrates. The soul is a mere witness, carrier and
inspirer of life for this being. The soul does not transmigrate
inasmuch as it never dies or takes birth. As the result of ‘I's karma,
the ‘I’ is reborn. When our being as the 'I' realizes its oneness with
the jeevaatmaa, the 'I' in us ceases to exist and we also cease
to be a being separate from the jeevaatmaa or God. So, on the
death of our body, we, without a distinct identity and one with the jeevaatmaa
regain our oneness with God. A
Man's Aim in Life – Continual Happiness 184.
Our range for enjoyment is vast. At its one end is the sensuous
enjoyment. For example, seeing a thing of beauty, hearing of celestial
music, smelling the fragrance of spring, tasting a meal prepared by the
loved one and the feel of the pleasant by touch. The finer are our
senses, the wider their range and the higher the enjoyment. This
positive enjoyment ceases with the disappearance of the object on which
it rests or when our mind is otherwise occupied. Merely being free from
disease, hardship, suffering, discontent, strain, anxiety and fear of
all kinds is called negative happiness. Negative happiness is,
how-ever, continual. It needs no effort for repetition of its
experience. It is independent of persons or things around us. It is
free from expectations and desires. It needs no props outside us. It
does not cease when we are engross-ed in mental activity, which is in
itself satisfying and joyous, and its joy is enhanced by our freedom
from the effort to secure joy. 185.
At the other end of the range of positive enjoyment is that through
uncontrolled senses and six passions as that of an animal. The excess
of lust is happiness for us but is a curse for society and often the
cause of crime. Anger is a pleasure when it destroys obstructions to
our desires. The pursuit of the demands of greed increases with each
joy of satisfaction. Our happiness from attachment to or possession of
material wealth becomes a disease. Almost unbeatable is the happiness
of pride or the love of name and fame and denigrating the meritorious.
Pride finds happiness in sycophancy and makes us blind to genuine
affection and respect not couched in flattery. Lastly, envy or jealousy
frees us from scruples for the pleasure of one-upmanship. The happiness
from each passion does not stay with us and needs effort for the
repetition of its experience. 186.
When selfish happiness of the above nature becomes the end of our life,
we cease to be healthy and natural. A little of sensual or worldly
pleasures is necessary for the survival of the race. Our engrossment in
them rapidly makes us an animal. Unless pointed out to us by someone
forcefully, on our own we cannot some-times imagine that we have
reached or are fast reaching the animal stage. This engrossment in
passions is a symptom of a diseased mind and the afflicted seldom knows
that he is diseased. 187.
By the mental attitude of detachment and exer-cise of discrimination,
Sanaatana Dharma wants us to grow out of our purely sensuous joy of
food, sex and sleep ordinarily of an animal and the luxury of physical
comfort as our lower human joy. Free from the demands of com-forts, it
wants us to experience the joy of inquiry, music and arts, the
intellectual joy of literature, philosophy and scientific research. It
wants us to experience the spiritual joy of contentment and peace, then
the indescribable divine joy of Brahmajnaana or of becoming
what we in reality are. And lastly, we have the supreme joy of the
selflessness on the earth of a karmayogi. Shree Krishna
suggested to Arjuna this supreme joy after giving him Brahmajnaana
and a vision of God. Shree Krishna's advice to Arjuna shows that the
bliss we derive in life from selfless service of society is something
we can never get in any other plane of existence or through any other
path, discipline or activity at any stage of our spiritual
develop-ment. Common sense also endorses Shree Krishna's advice
inasmuch as no one knows the bliss of after life. No one comes back to
tell us and mere listening is not our knowledge without its
experience. 188.
Sanaatana Dharma does not mortify flesh. It caters to its demand in the
householder stage of Varnaashrama Dharma. Without full
enjoyment in life and without even a trace left in us of an unfulfilled
desire, both of which show our attachment to the world, we must return
in rebirth to the earth. The happiness of the highest order in life is
the highest aim for a seeker. 189.
As long as we control our senses and passions, we remain human to enjoy
innocuous happiness. The intrusion of the power of passions destroys
this happi-ness. We trip into pandering to these eleven friends,
namely, five senses and six passions. In the end we find them our
masters and we as their slaves. If we do not satisfy our masters we are
unhappy, which is more painful than the erstwhile happiness in
controlling them. So, given a choice, we would rather be not miserable
but free within than be happy as slaves. With this decision, we
exper-ience that happiness is in contentment and freedom from
slavery. 190.
Surprisingly, many moderns think that it is not possible to secure
control over our five senses and six passions to reach a pure mind. So,
we should not waste effort in any discipline to control them. We should
treat them as our nature and adjust our life accordingly. This thinking
chooses not to know or to ignore the damage the uncontrolled passions
cause to us and to society. This thinking arises from our refusal to
study in depth the working of senses, passions and their vast powers
for our good. If we study ourselves, we understand our reality as one
with God. So, unlike animals, we all have the power of our mind to
control passions by self-discipline to benefit from that oneness with
God. Uncontrolled senses and passions are a nature superimposed over
our divine nature. Our divine nature expresses itself in all of us in
the form of virtues that passions suppress because virtues arise from
love. By being set on love all as one with ourselves as jnaana,
we can change this superimposed nature. A leopard has no superimposed
nature. So it cannot change itself. Self-discipline is the product of
our intelligence and of faith experienced by our heart. The heart, even
in partial control of passions that is partly purified, invokes God's
grace. Grace grants the heart an empowered mind which experiences its
noble desires being uncannily fulfilled and life easier than before
that control. 191.
As long as we identify ourselves with our physical body, our mind
remains willing to slave for the eleven masters. We notice that except
for hunger and sleep, all desires for thought or action arise as a
response to stimuli from the five senses and six passions. If the
perceptions do not stimulate the mind there is no response as a desire
or happiness by its fulfilment. The extent of happiness is directly
related to the sharpness of the senses and the intensity of our
passions to stimulate the mind. A little thought as to the purpose of
our life, what we are getting out of it, of what use to society is our
being, and so on, withdraws our mind from petty attractions. It becomes
insensitive to sensuous enjoyment, which we took so far as positive
happiness. This enjoyment ceases to be happiness. We soon realize that
we can also be happy by channelling our thoughts into a direction other
than that in which our particular desire urges us. Thus, the object
outside us for the fulfilment of that desire ceases to give a stimulus
to our mind. Our happiness ceases to be subord-inate to objects. We
find it within, in our absorption in benign thoughts, for example, for
others' wellbeing. Our happiness becomes independent of objects around
us. 192.
We observe that we are happier when our parents, family, relatives,
friends and acquaintances and surroundings are also happy and we share
with them our happiness. We can become a caring member of the family or
community. We help the aged and advise the needy gratis. By this, we
secure continual happiness without troughs of frustration from all
around and within us 193.
We can be given a choice between these two options. First is a
demanding effort in securing worldly happiness of wealth, name, and
fame. The second is a happy environment without any of this effort or
these worldly achievements. Many men, more among millionaires than
among others, may opt for the second. The second option comprises a man
who has a home where the breadwinner is awaited eagerly and lovingly at
the end of the day. His children are cheerful. His sleep is peaceful
and full of gratitude for his lot. If children are grown up they are in
occupations they enjoy. Each does its bit for parents unconcerned with
what the siblings do. When brothers, sisters and families meet it is
invariably an occasion for merrymaking. His parents are without illness
and loving and his friends intent on being helpful without asking. He
may not be rich, may not have many of the usual conveniences and may be
unknown outside his neighbourhood. He will not like to lose this little
that he has for a million, if he has the slightest doubt that he would
lose it in the exchange. The acquisition of a million with name and
fame is often happiness inferior to this man's. This superior happy
situation is often observed. It occurs when our self yields to
selflessness in our care not only for our near and dear ones but also
for all around us. It is happiness in the world but so rare as to be
not of it. 194.
Vedanta inquires into the basis of happiness and suffering. It reveals
the concept of maya. It is the shape of the world as we see it and
treat it as a fact around us. We think that the world is the source of
our happiness. We find that the world exists, as it is, because we
experience it to the limit of our five senses. If one sense is removed
our experience of the world and happiness from it changes. If two are
missing, both change still more. If we had six or seven senses our
experience of both would be totally different. Every change in our
experiencing capacity changes the world for us and our happiness from
it. The world is caused by our experience through the senses. It exists
only because we see and experience it. The source and extent of our
happiness are in the manner in which our mind responds or not to
impulses from our senses. Our happiness is not in the things around us
but in our mind, which corrects our perspective of them.
An example of perspective is this. Two persons eat the same food. For
the one fond of eating, the food is a gourmet's choice. The other
treats food as a necessary medicine to keep the body healthy to serve
its divine purpose, so the taste is not so material. The first person's
perspective is of an intellect subservient to the mind controlled by
the sense of taste and to the passion ego of a connoisseur of taste.
The second person's perspective is by an intellect that is in control
of the senses, mind and ego. This intellect is aligned with his inmost
Self or jeevaatmaa. It concentrates upon the purpose of his
body. It finds that purpose in continual bliss in the world and with
that to become one with the Ultimate Reality or God. It disregards the
power of senses and passions. When asleep, there is no world for us nor
any perspective, happiness or sorrow either. Thus depending upon our
perspective, the world is both existent and non-existent or real and
unreal. This contradiction arising from the play of our limited senses
and limitless passions to form our changing perspective of the world is
the role of maya. Maya keeps us ignorant of the Ultimate Reality
underlying the appearance called the world.
What is Maya? Man enters
life to fight for victory or defeat. This is maya. He is an
optimist from birth but he finds that what he wants to know moves away
as he tries. This is maya. Why should the man of science be
glorified for imitating nature? This is maya. Senses drag
us. We know that their satisfaction is not permanent. Yet, we cling to
them. This is maya. Our intellect fails to penetrate the wall of
cause and effect. This is maya. We think we are free yet at every
step we know that we are not. This is maya. A mother loves
her son whether he is a criminal or a saint. She cannot do otherwise.
This is maya. Time swallows up saints and sinners, kings and
peasants, the beautiful and the ugly. Our knowledge, our arts and
sciences – everything is rushing towards the goal of destruction by
time. But we are still trying to forget. This is maya. A man
faces in life this duality and contradictions continuously. He wants to
know but cannot know all. Desire is implanted in man yet we know
that good comes out of controlling desires. We want to be selfish but
we think that unselfishness is best. Optimism and pessimism
alternate with affluence and poverty. Everyone is going towards
death yet we cling to life. All these facts are maya. We are all running after
the Golden Fleece. It is all maya. Man finds solutions to
problems yet more problems are created. Affluence removes the problems
of poverty to substitute them with its own. A reform cannot be
universal. It is always partial, benefiting some and harming others.
Prosperity somewhere is causing misery elsewhere. All this
is maya. Why should it be so?
There is neither how nor why in a fact. Maya is a fact. Even to form a
proper image of what it is is difficult. To solve it is
impossible. Maya is a statement of the fact of this universe, of how it
is going on. It is argued that
evolution will eliminate evil. This argument is of the affluent. The
argument is fallacious. First, good and evil are not absolute
quantities. Second, that the quantum of good is increasing and that of
the evil is decreasing cannot be proved. Maya is not a theory of the
explanation of the world; it is simply a statement of facts as they
exist – that the very basis of our being is contradictions, good and
evil, life and death, happiness and sorrow. Nor can this state of
things be remedied. Desire is never satisfied
by the enjoyment of desires; it only increases the more, as fire when
butter is poured on it. This is true of sensuous, intellectual and all
enjoyments the human mind is capable of. All these are within maya
and its limitations. 196.
According to Vedanta, maya is God's power of creation of reality
and illusion both. Vivekananda described above what maya does.
Maya is itself inert, powerless and has no existence of its own. It is
God's power, a part or aspect of Him and acts by His inspiration and
grace. It creates the universe and the means for its preservation. It
creates the human body, senses, mind, passions and ‘I' consciousness.
In short, it causes our birth with an individuality. It creates
the illusion that makes us see perishable and unreal as permanent and
real. So, dualities or opposites, which we see in the world, are also
called maya. Maya is not merely the duality in the world, it
is also our experience of the appearance which maya creates for
us. 197.
According to the Book, maya's generals are the six passions. When
they control us, we see and act through them. Greed makes gold
irresistible. Otherwise, we pick it up and hand it over to police. The
world is an appearance (gold) and a reality (metal) both. All qualities
in objects arise from our perception, which our mind creates. For
example, we perceive a prostitute as bad but our male ego blinds us to
many lustful men without whom she would not be a prostitute. Similarly,
we blame the poor. We do not see that the selfish heartlessness of many
of the rich, who care only for themselves or at most for the largest
number and not for all, causes and perpetuates poverty amongst us. The
truth is different from what our mind creates. It is that every thing,
thought or phenomenon is qualityless in itself. Our uncontrolled
passions create our perception of likes and dislikes and so we see good
or bad qualities in things. By God's grace, when we can stand aside
from our senses and passions, maya ceases for us. Our whole
perspective undergoes a change. We see reality, which in common
parlance is called becoming objective. 198.
Objectivity itself rids us of many of our miseries. For example, old
parents develop unhappiness with the attention they receive from their
children. Their unhap-piness disappears when they give up thinking only
of themselves. That is selfishness. It disappears when they review
their expectations from children's point of view. They can check if
their expectations are inescapable, or if they would miss much if they
did not get that attention. They can look deeper into the needs of the
grandchildren that demand children's prime attention. In the end, they
realize that they are getting the best they had earned by their past
and should be thankful to God for it. 199.
The working of maya is more easily understood by observing the
career of another person. Maya causes him to accept as real happiness
that which is truly ephe-meral. He misses the happiness from the many
blessings which he has and which we can see. Through excess of greed or
envy, maya makes him miss the things he has for his happiness. It
makes him go after things that others have and for which he pines. That
pursuit makes him unnecessarily compete in one-upmanship. His happiness
through satisfaction of worldly desires creates more desires. It makes
him the tiring slave of desires arising from his six passions and five
senses. 200.
We know that the happiness of each man differs from another's in its
form and intensity. Each man's happiness arises from the way he is
attracted by things around him. There is no single form of happiness
which all can enjoy. All do not have the same intensity or capacity for
enjoyment. If we fail to get the best form of happiness, we come back
in a rebirth to search and get it till we are satiated with it. The
cycle of rebirths ends when we want nothing in the world. When we have
no desires to satisfy, we become free. Then we find our happiness in
seeing others happy. That is why sages free from desires are free from
troughs of unhappiness and pray for others in soli-tude so that others
too enjoy the happiness of freedom from desires.
Paths for Bliss 204.
Our situation is different when we are poor, diseased or in adversity.
We need relief. For this, we have to realize that our adversity is the
consequence of our incorrect past deeds. So, we resolve not to commit
wrong acts to add to or repeat adversity for us. We seek strength for
our resolve and effort and God's refuge from our past. His grace can
either increase our power to bear hardship or eliminate the unbearable
effects of adversity upon us or give relief otherwise. People rise from
poverty and adversity by confidence in their self that rests on their
faith in God as their succour in reality and in God's grace on their
effort. Though rare, we do come across some people in adversity who
never despair, are apparently unaffected by it and spread cheer all
round. The Shree
Raamacharita Maanasa concludes that the all-encompassing path for
continual bliss for us is that of benevolence for all as one with us in
God. Selfless benevolence is not possible if any of the six passions
plays in our mind. So, we try and motivate every thought, word or deed
by our love for the one we deal with as one with us. This frees us from
the power of senses and passions. Our persistence in the path of love
and continuous prayer to God to free us from senses and passions invoke
God's grace to give us control over senses and passions. This control
purifies our mind to make it one with our jeevaatmaa or
God. This makes God's grace our right. Grace enables us to achieve even
the unimaginable if it is noble and selfless. No true religion can find
fault with this path. |
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Dedication
Reviews
An Appeal
Author's
Note
Arrangement
of Book
Hindi
Spellings
Table of
Contents
Tribute to
Gandhi
Introduction
The Raama
Story
Philosophy
Baalakaandda
Ayodhyakaandda
Aranyakaandda
Kishkindhaakaandda
Sundarakaandda
Lankaakaandda
Uttarakaandda
Index
Glossary
Proper
Names
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Appendices
Ghazal