Articles for Saadhana

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru. 

Whenever we speak of India, we always describe our land to be a very holy land. You may ask, are not all countries, their lands holy? I don't know. We consider India, Bharat as very holy because of the holy, pious and supremely sanctifying traditions and culture, the people of this land had gained right from the prehistoric times. And what more? They have been preserving these from generation to generation. No culture will be able to become current unless people belonging to each successive generation had understood them, absorbed them, imbibed them, pursued them, perfected them and either disseminated or bequeathed them.

So what do you think of the people of India who even now have some of the sublime traditions and culture evolved right in the Vedic times? When we look into the Vedas, you will find, we have hymns in the Vedic texts, compositions which are in praise of, in honour of the super human powers. When we look all around standing upon any portion of the Earth, you will find there is an endless expanse surrounding us. During the day, the sun is the bright orb from which the whole surface of the earth is lit off each time. During the night we find a number of stars, moon being the first luminary scattered all around. Automatically, any thinker any time will think that our earth is a small planet and we are surrounded by very, very great things. An object becomes big when you look at it from close quarters. It becomes smaller and smaller when the distance is more and more and more.

So, what should be the real size of the Sun, of the Moon and so many other stars? If the entire sky surrounding us must have all these planets and heavenly bodies, what should we think of this sky and who or what could have been the source of all of them? In this way, they started looking up and praising. The first praise obviously was to the Sun, because with the rising of the Sun, we had light to move about and do our work and gain our food, shelter and clothing etc. There was no illuminational facility as we have now during the night and we did not have any night shifts also working anywhere. So, Sun marked an unfailing friend and a benefactor of the Earth, rising early in the morning and setting at night. So they started praising and adoring the sun. Whenever you see something great and lofty before you, especially to which your life and activities certainly owe an allegiance, naturally praise, prayer and adoration are the notes of expression that emerge from our mouth. Thus, the Rigvedic hymns on Gayatri started, they were supplemented and complemented by a number of other items.

So in the Vedas you will find references to many superhuman powers. But the thinkers could not and did not stop there. They started extending their enquiry in closer quarters in a deeper manner until at last they reached the Upanishadic stage where their enquiries became internal and subjective. At one point they wondered – ‘Let us not worry about what are the external luminaries, where-from the moon comes, where-from the seasons appear etc. Let us look into our own personality. Only when I open my eyes, the eyes will see. And the eyes themselves are shaped by the power within in the mother's womb.’ So they were wondering, what is that power or potential or divinity which propels and activates the eyes enabling them to see? What is the power behind the ear, behind the mind, behind the intelligence? And they found that that power and presence which cannot be sensed by the eyes, heard by the ears but which enables the ears and the eyes to do their respective functions, that is the Supreme Reality.

That which is within the body which inspires and empowers the eyes and the ears to see and hear, that is the Supreme Reality and source of creation and not the idol or the picture you worship here. In this way they sang. So you can understand where-from they started and where did they end. In the Upanishads, it became practical and dedicated enquiries, investigations. When the intelligence posits a question before it and it starts pursuing the question, the knowledge tirtha-yatra, pilgrimage starts. And when you pursue the question, you get an answer. This is what Newton did when he saw an apple fall. He was wondering, why should it fall and that too vertically. It could have fled. It could have gone in any other direction. But it is always falling perpendicularly to the earth. So, there must be a relationship between the Earth and the apple. I think he started thinking about it for about a year. Only after that he arrived at the force of gravity. So, any knowledge proceeds a knowledge pilgrimage and this is taken up by the intelligence. And the whole process is inner, inner and inner.

Now they arrived at conclusions which were very, very stable and eternal. Why I mentioned this? Only to tell you that in the Upanishads it is all questions and answers. They sometimes say, this transpired at that place between ‘X’ and ‘Y’. For any narration to be effective, there must be three props. One is time - when did it happen. Another is - Where did it happen, place. And the third, with reference to whom, the personality. Time, place and personality are the three props on which anything can be narrated effectively. They understood that it was so.

So after the Upanishadic declarations and pronouncements were made, they thought how to make these things accessible to the ordinary people? This is how they started writing the Epic literature. In the Epics you will find it is always a narration unlike the Upanishads. The Upanishads do not say the time in which the Upanishads were evolved. But here you will find the entire time period is divided into Krta yuga, Treta yuga, Dwapara yuga and Kali yuga. And Kaliyuga is the one in which we are living. More than five thousand years have passed. I think it is 4,52,000 years or so, the entire length of Kaliyuga. Twice that is Dwapara yuga. Thrice Kaliyuga is Treta yuga and four times Kali yuga is Krta yuga. Altogether, ten Kali yugas make one Mahayuga, chaturyuga. So they started making a new calculation for time. We have got names indicating many, many items. It does not stop with hundred, thousand, lakh, ten lakh, crores. No. It goes further and further and further. And at one point of time, it becomes beyond our imagination. So they invented a new prop like Brahma. Brahma has got hundred years. And each year of Brahma is so much. One day of Brahma is so many kalpas etc, etc. So you will find a beautiful science spread out in the narrational process.

Now in the epics they found the best will be to narrate something with reference to persons, places and events, time, place and personality. That is how you have Ramayana which took place in Tretayuga. Rama was born to Dasaratha. Dasaratha was a great dynasty. It is called Surya vamsa, means what? Solar Dynasty. Our Earth itself is born of Sun. So, all of us are belonging to Solar Dynasties. Another dynasty is Lunar Dynasty. Every conceivable festival, important festival in India, is always associated with, related to the planetary positions in the sky. You call it prathama, dvitiya, the new moon day, the full moon day. Even we have Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. These are also planetary days. Monday is Soma, Chandra, Brihaspathy is Thursday. Sukra if Friday. Saturn is Saturday. Then we have two pakshas, one month. Twelve months constituting the year by which the Earth will have completed its revolution around the Sun. Everything is related geographically to the Earth and to the rest of the planets around.

We have identified each star, twenty-seven stars. It is not always single, a cluster on the sky. What is Aswathi, what is Bharani, what is Karthika, all these are defined. We also have trees, trees associated with each stars. Now in Kerala, the people have started planting twenty-seven trees after twenty-seven stars, in some of the temples who have land.

I say all these things only to make you understand that what I said yesterday, the entire narration is around some substantial personalities. Krishna referring to Yadu, his own predecessor who happened to meet an Avadhuta, got down from the chariot, prostrated before him and he was asking, “How is it my dear young man you have so much of brilliance, intelligence, amiabilities, softness etc. in spite of it, why is it that you are so stable and poised, not at all pulled and pushed by the allurements of the world? I would like you to tell me that great inner wisdom which gives you this stability, inner abundance, fulfillment and indifference to what is taking place all around.” So when Yadu makes such an inquiry from an Avadhuta, you can imagine what is the culture of this land. How did it spring? And the supreme wisdom is illustrated by a spiritual hippie. I think there is a lot for all of you to think about - Why this wisdom is presented from the mouth of a spiritual ascetic, an ascetic who is steeped in indifference, indifference, indifference, who has risen above all kinds of considerations and duties.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.