Articles for Saadhana

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.

Spirituality is considered to be a complex subject. It is also equally held to be an extensive subject. If you think that this is so, you will reach nowhere. In spite of the complexity and extensiveness, spirituality is also a very light subject, very easy to practice and there is a brief presentation of spirituality also. Bhagavad Gita discusses the subject elaborately over 700 verses divided into eighteen chapters. It is very highly rational on the one hand, traditional and philosophical on the other. At the same time Bhagavad Gita is a book of sādhana where you will find ample instructions, ample suggestions, ample messages, any one of which you can practice yourself and reach perfection in this very life.

Listen to one or two important pronouncements.

"My dear Arjuna, understand that every being at the very time of birth is gripped by a delusion. That delusion is what makes it swing and dance between the pairs of opposites in this world." In fact, the world is a conglomeration or a collection of pairs of opposites - good and bad, right and wrong, profit and loss, pleasure and pain, happiness and unhappiness, puṇya and pāpa, svarga and naraka, man and woman, all these come under the pairs of opposites. They can be material things outside, they can be mental products inside, it can be philosophical concepts, everything is included in the pairs of opposites.

These pairs of opposites result by virtue of what - icchā-dveṣa-samutthena dvandva-mohena. The root of these pairs of opposites lies in one’s own mind, in the individual mind. The mind produces icchā – desire and dveṣa – hatred. We like some things, we dislike some things. We never question them. Is it necessary to have so many likes and so many dislikes? If ten people come to you, suddenly the mind feels, "Six people are alright, four are wrong." How do we know that? And why should we think in that manner? By dividing things like this you are getting into a delusion and a very serious bondage for you. The sight of the four will agitate you, irritate you, displease you unnecessarily. That is not the way things should be looked at. "Now this delusion, how can it be overcome?", is a question.

Yeṣāṁ tu-anta-gataṁ pāpaṁ janānāṁ puṇya-karmaṇām. Human life takes place when there is an equal measure of pāpa and puṇya. When puṇya exceeds people get born as angels, when pāpa increases they will get born in the subhuman kingdoms. So every one has got a beautiful couple of pāpa and puṇya. This pāpa has to be attenuated, it has to attenuate. What is the way? That is why we have the tradition of doing a number of puṇyakarmas. By the practice of puṇyakarmas when the pāpa declines and reduces, practically becomes extinct, then you can worship God with a lot of exhilaration and happiness unbrokenly.

What are the punyakarmas if you ask me, everything good, noble and useful, great in our religious traditions is considered to be a punyakarma. To summarize them – yajña, dāna and tapas are the three holy acts. Whatever is done as a dedication and offering to God is called yajña, a holy sacrifice. Whatever you do, even if you offer your daily activities, that becomes a yajña. That is what we should be able to do properly.

Dāna is whatever wealth, possession little or much you have, place them at the disposal of others with a request - "I would like you to please take what I give and make use of it. In so doing, I feel fulfilled. So please receive whatever I give." Whether you have big or small, a portion of whatever you have should be utilized for giving dāna. One becomes dāna when you offer something to people not related to you through blood and matrimony. Whenever you give something to blood and matrimony related people, then that becomes normally an obligation, they have a right to ask you, they will ask you, you have a duty to give. Here it should be given to those people who are outside the orbit of blood and matrimonial relationships.

Then tapas. Now so many people have come here this morning. Some of them have come from Chennai. They have come for a course in Trichur, they have taken time because of ‘X’ primarily to come here and attend this program. Getting up sufficiently earlier, arranging a bus, coming here, spending the time, participating in the program and going back. Certainly this is an austerity.

Austerity is sometimes some additional holy acts which you perform or dropping whatever you do regularly. For example, not eating one time of the day, fasting. That is an austerity. Reading some spiritual texts, Bhagavad Gita or so everyday apart from your secular activities, sometimes observing mauna, sitting in a place for meditation or introspection, all these are austerities. Austerity should be either something you incorporate newly or you eliminate whatever you do daily. These are the three punyakarmas into which everything that you do falls.

These punyakarmas alone will make your sinfulness attenuate and the mind will become pure and the pure mind will enable you to think of God and be devoted to him and in the very thought process you will become very peaceful, delightful and fulfilled.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.