Articles for Saadhana

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.

I was speaking about how qualities, virtues, some of the refinements and excellences which are pertaining to our character, behavior and interaction become the sole focus in the pursuit of spiritual wisdom. On the first hearing, it is knowledge and that is meant for the intelligence. Yes, it is knowledge and also meant for intelligence. But what will the intelligence do? That knowledge has to be transmitted to the mind, the mind has to absorb and receive it or receive and absorb it. That absorption will have to percolate into the whole of our system, not merely in the psycho-intellectual system but in the biological body, that system also. Finally the senses will have to receive the knowledge and they will have to become sublimated.

Imagine, Janaka putri Sita, what a great soul she was! And she had all the cultural refinement that was possible being reared by Janaka, the greatest Rājarshi we have come to know. In spite of it, after having spent thirteen years in Dandakāranya along with her husband Rama and Lakshmana, it was a very austere life but interactional having to contend a number of rākshasās, liquidate them. So Rama felt very tired and he said, “Before going back to the palace, let us spend one year of peaceful, quiet and non-violent austerity, not having to kill anybody.” They decided to settle in Janasthāna, made a hermitage, Sita developed fast a garden around it. And while they were living to gain the austere merits before going back to the palace, suddenly appeared a golden dear. And in a matter of moments, she was allured by it, she proposed that she should have it, Rama agreed, Lakshmana stopped, it was of no avail, and within a matter of fifteen minutes, poor Janaki was in the chariot of Ravana, flying in the air. Just imagine!

So it is one thing to know; it is another thing to be governed, guided and sublimated by the knowledge. This part is called sādhanā, sādhanā and sādhanā. Our Bhagavad Gita is a book of sādhanā. Similarly our Ramayana and Mahabharata also are meant to become the sādhanā of the seekers. I was mentioning about viveka and vairāgya as the necessary qualities for pursuing spiritual wisdom. So while you hear spiritual wisdom discussed and revealed in many places and maybe you are enamored of it, inspired by it, excited by it, very good. But your emphasis should be on character, behavior and interaction of your personality.

There, this viveka means every time the thought process should be active in order to find out what is good, what is bad, what is lasting and what is fleeting. And you should become culturally, behaviorally, characterally and interactionally a votary of the lasting and not the fleeting. Because as it happened in the case of Janaki, anytime the sensory object may try to overpower us. This fact remains there.

So this vairāgya is an element which you have to cultivate. Vairāgya means not hating anything, merely physically distancing from anything. It is maturating your mind with the lessons, with the cardinals of dispassion. How will you do it? There are many statements and evaluations about life, about world, about senses, sensory objects.

Krishna says:

He says, upon every sensory object, there is a cap of attraction or repulsion. You cannot have a sensory object in this world with which you interact, which does not carry the cap of attraction and repulsion. Your role or your intention or attention should be not to be swayed by it, this is your sādhanā. You should not be swayed by it. You cannot have an object without attraction and repulsion. Attraction and repulsion become true only when you think of your mind.

Sita saw a golden deer and the mind developed a forceful attraction to it. So the objects are at a distance, attraction is within your mind. There is a magnetic process by virtue of which the sight or sound of something suddenly arouses a powerful attraction or repulsion. Now Krishna says, you should not be swayed by them. Consider that they are your enemy number one in the path of life.

Tayor-na vaśam-āgacchet-tau hy-asya paripanthinau - Understand them to be your stark enemies. Now just take this one value. Sensory objects carry attraction and repulsion. We should not be swayed by them. Consider them to be enemies’ number one on the path of your life.

How are you going to absorb it in your system? This is what you have to worry about. “I read it, I understood it, sometimes I remember it.” No, no, no, no! Why did you read it? Why did you remember it? Why did you think about it now and then? This value or this warning, this discipline should become concurrent, indispensable in your thought, words, speech, actions. That is a wonderful thing. This is called sādhanā. That is why repeated exposure to the scriptures, repeated reading, introspection; neither the exposure nor the reading will be effective until you absorb the lesson and make it a part of your life. Just like you take some nutrients, food and the food is assimilated and the blood picture changes after it, in the same manner, the reading and exposure must change the structure and content of your mind. Nobody will know whether it is changing or not, you alone will know. How will you make sure? This is called sādhanā.

So there are so many items presented to us in the form of stories, beautiful poetic statements, assessments etc. There are some life histories of good people, seekers and saints which will expose to you the great benefit and gift of dispassion.

Bhartṛhari, the great King says:

When I read it years back, I was so very happy as I always say. It is like a thousand moons rising on the sky on a new moon day.

Bhoga na bhuktā vayameva bhuktāḥ – Look my dear seeker, we are never enjoying anything of the world but the world is enjoying us. The world was there when your grandparents were there, their grandparents were there, all of them lived upon this earth enjoying the world and they left. World has not left. So who has enjoyed whom? You have not enjoyed and exhausted the world but the world has made you worn out and you go away in the process.

Any kind of an enjoyment is corroding the senses. Nothing happens to the objects, they remain fresh for others to enjoy, because you are not there to. Bhoga na bhuktā vayameva bhuktāḥ - We have not enjoyed the world; the world has enjoyed us.

Tapo na taptam vayameva taptāḥ – We feel we have done an austerity and we have become heated about it but actually we have not done any austerity. Austerity has scorched and heated us up. We have not completed the austerity. By undertaking austerity, you get worn out, you get tired, you get weakened. Austerity doesn’t become weak.

Kalo na yāto vayameva yatāḥ - We feel the day has passed, the week has passed, the month, the year, the decade. So the time has fled we say, but time has not gone. We are going, we are going, we become aged, time never becomes aged and old.

Tṛṣṇā na jīrṇo vayameva jīrṇāḥ - Desire never becomes aged. We become aged, old. The oldness, age, weakness, inability to move about as we wanted to and we were doing earlier, all these things are happening to us. No desire has become jīrṇā. Nothing has become worn out. Even at the age of 80, 90, the mind is picking up desires and growing. See, if you reflect upon this message, what more do you need to have dispassion?

So we must take time, spend half-an-hour, one hour, two hours, three hours, on cogitating over, ruminating over these values and when they are cogitated upon, meditated upon, contemplated upon, irresistibly it will gain a place in your mind psychology and it will become part of your personality as the colour of your skin, the tone of your voice. This is how dispassion is developed. It has to be developed, pursued, reinforced, strengthened, confirmed, deepened.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.