Articles for Saadhana

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.

Do you know why the spiritual seekers are not progressing in their sādhana or seeking? I think it is primarily because they don’t have the love, devotion and association with the sadguru. They must have the blessing of having a living guru. They must also love and cherish association with him, being by his side, listening to what he says. Listening to what he says is not sufficient. There must be a great deal of devotion to that listening. Then alone he will feel like incorporating whatever he has had into his life.

If he is initiated by the guru, the fact of initiation will always be in his mind. After all, what is the sādhana? The sādhana is that it’s what is instructed by the Guru, passed on to him through the deeksha. If he is doing sādhana, just like a circle is revolving around the center, the sādhana is revolving around the deeksha and the guru. He cannot do his sādhana except feeling grateful to the guru and wanting to intensify his sādhana by being in his presence in one way or the other and reinforcing himself. At every point of time either from a distance or from proximity, the guru-saṅga should be fostered and should be repeatedly sought and intensified.

The same applies to the śāstrās. We learn the scriptures. First of all you should know what are the scriptures. The scriptures are the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita and the aphoristic presentation of these pronouncements in the form of Brahma Sutras. Many people cannot go through the Brahma Sutras as they are not as comfortable as the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita.

We have a number of independent texts which explain the purport, the message, the importance of the Upanishadic and Bhagavad Gita teachings. Vivekachudamani is one important text, an allied text. Just listen to one verse from Vivekachudamani.

Avijñāte pare tattve - When the supreme truth, the self is not properly known and realized.

Śāstrādhītistu niṣphalā. Śāstrā adhītih tu nishphala - The learning of the scriptures is useless.

What does it say? Avijñāte pare tattve. When the supreme truth is not realized, experienced, for which the śāstrās repeatedly exhort the reader, then what do you mean by learning the scriptures, knowing the scriptures? It has got no meaning at all.

So the scriptures are only to exhort people and guide the seekers to realize the truth. If that realization part is not taken up, pursued and it is missed then the learning becomes futile, useless.

Then see, in the next line he says. Vijñate’pi pare tattve, instead of avijñāta, the ‘a’ is dropped, and ‘pi’ is added to complete the line. Vijñate’pi pare tattve, pare tattve - The supreme truth, vijñate’pi - When realized, when known, śāstrādhītistu niṣphalā - Then no more learning of the scriptures is necessary. When you have realized the truth, you will have the force and inspiration and knowledge of realization and that will guide you.

How and when did I start speaking? I was not a speaker, I was not a debater. I did not know also that I wanted to speak or I would speak. But I had one feeling. I took deeksha from the guru and I felt that I will implicitly and wholesomely follow the sādhana and I would only do that. I mentioned to my Gurudev that “I don’t like to read. Is there any harm?” People are interested in reading a lot. My brother was reading quite much but I somehow felt that I don’t like to read. Whenever I get time I would meditate. I would sit rather, not meditate, I would sit in my sādhana. He said, “Yes. Of course. You need not.” But he added, “Whenever you have to read and you want to read, the book will come to your table.” So I sought permission from him not to read thinking that doing the sādhana itself was sufficient.

Why am I reading? Only to get the realization. Realization can be had only within my body in the mind by sādhana. So let me do the direct part called the sādhana in order to realize whatever is the goal. So I wanted to cut short the reading process and I went on doing the sādhana. What was the idea? The idea is whenever I have some realization and if for any reason I want to speak about it when such an occasion arises then I have the minimum vocabulary with me by which I can speak. So where the question of reading the scriptures comes repeatedly?

So you can imagine how intense and wholesome my mind must have been in having said so, sought so and done so. And maybe in about 1 1/2 or two years I felt like reading. Mundakopanishad was the first book which came to my table and I started reading. When I was reading the first part of the Mundakopanishad I was breathless. ‘What? What? What? What? It speaks so much about the rituals?’ Then presenting the statements one after the other, at one point it says,

Oh! My breathlessness stopped. Examining all the ritualistic world that one gets, the seeker should attain total indifference to it. He should come to the conclusion that ‘nāsti akṛtaḥ kṛtena’. The goal to be attained is not one of activity, intensity and vibration. All karmas are vibrational or movemental. The goal is not something like that. The goal is something in the way, you go to a place, it’s very beautiful. What will you do? You will stand there and see. There is no more movement and activity. So you have to realize the truth. That realization is in the way of a stillness, steadiness, and lingering focus. So in order to attain such a state, rituals in the form of activity cannot be the means. So there seems to be a secret.

Tad-vijñānārtham - In order to know that.

Saḥ - The man of indifference, the seeker.

Gurumevābhigachet - Should go to the guru.

samitpāṇiḥ srotriyam brahmaniṣṭam - He should go to a guru who is a srotriya, well versed in the scriptures.

Brahmaniṣṭam - Who is well seated in Brahman. Brahman alone is his niṣṭa.

You know my Gurudev, I have found in him no activity of any kind. Whenever I used to see, invariably he was on his head, ‘Śīrśāsanam’. Otherwise he would take his sitar or harmonium and play and sing. Very rarely I have found him reading a newspaper or any other book. He would go to the bathroom for his bath, he would also have his food, tea he used to have wherever he was, such a sedentary person! My Purushottama Swamiji onetime said that he was so much on his head that his beard was grey but hair was not grey. One.

Secondly whenever he used to walk he was unstable. His hip will go to the left and right. Because he was not walking! The minimum walking was necessary! Now such a totally still person, sedentary person, I don’t think people in the caves are like that.

Srotriyam brahmaniṣṭam, there cannot be a greater brahmaniṣṭa than himself. I am sometimes wondering. I am living in the second floor. And in the second floor I am living, I am doing my exercise there, when it is necessary I come by lift to the first floor, very rarely I go to the ground floor and even walking outside, I think for one or two years now that is also not taking place. I am also becoming sedentary I believe. Just see? That brahmaniṣṭa. So one should go to such a Guru he says.

You know when I read it many, many years back, maybe 65 years back, every since then that reading is what I am repeating now. This is how you have to absorb ideas from the scriptures, incorporate them as like blood flow in your system.

So reading the scriptures is of no avail unless you take to the sādhana and realize the self. When you realize the self, then also reading becomes unnecessary.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.