Articles for Saadhana

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru. 

Yesterday in Mukthisudhakaram, I completed enumeration of thirty verses on dispassion.

इन्द्रियार्थेषु वैराग्यमनहङ्कार एव च ।

indriyārtheṣu vairāgyam-anahaṅkāra eva ca ।

(Bhagavad Gita 13.8)

Indriyārtheṣu vairāgyam - Dispassion to all the sensory objects. The entire world is nothing but objects for the senses. We have five senses and whatever be the nature of the world, extent of world, variety in color, shape, sound, smell, all these together constitute objects to the five senses in our body. It is not the world that determines anything. It is our senses that determine everything. And the senses are determined by the mind. Mind is an expression of the soul.

So, the entire world is actually an expression of the soul. That we are not understanding. We don’t go into the place and importance of the mind. From the sensory functions, we are caught up, deluded and involved. The objects take over us and our whole life is triggered by this delusion. So Krishna says, out of the twenty constituents of jñāna, ‘indriyārtheṣu vairāgyam’, he lists as the tenth. Because this dispassion is something very important, I thought I will elaborate it, citing verses which have played an important role in my own life. All the verses that I have quoted are verses which I have learnt, I have been reciting, I have recited innumerable times.

Dispassion is not something that is to be gained after living in this world and undergoing disappointments, dejections, bereavement and all that. Dispassion has no connection with all this. Just like the world and world objects are lovable; they are also subject to dispassion. When you start thinking about them, everything in this world is fleeting. Our parents are fleeting, married partner is fleeting, brothers and sisters are, children are, houses and property are, wealth, earnings, even the qualifications in academic, everything is fleeting.

We lose our memory as we grow older and older. Whatever we have learnt, we are not able to remember. What do you say about it? Everything is fleeting. See, I want to talk. I am after bath very fresh. But see, yawning overtakes me. What am I to understand from this? Everything has got some impediments associated with it. When you start dwelling upon them properly, in an organized manner…. I am presenting poems, poetic compositions which will make you dwell upon many of the unfavorable and adverse factors about the world. It is a piece of education.

Is the world so? Is life so? Automatically, dispassion is the only quality that you can develop towards the world and life. So, it is something to be rationally, systematically, well-thought-out manner to be developed.

So I quoted thirty verses and the last verse is a very, very beautiful one. Bhartṛhari, the great poet who has written three centuries of verses, the last is on ‘vairagya’, dispassion. Can you imagine? One hundred verses he has written on dispassion alone. And when he was writing it, he was very joyous. And when I used to read, I was very joyous.

Generally disappointment and dispassion are words, on the very hearing of which you feel depressed, painful. But when I used to recite these verses on dispassion, the mind used to be very happy, delighted, delighted, delighted. One verse which I like immensely from Bhaja Govindam (By Sankaracharya) is

दिनयामिन्यौ सायं प्रातः
शिशिरवसन्तौ पुनरायातः ।
कालः क्रीडति गच्छत्यायु-
स्तदपि न मुञ्चत्याशावायुः ॥

dinayāmīnyau sāyam prātaḥ
śīśīravasantau punarāyātaḥ ।
kālaḥ krīḍatī gacchatyāyu-
staḍapi na ṁuñchatyāśāvāyuḥ ।।

(Bhaja Govindam – 12)

You know how many times I would have recited it! As I used to recite it at first, maybe when I was a boy, I was finding it so joyous. Normally disappointment and dispassion will be painful. If not painful, at least displeasing. But I had the reverse effect.

Dinayāmīnyau sāyam prātaḥ. That one line, I can sing thousands of times if my voice will permit ... dinayāmīnyau sāyam prātaḥ ... taḍapī na ṁuñchatyāśāvāyuḥ

kālaḥ krīḍatī gacchatyāyuḥ taḍapī na ṁuñchati āśāvāyuḥ. When I say ‘kālaḥ krīḍatī’ - time is actually playing, sporting. Whenever you see a sport, will you not be joyous? Only people go there to be joyous seeing the sports. One team will be extremely disappointed by getting defeated and the other team will be extremely joyous by being successful. Now you are seeing both and you are delighting. That means you can delight in delight, in defeat as well as success. Whereas, the defeated party, the defeated team is in pain, you are joyous, because no sport will be successful unless one team wins. If it is a draw game, what do you do? Ask them to play again. Thereafter you say, ‘Put on penalty kicks’. The first batch draw, again play, until one team scores one more than the other. So you are very definite that you want to put some people to disappointment and delight over it. Just see? Kālaḥ krīḍatī, the time is actually sporting.

Gacchatyāyuḥ.While the time is sporting, our life term is ebbing out. Just like from a mud pot there is a hole, water is going away.

In spite of all these things, the greater wonder is that ‘taḍapi na ṁuñchati āśāvāyuḥ’. Like breath, like breath, mind is breathing, mind is breathing desires. That breath of the mind in the form of desires is never-ending. Except joy, what will you get when you sing like this?

dinayāmīnyau sāyam prātaḥ ... śīśīravasantau punarāyātaḥ ।

dinayāmīnyau – Day. Yāma means what? Three hours. Three hours * 8 = One day. So it is three hours and seven and a half, our astrological measure called ‘nāzhika’.

dinayāmīnyau sāyam prātaḥ. So the yāmās pass, following that, the day also passes. Then, after the day, week, then the month, then the seasons, śīśīravasantau, śīśīra, vasanta etc.

punarāyātaḥ. They come again and again and again. And every time they come, it marks what? It marks passage of time, ebbing out of our life. But whatever happens, the desire continues to be. Is it not something to be laughed over? A very good lesson is repeatedly told, written and hammered into our brain. But we are not able to take the message, the writing on the wall.

Therefore he says

भज गोविन्दं भज गोविन्दं गोविन्दं भज मूढमते ।

Bhaja govindam bhaja govindam
Govindam bhaja mūḍamate ।।

Oh Fool! Go on worshipping Lord Mukunda, Lord Govinda.

Now, this is the nature of dispassion. The world produces dispassion, produces dispassion, produces dispassion. So Bhartṛhari has written ‘Vairagya-satakam’, hundred verses on dispassion. But the last verse is a beautiful verse. I don’t find dispassion there. What do I find? I find a beautiful crowning conclusion.

What does he say, in short? ‘My dear panchabhutas, it is by your association that all the experience and knowledge welled up in me, by association with you. So I am extremely grateful for you. Your association brings various kinds of knowledge. Objective knowledge it brings about. Equally so, subjective knowledge. Dispassion is something that I get because of my association with you. I understand the world and objects to be fleeting. It is because of my association with you. You tell me that the world is fleeting. My own senses are to comprehend your presence. So your association has been very enriching, refreshing and delightful. Now, after initially, the object knowledge and attraction that perhaps welled up in my mind, the later part became, very, very elevating. The lessons of dispassion!

So he says - ‘After having got the subjective elevating knowledge, now the time has come for me to go. So I express my gratitude towards you and I register my pranāmāñjali for you. I close my palms in obeisance to all of you and then I am entering into the brāhmic abode and getting dissolved into that.’ Can you imagine? All the dispassion is gone now. What happens is ‘I am extremely grateful to you. By your association I have been able to understand everything, A-Z. Ultimately, I am leaving with a sense of fulfillment, a crowning glory. So I register my respect to all of you by simply closing, joining my palms, and then I enter, I withdraw from all of you and I enter into my own inside to be dissolved into the Self, the brahman within.’ What a beautiful verse!

And he addresses every panchabhuta, giving it one position - mother, father, brother, friend, like that.

मातर्मेदिनि तात मारुत सखे तेजः सुबन्धो जल
भ्रातर्व्योम निबद्ध एष भवतामन्त्यः प्रणामाञ्जलिः ।
युष्मत्सङ्गवशोपजातसुकृतस्फारस्फुरन्निर्मल-
ज्ञानापास्तसमस्तमोहमहिमा लीये पर-ब्रह्मणि ॥ १०० ॥

mātar-medini tāta māruta sakhe tejah subandho jala
bhrātar-vyoma nibaddha eṣa bhavatām-antyaḥ praṇāmāñjaliḥ ।
yushmat-saṅgavaśopajāta-sukṛta-sphāra-sphuran-nirmala-
jñānāpāsta-samasta-moha-mahimā līye para-brahmaṇi ।। 100 ।।

(Vairagya satakam – 100)

‘By virtue of your association alone, I gain my spiritual wisdom. In the light of that wisdom, all the delusion, darkness, ignorance in my mind has been completely gone. Side by side, the glory of Brahman, the entire world is a glory of Brahman, my own being is another display of the same glory. I am ending up, ending up with this glorious note in my life. And the sense of duality, the sense of many-ness, all have been wiped off. I find only Brahman alone in this world, and ‘I’ is a revelation of that Brahman. So I leave, I leave all my external linkages. I close my eyes, close my mind, close my intelligence and I enter into my own within. I get dissolved, so to say, the ego is dissolved, the mind is dissolved, the intelligence is dissolved, and I simply become one with Brahman’.

mātar-medini tāta māruta sakhe tejah subandho jala
bhrātar-vyoma nibaddha eṣa bhavatām-antyaḥ praṇāmāñjaliḥ ।
yushmat-saṅgavaśopajāta-sukṛta-sphāra-sphuran-nirmala-
jñānāpāsta-samasta-moha-mahimā līye para-brahmaṇi ।। 100 ।।

My dear souls, children, please understand. I want every one of you to leave this world, maybe your wife or husband is by the side, the children are by the side, you are in the house which you recently bought; you have not lived here for long.

A close devotee of mine was saying, “Swamiji, we have lived in Ernakulum, we have bought a house, my father has spent some money to remodel it. We have not lived enough but my father has to sell it to clear the loan, defalcation loan incurred by the son. I feel very bad.” I told her, “Why are you feeling like this? House is actually like money. It is real estate money. You acquire it just like you deposit money. When the money deposited is to be withdrawn for expenditure, will you feel sorry? Suppose you die keeping the deposit? Who will spend that money? You will not be able to spend. So, simply walk away with a smiling face.”

But her words are still ringing in my heart, in my ears. What? “Swamiji, we have not lived there for long”. That satisfaction is not there. Never think so. Every one of you should be able to leave this world with this wonderful, wonderful, wonderful harmony and fulfillment.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.