Articles for Saadhana

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.

I thought I would speak something on some very sensitive points in spiritual pursuit and fulfillment.  These are points which people generally don’t discuss, even if they discuss, neither those who discuss nor those who hear have the necessary clarity, quest and discrimination to sort out the point. I was speaking yesterday about:

Three kinds of people; one is ignorant, inattentive and saṁśayātmā – doubtful. The word saṁśaya means doubt. This doubt is the last factor to leave a seeker’s mind. You have to extend the meaning and relevance of the word ‘doubt’ sufficiently well.

We have a great tradition. We also have an amazing wealth of literature in the field of religion, spirituality, yoga and philosophy. In one way, our Vedas are the most foundational scripture. They are beginning-less also. The sanctity that we give Vedas is par excellent, supreme. I wonder whether you know it sufficiently well and you are able to appreciate it. But our Vedas and allied texts generally speak about quite a number of things. The life before our birth and the life after our death, birth and death of the body, a lot is spoken about these. Many of the rituals are intended to cover this pre-birth and post-death periods of our life.

Perform Jyothistoma-yaga and you will get heaven. Do this, do that, you will get Prajapathi Loka, the world of the creator. Then you can get Indra Loka, Chandra Loka etc. And so many people take to these statements and perform the rituals and ceremonies. What are they pinning on? They are pinning on an attainment or a reward they will get after the body falls. But what is their life? Their life is after the birth of the body and before the death. In such a life, can we rely upon and look to things before and after? Everything is direct for us, prathyaksha. In that prathyaksha life, can we depend upon non- Prathyaksha factors? Such a thought is never taken up.

Now, Sankaracharya would say that it is true, that our sastras and sastra authors have dealt with some items which are not experiential, which cannot be experienced directly by us. We are not going to question them. Because whatever they have said in the experiential manner, they are all true and factual. So, if they have said something about the other area, we are not going to question them. But I only want to say, that they are always a matter of doubt.

So, the Vedic and the post-Vedic or allied declarations can be categorized into two: One is Anubhavārūḍa and another is Ananubhavārūḍa. One is experiential. Another is non-experiential.  Now, whenever you think of the non-experiential, will there not be a doubt?  In a light-hearted manner I used to say, "Our rockets have gone up. If there was a heaven, the rockets should have pierced the heaven." They were not able to report anything like that. So, what are these items? They don’t have a direct meaning but they have an indirect meaning and relevance.  So, he says, whenever you have a doubt about the inexperiential things, the safest course will be to keep them completely away and take to the experiential ones. 

In matters which are not experiential, for instance, swarga and allied matters, there will always will be a doubt as to whether they are or they are not. Why do you base your performances on such a basis on such an item? So, he says leave them. And whatever is experiential we can experience like the world, that you accept. And that experiential truth is about the self and its characteristics, it is unborn, undying, it is blissful, it is changeless, it cannot be acted upon by anything etc. So, the doubtful and the doubtless, this has to be distinguished.

I feel that all our puranas are trying to inculcate in the reader and listener, the art and process of discrimination, viveka. You have to distinguish between matters like white and black, black and red, red and blue, blue and yellow, similarly male voice, female voice, just like we are discriminating the objects of the senses, in the same manner we must be able to discriminate between the truth and the untruth, the doubtless and the doubtful.  This is the quality our puranas try to cultivate. Ultimately, you have to distinguish between the body and the soul, the thinker and the thinking and the thought. The wakefulness from the waker, dream from the dreamer, sleep from the sleeper, understanding that this fourth factor is the same and is present everywhere. This is how it proceeds.

People who do sadhana, they will do sadhana. And when their sadhana produces bliss, joy etc. you know when they end up, what is actually taking place? Have I got what I wanted? Is this the true state that I am supposed to reach? Is there anything more and beyond? These are the doubts which come. Now there is a state when you don’t have such a doubt even. That state is called ‘Nirvikalpa’.  Vikalpa means doubt. Nirvikalpa means doubt free. People think that Nirvikalpa Samadhi is an absorptional one. Not at all! If it is an absorptional one, sleep itself is sufficient for us. We must be able to know matters so well and so clearly, that you will have no doubt about what you have attained, about what further to be attained, that fulfillment will come.  This is what Bhagavad Gita says…

Your intelligence which has heard a number of different accounts from yogis, from knowers, from devotees and from ‘x’ and ‘y’, the result is the intelligence is getting tossed by listening to crisscross accounts of even spirituality. When that doubtful intelligence leaves all doubts, and remaining firm and unflickering, that is the supreme state. So, the supreme state is a state of clarity and the resultant stillness the mind and the intelligence get to. I thought this is a point that all of you will do well to know.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.