Articles for Saadhana

Harih Om Tat Sat. Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.

I have always felt that reading, hearing and dialogue are the sole and determining factor in spiritual life particularly of the wholesome seeker, whole-time seeker. I don’t know whether my sentence has been understood by you. Reading, reading, reading, thinking, then listening, these are perhaps the only countable sādhanā of a seeker’s life. Why is it so? It is so because by spiritual science and pursuit, we propose to have peace and contentment for the mind, then full and full knowledge and realization for the intelligence. By spiritual science and practice, normally people don’t feel that their hunger will be appeased. But a good and a whole-time spiritual seeker sooner or later will reach a stage where his bodily needs also will be looked after by spirituality. We belong to that category. But mind you, our merits are mind, intelligence and the austerity pursuit, these two together do.

The next point that I want to tell you is that realization or knowledge belongs to the intelligence. It does not belong to the mind even. It does not belong to the body or the senses. We only have body and senses, then we have the mind, then we have the intelligence, that’s all! For experiencing! Spiritual experience is primarily and ultimately for the mind and intelligence.

Parikshit Maharaja had done many Ashwamedha yāgās. Even then, that sinful tendency in him put him into great trouble. The thirst of the stomach of the body overpowered the discretion of his mind and he did an unthinkable pāpa by putting a dead cobra on the neck of Sameeka Maharishi. If Ashwamedha yāga was effective and purifying, do you think such a simple but grave crime he would have committed? It is not a crime in our language, it was a crime in his language also. It invited the curse of Sameeka Maharishi’s son though Sameeka Maharishi himself did not want to do it. And that curse of the child was far more powerful than the act of the King. The King instantly said that, “I will stop my food and drink for the rest of my life, any way I am going to die on the seventh day.” And what did Parikshit do during the six-and-a-half days? He only listened to Suka Maharishi.

Now can you contrast it with the Ashwamedha yāgās he performed? None of them was able to take him to where he wanted to. But the listening, listening and only listening which he did in front of Suka Maharishi took him to where he wanted. His goal was secular on the one hand and spiritual on the other. The secular goal was before Takshaka came and bit him, he wanted to get away from the act, from the effect. That was the secular bodily, biological effect. Then he wanted to have spiritual fruition and fulfillment. Both he had only by listening, only by listening, only by listening. You have to underline it one hundred crores of times, only by listening, only by listening.

His Ashwamedha yāga was of no consequence. That is why he did that crime, that pāpa. And to mitigate the pāpa and wipe it off, what he resorted to was “Feast my ears with the stories of God and the enunciation of the spiritual truths”. Both of them he only heard. But the hearing automatically penetrated into the mind and intelligence, purified the mind and enlightened the intelligence. What is this enlightenment? I don’t know how to explain it to you. I don’t think you will easily understand unless you sit before me saying that, “Please explain to me this enlightenment. What is it that you want, has to do?”

A person is living and moving before you. Suddenly he falls, the body becomes lifeless. You look at the body and find no pulsation. Looking at the body and finding no pulsation is a visual act. How do you say he has died and the soul has left? You have not seen the soul. Have you seen it leave? Then how dare you say that it has left and there is no soul in the body? It only stopped its pulsation. So the visual knowledge was - there was no pulsation, the other knowledge was of the intelligence. As you looking at the lifeless body and say that the actual soul, the person is no more there and he has left, now the visual knowledge is correct, true; the other knowledge which you make through the intelligence is also equally right. So there are some facts which can be observed by the senses. The other facts cannot be observed by the senses. When the knowledge coming to you through the intelligence becomes as direct, as full and as consequential as whatever you see with the senses, it becomes a realization of the intelligence. Have you understood me?

The knowledge which intelligence alone can get is not an intellectual knowledge. The knowledge which you get through your eyes, is it a visual knowledge? Visual is only the means, the medium for it but the knowledge is you, the person. Similarly, the knowledge you get from the intelligence, through the intelligence, is as effective as what you see with the senses. But you generally call it “Intellectually I understand but spiritually I have not understood”. That means you are not able to understand the place and importance of intelligence.

The soul realization comes to you only through the intelligence. The knowledge of the world comes to you through the senses, the object knowledge. The subject knowledge will come to you only through the intelligence. So whatever you understand with the intelligence is on a par with whatever you feel with the senses. As sensory knowledge is direct and full, the knowledge of the intelligence also should become direct and full. Now this does not happen. You still consider it to be intellectual.

You tell me, whatever Parikshit had by listening to Suka Maharishi for the six-and-a-half days, was it intellectual? He says, “siddho’smi anugṛhīto’smi bhavatā karuṇātmanā, I have become spiritually, an attained soul. I am immensely blessed by you, by your merciful glance and merciful dialogue. I don’t fear death. I don’t fear Takshaka. I withdraw my senses from the world, I withdraw my mind from the senses, I withdraw my intelligence from the mind and here I go deep down into myself”. By this much of time, Parikshit had completely sunk within his body. Takshaka came and administered its bite on the body, but on the body not on Parikshit. Parikshit was not there to identify with the body and say, “I have been bitten by Takshaka”. Just like one will go to sleep, Parikshit also went to an absorbed state. You tell me how he had it. Did he do any tapasya? Either no or if yes, the tapasya was mento-intellectual and that was listening to Suka Maharishi.

Can you make out this message? What is the message and how does it work on us? So I again repeat - A sight you see with the senses, a sound you hear with the ears, what kind of a knowledge realization, experience, impact it has, the same knowledge, realization and experience impact, whatever you hear with the intelligence also must have. In spirituality, you can only listen to or read. And after reading and after listening, the whole effect is worked on your mind and intelligence. Just like seeing an object, here you will find the subject becomes clear to you and you realize it, realize it, realize it. Just like you see with the senses, you realize and know with the intelligence.

Can you now tell me the knowledge I get through the intelligence is equal in its effect with the knowledge I get from the senses? Here is fire blazing, it is hot. If I go near it, I will feel the heat. If I touch it, I will get burnt. This is a knowledge. In the same manner, before the intelligence whatever is there within my body, that inner presence is spiritual, supra-material and supra-energial. It is so clear to me though it is not visible like the body. So the body is a realization before the senses. And the soul, the subject is a realization before the intelligence. Both of them are equally dancing in me.

Our Ashram is actually a place for jñāna niṣṭa. Here we don’t do any pooja. We don’t do any ritual. The only ritual will be hearing, hearing, having satsang, reading the book, thinking about it, have interpersonal relationship with the knowledgeable people here and always try to get transformation in your mind and intelligence. That is the sādhanā we do here. Please understand it.

The formula is this. The knowledge we get with the intelligence, that is the soul should be as equal, as effective, as wholesome as the knowledge you get from the senses. In the case of the soul, the sense to be employed is the intelligence! So that intelligence getting the knowledge of the soul is just like our eyes getting the sight color and shape of an object. I don’t know whether it is clear to you.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.