Articles for Saadhana

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

Yesterday I was speaking about a very important verse in Bhagavad Gita.

“Many people have attained to my status by doing jñāna tapas and transcending rāga, dvesha and bhaya.” This is what Krishna said. Nandita is asking me, “Whenever we slip in doing this sādhanā, what is the way?” When somebody falls, what does he do? He gets up or somebody comes and helps him. Arjuna really crumbled and then Krishna lifted him up. The same is the truth here also. There is a verse in Bhagavad Gita:

You acquire spiritual wisdom not to keep it in the shelf of your head. You are acquiring spiritual wisdom to always make it vibrant and effective in you in three fields. One is the field of the mind where you think, feel, reason etc. The next is in your speech. The third is in your action. Whatever you think, whatever you speak, whatever you do, in all these three, the wisdom that you have heard or acquired should have a specific reflection.

Vītarāga-bhaya-krodhāh. We have heard, we have read, we have remembered. The question is, are you trying to transcend rāga, dvesha and bhaya or are you trying to multiply and intensify it doing your activity? This is a question you must always ask. Generally, people follow rāga, dvesha and bhaya, thereby their number is increased, their intensity is increased and their frequency is increased.

I think when you have accepted the principle that you have to transcend them, what will immediately take place is you will not allow your mind to follow rāga, dvesha or bhaya. Suppose somewhere rāga, dvesha or bhaya grips you, instantly you will know and then feel ‘I am getting gripped by rāga, dvesha, bhaya. It is not right. I should not allow it’. The very thought that ‘I am gripped and I should not allow’, that itself is like pressing a torch in front of darkness. First of all, you let me know whether it is so or not. This jñāna is like light and ignorance is like darkness. When the jñāna torch is pressed, automatically the ignorant darkness or ignorance darkness will flee.

So, you should remember that “I am succumbing to rāga, I am succumbing to dvesha and I am succumbing to bhaya. Is it right?” The answer is it is not right. “Then what shall I do? I should save myself. How to save myself? Drop rāga, drop dvesha and drop bhaya.” At least understand that you should drop.

When thoughts dissuading rāga, dvesha and bhaya arise in your mind, as they were trying to grip you earlier, now you will find they try to leave you. Both courses are equally present and available to you within the mind. Why don’t you understand it? Why don’t you try it? Rāga is wrong, rāga is wrong, rāga is wrong. Saying this will you indulge in rāga? Or the very indulgence will dwindle, will reduce? If it starts reducing, there will come a day when it becomes extinct.

Suppose I start taking a spoonful of milk from a large vessel containing 100 liters of milk. I take one spoonful, then another. Don’t you think with every spoonful, the quantity reduces and there will come a time when the whole of it is over? Why don’t you understand my dear children that this is so with your sādhanā also? Then why is it that people don’t progress? Because they don’t apply it.

When rāga, dvesha and bhaya takes over, you (usually) never think against them. You try to think justifying whatever has taken place. In other words, our thoughts are pro rāga dvesha bhayas; our efforts are pro. This situation should change and your thoughts and efforts should be to reduce them, to minimize them, to mitigate them, to attenuate them completely. If you start making efforts for attenuating them, will not the efforts succeed degree by degree, degree by degree. degree by degree? How can anybody say it will not? Then it is not enough.

If you start placing your foot one after the other forward, will you not cover a distance every time? If you climb up a mountain, however much hard the climbing will be, even if you put one millimeter ahead the next foot, you will be climbing. How many times? Why don’t you try? It is such a wonderful process. But you should not justify your mistakes, you should not justify your confusion. I think it is a question of sincerity and dedicated effort, nothing else. This śloka is a measuring rod.

tad-buddhayas-tad-ātmānas-tan-niṣṭhās-tat-parāyaṇāḥ |

Understand that there is only one course of life, one course for you in your life, that is transcend rāga, dvesha, bhayas. It is not acquiring money, getting a better job, getting married, having a child of your choice, purchasing a house, paying your EMI in time. No, this is not. If you want to have fullness and abundance to your life, then you will have to overcome rāga dvesha bhayas. And for that, understand the science, identify yourself with the science, make it a nishta or a pursuit in your life and have your refuge under that. Just like you depend upon your bank balance for writing a cheque for expenditure, you must be able to depend upon this truth, this fact, this possibility. I think for any intelligent man, as I understand, it should be easy. But you don’t question it and get clarification and make sure that it is so. That is the only problem.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.