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Harih Om Tat Sat. Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.
I generally say a good teacher is one who always reflects the student in him. What is meant by teaching? Sharing information and knowledge with the students. This process will become effective only when the students find it interesting and absorbing when the teacher speaks or shares whatever he has. The students will find it interesting provided whatever we say is somehow appealing to them. In the case of a teacher, the success lies in generating an abiding interest for knowledge in the student’s mind.
Every subject is dealt with by a teacher, so that teacher should think about the subject in a studently manner. Not that I want to teach and I speak. My teaching has to be effective so far as the students, the receiving party is concerned. That means the teacher should always reflect the studentship in his mind and then to shape his lessons or teaching in a manner assimilable and appealing to the students. I think this should be his constant striving, if not a struggle.
One day from the Trichur (stage) platform, I said in the local language: “Don’t think that I have come here to occupy this platform to tell you whatever you want. I will not. I have come here to say whatever you should want and to make you want it. I will not talk whatever you like or whatever you look for. I will talk to you whatever you should look for and make you understand that this is something that you definitely need.” In this way I was speaking.
About exposition, I always say the success of the exponent lies in robbing the hearts and minds of the listeners and steer them to wherever he wants and wherever they should reach. He must be able to get hold of their minds and then lead them to where the mind should go. This means a lot of understanding, analysis, examination, search, research etc.
Why I said this? I have been talking to you when I am here every day. Somebody was asking me, “Swamiji, are you not finding that you lack further information to share? Have you ever found your knowledge insufficient?” I said, “So far I haven’t found.” So today I was thinking what I should talk to you. So an idea came to my mind.
This spiritual knowledge is in a way very vast. At the same time, it is very brief and compact. Because of its vastness, people land here, land elsewhere, again go up, come down, not knowing what should be done. Gatāgataṁ kāma-kāmā labhante (Bhagavad Gita 9.21) as Krishna puts it. They go up, come back, go up and come back. We have already come back after having gone up. Again trying by rituals to go further up, is it not sheer foolishness? But nobody seems to be thinking like that.
So every time, we should try to cut short our effort. This means you must have a clear grasp of what is the ultimate goal of spirituality and how this goal becomes relevant to us and where do we stand. In all our śāstras you will find very very elaborate discussions, at the same time very brief and short descriptions and pronouncements also.
All our spirituality bears upon one fundamental fact. What is that fact? Our body is inert but we are alive. The right word to be used is we are ‘sentient’. The entire creation consists of mobile and immobile items. The immobile seemingly is infinitely more than the mobile. What is the difference between the mobile and immobile? In the case of the mobile, the immobile factors, the inert factors are animated and activated. So there is a presence that animates and activates the inert things. Our body is inert and insentient. It consists of matter and energy. Both of them are insentient. This body is very vibrant, capable of sensing, feeling, reacting etc. This ability does not come from matter and energy. So there must be another factor. That factor is the only item you have to think about. I mentioned already that it is consciousness.
The whole success of your sādhanā lies in knowing this third item. Is there any doubt about it - no because you have a mind to feel, think, generate emotions, knowledge, memory, experience etc. These are not properties of matter and energy. So there is a presence and you have to know it.
This is what our śāstras say - My dear man, you are not the body but the soul. What is the soul – the body-different factor or presence in your personality is the soul. The only description about the soul is that the soul is different from the body. If the soul is different from the body, that difference means much. The body is stout, the soul is not. The body is short, the soul is not. The body has color, no the soul does not have. Body has weight, no the soul does not have. The body was born. Because the soul is different from the body, when the body was born, it was not born. The body grows, soul does not grow. The body declines, the soul does not. The body dies, the soul does not.
What is meant by body-different, different from the body? If it is different from the body, whatever characteristics or conditions the body has or goes through, the soul does not have and will not go through. You have to bring about corrections and improvements in whatever you think, evaluate and express. This is one important factor in spirituality. Do you recognize that you are a body-different presence? And that should make a lot of difference! If I am a body-different presence, then all my estimations about life as a bodily projection is not correct.
When you understand this soul, what happens? You become free. You are able to make life a sport, something very light and harmonious. Whatever be the impact of the world, death, disease, poverty, anything like that, none of these things should be able to unsettle you. Everything you should look at from the viewpoint of the soul. And what is the goal that it is going to take you to - you are able to find harmony with the world. Previously it was all a number of conflicts, contradictions and what not. Now you are able to look at everything without being affected by any conflict or contradiction. Anything, you should not feel contradictions.
As the mind is good, it can also become very bad. As the mind is kind, it can become very cruel also. Either you have a mind and it is both or you don’t have a mind and nothing is there. So we have to reach a state of freedom from all the conflicts and plights of the world. And what is that freedom? With all this freedom, what are we going to do? Jump into a river or ocean and die? No. We will be able to live with a continuous note of reconciliation, harmony and fulfillment.
That lightness must be there, harmony must be there. Harmony means what? Harmony with all disharmonious items. Suppose sometimes you feel disharmony, you have to be in harmony with the disharmony. This is what Krishna right from the beginning has said. Be harmonious with sukha duhkhas, which the senses and the objects by their contacts create. So it is sukha duhkha samatva. Is it only that? In a way only that but it can be explained in other ways also.
‘Become a Jeevanmukta’ means what - one liberated from all the troubles and anxieties. What is that state like? So many descriptions can be given. I will tell you one śloka and you can think about it.
Atīta’ananusandhānam. Do not go on cogitating over, clinging to whatever things have developed, needless to say in the past. We are born to somebody. Under their custody, we might have gone through a lifestyle over which we had no control and then we started living with our knowledge and aspirations. Many things may come to pass. Simply be unaffected by them. It may be good, bad or neuter.
Atīta’ananusandhānam bhaviṣyad-avichāraṇam. Similarly, what is going to take place, be not concerned about it. What will take place? Only things which have already taken place in the world, will take place again. So is there anything going to be new? What do you think? How long has the world existed and what is your generation number? So are we going to have something more? The ancient man had only one body, five senses, a mind, intelligence and ego. The most modern man also has these alone. The world consisted of pañcabhūtas, trees, beings, creepers etc. The same are now. So what do you mean by a new development? Nothing new. And the world continues whether we want or not, whether we resist or not. So you don’t have to think about what will transpire, what will happen.
Atīta’ananusandhānam bhaviṣyad-avichāraṇam Audāsīnyam-api prāptam. Whatever is taking place now, have an udāsīna nature. Don’t so much cry and weep. Everybody is imbued by his own nature and all natures are moulded by mother nature. If there is a dacoit, the dacoit is part of nature. If there is an ascetic, he is equally a part of nature. So the best attitude will be like an udāsīna. Now if these three is ensured, you become a jeevanmukta, he says.
While you interact with the world and people, noble people will regard you and worship you. They worship you because they are noble and they have the worshipping tendency. Sādhubhiḥ pūjyamāne'smin - good people will worship you.
Pīḍyamāne'pi durjanaiḥ. As are good people, noble people, there will be bad and ignoble people. They will hurt you and torment you but have samabhāvo bhaved-yasya. When you start practicing this, you will find that it is a practice far more subtle and effective than meditation even. In meditation what happens? In the calm environment of the place in which you meditate, our mind is going to become indifferent to what takes place. And this practice is you simply carry on, whatever comes you will not be unnecessarily affected by. This is something very important.
Sādhubhiḥ pūjyamāne'smin. Noble people are given to worshipping the noble. That is why they worship. And ignoble people are equally and parallelly given to no worship. So the noble people will make you happy and comfortable and the other constricted people will make your life miserable. We should not think of an alternate at all. Samabhāvo bhaved-yasya. Like that a number of virtues and embellishments are presented. I think you should read some of these prakaraṇa granthas also to know what and how a jñāni lives and moves in this world; very good description.
I come back to the original point. You must have a fulcrumatic point in your pursuit - the soul is different from the body. Just see how foolish people are! “Swamiji, soul is different from the body. So when the body has fallen, where has the soul gone? And will it come back, when will it come back to my family? The body falls but the soul survives. Therefore, it must be going somewhere, please let me know.”
Is that the right interpretation or the soul is different from the body, so when the body was born, it was not born. When the body is present, then it is not present and when the body dies, it is not going to be absent. Never worry about presence, absence and mis-presence. This should be the right conclusion. But the mind does not allow the seeker to take that conclusion. Nevertheless, the fulcrumatic point is the soul.
When your mind is pure, intelligence is clear, the purity and clearance can be to such an extent that:
Viśuddha-sattvasya guṇāḥ prasādaḥ svātmānubhūtiḥ paramā praśāntiḥ - When your mind and personality becomes pure, automatically you become a storehouse of a number of virtues. Guṇāḥ prasādaḥ. Prasādaḥ means pleasantness. Svātmānubhūtiḥ - body-different soul. You were only saying (till now). Now you will feel, you are experiencing that animating presence.
Paramā praśāntiḥ. Then you will have supreme quietude, not quietude by small gains you have in the life.
Tṛptiḥ praharṣaḥ paramātma-niṣṭhā. You will be contended, joyous, exhilarated. Paramātma-niṣṭhā, that is the time when you have ātma-niṣṭhā. Ātma-niṣṭhā is not pujā-niṣṭhā nor is it dhyana-niṣṭhā nor is it tapo-niṣṭhā. Ātma-niṣṭhā is wherever one is, whatever one does, whatever may be, he remains unaffected and he is okay. In one language it is unaffectedness; in another language it is ātma-niṣṭhā.
Yayā sadānanda-rasaṁ samṛcchati. By virtue of which you always enjoy perennial niṣṭhā. Sadānanda-rasaṁ samṛcchati. You will always be able to taste that ānanda-rasa which is not pleasure, which is not pain. Very fortunate is the man who is able to get into this kind of a level.
Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.