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Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.
I was speaking during the past 3 days, in the morning session, Prabhata Rashmih, about austerity – the different levels, kinds and qualities of it.
Any austerity, to begin with, will have to be based upon and related to the body and bodily use. Say, regularly, we go and prostrate before either the idols and pictures of God, or the knowers of Truth – the Mahatmas, and even elderly people. Our prostration means not just folding the hands before them. It is bending our body, kneeling, making the forehead touch their feet or even straight prostrations, sāṣṭāṁga praṇāma before whomever we want to prostrate. This itself is an austerity. Going to the temple, doing pradakshina or circumambulation is also an austerity. Waiting there in front of the deity while ārati is being performed – dīpārādhanā – that is also one. Chanting God’s name as long as you are present inside the temple without indulging in any other secular talk, that is also an austerity. All these are physical. Then it moves to the oral level. Using the tongue we do austerity. What is that? Recitation of Vishnu Sahasranama or similar items, reciting Bhagavad Gita, as we have here; then chanting various hymns and stotras, addressed to various deities – all these also are austerities.
Now with these two, physical body, then oral, the visible part of the austerity is over, the gross nature so to say. But the causal sphere in the human personality is inside the body. Every activity proceeds from the mind; it is initiated by the mind. The activity while it is on, is subsisting upon the same mind. And as it concludes, it again comes back to the mind, gets terminated there to remain as memory. Every day the event Prabhata Rashmih is conducted here. After sometime we go away, dispersing from here. “That event, there was a Prabhata Rashmih session, the Pushpa Samarpanam session; I participated in and came away.” This is in the form of an idea and a memory. I would like you to clearly understand, though we have a body, the body itself is activated, implemented, and employed by the mind. And the mind is not the body. Body is an aggregate of panchabhutas. The mind is besides the panchabhutas. All the panchabhutas are inert, whereas the mind is not so; it is an expression of Consciousness.So the causal as also the terminal level of all activities is the mind. So we have to take the austerity to the mind level. What is that austerity? Employ the mind in an austere manner! You can think about it and have the type of austerity you want. Ultimately it is a question of asking the mind to think and express such emotions which are purifying, elevating, ennobling and fulfilling. The same mind produces a number of negative and adverse emotions! You have to get into the arena of the mind and eliminate all the negative emotions like undue love, undue hatred, undue fear and their multiplications! At the same time, the mind should go on originating pure love, friendship, tolerance, kindness, consideration, sacrifice, and all that. I always say love, sympathy, and sacrifice are the 3 fundamental emotions or virtues of the mind. Get rid of the opposites and cultivate these. This is the real austerity.
So far as the intelligence is concerned, employ the intelligence on either God – the source of everything, the sustenance of everything, the dissolution of everything. What is the God or who is that God? This can be a thought! What is this world made up of? It has different substances with various properties, qualities, and the like! And surrounding everything, all planets and heavenly bodies, we have the colorless, odorless, quality-less space. Obviously all the planets and heavenly bodies have come from space. They dissolve into the space. Apparently, the space is nothing and nowhere! If the space is nothing and nowhere, from nothing and nowhere, can all things, a variety of things, ever be? Is it not a contradiction. Is it not a conflict? How do we explain? How are we to understand it? This can be a thought.
Another point of knowledge can be “Who am I?” and “What am I?” Everything is mine! So ‘I’ remains there! In sleep, we are unconscious of the world, the body, the mind, the intelligence, and also the ego! Even then we sleep and get up to say “I slept.” So, in sleep everything goes into naught, nothing! And from nothing, everything springs up when you wake up. So our wakefulness is, generally, is really, the creator of the world and our sleep is the dissolver. What is it in me which can wake up and create a world – infinite world? And what is that which is equally capable of dissolving and obliterating the whole world creation?
So, is not the ‘I’ far superior to everything I know, I feel, I experience, I understand? What is that which understands understanding? What is that which makes the mind think?
This is another knowledge. When the intelligence is applied to any one or more of these three, you will find that is austerity. Ultimately it is knowledge austerity, jñāna-tapas. That is why Krishna says in the 12th chapter of the Geeta:
मय्येव मन आधत्स्व मयि बुद्धिं निवेशय ।
निवसिष्यसि मय्येव अत ऊर्ध्वं न संशयः ।।
mayyeva mana ādhatsva mayi buddhiṁ niveśaya |
nivasiṣyasi mayyeva ata ūrdhvaṁ na saṁśayaḥ ||
-Bhagavat Gita 12.8
Dear Arjuna, you only have to do a twin project. What is that? Fix your mind exclusively, unflinchingly on me, God, and fix equally your intelligence on me, God. Once these two fixations are over, then you will be living in God, and your whole life will be Godly, Godliness, and a continuous extension of it! Now what do you think of this austerity?
Ultimately, the austerity is such that you start understanding. The same mind produces a thinker, that thinker causes thinking, and thinking brings an outcome called thought! So, how many are there? The pre-thinking substance, the thinker, the thinking, and the thought – four. Are there four? No, only one! Then how does it produce the three? Find it out! It takes place nowhere else than within your body, in your own mind! And your mind is not accessible to anyone else. I would say even God does not access your mind. So get into your mind, and understand what is the source of the whole thinking and emotional and ideational processes.
Ultimately you will find only one. The Consciousness has the inscrutable power of bringing about anything, displaying anything, manifesting anything, and wrapping up all that. That is what it does when you wake up and when you sleep!
Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.
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