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Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.
Last night during the satsang, I was speaking about how the pronouncements, evaluations, declarations, assessments, comparisons, contrasts, statements, inferences, everything has to be taken into account with all supremacy, sanctity and sublimity. When you are reading śāstras, these śāstras were not evolved in one day. They have not existed for just a decade, a century or even a thousand years. Unless these statements are true, wholesome and valid, they would not have prevailed in the country for such a long time. So everything is a time-tested one. I was thinking repeatedly about one point. We always speak about ego, ego, ego. This morning, when I was editing some portion from Vicharasarani I found something is written about Ego.
Every one of us has a body. This body was shaped in the mother's womb. Can you tell me whether any one has interfered, helped, participated, guided in any manner in shaping our body? It was initially a cell or two. They started growing. In one place, it became the eyes. In another place, it became the nose. In a third place, it became the ear. Each with a different capacity and remaining supreme and unchallenged in that role. In order to maintain the body we have a brain, we have an alimentary canal, there are so many different organs, secretions, digestion, assimilation, blood formation, then a vocal system, heart, lungs; the whole body is maintained by an intricate system. In all these things, will you please tell me whether anybody known to you in your life has played any role? The answer is 'No'.
If this is the body that we have and in order to preserve this body, we breathe air, we drink water, we have food, we are retained in the earth by the earth itself. The earth is actually revolving at a great speed. Despite the speed, all of us are sticking to the earth. Normally we would have gone away from the earth but because of the gravity of the earth, we are retained. In this, do you have any role to play? No! Then what is it that you are becoming egoistic about?
Your eyes see because they are empowered to see. Your ears hear because they are empowered to hear. The mind thinks because it is enabled to think. The intelligence reasons because it has got the capacity and empowerment to do so. Are you using the faculties with the powers they already have or have you contributed any power to anything? And in using them also, you are just functioning in an ordained manner.
So, where is the question of ego coming here? Ego about what? That I am looking with my eyes and seeing? What are you seeing? The objects of the world. Have you made them? 'No'. You are seeing with the eyes. Have you made them? 'No'. There are people, children who are born blind. Can you do anything about it? 'No'. There are instances when the child is refused light to see the light. What can we do? 'Nothing'. So if you have good children, do you have any credit over them? 'No'. If you have bad children, do you have any discredit over them? 'No'. Why don't you have this kind of a neutral, 'non ego' position?
अहङ्कारविमूढात्मा कर्ताहमिति मन्यते ।
ahaṅkāra-vimūḍhātmā kartāham-iti manyate ||
(Bhagavad Gita 3.27)
Everything is done by prakṛti. A man deluded by egoism alone will consider that 'I am doing'. Now, when the śāstras say this, why don't you listen to, read, understand, absorb, assimilate? You may fail. How long can you fail? You cannot say that 'throughout my life I am going to fail'. You may fail a hundred times, a thousand times but you should succeed sometime or the other. If you ask me, I can maximum allow three to six years. Not more than that. Three to six years mind you! Not for learning a language, not for singing Classical music but only to be free of your unnecessary pride and egotism. So when the śāstras say:
सुखमैन्द्रियकं राजन् स्वर्गे नरक एव च ।
sukham-aindriyakaṁ rājan svarge naraka eva ca |
(Srimad Bhaagavatam 11.8.1)
Sukha and duhkha are there in swarga and naraka as they are here. If nothing more than what you already have in your life here upon the earth is there anywhere in the rest of the world, then should you be running after anything like heaven and higher regions in the form of rituals and the like? Certainly not. So keep away from them and look for whatever is greater than what you have now here. And what is greater? What is greater?
बुद्धियुक्तो जहातीह उभे सुकृतदुष्कृते ।
buddhi-yukto jahātīha ubhe sukṛta-duṣkṛte |
(Bhagavad Gita 2.50)
I think you should read this line at least ten thousand times.
Buddhi yuktaha: The man whose buddhi becomes yukta.
Jahātīha: he abandons safely and confidently.
Ubhe: the two, sukṛta-duṣkṛte, sukṛta and duṣkṛta, which means sukha and duhkha.
Simply rise above these and this rising above is accomplished by your intelligence, it is in the intelligence level. It is not in the sensory level. It is not in the bodily level. It is not even in the mind level but is in the intelligence level. Can you imagine a state where you do not look for sukṛta and you are not fearful about duṣkṛta?
What is this great state? It is something very, very wonderful, wonderful, super wonderful! Rising above sukrta and dushkrta, Arjuna, you fight not this war but many if you like if that is necessary. Mahabharata war was not invited by Arjuna. Yudhishthira wanted to avoid it till the last moment. But Duryodhana would not agree at all. So it was clamped on them. If there is an individual in the society who is a war monger and who is going to fight like Hitler and Napoleon, then what do you want? Okay you fight the war; let us all die. See, a war monger, a cruelty monger; a wickedness monger is spreading destruction. Other members of the society who do not agree with that point of view, should they keep quiet or should they contend? There is one section of the society called Kshatriyas who are supposed to contend evil. That is why Arjuna, Yudhishthira and others with Krishna assembled in the Kurukshetra warfield to contend Duryodhana. In that contending process, I don't think there can be any other consideration. You have to marshal your senses, your mind, your intelligence, your everything, to contend, that’s all! And you are using the faculties given by nature. Nowhere is the ego coming up. So when these statements are there:
sukham-aindriyakaṁ rājan svarge naraka eva ca
Similarly, you cannot avoid sukha just like you are not able to avoid duhkha. In spite of your resistance, duhkha comes. Similarly, in spite of your non-desiring sukha also will grace. Once you understand sukha and duhkha are the only resultants of your life, if both are inevitable, then what do you have to do to? Nothing. Live freely, greatly, honorably, ecstatically, feeling a sense of inner abundance, affluence, enrichment and fullness. It is such a beautiful psychological excellence brought about by the merit of the intelligence provided you are able to analyze life and understand it.
Our spirituality is completely, in and through, an analysis of human life. And it equips you to handle the life, to handle the life at every point of time. It is a question applying this intelligence, spiritualized intelligence on the worldly and conventional mind as a result of which we are able to bring about a refinement, a purity, an expansion, a lightness, leading and resulting in harmony, expansion, fullness and fulfillment.
How great it would be if all of you are able to understand this? Maybe these are presented in our śāstras but I repeatedly feel people are missing what the śāstras say and what their import is. Everybody thinks that our spirituality is reserved for a few hardcore people who shave off their head, put on the robe of Sannyāsa and roam about or sit in a forest. If that is so, our world will never improve because sannyāsins will not get married and they will not have children. So the result of spirituality will be - a few will be liberated in every generation and all the others will be dumped to the worldly drudgery. Is that the intention of spirituality or is it ‘loka kalyan’?
How can ‘loka kalyan’ come unless the super majority of householders take to spirituality and live them? Maybe a few of them may become sannyāsins as a result of spiritual enrichment. But the practice has to be taken up as early as possible in life, pursued vigorously so that the householders will make their household a Vaikunta or a Kailasa and very good children will be born to them. Please don't make the mistake of reserving the spirituality for sannyāsins alone. It is primarily for youngsters, householders, retired people and all. It is very good if you can pursue it wholesomely and be a sannyāsin. But don't think that it is only for the sannyāsin community. That is why we have the Bhagavad Gita in the thick and thin of the battle in Kurukshetra. We have many settings, Parikshit about to die, Uddhava about to depart, Sri Rama about to rule, Arjuna in the midst of fight; in all these places the same spirituality and wisdom were exposed, absorbed, assimilated and displayed.
Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.
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