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Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.
Emerging from and also coming back from Calcutta, it was some fifty seven years back that I started my parivrājaka life in Kerala. Right from the beginning, people started calling us to different places to address them on Bhagavadgeeta. It was a regular session of two hours from six o' clock to eight o' clock in the evening. From then on, wherever I was living, it was Jnānāśram at that time, devotees started coming to the ashram. In our ashram, we two sannyāsins were there, but our family members were all initiated by our Gurudev into Brahmavidya. None of them had any resistance to offer to our taking up sannyāsa, not only that, all of them were having sufficient, they were giving sufficient support, and they also participated in whatever we wanted to do in the new āśrama and the new insight. Many people felt free to come to our ashram because our parents were there. The elder brother, sister-in-law, all of them were equally sādhakās in a way you can say. So it was a very unique place with women also present because of the family connection. Ever since then, I was moving about, exposing the Brahmavidya.
Brahmavidya is our line and it has its origin in the Vedic Upanishads. The Vedas and the Upanishads are prehistoric in nature. So the entire history of the world, including our history, has nothing to say about the Vedic age because it is beyond their scope and ken. I belong to the ‘Tirtha Paramparā.’ ‘Tirtha Paramparā’ is one of the ten orders instituted by Sankaracharya. Sankaracharya himself was reinforcing and strengthening the Brahmavidya tradition, culture and self-realizational science, as envisaged in the Upanishads on the one hand, Bhagavadgeeta on the other, and Brahma Sutras still on the other. If you ask me, what is the tradition or lineage you represent, my answer would be - it is a lineage, the only lineage known to India right from the Vedic period. The Vedas are very clear in their pronouncement. What is that?
All the three are referring to two words- ‘Brahma’ and ‘Ātma’. ‘Brahma’ is the universal dimension of the Supreme Reality, and when you refer to ‘Ātma’ it becomes subjective, personal and direct within oneself, both are the same. This is actually a knowledge path, a realizational path in which the mind on the one hand, and intelligence on the other, are alone functioning and operating.
The human personality has four levels of expression and activity. One is the bodily and the sensory one. We employ our sensory organs like eyes, ears etc. then hands and feet. A pūja that you perform is primarily a movement of the hands accompanied by the utterance of the mouth. Of course for all these, mind should be initially and fundamentally there. So the sensory and bodily activity, then the oral one where you start uttering mantrās, reading, speaking etc., now these are the two external, gross, visible ones. Then the internal one commences from mind - the thoughts, feelings and emotions. And then you end up with the intelligence where the effort is always to know, to know, to know, and to become, become, become. You start feeling and questioning. To be untruthful is wrong, it is an infidelity to the society and to oneself. So I should stop. I should stop. I should stop. I want to stop. I want to stop. And I have stopped. That I have stopped, I am free from untruthfulness, is the realization aspect of it - the becoming. Our Brahmavidya thus is solely a mento-intellectual pursuit.
The primary factor used in Brahmavidya pursuit is the intelligence. All people are using the intelligence but for objective purposes, for doing external and sensory work, pursuing a profession, gaining an income, gaining assets, properties and the like. Conducting research, findings, all these. But here the intelligence is employed on your own personality to bring about greater and greater discipline and refinement in your system. You understand, what are the items of sāttvik food, either by tradition and habit, or by selection and practice. You try to be sāttvik in your food. You try to be sāttvik in your association with your friends. You try to be sāttvik in your dress. You try to be sāttvik in your reading. Now this is a discipline that you institute into yourself. Similarly you speak in a sāttvik manner. Chant many of the divine items like Vishnu Sahasranāma, Bhagavadgeeta, Sreemad Bhāgavatam, the Upanishads, a number of prakarana granthās, a number of, a variety of hymns - all these are coming under austerity and refinement. Now for all these you must have the intelligence as a tool. Without the tool of intelligence you will not be able to incorporate a discipline, especially in an understanding manner. Brahmavidya is directly addressed to the mind to make it pure. It is addressing the intelligence to make it more and more knowledgeable, and the real focus of Brahmavidya is one’s own self. What does it mean?
Ātma is ‘aham pratyaya gocharaḥ’. The self is actually that which is denoted by the pratyaya, the thought or the idea called the ‘I’. Everybody uses the word ‘I’. Now what is this ‘I’? It is the ‘I’ that thinks, that understands, that doubts, that questions, that remembers, that feels, that becomes emotional, the same ‘I’ speaks, the same ‘I’ sees, hears, touches, feels, etc. My dear souls, be intelligent. Don’t be foolish. I am going to repeatedly say that you are all foolish. Because follow what I am saying. If the ‘I’ is one that functions in an intellectual-intelligential level, then the mental level, then the oral level and the physical level, to do all these activities, what does it mean? If the legs are walking, running, standing, sitting, lying, bending, the legs are different from all these functions. It is the functioner, so to say. In the same manner if the ‘I’ is doing intellection with the intelligence, mentation with the mind, articulation with the mouth, then different sensory activities with the senses, is it not very clear that it is different from all these things?
Think of a mother. A human mother will deliver only human children. But if there is a mother who delivers human beings, and all the different kinds of animals like elephants, jackals, snakes, reptiles, scorpions, centipedes, now can you say she is a human mother? A mother who delivers everything. Similarly a God who delivers the entire world of planets and heavenly bodies and panchabhūtas. What will that God be? He will not be like any one he delivers - he has to be different from all. In the same manner my dear souls, the ‘I’ you are referring to is different from everything that you do, that you become. It is not the intelligence, it is not the mind, it is not the mouth, it is not the senses. But, but, but, but, it has got the supreme potential to give rise to all these. It will give rise to the intelligence and intellectual activities, give rise to the mind and mental activities, give rise to oral activities, sensory activities, it has got the potential. It has got the potential to become wakeful, and sense the entire world. It has equally the potential to wipe off the wakefulness and become asleep and be nothing. It also has the potential to become, in between the entire dream world activities and objects. With a simple intelligence, don’t be foolish my dear children, tell me very clearly - what is the potential of this ‘I’? If you are missing it what shall I say? I can only sympathize with you. Lovingly I will sympathize with you. It does not require a mighty intellect or reason to understand. An ‘I’ which becomes dream, an ‘I’ which becomes wakeful, an ‘I’ which becomes asleep, it transits from sleep to dream, dream to wakefulness, wakefulness to sleep, like a man living in a three room cottage. From room number one he goes to (room number) two, then (room number) three, again 1, goes to 3, goes to 2, comes back to 1. So these are the three rooms in which the ‘I’ lives and the resident ‘I’ is different from these three. Our tradition Brahmavidya is trying to explore into the inner chamber of one’s own personality and sense this supreme consciousness which is becoming and giving rise to everything.
When Mataji Sulabha Devi wanted this ashram to be named Nārāyanāśrama, she had one in mind - Lord Narayana. Her life started and also grew with chanting Narayana, Narayana, Narayana, Narayana, Narayana. So I had no sense of ego to start an ashram though I wanted an ashram. So she named it, she laid the foundation stone, and it was called Nārāyanāśramam. But I always wanted to have a tapovanam and this place was looking like a tapovanam. So both the names were blended 'Nārāyanāśrama Tapovanam'. It refers to Lord Narayana the Supreme Lord,
These are some of the expressions that we have. So I wanted a personal name, not an impersonal name. We had one ashram called Jnānāśram. I did not like the word Jnāna and āśramam to be clubbed together. Everything goes after a person. Just like the trinity has come to be. I thought Nārāyanāśrama Tapovanam will be a right place and right choice. So the tradition I represent is Brahmavidya tradition and it dates back to the Vedic period, the Upanishadic period, it is fundamentally based upon the mahāvākyās and it is always a means to realize the self and knowing the self to be God. If there is a God it is only the self. Besides the self, there is no God at all. God, Brahman, are all synonymous of the self. It is from the self we go to God and it is to the self we come from God. Understand this.
Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.
