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Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.
There is a boy coming from Kannur district in Kerala called ‘X’. He is given to intense meditation and by meditation alone I believe he has lost about 20 kilograms of weight. I have been telling him, “You should not meditate so intensely and so long. It is not necessary.” I don’t know whether his reduction of weight is due to meditation but he has been an intense meditator. Now and then he talks to me. Because he has to clear some examinations I refuse to talk to him but nevertheless he rings me up. So I will speak to him a few sentences and say “Stop, go and study.” Last night he rang me up. Then he said, “Swamiji I will only ask you one important question. Answer me and then we shall stop.” I said, “What is it?”
He said, “For a seeker of truth, for a person who is seeking the truth, what is the real goal, what about sannyāsa, is that the goal of seeking?” I said, "It will take some time for me to explain it but I will explain it briefly." Understand – spiritual life and spiritual pursuit are wholesome in human life. You should never mistake spiritual pursuit and its relevance. This is the only way human life can proceed, go forward and finally have full fold fulfillment.
In the matter of spiritual life, right from the prehistoric times we have evolved our Vedic and Upanishadic texts; originally they were evolved and never written. Only taught through the tongue to the ear and then to the mind. Right from prehistoric times, we don’t know when they were evolved. They began with some kind of prayers and hymns to begin with and they progressed into rituals and ceremonies including fire. They were not satisfied. So they withdrew into their mind and some special contemplations. When they withdrew from the world, the entire mystery and goal of human life started revealing to them, unfolding. Whatever they found, they have recorded in the form of the Upanishads. The Upanishads are a set of literature which the seeker has to learn in the presence of, at the feet of the Guru. Now, this is the beginning of our civilization and to some extent the end also, because they had reached the finale of human life.
The whole of the Vedic and Upanishadic revelations can be summarized in three words.
The knower of the Supreme Reality attains the supreme of human life. Never make any mistake. The supreme goal of human life, is knowing the Supreme Reality. And in realizing it, all the aspirations, needs and other things of human life will be fulfilled. What are the needs? Sensory needs. We want to see, we want to hear, we want to taste, we want to smell and we want to touch. All our enjoyments are in these five sensory impressions. Whatever you see, you see with the eyes. Whether you see your children or a garden or a good book or a good painting or anything that is eatable, it is after all sight. Even your children are sight and touch. When the children speak, you hear them. So, what is the child, pet child that you have? Sight, sound and touch. That’s all. In the sensory level you will have the best things to see, best things to hear, best things to touch, the best things to eat and the best things to smell. This is what is spirituality.
So far as oral things are concerned, you will have the best words to speak. Words and utterances which even your enemies would like. Whenever I was spearheading some of the spirituo-social movements, I had to speak very firally. Even our opponents would come and listen to me with a lot of attention because they cherished and they cherished and liked hearing me. So, you words will become valuable, enriching, inspiring and many would like to hear. So you have the oral fulfillment.
So far as the mind is concerned, mind produces the best of thoughts and responses and different types of attitudes and emotions. The test of these emotions is twofold. One is, it should be delightful and fulfilling to yourself. Another is, it should be endearing, enriching and elevating to the others. A spiritual seeker and a spiritual knower will have all the qualities which will give him delight and fulfillment and which will make him amiable and endearing to the others. So you have mental fulfillment.
Now, the last part is intellectual fulfillment. The intelligence gets all the delight when it is able to understand matters, evolve the right and pertinent enquiries, pursue them and reach the climax of fulfillment. In spirituality and in the spiritual process you find your intelligence is geared and goaded to take up the most delightful and fulfilling enquiries. Make no mistake at all. Spirituality means sensorily, orally, mentally and intellectually, intelligentially have delightful and fulfilling pursuit. That is why they say.
Brahmavid āpnoti Param
The one who knows Brahman, the Supreme Reality attains the supreme. If this be the case, what is the choice before a seeker? He should take it up as soon as possible - one. Initially he may have a partial interest. He should be able to filter and refine himself and replace the partial involvement and pursuit with the wholesome, whole time pursuit. Initially you are living, working in the family, in the office, getting some income, all these things. Ok. Ok. Ok. But your pursuit is partial. Now, try to make it as wholesome as possible. When the call and the cry for wholesomeness comes, there are two options. Either you devote the full time for it and fulfill it or you take up sannyāsa which is meant for a wholesome pursuit, whole time pursuit. So sannyāsa is in two ways, one is a dedication and commitment to take up this pursuit and pursue it in a full time manner. When that dedication and decision are there, one is fit for sannyāsa. Another is, after having known the truth, the knower feels, 'I have nothing more to do, I will spend my life in pursuit and in propagation of what I have understood.' The first is called a seeking sannyāsa. The other is called a fulfilled sannyāsa. Vividushā sannyāsa and vidhwath sannyāsa.
So I was telling ‘X’
Jnāninah mumukshavasca
Sankara says. It is one thing to know the Brahman, another is to become a full seeker, mumukshu. Seeker means what? Seeker of the supreme goal of human life. A knower of truth, when you get some knowledge you may not become a mumukshu. From jijnāsa, the enquiry, you will get knowledge. But when the knowledge is transformed into a nishta, a practice, a pursuit, then it becomes different.
So, let us be no more doubtful about it. The spiritual life if properly taken up and pursued will automatically make you a full time seeker. And by so doing, what you become is ultimately a sannyāsin. Now, is sannyāsa in anyway a negation? No! No! No! Whatever the householder has, whatever the Brahmachāri has, whatever the Vānaprastha has, whatever the businessman has, the industrialist has, the administrator has, all of them have only a body. And the body has five senses. The spiritual man also has the same senses. They have a mouth, they have a mind, they have an intelligence. He also has all these. So, the administrator or the King or the ruler does not have a new delight available to him. He has only sensory delight, oral delight, mental delight and intellectual delight. All these four channels are equally available in a much more refined and exalted manner in the case of a full time seeker. So a sannyāsin doesn’t lose anything. On the other hand, he gets everything in a manifold measure. He gets sensory delight in the sense, the delight he feels from within starts oozing through every hair hole. This is one. And his words become so precious and valuable that as I said even the enemies would like to hear them. They may not have the time, that is different. But the words become so precious.
Imagine, when the Upanishads were composed and how many millennia have passed and they hold the same charm, enchantment and exhilaration to the people now. Imagine, the time that passed between the first Upanishadic evolution and the present day. How could it survive? Is there any literature in the world which has survived that long? No, No, No! How did it survive? Because it delights man. It enchants man. It elevates man. It enlightens him. It takes him to the supreme goal of any kind of human life. That is how a dacoit Ratnakara got transformed into the sage Valmiki. A Veda Vyasa who lived as an orphan with no father or no mother to look after him, nobody knows where he grew. He became the greatest master and the scriptural author of the country. He was the son of a fisherwoman, mind you. How did they become like that?
Ratnakara was married and he had children also. At once stroke he left every one of them. And he simply got immersed in his own inner bosom. By the time he got up, he found that he was a different person. Knowing nothing, he started making everybody know the supreme. Can you imagine the transformation? So I was telling ‘X’ yesterday, “Don’t ask any more questions. Don’t tell me anything. If you want to know the truth, spirituality calls for wholesome pursuit. If you cannot do it, a question paper is set for you to write and clear the whole questions. You cannot get 100 percent. That is not the fault of the question paper. You have not studied well, you cannot answer well. So score 90, 80, 70, 60, 40, 35. But don’t say that to score 100 percent is bad, wrong or adverse. That 100 percent scoring is what you call the whole time pursuit of spirituality. There is nothing against it, besides it, away from it.”
Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.
