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Harih Om Tat Sat. Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.
What I propose to speak today, I might have spoken earlier also. But nobody from the inmates has come and told me, “Swamiji, the message you conveyed is very, very subtle but I have understood it and this is the way it reacts with me.” As long as they don’t say, what am I to conclude? They have not been able to understand it, place it properly, assess it. Our mind is the sole focus in spiritual life. In meditation also, it is not upon what or whom you meditate but the meditating mind that becomes important. The meditating mind is important. So far as the mind is concerned, it has got only two positions, either it will be thinking variously or it will be free from thoughts. If it is not free from thoughts, it should be free from the non-thought aspects of our life.
Either the mind is thoughtful or the mind is thought free. In between, there cannot be a position. Now this thoughtfulness is what we call the wakeful mind and I would like to analyze it in this manner. What is that? Either it will go into a state of stupor or it will be getting distracted. I don’t know whether you understand when I say this. When you meditate, you will enter into something like jada samadhi and people think that “I have escaped from thoughts, escaped from mind, escaped from the world and this is the best.” When will the delusion go? Maybe it will not go or maybe sometime it will go. That is why we are supposed to be guided by the scriptures and also led by the scripture exponents. These verses which I am going to recite, I noticed them first in Gaudapadakarika of Mandukya Upanishad.
Yadā na līyate chittam - When you sit for meditation, suppose for any known or unknown reason, the mind forgets everything, and enters into a state of stupor, “I did not know anything. My meditation was very deep.” You will say this when you wake up.
Yadā na līyate chittam - when then the mind is not going to be dissolved.
Na cha vikshipyate punaḥ - then they will have to search and find out whether the mind is getting into a sunkenness or it is getting distracted. Distraction means thoughts not of your choice, thoughts relating to the past, present and future.
Yadā na līyate chittam - when the mind is not going to anything whatsoever, it simply undergoes a sunkenness.
Na cha vikshipyate punaḥ - or it does not get distracted, some kind of different thoughts come which try to drag you, when both these conditions are not there.
Yadā na līyate chittam - your mind becomes dissolved to such an extent that you don’t know what to do. It is making your wisdom as well as the whole of your life and activities impossible. Similarly, if the laya does not take place, the next or the alternate will be vikshepa, distraction. He says distraction also is not there, laya also is not there. When there is no laya and there is no vikshepa, this is what you have to aim at and get. Aninganam-anābhāsam. It should be without any thought, memory or concern. When the mind does not sleep off and does not get distracted, when both are avoided, you reach a ‘Yadā na līyate chittam na cha vikshipyate punaḥ’. Then what will the mind do?
Aninganam - It has no kind of movement or vibration.
Anābhāsam - it does not produce anything like dream, illusory objects also. It is free from the wakeful effects and free equally from the dream effects. Then, mark the words, nishpannam brahma tat-tadā. Tadā brahma nishpannam, When both distraction and dissolution keep away, the only outcome will be Brahma-prāpthi. You know why I am stopping? Because I want you to absorb this. Brahma-prāpthi, yes. When? When the mind does not sink or slip off and the mind is not distracted by any thought process. When both are not there, it is Brahma-prāpthi, he says.
Aninganam-anābhāsam, without any movement or vibration, without any illusory reflection., nishpannam brahma tat-tadā. Tad Brahma tadā nishpannam. That time, you can be said to have got Brahman. Then what is the talk about so many jeevas, so many janmas coming, going, doing good things, bad things, then as happened to Pareekshit? What is all this? Nishpannam brahma tat-tadā. Then he says,
What does it mean? Na nirodho - There is nothing like dissolution of the world. The world itself is something like a display as in dream. Do you have to destroy the world objects, the dream objects. Do the dream objects occupy any space from within your body?
Na nirodhah. There is no dissolution.
Nachothpathi , there is no emergence or uthpathi. Na baddho, there is none bound. Na cha sādhakah, there is nobody called sadhaka who is doing sadhana for attaining Brahman.
न निरोधो न चोत्पत्तिर्न बद्धो न च साधकः।
न मुमुक्षुर्न वै मुक्त इत्येषा परमार्थता॥
There is nobody aspiring for liberation. Liberation from what? Who wants it? To whom can it be related? Na baddho na cha sādhakah. In that case, I am not bound and I need not be a sadhaka to gain liberation.Then what is all this? Take a picture and show it to people.
Na mumukshur-na vai mukta - Because there is no real existence, there is no real bondage. There is no necessity for freedom also. Na mumukshur-na vai mukta - There is nobody yearning for liberation nor is one liberated.
Ithi eshā paramārthatā. This is the supreme truth.
Why I said this? Particularly because I was remembering ‘X’ Don’t ask questions like , “My mind, my mind, I am getting my joy, previously I used to get, now I don’t get.” See when I read it, when I was very young in my twenties, I never questioned this statement. I was thinking, “Oh! This is the last truth and somebody says it is so. Then I must also be able to realize it and say.” These verses are in Upanishads, but Gaudapādakārika contains them, and kārika is written by Sankaracharya’s Guru’s Guru, Gaudapāda. I think Gaudapāda as well as Sankara, both of them were contemporaries. When I read these verses, when I was young in Calcutta, you know I felt that it was a great illumination. It was a great enlightenment!
Once it enlightens you, what will you do? You will try to confirm, reconfirm, intensify, satisfy the so-called seeking. So I particularly wanted ‘X’ to understand that when there is absorption while meditation, do not disturb it at all. As long as the mind is there, the world is there. When the mind subsides, the world also subsides. When it comes back, then you can do a little thinking if necessary. But if the manner in which I look at initiates and the possible or desirable progress for them, I cannot contribute to the view of all that I have said now.
Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.