Articles for Saadhana

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.

Yesterday we were discussing about a subject. How to love everything and all, at the same time how to have no attachment to anything? This is the subject from where we started. It was a question raised in the satsang during midday. So, I spoke about it here. Today I want to give a spiritual touch to the whole subject.

In Brihadāraṇyakopanishad there is a dialogue between Yājñavalkya and Maithreyi. That conversation is very famous and very often it is quoted. Yājñavalkyatells Maithreyi, his wife, that nothing in this world is loved by anybody for its sake. Everything is loved, if at all for one’s own sake. I don’t know how you listen to these words and take to the statement or message.

The husband is not loved for his sake. The husband is loved for one’s own sake. One’s own sake means for whom he is the husband, for that person’s sake. So, the woman feels, “This is my husband.” What? “My husband.” The word "My", possessive case, refers to herself. Similarly, “My wife, my house, my children, my world, my wealth, my respect”. So, how is it that we are loving? That love is motivated and compelled from oneself, for oneself and its fulfillment is also in oneself. I think every one of you should think about it. If this is the truth, I am trying to build upon it.

You can enhance this, “I” and “my” to any extent that you want. I love the members of my family because they are members of my family and my house. I love my teacher because he has taught me. In the same manner, the dress you wear is made by somebody. The materials are either extracted from the earth or they are taken from the plants and trees like cotton, for example. We are travelling on the roads, public roads. They are made by public money, tax. They are worked by a number of people. I am breathing air, I am walking on the earth, I am basking on the sunshine, moonshine, I am under the light of the stars, I am surrounded by panchabhūtās. If the panchabhūtās were not there, I won’t be able to live. If I am a member of my family, I am equally a member and every creature upon the earth is a member of the earth family which belongs to me or I belong to which.

If you start thinking in this manner, the whole world is related to you. “It is my world. It is my universe. It is my brotherhood.” Your life is related to all of them. Even now, do we know what is the contribution made by every creature in this world (or) every plant in the herbal kingdom in this world? In Ashtāṅgahridaya, a medicinal scripture of India, Ashtāṅgahridaya says, (Vagbhatāchārya’s), "There is nothing non-medicinal in this world."

Anaushadham kiṅcit na asti.

There is nothing non-medicinal. Food items also are medicines because they provide nutrition, they appease the hunger. Without appeasement of hunger and nutrition, we cannot live. Just like diseases are cured by medicines, hunger is appeased by food and nutrition is provided by its ingredients. So, medicinally I am related to all the herbs in this world. Similarly, so many chemicals, metals and other things are extracted from the earth and we are using them in one way or the other for medicinal or other purposes. We are related to the earth and everybody is related to the earth. There is inter and mutual dependence everywhere in this world and finally we are related very closely to the panchabhūtās which constitute the entire universe. If you start thinking in this manner, accepting what Yājñavalkyatold Maithreyi,

It is for the sake of one’s own self that all things in this world become dear to us. If you have the self, you have to find dearness in everything and all.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.