Articles for Saadhana

We are still on the subject of the pre-requisites or qualification for a seeker of truth. The third item consists of a composite of six virtues or traits, you can say. I have already spoken about śamaḥ, damaḥ, titikṣā, uparati. Today I thought I would speak about śraddhā.

The word śraddhā in Sanskrit means something very precious and very specific also. I don’t think there can be an English translation for this word, śraddhā. But nevertheless I have been using two words to indicate what śraddhā means. What is that? Assiduous application.

Whenever you are able to apply your senses, mind, intelligence, heart towards anything in an assiduous, wholesome, tenacious, persevering manner, then it becomes śraddhā. There are many people who are not able to do it.

In Jamshedpur, there was a boy who would speak a lot, very energetic. So I gave him about half a litre of a very minor cereal and asked him, “You count it.” What does it mean? About a litre suppose I give you, half a litre of mustard and ask you to precisely count it, that means you have to patiently try removing or moving two or three particles at a time, pieces at a time and then wait patiently to complete it. Now this kind of a perseverance is something very, very important. Many people are not able to apply their own body, their own senses, their own mind in anything whatsoever.

You know, the Vedic recitation – the Vedas are taught by a process of mouth to ear. So the Vedic teacher will have to sit and start chanting the Vedas. You must have a feeling of sanctity and sacrosanctness about what you do. Consider your own life to be precious, wholesome, not because of you, because of the humanhood. After all we are living within the orbit of the universe and that too on the surface of a very small planet called the earth.

The earth is surrounded by practically śūnya ākāśā. It is just swinging and it is suspended but without any rope. It is hovering around the sun. It is revolving around its own axis. On such an earth we are living, and this earth is connected to the sun, connected to the moon, connected to… maybe a galaxy and there are so many galaxies in space. So the very life denotes something very great, supreme and incomprehensible. Whenever you think of or you see something like this, automatically a note of adoration, respect, a note of providentiality will occupy your mind. That is why I say, you must consider your life to be something extremely sacrosanct. It is something very divine. That feeling should be there. The more you are able to feel divine about things, the greater will be your attitude, the more wholesome will be your approach.

So never be trifling with regard to anything what-so-ever. If you are able to add attitudinally a sense of divinity and supreme-ness about everything, I think your mind will become very great.

Any job we have to do, we must be able to apply ourselves to it. Students will have to apply themselves to their studies. Suppose somebody lectures, you have to faithfully listen to him. The inability to listen to him is a defect that you are suffering from. Sometimes you have to listen to, sometimes you have to write, sometimes you have to go on looking on, looking on, looking on like this. So let us very clear about what is śraddhā.

Now, so far as spiritual matters and spiritual life are concerned, what is this śraddhā focussed on?

guru vedānta vākyeṣu bhaktiḥ śraddheti viśrutā

The devotion, the devotional attitude, attunement, you are able to feel, develop and express towards the statements made by the guru and the statements made by the Upanishads. How much you are able to faithfully attune yourself to them, that will determine the measure of your śraddhā.

See, whenever our shastras say something, you must have a lot of devotion to those statements, they are time-tested. They are prehistoric, they are tried, pursued, imbibed, actualized, manifested, then disseminated.

athīti bodha ācaraṇa pracāraṇaiḥ