The dried summer sunny noon, The dried wind and the leaf dried. Over the parched dry land Blew the dried wind, taking in her lap The leaf dried. The journey continued, Waxing and waning, In its highs and lows, In the fields, hills, and valleys. Wherever the wind blew, She had the leaf dried, with her. In her natural gait, Completely unknown of and unseen, The wind blew. She had clue none, That the leaf dried, was always there. With long togetherness, The leaf fell in love, Deeply in love with the wind. In his inner light of love, The wind appeared to him, His long lost completion, Long lost fulfillment, A sense of relaxed belonging.
And lo, the wind stopped. All of a sudden, one dark late night of new moon. It was a cold, hard and silent thud. The wind just disappeared in a turn of a moment. Like that binary bit, the electric switch, the day and night. All just stopped. There was no air, no breath, no life. All just died. All just perished, All just stopped existing, Like there was no music ever, Like there was no story ever, Like there was no beat ever. All stopped and the leaf now more dried and old, Frail and weak, Just fell by the thorny bush, Stuck deeply stabbed in his bosom, By that natural, normal, indifferent thorn.
The leaf dried, For eons cried, Till there were no tears, Ever to be near.
Laughed the sky from top, On the melancholy of the leaf dried. For he knew the loss of the leaf, Was nothing in-front of his eternal separateness From his parted beloved the Earth. Laughed the spirit of Beethoven, For he sneered,”what the leaf knows of what is a loss” Of being recluse in deafness for someone like me! Deep in love with sound and symphony, Gradually slipping out of music from the ears!
Scoffed the Mahatma, Half dead in satyagraha, Lying weak and frail, Having lost his lifelong battle To establish non violence, Seeing brothers killing brothers, In deep hatred and angst. In a frail whisper, He spoke, ‘what can be a bigger loss!’ Losses are countless, With every beat of heart, With every breath taken, With every turn of a moment, So many winds stop, So many leaves die!
Laid alone, bleeding and weak, The leaf knew In the larger lore of life, In the vast expanse of being, Love is never lost.
With a deaf ear, Beethoven could still hear his meditative symphonies. With the vast expanse of separation The sky still kissed the Earth in the horizon. After all the bloody battle of hatred, Long after his death, The Mahatma, makes million mortals’ heart beat in awe!
All is a blessing, All is in love. In stillness, from eternity to eternity. Only that the mental chatter, And it’s loud cacophony Deafens the soul Unable to hear the sound of love, Unable to see the ever presence embrace light Of the beloved ever present deep within.
There is no separation out there! The loneliness is just an appearance, Of being too much tied up, Blinded and narrow, In the narcissistic inward curling. In all frailty, in all loneliness, in all abandonment, The leaf knew that the wind had left But the same wind was omnipresent As air making him still breathe.
The sparkles of a long lost soulmate Might not be visible to the eyes In the same old form it is habituated. But that same glow of sparkling diamonds, Running from her head to toe, Is still enlivening and enlightening the world, With whatever good, whatever beautiful, whatever lovely.
Still in love, a baby is born. Still in love the bud sprouts to blossom. Still in love the nightingale sings. Still in love the sheltering peepal rejuvenates the parched tired traveller. Still in love many hearts beats ever and ever again.
The leaf just had to rediscover His vitality to engage to learn the new language, The language of truth, To read and decipher, The script of love and belongingness Omnipresent in each particle of dust, In each corner of universe, From the spinning electron to the far flowing supernova.
All drama of melancholy All charade of loneliness Was just an illusion spun In the loom of lethargy.
Deep in the meditative silence, The leaf dried, mingled in the mud, To be one with the Earth, Where there was no separation, All went back to the same womb From where all started – In that reverberating all pervasive sacred chant –
“Love you, Loved you, Had Loved you, Will Love you…”
What is then pleasure? Mulled Jiddu Krishnamurthy in one of his talks. He continued, “The pleasure of an experience of yesterday, whatever it is, sensual, sexual, visual, any kind of experience is sustained by thought. Thought thinks over it, thought chews over the cud, as it were, of sexual pleasure, chews over it, goes over it, creates an image or picture and sustains it, gives it nourishment. So thought gives a sustenance to that pleasure of an experience of yesterday, and gives it a continuity today and tomorrow. We know this. And when that thought is inhibited, by environment, by circumstances, by various forms of hindrances, then that thought is in revolt, turns its energy into aggression, to hate, to violence, which again is another form of pleasure. Right?”
Thought gives sustenance to the pleasure of an experience of past, and gives it a continuity today and tomorrow.
When the thought is inhibited, it turns its energy into aggression, to hate, to violence, which again is another form of pleasure – To prove the other wrong, and the self right!
Then he continues to link pleasure to self expression. He says, it is only via self expression we create beauty and that is a joy that we look for. That beauty is what we desire for our pleasure. So, is beauty pleasure? And when there is self expression in any form – does that create beauty? And is love pleasure? And when it is thwarted it becomes jealousy, anger, hatred. And this demand of pleasure entails domination, possession, dependence, and therefore fear. So one asks oneself, is love pleasure? Is love desire, in all its subtle forms, sexual, companionship, tenderness, that self-forgetfulness – is all that love? And if it is not, then what is love? So that is the problem.
How a dog so extraordinarily devoted to its master – pleasure and the pursuit of aggression when that pleasure is thwarted. And we are built on that. Our judgements, our values, our social demands, relationship and so on, is based on this essential principle of pleasure, and its self-expression; and realising when that is thwarted, when that is controlled, twisted, prevented, then there is anger, then there is aggression, which becomes another form of pleasure.
Then Jiddu Krishnamurhty goes ahead and delves deeper into the torture of love. the dependence on it, the fear of it, the loneliness of not being loved, and seeking it everlastingly in all kinds of relationships, never finding it to our complete satisfaction. So is love satisfaction? Is love a torture, hedged about by jealousy, envy, hatred, anger, dependence?
In the absence of love, in the absence of beauty deep within, there is a deep void that one observes inwards. And that void they try to fill in using books, God, art, museums and what not.
So there is an emptiness which is always seeking self-expression and deriving pleasure and hence the very demand for pleasure breeds the fear of not having it completely, resisting, aggression and all the rest of it, and this sense of inward void. And to fill that inward void, this emptiness, this sense of utter isolation, loneliness – which I am sure you have all felt – we proceed to fill it with books, with knowledge, with relationships, with every form of trickery; but at the end of it there is still this unfillable emptiness. Then we turn to God – of course that is the last ultimate resort of the thoughtless.
Then he questions, if there is this void deep inside, is love possible? Is beauty possible? And this pursuit of filling that void, he says is a futile pursuit if it is tried to be filled by a person. He says,
And see the importance of this: if you fill it with another person, which is called relationship, with an image, then out of that comes fear of losing it, and so dependence and so aggressive possession, jealousy and all the rest of it follows. We have filled it with what we call pleasure, we have filled it through self-expression, we have filled it searching for truth, God, and one realises nothing can fill it – never – neither your own image, nor the image that you have created about the world, or an ideology – nothing. And so beauty, love and pleasure, we have used to cover this emptiness, and if you no longer escape, but are with it, then what is one to do?
Then he delves deeper into the question of this loneliness, this void. And he builds up his case saying that this loneliness is coming from our unconscious separatedness we have created from the world, by being identified with our body and mind as a separate entity – our ego – separate and hence fearful from the rest of creation – people, events, circumstances, flora, fauna and the rest of it. Then, he gives this profound proclamation –
So I see as long as my activity is self-centred and self-expressive there must be this void. And to fill that void I do all kinds of stuff, which again is self-centred. So it again becomes a wider and deeper emptiness.
Then he expands his claim saying that the issue if further deepens when the propensity to “have” settles in this ego – “my friend”, “my family”, “my child”, “my job”, “my idea”, “my God”, etc. All these go further to produce even more isolation, even more emptiness, void, and loneliness. And he develops further saying that any effort put by the mind to fill that void, makes it go the first point, of filling it more with people, objects and material possesions, which again goes to deepen the void even more.
Then what is the way out of it? He asks the audience. And then he proclaims that just by being present to this paradox and seeing it clearly frees oneself. He concludes with the following solution –
See what has happened. Before I have used energy to fill this emptiness, wandered all over the place, and I see the absurdity of it. The mind sees it very clearly how absurd it is to do all that kind of stuff. So I am not dissipating energy. And, in looking further, self-centred activity has brought about this sense of emptiness; and looking still further, no action on the part of the mind or thought can ever dissipate this emptiness. So thought becomes quiet, so the mind becomes completely still, because it has seen the whole map of this and so there is silence; and in that silence there is no loneliness. And, it is only when there is that silence, complete silence of the mind, there is beauty and love which may, or may not, express. So, there is bliss only, which is beyond pleasure, and beauty which is not the expression of a cunning mind, but the beauty which is known when the mind is completely quiet, silent. You know, it is raining and you can hear the patter of the drops. You can hear it with your ears, or you can hear that out of deep silence. If you hear it with complete silence of the mind, the beauty of it cannot be put into words or on a canvas. So beauty is something beyond self-expression. And love obviously is bliss, which is not pleasure. Right.
Krishnamurthy beautifully bring about the solution to the problem as being conscious, being aware of the thought, the mind, and its game that is played by the self appropriating nature of the mind as an ego, and that is the source of all voidness, which further erupts as a need to fill it with the objects in the world, and which further deepens the void and separateness. This is exactly what Sankara professes in his famous poem – Nirvana Shatakam, where he says, he is not the mind, the ego, the self. Rather that pure consciousness that is aware of all that.
In the realms of all the worlds,
All that is sacred is always a secret.
The fathomless depth of the ocean bed,
With myriads of undiscovered species.
The dark depths of the black hole,
The ever expanding frontiers of the galaxies.
The minutest microcosm of the quarks
The diverse ecosystem of the trillions of species
Of micro organisms that make the human body.
The infinite burning reactions of fire,
In the bosom of the Sun,
Or for that matter,
The dark depth of the sanctum sanatorium
Ever in-accessible to a casual temple visitor.
All that is sacred
Is always a secret!
And so be it.
For to unravel the secret is required
Limitless toil, patience, perseverance, fortitude
And above all the fuel of Love!
The love of the archaeologist,
The love of the scientist,
The love of the doctor,
The love of the cosmologist,
The love of the sage in the cave,
The love of the ecologist,
The love of the poet,
The love of the artist –
All that offers their devotion
In the form of their offering,
To their Goddesses,
And then by Her grace,
She lets go one little veil,
She engenders one another glimpse,
To sanctify the labor of love,
Of the toiling Sadhak – the love lorn.
For the secrecy, the unknown,
The veil of falsehood,
Protects the dignity and grace
Of the all that is sacred,
For sacredness is not a commodity
Easily thrown out to all,
Rather it is a pearl that is discovered
From the deep depths
Of honesty, sincerity, truth, toil
And above all
Built on the strong foundation of
Love – Pure and Pristine Love.
In this secrecy takes pride
All that is sacred,
Defiant of all the play of the panorama of the planets!
Like the blazing Sun enlightening
All the worlds with its flora and fauna,
But itself absolutely untouched
By their tears and traumas
By their hopes and horrors
By their terrors and temptations,
By their anger and hatred,
Blazing unfettered and unmoved,
In all it’s glory spreading all over,
It’s golden rays of warmth.
So does the vast and limitless,
Timeless and eternal,
Spread of the embrace of secrecy,
Always holds all that is sacred, all that is precious,
All that is priceless, all that is Truth,
In a sanctified silence,
Till the song is heard,
And the form divine is seen,
By the seer, by the knower,
After eons of penance,
Deep austere penance,
Founded on the purity of Love.
The silence pervades,
The darkness deepens,
But the tireless lamp
Continues to glow
Offering his devotion pure,
Determined to build the form,
Of the Goddess in his golden glow!
Like The Brahman, in the veil of the secrecy,
Never to be defiled
By any expression from the mouth,
Or any comprehension from the mind,
Or any inspiration from the heart!
The secret beauty of the Goddess,
Remains sanctified and unfathomable
By anything human,
For She defies all that is limiting,
All that is mortal and earthly!
Founded in that eternal, deathless, and birthless
Ever existing hidden and undiscovered,
The essence of You, and Your intimacy,
Remains always fresh and throbbing and loving,
In the secrecy of the veil
Of the cacophony of the apparent.
The violated, abandoned and vandalized Temple
Broken, forgotten and devastated,
Breathed deep in meditation
In the midst of the mayhem and sang –
In the midst of all hate,
I found there was within me,
An invincible love.
In the midst of all tears,
I found there was within me,
An invincible smile.
In the midst of all chaos,
I found there was within me,
An invincible calm.
In the midst of frozen winter,
There was within me,
An invincible shining summer.
The Temple through his heavenly damsel,
In the tight embrace of her Love,
Was wearing the timeless smile,
In all her amorous glory!
She continued to sing to Her Love,
In all freshness and youth of her bosom,
After centuries still,
Ageless and tireless,
Vital and throbbing –
“No matter how hard the world pushes against,
With its utilities and sanctions,
With its anger, hatred, hurts and hammers,
Within me there is
Something Stronger,
Something Better,
Something more beautiful,
Pushing back!”
The song of the dainty damsel,
Was quiet but alive.
Her eternal echoes
Reverberates still in the psyche
Of everything
That is beautiful,
That is love,
That is humane,
That is divine,
Since eons!
Held in all intimate belongingness,
She stands in all her glory,
In all her pride,
In all her dignity,
For she stands for Eternal Love,
In the midst birth and death,
Changing seasons of the world,
Filled with shining cold lifeless stones won,
Out of everything, but not Love!
Of the myriads of illusions that man nurtured in ignorance in their entire life are varied. One major among them is the expectation to be loved. Love is anyway so very rare in this world. So rare that in reality expecting a 1% love is itself an Anomaly. Even rare is any sort of acknowledgment or expresssion of love.
Starting from the love between friends and family, if one really goes into everyday life, one sees more instances of hatred, distrust, anger than love. I have never seen my parents ever expressing in any way any love between them. I never see any expressions of love that is expressed among themselves. Forget about expression, if sincerely you go deep into each one’s heart, you might not find an iota of love remaining.
Same is the case between couples, colleagues, association member, and community as a whole. The road rashes, that public expression of anger and disgust against fellow citizens, government, system, business, management, etc etc, is so very common that they are accepted as normal.
The neurotic obsession with animosity has risen to that an extent that if someone even has a countenance of a loving nature, they are immediately termed as passive and soft. And in several cases they are ostracized as a womanizer or for that matter sometimes as gay.
The way the senior management interacts with the middle level management is too always pervaded with distrust, anger, arrogance and absolute contempt. Business results, net margin, profitability, earning per share, the top line and bottom line are considered the only value to love life by. Everything else is just an empty lip service.
The entire charade is methodically and systematically institutionalized and the vices of mutual hatred and back biting is made part of the system by setting forth interventions like 360 degree feedback etc. In the name of networking and connecting employees, the only intent is how one employee can benefit to grow in the organization by using each other. It is all about favors received and favors extended in return.
The world is anyway proliferated and deeply absorbed deep in its DNA only selfish pursuits. Above all, there is an absolute absence of love absolutely anywhere. Even in the love between a mother and a child, it is very easy to see the inherent selfish clauses silently founded in each act transaction.
People live under the same roof, but tend to be either absolutely remote, indifferent, or absolutely hating each other. Each thinks that the other is not good enough, and doesn’t understand.
In this scheme of things, it is very strange that if a human soul from any corner of the land, really loves someone selflessly, without any hidden agenda, absolutely purely, they expect to be equally loved in return. This expectation is so ill founded. Being habituated to see the world as a series of business transactions, and family and friends as mere support system of the self, the world has actually wiped away from its mere psyche what pure love is. Today, hardly people experience being in love with a man or a woman just because they appreciate and respect them. There will always be social clauses and sanctions against any sort of such love. If someone is of no way serve a selfish purpose, people do not keep any communication with them. In the world which is more and more nucleated, abandonment is another name given to self esteem, freedom, and power. In any relationship, it just takes couple of messages and emojis to start and end a relationship. The means of communication that is used in building and breaking relationships make it even more easier. People immediately block the other person and remain aloof and indifferent. There are books and volumes of literature written glorifying such moves and re affirming such behavior as an expression of liberty and freedom of self expression. always there is a search for the best deal, with maximum ROI, building a strong fort around, based on transactions, and favors given and received.
In such a world drugged in such a slumber of reductionism, the only glimpse of any sort of love that is seen is in fiction, movies, soaps, and porn. No wonder one can see the entire civilization hooked on to either stabbing the other in the back at work, and private life, or being deeply trances in the web series, soaps and the likes of pornhub and the rest of it. One is so used to be ditch, reject, hate, be angry, and abandon that such emotions when depicted in the soap operas, they rise immediately in the TRP. Majority of the entertainment media is today dumped with all the vices that one can find in a distorted human mind.
In this scheme of things, it is such a hopeless enterprise to expect any acknowledgement of the even the possibility of a pure selfless love without any hidden agenda. Even if it exists in the heart of any human soul, the first reaction is to doubt it, and look for a selfish motive. And if that motive is not established outright, it is built up through rationalization of the intellect. With so much progress in western human psychology there is already a rich vocabulary of neurosis and distortion of human mind that is immediately labelled in such relatedness. In the name of being pragmatic, rational and level headed, systematically any possibility of mutual respect, appreciation and love is extinguished with renewed passion and conviction. And interestingly all these are done with eerie righteousness.
The only beacon of hope in such gloomy state of affairs, is that valiant defiant of human soul to stand by their conviction of being pure at heart and related to other human being in pure love. A love where there is no disgust of each other, in their entirety as a human. A relatedness where there are alleys to accommodate what one does not expect, and hurts their self interest, but nurtures the other and grows the other. A relatedness that is not entirely founded on greed, lust, and possessiveness.
A relatedness where an appreciation of the physical presence and attraction is not reduced to an animal’s instinct to procreate through the lenses of an evolutionary psychologist. A relatedness where it is accepted that there is a possibility to like someone soul to soul, transcending the boundaries of social structures and physical limitations in time and space. A belongingness that is founded equally in the physical and mental intimacy.
The only hope to revive such inclusive humanism is to look back into history, art and poetry. When one sees the exquisite erotic art in the medieval Indian temples, when one reads the erotic poetry written by the great realized saints like Sankara or for that matter the modern bards as the Shakespeare or for that matter Pablo Neruda, one gets some hope that being and feeling as a complete human being is not all that wrong. Such art celebrating beauty, love, respect, devotion is the only hope to keep the frail wick of the the broken lamp still glowing the sanctum sanctorum, engendering and illuminating the form of the God!
So, it is important and imperative to proclaim, in all honesty and resolve, for every human to express to their loved one –
Love you, loved you, had loved you, will love you!
There were two doves.
Deep in the cave of his heart.
One was on a branch above
And the above below.
The dove below,
Was ripped apart by pushes and pulls.
He wanted to fly to her,
And give a shout out,
In all his strength, in all his anger, in all his grief,
And hug her and plead,
Why cannot all be normal?
Why cannot all be fine?
Why cannot love coexist?
Why everything has to be die?
Why everything just has to perish?
He also wanted to just disappear.
In utter sense of remorse and rejection,
For he knew he was hated and abhorred.
He was an ugly self who was despised and abandoned.
There was no reason for him to be alive,
In that moment, in time and in space.
There was this huge heap of junk that lay
Between her and him.
And he knew all the junk, all the rejects
Were real, and they just needed to cleaned up.
And that he was one of those rejects
Waiting to be washed away
In the gush of the storm of anger and hatred.
Or that he was already washed out from the temple,
Now waiting outside the courtyard,
To be just thrown out in gutter, forever.
In this utter push and pull,
Turmoil and strain,
The lower bird,
Just drifted apart,
In silence and sadness.
The upper bird, was still.
There was no turmoil, there was no noise!
He knew, she is him, and he is her.
There was no reason for any drama,
There was no point of love or hate.
For there was no separation!
There was no two. But one.
They were one. They are one. They will be one.
Only some spikes of illusions of ignorance,
Like mirage appear and disappear,
In the passing movements
Of warmth and cold,
Of day and night,
Of love and hatred,
Of anger and mercy.
But behind all these cacophony,
There was this silence,
There was this white light of completeness,
That always held bright and clear,
In all it’s glory and glitter,
In all it’s audaciousness and aura,
Proclaiming the eternal truth –
She is him, and he is Her.
There was no separation.
There was no distance,
There was no junk,
There was no rejection,
There was no anger.
All was just a figment of imagination
Of a restless soul lower bird,
Ignorant of what was actually true and glaring,
Straight at sight from the branch above.
God Bless Her.
For She is Love,
She was love,
She had been love.
She will be love.
The limitless, who never had a beginning, never an end!
Based on the session from Swami Sarvapriyananda on the Kathopnishad class for the mantra 1.3.10 to 1.3.12, following is the diagrammatic representation of the framework to track down the SatChitAnand – The Purusha – the Brahman from the sense objects, personalities, events, emotions, understanding, etc.
Gyna, Ichcha, Kriya – when you are yoked with the body mind. The passenger has forgotten himself and thinks he is the chariot. Knowing that you are the passenger, let the chariot run. Keep things in their own place. Transcend the agentship and experiencship of the body – Bhogtritwa, Kartritwa
Sensory systems – horses, reigns – mind, driver – intellect – keep your attention on these three. Why? But becuase we are on the way to enlightenment, these three are impoortant to show that you are none of these. You are awareness itself.
Intellect does not have self knowledge – vedantic knowledge. It does not know what real self is. Mind is not focussed. The senses are restless, and they go for what are pleasing and go away from what are not pleasing. Reigns are let loose henceforth. The driver is completely mis-informed and drunk!
1.3.6 – In contrast the driver – intellect should be trained with self knowledge. The mind is now focused, alert and does not repeat patterns of behavior – reacting with Raag and Dwesha. Mind has to be mindfull. When the mind is focussed and intellect has self knowledge, the senses are in control very easily. The horses come under control very easily.
1.3.7 – the person meets with an accident – Samsaara – attains to samsaara. Multi cars crash. Who is not disciplined, mind is not focussed and intellect is enlightened.
1.3.8 – that one that is aligned, attains the goal from which that he never comes back to samsaara. living in the same environment and situation.
1.3.9 – That passenger who is in control, that peson attains attains the end of the road – the highest place of Vishnu – Godhood.
Method – the path – 1.3.10 – 1.3.11 The most subtle and more inwards is the passenger of the chariot – the heart of your own existence – the real you – from the sense to real you. The center that integrates all of the being – the ego – intellect – The I am. This intellect, mind, senses are part of the cosmic mind. So many people, animals, living being, variety of activities, multiple minds, intellect, activities going on – all is itnegrated to hiranyagarbha – the cosmic mind. Unmanifest is the blankness beyond the intellect. This is the seed for hiranyagarbha or the causal of Maya. Beyond that blankness ,which is seeing the blankness, lies the purusha. There is nothing higher than purusha beyond this cosmic mind. We are not part of it. We are it. There is only one undivided consciousness.
1.3.12 – This pure consciouness is hidden in all beings. The sharpened intellect is caused by sadhana which can realise this.
1.3.13 – Vedantic meditaiton – nidhidhyasana – the method to realise the self – gradual merging from outermost to the inner subtle. I am already that self. How do i come to know that. We have to go from external to internal. Not physically internal. Internal to our own experience of ourself. Attend to the experience to yourself. Draw our experience of the world to our ouwn self. Body -> sensory system -> merge speech (all the 10 organs of senses of organs action) to mind, ie still them, from sensory system to mental existence. it does not mean to be sit idle. it is more powerful and subtle. notice that merging means noticinig that all sensory activities are ultimately mental. seeing is mind, smelling is mind, talking is mind, walking and grasping things are mind. ultimately all is mind. obviously physical organs are not mind. the activities of these organs – vritti – all are ultimately dumped in the mind and is controlled by the mind. one very good way of notiicing this is the dreams. our eyes are closed, we are not seeing anything, we are not acting. but we are present to so many actions, tastes, multiple sense working, and yet we know for sure that non of the physical senses are working. that means the mind itself has split into the 5 organs of senses. the mind in itself is able to see, hear, taste, touch and smell and walk around. notice how the mind in iteself can simulate hte acitivity of all the sense, because behind all senses is the mind. sensory activities – organs of senses or activity is actually in mind. The person sharping the arrow when the procession passed by, the mind had no bandwidth available to experience the external world. without mind senses cannot generate any sensory experiences. Withdraw into the mind – not just simple sit queitely. notice that all sensory activies are mental. withdraw into the mind. we are not a creature of grasping, tasting, touching creature, but a mental being. stay there for sometime. steady yourself there – the wise one who has already got the framework of the chariot correctly – discerning person – viveki – prajna – withdraw the sensory activities to the mind. notice that all the senses are in mind. Thoughts feelinsg memories desires sensory perceptions will – all of these are mind. now i still them. what is center to all of them – locate the “I” sense – it is the intellect. the ego. the sense of individual I. buddhi. This intellect is part of the cosmic mind – hiranya garbha – sensory perceptions of all living beings, all the memory, activiteis of all mind, all knowledge of all intellect, all ego part of all intellects. similar i am in all lving beings. gyan, ichcha, kriya is part of this hiranya garbha – in the cosmic sens. all life. it also includes prana. the life. just recognis that this i am is a part of the ocean of i am. from the hiranyagarbha, notice that to whom all these spectacular panorama is appearing to. you must be some kind of an aware being to be able to notice this. all of this display, the cosmic mind, individual mind, individual intellect, individual sensory – the whole thing is appearing to the awareness. t hat awareness is the subject. all of those others are objects. in this pure subject, the objective order is appearing – intellect, mind, sensory system, body and universe. in that awareness, there is no objective quality to it. it is Shaanth – peace self – consciousness self. you are not peaceful. mind can be disturbed or peaceful. but you are peace itself. Shaantha Atmani – the peace that is self – to which all is merged into. the whole display is an appearance in you. there is no external something apart from consicousness. sat chit ananda. this is the shant atma.
in the gospel of sri ramakrishna, someobody remarks the path is an endless path. sri ramakrishna corrects, where there is peace the road ends. the destinatino is discoverable. not in an obective fashion, but as a contemplation of – i am brahman – everything is readiation on the background radaince of awareness.
the world is non different from the background awareness. shanta atmani. was having a long conversation today with a scholarly monk from Kashi, on the methodology of teaching advaita vedanta. what you do is drig drishya viveka – i am the experiencer, everthing is experienced. that is a sankhian technique. the problem is two fold – you will end up with the feeling that i am sakshi. and there will different sakshi’s. you will have to work very hard to show very hard that all of those are one. it is still dualty. the entire universe, body, mind is still there. now you have to take up the jagat mithyatwa – they are not a countable second apart from consciouness. this effort to prove the falsity of the world ultimately comes from sankhya or buddhism. this is one way of doing. advantage is that it is very logical and one can follow step by step. the Upanishadic method is startin from the other side. start from awareness -> drasta as I -> jagat. the non dualty is preserved all throughout. in this upanishadic method, the place of devotion and God remains. start with non dual brahman and then come to world, devotion is still has its place. you shining, mind shines. you and mind shining, the world shines!
the way to realise the self realization this is the method. put and withdraw the prajna – viveki. when you withdraw speech, all are included in the umbrella. in the shanta atmana – aurobindo called it white glare of immortal gaze. the innermost of all existence, all beings – at heart of all is this awareness. the witness of activites of all minds, all are illumined by one consciousness.
to hymns – the one that is the witness of all intellect of all snetient being, who knows it all, but to whom nobody knows by objectifying it, is that consciousness – sri ramakrishna – you the self, and God is one reality. i salute that one radiance that appears as God, as I and Guru – vast and radiant like the sky, the south facing Shiva.
spiritual heart – have a feel of your own being – phenomenology – a feeling of my own existence. the core of this existence is the heart of ramana mahrishi. at the core of this heart lies the pure concsciouness.
you shining, mind shines. you and mind shining, the world shines!
The Tanmatras (the subtlest material manifested form) exercise all their powers on the body and its senses. The physical sens organs are enslaved and controlled by these Tanmatras. Sense go out and reach out for these Tanmatras. These Tanmatras are crystallized as real physical objects in the world of Name of Form. The Tanmatras are created by the mind & intellect based on their conditioning. These Tanmatras might be poison (Vish) if they are created based on the impression of the physical world. They themselves can be transformed into medicine (Rasayan) if they are channelized towards God. The same attraction of form of woman/man, can be transformed into the attraction of the form of the God. Tanmatras are the portals to the internal sense organs – mind & intellect. So, if this portal is directed towards the Samsara and its birth and death, same garbage is channelized inside the mind and intellect. And if this portal is directed towards God, the same sattvik energy enters the mind and intellect. The art of living, and controlling the senses is all about doing this re-wiring of the physical layer from human to God, and connecting to the inner body of mind and intellect.
Once this re-wiring is done, then God can be realized holistically through all the parts of the body, through all the chakras, through all thoughts, actions, will, speech, etc, in the world, through the practice of Raja Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Janana Yoga, Karma Yoga. This process of re-wiring is known as Chitta Shuddhi.
The toolkit to do this re-wiring is termed as Shat Sampatti – The 6 fold treasures – which is part of 4 fold path – Sadhana chatusthaya –
Viveka – Power of discernment
Vairagya – Non attachment to material object, people and situations.
Shat Sampatti –
Kshama – Peace of mind. Tranquility. Contentment.
Dama – Training of senses to actively be engaged into connecting the portal of the subtle sense objects (Tanamatras) to the Divine.
Uparati – Turning away from the world
Titiksha – Forbearance
Shraddha – Faith
Samadhana – Focus and concentration and consistence in pursuing the goal of realization of the Divine.
Mumukshutva – The intense yearning to realize the Divine.
Questions to remind what was the road, and where were the horses being pulled into.
How are the reigns aligned? In which directions the horses are being pulled into? किस दिशा मे इन्द्रिया दौड़ा राहे हो?
These yes are running on which direction? ये नजर किस पथ पर दौड़ा राहे हो
These ears are listening to whose / which sound? ये कान किस ताल का श्रवण कर रहे है
These hands are craving to grasp whom? ये हाथ किस को पकड़ना चाहते है
This tongue is craving for whose taste? ये जीभ किसका स्वाद चखना चाहता है
The nose is going after whose smell? ये नाक किस कि सुगन्ध का मतवाला चाहते है
Based on how the mind and intellect are conditioned, they choose to attach themselves into either the ever dying world of name and form or to the eternal presence of God. The art is to systematic re-wiring of the attachment from world to non-worldly objects – from humans to God, from palaces to temples, from songs of human longing to songs of divine longing, from worshiping for material gains to worshiping the God for the sake of love for God Herself. Vedanta helps to equip the intellect to be able to imbibe the right discernment between Truth and False, and powers the mind to keep being disciplined and full of only that right thought, imagination, visualization and direction. Once this is achieved the Chitta Suddhi is accomplished, and sadhana can start. The pointers to keep in mind to do the self check is known as Sadhana Chautshtya – These are foundation to start on the path of realization of God.
Some Key Points
The horses are the sense organs that go outright all the way out there in the world – the road
The road is the accumulation of the sense objects for which the senses are habituated to be titillated.
The sense objects undergo wear and tear. But what never dies, and keep flared up eternally is the Tanmatras which are the internalized impressions that the mind and intellect are attached and habituated of
The tanmatras are the internal portals to the mind which keep pumping in garbage or purity into the mind
Through practice of the Sadhana Chatusthay and keeping on building one’s Shat Sampatti, one is able to attain inner purification – Chitta Shuddhi, that helps to re-create the Tanmatras with connection with the Divine instead of the ever changing and rotting world.
The senses cannot be mortified or suppressed. They need to just channelized in the right direction. That direction should be towards an active engagement with the world, driven towards being and not having.
The realization of Divine is not a destination or an object to be achieved. It is a gradual outcome being engaged in creative spontaneous activity aligned with Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Jnana Yoga, Raja Yoga.
The ascending hierarchy of psychological and physical faculties – increasing in order of being subtler, more powerful, and more inwards –
Tanmatra (Sanskrit: तन्मात्र = tanmātra) is a noun which means – rudimentary or subtle element, merely that, mere essence, potential or only a trifle. There are five sense perceptions – hearing, touch, sight, taste and smell, and there are the five tanmatras corresponding to the five sense perceptions and five sense-organs. The tanmatras combine and re-combine in different ways to produce the gross elements – earth, water, fire, air and ether, which make up the gross universe perceived by the senses. The senses play their part by coming into contact with the objects and carry impressions of them to the manas which receives and arranges them into a precept.
The Tanmatras
The tanmatras focus on the origin or primordial aspects deep within, that gives rise to something physical. For example, a human in flesh and blood who is called as the mother, is not someone who is limited with that body. The origin of the mother starts from the feeling of secured, restful, and trusting embrace of safety in the womb, for the fetus, and then it extends to the smell of the mother, to the taste of the food mother prepares, and her presence. The origin of that motherhood, transcends the person in flesh and blood. Similarly, for a person in love, his beloved is not just an object which has a beginning and an end, in physical form. There are things much beyond the personality, habit, behavior, thoughts of the beloved. There are aspects that are more subtle, and those subtleties are experienced in the rich internal realizations of the lover. Something like a bounce in the feet when one knows he is in love, or for that matter that fragrance of the beloved when there is an equal reciprocation and both are head over heals in love. Or for that matter that feeling of openness and extension of one’s own self, and that feeling of a world that is one comprising seamlessly both the human beings.
Swami Vivekananda says the following about Tanmatras in his Raja Yoga treatise –
Tanmatras are very fine materials, which are undefined. They cannot be sensed by ordinary men. If you practice Yoga, Patanjali says after a while your perceptions will become so fine that you will actually see the Tanmatras. For instance, you have heard how every man has a certain light about him; every living being emits a certain light, and this, he says, can be seen by the Yogi. We do not all see it but we all throw out these Tanmatras, just as a flower continously sends out fine particles which enable us to smell it. Everyday of our lives we throw out a mass of good or eveil, and everywhere we go the atmostpher is full of these materials. That is how there came to the human mind, incluciously, the idea of buildin gtemples, and churches. Why should man build chruches in which to worship God? Why not worship him anywere? Even if he did not know the reason, man found that place where people worshipped God became full of good Tanmatras. Every day people go there, and the more they go the holier they get, and the holier that place becomes. If any man who has not much Sattva in him goes tehre, the place will influence him and arouse his Sattva qualities. A man may become so pure that his purity will become tangible. Whosoever comes in contact with him becomes pure.
On Tanmatras by Swami Vivekanda in Raja Yoga treatise.
Upanishads present a very sophisticated framework of these tanamatras. It says that these tanamatras are more subtle and higher than the senses. In Kathopnishad – 1.3.10, Yama says,
Beyond the senses, are the rudiments of its objects; beyond these rudiments is the mind; beyond the mind is atman known as Mahat (great).
Shankara’s Commentary:
Com.—Now this subsequent portion is introduced for the purpose of showing that the goal to be reached should be understood to be the Pratyak (the internal) atman, the subtlest proceeding from the gross senses in the ascending degree of subtlety. The senses are gross and those rudiments (Vishaya) from which these spring for their own illumination are subtler than the senses, their own effects, greater than these and the atman of these, i.e., bound up with these; subtler than these rudiments and greater than these, being the atman of these, is the mind. Here, by the word mind is denoted the rudiments of the Bhuta (Bhuta Sukshma) from which mind originates. Than the mind which is the origin of volition, deliberation and the rest, the intellect is subtler, greater, and more possessed of the functions of seeing, hearing, etc., does not shine, as the atman of any being concealed by ignorance and delusion. Oh, how deep, unfathomable and marvellous this Maya, that every living being, though really in its nature the Brahman, does not, though instructed, grasp the truth ‘I am the Paramatman’ and feels convinced, without any instruction that he is such a person’s son mistaking for the atman the combination of the body, and the senses, etc., which is not the atman and is only perceived by him, like the pot, etc.; indeed, the world wanders repeatedly deluded by the Maya of the Brahman alone; so the smriti also says ‘Being concealed by Yogamaya, I do not shine to all, etc.’ Are not these statements inconsistent? Knowing him, the intelligent do not grieve and ‘he does not shine.’ It is not so. It is said he does not shine, because he cannot be known by the unpurified intellect; but he is seen by the purified intellect. Agryaya, like a point, i.e., concentrated, subtle, i.e., capable of perceiving subtle objects. By whom? By the subtle seers, i.e., by persons, who, by seeing the different degrees of subtlety as pointed out by the rudiments, are subtler than the senses, etc., are characteristically able to see the subtlest, i.e., by learned persons.
The source of our perception is not identified as the objects, people, institutions, circumstances. Rather it is said that there is a more primordial aspect of all that is material – The rudiments of the objects – The tanamatras! Our senses crave for touch, smell, taste, sight, and sound. And these cravings come from these rudiments that make up the world of objects. So, when one is deeply attached to someone, say a beloved, they crave for experiencing the beloved through touch, smell, taste, sight and sound. The senses work as receptors. But there are these sense subtle objects that is emanates from the beloved that holds them lovers bonded together.
Again, one interesting aspect of this is that these cravings of the tanamatras are also function of the inner self too. As in the above mantra the hierarchy is put forth, as a part of the visualization of the body and mind complex as a chariot in 7 mantras earlier, in 1.3.3 in the same Kathopnishad –
आत्मानँ रथितं विद्धि शरीरँ रथमेव तु । बुद्धिं तु सारथिं विद्धि मनः प्रग्रहमेव च ॥ ३ ॥
ātmānam̐ rathitaṃ viddhi śarīram̐ rathameva tu | buddhiṃ tu sārathiṃ viddhi manaḥ pragrahameva ca || 3 ||
Know the atman as the lord of the chariot, the body as only the chariot, know also intelligence as the driver; know the minds as the reins.
Shankara’s Commentary:
Com.—Here a chariot is imagined for the atman, conditioned in Samsara, entitled to acquire knowledge and perform Karma for attaining emancipation and for travelling in Samsara, as a means to reach both. Know the atman, who is the enjoyer of the fruits of Karma and is in the bondage of Samsara, to be the lord of the chariot. Know the body to be verily the chariot, because like a chariot the body is drawn by the senses occupying the place of horses. Know also the intelligence to be the driver, furnished with the capacity for determination, because the body is mainly guided by the intelligence, as the chariot is mainly guided by the driver; for, everything done by the body is generally done by the intelligence. Know the mind with its characteristics of volition, doubt, etc., to be the reins; for, the senses, such as the ear, perform their functions when grasped by the mind as horses by the reins.
How beautifully and systematically the body & mind complex along with the world around is dissected into 5 aspects. And all these 5 aspects transcend the material world of forms and names –
Tanmatras – the subtle objects [subtlest]
Sense organs (controlled by Tanmatras) (Indriyas)
Mind (emotions) (controlled by sense organs) (Manas)
Intellect (decision making ability) (controlled by mind) (buddhi)
Consciousness (atman) (mahat) (hiranyagarbha)
In this entire framework, there is no place of the name and the form of the personality. Personalities come and go, they regress or evolve. Their preferences change. Friends become foes, and vice versa. The ever changing world of names and forms are ever changing. All that is born dies. All the starts, ends. But then before the beginning and after the end, there is an aspect that still always had stayed and will stay. And that is the subtlest of all – the mere pure awareness, that pure consciousness that makes us realize that we had a deep sleep, even the brain was not functioning in our deep sleep. We still know that we had a relaxing sleep. That awareness always blazes through and through revealing our mind, thoughts, intellect, senses, subtle and gross objects in this world. It is a gradual ascension of knowingness, and a systematic dis-entanglement with the world of forms and names.
As Plotinus says – The life is a flight from alone to alone!
The pure awareness deep within, which is revealing all this system of mind and body and the world around, creates all the paraphernalia of the world and its happening, and then rejoices at it, as play – The Maya. And that Maya is a play of Rasas, with the tinge of love, hatred, anger, jealosy, pride, desire, attachment, etc. It is like a garden of flowers of so many colors, forms and species. Every one has its own fragrance that completes the entire picture of the garden. Beyond good and bad, there is this whole feeling of completeness. The lies complete the truth. The hatred completes the love. The enmity completes friendliness, the loss completes gain, abandonment completes the embrace, terror completes the temptation!
The world of duality – self and the world – slowly merges into the world of oneness – only the self. Where the self expands and there is only one remains – The Divine. Sankara in his seminal work – Soundarya Lahiri, starts with the amorous description of the ethereal physical beauty of the Devi Tripura Sundari, from her head to toe. He rejoices at detailed description of Devi’s eyes, lips, breasts, thighs, and all of her manifestation in physicality. And then the poetry builds up seeing the Devi deep within, and identifying one’s own body as her’s. Slowly as the conversations tarted with the lover and beloved, ends with just one – the beloved. The single, disconnected ego of the self somewhere disappears all together.
In this world of likes and dislikes, temptations and terror, love and hatred, anger and enchantment, each morphing into the other and vice-versa, where everything is changing in the speed light, it is very blissful to know that there is One that is real, One that never changes, One that was always there, and will always be there – The constant companion – the sexiest of all, the powerful of all, the noblest of all, the most magnanimous of all, the most beautiful of all, the most understanding of all – The Devi. Yes, the flight starts from that aloneness, where one feels lonely in this ocean of Samsaara, and then one gets the grace of the Devi, sees her, and realizes her, makes love with her, and then in deep meditation, sees only Her in everything, in every where.
As beautifully Kabir reflected – जब मैं था तब हरि नहीं अब हरि है मैं नाहीं । प्रेम गली अति सांकरी जामें दो न समाहीं ॥
When I was, Hari was not When now Hari is, I am not The lane of Love is so constricted, Two cannot stay!
There are strong echoes of abjuring “Kaama” (काम) in multiple places in The Bhagavad Gita, Ramchartmanas, all the Upanishads and even the Puranas. But at the same time, the same expression is used as something that needs to be celebrated and used as a means to realization of the Divine, the same scriptures.
What is this Kaam” (काम) ? Sometimes it is translated to English as lust, sometimes desire, sometimes romantic love, sometimes erotic love. What is this exactly?
Given the elaborate celebration of erotic art in the temple architecture of medieval India, and meticulous rhetoric around aesthetics in several greatest Sanskrit works – both secular and religious, there is something that all the cannon of literature alludes to which is more complex and nuanced than simply rejecting anything related to desire, love, and eroticism.
I think all the abjuring suggestions are towards covetousness and not just aesthetics, love and eroticism. Appreciating and celebrating love and beauty is always been part of the all inclusive aspect of being human. The point is about not letting love become a drive to “have”. Instead it is about to experience, appreciate, worship, and let the beauty take birth, grow, and proliferate. It is about being cognizant of the matter not to objectify beauty as a thing to “have” and “consume”.
As the modern life goes, the focus is always on finding what is the best deal, and then do all that can be done to have that best thing. Who loses the rat race is termed as a loser. Success is measured in terms of how much more a person can have. Relationships are always continued only when there is a reciprocation and a mutual benefit that is accrued by both the parties. Only when there is something to get in turn of something given, and when what a person receives in return is bigger in terms of monetary, material, power and prestige dimensions, the relatedness is allowed to prosper. Else anger, hatred, jealousy, reductive utilitarianism etc are effectively utilized to kill any sort of other possibilities of relatedness. The Vedic system is in principle totally orthogonal to such a view system.
The Vedic system sets forth a systematic framework on how to establish a relatedness with an entity (The Divinity Herself) without any focus on what one gets in return. The love for the Devi starts with the Devi and ends with the Devi (Goddess). The rituals that is done, the discipline that is followed, the sacred poetry that are written all are just focused on remembrance of the beloved in the Divine. There is no urge or drive to get anything from the Divine. Not even a good life. Nothing, absolutely nothing. What starts with a discipline and then turns into a habit, focused on the Devi, slowly turns outwards to everything and everybody. All of the flora and fauna appears a reflection of the Devi, and there is no covetousness to have or own someone or something. There is a conscious sentiment against all sort of acquisitiveness, avarice, avid, grabby, grasping, greedy, rapacious nature of man for anything outside and beyond being one with the Divinity Herself.
Falling in love with a human in the world, becomes a creative act of knowing the other in their fullness – in their authenticity, and in-authenticity, in their truth and lies, in their invitation and abandonment. There is no Raaga or Dwesha (attachment or repulsion). It is like a visit to a garden to see varied flowers, appreciate their beauty, and let them continue to blossom among their kith and kin, and going on. The whole uphill of letting go, at times, is a directly outcome of this addiction towards consuming and having whatever one finds good and attractive. There is no letting go, because there was nothing to catch to begin with. When the Niagara fall looks magnanimous, that thought to “have” that Niagara fall, percolates into our compulsive obsessive desire to capture the moments in pictures, videos and souvenirs. When a person appears good and one gets attracted to them, the immediate need is to have them as their close companion. And when that is not possible the whole drama of life unfolds, of anger, hatred, violence, and what not. The souls is already whole and complete being nourished deeply in love with the Devi in deep meditation, dreams, moments of solitude, moments of actions, moments of engagement with work and duties of everyday life. All work becomes an offering to the Devi. Everything starts and ends with Devi. Everything appears as a reflection of Devi. And Devi being the pure consciousness herself, there is no way one can “have” her. Only way is to see the world enlivened by her. And that engagement to see the Devi from the creation in the world, as friends and foes, flora and fauna, is a noble enterprise in itself.
The problem is not in desire. The problem is not in beauty. The problem is not even in the ability to observe the beauty, like the beauty and experience the beauty. The problem is a deep seated inability to actively engage with the beauty and let the beauty grow and flourish in its own way, instead of judging it, and manipulating it to enslave it to one’s selfish whims and fancies. The problem is not in being appreciative of the beautiful breasts and hips of the carving of the heavenly damsel in the temple’s outer walls, engaging in the act of love with her beloved. The problem is in giving that damsel a name, and coveting to “have” her, and “consume” her as a friend, companion, partner and rest of it. It is that selfish act of objectifying that beauty and hoarding it as a thing, that is at fault. It is that inability to see that the real beauty of those breasts, and those eyes, and those lips, lies in her belonging and the act of trust and connection with her beloved. That active engagement, that creative action is what is producing the beauty, which is consciousness itself. That beauty cannot be objectified and then consumed.
In Ramayana, Ravana was the victim of his covetousness of the youth and beauty of Sita. In Mahabharata, Duryodhana was the victim of his covetousness of power and land. We have so many examples of powerful successful men and women, who got destroyed in their continuous desire to have more and more. The entire spree of having, acts like oil in fire. More the desires are quenched by having somebody or something, more the desire to have them in larger quantities, and more frequently sprouts. There is no end to the downward spiral, till the person meets his own ignominious end.
On the other hand, when one is engaged into creation and recognizing beauty around, cherish the beauty, and engage with the beauty and aesthetics to further enhance them, and establish it more firmly to the world, the person becomes part of the beauty, and let his one part of his soul offered at the feet of the beauty and moves on, with gratitude and devotion. Its like taking a dip in the holy Ganges. Feeling nourished and blessed, one moves on. The external life continues its motion. But deep within the person has built up his shrine deep inside his heart, establishing his Devi – forming all that is Beautiful, Truth, and Auspicious, ever glowing as the lamp of the sanctum sanctorum, giving the golden sheen on the countenance of the Devi.
People come and go. Love, hate, anger, repulsion, being wronged, hurt, abandonment, all comes and goes, but, what remains is the devotees heart filled brimming with love for Devi, always afresh, novel, youthful, and brimming with passion. In this plentiful and bountiful landscape of love everywhere, the erotic art in the temple, the erotic literature in sacred poetry automatically lingers out of that wisdom of the Infinite!
This entire line of thought is beautifully summarized in Vedanta as Sadhana Chatushthaya – Viveka (having that discernment between “having” and “being”, knowing the real is the Devi, and the world is her ever changing Maya), Vairagya (sense of complete detachment of anything and everything material, knowing that they are just ripples of drops from the same ocean of Devi), Shatha Sampathi (6 fold treasures) (Dama – physically not covet , Kshama – mentally not covet, TItiksha (forebearance, being ambivalent in both Raaga and Dwesha), Uprathi (not getting un-necessarily involved in the world), Samadhana (single pointed focus on Devi / the Divine), Shraddha (unwavering faith on the Divine)), Mumukshutwa (deep desire to be liberated from the cycles of birth and death, love and hate, embrace and abandonment – all the drama of in and out in the world).
Karconversations 