JivanMukthi

Shishya : Reveared Guru, can you please explain me what is Mukthi ?

Guru: Getting away from the cycle of birth and death is Mukthi.

Shishya: I am born once and I die once, where is the question of escaping from it ? Please explain me !

Guru: When you confine your self to this body, it is very diffult to understand. You are not this body, you are the atman, the self, within you. As Sri Krishna said in Bhagavad Gita,

InAction and AVidhya

Sri Krishna in Bhagavad Gita Chapter 4, instructs the qualities of a self realized man, saying "One who can see action in inaction and inaction in action is the truly liberated soul".

Ishopanishad, in one of its mantra (Refer previous post) goes on to explore that "Those who worship avidhya enter darkness and those who verily worship vidhya enters deeper darkness."

Above statements should be pointing out to the same philosophy, for some reason the deeper physcological meaning is not coming out very clearly. May be its an experience which has to be experience by individuals and cannot be thought with the limited vocabulary available.

I remember that I had read somewhere that all these scriptures have been left obscure for individuals to explore themselves as they cannot be taught !!!!! (I think its Sri Aurobindo in his book "Synthesis of Yoga")

Gita - Chapter III

In Chapter III of Bhagavad Gita , the lord exposes to the twofold path of divine realization.
1. Sankya - Jyana Yoga - Realizing the supereme by the means of Knowledge
2. Karma Yoga - Divine appreciation in all our work.

It was Krishna who had manifested these paths at the start of the universe. Path of Sankya will not be possible for everyone. Very few have followed this path to attain self realization. Sri Aurobindo is one such great soul who had followed Jnaya yoga to understand the divinity within. Sri Krishna iterates the importance of Karma in this chapter.

All of us have been sent to this world with a divine purpose. We cannot escape this purpose calling ourself renounciates. We have to perform our duties in this earth with dedication. The primary thing to be understood in the context of our duties is that, its Krisha who is the doer, Krishna who is the object of doing and its Only Krishna alone who reaps the benefits of it. We have to be indifferent to the success or failure of our karma. Never rejoice nor repent.
Always perform every duty in our day today life to please Krishna.

Ishopanishad-Mantra 9

"Andham tamah pravishanti ye vidyam upasate,

tato bhuya iva te tamo ya u vidyayagm ratah"

They who worship avidya alone enter into blindering darkness and they, who are engaged in vidya verily fall as though,into an even greater darkness.

(Isavasya Upanishad, Swami Chinmayananda, Pg-114)

What does avidya and vidya signifies here ? Swami chinmayananda explains avidya as rituals and vidya as meditation. Interpreting the meaning of the same Swami goes on to say, that those who are involved only in rituals, will never be able to identify their true self, they will be constantly driven by maya or illusion. The argument which he puts forth there, is that rituals are performed only for material benefits. Seeking only material benefits in his living man is definitely not going to achieve self realization. At the same time, people involved in vidhya that is mediation, may also not get the right benefits, because in haste they may tend to over do it. Swami emphasises the point "as though into an even greater darkness", the mediator may feel that he is not having any benefits of his long and continuous mediation session, but has to wait patiently to allow it to work on him.Over a period of time man's meditation efforts will earn its fruit. The real fruit of mediation is self realization.

Swamiji explores further into this sloka, the negative prefix A in samskrata can mean two things. It can be the antonym of a word when applied on the same or else it can also mean that the word of attention is not truly the same but something similar to it.Avidya, may not be opposite of vidhya, but may be something close to it, but not exactly the same. Given that, can we take the meaning of vidhya as higher meditation and avidhya as selfless service, rather than rituals. The avidhya here may mean karma. Ishopanishad in its second sloka has pondered on the karma saying that "A man should wish to live a hindered years, purely doing his karma. This alone is the right path and action never clings to a man in the path". This interpretation gives a completely new meaning to this sloka now.

The sloka turns out to say that, both Vidhya and Avidhya are equally important to a man. A man who ignores his karma and mearly does meditation and the one who merely does meditation ignoring his karma, both are destined not to reach the state of self realization.

Ishavasayam Idham Sarvam

As a follow up of the message posted previously "Serve man still you see god in all men", its very diffcult to digest the message, that god is everywhere. As the upanishad says, "All things which are moving and not moving within this ever moving universe is veiled by god".

Sri Aurobindo uses a nice metaphor of sea and waves to explain this concept. Each wave is different from the other, but all of them are from the same sea. A wave is just a temparory state, though its looks to us as if different from the sea, its the same sea, which manisfest itself as wave. Hence a wave is no different from the sea.

Similary each of us is a wave, as each wave is different from the other in terms of height, strength etc, we are different. However we are all the manifestation of the same almighty. This explains the concept of "Ishavasyam Idham Sarvam".

Isha vasyam Idham Sarvam - Exclusive message from Sathya Sai Baba

I was surprised to see the photograph of Sathya Sai Baba today, with an exclusive message for me. Its not the first time it has happened, every time when I visit my Manager's cabin for a morning chat, Something in his office catches my attention, and the see Bhagavan there, with an exclusive message for me.

It was hard hitting today. For the past few weeks, I have been trying to ponder over Ishopanishad. I don't remember how I got interested into it, but have been trying to read it for some time now. The first glimpse of it was from the website www.hinduwebsite.com

During my weekly visit to Dinabhandhu temple in cmh road, bangalore, I found this book Ishavasyoupanishad by Swami Chinmayananda. Later as I was waiting for someone, I had entered Mother's Ashram, and saw the book Isha Upanishad by Sri Aurobindo, just waiting there for me to be picked up. There was only one copy of it. Surprisingly I was searching the web many times to check on if there are any commentaries by Sri Aurobindo on Isha Upanishad. I found some, but they looked to me like mere translation. This book is a treasure, it has all his manuscripts (some of them were his scratch pad of ideas, which were never published), which was his thoughts and pondering on the true meaning of these upanishads.

I can't stop myself from believing that there was a divine will behind all these. The last two weeks were very busy at work, but still could manage good time to read and ponder over it. The day before yesterday evening, I was asking myself this question continuously " How do I see god in everything ? Yes my intellect is able to understand the concept but how do i put it to practise ? How can enjoy the great lord in the plurality of the various form ?"

Sri Aurobindo states that Isha upanishad is about Karma Yoga. To start on the path of Karma yoga, the first step is to experience Isha, The God, in all the things around us. Everthing around us, including us, is the manifestation of Lord in various forms / levels of consciousness.

I think Sathya Sai Baba gave me the answer. The photo was printed with the message "Serve man until you see god in all men."

"What you think is,what you are !!!", an age old saying is a profound statement, not definitely a passing comment. All of us would realise this in some point in our life. The happy and sorrow moments occurring in our life are all coming from within. In one of his talks Yogananda Paramahamsa mentions the following example, "A women is standing by the window and watching, a kind man passing by thinks she is waiting for her kid, a sensuous man passing by thinks she may be waiting for her lover." Hence its our thinking or consciousness which determines what we are.

Modern day Scientist / Doctors in the never ending experimentation of trying to understand brain, have concluded that, Buddhist monks who mediate more than 10,000 hours have a lot of calm cells in their brain, and hence say that meditation and consciously changing our way of thinking can bring a lot of benefits to our body and mind, such as reduced stress, good appetite etc...

In Aurobindo's word, we all live in mind consciousness, this puts a great veil betweent the profound truths and us. The upanishads and vedas are an attempt to lift the veil. The vedic peace invoking prayer is the first attempt to open up ourselves from mind conscious behaviour to divine conscious behaviour, the prayer goes as

"Om. That is full; this is full. This fullness has been projected from that fullness. When this fullness merges in that fullness, all that remains is fullness. Om. Peace! Peace! Peace!"
Source :"The Upanishads - A new Translation" by Swamy Nikilananda

Pondicherry Mother states that it was the aim of the divine behind Aurobindo's arrival to earth to help the fellow human beings realize the truth / divine consciousness

"from Volume 12 On Education, p.116 (24 July 1951)
Sri Aurobindo came upon earth to teach this truth to men. He told them that man is only a transitional being living in a mental consciousness, but with the possibility of acquiring a new consciousness, the Truth-consciousness, and capable of living a life perfectly harmonious, good and beautiful, happy and fully conscious. During the whole of his life upon earth, Sri Aurobindo gave all his time to establish in himself this consciousness he called supramental, and to help those gathered around him to realise it. "

Win Your Little Victories

If through an effort of inner consciousness and knowledge, youcan truly overcome in yourself a desire, that is to say, dissolve andabolish it, and if through inner goodwill, through consciousnesslight, knowledge, you are able to dissolve the desire, you will be,first of all in yourself personally, a hundred times happier than ifyou had satisfied this desire, and then it will have a marvellouseffect. It will have a repurcussion in the world of which you haveno idea. It will spread forth. For the vibrations you have createdwill continue to spread. These things grow larger like the snow-ball.The victory you win in your character, however small it be, isone which can be gained in the whole world... If you really want to do something good, the best thing you cando is to win your small victories in all sincerity, one after another,and thus you will do for the world the maximum you are able to.

The Mother : The Sunlit Path p.64

"There are two ways of doing Yoga, one by knowledge and one's own efforts, the other by reliance on the Mother. In the last way one has to offer one's mind and heart and all to the Mother for her Force to work on it, call her in all difficulties, have faith and bhakti. At first it takes time, often a long time, for the consciousness to be prepared in this way - and during that time many difficulties can come up, but if one perseveres a time comes when all is ready, the Mother's Force opens the consciousness fully to the Divine, then all that must develop develops within, spiritual experience comes and with it the knowledge and union with the Divine."

Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950)Letter from November 13, 1934in "On Himself", SABCL, volume 26, page 455

The Mother is synomous term to believers, those who belive in Pondicherry Mother, its her, for others it can be Mother Nature and for people deep in Hindu method of worship its Shakthi. Infact this is the Shakthi upasana, strictly adhered by greats like Mahakavi Barathiyar and others.

The principle behind the Integral Yoga advocated by Sri Aurobindo Ashram becomes very clear in the introduction chapter "Life and Yoga, Part I,Chapter I of Synthesis of Yoga". The chapter ends with note saying life is a yoga by itself, the constant evolution process of reaching the supreme spirit. Sri Aurobindo, points us to working of Mother Nature in this context. Everything in Mother Nature is constantly performing its duty without giving any thoughts to the consequence or the results of it.

Quoting Swamy Vivekanda's definition of Yoga, Yoga is a compression process of Human Being's evolution to few years, or at some cases few months, Sri Aurobindo explores the fundamentals behind the various Schools of Yoga known to human man kind. He explores the striking similarities between Science experiments to prove facts and yoga techniques. The aim of Science is to derive at hypothesis and subsequently prove or disprove the same by experiments. In chemistry or any kind of Process engineering sciences, existing or previously found elements or process are constantly reworked, either new assembled or disassembled to come up with new functionality.

Similarly Yoga also works constantly on the human body in the case of HathaYoga and Human Mind in the case of Rajayoga, and eventually make it more suitable for knowing the Supreme Divine. The nature has been constantly working on our body through various evolution process and now we are at a more advanced level. The next immediate job is similarly working on our mind and consciousness.

Hence the emphasis on yoga being constantly running in the background of our every activity, would fasten this evolution process, thus making this whole life a Yoga.

There are 108 upanishads known ot mankind. Upanishads are a condensed form of our sacred vedas. They breifly bring about the philosphocial messages embedded in the vedas.

The list are (Thanks to http://www.astrojyoti.com/upanishadspage.htm)

From the Rigveda

1 Aitareya Upanishad 2 Aksha-Malika Upanishad - about rosary beads3 Atma-Bodha Upanishad 4 Bahvricha Upanishad 5 Kaushitaki-Brahmana Upanishad 6 Mudgala Upanishad 7 Nada-Bindu Upanishad 8 Nirvana Upanishad 9 Saubhagya-Lakshmi Upanishad 10 Tripura Upanishad From the Shuklapaksha Yajurveda 11 Adhyatma Upanishad 12 Advaya-Taraka Upanishad 13 Bhikshuka Upanishad 14 Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 15 Hamsa Upanishad 16 Isavasya Upanishad 17 Jabala Upanishad 18 Mandala-Brahmana Upanishad 19 Mantrika Upanishad 20 Muktika Upanishad 21 Niralamba Upanishad 22 Paingala Upanishad 23 Paramahamsa Upanishad 24 Satyayaniya Upanishad 25 Subala Upanishad 26 Tara-Sara Upanishad 27 Trisikhi-Brahmana Upanishad 28 Turiyatita-Avadhuta Upanishad 29 Yajnavalkya Upanishad

From the Krishnapaksha Yajurveda 30 Akshi Upanishad 31 Amrita-Bindhu Upanishad 32 Amrita-Nada Upanishad 33 Avadhuta Upanishad 34 Brahma-Vidya Upanishad 35 Brahma Upanishad 36 Dakshinamurti Upanishad 37 Dhyana-Bindu Upanishad 38 Ekakshara Upanishad 39 Garbha Upanishad 40 Kaivalya Upanishad 41 Kalagni-Rudra Upanishad 42 Kali-Santarana Upanishad 43 Katha Upanishad 44 Katharudra Upanishad 45 Kshurika Upanishad 46 Maha-Narayana (or) Yajniki Upanishad 47 Pancha-Brahma Upanishad 48 Pranagnihotra Upanishad 49 Rudra-Hridaya Upanishad 50 Sarasvati-Rahasya Upanishad 51 Sariraka Upanishad 52 Sarva-Sara Upanishad 53 Skanda Upanishad 54 Suka-Rahasya Upanishad 55 Svetasvatara Upanishad 56 Taittiriya Upanishad 57 Tejo-Bindu Upanishad 58 Varaha Upanishad 59 Yoga-Kundalini Upanishad 60 Yoga-Sikha Upanishad 61 Yoga-Tattva Upanishad

From the Samaveda 62 Aruni (Aruneyi) Upanishad 63 Avyakta Upanishad 64 Chandogya Upanishad 65 Darsana Upanishad 66 Jabali Upanishad 67 Kena Upanishad 68 Kundika Upanishad 69 Maha Upanishad 70 Maitrayani Upanishad 71 Maitreya Upanishad 72 Rudraksha-Jabala Upanishad 73 Sannyasa Upanishad 74 Savitri Upanishad 75 Vajrasuchika Upanishad 76 Vasudeva Upanishad 77 Yoga-Chudamani Upanishad

From the Atharvaveda 78 Annapurna Upanishad 79 Atharvasikha Upanishad 80 Atharvasiras Upanishad 81 Atma Upanishad 82 Bhasma-Jabala Upanishad 83 Bhavana Upanishad 84 Brihad-Jabala Upanishad 85 Dattatreya Upanishad 86 Devi Upanishad 87 Ganapati Upanishad 88 Garuda Upanishad 89 Gopala-Tapaniya Upanishad 90 Hayagriva Upanishad 91 Krishna Upanishad 92 Maha-Vakya Upanishad 93 Mandukya Upanishad 94 Mundaka Upanishad 95 Narada-Parivrajaka Upanishad 96 Nrisimha-Tapaniya Upanishad 97 Para-Brahma Upanishad 98 Paramahamsa-Parivrajaka Upanishad 99 Pasupata Brahmana Upanishad 100 Prasna Upanishad 101 Rama Rahasya Upanishad 102 Rama-Tapaniya Upanishad 103 Sandilya Upanishad 104 Sarabha Upanishad 105 Sita Upanishad 106 Surya Upanishad 107 Tripadvibhuti-Mahanarayana Upanishad 108 Tripura-Tapini Upanishad

Universality of Yoga, another chapter from Yogananda's Man's Eternal Quest start with an emphasis on what a true religion is. All religions which are practiced today are based on Man's beliefs. The code and the conduct of the religion comes from people who call themselves the authority of it. Early literature including great epics were written in Sanskrit. The beauty of the language lies in its grammar and vocabulary that a same sentence can be interpreted differently.

Rodney Lingham in his website www.geocities.com/rigvedsamhita has serious of articles on the right interpretation of Rig Veda from a spiritual perspective. This throws great light on what our ancient sages wanted to convey to the future generations. Mastery of Sanskrit language is not the only qualification to understand and throw ideas on religious principles from vedas.

Yogananda clearly points out that any religion should be based on science and not mere human beliefs. The science should be able to reveal the true identity of the almighty or GOD.
This would throw light on the universality of all religions helping the man kind to setup an universal brotherhood under the fatherhood of the almighty. Yoga is that science which can help the mankind understand the purpose of his / here existence in this world and his true identity.

In most of his works, Yogananda never misses the point that we humans have been created as an image of GOD. But as we start our worldly journey we associate ourselves only with the body and forget our true nature. During the beginning, that is before big bang happened as the scientific community would like to callit, there was Universal consciousness, the spirit, as the living creatures were formed, Universal consciousness came upon the creatures as Krishna consciousnes or the soul. Eventually with the human being started disassociating themselves from the soul and started believing more in the body consciouness.

Yoga is the true science to take the journey backward from body consciouness to Universal Consciousness. Any Master who has done it himself only would be able to guide us in that path. Infact it was the first question which Swami vivekananda asked Swami Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, " Sir, Have you seen GOD ? If yes the can you show it to me ? ".

Yesterday morning was spent reading another article from beloved Yogananda, "The Desires of All Desires", from his book Man's Eternal Quest. His extracts form Gita and Bible were so apt to explain the concept of why should we aspire for GOD always in our life leaving all other desires as secondary. The one part which was so sole stirring was the Mother son example. In our every day prayers we demand / beg worldy pleasure to god, we may ask for a new car, home, a promotion at work, or a bigger salary cheque etc etc....never once we have demanded for God himself. Yogananda, says this resembles the act of a son who comes to his mother only for demanding money for his needs and forget about her otherwise.

This started a lot of thought process in my mind, interms of how do we cultivate the habit of remebering GOD every moment in our life ? Do the normal rituals which were prescribed for Brahmins is an attempt to do it ? In the long course of time have we forgotten the real meaning behind it,and have tried to ape it as it was thought ? I dont know the answers for these questions.. however the article is a nail on the head to bring the point that man's ultimate desire should be to find almighty.

In most of his lesson Yogananda emphasises the point that we are all made as an image of GOD. We dont have to go around to find GOD, he resides within us, with closed eyes and practiced concentration we can find him anytime. Mediation is the key to find GOD.

Another para which dwells on why to forfeit desires, we tend to think this world as real and this is the Kingdom of GOD. However Yogananda, points out that this is not GOD's Kingdom, rather its his laboratory, where he wants to put his children to test. The real test of our god given will and conscience. How much are we ready to use the god given conscience to find our lost treasure, our Heavenly father, The GOD.