THE SIMPLICITY OF LIBERATION

[Guest guest]

THE SIMPLICITY OF LIBERATION(Message given by Swamiji on his 55th birthday - 25th April, 1977)

 

I can only say what I am in the habit of thinking always, and

what else can be said? My usual trend of thinking every day, under

every condition practically, is all that I can endeavor to express;

how I think, and what is my habitual way of thinking. Whatever be the

outer mode that one's life may take, it has a background and a support

of thought and idealism. This is what determines the nature of a

person, and speaks for itself without necessarily being expressed in

words or language.

 

Our lives do not consist of actions or functions or

performances, celebrations, etc., but they consist of certain

adjustments. So, it can be safely said that whatever we do in our

lives, individually or otherwise, is a sort of adjustment, which

looks like an activity, an action, an enterprise, a project, and so

on and so forth. There is nothing in life except this simple fact -

whatever the life that one may try to live, the simple things that

everyone does, and anyone does at any time, is a kind of adjustment

of oneself to certain conditions which call for certain adjustments.

That is all what life actually is, as it at least appears to our

practical experience.

 

But what is this adjustment? If this is to be understood, and

if it can be understood, then it becomes an intelligent guide and a

safe light post on the path which we are treading by way of these

adjustments. Otherwise, the adjustments become compulsive, thrust

upon us, and that adjustment which we make compulsorily out of

conditions is what we call hardship, difficulty, problems, suffering,

etc. But if this adjustment, which otherwise goes by the name of a

pressure and a difficulty, can be made part and parcel of our

intelligence, understanding and conscious conduct and behavior, then

it becomes what the ancient masters called Yoga.

 

What you call difficulty or hardship in life, problem and

sorrow, is itself Yoga, when it is understood. Yoga, when it is not

understood, is a problem and a trouble and a suffering in life. And a

suffering in life when understood is the practice of Yoga. It was a

great Buddhist scholar, whom we know today as Nagarjuna, the great

predecessor of even Acharya Shankara in dialectics and polemics, who

declared as the quintessence of his tremendous work that "where there

is Samsara there is Moksha, where there is Moksha there is Samsara."

What you call bondage is itself freedom, and what you call freedom is

itself bondage.

 

So you need not escape from bondage to achieve freedom; you

have only to understand what bondage is, and you are at once free. So

it is not movement from bondage to freedom, from Samsara to Moksha,

from the world to God. It is an awakening, a word which you have

heard so many times, repeated so many times, and thought to be

understood by so many people, but never really understood.

 

There is nothing that we have to do in this world; we have only

to understand, and nothing else. It is not a transformation that is

called for, not an evolution nor a revolution. It is pure awakening,

the rising of the sun of knowledge. Nothing happens to the world when

you are free. The world is the same. Nothing happens even to you. But

a tremendous transformation takes place in a different way altogether

- in a four dimensional pattern as our modern scientists would put it

- instead of a three dimensional existence, you enter into a four

dimensional eternity.

 

This so-called three dimensional time-space life of ours itself

gets illumined with the new light of the four dimensional

consciousness. In the language of the Mandukya Upanisad, it is a

rising of the experiencing individual from the three states to the

fourth state, called turiya - from the three dimensions of waking,

dream and deep sleep you go to the fourth dimension of turiya.

 

You do not go, you do not move; nothing happens. What happens

to you when you wake up from sleep? You have not gone to a different

place, you have not become a different person, but a tremendous

change has taken place in you. It is as if you have been transported

to a different realm altogether, and a new reality, the nature of

which is well known to everyone; the contrast between the reality of

dream and deep sleep and the reality of waking.

 

But what of this contrast? Not withstanding this breathtaking

difference between the realities of dream, deep sleep and waking, it

is the same thing that looks in two different ways. The thing that

appeared as dream, that same thing appears now as waking. You have

changed the angle of your vision, the standpoint of perception and

experience.

 

This is a hard job for the human understanding to achieve.

Because of the difficulty in absorbing this technique of

understanding human life, religions have not succeeded, philosophies

have not succeeded, enthusiasts in the social field have not

succeeded; history has repeated itself in the same pattern for ages

and ages. All the efforts of man seemed to be a failure in the end on

account of a little small tiny defect in his way of thinking. But a

great question arises before oneself - "Yes, we have appreciated the

situation - is there a way out?" Even Master Shankara could not give

an answer to this question - "What is the way out?" When the way is

visible to your mental eye, that is the only way out. You do not know

how it comes.

 

A question is posed by the great expounder of Vedanta

Philosophy, Acharya Shankara in his commentary on the Brahma Sutras:

how does knowledge arise in a person? Does it come from books, does

it come from teachers, does it come by the kicks and blows that you

receive in life, does it come from God, by a mandate of His Will, or

a fiat of His Grace? You cannot say that knowledge comes through your

effort, because your efforts are conditioned by the knowledge that you

have already in you. So you cannot put forth an effort which is

superior to the knowledge that you already have. How can there be an

effort which transcends itself for the purpose of a higher knowledge?

So it is difficult to say that effort is the cause of knowledge. Nor

is it true that it is mere sufferings and buffets that you receive in

life which is the source of all knowledge. Many people suffer in life,

but they gain no knowledge.

 

Well, is it a whim of God that He suddenly forces knowledge

upon you? It is difficult to say; maybe, maybe not. There is no

answer. The answer is that this happens. Suddenly you awaken. How did

you get up from sleep? Who woke you up - God, man, your efforts, your

studies? Nothing of the kind. You cannot say how you woke up from

sleep. Something occurs, and that occurrence is awakening. It is a

mixture, a blend, a combination, coordination of many factors. God

plays a role, man plays a role, society plays a role, your effort

plays a role naturally; evolutionary urge also plays a role. All

these work together in the production of this tremendous universal

effect called awakening. So we have to wait like a servant waiting

for his wages. There is nothing that we can do except wait for the

first of the month to gain our salary. "When the first comes, when

the first comes, when the first comes, I will have my salary." You go

on waiting, but merely because you wait, the first will not hurry

itself. It has its own way of coming. If you are eagerly awaiting the

first of the month, it cannot come tomorrow merely because you expect

it. But, nevertheless, you expect it, and it comes at its own proper

time. In due course of time you will get.

 

But if you are sincerely aspiring, ask and it shall be given.

Your soul should ask for the knowledge that is necessary for the sake

of this great understanding. Ask and it shall be given. But what are

you asking? You don't know what to ask. So, how can you ask? You can

only be sincerely awaiting illumination so that you may understand

what that is. You cannot ask for freedom - you do not know what

freedom is. People ask for freedom, not knowing what it is. You

cannot be free as long as you are in a world of elements; when you

breathe air over which you have no control, when you depend on water

over which you have no control, when you want sunlight over which you

have no control, how can you say that you are free? What freedom have

you attained? So there is no freedom for anyone who lives in the

world; nor is there freedom in getting out of the world. Freedom is

an awakening into the structure of the world itself.

 

Religion has been said to be an answer in the cultural history

of mankind. People have turned to religion when there was sorrow in

life. But we have religions and religions. They are like professions,

like vocations in life. I belong to this religion; it is something

like saying, I am an industrialist, I am a businessman, I am a

teacher, I am a painter. You have some business and profession, so

religion also has become a kind of profession. You go to the temple,

you go to the church, you have a Sunday, you have a Thursday and

whatnot.

 

We can very easily deceive ourselves into a religious

consciousness. And there cannot be anything easier in life than

self-deception. Everything is difficult except this. Very simply, you

can turn yourself into a great saint in a minute without having

altered your position even a little bit. The greatest danger in life

is self- deception. Self-deception need not necessarily be

deliberate. Generally we define self-deception as a kind of trick

that one plays, upon oneself and others, for the purpose of gaining

an ulterior motive. It is not always true. One can be deceiving

oneself without knowing what is happening. Because, a twist in

consciousness gets identified with the totality of one's

psychophysical being and one becomes an embodiment of that deception.

So you cannot find fault in a person who is under that coma of

self-deception. He does not deceive purposely, or deliberately,

dexterously with premeditation. It has taken place due to an

overwhelming pressure of the unconscious level of the mind.

 

Why does this happen? Why do we deceive ourselves and place

ourselves at the mercy of an unconscious blast that blows upon our

face from the bottom of the sea of the unknown? This is because we

are many times too over-enthusiastic. We may be very sincere, and yet

wrongly; it is possible. Sincerity comes, honesty comes, but we may be

duller in understanding even there. All told, the whole thing is a

difficulty. We are not in a pleasure garden or a rose bed; we are in

a situation where we have to be vigilant at every moment. And we have

to wait for an occurrence to take place, rather than press ourselves

egoistically into any kind of situation.

 

The only Sadhana or practice that you can execute, is to

withdraw your personality from occurrences that take place. You

should not thrust your personality into any situation and then you

will seek meritorious work. Nature is very spontaneous in its action.

It is not artificial or contrived with any kind of ulterior purpose.

So we have to allow nature to work in a spontaneous manner. And

spontaneity and egoism are opposites. Where there is egoism there is

no spontaneity. It is all make-believe and make-up. We have to

withdraw our personality from the experiences that we are undergoing

in life and allow the experiences to take place and pass. When you

take a bath in the ocean you should not fight with the waves, you

should allow the waves to cross and move over your head; you should

not oppose them and press them, for then they will be capable of

pressing you down.

 

Our personality is our trouble, which is an external form of

what we call the egoism of the individual. We have no other problem

in life except this self-assertive principle in us. Over-enthusiasm

in any direction can mislead us into the notion that we are free from

this evil. While we can be caught by engrossments in external objects,

which is usually the case with many people in the world, we can also

be caught by the ego, like a serpent from inside. A person who is

free from attachment to objects can be a devilish ego from inside.

And one who is trying to free himself from the ego within may enter

the oceanic flood of sense objects outside. So you can be under the

pressure of the external phenomena called objects, or the internal

phenomenon called the ego. No one has escaped both of these. Either

you are caught here, or you are caught there. You have a double

tollgate - if you escape one, you get caught in the other. So there

is a double checkmate in tolls when you drive reckless on the road.

You cannot escape both; it is very difficult.

 

Likewise, in our practice of religion, philosophy and

spirituality, we are likely to make the mistake of not taking into

consideration the impact that can be produced on us by these two

aspects of natural evolution - the objects outside and the ego within

- both these are Prakriti and Purusha acting in two different ways.

Objects are a form of Prakriti, the ego is a form of Purusha. The ego

is not Purusha and the objects are not Prakriti. Yet they have some

connection with these two respectively. Purusha misconstrued and

located within the mind is the ego. Prakriti, misconstrued and

located in space-time is an object. Prakriti cannot cause bondage by

itself, nor can Purusha cause bondage by itself. But we limit both

these and create a new circumstance called individuality. My

individuality is a mixture of Prakriti and Purusha - a little of

Prakriti and a little of Purusha. The little Prakriti is this body

and the little Purusha is this ego. Both these have come together and

created a new household.

 

To extricate ourselves from this real Samsara, free ourselves

from this bondage of householdership in this body - this is real

Sannyasa. Sannyasa is difficult to understand. It is freedom from the

householder's life, but you are a householder as long as you are in

this body, because ego is the father, Prakriti is the mother. They

produce children in the form of the senses and Pranas. I am not

telling you a new philosophy, I am just repeating to you what Sage

Vasistha told Rama in the Yoga-Vasishta.

 

Samsara is not outside, even as Moksha is not outside. Bondage

is not outside, even as freedom is not outside. Humanity is not

outside, even as God is not outside. They are a set of circumstances.

Humanity is not a group of individuals, it is a set of circumstances

that you call humanity. So is bondage, so is freedom, so is even

God-consciousness. It is a condition of Being. It is not a process.

It is not a reality somewhere. Inasmuch as we live under conditions

and we aspire for a condition, a state of affairs, a state of being,

whatever we have to do has to be done at the spot where we are

sitting. It does not require physical movement and it does nor

require any kind of transformation in space, time and objectives. It

is a religion of Being, and not a religion of either externals or

internals.

 

We have four kinds of religion in this world, corresponding to

the four approaches or faculties or situations in our own lives. We

have the instinct and the sentiment aspect in us, which is of course

a very predominant aspect, as you all very well know. We are not

always intellectualizing or rationalizing things. We have sentiments,

feelings and emotions. We may understand one thing, but feel something

else. Our feeling may be for something different than what our

understanding accepts. Thus we have an aspect of sentiment, feeling,

emotion - an instinct, you may call it. Then we have another aspect

in us - the aspect of will, determination, conduct, regulation,

order, or ethics, as it is usually put. There is a third aspect of

love. No one can exist without loving something, and that has to find

an avenue of expression. The last one is intelligence, rationality,

understanding, logical faculty, discernment. These four sides find

expression in what we call the four types of religion in life.

 

We have the lowest sentimental religion called totemism,

fetishism, etc, which you find prevalent not only among primitive

types - even among intelligentsia it is present in some respect. Even

the highest intellectual has certain totemic aspects, and fetish

persists in him, lying in ambush even behind his genius of

understanding and scientific rationality. So, we have totemic

religions of the tribes and the aboriginals, what we usually call the

instinct religion, the religion of basic sentiments, where we simply

act on a religious basis, founding our religious conduct on certain

sentiment only, a kind of social acceptance and tradition. This is a

religion of this group, we say. It has no rationality behind it, no

questions can be asked. And it has nothing to do with ethics even; no

question of a special feeling for a code of conduct, etc.

 

There are religions of ethical behavior that are purely ethical

religions, for instance, which insist on the social conduct as well as

personal conduct, much more than any other. There are religions which

insist upon love and a feeling for others as well as a feeling for

the supernatural as the preeminent. There are finally the rational or

mystical religions which will not accept anything that is not

acceptable to reason, and which are founded on experience.

 

So, corresponding to the four faculties or aspects of human

personality, we have the four religions of fetish, ethics, theistic

affection and love for all, and rational mysticism. But these are not

watertight compartments. It is not that I can be a mystic minus

rationality, or that I can be theistic minus the mystic element in

me; that I can be this or that, just as I cannot be merely a body or

a soul or an intellect or a feeling or a will. I am a blend of all

these, so that I am everything at all times.

 

So in the practice of the religious attitude we have to be very

cautious that we do not lean upon any particular sentiment in us, and

call ourselves as a moralist, or ethicist, mystic, rationalist,

socialist, reformer, etc. etc. Religion is nothing of this kind. It

is the whole being in us, responding to the whole which is Reality.

As there is no such thing as partitioning Reality, there is no such

thing as partitioning human individuality. It is a miniature Cosmos,

which is called the human individual. And so it is a Cosmos, though

it is a miniature. We should not forget it is a universe by itself.

And we know what the Universe contains; nothing is excluded from it.

There is every blessed thing in me, in you, in everyone. So whatever

is in us has to be paid its due, it has to be summoned to task and

set in tune with the total or the whole of Reality. It is the whole

of me that is yearning for the whole that is everywhere.

 

But if the whole of me is not coming to the surface of action,

I cannot be a real religious person. I can only be a sectarian, a

cultist, a person who belongs to a faith, a group, which is likely to

be set in opposition to other faiths; that is the danger of religious

dogma. By summoning only certain aspects of our personalities and

deifying them into an apotheosis of what we call a cult or a creed,

we set ourselves in opposition to other such formations of similar

creeds and cults called religions. So one religion is different from

the other religion, just as one aspect of your personality may differ

from another aspect of your personality.

 

Well, the quarrel between one religion and another religion is

something like the quarrel of the eye with the nose, or the nose with

the ears. How fantastic is this quarrel, this religious warfare. If

the eye cannot hear and the ear cannot see, naturally they cannot be

friends. But you know how friendly the two are. The ear only hears

and the eye only sees. Is there any quarrel, religious warfare

between the two? But why is there warfare outside in social life?

There is a central government of the psychophysical constitution

which governs the function of the ear, eye, etc., irrespective of the

fact that one is totally different from the other, practically no

connection between one and the other.

 

So, there is lacking in us a fundamental concept in life which

is the reason for quarrels of every kind, disagreements of every type

- social, political, religious. If I cannot agree with you in

anything, it means I am not a religious person. I must agree with you

in everything - though I may differ from you, I agree with you.

Because, while the apparent division marks off one individual from

the other and we have what we call society, the agreement creates the

atmosphere of unity among us. Though individuals are many, mankind is

one, humanity is single. Though the limbs of the body are many, the

person is one. So this person that is one is the aspiring individual,

and is the religious person. It is not my intellect that is religious,

or feeling that religious, or the will that is religious, or this or

that aspect of me that is religious.

 

So until and unless my whole being rises to the surface of this

task of what is called religion, one cannot be religious. Until and

unless the whole of you has arisen to the surface for the whole of

this task, you cannot contact Reality, and until you contact Reality,

you cannot experience it. God cannot come unless you are religious,

and you cannot be religious unless the whole of you is in action. But

never are we entirely in action, so never can we be really religious,

never can we get God. Very pitiable if this should be the state of

affairs.

 

I do not want to digress too much, and harangue you about

either religion, philosophy or spirituality. I have only thought

aloud, the way in which I am used to thinking, as I told you in the

beginning. Unless the whole of you comes to action, the Whole that

you are asking for cannot come. But mind you, you cannot bring the

whole of you into action; either you think without feeling, or feel

without thinking, or act without either, etc. But if you can succeed,

miraculously, in bringing all the aspects of your personality into

focus, and You, the real You comes to the conscious level of action,

that is religious endeavor. God must come, here and now, - why not?

 

Hari Om Tat Sat.