A Digest of Paramacharya's Discourses on Soundaryalahari (DPDS - 02)

[Guest guest]

Namaste.

Recall: About the organization of the ‘Digest’: THE ENTIRE

EXPOSITION IS BY THE PARAMACHARYA. SO THE FIRST PERSON PRONOUN,

WHEREVER IT OCCURS, IS HIS. The ‘I’ of advaita-vedanta is always

within quotes. ALL THE THOUGHTS AND OPINIONS EXPRESSED ARE

THOSE OF THE PARAMACHARYA, EXCEPT WHEN ACKNOWLEDGED OTHERWISE.

Additional explanations given by Ra. Ganapathi are so

acknowledged. Parenthetical remarks by him, like ‘with a smile’,

‘after a small pause’ etc. that all refer to the speaker, the

Paramacharya, are repeated, if at all, as they are in the

original, within parentheses. My own remarks, if any, shall be

properly demarcated. And note that the Paramacharya most often

refers to Adi Sankaracharya as ‘Our Acharya’.

V. Krishnamurthy

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A Digest of Paramacharya’s Discourses on Soundaryalahari - 2

 

On the other hand what do we observe in our experience? Whether

it is the teaching about jnAna in the Gita, or the Viveka

Chudamani of our Acharya, or the Avadhuta Gita of Sri Dattatreya

or the teaching in the Yoga-vASiShTa, or a song of Tayumanavar –

even when we just read these we feel we are being taken beyond

the curtain created by mAyA to some distant peaceful state of

Calm. Just by reading, in one’s spiritually ripe stage, such

teachings, there have been people who have renounced the world

and reached the state of Bliss-in-one-Self !. If these teachings

had not been written from that spiritual apex of Experiential

Excellence, how could such things have ever happened?

Therefore, however much by your intellectual logic, you argue

whether a jnAni can get bhakti, how the jnAni can do any

preaching and so such possibilities cannot exist and so on,

these are certainly happening, by the Will of the Lord which is

beyond the Possible and the Impossible.

It is only the Play of the Lord that the jnAni, who is

non-dualistic internally, appears to do things in the dualistic

world. His mind may have vanished, mAyA might have been

transcended by him; but that does not mean that the outside

world of jIvAtmAs has disintegrated. What do we gather from

this? There is a Super-Mind which does all this and in some

mysterious way is compering and directing the entire universe.

And it also means that it is the same Supra-Mind that is making

the minds of men revolve in the illusion of mAyA. It is that

Power which is known in advaita scriptures as saguNa-brahman or

Isvara. In the scriptures devoted to shakti or Shiva , whenever

they call the Actionless nirguNa-brahman as ‘Shivam’ they call

this saguNa-brahman as ‘shakti’, ‘parA-shakti’ or ‘ambAL’. Just

as that nirguNa-brahman exhibits itself and acts as the

saguNa-brahman, so also, it must be presumed, that the

enlightened jnAni also does his external actions and that again,

is the work of the saguNa-brahman!

What is the path of jnAna? It is the effort through self-enquiry

and meditation for the eradication of the mind and vanquishing

of mAyA. But the other path is to dedicate oneself and all

one’s thoughts and actions to that very parA-shakti (who

produced this mAyA on us) with an attitude of devotion. It is

like giving the house-key to the thief himself ! However much

the parA-shakti may play with you and toss you and your mind

hither and thither, Her infinite compassion cannot be negated.

Only when we separate and rejoin, we realise the value of that

union. To pray to Her for that reunion and for Her to get us

back to Her in answer to our prayers – this is the great Leela

of Duality wherein She exhibits Her Infinite Compassion ! So

when one prays with Bhakti for such release She releases Him by

giving Him that Wisdom of Enlightenment.

It is wrong to think that the goal of Bhakti lies in the

dualistic attitude of being separate from God. It is by this

wrong assumption that people ask the question: How can a jnAni

exhibit Bhakti? In the very path of Bhakti wherein it appears

there is an embedded duality, the same Bhakti would lead the

practitioner to the stage where he will ask: Oh God ! May I be

one with You ! This is the subtle point which the questioning

people miss. When that stage comes to the devotee, the very

parA-shakti known as kArya-brahman or saguNa-brahman will bless

him with that jnAna that takes him to the non-dual

kAraNa-brahman or nirguNa-brahman.

Not everybody can practise the path of jnAna that brings the

realisation of the mahA-vAkyas by sravaNa (hearing), manana

(thinking and recalling) and nididhyAsana (contemplating). Only

when the mind vanishes one can realise the Self as the Absolute

brahman. If that is so, the real question is: How to kill the

truant mind, which refuses to be subdued, much less vanquished ?

The very effort of vanquishing the mind has to be done by the

mind only. How can it kill itself ? The palm can slap another;

but it cannot slap itself. Though we are thus brought to a

dilemma, there is a supreme power which has created all these

minds. So instead of self-effort to kill our minds, we should

leave it to the parA-shakti and surrender to Her. Instead of

falling at the feet of the witness for the prosecution we fall

at the feet of the prosecutor himself ! Then She will help us

quell the mind; She will grace us with the necessary jnAna.

(To be continued)

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PraNAms to all advaitins

profvk

 

 

 

 

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Prof. V. Krishnamurthy

My website on Science and Spirituality is http://www.geocities.com/profvk/

You can access my book on Gems from the Ocean of Hindu Thought Vision and

Practice, and my father R. Visvanatha Sastri's manuscripts from the site.