Please correct me . . . . . .

[Guest guest]

Namaste, All,

 

Some very important, though basic, issues are surfacing from the recent

postings. I would like to add my two cents:

 

Balaji said

 

<<<This however appears to be, some vague belief or some story cooked up by some

Hindu fanatics. Nevertheless, even if it is true, it is not of any great value,

that we feel proud that Hinduism

 

is the 'mother' of all other religions. It shall not lead to liberation. It is

Dharma alone that leads to liberation. All religions are not born from this

Dharma. They ARE this Dharma.>>>

 

Most of the “Hindus” are happy with such cooked up stories. They never ponder

into the real issue. “Instead of catching the horns, one catches the tail of a

mad cow, to bring it under control” With the result the fellow gets dragged by

the cow, and neither the cow is controlled, nor, not only he is not successful

in controlling it, but he suffers more. He is “afraid” of catching the “horns”

of the cow!

 

By the way Balaji, what exactly is the meaning of Dharma. Somehow I cannot fully

understand its meaning and implications.

 

Siddhartha, who was born and bought up in luxury, who had never seen any

suffering, never experienced any pain; on seeing suffering and pain all around,

when he was exposed to the world at large, immediately went in search of Truth.

This is what I learnt from many books dealing with the life of Budha. Instead of

trying to mitigate the suffering and pain of the people around, which he could

have done in a very big way, being the King himself, by following the Dharma of

a King, he immediately left the scene and went for Truth. After suffering

himself also for years at a stretch, when he found That Truth, he had nothing to

convey to the people through words, but after becoming Budha, he lived every

moment in Dharma. So, I think to live a life of Dharma, one must know what

exactly is Dharma, i.e. knowledge of dharma. This Siddhartha did not know;

otherwise he would not have gone for Truth instead of helping the people, as a

king, to alleviate their sufferings.

 

At the same time, what did Sri Rama do? On hearing the complaint of a washer

man, to uphold the king’s dharma, he even banished his beloved wife, while he

failed in his dharma as a husband. “Dharma sankata” i.e. confusion about dharma,

which dharma one should uphold even at the cost of drifting away from another

dharma is something we all face. If these lines hurt the feeling of anyone, I

apologize, but I mention them only to understand intricacies in the context of

Dharma.

 

 

 

Sri Krishna Praasad said

 

<<<Actually Brahmin means only Jati Brahmin as per your email, really all of us

are Brahmins because we have Adavaita vasana! And most of us are Guna Brahmins.

Not one who puts the Yagyobavidham but the

 

quality of the mind should be Brahmin.>>>

 

Birth into a Brahmin family, is like getting admission into a class-one school.

Whether one studies there well or not, all depends on the fellow.

 

For “Hindus” as a whole, Gita is a great blessing. However, the sacredness is

for the book and not for what it says/teaches. All worship Gita; how many really

wants to get taught by Gita! Every Christian has some idea of Bible and so is

with Muslims. I know even people of old age, who are very particular about

performing rituals, following “achara”, etc. etc. but they have no idea of the

purpose of our Scriptures. They are satisfied with that. I am not attempting to

criticize them, but they seem to have taken the means for the end.

 

<<<<The GODs which Jati Brahmin's worship are not jati Brahmins!

 

Lord Krishna was a Yadava according to jati

 

Lord Rama was a Kshatriya according to jati

 

Veda Vyasa was born for a fisherwoman,

 

and Lord Shiva luckily nobody knows his religion.>>>

 

This sort of bringing religion/caste even for Gods, is the result of ignorance.

One worships “these” Gods, not because they are Rama, Krishna, Shiva, etc., but

for what They stood for, what They wanted to communicate to us. ‘Nedam yaditam

upasate’.

 

Instead of trying to elevate ourselves to the level of Gods, actually we seem to

bring down Gods to our level. We even seem to dictate, when our Gods should get

up in the morning, what raga should we play for that, what They should have for

Breakfast, What they should have for lunch, What cloths they should wear, etc.

 

 

 

<<<<Proper understanding of Vedanta and its principles and practice of Vedanta

in daily life, is sure to bring peace, solace and happiness to a world

distracted by war, communal strives, petty quarrels and religious

fights.>>>>>>>>

 

I think the whole purpose of Vedanta is this. Change in the attitude, consequent

to the knowledge of God, towards one’s own self and others, including the

various religions, etc. in what is required. People say “we are God fearing

people”, instead of saying “we are God loving people”. The fear is because we do

not know what exactly this God is.

 

Advaita aims at correcting our knowledge about our self, about idam, (other than

the self) and Eswara.

 

At present we are all acting/reacting with mithyajnana, and once this mithyajana

is rectified, we will act with jnana of Truth, which never changes, “na

vyabhicharati”.

 

 

 

Balaji said

 

<<<<<You are talking about the supreme consciousness. The word consciousness

here refers to the others levels of consciousness. You see, there are four types

of consciousness:

 

1. vaishvAnara - the state of awake, but unenlightened

 

2. taijasa - the dreaming

 

3. prAjna - the one in deep sleep

 

4. turIya - the undescribable, the Atman, the Brahman>>>>>>

 

I may be wrong, but are there various levels of consciousness? Consciousness is

homogenous, immutable,

 

Infinite or Poorna. It cannot be conditioned by time, space, and objects, as all

these are within/rather pervaded by Consciousness/Gnanam. The three states

mentioned above, are the states of Jiva, and its apparent association with

consciousness. The said three states, shines after the Consciousness and the

Consciousness does not shine after them. It is like different apparent states of

space, i.e. room space, hall space, etc. The space does not get associated with

the limiting walls, etc. but the limiting walls appear to limit/restrict the

space. The limiting walls are also in space. So, how can they limit the space.

Similar is the position with the Consciousness.

 

In Turiya, the Jeeva is there but free from Jeevatwa or Jeev-ness, i.e. what

makes jeeva a jeeva, and shining itself as consciousness per-se, or gnanam per

se. This means Jeeva is nothing but Atma alone. In absolute reality, Atma shines

always (“Aham asmi sada bhami”) and everything shines after Atma, i.e. Brahman.

 

 

 

 

 

<<<<<When the body has just become unclean, why make even your mind unclean? The

truly virtuous brahmin would say "Shiva Shiva" and simply leave, without any

frustration or anger. However, this is not to be found in the present day

brahmins, who in the name of AchAra

 

make their minds unclean, by allowing krodha to enter.>>>>

 

This is emotional maturity, i.e. accepting everything as “Shiva Shiva” without

allowing any agitation taking place in the mind. This acceptance can come only

when one knows what this “Shiva” is.

 

Now a days “Achara” comes from already unclean mind, always swayed by the shad

urmies. Moreover, Acharas are followed more because of fear, i.e. fear of being

nobody, or greed to be somebody.

 

That is why I feel following Achara including rites, etc. cannot bring any

anthakarana-shudhi. It can result in further pollution of the mind already

polluted. I may be wrong again. In my understanding, the ashudhi in the

anthakarana can be removed only by knowing the causes for such ashudhi. The

anthakarana-ashudhi is due to ignorance of the real nature of anthakarana. No

action can result in anthakarana-shudhi, as result of any action will be time

bound and any shudhi so takes place as a result of any action will also be time

bound.

 

<<<< This has become the center of AchAra nowadays, unfortunately. What was

originally sadAchAra, which had cleanliness as an important part, has now

deteriorated. Thus AchAra in itself has come to mean

 

something else. This leads to only ego-appraisal. This was not what AchAra used

to mean.>>>

 

Not only Achara, even performance of rituals, poojas, etc., leads to only

ego-appraisal.

 

I remember, when I was in Sabarimala some years ago, one Kanniayyappan, who

happened to be a great devotee of also Krishna, called out “Hare Krishna”, on

hearing this the (self-declared) “Guruswami” reacted immediately “you fellows do

not know, why do you call Krishna here, say Saranamayyappa”. I do not mean any

ill feeling to anybody, but this is how we understand and he calls himself

“Guruswami” and expects others to recognize him as such, because he has visited

Sabarimala for around eighteen years. I have come across many such things during

my pilgrimages to other places also, and also in my day today observations, and

each and every action/reaction I see is ego-centered and for ego-appraisal.

 

Balaji said

 

<<<This impermanent nature of everything in the Universe, when realized leads to

disgust and disenchantment from all worldly pleasures, thus leading to

liberation cessation of all sorrow. >>>>

 

I feel I have not understood what you have to convey.

 

I think, it is only my understanding, liberation is not cessation of all sorrow,

but the cessation of the notion that “I am sorrowful”. It is growing over both

the sorrow and its opposite. Mind alone is the cause for bondage and liberation.

I think the first thing we should know is for who this bondage and liberation

are. I think one’s attitude towards sorrow/pleasure, etc. alone makes him

liberated or bound. The jeeva in the Jagarad avasta alone seems to suffer from

sorrow. Same jeeva while in Sushupti avasta, experiences neither happiness nor

unhappiness. Again in dream state, though the same jeeva suffers/enjoys, on

waking to the jagrad avasta, it negates everything in the dream as false. Here

one more point. The negation or “neti, neti” is not of the object, but the

mithyjnanam or the wrong knowledge of the object is to be negated. One need nor

one can negate the object itself. We need not negate the objects, and we should

start looking at them objectively. Take gold as gold,

but “my happiness depends on amassing gold” is mithyajnanam of both gold and

about my happiness.

 

What exactly is complete freedom of that consciousness? Is consciousness ever

bound? If so when and how?

 

<<<< Such a person has no further birth, and death is but just a matter of

complete freedom of that

 

consciousness.>>>>>>>>

 

This I understand as “for such a person who has known what is to be known, there

is no going back to the earlier notions, mithyajnanam, he had, and

acting/reacting again fully loaded with such notions. I understand “sa na

punaravartate” this way. I may be wrong again.

 

<<<This happens when one observes the nature of vAsana, that he had accumulated

in the past through action and when he stops generating any further vAsana. The

fact that we had incorrectly identified these vAsanas with ourselves, is called

ignorance and when we start looking at (observing) their nature and realize

their impermanence and hence non-belonging to the self and hence not the self,

we gain spiritual

 

knowledge of (neti). This is Brahmavidya.>>>>>

 

Ignorance led to vasanas or the other way around, needs a little more analysis.

In my understanding, ignorance alone is the cause for vasanas, and vasanakshaya

takes place along with rising of knowledge, slowly but definitely.

 

 

 

<<<<Hence Achara means 'right practice'. Which is what I used to say, not just

practice.>>>>>

 

After “practicing” of swimming for some time, no more practice, but only

swimming. Practicing is not the end, whether right practice or not, in due

course one must start swimming.

 

I think Achara is faking for making, but that making never takes place, that is

the real problem. We are satisfied with the faking, as the end itself, which we

all have been doing over and over again. It seems we only want to practice

swimming all the time, and we never want to swim.

 

 

 

Sri Mohanji said

 

<<<<This brings us to the point regarding `practice' made by Sri Balaji and my

attempt to elaborate on `learning to swim' as an analogy or example for this

point. The English word `practice' is multi-faceted. It can mean `repeated

trying until skill is achieved', ( the German word Ubung… the famous statement

`Ubung macht den Meister') The other meaning is `application of knowledge `.

Although I am not at all knowledgeable in Sanskrit, I believe the word `Achara `

 

connotes the second meaning of `practice'.>>>>

 

Once “practicing of swimming is over” one no more practices swimming, he just

swims.

 

Through practice one learns; once the learning is over, there is no more

practice. Whatever is learnt through practice reflects in one’s not only

behavior, but more than that in one’s attitude.

 

“Abhyasena Kauntheya” our beloved Lord said in Gita.

 

Please do correct me.

 

Warm regards to all and hari om

 

 

 

 

 

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