Guest guest Posted July 10, 2006 Report Share Posted July 10, 2006 Namaste. Please note that this series started on Sep.9, 2005 and was halted for a break on Nov.9, 2005. I apologise for the long break. We now continue exactly where we stopped. So far 30 posts covering 19 Sections have appeared. At least another 40 posts are expected. You may want to browse through a few of the last posts in the series, in order to get into the swing of it. Note also that you are listening to the discourses of the Mahaswamigal; so in all that follows, ‘I’ refers to him (unless otherwise indicated). --------------------- For a Table of Contents of these Discourses, see advaitin/message/27766 For the last post, see advaitin/message/28622 SECTION 20: TITIKSHHAA (Patience; Endurance) Next to ‘uparati’ we have ‘titikshhA’ (meaning, endurance, forbearance or patience). The Tirukkural has a chapter on this subject. Our use of the word ‘Next’ does not imply that ‘titikshhA’ comes only after one attains perfection in ‘uparati’. I shall repeat what I have said many times, because it is worth any number of repetitions. To attain Atma-jnAna, one needs several things – discriminatory intellect, dispassionate mind. control of the senses and mind; and the mind has to wean itself away from all things and stay put in the state of ‘uparati’. In fact there are several other things to be achieved. If one thinks of perfecting one step before going on to another step, he is mistaken. As an example take a job in the Police Department. There may be several requirements for such a job – like age qualification, level of education, height, weight, character pattern, fufillment of restrictions or limitations with reference to one’s caste and so on. All this means they should all be satisfied simultaneously, not ‘one after another’. It is not like fulfilling the age qualification first and then beginning to study to fulfill the educational qualification! It is in the same sense the requirements of ‘nitya-anitya-vastu vivekam’ to ‘mumukshhutvam’ are to be concurrent and not sequential. In other words though they have been mentioned by the Acharya in a certain order, they have to be present and practised simultaneously. Another thing must be mentioned. There are several parts like vivekaM, (Discrimination), vairAgyaM (Dispassion) and shamaM (Self-control). In none of these can one expect to have attained perfection until the final stage of Realisation. Each of them will at every stage be somewhere below the mark of perfection. All of them go together towards perfection until the final Realisation happens almost suddenly! Why do we have to do all this sAdhanA? The objective is to purify the mind completely to such an extent there is no mind left thereafter. What does it mean to say that there is no mind? Desire, the hankering after matter, should be absent. I just now told you that this eradication of desire and hankering after material things will happen at the stage of Realisation. In fact that statement itself has to be modified. Only if the Realisation of the Self happens, the taste for matter will vanish. In other words, Self –Realisation is first. Then only, -- ‘then’ does not mean ‘after a time’ – immediately, though only after the Realisation, does the material hankering vanish completely. The Gita is very clear on this (II – 59). “ For each sense, if the corresponding sense-object is denied to it, by that practice those sense-objects will go away (in other words, the concrete physical experience of them would have stopped); but the taste of that experience of it – as they say, ‘the cat that has had the taste’ (ruchi-kaNDa-poonai, in Tamil) – that taste of experience would linger on internally and it will vanish only when the Realisation of the Atman takes place” : vishhayA vinivartante nirAhArasya dehinaH / rasavarjaM raso’pyasya paraM dRRishhTvA nivartate // *paraM dRRishhTvA* -- Having seen the Absolute; Just by the experience of the Absolute Principle. *rasaH api nivartate* -- the taste of experience also vanishes. On the one hand it is said that only when the mind vanishes along with all its taste of material experience will one have the Experience of the absolute and on the other hand it is also said that such taste will disappear only when that Absolute is experienced. Does this not look like the standard Tamil paradigm: “Marriage can be fixed only when the mental imbalance is disposed off; but the mental balance can be restored only when marriage is fixed”! Not so. The craving for the taste has to go. The mind has to go. Every effort has to be made to achieve both and to have the vision of Reality (‘Atma-darshanaM’). But it is not easy. The craving for the taste etc. will not disappear fully. When such a total effort has been done, the Lord with His Infinite compassion grants him the Realisation of the Atman and in that very process, destroys the taste and the mind’s craving for that taste. If everything is going to be the result of his effort, then what is the greatness of the Lord’s Grace? In other words, till almost the last stage man has to be practising all the different sAdhanas. (To be Continued) PraNAms to all students of advaita. PraNAms to the Maha-Swamigal. profvk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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