Kanchi Maha-Swamigal's Discourses on Advaita Saadhanaa (KDAS-31)

[Guest guest]

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).

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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