Kanchi Mahaswamigal's Discourses on Advaita Saadhanaa - (KDAS-78)

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For a Table of Contents of these Discourses, see

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For the previous post, see

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SECTION 65: TO BE RID OF TWO WRONG CONCEPTIONS.

Tamil Original: http://www.kamakoti.org/tamil/dk6-138.htm

 

However much the mind and intellect might have matured, until the

Brahman Realisation happens, mAyA does not spare you. Maybe it is not

right to throw the blame on mAyA. Realisation is the apex of all

sAdhanA. It cannot be achieved unless all karma is extinguished. What

can be done if, inspite of all the sAdhanA done, the earlier karma is

several times heavier? Maybe for their extinction, right now, not by the

work of mAyA, but by the Grace of Ishvara, there arise undesirable

thoughts that shake up the sAdhaka. I am not referring to thoughts of

kAma, krodha, etc. They have all been extinguished much earlier. There

are two other undesirable thoughts or conceptions. One is called

*asambhAvanA* and the other is called *viparIta-bhAvanA*.

[Note by Ra. Ganapathy:

As far as this collator knows, these two words

'asambhAvanA' and 'viparIta-bhAvanA'

occur in the very first 'taranga' of 'VichAra-sAgaraM' in Sanskrit,

which itself is a translation from a work of the 19th century in Hindi

by Nischaladasa.

In advaita works, 'asambhAvana' is known as 'samshayaM'

And 'viparIta-bhAvanA' as 'viparyayaM'.]

 

 

"SadhanA has been done for so long. The so-called goal is impossible.

After all I am finite. How can this finite little being become the

Infinite Universal Brahman?" This is 'asambhAvanA'. In fact it is the

question which casts a doubt on whether the advaita experience is a

possibility at all. When this doubt crystallises and matures, instead of

being a doubt it turns out into a reply to the question and says to

itself: "No. It is not possible. It is only Duality that is possible.

And that is the truth. Jiva is different and Brahman is different" -

this is 'viparIta-bhAvanA'. 'After such long effort, I am still only a

separate Jiva, so I have to remain only as a separate Jiva. This is the

duality in which I have to be always' - it is this trend of thought that

creates the 'viparIta-bhAvanA'.

 

Of these two, to eradicate the 'asambhAvanA' one needs to do mananaM.

And to get rid of 'viparIta-bhAvanA' one needs 'nidhidhyAsana'.

 

'asambhAvanA' might have covered one entirely like moss. But if one is

constantly chewing in the mind the Vedanta statements and analysing them

by the matured mind, repeating the powerful mantras in the form of the

mahAvAkyas, even if the real Brahman experience does not occur, the

possibility of its occurrence will get crystallised in the mind.

 

Maybe the possibility becomes acceptable, but unless it has actually

occurred, thus leading to resolution of all doubts once for all, how

will this acceptance be sufficient? The present everyday experience is

a direct experience of duality. We are having a direct observational

experience of Brahman as something different from us. If advaita is the

truth that also should become a direct such experience. In other words,

without a Brahman-realisation, how can the viparIta-bhAvanA disappear?

That direct experience will occur only if the nidhidhyAsanA continues as

a single dhyAna to the exclusion of everything else. There is no other

way. That the (familiar-to-the-Tamil-world) 'panchAmRtaM' is composed

of honey, milk and ghee, etc. and can therefore be expected to be

nothing but sweet, is mananaM. However, there could be a doubt. 'Is it

truly a sweet dish? Maybe the sweet things together by some combination

make it bitter. Who knows?' When such a doubt arises, the only way to

get out of the doubt is to taste it; how can there be a resolution of

the fact otherwise?

 

If one goes through the nidhidhyAsanaM with perfect dedication to the

prospect that the Ultimate Reality, the existence of which was

conclusively confirmed by reasoning in the course of the process of

mananaM, must show itself up in one's experience, it will certainly show

its taste off and on. Of course the taste, the taster and the

taste-Giver would have become all one! Even though that state

disappears, one gets the confirmation that there is certainly an advaita

experience. How can the viparIta-bhAvanA rise up thereafter?

 

The very fact that in this third stage these negative bhAvanAs pop up is

in a sense a God-sent blessing in disguise! It is because of that the

sAdhaka continues in full earnest his manana-nidhidhyAsana efforts in

order, one, to get the intellectual conviction at the level of his

antaHkaraNa that advaita is the Truth and two, to get one's own shades

of experience at the level of the inner Self! Otherwise he may be a

little easy-going and miss it entirely! Even if it is not missed it may

certainly get postponed. Only when a counter-thought occurs one gets the

motivation for a full-fledged no-mercy onslaught to check it either way.

It is in that sense the two dispositions of asambhAvanA and

viparIta-bhAvanA help as 'incentives'!

 

SECTION 66: GREATNESS OF MANANA & NIDHIDHYASANA

Tamil Original: http://www.kamakoti.org/tamil/dk6-139.htm

 

The mananaM that keeps analysing the conceptual matter off and on leads

on to the nidhidhyAsana which shows the same thing as an experience.

Thereafter there is no analysis or churning. There is only that single

thought, dhyAna. The Acharya has a favourite way of saying this.

*samAna-pratyaya-pravAha-karaNaM*. He uses this expression in many

places. (Sutra-Bhashya IV-1.7.8; Gita Bhashya XII - 3). Just as the flow

of a flood of water converges in one direction so also the converging of

thought in one direction is what dhyAna means. 'Just as oil flows down

in a straight wire-like appearance - taila-dhArAvat' is also another

expression of his.

 

'Muni' is a Sanskrit word for a great person who is a perfect jnAni and

spiritually very powerful. He is actually the best among Rishis. Only

he who is an adept in the process of 'mananaM' is called a 'muni'. In

Sutra Bhashya III - 4 - 47, this is how the Acharya speaks of the

derivation of the word 'muni': *mananAn munir-iti (ca)

vyutpatti-sambhavAt*. He also says there that the word 'muni' has a

special significance in jnAna-- *jnAna-atishaya-arthatvAt*. Thus the

process of 'mananaM' is not just repetition for memorisation, nor it is,

as we think of it usually, a logical reasoning at the intellectual level

to import spiritual matters just into the brain. It is far higher than

that. It is something that dwells on matters clarified by the touch of

intuition.

 

Remember our Acharya is one who gave the noblest status to the hearing

(shravaNa) of the teaching from the guru. If the same Acharya says

"Let it be understood that mananaM is a hundred times greater than

shravaNaM". *shataguNaM vidyAn-mananaM*, then at how really a high

level should shravaNaM be counted?

 

And he doesn't stop there. If mananaM is a hundred times greater than

shravaNaM, he says nidhidhyAsanaM is a hundred-thousand times greater

than mananaM: *mananAdapi nidhidhyAsaM lakshha-guNaM*.

 

MananaM is not just dead information; it is knowledge full of life. But

even that knowledge becomes tiny little in the face of experience. You

may know everything about sugar, you might have bales and bales of high

class sugar, but they are not equivalent to that experience one gets

from the taste of a little pinch of that sugar. That is why he says

nidhidhyAsaM is one hundred thousand times greater than mananaM.

 

NidhidhyAsaM is also not a one-shot affair by which one gets established

into a permanent Brahman-experience. It is only with a self-effort that

one does what is called nidhidhyAsaM. And he gets flashes of that

Brahman-experience. The moment we say this we know there is duality in

this. The Brahman-experience, instead of glittering, twinkling and

disappearing like a lightning flash, if that lightning of brahmAnubhava

'electrocutes' him in a sense, killing his Jiva-bhAva, and makes him the

nectarine brahman itself, that will be the end of it all; that is the

siddhi position. The sAdhanA stops there, the sAdhaka himself becoming

the sAdhya (the goal) sthAna (locus).

 

Just as hands and feet do works, so also nidhidhyAsa is work done

mentally. However glorified it is, there is the duality of action and of

doer; so how can it be considered as the Final Truth that stands alone

by Itself?

 

Even so, so long as one continues as a Jiva, the one noblest thing that

he can do not to be that Jiva is to keep thinking only of Brahman; as

such one has to steadfastly hold on to the nidhidhyAsa-action.

 

(To be Continued)

PraNAms to all students of advaita.

PraNAms to the Maha-Swamigal.

profvk