Advaita from scratch - Kanchi Mahaswamigal's Discourses - 10

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Kanchi

Mahaswamigal's Discourses on Advaitam

 

KMDA –

10(For KMDA - 9 see post #44208This series started with #43779)

 

Tamil

original starts from http://www.kamakoti.org/tamil/part4kural303.htm

 

Note: In these discourses, `the Acharya'

refers to Adi Shankaracharya. The speaker is the Kanchi Mahaswamigal.

 

Karmayoga and Non-attachment

 

Just

because of the fact that such service-actions help you to attain purity of

mind, the name `yoga' was given to

any action which is done without attachment and without any selfish motive.

Thus arose the name Karma-yoga. When we do actions in all ways

that our mind draws us, that is what accrues life after life and finally

boomerangs on us as if in revenge. Whenever we face some trouble or something

happens that we don't like or can accept, we strike our heads in desperation

and blame it all on `karma'. Don't we?

But on the other hand the task of cleaning the mind and making it ready to `dissolve' in the Atman is

also that of `karma'. Many do give

lectures on this topic and call it the `Path of Karma'. They even publish books through western publishers. This

Path of Action is one of the three sAdhanas

for mokshha, namely karma, bhakti and jnAna. Whether they are

direct paths or only auxiliary paths is a different question and we shall not

take up that debate now. The Path of Action is not something where you have a

free license to do what you or your mind likes. It is the doing of all

obligatory ShAstra-karma, whether you like it or not. There

is no place or scope here for mind's liking or disliking or for emotional

attachments of the mind. It is not action that looks at personal gain or loss,

victory or defeat. They call it `disinterested action'. Mark it: Not

`uninterested'. If you say `uninterested' it means action done without your

mind in it. `Disinterested' means

`unaffected by your likes or dislikes, and by any personal feelings'. In other

words one does not consider what one gains or loses by the action. This is what

is called `nishhkAma-karma'.

 

Even

here there does exist one desire or wish. What the Brihad-Aranyaka Upanishad

calls `Atma-kAmaM' (4.3.21), it is the innate desire to go back to one's

own true Nature, the Atman. Immediately the Upanishad also says it is `akAmam',

that is, the state of no desire. To desire to merge in the Atman is a

`desireless desire' says the Upanishad. Only when the mind desires to benefit

itself it is wrong; for all that benefits the mind are just through sensuous pleasures. But when

it desires to be one with the Atman, it is not for its own benefit, but for its

own extinction. The wish is like camphor

burning itself out and finally to let the Atman alone remain and shine. This

desire is not wrong. Only by this can we turn away from the material worldly

life towards the path of Truth.

 

[Note by VK: Just an aside to tell you that

whenever I talked

about karma-yoga to students,

and emphasized the concept of desireless action,

most often the

question was shot at me:

"Does it not mean

then

that desire for mokshha is also wrong?"

The Mahaswamigal anticipates all our questions!

His point about this desire of the mind

being one for `its own extinction' is the punchline

answer.]

 

It

is in this way which ignores personal gain that we really have a great gain. "yam

labdvA cAparam lAbham manyate nAdhikam tataH" (Gita 6.22). Bhagavan says:

`That gain, gaining which every other gain pales into insignificance' is,

according to Bhagavan, the gain of the Atman. As was said earlier, since this

is the gain obtained by totally vanquishing the mind, it is most commendable.

This should not be counted along with other gains of the worldly kind.

 

What

is called the Karma Path or Karma-yoga is the discharge of actions according to the ShAstraic injunctions just because they

help to purify your mind and take you towards the Atman, not because they are

pleasant and fulfilling to the mind. Karma

Yoga enjoins you to do karmas according to your svadharma. Actually it dampens the

effect of doing karmas resentfully

and loosens the bondage created by such action. In other words one has to do

strictly what has been prescribed for him by the ShAstras.

 

We

have already seen how doing an action affects the mind either to the good or to

the opposite. The so-called karma-bandham

(bondage due to karma) also has a

mixture of thoughts, tastes of experiences, and tendencies of all kinds. These

tendencies are the VAsanAs. The

fruits of both good or bad actions of ours are stored in the Karma balance. New lives are given to us

in order for us to experience the effect of this Karma balance. This balance is not only that accrued from physical

actions but includes also those accrued from the attitudes of mind with which

we did those actions. Even the thoughts and characteristics, good or bad, have

fruits which we have to experience in our future lives. The intense desires

developed in this birth as also the deep dislike or hatred practised are all

stored. And they overcome us in our succeeding births. This is what is commonly

referred to as `pUrva-VAsanA'

or `janmAntara-VAsanA'.

[Note: `pUrva' = previous or earlier

`janmAntara' = pertaining to (earlier) lives]

 

Even

after this body is gone, these VAsanAs

hold on to our `sUkshhma-sharIra' (subtle body), just like the smell of

asafoetida or garlic which holds on to the container in which they have been

kept, and when we get another physical body they emanate their influence from

the mind of that body; that is why they are called VAsanA (meaning smell). It

is also known as `vishhaya-VAsanA'

(the smell of sense-objects). Whatever is subject to be sensed by the senses is

particularly known as `vishhaya'. The mind always revolves around

multifarious pleasures of the senses and prompts the JIva towards actions

oriented towards them; thus it is the vishhaya-VAsanA that contributes to the growth of the karma-baggage. On the other hand when we do not expect any fruit in

the form of a sense-pleasure and do our karma

in the desireless way, in other words, when we do our karma as a yoga, the size

of the karma-baggage comes down; or

the tightness of the binding loosens, if, instead of the concept of `baggage'

we think of it as `bondage' . In true karma-yoga, not only the fruits of sense-pleasures,

but also that of the most nobly conceived welfare of the world (loka-kshhemam)

should not be the objective.

 

Let

me elaborate on this a little for your understanding. When the ShAstras

prescribe various virtuous (religious and secular) karmas for the purpose of taking you to the Atman, they also take

into account the welfare of the world as a whole. There is no doubt about this.

Instead of doing things for a selfish purpose, one has to begin doing things

for the welfare of all. Then and only then the Grace of the Lord, the source of

all beings as well as universes, who is the Father and Mother of every one,

will descend on the person and he will

be able to move towards the Path of Release. However, he is not supposed to

calculate the fruits of his actions

according to his svadharma and

keep checking whether the world benefited by his work and in what manner it

benefited, if at all. Even though one might be discharging his obligations

keeping in mind the welfare of the rest of the world, the particular benefit

which was the objective of the ShAstraic

Karma, may not after all fructify. We

know how many have sacrificed their own lives for the sake of the welfare of

the world and still we have seen those objectives were not fulfilled. Thus even

though the ShAstras have kept the

objectives of the welfare of the larger world in prescribing duties for us, we

have to do our duties without our calculations for, and expectations of, those

objectives. Otherwise, there is a chance

of our getting frustrated by the thought: `Of what use is all this? Times are

very bad. They are not good for good people.

These times are suitable only for evil doers. Let me not strain myself with my duties

hereafter. It is better to simply go on unmindful of these obligations.' This

kind of bitterness, defeatist mentality, is likely to arise. It is therefore

imperative for us to go on doing our duties, just because the ShAstras have ordained it, irrespective

of any success or failure of imagined objectives either personal or public.

 

(To be continued in KMDA – 11)

 

PraNAms to all

advaitins.

PraNAms to the

Mahaswamigal.

profvk