Advaita from scratch - Kanchi Mahaswamigal's Discourses - 14

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Kanchi

Mahaswamigal's Discourses on Advaitam

 

KMDA –

14

For KMDA- 13, see #44501

 

Tamil

original starts from http://www.kamakoti.org/tamil/part4kural307.htm

Note: In these discourses, `the Acharya'

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

 

To establish an order in worldly life

itself.

 

In

this incessant worldly drama would every one become an intense devotee? Certainly not. There will be only a very few who have matured

enough to go from Bhakti to Mukti. The rest may have to undergo

several turbulences for long and may climb upward only very slowly. Therefore

when we spread Bhakti we have also to

pay attention to the goal of an ethical sense of values in the worldly life and

see to it that it is not carried away by the flood of adharmic propensities. It has to be made to go along the dhArmic path to establish this order in

worldly life and thereafter turn the mind over from worldly material values

towards the Cause of all causes.

The

very first need is to prevent the current of wordly life not to stray into adharma and help it reform itself to

value Truth, Straightforwardness, Love, Charity and Service and the like. This

is what `dharma' means. The word `dharma' may have several different meanings

including the one of `religion' also. However,

the general meaning of `dharma' is to

make worldly life a coordinated and cooperative effort of all people and reorganise it in such a way that living means

loving and being truthful and oriented towards nobler spiritual values. All

this dhArmic effort has to be done only by a vortex of actions (Karmas). That is why the ShAstra of

Purva Mimamsa that gives dominance to Karma

begins its Sutras by saying `athAto dharma-jijnAsA'

– that is, `Let us now enquire into the subject of dharma'. One has to climb the ladder of `dharma', and exhaust all past actions by doing the Karmas enjoined by the ShAstras, and

also adopting the methodology of `nishkAma-Karma' (Desireless Action) to avoid the fruits of the ongoing

actions. When one's mind is purified

this way, one gets an urge to relinquish this worldly life as well as its

shackles of dharma along with the

mind and realise the Atman. That is when

the ShAstra of Uttara-MimAmsa comes to our help. And it begins with the words

`athAto brahma-jijnAsA' – that is, let us now enquire into the nature of

Brahman. I mentioned all this to show to you that the order in wordly life depends

on dharma

and Karma.

For

the worldly life to go smoothly and well, individuals have to get done many things on their part: -- perform yagas

and through them obtain divine grace and power to get good rains and good harvest

thereby making the entire society happy; through that divine power establish nobler tendencies in

the minds of the entire society; to protect people from enemies by war if

necessary; to effect the trade of all goods by collecting them from different parts of the world for the

benefit of the populace; and to till the

soil for agricultural produce and offer bodily labour for the various

necessities of the society. All these have to be coordinated in such a way that

there is no confusion or confrontation. Taking all these into consideration

varnas and aashramas have been delineated, individual duties have been

prescribed and food habits and regulatory norms have been beautifully

prescribed for each in the various shAstras.

The duties that have been earmarked for each are collectively known by the name of svadharma.

To

make a long story short, the entire society has to move towards the goal of

spiritual perfection; but this will and should happen only gradually and

slowly. The worldly drama of Ishvara will keep playing and in each generation

only very few may escape the worldly turmoil. At the same time the others

should not be let down to accrue the baggage of sin enormously and sink deeply

into the mire of samsAra, by being licentious and acting totally in the

direction where their miscreant senses pull them. To make a beginning for this

is not to draw them away from samsAra.

Even if you drag them out they will not come out so easily. Forcing it will only be counter-productive.

`Controlling the power of PrakRti's influence by force is not that easy even

for a wise man' says the Lord Himself in the Gita (III – 33), as I have already

reminded you. Therefore, being within samsAra, and regulating it to a certain

extent is the first thing to be attempted and done. Then and only then a

maturity for getting out will arise. To

organize worldly life and give it a direction in this way is what is called `dharma'.

It

is all like this. We are living in a slum-like place now and we are desirous of

living in a mansion! Desire is there but the prerequisites of income and the

like are not there. We have to make

efforts to earn them. Until that is done we have to keep living in our present place,

but making it clean and presentable, without the filth that is usually

associated with it. Because of the thought that we have to leave it at some

time and go to a luxurious living, we cannot afford to keep it unclean and

unattended; for that is exactly what will encourage disease and crime to

overtake us and make us totally unfit to move any time to a higher type of

living. The first thing to do is therefore to clean up our environment wherever

we are now. To have such a regimen for

worldly life is dharma. And svadharma of the individual is what coordinates with it.

So

who should be leading the common laymen in this endeavour of worldly life

reorganization? Only those who are more

than eager to get away from it! Another

point I have to mention here. The ideal persons

for being role models in the carrying out of the obligations of svadharma are precisely those jnAnis who

are immersed in the pAramArthika objectives and norms. You may be puzzled by this quizzical

statement. JnAnis are the instruments of the Lord and it is He who makes

them live in an ideal fashion for the nation to emulate. Even if one is not the noblest example of

such persons, one who has set his goal towards the Absolute has to show himself

to the rest of the world as a living example of one who lives according to his svadharma.

As

far as these persons are concerned, they may not be interested in the fruits of

the obligatory Karmas they are doing;

maybe they are totally against the path of Action. Maybe all their interest is only in uniting

with the Atman where there is no Karma

or mind. But just for that very reason they have to be involved in Karma Yoga so that they may deserve to go to the higher

spiritual level. By performing disinterested action, the fruits of their Karma go towards worldly benefit – that

is how our elders have designed the whole process.

By

doing the proper Karmas in the proper

way – this is known as Karma-anushhTAnam

– one gets the mind purified. By

following the process of Bhakti, one

gets the one-pointedness of the mind (citta – aikAgryam). With the mind

purification and the one-pointedness, in due time Karma will slip away by itself. It is at that time when Karma stops by itself, one should take sannyAs

(Formal Renunciation). Karma should not be voluntarily stopped.

One should keep doing Karma-yoga.

 

(To be continued in KMDA – 15)

 

PraNAms to all

advaitins.

PraNAms to the

Mahaswamigal.

profvk