14. SATSANGAM

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14. SATSANGAM

(Read, Understand, Appreciate, Internalise and Assimilate to reach

the Ultimate)

 

Jivatma, Paramatma and Sadguru

 

" The point at which a Jiva's involution or Samsaric life turns to

evolution or the Path of Redemption is the appearance of the Sadguru

to that Jiva. How did the Jiva start his Jivahood? By forgetting its

original, its real, nature as Brahman and thus disturbing the

harmony of the Gunas that prevailed in Brahman till the forgetting.

At that moment, a disturbance in the Gunas took place and the Jiva

started its samsaric career. the original Brahmic state was the

clear unruffled waters of the ocean. The disturbance caused in it a

small whirl. This whirl is the Jiva; and it fancied itself (and this

is the primary ignorance) different from the waters of the ocean, by

reason of its being a whirl. the Sadguru comes and restores the

harmony that prevailed before the Jiva started this whirling. The

Sadguru shows the whirl that it is water after all; the Jiva

realising that truth sinks into peace as part of the ocean; and thus

primal harmony is restored by the Sadguru. This is the essence of

Sadguru's work. "

 

" First the Jiva is under a heavy load of past Karma which weighs

him down and pins him to Samsara. He has to reap the pains and

pleasures he has sown. If he tries to remove one item of load he

does two more acts and thereby increases the load. This is because

of his weakness, and went of clear vision, and of ability to know

and direct himself all right. He requires, therefore, the help of

one who knows the situation exactly and what will meet it in the

individuals special circumstances. such a guide and director is the

Sadguru. So the Jiva has to go to a Sadguru. But unfortunately even

the desire to approach a Sadguru and the idea of how to approach him

properly are foreign to the Karma-bound Jiva. So taking advantage of

a little punya (merit) acquired by the Jiva by means of previous

contact (however remote) with the Sadguru or any other holy person,

the Sadguru mercifully makes the approach easier for the Jiva. By

his vast powers, the Sadguru helps the poor. Jiva, even temporally

in a way under such marvellous circumstances that the Jiva is pulled

out of his vicious circle, and roused to a sense of admiration,

gratitudes and reverence to the Samartha, noting especially how

divine the Sadguru is contrasted with the earthly Jiva. "

 

LATER DEVELOPMENT:

 

Thus the Jiva gets prepared to and does attach himself by love to

the Samartha Sadguru and the latter increases his faith by showing

him more and more of his vast knowledge, vast power, vast kindness

and love all exercised on behalf of the devotees out of pure mercy.

As a part of this same mercy, the Guru directs the devotee to do

some acts which will increase the punya or good Karma and reduce the

papa or bad Karma of the devotee. The more good Karma is done, the

more is the doer reducing his heavy load of past bad Karma, without

committing fresh bad Karma. Results of the previous Karmas are even

advanced and regulated by the Samartha's omniscience and omnipotence

to help his dependent reap his harvest more quickly.

 

But in the process the Jiva is apt to get attached to the doing of

punya or meritorious work. though they enable him to get over Rajas

and tamas, they still bind him through Satva, as they will carry him

to repeated births in nice words i.e., of the Gods. Even this Satvic

bondage must be rent as under.

 

So the Guru next weans the devotee even from good works. For the

purpose, the devotee must have an attachment higher and stronger

than good works. that is the attachment to, and love for the Guru,

ending in surrender to the Guru. Attachment to the Guru is useful no

doubt. But its early stages leave in the mind of the devotee the

idea that he is still the person directing his affection to the

Guru, and doing the appropriate service therefor and that he is

doing something worthy and meritorious. It nearly approaches

detachment by reason of absence of personal motive but is still

tainted with Egoism, i.e., with the sense of the devotee being an

agent, a voluntary performer of action. This sense also must be

knocked on the head or banished. Its absence is surrender to or

identification with the Guru. Identification and surrender are

almost the same, with a slight difference. In surrender, the process

is marked by humility and a desire to end the self, which need not

be distinctly present in identification with the Guru.

Identification may be the result of surrender but is seldom its

cause. The fruit of identification is the destruction of the primal

Maya or nescience under which the Jiva started its separate

existence. Surrender restores the balance (or harmony) of gunas that

was upset when the separate existence of the Jiva commenced.

 

TOWARDS SURRENDER:

 

This surrender is brought about when the feeling of the devotee

towards his Guru gets intensified. Such intensification is

comparable to a huge world-wide dynamo attracting an electrified

atom. the devotee, the atom, may however still be feeling or

fancying that it is moving of its own accord to the huge dynamo, the

Guru and then the devotee may even raise the question how this

surrender is to be effected and accelerated.

 

In this connection, we may consider another line on which the

devotee Jiva's progress is proceeding. The devotee starts with

devotion to his Guru or God, who is felt to be entirely outside him,

i.e., outside the devotee's body. The devotee is then under the

influence of Rajas and Tamas and identifies himself almost entirely

with the body. But increasing contact with the Sad-Guru and

increasing faith in him, with good works, especially selfless,

meritorious works, reduce the Rajasic and Tamasic elements of the

devotee and wear off his Dehatmabuddhi, i.e., the idea that he is

body.

 

His ideas of God get broader and finer; and more emphasis is laid on

God's and Guru's spiritual nature which bursts the shackles of

finite space limits. the Guru God is not confined to the small human

body but extends far beyond covering the entire universe on one

side, and, on the other, is very subtle and therefore enters as

Sarva Antaryami into all hearts. The devotee begins to feel that

the Guru-God is his own Antaryami, i.e., he sees him within himself.

The Samartha's vast powers enables the devotee to obtain the finer

sight actually to see the Guru within his own heart. The inner

presence of God-Guru can never be inactive. His real living presence

within asserts itself and more and more and swallows up the Jivahood

of the Jiva. This is self-surrender of the Jiva when viewed from the

latter's stand point. With this swallowing up or surrender, all old

Karmas, good and bad, are swallowed up.

 

THE FINAL SNAP:

 

The Vasana's or tendencies to do fresh Karma have also to be

destroyed in the Jiva's progress. Vasanas are desires or desire

tendencies directed to lower objects (whether earthly or

otherworldly objects) These have to be swallowed up only by a

stronger and purer desire or affection, by something more exacting

than earthly love. As stated already, such stronger passion is the

devotee's love for the Guru, and it is that blossoms into complete

self-surrender. this surrender alone totally extinguishes Vasanas.

Once Vasanas are destroyed, there is no more ego, no more of vicious

circle of Samsara, and the Evolution of the Jiva into the Supreme is

complete. then the Jiva sees that the Samartha Sadguru has all along

been with him, inside and outside, and that the Jiva the Sadguru and

the Supreme Being are and always have been one and the same Real.

.... HH Pujyasri B V Narasimha Swamiji