Jnana Yogi with Bhakti - Arthur Koestler

[Guest guest]

Namami Sankaraachaaryam, sarvalokaika Poojitham

 

With permission blessings and grace from HH Swamy Vijeyendra

Saraswathi garu of Shri Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham Paramacharya and

miracles

 

Jnana Yogi with Bhakti

Arthur Koestler

We entered a small and dilapidated house next to a temple. Facing us

there was a dark, narrow corridor, blocked by an ancient palanquin

painted white, with long hard wood poles sticking out front and back.

A small room, rather like a police cell, opened from the corridor,

and there we squatted down on a mat in the company of several others.

After a few minutes of whispered conversation, a young man approached

the palanquin, bent over it and murmured some words. A brown rug

inside the palanquin, covering what looked like a shapeless bundle,

began slowly to heave and stir, and finally His Holiness scrambled

out of it, wrapping the blanket round his head and bare torso in the

process of emerging. Tall and lean, but not emaciated, he looked

dazed as he squeezed past the palanquin in the corridor and entered

the little cell. He sat down cross-legged, facing me on that mat,

while the others moved out into the corridor, leaning in through the

open door to hear better.

His Holiness remained silent for about half a minute, and I had time

to study his remarkable face. Its feature had been reduced to bare

essentials, by hard spiritual discipline. It was dominated by the

high smooth, domed forehead under the short cropped, white hair. The

brown eyes were set so deep that they seemed to be peering out from

inside the skull, with soft dark shadows, underneath. His firm,

curved lips, framed by a trimmed white beard, were surpassingly

mobile and expressive as they carefully formed each word. He was

emerging from sleep or trance, his eyes only focussing on those

present. I was told that he managed an average of three hours sleep a

day, in short fits between duties and observances, always huddled in

the palanquin, and that the devotees were often unable to tell

whether he was asleep or in samadhi. He asked me gently why I had

come to India :

" Is it merely to observe the country and the people, or is it to

guide them in some healthy manner? "

This was an allusion to certain press comments, concerned with

earlier book. I answered that I had come to see and learn, and with

no other purpose.

H.H. : " One's passive interest, too, exerts and influence. Even

without any specific activity, the angle from which you approach a

problem or country produced shakti-an active force. "

I said that I was sorry this should be so, but nobody could avoid

throwing a shadow.

The Sankaracharya answered : " But one's sincere sympathy throws its

own radiance " ; and as he had said that, a smile transformed his face

into that of a child. I had never seen a comparable smile or

expression; it had an extraordinary charm and sweetness. Later, on my

way back, I wondered why in Western paintings of saints entranced,

blessed or martyred. I had never encountered anything like that

enchanted smile. Since all mystics agree that their experience also

eludes representation by chisel and brush. However much I admired a

Last Supper or a scene from Calvary, I have never felt that Jesus of

Nazareth really looked like that. On the other hand, certain

sculptures of the Gupta period and of the early Indian Baroque do

convey an idea of that peculiar smile.

My first question was whether His Holiness though that it was

necessary to adapt the doctrines and observances of Hinduism to the

changing social structure of India.

The Sankaracharya's answer, according to the stenographic transcript

(which I have slightly compressed) was as follows:

" The present is not the only time when there was been a social

revolution. Changes have been taking place even in the remote past,

when revolutions were not so violent as they are now. But there are

certain fundamentals which have been kept intact. We compare the

impact of a social change to a storm. It is necessary to stand firm

by the fundamental values and standards. When Alexander came to

India, Greek observers wrote that there were no thefts in this

country. They cannot say that this standard has been kept up in

subsequent times. But we cannot say either that because the situation

with regard to morality has changed, teachers should adapt themselves

to present day. Adaptation have no place in the standards of

spiritual discipline. "

Question: " Is there not a difference between spiritual values and

religious observances? Assuming a person is working n a factory or

officer, he has to be at his working place at 9 a.m. To perform this

religious observance he must start at five in the morning. Would it

not be possible to shorted the prescribed ritual? "

H.H. : " If a man cannot perform his prayers, rites and observances in

the prescribed way, he must feel egret and penitence. He can do

penance and still perform his duties in the proper way on holidays or

at other times of the day when he is less busy. Once concessions are

may in the way of shortening observances, there is no limit, and this

will lead to their gradual dwindling and extinction. "

Question: " If the full discharge of the rites is, in modern society,

beyond the average person's capacity, may it not be harmful to make

him feel constantly guilty and aware of his failing? "

H.H.: " If a person feels sincere repentance, that sincerity has its

own value. "

In view of his unyielding attitude, I changed the subject..... I

turned to a subject on which he was an unquestioned authority.

Question : " I had several talks with Hindu psychiatrists in Bombay.

They all agreed that spiritual exercises greatly help to effect

medical cures. What bothered them was the absence of criteria to

distinguish between insights gained by mystic trance on the one hand,

and hallucinations on the other. "

His answer was short and precise: " The state of hallucination is a

temporary one. A person should learn to control his mind. What comes

after such mental discipline is mystic experience. What appear in the

uncontrolled state of mind are hallucinations. These are caused by

the wishes and fears of the ego. the mystic's mind is a blank, his

experience is shapeless and without object. "

Question: " Can a mystic experience by artificially induced by means

of drugs? "

H.H. You ask this because you think of the experiments of Aldous

Huxley.

" Bhang is used among the people in some parts of India to induce

certain states of mind. It is not a habit in the South. Such an

artificially induced stated does not last long. The real mystic is

more permanent. "

Question: " How is an outside observer to distinguish between the

genuine and the no-so-genuine? "

H.H. : " Of course, sometimes people mistake a Pseudo -Yogi for a real

one. But the behavior of the man who has disciplined his mind, who is

a true Yogi, will be different. When you look at him you will see

that his face is serene and at peace. That will discover and

differentiate him. "

He spoke without a trace of self-consciousness; it evidently did not

occur to him that description applied to himself.

I felt that my time was up, though the Sankaracharya denied with

great gentleness that he was tired. In India, it is the visitor who

is supposed to bring the audience to an end, which sometimes leads to

embarrassing situations. I embarked on an anecdote about the Jesuit

priest who was asked how he would reconcile God's all-embracing love

with the idea of eternal Hell, and who answered : `yes, Hell does not

exist, but it is always empty.'

I suppose my motive in telling the story was to make him smile again.

He did, then said, still smiling : `We have no eternal Hell in

Hinduism. Even a little practice of dharma will go a long way in

accumulating merit. `He quoted a line form the Gita in Sanskrit.

This was the end of the conversation. I found at last the courage to

get up first, and the Sankaracharya, after a very gentle and

unceremonious salute, quickly took the few steps to the palanquin and

vanished into its interior. The room was suddenly dingy and empty and

I had a reeling of a personal loss.

Such were the views of an orthodox religious leader in contemporary

India. The remarkable thing about them is that they bore no relation

to contemporaneity Equally striking was the contrast between his

gentle saintly personality, lovable and loving, peaceful and peace

giving, immersed in contemplation `without shape of object' - and the

rigidity of its views in Hindu doctrine and religious observances. If

one tried to project him on to the European scene, one would have to

go back several centuries to find a Christian mystic of equal depth

and stature; yet in his views on religious practice he compared with

the rigid ecclesiastics of the nineteenth century.

Indians call the Sankaracharya a Jnana Yogi with a strong inclination

toward Bhakti union through devotional worship.

******