Important Couplets From Tripura Rahasya - Part1

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The feeling of a need to work in order to gain happiness (being the index

of misery) is the misery of miseries. How can there be pleasure or removal

of pain so long as it continues?

 

Only those who need not engage in action, are happy; they are perfectly

content, and self-contained, and they experience a happiness which extends

to all the pores of the body.

 

Wrongly do they ever engage in work, being deluded; such is the plight of

humanity stupefied by the poison of the sense of obligation.

 

Confounding dispassion (vairagya) with misery,and the pleasures of the world

with happiness (sukha), a man suffers in the cycle of births and deaths,

while powerful ignorance prevails.

 

Association with the Sages is alone said to lead to the highest good. Your

contact with Samvarta has led you to this stage of enlightenment, which is

the forerunner of emancipation. On being approached, the Sages teach the

greatest good.

 

Misery is of two kinds, external and internal.The former pertains to the

body and is caused by the nerves, etc.; the latter pertains to the mind and

is caused by desire.

 

Mental distraction is worse than physical pain and the whole world has

fallen a victim to it. Desire is the seed of the tree of misery and never

fails in its fruits.

 

Respite gained by the fulfilment of one desire before another takes its

place, is not happiness, because the seeds of pain are still latent. Such

respite is enjoyed by the insects also (which certainly do not typify

perfect happiness).Yet is their enjoyment distinctly better than that of men

because their desires are less complex?

 

Fatigue is certainly produced for everybody after the flurry (or passion) of

copulation, just as there is fatigue for an animal carrying a load

 

Beauty is only a mental concept, as is evident from the similar feeling in

similar enjoyments of lovers in dreams.

 

The idea of beauty lies in one’s own desire innate in the mind.

 

Even the most accomplished among men have fallen into the habit of seeking

pleasure from woman, for all consider her the best hunting ground for

delight.Similarly also a man’s body is thought by women to be the highest

source of enjoyment.Shaped of fat and flesh, filled with blood,topped by the

head, covered by skin, ribbed by bones,covered with hair, containing bile

and phlegm, a pitcher of faeces and urine, generated from semen and ovum,

and born from the opening from where urine is ejected — such is the body.

Just think of it! Finding delight in such a thing, how are men any better

than worms growing in offal?

 

What is known as the mind is, after all, always like a restless monkey. So

the ordinary man is always afflicted with troubles. Everybody knows that a

restless mind is the channel of endless troubles; whereas one is happy in

sleep in the absence of such restlessness.Hearing with a distracted mind is

as good as not hearing, for the words serve no useful purpose, resembling

the fruit-laden tree seen in a painting.

 

Men earn their food, gods their nectar, pious ascetics the highest beatitude

and others their desires, by individual exertion alone.

 

Whatever has the impress of misery on it cannot be good. Such are wealth,

children, wife, kingdom, treasury, army, fame, learning, intellect, body,

beauty and prosperity. For they are all transient and already in the jaws of

death, otherwise called time.

 

Therefore worship the Primal Cause of the universe as the starting point; be

devoted to Him; He will soon enable you to succeed in your attempts to

destroy the illusion.

 

Among the methods of approach to God, there are (1) worship to overcome

troubles, (2) worship to gain wealth, etc., and (3) loving dedication of

oneself. The last one is the best and surest in its results.

 

A human master may take long to recognise unselfish work;but God, the Lord

of the Universe, the Dweller in our hearts, knows everything and soon

bestows appropriate fruits. In the case of other kinds of devotees, God has

to await the course of destiny — that being His own ordainment; whereas for

the selfless devotee, God, the

Lord and the sole refuge, is all in all and takes care of him without

reference to the devotee’s predestiny or His own ordained laws. He

compensates the devotee quickly, and that is because He is supreme and

self-contained without depending on anything else.

 

Predestiny or divine will is powerless before Him. Everyone knows how He set

aside predestiny and divine laws in the case of His famous devotee,

Markandeya.

 

[Note: A Rishi, Mrikandu by name, who was childless,pleased Siva by his

penance. When Siva appeared to him,he prayed that a son might be born to

him. Siva asked him if he wished to have a dull boy long-lived, or a bright

boy short-lived. Mrikandu preferred the latter. So Siva said ‘You will have

a very brilliant son; but he will only live for sixteen years’. Accordingly

a son was born who was very good and dutiful, and most intelligent and

pious,charming all who saw him. The parents were delighted with him but grew

sad as he grew up. He asked them the reason for their sadness and they told

him of Siva’s boon.He said, ‘Never mind. I will see’, and took to

penance.Siva was pleased with his intense devotion and ordained that he

should remain sixteen years of age for all eternity.]

 

The current notion that one cannot escape one’s destiny is applicable only

to weak-minded and senseless wastrels.

 

The Primal Being is Siva with five faces and three eyes, the Creator would

in that case be like an ordinary potter making pots, endowed with a body and

brain. True, there is no art found in the world, without a body and some

intellect. In fact, the creative faculty in men belongs to something between

the body and pure intelligence.

 

[Note: Body being insentient cannot act of its own accord; nor can intellect

do so without a tool.]

 

Therefore the mind operates apart from the gross body,in dreams; being

intelligent it creates an environment suitable to its latent desires. This

clearly indicates that the body is only a tool for a purpose and the agent

is intelligence.Instruments are necessary for human agents because their

capacities are limited and they are not self-contained.Whereas the Creator

of the universe is perfect in Himself and creates the whole universe without

any external aid.This leads to the important conclusion that God has no

body.Otherwise, He would be reduced to a glorified human being, requiring

innumerable accessories for work and influenced by seasons and environments,

in no way different from a creature, and not the Lord. Moreover,

preexistence of accessories would quash His unique mastery and imply limits

to His powers of creation. This is absurd, as being contrary to the original

premises. Therefore, He has no body nor the other aids, yet He still creates

the world, O Lord of my life! Fools are taken in by the notion of giving a

body to the transcendental Being. Still, if devotees worship and contemplate

Him with a body according to their own inclinations, He shows them grace,

assuming such a body. For He is unique and fulfils the desires of His

devotees.

 

Nevertheless, the conclusion must be reached that He is pure intelligence

and His consciousness is absolute and transcendental.Such is the

consciousness-intelligence in purity,Absolute Being, the One Queen,

Parameswari (Transcendental Goddess), overwhelming the three states and

hence called Tripura. Though She is the undivided whole, the universe

manifests in all its variety in Her, being reflected as it were,in a

self-luminous mirror. The reflection cannot be apart from the mirror and is

therefore one with it. Such being the case, there cannot be difference in

degrees (e.g., Siva, or Vishnu being superior to each other). Bodies are

mere conceptions in the lower order of beings and they are not to the point

in the case of God. Therefore, be wise,and worship the one pure, unblemished

Transcendence.

 

As long as you are contaminated with notions of me or mine (e.g., my home,

my body, my mind, my intellect),the Self will not be found, for it lies

beyond cognition and cannot be realised as ‘my Self ’.

 

Retire into solitude, analyse and see what those things are which are

cognised as mine; discard them all and transcending them, look for the Real

Self.

 

Is there any moment when the Self is not the Self? Neither is control of

mind used to gain it. I shall give you some examples:

 

Just as things unseen in darkness are found on its removal by means of a

lamp, and are therefore said to be recovered from oblivion.

 

Just as a confused man forgets his purse, but remembers and locates it on

keeping his mind unruffled and steady, yet still says that he has gained the

lost purse,though the steadying of his mind did not produce it.

 

So also the control of your mind is not the cause of your Self-realisation;

though the Self is always there, it is not recognised by you even with a

controlled mind because you are not conversant with it.

 

Just as an infant tries to take hold of his own reflection being unaware of

the mirror, so also common people are taken in by their mental reflections

in the mirror of the pure, luminous Self and are not aware of the mirror,

because they have no acquaintance with the Self.

 

The mind should be brought to the condition of a newborn baby.Then he feels

as if he were separate from all gross materials and only the feeling ‘I am’

persists.

 

Source: TRIPURA RAHASYA OR THE MYSTERY BEYOND THE TRINITY Translated by

SWAMI SRI RAMANANANDA SARASWATHI (Munagala S. Venkataramaiah)

 

Tripura Rahasya is an ancient prime text on Advaita in Sanskrit and was

highly commended by Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi for study by seekers. There

was no English translation of this scripture until the present one was made

by Munagala Venkataramiah (Swami Ramanananda Saraswathi) in 1938.

 

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Om Namo Bhagavate Sri Ramanaya

Prasanth Jalasutram

 

Love And Love Alone