GEMS FROM THE OCEAN OF HINDU THOUGHT
VISION AND PRACTICE
BEACH 11: LIVE HAPPILY, THE
WAVE 5: HAPPINESS
OF EQUANIMITY IN PRACTICE
[OTHER WAVES ON THE SAME BEACH: 1 2 3 4 6 7 8 9 10 11 12]
“Where is this bliss coming from?” was the question. Unmitigated bliss
is the real definitive
characterisitic of Reality. Coldness is the definitive
characteristic (svarUpa-lakshhaNa)
of water. When we come into contact with water that is hot, we always ask “Why
is the water hot?”. We never ask this question of
normal water which is cold. The very question “why?” indicates that hotness is
an acquired characteristic of water and coldness is its natural
characteristic. To make it hot we have
to use some extraneous energy. When the fish is out of water it struggles; but
when it is put back into water, it is happy.
Whenever we search for happiness, it means we
are not in our natural state. When somebody is crying everybody asks him
why he is sorrowful;
but when somebody is happy nobody goes out and asks him why he is
happy. Happiness, pleasure, joy, bliss -- all these are our natural
characteristics. Sorrow is not our natural state. Like fish out of water
we keep searching for the happiness from which we have been thrown out; and the moment we get back that
happiness we regain our peace.
The innate characteristic (svarUpa-lakshhaNa) of Absolute Reality can be
described in three ways. Existence in all three phases of Time, the word in
Sanskrit being ‘sat’;
‘cit’
or Knowledge, also translated as
Consciousness; and ‘Ananda’ meaning unmixed happiness or
bliss. That is why it is usually
referred to as ‘sat-cid-AnandaM’.
In Tamil this body is called ‘mey’ (pronunciation to rhyme with the first three
letters of ‘wait’). But ‘mey’ in Tamil also means Truth. Why is this unreal
body called as something which also means ‘Truth’? The reason according to the
great Tamil saints is that it is in this false body the Reality of God is
present. When we sleep we forget all the
reality of the outside world and we rest in peace closeted and immersed in the
Reality of the Core of our Core, namely, the ‘sat-cid-Ananda’
- Existence-Knowledge-Bliss. When we wake up all the memories of our
wakeful world come back to us, our mind and senses resume their usual state and
we have no memory of what happened during our sleep. But however we say: “I
slept happily”. Where did this happiness come from? The mind was not present to
enjoy that happiness, if ever there was one. What happens is that the mind clinging to the Jiva has rested in the Ananda
Fountain that is of infinite nature inside, and when the mind reverts to its
egoistic naturality after the sleep, the jIva also resumes its usual mistaken
identification with the mind. So the jIva’s sojourn with happiness is
spoken of by the mind as if it were its own and it says :
“I slept happily”. The Vedantic lesson
from this daily event that every one of us goes through is remarkable. The
Infinite Blissful Consciousness is what we are; during sleep also we are that. It is that Bliss which one enjoys quite consciously in the
samAdhi stage, say all the great saints of our tradition.
Question: Let it be Infinite Bliss. So
what? After all, it is one man’s happiness, if at all. What good is it to the
rest of the world? Is the Gita saying all this for just
that isolated single person’s happiness?
The answer to this question is the punchline of Hinduism. Through that yogi whose happiness we are
trying to discover, the entire world gets benefited. It is not just one
person’s happiness. Of course one can say naively that the world itself is nothing but
an aggregate of single persons. But that is not the complete answer to this
legitimate question. To give the complete answer one has to go to the fundamentals of Vedanta. In fact many questions in
Hinduism have their complete answers only when you bring in the fundamental
philosophy of the Upanishads. That is why
First let us see how
“sarva-bhUtastham AtmAnam sarvabhUtAni cAtmani”
“Ikshhate
yoga-yuktAtmA sarvatra
sama-darshanaH...”// VI-29
With the mind
harmonised by yoga, he sees the self as abiding in all beings and
all beings as abiding in the self; he sees the same everywhere.
“yo mAm pashyati sarvatra sarvam ca mayi pashyati...”
“tasyAhaM na praNashyAmi sa ca me na praNashyati ...”// VI –
30
He who sees Me everywhere and sees all in Me, from him I do not get separated, nor does he get
lost to Me.
“sarva-bhUtasthitam yo mAM
bhajaty-ekatvam-AsthitaH /...”
“sarvathA vartamAnopi sa yogI mayi vartate //...” VI-31
The Yogi who has taken his stand upon Oneness and worships Me as abiding in all beings, in whatever
manner he lives and acts, lives and acts in Me.
“Atmaupamyena
sarvatra samaM
pashyati yorjuna /..”
“sukhaM vA yadi vA dukhaM sa yogI paramo mataH //...”
VI-32
He who sees with equality everything in the image of the self, whether
it be grief or happiness, him I hold to be the supreme Yogi.
It is this equanimous vision that cures the world of all its ills. This
equanimous vision is what Real Knowledge means. It is the perception of Oneness
in one’s bones. We are told by the great seers that once we experience the
state of samAdhi, thereafter the perception of oneness will come more naturally
to us. The Vedas do declare this Oneness many times in many different
words. But that is only parokshha jnAna
(Indirect knowledge) for us. It becomes direct knowledge only when there is a
direct experience. It is the experience of seeing the
right thing, that is brahman, behind the negated
universe and the negated individuality of the Atman. This brahma-bhAva, being in brahman,
automatically implies an equanimous view of every being in the world as
the same self as the one that dwells in the seer.
“vidyA-vinaya-sampanne brAhmaNe
gavi hastini /...”
“shuni caiva shvapAke ca paNditAH samadarshinaH // V -18
Sages see with an equal eye the learned and cultured brahmin,
the cow the elephant, the dog and the outcaste.
This balanced view of everything as One, everything as the Self, is a
blissful experience, called brahma-Ananda. This was the continuous
experience of a Ramana Maharishi, a Sadasiva brahman,
a Ramakrishna and sages of that kind. It is naturally a
state to be experienced internally, not by any external apparatus. It is
a super-fortitude, an equal-mindedness so unfaltering
that it results in feelings of deep happiness. At that ultimate level there is
really neither good nor bad. The qualities of poise,
perspective, peace of mind and patience all go with it. These are not
just nice traits; they are the basic components of happiness. This after all is
IT. This is the peace so sought by every one. This is the ultimate aim of it
all.
God, the Reality Absolute, is not only transcendent – in the sense that
He (or It) is beyond all finite conceptions – but He is also immanent in everything, animate and
inanimate. This immanence aspect is a speciality of Hindu Vedanta. Whatever we see, hear, smell,
taste or touch – everything is the Almighty.
The taste of water, the light of the Sun, the
sound in space, the smell of the Earth, the glow of Fire, the lives of living
beings – all these are nothing but that Absolute Itself. I am only quoting the Gita here. “rasoham apsu kaunteya
prabhAsmi shashi-sUryayoH; praNavas-sarva-vedeshhu shabdaH khe paurushhaM
nRshhu; jIvanaM sarva-bhUteshhu ...(VII-8,
9)
It all looks like poetry, music. Yes, the music
of the moving, the melody of poetry, the delicacy of dance -- all this is the song of the
Absolute!
We are told by great saints that one obtains this kind of Realisation
in the samAdhi state. Listen to one such
statement from Kripananda Variyar:
The sages of antiquity who have been in that state revel in their
equanimous vision and their Bliss of
Equanimity and Compassion; they are conscious of
nothing else but the fullness of that Consciousness. The vision knows
no ‘I’ or ‘Mine’. The little self is merged in the Supreme Self. Knowledge and
Ignorance both get consumed in that oneness of the knower, the known and
knowledge. There is no seer, no vision, nothing to be seen. For such a
brahma-jnAni, neither time, nor action, neither merit nor demerit, neither pleasure
nor pain, matters the least. In that state of Enlightenment, there is no
distinction between one self and the other self. It is full of Grace and Light – no darkness, no confusion. It is the massive Light of
Consciousness. No up, no down, no
peak, no valley. It is a state that transcends speech and mind, a
state that has no goings-on, no action, no reaction. Who can describe such a state? Only a confirmed brahma-jnAni like Sankara can vocalise it into poetry
thus. “No merit, no demerit, no happiness, no misery, no chants, no holy water,
no scriptures, no rituals. I am neither the experiencer, nor the experienced,
nor also the experience. I am Consciousness, I am Bliss, I
am Siva”. This is the acme of Enlightenment.
“na puNyaM na pApaM, na soukhyaM na dukhaM
na
mantro na thIrtham na vedA na yajnAH /
ahaM
bhojanaM naiva bhojyaM na bhoktA
cidAnanda-rUpaH
shivoham shivoham //
Only such brahma-jnAnis can show the world where the path lies for
salvation. They are the ones who can
talk authentically from their own experience. In our own times we had Ramana
Maharishi, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Kanchi Mahaswamigal and a few others. All of them with one voice say the same thing. This universe
is nothing but the Almighty Himself. Recall ‘vishvam vishNuH
..’ in the very beginning of Vishnu sahasranAma.
We on the other hand see the Universe as a
multifarious variety in view of the various names and forms. They all
delude us by their colourful panorama, their charming forms and the varied
names. A dreamer thinks that his varied
experiences in the dream
and the scenes that he witnessed (or even participated) in the
dream are something other than himself. Once the dream is over he realises that
they all came from himself. They were not distinct from him. The waves of the Ocean are not different from the ocean.
If they appear to be different, different waves, it is only an appearance. The
appearance disappears after a little time. If a particular wave thinks of
itself as different from another wave, in no time it is falsified. Our life is also like
this. The varied living beings that we see as distinct from us are only sparks
from the same Absolute Reality. That is why the Gita emphasizes the equanimous
vision and waxes eloquent about it:
“He sees, who sees the Supreme Lord existing
equally in all beings, as the unperishing within the perishing.” (13-27):
“samaM sarveshhu bhUteshhu tishhTantam
parameshvaraM /
vinashyatsu
avinashyantaM yaH pashyati sa pashyati
//
Perceiving the same Lord equally dwelling everywhere (in all forces, in
all beings and in all things) he does not injure himself (by casting his being
into the hands of the gang of thirteen) and thus he attains to the supreme
status. (13-28).
“samaM pashyan hi sarvatra samavasthitam-IshvaraM /
na
hinasti AtmanA AtmAnaM tato yAti parAm
gatiM...” //
When a man sees the whole variety of beings as abiding in the One
Eternal Being, and spreading forth from that alone, he then becomes brahman.
“yadA bhUta-pRtag-bhAvaM ekastham-anupashyati /
tata eva
ca vistAro brahma sampadyate tadA // (13-30)
“brahmArpaNaM
brahma haviH ...” (4-24)
Question: All this is only theoretical, isn’t
it? What is the practical significance of all this?
Krishna repeats this idea many times, not as just a theoretical
proposition but as maxims to be followed by us in our daily lives. And
finally when he summarises everything in the eighteenth chapter it is this equanimity of
vision that He calls sAtvic knowledge.
(18-20)
sarva-bhUteshhu yenaikaM bhAvam
avyayaM Ikshhate /
avibhaktam
vibhakteshhu tajjnAnaM viddhi sAtvikaM //
That by which one sees the one indestructible reality in all beings,
not separate in all that is separate, that knowledge is said to be sAtvic. Perception of difference is because of name
and form. The enlightened man sees the tile, the brick and the stone the same
way. When a wooden elephant is presented to a child the child is carried away
by imaginations about the elephant. But we shall be
only children spiritually if we cannot see the wood for the elephant. The average human being
is distracted by the multiplicity of appearances. As
if in a dream he refuses to believe that there is a real world outside of this
worldly dream. He is not able to rise beyond the glamour of plurality that
confronts him and does not recognize there is an essential unity in all that he
sees. He sees only the effect not the cause.
It must not be forgotten that this kind of equanimous vision is only an attitude of mind. The fact that the spiritual content in you and me
are identical should not mean that your property is mine. Instead what should
follow is that your difficulties, your sorrow should be
mine. Can I develop that attitude? This is the final single touchstone of all
this equanimity. How shall we develop this?
It is very difficult of course. But we can begin in little ways.
This is where the first lesson of practical
advaita starts. Normally when we think of another person, we tend to
think of his negatives also. Very often only his negatives come to our mind
rather than the good things about him. But the habit of seeing God in everybody
should be practised in such a way that the first thing that we should attempt
to do is to forget the negatives of the other person.
When we think of ourselves we very often forget our own negatives. Even when
another person points it out to us we tend to either ignore it or disbelieve
it. The vedantic injunction of seeing ourselves in the
other person, when translated into action, gives us the lever to ignore or
forget his negatives just as we do with our own. Thus we can set up
almost a supernatural empathy with the other person. If this happens to the
majority of us, half the world’s problems are solved. This is the first great leap forward in spirituality .
The next step is to see the same God in all
Gods and Divinities. The dogmatism that is inherent in the fanatical
love of one’s own religion or in such love of one’s own school of philosophy or
one’s own favourite God should give way to look at all paths to God as valid
and of value.
The third and final step is what is described
in the 6th and 7th verses of the IshAvAsyopanishhad (which is also
echoed in the Gita)
‘yastu sarvANi bhUtAni Atmany-evAnupaSyati;
sarva-bhUteshu
cAtmAnaM tato na vijugupsate //
yasmin
sarvANi bhUtAni AtmaivAbhUd-vijAnataH;
tatra ko mohaH kaH SokaH ekatvaM anupaSyataH //’
meaning: He who sees all beings in the Self and the Self in all beings, hates
none; to the illumined soul, who sees everything as a manifestation of his own
Self, how can there be delusion or grief since he sees only oneness?
These two verses of the Isopanishad are also echoed by the Gita They give a stepwise formula or
working rule for our identification with the vision of God. The first approximation for this conceptual identification
is a sense of unity with other existences. “IshA-vAsyam-idam-sarvam”.
This unity makes you give respect to everything that you see since everything
is seen as God. The next step is to identify it with
the Self. The respect shown to other beings widens now
into compassion and love to the things in which we see our own
Self. But this oneness is only an
artificial oneness, a pluralistic unity. Real knowledge begins with a
perception, not just an understanding at the intellectual level, of this
oneness. The concept of pluralistic unity must give place or lead to, a total
comprehension or perception at the experiential level.
To do this one has to first to retreat from the outside world – nivRtti.
Then see everything in Oneself. The opposite of this is a narrow I-feeling;
that is what causes attachment and hate. By a proper enquiry into Reality,
(this is the Atma-vicAra
that every great seer talks about) the ignorance arising out of absence of
enquiry slowly begins to melt. The spiritual disciplines purify one’s mind and
this coupled with the association of the sAtvic type of people lead to
an illumination which unfolds the harmony of oneness. This is the vision. After
this vision, the world from which we have retreated is drawn into the
Self. Ethically the formula is: Detach yourself attitudinally, and then Love. Live in that
dynamic unity. No more separate self, no more likes and dislikes, no
more hopes and fears. This is the only way of serving society, says Swami
Vivekananda. Nobody can be of any real use to society if
he does not have an element of sacrifice, renunciation and a vision of oneness in
all that he sees. That is the first verse of Ishopanishad says: tena tyaktena bhunjIthAH:
Enjoy, by renouncing!
These two verses thus
serve to underscore the harmony of sama-dRshhTi which is the hard
core message of the entire gita. It is the Lord who is the Master of the past,
present and future. – bhUta-bhavya-bhavat-prabhuH. This is where the equanimity of vision translates as
Bhakti. For one who has given himself up to the Lord of the past, present and
future, there is no grief, no delusion, no fear. Such a one is a vijAnat, the one who knows, who
sees with a distinguished vision, whose understanding is
not just at an academic level, but is of personal experience born out of inner
conviction. For such a one there is only the Self – no non-Self. For
such a one,
Whatever is seen is only the Lord’s presence ,
Whatever is heard is the melody of
Whatever is tasted is the sweetness of the
nectar flowing from Shiva’s Grace,
Whatever is smelt is the fragrance of the dust
of the divine feet of The Mother.
Whatever is touched is the
divine hand of the abhaya-hasta of Shri Ram.
It is not enough to just appreciate all that has been said. One has to
think about them, turn it over in one’s mind repeatedly, converse with others
about it and thus keep the mind always occupied with such thoughts. Such
practice is what is called ‘brahma-abhyAsaM’ in panchadashi, and in laghu-vakyavRtti :
“tac-cintanaM tat-kathanaM anyonyam tat-prabodhanaM /
etad-eka-paratvaM ca brahmAbhyAsaM vidur-budhAH //
Go to Chapter 6
Copyright © V. Krishnamurthy Jan.11, 2004