Vairaagyam - Part 4 of 15

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Revulsion is not of people. Certainly not.

The aversion or disgust is only towards the bondage that originates from our attachment to them; it is only of the pleasurable things they may offer. If one runs away from household, it is not out of aversion or disgust of the mother, or of the wife, or son or daughter; certainly not.

The repulsion or distaste is because of the obstacles to spirituality created by the bondage of attachment to them. The mother spoils our efforts at soul-cleaning when we fast for the purpose, by pitying with us on our fasting and tempting us with tasty food; when the spouse is at your side, the mind becomes vibrant.; the son has got to be admitted in an engineering college even if it costs a bribe of money; the daughter has to be married to a doctor according to her own wish and accordingly a costly dowry has to be met --- thus, each one of them binds you in a certain way.

The repulsion is from this binding. The revulsion is from such bondage of these actions and from the enjoyable things that arise from them, not from the people concerned. Nor from the community of animals. Even in the shloka that we are discussing, it says “bhogya-vastuni jugupsA” – meaning, the disgust towards ‘the objects of pleasure’ and not towards jIvas. In other words, if we isolate ourselves from the JIvas, it is not out of hate or disgust for them but because through them we get attached to enjoyment of experiences.

Thus by discrimination between the permanent and transient objects we learn that all objects of sense-experience are transient and therefore we develop a distaste for them *jugupsA... hyanitye bhogya-vastuni*.

Note the words *hyanitye* instead of *anitye*. It is actually *hi anitye* that has become *hyanitye*. The word ‘hi’ gives an emphasis to what is being said.

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Vairaagyam - Part 3 of 15

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‘tRshhNA’ is thirst. Desire is a thirst. When thirst arises, the tongue craves for drinking water; so also desire is the thirst for the enjoyment of sensual pleasures. Only when it is gone you can get NirvANa – that was the great discovery of the Buddha, say the Buddhistic texts.

Whatever religion there is among civilized society it does not fail to give importance to the eradication of desires. Our Acharya also has given great importance to Vairaagya that eradicates desires.

In his work *aparokshhAnubhUti*, when he refers to the SAdhanA regimen, he calls it (shloka 3) the *vairaagyAdi chatushhTayaM* -- ‘the four parts consisting of VairaagyaM etc.’, thus mentioning VairaagyaM as the chief part.

How does the Acharya define VairaagyaM, let us see:

tad-vairaagyaM jugupsA yA darshana-shravaNAdibhiH /
dehAdi-brahma-paryante hyanitye bhogya-vastuni //

This is the Acharya’s definition of VairaagyaM in Viveka-chUDAmaNi (shloka 21). ‘That is indeed VairaagyaM’, says he dramatically!

‘What is?’. Revulsion from objects of enjoyment by this human body, all the way from those things seen, heard, etc. in this human world to those objects of enjoyment in Brahma-loka – that is VairaagyaM.

“jugupsA” means the feeling of disgust that causes one to reject it. An alternative reading is ‘jihAsA’. The meaning is the same.

Once jnAna has been reached, then one feels love towards everything. There is no question of revulsion then. Because, then none of the objects whether bad or tempting, will affect him. In stages that precede that, it is not so.

All objects of enjoyment of pleasure that cause us to slip down have to be discarded with distaste -- only then one can save our Self. For the later sprouting of the personality of Love, one has to create for oneself this feeling of aversion!

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Vairaagyam - Part 2 of 15

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When a foetus grows into a baby, does it grow in sequence such as, first the feet, then the stomach, then the chest and so on?All of them grow up simultaneously. So also these SAdhanAs have to be done side by side – not one after another.

At each stage the concentration may be more in one or the other. Thus we begin with sorting out the good and bad. The very sorting will teach us something about the task of discarding the bad and taking the good.

And in due course of time this sorting will become automatic, by sheer practice over a long period of time! And that is when we have to start concentrating on the discarding of the undesirables.And that is the part Number Two in the four parts of SAdhana-ChatushhTayaM. That is called *VairaagyaM* (Dispassion).

It is also called *virakti*. *rAgaM* and *rakti* both mean desire or liking. The discarding of desire or liking is *vairaagyaM* or *virakti*.

Sensual pleasures are the greatest obstacles to Spiritual wisdom.They are pleasures of the senses. When we run after a pleasure it means there is a desire for experiencing that pleasure. If we have no such desire, do we run after them?

So what it means to discard those obstacles to spiritual growth is to be rid of all desires – from the little desire for consumption of a snack to the great one of a desire for the obtaining of Bharat Ratna Award. This absence of desires is exactly what VairaagyaM means.

Tirumoolar, the Tamil mystic, describes Vairaagya parAkAshhTA (the apex of Vairaagya) as follows:

Cut off your desire; cut off your desire!
Even with God cut off your desire!
As you keep desiring misery follows
Cutting off desires – that is Happiness, Bliss!

[Tamil original: Asai arrumingaL, Asai arrumingal !
IsanoDAyinum Asai arrumingal !
AsaippaDappaDa Ayvarum tunbam
Asai viDa viDa AnandamAme ! ]

If desires are eradicated totally, moksha is right there!.

Nammazhvar has also sung: *atradu patrenil utradu veeDu*, which means exactly the same.

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Vairaagyam - Part 1 of 15

Vairaagyam - Dispassion

One has to distinguish between nitya (permanent) and anitya (impermanent), discard what ought not to be and take what ought to be. In fact the discarding of what ought not to be is more important.

In life itself, between what ought to be done and what ought not to be done, it may not matter if you don’t do what ought to be done; but by doing what ought not to be done one invites great trouble.

Take the common cold,, for instance. They say: ‘You should have rice mixed in mustard powder, but no icecream.’ One may not eat rice with mustard powder. But by having ice cream the cold intensifies and one ends up in fever.

Thus by eating prohibited food one experiences bad consequences immediately; on the other hand by eating the prescribed things do they immediately help? Not necessarily; they may or may not.

Again bathing in the river Cauvery, if you do it near the shore, it is good both physically and mentally. Those who don’t know swimming should not go into deep waters; if they do they will be drawn into the vortex of the flow.

A bath in the Cauvery may even be missed; even if it is not missed, though the mind gets refreshed a little, one does not observe any great improvement in health or spiritual merit. But if one goes into deeper waters the danger of the vortex swallowing you up is great.

Thus it always happens that in this play of MAyA in the world, the negative forces have usually more power. It therefore follows that once we have made an analysis of what is good for the spiritual ascent and what is bad, thereafter we should give first priority to the discarding of those which are bad.

Here, as I have said earlier, the ‘thereafter’ does not mean there is a strict ‘one after the other’ rule in SAdhanA. It happens that we have to exercise all the different steps of the SAdhanA together in a mixed fashion. At one stage some one of them becomes important or prominent and we usually talk of it as coming ‘later’ or ‘earlier’.

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Nityaanitya Vastu Vivekam - Part 10 of 10

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The Acharya has his own doubts whether we can do this sorting in an intelligent way; so he gives in his prakaraNa work “anAtma-shrI-vigarhaNam” a long list of anAtma items.

In each shloka therein, the first three lines end with *tataH kim?*. It means, “ So what? What is the use?” Status, wealth, dress and decoration, physical beauty, fine health – there are many of this kind that we hold to be highly esteemable and in each line one of them is mentioned, followed by a “tataH kiM”.

Three such lines in every shloka are followed by the fourth line *yena svAtmA naiva sAkshhAt-kRRito’bhUt* (if one has not realised the Self). This is repeated in every shloka.

The meaning of this refrain is to say: If one has not realised the Self, what is the use of his status? Of his wealth? Of his decorative show? Of his beauty? Of his health?. One does not know the truth of oneself; and without knowing that, what is the value of adding one’s status, wealth and health? – this is the substance of the shlokas.

Will it not look absurd if “we don’t know somebody; but still we are going to honour that somebody with a presentation of a purse of money”? That is the situation here, says the Acharya.

Atman is the truth of oneself; if this truth is not known what else is going to be of value? On the other hand if one knows the Self, to him also all these are of trivial value. In fact only if one discards all these as trivial, one can know his own Self. Thus in any case, status, wealth, decoration, beauty, health and whatever other things we hold to be great – all of them are undesirable. The discarding of all of them as anAtmA (non-self) is “anAtma-shrI vigarhaNaM”.

The meanings of the word ‘shrI’ known to everybody are: Lakshmi, auspiciousness, wealth. But there is another meaning also: ‘poison’! Lord Shiva is keeping the poison in his throat and that is why he is also called ‘ShrI-kanTha’. The pleasures that we consider to be of value from wealth and auspiciousness, should be devalued as poison – this is ‘anAtma-shrI-vigarhaNaM’.

And this is nothing but another name for AtmA-anAtma-vivekaM, that is, nitya-anitya-vastu-vivekaM.

Nityaanitya Vastu Vivekam - Part 9 of 10

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Suddenly he seems to switch over to two other categories; no, kshhetraM is prakRRiti and purushha is kshetrajn~a, as is clear from the context.

This is where he gives in a crystallised essence the matter we have been discussing – namely nitya-anitya-vastu vivekaM. What is known in sAnkhya shAstra as purushha is the Absolute Reality of advaita shAstra known as Atman and Brahman.

What is called prakRRiti there (in sAnkhya) is MAyA here. Of course there is a slight difference; but the fact that prakRRiti and purushha is the MAyA and the Atman, respectively, is 99 percent. true.

It is well known that the Atman is the eternal Truth (nitya). So what is meant by nitya-anitya-vastu-vivekaM is nothing but the comprehension of the Atman as separate from the effects of MAyA. In the word ‘AtmA-anAtma-vivacanaM’, the anAtmA is nothing but MAyA. So, to know the distinction between prakRRiti and purushha is to distinguish between anAtmA and AtmA. For an Atma-JnAni there is nothing like anAtma. But being an Atma-JnAni is in the future.

There is a work called “prouDhAnubhUti” by the Acharya, a wonderful rendering in a majestic manner of the status of a JnAni, written in such a ‘madness’ full of advaita-Ananda, that could be even mistaken by unknowing people as a kind of pride. In fact, [the Mahaswamigal adds smiling] the ‘pride’ justifies the name ‘prouDhAnubhUti’. In this the Acharya says very emphatically: “It is absurd to talk about Atma-anAtma – vivechanaM. Is there a thing like anAtma? If there is one such then how can it be negated out of existence?”.

But remember, this is the statement of one who has had the anubhUti (the Experience). But, for those who have yet to reach that stage, the question that looms large is : “Is there something like the Atman? It is only anAtmA that seems to be everywhere”! For all those who have not yet reached that apex of jnAna, it is necessary, during their efforts on the journey, to be alert and to keep sorting out with discrimination, which is the one that is really eternal, which is the one that is the impermanent anAtmA, and what those are that, though impermanent, would be able to help us go to the Eternal Permanent entity, and what those are that, being impermanent, would drag us deep into further impermanence.

The Acharya, in the last but one shloka of his Bhaja Govindam, has recommended us to do this sorting between Atman and anAtmA very carefully: *prANAyAmaM pratyAhAraM nityAnitya-viveka-vichAraM*. The shloka after this in Bhaja GovindaM is a phala-shruti.

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Nityaanitya Vastu Vivekam - Part 8 of 10

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Another way of looking at it is to say that by proper discrimination he discarded the five koshas as impermanent and finally got to know that the Atman is the only Permanent entity.

*neti neti* -- “Brahman is not this, is not that; it is nothing that can be circumscribed by anything; it is not related to another; it is not limited to anything; it is not that which suffers; it is not that which is destroyed” so says the Brihad-Aranyaka Upanishad. Whatever has been said here not to be Brahman, they are all matters for the mundane world.

In other words, what is circumscribed, what is related, what is limited, what is destroyed, all these are material entities. So the “neti, neti” analysis means to pick out the impermanent entitites of the world, discard them as such, and hold on to the Permanent entity, Atman. “anyat ArtaM” – “all others are having an end” .

In other words, except the Atman, everything else without exception meet their end. This idea coming again and again in BrihadAranyaka Upanishad mantras is to distinguish the Nitya-vastu (Permanent One) from the anityas (the impermanents).

Right in the beginning of His Gitopadesha, Bhagavan makes it clear: Atman is the only Permanent entity. The body from the killing of which Arjuna retreats, is nothing but ephemeral (anitya). All experiences of the body come and go: *AgamApAyinaH anityAH*. That which is permanent, immeasurable is only the Atman : *nityasyoktAH sharIriNaH anAshinaH aprameyasya*, thus runs his elaboration.

Later *anityam asukhaM lokaM imaM prApya bhajasva mAM* (IX – 33) -- you have obtained a life in this impermanent miserable world; in order to get out of this, worship Me, says He. What does He mean by ‘Me’? He is the Atman, He is the Brahman. *ahamAtma guDHAkeshaH sarva-bhUtAshayaH sthitaH* (X – 20) [I am established as the indweller in the hearts of all beings]: this is His own statement. So worshipping Him means only the meditation on the Self. The sum and substance of what He says is: “In this world everything is impermanent; hold on to the Atman”.

The thirteenth chapter of the Gita is called ‘kshhetra- kshhetrajn~a vibhAga-yogaM’. It is the yoga that distinguishes the body that is the ‘kshhetra’ and the conscious Atman inside that is known as ‘kshetrajn~a’. This kshetra-kshetrajn~a yoga is nothing but the discrimination between the permanent and the ephemeral. When the Lord defines (XIII– 5, 6) ‘kshhetra’ as made up of the five elements, senses, the objects that senses run after, desire (icchA), hate (dveshhaM), happiness and misery, etc., he is actually dissecting all those that are impermanent.

In the same way, he shows the Permanent One as the kshhetrajn~a. It is clear from his further statements: “It exists in all the universes enveloping them all; without and within all beings, moving and unmoving, near and far away is that”. (XIII – 13,, 15). Then as He goes along distinguishing kshhetra and kshhetrajn~a, Bhagavan says: “He who knows the distinction between prakRRiti and purusha does not have another birth” (XIII – 23). In other words, such a person attains moksha, says He.

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