Sushumnaa Naadi - Part 4 of 15

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When the person who treads the path of jnAna, at the apex of his SAdhanA, resorts to bhakti for the extinction of his ego, the mind and intellect come into the semi-physical heart, the seat of the ego; the heart is filled up by love in its subtle form and the ego thins out and then goes and shrinks into the central gate -- all this process takes place (involuntarily) without his knowledge!

The Atman is attributeless, so the mind has no hold on it or has only a vague hold. So as the Guru has told him he holds on to what appears as the root or source of breath and thought and he concentrates at that ‘point’. That is all.

The Guru might have told him and he would have learnt that it is the center of the heart. Still in actuality, his cittam (antaHkaraNaM) will not be drawn into it permanently in its entirety then and there.

To a certain extent he has located something like that and his cittam stations itself there for the moment.
All the vAsanAs have to be exhausted, ego has to be totally extinguished; only thereafter, it stands there for good.

Here ‘stands’ has two connotations: one is, ‘stops, halts’; the other is ‘endures, abides, belongs’.

So here what happens is, the process begins with the first meaning and ends with the second.
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Sushumnaa Naadi - Part 3 of 15

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The nADis that, according to the Upanishads, starts from the heart, are related to the process of life as well as end of life, for the  entire humanity.

Among them the most important one is the one that goes to the head. Nowhere in the Upanishads or Brahma-sUtra is it called the sushhumnA. They only say *mUrdha-nADi*, that is the nAdi which is in the head or which ends in the head.

In the Gita also (VIII – 12) *mUrdhny-AdAyAtmanaH prANaM* where the reference is to the leaving of the body by bringing the PrANa to the head, both in the text and in the bhAshya, there is no mention of sushhumnA.

As the Acharya was going on writing the BhAshyas for Upanishad after Upanishad, only in the early bhAshyas, namely, Kathopanishad, Prashnopanishad,and Taittiriyopanishad, has he mentioned sushhumnA.

Also in Taittiriya, he has referred to the heart (hRdayaM) as even the physical heart all of us know.

Let me explain why.
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Sushumnaa Naadi - Part 2 of 15

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That sushhumnA of Yoga-shAstra starts from the mUlAdhAra at the base of the spine and goes straight up to the head.

The nADi that we saw and which is spoken of in the Upanishads and Brahma-sUtra, starts from the heart.

The process of the ascent of prANa-shakti on the sushhumnA that starts from the mUlAdhAra, is a matter that pertains to the yogis who perform SAdhanA for that purpose.

They hold on to the *lokAdhAra-shakti* and through that become one with shivaM in the head. That is a particular yoga matter.

Our Vedanta which is based on Upanishads does not touch upon those things. It will not go in a roundabout way dealing with breath, shakti, etc.

Vedanta shows the way only to experience the goal by a proper intellectual enquiry, keeping a straight aim on the target, namely the Real ‘I’ which is what subsists after the discarding of the little ‘I’. 

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Sushumnaa Naadi - Part 1 of 15

Another matter. This is about the nADi that goes to the head.

Just as there is an incorrect opinion about uttarAyaNa-death so is the case with this.

Even those scholars who do know rightly about the UttarAyaNa death that it only means passage through the various seats of the devatAs associated with UttarAyaNa, even elder knowledgeable people, who have written commentaries and glosses on the Bhashyas of Acharya in  order to explain them better, -- even they, do not hold the right opinion about the nADi that goes to the head.

They all think that it is the sushhumnA nADi spoken of in the yoga-shAstra.

But this is not that sushhumnA.

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Two different results of Karma Yoga - Part 3 of 3

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We further saw how the (spiritual) heart is the seat of ego and how, if we make it the seat of bhakti, and by that very bhakti if we dissolve the ego gradually and thin it out, then it will go through the gate, the seat of Atman, in the middle of the heart and the JIva-bhAva disappears and stays as the Atman.

It was in that context, the question arose: “If the JnAni goes like this, what happens to the others? They also have their ego in the heart. If it does not go into the seat of the Atman, then where will it go?”

And thus came all the other matters in reply to this. “There are several nADis that emanate from the heart.
Among them are also those which end up in the nine gates of the body.

The mind, intellect and ego of all those whose karma-bondage has not been cut asunder will remain fat, without getting thinned out, till the last breath.
That last breath carries that heavy luggage of the antaHkaraNaM and goes out by one of those nine nADis. Later when another birth occurs, it enters that body.

Besides these nine, there is one nADi which goes to the head. Those who do not go by the jnAna path, but still have the objective of the removal of the bondage of samsAra and do the various upAsanAs, -for them the soul leaves by that head-nADi and reaches Brahma-loka.”

Two different results of Karma Yoga - Part 2 of 3

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If, on the other hand, his interest, taste or inclination not being in the jnAna path, he lives a life of a karma-yogi (and nothing more) only with the thought “Let me be relieved of this samsAra.

Whatever possible, let me do the karmayoga right”, he will obtain only the Brahma-loka as his result. As I said earlier, the Lord does not voluntarily give what was not asked.

Let us analyse how we got into this topic.

We started analysing the question: “Is Bhakti an allowed concept on the jnAna path? How is it a garIyasI sAmagrI (most prominent accessory or instrument)?”.

After one was told how to control the senses, mind and intellect, bhakti was mentioned only for the control and destruction of ahamkAra which is the basis of JIva-bhAva.

It is the sword to cut asunder the very root; that is the ‘garIyasI sAmagrI’. All this we saw.
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Two different results of Karma Yoga - Part 1 of 3

I mentioned many times that for one who follows karma yoga well his mind gets purified on account of that and he gets the eligibility to tread the jnAna path; and that, if such a karma-yogi gets that mental purity and starts jnAna-yoga, either in this birth or in one or two more births, he will obtain his advaita mukti in that very life.

How does this reconcile with the present statement that karma-yoga is nothing but one of the many upAsanAs, and that instead of going to the path of jnAnayoga he will go to Brahma-loka and then he will get advaita-mukti only after several crores of years when the Grand Dissolution happens?

Let me explain this.

It all depends on what he has been aiming at, what he has been keeping as his goal.

If he had had the goal as advaita, and if however he started karmayoga-type of life just to get the mental purity and eligibility for jnAna yoga, then that itself would lead him to the path of jnAna, as soon as his mind is purified; and he will also soon reach the destination of advaita mukti .
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