Uparati & Titikshhaa - Part 10 of 15

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In other words, just as we feel now that bad things are unwelcome, so also, when one has risen up the ladder of saadhanaa a certain number of steps, one will begin to feel that even the so-called good things are unwelcome.

The policy of ‘Whatever will be, will be’ is what leads to the feeling of tolerance of ‘bad’ and that is ‘titikshhaa’ . When one is ready to reject what is called ‘good’ by calling it equally ‘unwelcome’, the attitude of ‘titikshhaa’ means that even that ‘unwelcomeness’ is tolerated. This is the ‘titikshhaa’ of even the good things.

Even though we might want to think indifferently about both good and bad things, our karma of the past might bring in certain good things in spite of ourselves. Without our wanting it wealth might pour in. Relatives and friends may behave very favourably. More such good things might happen.

One may think ‘Oh No. I don’t want these good things to happen. Only if I keep cool and happy when bad things are happening to me I can check my success in saadhanaa. The good things are only traps that draw me deeper into MAyA. I don’t want them’. Such thoughts again speak against ‘titikshhaa’.

One has to show ‘titikshhaa’ even of good things; in other words, even the good happenings must not be unwelcome – they also must be suffered, endured! The Acharya has defined ‘titikshhaa’ as *sahanaM sarva-dukhAnAM* in Viveka Chudamani as well as in his AparokshAnubhUti.

It means to ‘bear all sorrows’. Here ‘all’ includes the so-called ‘pleasures’ also because what appears to be pleasing or a pleasure turns out to be really a sorrowful thing from the point of view of eternity.

Only ‘JnAna’ is happiness. Happiness is only that which arises from advaita-jnAna.

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Uparati & Titikshhaa - Part 9 of 15

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The hot-cold pair that was mentioned in the beginning is again referred to in the chapter on dhyana yoga, where He further adds (Ch. 6 – 7) another pair -- *mAna* and *apamAna*. In many places (2-57; 9-28; 12-17) He has mentioned the pair *shubha-ashubha* of direct opposites.

The shubha- ashubha (auspicious and non-auspicious) is nothing but puNya and pApa (Spiritual merit and demerit). At several places He mentions the pairs *priya – apriya* (likeable and unlikeable) , *ishhTa – anishhTa* (favourite and non-favourite), *lAbha – alAbha* (gain and loss), *jaya – apajaya* (victory and defeat) and pleads for equanimity between these opposites.

We have to keep on patiently tolerating whatever now appears to be bad among these, so that in due course we can be totally indifferent to them.

Extreme cold, extreme heat, , the inauspicious, the unpleasant, sorrow, dishonour, defeat – in all these, we have to build up such a tolerance.

And this tolerance should also be practised towards what appears now to us as good, namely, healthy heat, healthy cold, pleasure, honour, success, the auspicious and the pleasant. The Lord would not have mentioned both if he did not mean these also, in his list of objects towards which we have to be equanimous.

Both good and bad have to be taken equally, ‘suffered’ equally, treated equally indifferently. One can easily understand what it is to tolerate/endure what is bad. Maybe we cannot do it in practice; but we know what is meant. But what is it to say: ‘Endure the good things!’? Isn’t it funny? – To ‘endure’ the good things? That will be understood only if we take a few steps up the ladder of saadhanaa.

Even those that appear to be ‘good’ will turn out to be ‘unwelcome’ at a certain stage. Suppose a cool wind blows softly. It is pleasant to the body. But the thought will arise: “Why this hankering after the pleasure for the body? Cold or hot, whatever wind blows, let it blow. That should be the goal.

Why should one isolate the so-called soft cold wind and the ‘pleasure’ that it is supposed to bring? Why can’t one be indifferent to its ‘pleasing’ effect?”

In the same manner, when one gets money or status, or when one receives the aplombs of others, one will begin to think: “Why can’t I allow poverty to stay with me? Let people not be pleasant to to me. So what? Already I have trained myself to tolerate bad things; then why should I now be different when the good things arrive? If I change now then I would be making a distinction between good and bad”.

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Uparati & Titikshhaa - Part 8 of 15

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When it comes to full-fledged music like a Kirtana or an Alapana, the upper and lower svaras do mingle in various orders. The word ‘uparati’ signifies a repose after all ties or attachments have been dispensed with. And ‘then’ you are supposed to practice the forbearance implicit in ‘SAdhanA’. This looks like telling a sleeping man to ‘be patient’!

So the word ‘then’ is not to be interpreted in terms of a sequence in time. Rather it should be interpreted as a juxtaposed addition like a ‘plus’! The analogy of the high school student studying different subjects for his final examination should not be forgotten.

If one takes up the lesson of ‘uparati’ seriously and succeeds in it to a certain extent, the mind will be free of perturbations of happiness and sorrow, unlike the normal mind which is always tossed between these two extremes.

Even then, if pleasure or pain happens in an abnormal or subnormal way, there is likely to be a vibration from the state of ‘uparati’. It is in this context that ‘SAdhanA’ is prescribed by the Rishis of the Upanishad. The word ‘titikshhasva’ (Forbear) is actually the Lord’s word (Ch. 2 – 4) in the Gita.

The common word ‘shItoshhNa’ is actually made up of two words: ‘shIta’ – cold, and ‘ushhNa’ – hot. It is a pair (‘dvandvaM’) of opposites. Similarly there is ‘sukha-dukha’ (pleasure and pain), another pair of opposites. ‘Bear with hot and cold, pleasure and pain’, says the Lord to Arjuna.

Off and on in the Gita the Lord mentions several such pairs of opposites. Says He: “Transcend all these pairs of dualities and be beyond all of them.

Be a ‘dvandvAtIta’ – one who has transcended all dualities. Whether your objective is fulfilled or not, be equanimous to both fulfillment (siddhi) and non-fulfillment (asiddhi). Such equanimity also implies only ‘SAdhanA’ (tolerance, forbearance, endurance).

In the last chapter also He refers to this topic of ‘siddhi-asiddhi’ when He says: “That JIva who has no impact by either fulfillment or non-fulfillment is the sAtvika doer” (Ch. 18 – 26).

*siddhy-asiddhyor-nirvikAraH kartA sAtvika ucyate*.

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Uparati & Titikshhaa - Part 7 of 15

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On the one hand it is said that only when the mind vanishes along with all its taste of material experience will one have the Experience of the absolute and on the other hand it is also said that such taste will disappear only when that Absolute is experienced.

Does this not look like the standard Tamil paradigm: “Marriage can be fixed only when the mental imbalance is disposed off; but the mental balance can be restored only when marriage is fixed”!

Not so. The craving for the taste has to go. The mind has to go.

Every effort has to be made to achieve both and to have the vision of Reality (‘Atma- darshanaM’). But it is not easy. The craving for the taste etc. will not disappear fully.

When such a total effort has been done, the Lord with His Infinite compassion grants him the Realisation of the Atman and in that very process, destroys the taste and the mind’s craving for that taste. If everything is going to be the result of his effort, then what is the greatness of the Lord’s Grace?

In other words, till almost the last stage man has to be practising all the different SAdhanAs. The various parts of Atma-SAdhanA have to be practised simultaneously, just as a high school student studies for the different subjects of his final examination, all together, though at any point of time it appears he is studying for them in a certain sequence.

The very idea of sequencing the steps of the SAdhanA as if one follows the other is just to give a clarity of understanding. In the early beginnings of the lessons on music the svaras ‘sa’, ‘ ri’,’ga’, ‘ma’, ‘pa’, ‘dha’ ‘ni’ are sequenced in order that the learner may get the right fixation for each of the svaras.

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Uparati & Titikshhaa - Part 6 of 15

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Another thing must be mentioned.

There are several parts like vivekaM (Discrimination), vairAgyaM (Dispassion) and shamaM (Self-control). In none of these can one expect to have attained perfection until the final stage of Realisation.

Each of them will at every stage be somewhere below the mark of perfection. All of them go together towards perfection until the final Realisation happens almost suddenly!

Why do we have to do all this SAdhanA? The objective is to purify the mind completely to such an extent there is no mind left thereafter. What does it mean to say that there is no mind? Desire, the hankering after matter, should be absent.

I just now told you that this eradication of desire and hankering after material things will happen at the stage of Realisation. In fact that statement itself has to be modified.

Only if the Realisation of the Self happens, the taste for matter will vanish. In other words, Self –Realisation is first. Then only, -- ‘then’ does not mean ‘after a time’ – immediately, though only after the Realisation, does the material hankering vanish completely.

The Gita is very clear on this (II – 59). “For each sense, if the corresponding sense-object is denied to it, by that practice those sense-objects will go away (in other words, the concrete physical experience of them would have stopped); but the taste of that experience of it – as they say, ‘the cat that has had the taste’ (ruchi-kaNDa-poonai, in Tamil) – that taste of experience would linger on internally and it will vanish only when the Realisation of the Atman takes place” :

vishhayA vinivartante nirAhArasya dehinaH /
rasavarjaM raso’pyasya paraM dRRishhTvA nivartate //

*paraM dRRishhTvA* -- Having seen the Absolute; Just by the experience of the Absolute Principle. *rasaH api nivartate* -- the taste of experience also vanishes.

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Uparati & Titikshhaa - Part 5 of 15

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Next to ‘uparati’ we have ‘SAdhanA’ (meaning, endurance, forbearance or patience). The Tirukkural has a chapter on this subject.

Our use of the word ‘Next’ does not imply that ‘SAdhanA’ comes only after one attains perfection in ‘uparati’. I shall repeat what I have said many times, because it is worth any number of repetitions.

To attain Atma-jnAna, one needs several things – discriminatory intellect, dispassionate mind. control of the senses and mind; and the mind has to wean itself away from all things and stay put in the state of ‘uparati’.

In fact there are several other things to be achieved. If one thinks of perfecting one step before going on to another step, he is mistaken.

As an example take a job in the Police Department. There may be several requirements for such a job – like age qualification, level of education, height, weight, character pattern, fufillment of restrictions or limitations with reference to one’s caste and so on.

All this means they should all be satisfied simultaneously, not ‘one after another’. It is not like fulfilling the age qualification first and then beginning to study to fulfill the educational qualification!

It is in the same sense the requirements of ‘nitya-anitya-vastu vivekaM’ to ‘mumukshhutvaM’ are to be concurrent and not sequential. In other words though they have been mentioned by the Acharya in a certain order, they have to be present and practised simultaneously.

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Uparati & Titikshhaa - Part 4 of 15

(Continued...)When the external holds (*bAhyAvalambanaM*) are all dismissed, that is ‘uparati’; and the discarding of all of them is ‘sannyAsa’. ‘nyAsa’ is throwing off or discarding; doing it well is ‘sannyAsa’.

In ‘Viveka-chUdAmaNi’, right in the beginning itself the Acharya talks of ‘SAdhanA-chatushTayaM’. Again, far inside, he talks about viveka, vairAgya and uparati

You may wonder why he talks about these well after a person has taken sannyAsa and has gone almost to the peak of SAdhana.

A little thinking will clear this. All the SAdhanAngas mature gradually into perfection as you go spiritually higher and higher.

That is viveka-vairAgya, elaborated in the beginning, is again taken up in shloka 175 (or 177) and he says that only by their ‘atireka’, that is, extra growth, the mind becomes pure and becomes eligible for mukti.

Again, further on, (shloka 376/377) he says, in a superlative way,

*vairAgyan-na paraM sukhasya janakaM pashyAmi vashy-AtmanaH*

‘For the yati who has controlled his mind, I know of nothing other than vairAgya that gives him happiness’.

Similarly, after vairAgya comes knowledge and after knowledge, uparati – thus the complete fulfillment by uparati is mentioned in shloka 419/420.

But then the mind has now come to a certain uparati; will the ascent end there in almost a dry manner? No. It may appear so. But God’s Grace will not leave it so. This seeker who, with the single goal of seeking to know the truth of the absolute Brahman, has controlled all his desires and rested his mind with such great effort, would not be left alone by God just like that.

Nor would He give him Brahman-Realisation immediately.

His karma balance has to be exhausted, before that happens. Before that time comes, He would give him the opportunity to reach the samAdhAna stage that makes him ready to receive the upadesha of the mahAvAkya. And then the sannyAsa and then the mahAvAkya. It goes on thus.

But between ‘uparati’ and ‘samAdhAna’ there are two more: namely, ‘SAdhanA’ and ‘shraddhA’.

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