Tit-Bits continued

7       Daksha and Sishupala are the only two people who criticises the Lord right iun His face.

8.       Sannyasa is the stage where you have to make every one happy; because you have to rise above all likes and dislikes.

9.       ‘Sorrows are unavoidable in life; but sufferings are optional’ –the Buddha.

10.       Sorrows are of two kinds: Sympathy (anukampana) and Self-pity (kRRipaNatA or klaibyaM). The latter is wrong. To overcome self-pity (which is nothing but a weakness of the heart), three challenges have to be met: Accept uncertainties of life; Dissolve desires; Have a detached purpose of action.

11.       Face uncertainties of life. The only thing that is certain is the fact  that  nothing is certain.

12.       The root of all desires is fanciful thinking, known in Sanskrit as Sankalpa. Ignorance gives rise to sankalpa. Sankalpa gives rise to desire. And Desire gives rise to sorrow. Sankalpa-prabhavAn kAmAn, says the Gita 6 – 24.

13.       Mind-oriented desires are to be overcome by Intellect.  Intellect itself has to be then overcome by a change in the goal of life.

Sita's summary of Vedanta in two shlokas

Sita’ summary of Vedanta in two shlokas

I heard the following from a lecture of Dr.  Veezhinathan (in Chennai) several years ago:

In her weakest moment of captivity  in the Ashoka Grove in Lanka, Sita decides to take away her own life  and after going through a woeful recall of all her sufferings, she gears up to congratulate, appreciate and revere all those ‘mahAnubhAvulu’ (Great meriorious persons) who can take pleasure and pain alike: She says (Valmiki Ramayana: Sundara Kanda- 26 – 49,50):

dhanyAH khalu mahAtmAno munayaH satya-sammatAH /

jitAtmAno mahAbhAgA yeshhAM na staH priyApriye // 49 //

priyAn-na sambhaved-duHkhaM apriyAd-adhikaM bhayaM /

tAbhyAM hi te viyujyante namas-teshhAM mahAtmanAM //50//

Meaning: Great souled ones with abandoned sins, with a conquered mind, those who are anchored in Truth, sages are indeed fortunate to whom there is no pleasure and pain. From pleasure sorrow and from pain great fear do not occur to great souls. Whoever are thus dissociated  from both pleasure and displeasure, my obeisance to such great souls.

Sita has actually remembered at this point the great saying in Chandogya-Upanishad VIII – 12 – 1:

Maghavan, martyaM vA idaM sharIraM AttaM mRRityunA / tat asya amRRitasya asharIrasya AtmanaH adhishhTAnaM, Atto vai sa-sharIraH, priyApriyAbhyAM, na vai sa-sharIrasya sataH priyApriyayoH apahatir-asti, asharIraM vA va santaM na priyApriye spRRishataH //

Meaning: It is true that the body is perishable, but within it dwells (it supports) the bodiless imperishable Self. This body is subject to pleasure and pain; no one who identifies with the body can escape from pleasure and pain. But those who know they are not the body pass beyond pleasure and pain to live in abiding joy.

In the Gita also Lord Krishna is never tired of emphasizing this:

‘with mind undisturbed in the midst of sorrows and free from desires in the midst of pleasures’ (2 – 56)

‘equal in failure and success’ (4 – 22)

‘neither rejoices on obtaining what is pleasant, nor sorrows on obtaining what is unpleasant’ (5 – 20)

‘He who neither desires the pleasant and rejoices at its touch nor abhors the unpleasant and sorrows at its touch’ (12 – 17)

‘He who regards happiness and suffering alike, gold, mud and stone as of equal value, to whom the pleasant and the unpleasant, praise and blame, honour and insult,.. etc. are equal things’ (14 – 24)

‘unelated by success, undepressed by failure’ (18 – 26).

MAN AND ANIMAL

Man & Animal

I was reading the book ‘The First American’ by H.W. Brands published by Anchor Books in 2002 – incidentally, it is a wonderful book that should be read by all who believe that they can shape their own character by reading good biographies --.

Almost in the very beginning I came across the following passage:

QUOTE

I was once emptying the cistern of nature, and making water at the wall. At the same time, there came a dog, who did so too, before me. Thought I: ‘What mean and vile things are the children of men, in this mortal state! How much do our natural necessities abase us, and place us in some regard, on the same level with the very dogs’.  Additional reflection inspired a determination to transcend the gutter in which men’s bodies were consigned to live. My thought proceeded: ‘Yet I will be a more noble creature, and at the very time when my natural necessities debase me into the condition of the beast, my spirit shall, at that very time, rise and soar and fly up towards the employment of the Angel’. ….

UNQUOTE

The ability to identify one’s dharma in a given set of circumstances is what distinguishes human beings from animals. In Hitopadesha, we have the following shloka:

‘AhAra-nidrA  bhaya-maithunam ca sAmAnyam-etat pashubhir-narANAm /

dharmo hi teshAm adhiko visheshho dharmeNa hInAH pashubhissamAnAH //

meaning,     Hunger, sleep, fear and the sex urge are common to men and animals. But the understanding of dharma is the extra quality of man, and without dharma he is just an animal.

According to the dharma shAstras a brahmin ceases to be a brahmin the moment he does one of the following: (this is not an exhaustive list!) (i) defaults on his GayatrI japa, (ii) sells his knowledge (iii) accepts a bribe (iv) urinates, like an animal, while standing, or (v) copulates without wanting a progeny.  If we dare apply this criterion, most of the so-called brahmin-born moderns (including the writer!) should be considered to have lost their brahmin-hood!!!

Some tit-bits

1.       When the Guru refers to the Atman as a ‘nitya-vastu’, we do not understand it because we have not seen anything that is nityam. Whatever we see is only anityam. That ia why Guru says: The Atman is something which is different from everything that you have seen or known.

2.       Ishvara is JnAnam + MayA.  But Guru is JnAnam only.

3.       Guru has three facets’  He gives the JnAna-janma; He protects jnAnam; and he destroys our ajnAnam. So Guru does the three fundamental duties of Creation, Protection and Destruction.

4.       Ramana’s selection from Shivanandalahari: Shloka nos. 61,76, 83, 6, 65, 10, 12, 9, 11, 91.

5.       Shankara & Ramana taught the same advaita vedanta.  Only their personalities were of two different types.  Shankara was dynamic Ramana. Ramana was static Shankara!

6.       At the end of Kenopanishad, there is a concluding statement that tapah, damaH, karma are the three pillars that support the entire brahma-vidyA. Swami Chinmayananda’s remark (made in a lecture) on this is remarkable: tapaH is controlling the mind from sense wandering. damaH is controlling the sense organs from sense objects. These two conserve the mental vitality. They must be spent in the karma, - service of the people!