UPADESA SARAM - SLOKA 2 - THE LAW OF KARMA

GURU POORNIMA 2011


Guru Poornima is dedicated for thanksgiving to the Guru; for the Moon (the presiding deity of the mind) on this day is full, clear, cool and bright! It has no blemish or dullness which diminishes its glow. The Guru too is pictured and extolled on this day as unblemished, resplendent and affectionate. He is replete with a sense of surrender to God. He is tolerant, devoted and truly peaceful. He is the living example of the virtues he desires us to develop. Infact He reveals the atma (the Spirit within) to the individuals and makes them free. Guru Poornima is dedicated to such divine Gurus. In fact, the God within is the Guru of Gurus. His grace can make the blind see, the lame walk and the dumb speak. By a mere touch, He can destroy the sins of the past and grant peace and joy. For this, faith has to strike deep roots in our minds; but again t o keep us fixed in that belief, a Guru is needed.
- Divine Discourse, July 27, 1980.



July 15, 2011 is the sacred occasion of Guru Poornima on which day the ultimate Guru, God Himself, is remembered. This occasion also remembers Sri Veda VyAsA, the great seer and contemporary of Sri Krishna, who classified the Vedas into four parts, the Rig, the Yajur, the Sama and the Atharvana Vedas about 5000 years ago to aid in some kind of specialization and hence possibly in their preservation. He was also the compiler of the Mahabharata, the BhAgavatham and the eighteen PurAnAs.

The picture above shows the Gopuram or Tower of the Kapaleeswarar temple at Mylapore in Chennai and displays the figure of Sri Dakshinamurthy in two poses, one with a veena and the other in a teaching pose. Sri Dakshinamurthy is a representation of the teacher aspect of Brahman or God. He is always depicted facing south (dakshina) and hence the name Dakshina (south) - Murthy (figure). He is said to teach in silence. Just being in His presence used to confer wisdom.

Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharishi was also cast in the same mould. He was also wont to remain silent for long periods of time. People with all sorts of queries in their mind, or with unsolvable problems or with anxieties used to gather in the room at Sri Ramanashramam where He used to sit. Most of the time He used to be in silence with unblinking eyes fixed somewhere far off. However as they sat in His presence, they would go into some kind of meditation, and invariably find that when they came back to normal waking consciousness, all their problems seemed to be resolved and all their questions answered.



Similar was the experience of many devotees of Sri Sathya Sai Baba. Just a glance from Him was enough to clear doubts and give a new direction to their thoughts. He normally came out for Darshan just for about half an hour in the morning and in the evenings at His ashrams at Puttaparthi and Whitefield. Yet that brief encounter was sufficient to give relief to countless millions who used to gather to see Him. In earlier days He used to walk around and collect their letters where they used to relate their problems or seek His guidance. Occasionally He used to call people for an interview and invariably would talk only on spiritual matters. Even so the devotee felt a great sense of relief and rejuvenation after the interview. To many people He would grant rings or lockets or vibhuti which He would materialize from just empty air. These were greatly valued and treasured by the devotees.



On July 15, 2011 we will be celebrating Guru Poornima, the Full Moon of the Guru, to remember all our teachers. The first teacher for all of us is our mother. She initiates us into life and she teaches us to live. Then comes the father who guides us into education and a career and into spiritual practices. Then come our teachers, both secular and spiritual, amongst whom some of us are blessed to have the privilege of learning from grandparents and uncles and aunts and countless others. Then we graduate to come directly in contact with that one Spiritual Preceptor who puts us on the path of DhyAnA or meditation and who lifts us up out of the world created by the mind and body, into the realm of the spirit or soul. There we get our glimpse of God.

I would like to take this opportunity to share some of these Gurus who blessed me in this life.



My parents, Saraswathi and V M Sundara Rajan



My younger brother Chandrashekar who taught me the value of friendship and love....



My maternal grandparents Seethalakshmi and A V Ramanathan



My aunt Susheela who taught me the Rama Taraka Mantram for the first time in my life, my uncle Anandaraman who introduced me to Shirdi Sai Baba to whom he used to pray every Thursday and my nurse Thayamma who bestowed the love of a mother to me in my earliest years....



Nirmala’s paternal grandparents Lakshmi and V N Viswanatha Rao



Nirmala’s father V N Srinivasa Rao who introduced us to Sri Ramana and who was a friend, guide and philosopher to both of us



Swami Vireswarananda of the Ramakrishna Mission who blessed me with Diksha (initiation) in 1980



Sri Ajit Dalvi who granted me the experience of Advaita Darshana in 1991



Swami Paramarthananda who blessed Nirmala and me in 2010 on the eve of the publication of our very first blog on Advaitananda



Sri Chandrasekhara Bharati of Sringeri who is said to have blessed me when I was still in my mother’s womb in 1938. He was my grandfather’s Guru.



Sri Abhinava Teertha Swamigal of Sringeri who blessed us on countless occasions and who declared to my grandmother in 1972 that my grandfather Sri A V Ramanathan, who was his fellow disciple (Gurubandhu) of Sri Chandrasekhara Bharati, had indeed attained Moksha and there was no need for grief.



Sri Bharathi Teertha Swamigal, the current Shankaracharya of the Sringeri Math, who graciously blessed Nirmala, Chitra and me when we called on Him in 1995 just prior to Chitra’s wedding.



Sri Paramacharya Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswathi of Kanchi who seemed to recognize me and blessed us and invoked the names of Nirmala’s grandparents who had served Him during the War years when He was in Kumbakonam. He was also known to my grandparents.



Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa who moved me beyond my wildest imagination and made me aware of the Divine Principle in the form of the Mother of the Universe.



The Mother called Bhavatarini in Dakshineswar, north of Kolkatta ( earlier known as Calcutta), worshipped by Sri Ramakrishna, who stands on a supine Shiva symbolizing that the Manifest Universe is a superimposition on the Unmanifest Brahman.



Swami Vivekananda, the foremost disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, who established the Ramakrishna Mission in India and introduced the concepts of Vedanta to the West, particularly to the USA, in 1899. He was a great inspiration to me when I was in IIT, Kharagpur and it was through Him that I learnt about the art of introspection.



Norman Vincent Peale, a pastor in New York, who greatly influenced my thinking as a youth with His ‘The Power of Positive Thinking’.



Lloyd C Douglas, a pastor in Akron, Ohio, USA, who became a world renowned writer, and who inspired me tremendously with His interpretation of what Jesus meant in His Sermon on the Mount.



With my friends at RP Hall in IIT KGP in 1960.. Sri Bendapudy Kanta Rao is right in the middle standing ( fifth from the right) who taught me to revere the Bhagavat Gita and who was himself initiated by Sri Sathya Sai Baba into the Gayatri Mantra. Yours truly sitting in front right.



Sri Sai Baba of Shirdi who clarified to me the concept of Avatara or the Divine in Human Form



With Sheela who taught me the value of parenthood



Chitra, the blessing from Sai, who took me to Sai....



Nirmala who enchanted me as a 7 year old and taught me to love and receive love....



Growing old with tenderness and proximity to God.....



On the day when Sai appeared in my dream and blessed us ...... with our grandchildren and children.. realizing the great blessing that God bestowed on us by making us their parents and grandparents .. realizing our responsibilities to them.. and today ...



The World is my Family!!!!



The question can arise: ‘Do you mean to say your wife and children and grandchildren are your Gurus?’
Yes, because, according to me, they teach you to love in the purest form of love...... Sri Sathya Sai used to say: ‘God is Love! Live in Love!’
I discovered the meaning of this statement in my life...
Today the whole wide world is my family and I love all with the same pure sentiments that I felt for my own family...
Again, Sri Sathya Sai Baba used to say: ‘Love All.. Serve All’.

There are countless others who helped me in my life and this may not be the forum to acknowledge the deep sense of gratitude and love I feel for them.. maybe some other time in some other context... I pray that I may have the chance to love them in a future life.......

SLOKA 2

THE LAW OF KARMA & THE UNPREDICTABILITY OF RESULTS

Paying homage to all our Gurus let us look at the Sloka 2 of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharishi’s Upadesa SAram:


Kruti Mahadadhow Patana Karanam
Phalam Ashashwatam Gathi Nirodhakam

Kruti – action, deed
Maha Udhadhi – the great ocean ( Raghuvamsa)
Patana – fall, decline
Karanam – cause, reason
Phalam – fruit, effect, result
Ashashwatam – impermanent, transitory, temporary, not lasting
Gathi – progress, moving to a goal
Nirodhakam – restraint, check, suppression, obstruction

The great ocean of actions ( and their effects) is the cause of ( a person’s ) decline; the results ( of all actions) area impermanent ( and unpredictable) ( because all actions and their effects compound an already confused condition) and restrain ( or prevent) progress ( of man to the goal of his existence).
The sloka 2 describes the concept of Karma and rebirth.
The ancient scriptures propound the theory of rebirth and re-incarnation. This concept is a more elaborate description of the theory of evolution.
The manifest universe is a complex collection of a variety of millions and millions of manifestations, too numerous and variegated to be capable of being described. These manifestations can, however, be classified on certain broad bases.
One method of classification is to consider the existence or non-existence of life, that is , living and non-living manifestations. Plants, animals, birds, microbes and man are considered to be living manifestations. Rocks, earth, water, minerals, sand and so on are considered to be non-living.
A second method of classification is to describe in terms of the existence of consciousness or awareness. Do all living beings have consciousness? Are there gradations of consciousness?
A third method of classification is human and non- human manifestation. This method states that the human manifestation is uniquely endowed with the power of mental choice or discrimination. However, all other forms of manifestation, whether living or non-living, are not endowed with the power of choice. They are programmed, as it were, to behave according to a specific set of rules applicable to each species. They thus display characteristics and behavior according to the program, a kind of genetic code. They stick to their code or as it is normally called, their ‘nature’. This whole group of non-human manifestation is termed loosely ‘NATURE’ or ‘PRAKRITI’.
In this method of analysis, therefore, there are considered to be three elements, namely,
GOD, the creator, who permeates everything that is manifested,
MAN, the human manifestation, who is not only programmed according to the law of nature but is endowed with the power of choice or discrimination, and
NATURE, the entire living and non-living non-human manifestation.
Man is indeed a part of nature but by virtue of the power of choice he is endowed with is considered specially and separately.
Entire Nature, including Man, is evolving. There is a continuous evolution of every species taking place over time. This evolution is cyclic and takes place over long periods of time called Yugas.
The Supreme Spirit or God manifests in all these forms. Every form is a part of God. And God allows that particular form to evolve through innumerable re-births on this planet into other forms.
The human manifestation is considered very special because of the power of choice. The power of choice in Man’s consciousness endows him with the power to either live in tune with outer nature or to live in full awareness of God.
There are many forms of living and non-living manifestations which are conscious of God. Such manifestations, such as certain plants, certain river waters, certain types of animals, are considered Divine ( or holy or sacred or auspicious). This Divine orientation or sacredness in creation itself is the result of the complex program of creation and evolution.
However, once born as a human, then the potential for turning to the Divine, is by conscious choice.
Man’s awareness of this power of choice between what can be called External Nature, and Internal Divinity, itself evolves through several births.
Once he becomes aware of the power of choice he has to choose between living ‘naturally’ in the external world, and seeking Divinity within himself. Man gets drawn gradually towards what has been called ‘The Life Divine’.
To just live one’s life ‘naturally’, performing actions with all sorts of end results in mind can be self-defeating. Man finds to his consternation that try as he does to achieve certain results, he often gets defeated. Many times the reasons for such defeats appear incongruous, indecipherable or even unknown. As he blindly goes on performing actions or work, he finds more and more confusion, consternation, misery and ruin.
He gradually realizes that behind the manifest universe where he appears to be reigning supreme, there is an invisible universe with powers much beyond him. The invisible universe is defined as Divine. And man realizes that the entire manifestation and even he himself is in the hands of the Divine.
As he realizes this truth, man turns progressively towards the invisible Divine and seeks salvation from his accumulated memories.
In this sloka, Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharishi indicates that the second step in Sadhana is to understand and accept that life as it evolves for each of us is a product of our own previous actions. The remanent memories of these previous actions are stored in the form of subtle vibrations which cause likes and dislikes, preferences and aspects which seem distasteful. All these opposite tendencies are the result of the subtle memories or vasanas. They color our view of life and the nature of our external personalities. If we yield to them and try to live life according to those predilections we run the risk of getting results which are totally unpredictable. That is the origin of the saying : ‘Man proposes , God disposes’.
The vasanas are likened by Bhagavan to an unfathomed ocean. Often in Indian scriptures the world of our vasanas is called ‘The Ocean of Experiences’ or ‘Bhava Sagara’. When one tries to live one’s life according to one’s preferences or likes one cannot predict the results. Almost certainly, one is likely to be impeded in one’s search for happiness and one is likely to head towards some form of misery. The Buddha compared life to an ocean of misery or dukha.
The purpose of Sadhana is to move away from the outer world of likes and dislikes and enter the domain of Divinity which is hidden within the core of one’s personality. But the process called Sadhana becomes meaningful only if one accepts that the world of likes and dislikes is not the true objective of life.
Having pondered over this second stanza, we can now ask the question,
‘ Does this mean we stop living? Does this imply we move away from this world? Do we abdicate all our duties that we have, rightly or wrongly, taken on because of our likes and dislikes?’
Bhagavan proceeds to answer these questions in the further slokas.
I hope you find these notes meaningful and I do hope you are giving some thought to these questions.
The whole purpose of the Indian way of life and thought is to make this life more meaningful and result-oriented.
May you be blessed to understand the true purpose of human life and learn to make this life of yours purposeful and meaningful.