Warranty

Whenever we buy something valuable, we check for the warranty. Some products may come with a few years of warranty and others only a few months. Very few products come with lifetime warranty. But even those products, once damaged, will be replaced only once and if the second product also gets damaged, you will not get a replacement. Now think about how valuable our life is. Did we ever check who gives warranty to this life and for how many replacements? Our life is a result of the balance of good and bad karma we did in our earlier lives. And based on the balance karma left over after this life, we get a new body suitable for experiencing the results of that karma.

Our parents and other family members might have protected and nurtured us in this life. But what about the earlier and later lives? Do we know our families from those lives? Do we even know which species we were born into? All our relations and friendships end in one life. This was clearly shown to Arjuna by Lord Krishna when the former was in great grief due to the loss of his son Abhimanyu. Lord Krishna summons the soul of Abhimanyu from heaven and when Arjuna expresses his love for the son, he simply questions him, "Who are you? You are my father? From which life? I have gone through many lives and don't remember any of the relations from those lives."

But there is only one person that maintains his relationship with us throughout the cycle of our numerous lives and leads us in the path of liberation form this cycle. That is Guru. Only he can give us the warranty to be with us, protect us, and lead us until we attain the eternal state of bliss and merge into Him. Our Gurudev Sri Babuji Maharaj used to narrate a story - Sage Narada once goes to Lord Vishnu and requests him to explain the power of Satsang. In order to show the power through experience, Lord Vishnu tells Narada to go to an insect born in a pile of cow dung on earth and ask the same question. When Narada asks the insect the question, the insect dies instantly. The disappointed Narada goes back to Lord Vishnu and let's him know about the sad incident. The lord asks him now to go to a newborn calf and ask the same question. When Narada approaches the calf and asks the same question, the calf also dies instantly. The shocked Narada goes back to the lord in dismay.

Lord Vishnu now asks Narada to go to the palace of the king of Kashi and ask the newborn son of the king the same question. Having seen the deaths of two creatures upon asking the question, Narada was reluctant now to try it on a human infant. But left with no choice, he goes to Kashi and hesitantly asks the newborn prince the question. To his surprise, the new born bows to Narada and starts speaking. He humbly says, "Oh Mahatma! I was first born as an insect in cow dung and had the great blessing of coming in contact to a great guru like you. I immediately left that life and was reborn into the life of a sacred cow. It was my great fortune to have your darshan again in that life and now I was born as a human prince. But as a Guru, you were not going to leave me in any life and so now I again got the darshan of you and am freed from the cycle of rebirth. What else can be a practical example of the power of satsang or the warranty a Guru gives you through the cycle of rebirths?"

In the Gita, when Krishna says "I imparted this knowledge to the Sun, who in turn passed it on to Manu, and Manu to Ikshwaku and so on" Arujna asks "You and me are of same age. How can you say you imparted this knowledge to the Sun long back?" Krishna replies "You and I had several lives till now. You know nothing of them, but I remember everything. I have always been with you in all of your lives." When Dhruva had the darshan of Lord Vishnu at a very tender age, all the aged rishis get jealous and ask sage Narada how such a young boy can have darshan whereas they had been doing spiritual practice throughout their long lives without getting a result. Narada takes them through different forests and hills showing them five different skeletons hanging from trees and cliffs telling them that these were the earlier births of Dhruva in which he was bestowed with Guru upadesa and continued his spiritual practice, which has ripened in this life at a tender age, again with the guru's blessings.

Let me conclude this with my own personal experience. At the age of five Sri Gurudev was initiating me into the worldly education by performing "Aksharabhyasam". Then he asked me "I gave you a mantra in your previous life. Do you remember it?" When I nodded my head indicating no, he said, "OK, I am giving it to you again. Always remember and recite it" and he bestowed me with the mantra. That's the warranty a guru gives us no matter how many lives we go through.

Root cause of sins

In order to find out the root cause of sins, first let's see what is a sin? Our ancient philosophy defined sins as of two types - Paapam and Paathakam. One commits a Paapam when he doesn't properly discharge his prescribed daily duties. These duties include the daily worship, being kind to all the living beings, special worships on the festival days, meditation, contemplation etc. And one commits Paathakam when he performs any prohibited acts such as, stealing other's possessions, murder, adultery, etc. These two are commonly known in English as omission and commission mistakes.

Now let's see why most of us commit these mistakes, and why the Mahatmas, or enlightened souls, don't commit these sins. When it comes to omitting our prescribed duties, the most frequent excuse we give is lack of time or some kind of illness or discomfort of the body. But when you look at the lives of the mahatmas, they never miss their duties no matter how sick they are, or how busy they are. So what is the thing that is holding us back from performing our duties, which is not affecting the mahatmas? If you think deeper, it's the "identification of ourselves with our bodies." Because we think we are the physical body, we give higher importance to its illness and discomfort. Also, most of our day goes in nurturing the body and all other bodies related to it viz. our family members, relatives, friends and coworkers. That's the reason we say we are too busy to perform our prescribed spiritual duties. But when it comes to mahatmas, they don't identify themselves with their bodies. They instead experience their true existence as the soul, or Aatma. Thus, they always perform their spiritual duties irrespective of whether they are busy with their worldly duties or seriously ill.

And coming to the commission mistakes, or Paathakams, it's again the "identifying oneself with the body," which is the root cause. people do the prohibited acts like stealing and killing because they identify themselves with the body and will do anything to protect and nurture it. And any thing or person outside of that body is "the other" and their feelings/difficulties/joys are not ours! But the mahatmas, as they identify themselves with the all-pervading soul, see everything else in this universe as themselves and feel their pains and joys, and thus never even think of hurting any other living or non-living being. There is no "other" for them as the whole universe is "self".

Every spiritual seeker agrees that identifying oneself with their body is a weakness and tries to overcome it, but when you tell them that it's the root cause of all sins, they may not agree. But now we know from the above analysis that it's the root cause of all sins and thus needs to be overcome as soon as possible. While we enlighten ourselves to identifying with the soul, there is a simple remedy prescribed to overcome the consequences of the sins we already committed because of this ignorance.

Yatkrutyam Tannakrutam, Yadakrutyam Krutyavat Tadaacharitam,

Ubhayoh Praayaschittam Shiva Tava Naamaakshara Dvayochcharitam. Shiva Shiveti Shiveti Shietimat, Bhava Bhaveti Bhaveti Bhavetimat, Hara Hareti Hareti Haretimat, Bhaja Namasshivameva Nirantaram.

"I ignore my prescribed duties and also commit the prohibited acts as if they were my ultimate duties. Oh Lord Shiva! the penance for both these sins is the continuous recitation of the two syllable words that represent your names like Shiva, Bhava, Hara, etc."

Our Gurudev, Sri Babuji Maharaj, used to tell that identifying oneself with the body is like a tenant claiming ownership of his rented house. In physical world, when a tenant claims ownership of the house, he will be immediately evicted from the house forcefully. But in the spiritual world claiming ownership of this rented house, which is our body, seems to extend the tenancy! As long as one doesn't overcome this ignorance and enlighten oneself to the identification with the soul, he will be forced to get reborn into multiple rented bodies and continue to suffer the vicious cycle of rebirth. That's why they say "Paapi chirayu", a sinner gets the longest life.

The struggle for liberation

Once there was an innocent person living in a village. one night he was walking outside the village and he saw a well there. He looked down the well to see if there is any water and to his utter shock he found the Moon there, drowned in the well. He thought, "how can the villagers live without the Moon?" and decided to rescue the Moon at any cost. So, he gathered a rope and a bucket and started drawing the water out of the well. 

He continued this for hours and suddenly the rope broke and the man fell flat on his back. Lo! there he saw the Moon in the sky. He was overwhelmed with joy that he was finally able to rescue the Moon from the well and thus saved the lives of all the villagers.

This story may look silly at the outset, but if we think deeper it resembles our struggle for liberation. The Moon is the Omnipresent Brahman. The well is our gross-body and the water in it is the subtle-body. as long as the subtle-body is present, we see a reflection of the Brahman in it as Atman and believe that the Atman is bound by the body and needs to be liberated. The rope with a bucket at the end of it is the spiritual practice we do in order to liberate the Atman. as long as we strive to clear the mind out, we suffer from the grief of that bondage. 

But, as soon as the rope breaks and we start looking up instead of looking down into the well, we realize that the Atman was just a reflection of the Brahman and was never bound by the body or any other worldly things. There is nothing in this creation that can bind the Brahman. So, we have always been in a state of liberation, but we don't realize that as we keep looking into the well(the body) and identify ourselves with the Moon's reflection there. As soon as we turn this worldly outlook towards the divine, we realize our state of liberty.

So, does that mean we need not do any spiritual practice, or Sadhana? No, it doesn't mean that. We should keep doing the Sadhana, but the purpose of it should be to change our outlook, rather than to liberate ourselves. The mere thought of bondage in itself is a bondage that obstructs our vision from realizing our true state of liberation. As the great Gurus say, the mind is the key. As you can see daily at your home, the same key when turned in one direction, locks the door and when turned the other way unlocks it. In the same sense, when the mind is turned towards the world, it leads to the illusion of bondage. But when the same mind is turned towards the almighty, it leads to the realization of our liberated state.

Four learnings from the Char Dham Yatra

Sri Guru Maharaj recently granted me the great opportunity to participate in the Char Dham Yatra along with Pujya Sri Mathaji and other devotees. Since it's yatra of four holy places, wanted to share four things I learned/observed during the yatra.

As we went through the Himalayas we observed that many mountains were converted into farm lands through the process of step farming. We all know that it's the nature of water to always reach the lowest altitude. So all the rain that falls on a mountain directly follows down to the valley. To retain the water on the mountain, the farmer flattens a small portion of the slope and constructs a retaining wall. This will retain the water and make the soil ready for cultivation. He then flattens the next part of the slope and constructs another retaining wall so that any overflow of water can be retained in the next step. Like this the whole slope of the mountain is converted into several steps and used for farming.

If we imagine the mountain as God and the rain water as our mind, when we try to concentrate our mind on God, it keeps sliding down to the worldly things. The mind never likes to stay in place and always has the lust to wander, shop etc. So a Sadguru constructs retaining walls like yatra, deeksha, puja, japa, homa, etc to still retain the mind on God while we do our favorite things like travel and shopping.

The second thing we witnessed was the origins or holy rivers like Ganga and Yamuna. A river is formed with rain water from a mountain which in turn was the evaporated water from the ocean. Once a river forms, it starts it's journey to go back and merge with it's origin, the ocean. At the starting of a river there are huge rocks and big boulders washed off from the mountains by the mighty force of the river. The river also flows very actively with gushing sound. But as the river advances, the rocks keep colliding with each other and turn into small stones and finally sand and dirt. At the stage the river turns calm and serene. Finally when the river merges with the ocean it leaves behind that dirt too.

In the same way when we start our spiritual journey to reach our origin, the God, we are filled with the big rocks of our good and bad qualities, or Gunas. They keep colliding with each other throughout the journey reminiscent of the epic battle of Mahabharata. As we progress in the journey these Gunas diminish into insignificant proportions and we attain Sthitaprajnatva. Finally we leave out all these Gunas when we merge with God.

The third thing we observed was the ghat road. In plains the roads are straight and we don't see anything twice on the road. But the roads on the mountains go back and forth on the same side of the mountain and we see the same scenes again and again. One may think why are we going on the same road again and again, but we should understand that with each iteration we are attaining new heights. Same way, in a wordly curriculum there is no repetition. Punarukti, or repeating same words is even called a dosham. But in spiritual curriculum, we keep listening to the same concepts in the discourses and one may wonder why am I listening to the same things again or doing same yatra or puja every time. But we should realize that with each repetition we are attaining new spiritual heights.

The fourth thing we observed was that there are two kinds of mountains, those made of hard rock and those made of soft soil and small rocks. The rocky mountains are tightly packed and hardly have any tall trees, unlike the soily mountains that are loosely held together and host a lot of tall trees. It's very hard to construct roads on the rocky mountains but once constructed, the road is safe and free from risks of roadblocks by mudslides and trees falling. On the other hand it's easy to construct roads on the soft mountains but you always have the risk of the above mentioned roadblocks.

Great Gurus like Sri Babuji Maharaj went through the hardest of Adhyatmik Sadhana at a very tender age and through their hard work constructed the safest road for our spiritual journey. On the other hand those who give discourses by simply reading some books and memorizing, lead us on a road full of risks.

Our True State

Recently I underwent a surgery. The doctor was talking to me and I was narrating my experiences with our Gurudev Sri Babuji Maharaj. Slowly they passed chloroform thru my oxygen mask and I slipped into unconsciousness. When I regained consciousness, the first thing that came to my mind was what was "I" during the past few moments?

As long as we are awake we keep thinking and saying, "I did this, I did that" etc. And in our dreams also we have the concept of "I" and we identify ourselves with a body, even though the body in the dream may look different from the physical one. We think we lose our connection with the body during deep sleep, but that's not true. We still identify ourselves with the body and its name. That's why we wake up when our name is called. We even maintain relation with our close family and identify their voices while in sleep. We also recognize when the fan or AC is switched off. Thus, we still identify ourselves with the body even while in sleep.

But when chloroform is given, we completely lose the concept of "I". In fact that state is concept-less, experience-less, thoughtless, emotionless, formless and nameless. That's our true state. Our Gurudev Sri Babuji Maharaj used to say "The state you are in while on chloroform, you have to be in that state even when your body is awake and going about its daily duties. That's the true state of liberation."

I also remembered a verse from our Gurudev's charitra at that moment - "Moolaabhavam idam jnatam sareeram naasthi kevalam. Swapne prateeyamaanaani roopani yadha tadha" "In the root concept there is no experience or thought. There is no body itself. This body and all its belongings and relations are as true as the things in a dream."

When we wake up from a dream we easily write it off saying it was just a dream and not real. But as long as we were in that dream, we strongly believe whatever we see or experience to be true and real. Similarly when we are awake, we strongly believe our body and all the things we experience through it are real. And when someone says this is all just a dream, it's very hard for us to accept it. But just think, when we slip into the final sleep, leave this body and take another birth, if someone tells us the events of our past life, don't we realize that that was all not real? When we wake up from a dream and again go into sleep the next day, the same dream will not continue. That's why it's easy for us to believe that it was not true. But when we sleep and wake up the next day, our life continues to be same, and thus hard for us to believe that it is not real. But there is a final sleep for this body after which we wake up in a different body and the whole previous life of 80, 90 or 100 years turns out to be just a dream.

When we truly realize the non-existence of this body and everything related to it, we attain the state where there is no thought, experience, form, name, relation or any other worldly concept. That's our true state of liberation.

The illusion of our bondage

We all have the hidden feeling that we are bound by the material world and have the urge to be liberated from the vicious cycle of rebirth. But is the bondage real? Let's ponder over it. Once upon a time there was a merchant who was travelling to another village to bring the goods for selling in his village. He took a herd of donkeys along with him to carry the goods back. While he was passing through a jungle, it became dark and he was forced to halt there for the night. So, he started tying the donkeys one by one to a big tree with a rope. When it was the last donkey's turn, the remaining rope was not enough to tie it to the tree. He was worried that the donkey may wander into the jungle in the middle of the night.

A saint also happened to come to the same tree to spend the night. He inquired why the merchant was so worried. When told about the rope not being enough to tie the last donkey, the saint said, "Child! it's a donkey and it doesn't know. Just pretend of tying the donkey to the tree with the rope and it will stay here the whole night." The merchant couldn't believe it but he had no choice but to follow the advice. The next morning he was happy to see the donkey still there. He started untying each donkey and patting them on the back to get them started on the journey. 

As the last donkey was not tied, in his view, he just patted the donkey on the back. To his surprise, the donkey didn't move. It didn't move even after multiple pats. As the saint woke up, the merchant pleaded for his help again. The saint said, "untie the donkey and it will move." Perplexed, the merchant wondered, "But sir! I never tied it in the first place." The saint calmly replied, "It's a donkey and it doesn't know. It thought last night that you tied it. Just pretend to untie it and it will move." The merchant followed the advice and the donkey moved!.

Now, let's come back to our feeling of bondage. Isn't it the same feeling the donkey had the whole night? We don't understand that the whole world is an illusion and it doesn't have the power to bind us. Our true state is of liberated. We are only bound by our ignorance and the illusion of bondage. In Vedanta they give an example of illusion. It's called Rajju Sarpa Bhranthi. When there is a coil of rope lying on the ground and you see it in semi-darkness, you see a serpent lying there. Once the fear of the serpent seeps into your mind, you start seeing the movements and hearing the hisses. This fear from illusion can only be quashed by someone bringing a light. When the light drives away the darkness, you realize that it's just a rope and not a snake. There has always been the rope and never a snake. But it was an illusion because of the semi-darkness. Another example is the illusion of a thief looking at a tree trunk in the semi-darkness.

If we think deeper, in both the examples the non-moving thing is mistaken to be a moving thing. In the same way there is only God all around, who is omnipresent and thus has no space to move. And in the darkness of ignorance, we mistake Him to be the moving world and feel bound by it. For this illusion to occur there are two prerequisites - darkness and prior knowledge of the moving thing. Since the day of our birth, we have been feeding the knowledge of the moving world to our minds through the five senses. And we are living in the darkness of ignorance.

The knowledge of the world always leads sorrow only. For example, let's say we go out in the morning wearing a new shirt and a crow poops on the back. As long as we don't know about it, we go around our daily activities happily. We meet friends and colleagues, eat out and do all kinds of happy stuff. And in the evening someone notices the bird-poop on our back and intimates us. That moments on wards, we constantly think of it and feel ashamed and lose our peace of mind until we go home and change the dress. As long as we didn't know about the worldly things we live happily. But once we gain the knowledge we lose the happiness.

Let's take another example. We work and earn money. We feel happy and contented with whatever we are being paid. But, once we know one of our colleagues is being paid more than us, we feel constantly disturbed. Thus the knowledge of the world and the ignorance of the spiritual gives us the illusion of bondage. Like in the example of the rope and the snake, when the Guru comes with the light of spiritual knowledge and shows us the real world(God), we ignore the illusion of the world as we know and be in a blissful state forever.

It's hard to believe that there is only God and this world is non-existent. But let's take the example of a dream. As long as we are in the dream, we never realize that it's not real. We go through all the emotions and experiences that are brought in our way in the dream. We feel fear, sorrow, pain and all other emotions as real as they can be. But once we wake up and realize that it was a dream, all our sorrows and fears go away and a smile comes to our face. In the same way when we wake up to the true spiritual reality, we realize that this material world is not real and it has no more power bind us.

In the Vedanta they say "Kevala Mokshapeksha Sankalpo Bandhah" - "Even the desire to be liberated is a bondage". Why so? Because as long as you desire to be liberated, you still have the bondage. Spiritual liberation is not something to be achieved. It's only to be realized. Because that is the ultimate reality and the bondage is only an illusion.

Inquiry

Our Gurudev Sri Babuji Maharaj used to narrate a story. There were this group of people called Gunupudi Jangams. They didn't have any personal possessions and used to beg for a livelihood. Once they all met in a place and wanted to build houses for themselves. As they didn't have any money for buying bricks, cement etc. they looked around and found a field of banana trees. They found the banana trunks so round and shiny and thought they would make great pillars for the house. They cut the trees and constructed houses for each one of them with the banana trunks as pillars and the leaves as roof.

One of the Jangams wanted to know what is inside the banana trunk. He took a knife and started peeling the layers of the trunk one-by-one. Finally, there was nothing left except for himself. A short while later a huge gust of wind blew and all the houses made of banana trunks fell down. the Jangams were very sad and started crying. but the one Jangam that did the inquiry into the true nature of the banana trunk already knew that it wouldn't last long and he remained blissful as ever.

In Vedanta, there is a process of inquiry called "Neti Neti Vicharana" - meaning inquiry that rules out all the things that are not "I". The inquirer starts with all the worldly things he finds around him and rules each one of them out realizing "This is not I, this is not I." Then he realizes his own body, mind and intellect are also not himself. By such inquiry one realizes the true "I" or "Atma". Once he realizes that there is no fear or sorrow of losing the worldly things and he remains in his blissful state no matter what comes his way.

Thus, he attains the true state of a Sthita-Prajna as described in the Bhagavad Gita. No joy or sorrow can touch him as he realizes his oneness with the all-pervading almighty. Sri Gurudev used to give another example also for this kind of inquiry. He used to say, "You start peeling the layers of an onion to see what's really inside it. Once you peel of all the layers, there is nothing left except 'You'."