272 Questions/Topics dealt with elaborately with the subject index By Swami Sivananda Saraswati To get the answers click on the link above "May I Answer That?" |
Below are the
Questions answered by Swami Chinmayananda
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Teacher:
NOW ... We exile ourselves from spiritual practice by our own fears.
The Christian feels: I am a sinner, born in sin, packed and labeled for sin.
This negative mind is in the majority of us. Because we are foolishly waiting
until we are good enough, we never begin. So spiritual practices are to make
us as good as we want to be.
S:
What
I mean is: are there certain qualities that a person needs, to ensure success?
T:
The
seeker must have the necessary courage to inquire. He must not just accept all
statements of truth merely because some ancient and learned sage has declared
them. Both our head and heart must assimilate any new idea before they can
really be our own. We hear or read the idea, then reflect on it, until the
light of understanding dawns in our own bosom. In fact, only by this
contemplative process can any philosophical creed readily reach the heart to
guide us in our day-to-day life and its transactions.
S:
But
some of us come and listen to you, and make an honest attempt to live up to
the ideals, but fail to experience this true Reality that you are pointing
out. Perhaps we were not ready for the spiritual path.
T:
Certainly, as in any field of study, the candidate for Self-realization also
must have certain preliminary qualifications, if he is to benefit from
discourses on Vedanta. When we hear this grave term "the four-fold
qualifications" necessary for a student of Vedanta spoken of, we are apt
to feel uncomfortable. Upon a closer analysis, however, we shall find that we
already have these qualities. They now must be refined and focused in another
direction-toward spiritual endeavors.
The
first of the qualifications is a capacity to discriminate the Real from the
unreal, the True from the false, the Essence from appearance, the object from
its shadow. Who doesn't have this ability? We are not mere worms and animals.
We are a cultured society of men and women who are continually applying our
power of discrimination in our everyday life.
The
second is detachment; that is, the quality of the mind that enables one to be
detached from false and painful things. Do not be frightened away with some
weighty concept of dispassion. Who among us doesn't have it? When the
intellect has come to a sure and definite understanding, and is consequently
fully aware that a given thing is but a shadow and valueless, the mind
naturally detaches from it. For example, you marry a lovely princess in a
dream. When you awaken you cannot maintain your love and attachment for her.
The moment you are awake, you realize your dream-love was a falsehood. This
detachment, gained as a result of personal knowledge, is dispassion.
These
two qualifications, discrimination and detachment, are necessary for an
understanding of Vedanta. When they are present, the other nobler qualities of
humankind, which are the third qualification, automatically arise and link up
with the fourth qualification i.e. an eagerness to experience your own
essential Divinity.
S:
So
we have these qualifications to some extent, but maybe they are not developed
enough.
T:
Yes,
now you must apply these qualities to the higher realms of thought. The
purpose of the Upanishads and the Gita is to guide us from the outer
levels of our personality into the innermost sanctum, the seat of the
Infinite, reigning in all glory.
A
student of Vedanta will start his inquiries with the external world: From
where has the world come and where it will go? Once we understand the outer
world, our inquiry will be into our physical body and its five sense organs.
To a man born blind, there is no form. To a deaf man, the canon appears to be
only smoking, not roaring. In order to enjoy tastes and smells one needs a
tongue and a nose. If we were to take away the five senses, there would he no
world for us. That is, our concept of the outer world is gained through the
gateway of our sense organs.
Next
the inquirer will start to investigate the function of his own mind and
intellect. So step-by-step, he continues examining from the gross outer world
to the subtler realms within. These external coverings can be said to encase
the Reality within. Our body, with its sense organs, is the grossest
encumbrance, and then there is the vital air sheath, which consists of the
breath and the subtle powers, which the body uses to maintain itself. The
mental sheath is even subtler, then the intellect sheath, then the bliss
sheath, the seat from which the joy element bubbles forth.
One
attempts to reach and recognize face to face, the subtlest of the subtle,
the
Self. This is the moment of true meditation when the robes of these gross
layers of our personality vanish and our true Nature is recognized.
S:
But
what if one just honestly does not have the qualifications that you mentioned
to understand Vedanta. What can be done?
T:
There
are spiritual exercises given in the scriptures, such as in the last chapter
of Kaivalya Upanishad. After the teacher has imparted the entire
Upanishad revealing the One behind the many, a student is sitting there
with a blank face wondering when the Upanishad is going to begin, he hasn't
understood a thing.
In
his infinite compassion, the teacher tells this student, "I am going to
give you one very special verse. You chant it as you are doing all your
activities, whether you are walking, bathing, eating, or even taking part in
some sensuous pleasure. You just go on repeating this verse, for it is an
antidote for all sins. If you repeat this verse continually for thirty days,
it will wipe your mind clean of all its past." The teacher knows that
when the student is able to accomplish this exercise he will then have the
mental purity to understand the Upanishad.
S:
What
about the path of devotion? Where does it fit in?
T:
All
spiritual disciplines are to make the mind meditation worthy. For the body
there is karma yoga i.e. you do your work with all actions dedicated
unto the Lord. For the emotional mind there is Bhakti yoga, where you
give your love to the Lord and only the Lord can return love in equal measure.
For the intellect there is Jnana Yoga. In this discipline you study and
inquire into the scriptural ideas. There is not even one question that the
intellect can ask that Advaita Vedanta cannot answer. Vedanta covers all
possibilities, so that the intellect is finally blasted beyond logical
thinking.
In
the path of devotion when you have the attitude, "I surrender all to
Him," the Lord comes down to you. In the path of the knowledge, you
attempt to reach the Lord with the understanding that "I" will do it
myself, I'll go to Him, is the attitude. But this coming up or going down is
all the same. If you are moving closer to the Lord, the Lord is coming
relatively closer to you.
HARI OM