Thursday, April 23, 2009

Gurugita Discourse Nine

Gurucharanam saranam

Japastapo Vritam Teertham Yajno Daanam Tathaiva Cha
Guru-tatwam-avijnaaya Sarvam Vyartham Bhavet Priye!

O Dear One! Japa (the recitation of mantra) Tapa (spiritual austerities) Vritam (Vows), Teertham (Visiting of Holy Places) and also the path of Jnaana (Knowledge) and Daana (Charities) come to naught if one does not know the truth of Guru.


Majority of us are engaged in one or other form of spiritual practices. In fact atheists are an insignificant minority in the world. Even atheists have god, their conscience. What is our concept of God? No one could claim to have a clue about god for god is incomprehensible to human intelligence and sensory perception. However all of us still keep an image or idea about god and do certain practices, observe rituals and follow some ideologies, gurus or prophets which give us varying degrees of moral and mental satisfaction. But stil we feell some emptiness, of having not fully realized life. We know that we are bound and caged in a limited space. We have not yet reached that shore beyond, that of unshackled Freedom, Light and Knowledge.

It is true that what really exists is the formless Truth, beyond all conceptions, like the limitless sky’. Navajyoti Sri Karunkara Guru said.

The actual spiritual truth exists well beyond the mind boggling multiplicities of forms and ideologies that trouble human mind perpetually. The spiritual truth is an experience beyond, in the quietened state of the soul. We experience different states of consciousness, sometime tied to the physical, mental, intellectual or the soul. There is a painful gravitational struggle in life when the soul tries to traverse these consciousness borders, lifting us to the subtler and subtler existential truth. Similarly, a struggle of grave nature awaits a truth seeker while passing through the strata of spiritual evolution before realizing the Ultimate Reality – God. But the seekers of truth get stuck at various borderlines of spirituality, unable to raise themselves beyond. Here our attachment to symbols and rituals or spiritual and cultural conditionings would not help. What helps us in this dilemma is the supreme grace of Guru, who can lift us up from there.

‘If there is a formless nature to Truth, in what all (consciousness) states they exist? This should be shown by guru. There are many who have seen (experienced) the Truth. But Guru is not who has seen it, but who imparts it (this experience) to others’ (Navajyoti Sri Karunakara Guru).

Many are the ideologies and practices, one or the other of which we fanatically or ignorantly follow, while disputing and disliking the others. Surely we are in a domain of ignorance. Navajyoti Sri Karunakara Guru never denied the truth in others. What He said was that we should evolve to the formless nature of Truth, which is possible only by getting rid of soul’s karmic and spiritual liabilities accrued during the course of many births and deaths. In this effort, only the grace of Guru helps. The Guru meant here is not a Guru in lower spiritual zones, but a Guru who takes us across the borderless spiritual experience as expected of this age by godly Will. Alas, today the spiritual fraternity is groping in the dark in search of that Light.



Mukundan

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Gurugita Discourse Eight

Gurucharanam Saranam


Veda-saastra-puraanaani Itihaasaadikaani Cha
Mantra-yantraadi-vidyaascha Mohanocchaatanaadikam
Saiva-saakta-agamaadiini Hyanye Cha Bahavo Mataah
Apabhramshaah Samastaanaam Jeevanaam Bhraanta-chetasaam

Vedas, Sastras (sciences), Puranas (ancient narratives), Itihasas (the epics), Mantra (magical chants) Yantras (amulets), Spells, Exorcism, cults like Saiva, Sakteya, etc. and many other paths together are all digressions born of delusion.

Today religious and spiritual beliefs are innumerably vast; the Vedic tradition, Buddhist tradition, Christian, Jewish and Islamic tradition to mention only a few. Then there are the tantric and yogic tradition of many hues and origin, theist and atheist philosophies, spirit worship and deity worship, alternative spirituality, new age spirituality …. Even God is likely to get confused over the ingenuity of human beings!

While the Truth resides in the eternal silence of the soul in inalienable communion with God, the rattle of our intellect, the frenzy of our mind and the clamor of our actions unseat the inner calm. From a disquiet mind, arises the demon of delusion. And from delusion, blind faith bereft of dharma. It manifests in myriad forms. Its offshoots are many-branched, finally culminating in hatred and violence. Religion-based terrorism we witness today is only one extreme form of this inner digression.

The petals of mutually conflicting ideologies that are strewn under the tree of Hinduism are examples of this intellectual digression consequent upon a fall from the serene summit of Brahmic Truth and Sanatana Dharma. Navajyoti Sri Karunakara Guru describes this fall in a similar context thus:

‘The Brahma of the trimurthi tradition was misconceived as Brahman (the Supreme Truth). Brahman is all pervading. Brahma is not so. Brahma relates only to the aspect of creation, still it was made to believe that Brahma was above everything. However, Brahma is not everything. Thus we fell into error….’

We can observe that every sect and creed thus competes with each other to hoist the god or prophet of their conception to the ultimate verity of Truth. In this frenzied clamor of beliefs, it is easy for a true seeker to get deluded and thus miss the right direction.
A few people, well learned in religious lore, were going on a pilgrimage to the holy city of Kashi. They came together on a forest route. Suddenly they found that the path branched ahead into many. A quarrel began in the group as to what should be the right path. Even after long time, they could not figure out the right path. Time went by and soon it would be dark. That time a sage came by that way who had been to that city earlier and knew the path. All of them followed him and reached the holy city of Kashi safely. This is how a Guru helps in our life, a Guru who has transcended the limitations of the world.

Therefore, let a seeker of truth be vigilant and be open to ideas which is essentially experiential and transcendental in nature.

Mukundan