Whether the desire to find God is
a Greed (Lobh), to satisfy one’s ego (Ahmkaar)? is it a Greed just like when
someone just wants to accumulate wealth by any means? Can we place both on the
same footing? But there is a definite difference between someone who is
looking/finding for Cold Drink madly to quench his craving and the other one
who is running for water everywhere to quench his thirst. First one is a person
who just can’t rise above or control the demand of its senses but for the
second the search is existential, it’ll decide his life or death.
For a true Seeker, the search of
GOD or ultimate objective Reality is not just out of some type of curiosity but
for him it is Existential when he finds the uselessness of life he was living
till then, where nothing was under his control, where fear was the only
motivational and driving force, where he knows neither his beginning nor his
end, when mystery of life engulfs him from everywhere and he feels the presence
of a superconsciousness. When he realizes that all our truths are relative,
relative to the point of reference
Some time back, someone asked me why
our great old Rishis and Gurus created those massive Vedas and Granthas?
Whether they did this to satisfy their ego, to show their knowledge? Well…the
reason wasn’t this…in fact in most of the cases they weren’t the writers of the
great Granthas.
In old times, there were no
printing presses, no paper. Knowledge was transferred only through memory to
next generations. This is the reason why our Granthas are in Verse form rather
of prose. Poetic or verse form is much easier to memorize than prose form. Our
Vedas and Granthas weren’t for general public, these in fact were dialogues
between Rishis/Gurus and their disciples…who were also on same journey but
needed guidance.
But nobody can transfer his
experience to others just via words…everybody has to experience on his own.
Nobody can make me to experience the taste of oranges just by explaining it via
words if I haven’t tasted the one in my life. But someone who has tasted it can
help me out by telling me the ways to find it and the “Signs” to identify it.
He can tell me the colour, shape and taste of the orange by giving me the
example of Lemon.
And if someday on my way to life
if I encounter the real orange, I can recall the “signs” explained by him and
eventually would be able to taste it and relish it.
And this is what our great
Granthas/Vedas are….they are “Signs”. A seeker on his journey to experience the
ultimate reality can use these to ascertain whether he is on right path. And he
won’t understand these signs just by “reading” these unless he really faces the
situation or event. Until then these words remain a secret.
That is why so much importance
has been given to a Guru in the spiritual journey…the journey which is the
riskiest as one wrong step can lead to a point of no return. And sooner or
later in our Life…we are going to realize that roses are not Red in fact…we are
coloring them…in their own they may be of a different color…we see only what
our eyes CAN SEE.
So just reciting of these
Granthas won’t change anything in us unless we are in the realm of experience.
These are not supposed to be just read to please some God or fulfill our
demands like cheap onions. They walk with us and point towards important signs
and milestones in our journey.
Bhagvad Geeta is full of such
signs…it always makes me Shiver as I
feel it can’t be created by a Human…it can’t be a result of mental juggling
like somebody is writing these words just by thinking…No, it is the result of
experiences of highest order.
Once someone asked me what death
was? “Death…for a common man, may be just like a sleep…in fact a Mahasleep”, was my
reply. And I at once recall one phrase from Geeta, when Lord Krishna says, “A yogi
is still awake while sleeping”. I have read this earlier a number of times but
never understood the real meaning behind it.
In sleep, we become almost a dead
body…incapable and insensitive to the surroundings…unaware. We don’t feel our
OWN Presence, we lose the feeling of “I Am” and unless we wake up we are never
going to realize that we were asleep. We can’t differentiate a dream while in
sleep. And so like all other facets of our life in waking state, everything is
out of our control in sleep also. Everything becomes dark beyond perception.
There is something of us except
our body which is always thinking, creating thoughts, desires, dreams…we call
it MIND. Our mind is always working…even in our sleep…that’s why we witness
dreams in sleep. But there is one slight difference in waking state….something
in us watches these thoughts, sometimes directs the flow and direction of
thought. We can call it “soul” or “I am” and when we sleep our body and this
thing “soul” goes into some type of shut down mode and so our mind wanders
freely and we witness bizarre and irrational dreams.
But a Yogi- as stated by Lord
Krishna, sleeps in a different way. A yogi is someone, who through meditations
and spiritual awareness has become superconscious and knows that he is much
more than a body. He is not someone who can fill a tank of air in his lungs as
these Yogasnas and mudras just
prepare the body to delve into deep and long spells of meditations, Meditations
which one day take his consciousness to a plane where he finds himself out of
the realm of time and space breaching physical barriers of human body and feels
in harmony with the whole existence.
So when a yogi sleeps only his
body sleeps…he himself always remains there and so there are no dreams for
Yogis. But when we sleep, everything shuts down and prevails the darkness and
we lay there lifeless, totally unaware that we are sleeping. Same thing happens
when we die…everything shuts down and we never become aware that we are dead.
Everything just vanishes, halts. We always lose consciousness before death and
so enter this new territory unaware, sleeping.
If someone can remain conscious
while sleeping then he also enters death fully conscious. Lord Krishna
calls such a person a Yogi.
But when we will die, there will
no remorse and pain because we won’t be there to feel all this.
Here I remember the life of one
of India’s great sage…Sri Ramana
Maharshi (1879-1950). In his youth…he was fascinated by spiritual world and was
on his spiritual journey to know the ultimate. One day, when he was 17, while
in his room…a sudden and strong fear of Death caught him from nowhere. He felt
a strong wave inside him saying he was going to die. He really felt that death
was coming to him then. But he didn’t tremble with fear…instead he thought…if i
am going to die then what it will be like? Whether I will survive and only this
body will die? What death actually means? With these thoughts he lay down on
the floor and let loose his body like a dead man. He thought, “Now I am dead. So
my body will now be burnt. But will it stop me from existing? At present this
body is just lifeless and silent…but “I” am still alive in this body with same full
force…nothing has changed for me…I can still feel “I” in the same way…only
bodies die not WE…I am not the body…I am the spirit”.
In that moment…Maharshi felt the presence of his real self separate from
body and the next moment he was changed…Birth of the Maharshi took place. People
say that he perceived the ultimate reality without doing tough Sadhanas and
meditations. Truth unfolded to him directly.
But I don’t agree with this…that was the not his only life…it was the
latest in the series of lives he had lived in his previous births. He must have
done great hard work for spiritual awakening in his previous lives…he had
already crossed most of the distance of the journey. One more step and sun
rises.
We can try this in our rooms and I assure that nothing of that sort will
happen…only sleep will come unto us.
