Total Acceptance: The Key to Enlightenment

Every spiritual seeker is familiar with the word ‘enlightenment ‘, and this is what he aims to achieve through his ‘sadhana’ sooner or later. It is perceived as an extraordinary and absolute state of perfect happiness or ‘Param Ananda’, beyond all duality of the mortal world and not bound by time, space or the law of causation. It is also understood as a state immeasurable by thought and thus inexpressible in terms of words and languages. The spiritual masters point out such an experience as ‘Shunya’ or the Void beyond any known definition to human beings. As  the the mortal words fails to explain ‘what such a state is’, it can probably be understood by way of ‘negation’ i.e. ‘what it is not’, referred to as ‘Neti-Neti’ in ancient literature, meaning ‘neither this nor that’ in literal sense. So, there cannot be an objective definition of enlightenment as such.

Having said this much, then how do we then understand what the ‘truth’ is ? What we are seeking for and what we expect to achieve ? Is there a method or process to attain such state, which may yield through cumulative efforts ? These aspects and similar other queries need a due attention if one has to traverse the ‘said to be but unknown’ path of self quest.

The state of enlightenment can be said to be synonymous with the ‘truth’. The Vedas explicitly declare that ‘the truth is not achievable by any method’. The truth ‘is’ or ‘is not’. It is the being or the very existence of a moment ‘as it is’. To see the point in logical way, you may agree that a method always presupposes some defined action within a prescribed time frame. It is nothing but a projection of mind into future with a pre-formulated action plan with pre-assumed expected results, which is generally falling or governed through the mind’s field of thought. The thought has a natural limitation for what is known to the mind. Even the imagination and dreams are hit by this limitation. On the contrast, the ‘truth’ is totality of existence felt in each and every moment of the life, which is perennial, ever flowing and ever new. Hence, it is beyond the mind’s field of thought or incomprehensible by way of thought mapping.

Of course, following a method or  ‘sadhana’, will definitely lead us to ‘somewhere’ which is different from an ordinary experience. It may be thus be appearing attractive yet is a pre conceived thought induced subjective experience only. To illustrate, a devotee to a particular deity may happen to eventually experience divine figure and embrace of his beloved deity in the course of his devotion, as the thought intensifies pre-occupying his mind. In such a case, the thought becomes so unidirectional that it appears to be real, which may otherwise be a presupposed projection of the very mind. In a similar manner a Kriya Yogi doing ‘pranayam’ may feel outbursts of energy in his chakras and visual symbols under closed meditative eyes holding a pre conceived mediation dream projected by the mind. These all experiences are of the subjective category and in net sum differ from person to person. Such experiences do not guarantee the enlightenment to the seeker.

If there is no objective reality, then what one has to seek?  Whether the enlightenment is also mind’s another projection of subjective nature? It seems not to be so, as per the declarations by the true masters like Lord Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, Vivekananda and so on. Then how we can be sure about it? What test can prove this? The true test has been attainment of peace, harmony, universal love and compassion, fearlessness and selflessness. Thus a noticeable behaviour pattern change speaking through selfless action can be the guidepost for inward journey to self. However, we should also note that the mind is finite and limited while we set the journey to embark the immeasurable and infinite.

Let us proceed with this limited & imperfect but the only tool to explore the self. A little introspection will tell us that we are always seeking ‘something’. There is a ‘craving’ which never comes to an end. Somewhere there appears an ‘emptiness’ which never gets fulfilled. We seek and search this against the event and experiences tagged to love, freedom, happiness and so on. A further introspection easily points that every living being is seeking nothing but continuous or absolute happiness, the ‘Ananda’, in the deepest of their longings. This is the actual goal of every ‘being’, knowingly or unknowingly, expressed through all the actions undertaken and activities going around.

The craving in emptiness, however, in the event of having known the essence of self and the being results in the empty void replaced and filled with the ever joyful bliss. No duality, no darkness, no thoughtfulness but only the state of ‘pure being’ is experienced. There are no ways to authenticate but only to experience; and please remember that to experience that ‘something’, no method or thought-net is required at all. What is required is that your whole being gets expressed, ‘as it is’ in a momentary flick of ‘present’, and then the ‘experience’ occurs simultaneously without any effort. To be ‘aware’ and ‘watchful’ are better keywords in the ‘journey to self’. The aim and purpose of every living being, in general, and human beings, in particular, on this mortal earth, is to experience it once. Having experienced this and thus fulfilled the purpose of life, there is no need to revisit the earthly plain meaning thereby freedom from rebirths, as claimed by the scriptures of old wisdom.

In such a state, the divinity is manifest and expressed, as the thought falls to its futility and so is the ego, since there is no one to present and push forward it after the fall of the thought. Thus, no confrontation is there and the state of surrender and total acceptance surfaces, transforming the very being of a persona and bringing changes which reflect the radiance of truth and selfless action in its own. The individual conscious merges with the cosmic or universal consciousness, unveiling joyful bliss, love and compassion. There is no need to do a lot of efforts or bind ourselves to a methodology for seeking the answer to our constant cravings. To be watchful and aware to our being is all what is required. Rest will happen automatically and instantly, filling one’s heart with everlasting joy. The Vedas also declare the same – “Do nothing, Just ‘be’ with, and the grace of God will bless you with the truth.”

However, this kind of state should not be construed as state of inaction. Rather, it is a state of ‘total action’, which is different and beyond our daily chores and yet filled with spontaneity. In such a state only the true meaning of phrase ‘work is worship’ gets imbibed into ones persona, and start reflecting in each and every, small or grand action of such person. Then by such selfless action or ‘nishkam karma’, which does not bind but leads to freedom and bliss, the realised soul surrenders or merges to universal one, declaring ‘Thy will shall be done’. In the words of Buddha in such state- “events happen, deeds are done but there is no individual doer”. He indicates, thus, that the action is not performed and owned by any individual but driven and owned by the ‘Cosmic Will’.

The crux of enlightenment, therefore, lies in ‘surrender, total acceptance and total action’. This has been the very foundation of spiritual teachings around the world from ancient to the modern time, right from Tao to Prophet Mohammad or the Christ. When this convergence happens and ego falls, a Chaitnaya starts dancing, a Ramkrishna weeps at the feet of Kali, a Shankaracharya sets off beyond barriers to unify the country with universal consciousness. Modern day philosophers like Eckhart Tolle, therefore also, stresses ‘to surrender to the very present moment before us’, as this is the only reality against the dead past and progressively projected future. He preaches- ‘we have to intensify our degree of presence in the present moment, bringing the pendulum of mind to a standstill’. In the words of the eminent scholar of twentieth century, Shri J. Krishnamurthy, “Total acceptance of ‘what is’ is the key to transformation”.  

So, we have to cease making ‘efforts’ to ‘attain’, as in fact we are running away by running after in such a quest. In this world, though we may continue to perform outwardly actions as usual, inside we need to be aware of the ‘being’ with total acceptance of ‘It’, which is stated to be ‘Sharnagati’,  because “What is .. ‘That’ is..”

(C) Ashok Kumar Pandey,Noida (India)1988-2011

This way or that way -- The butter knife

The time had passed swiftly round the past one year, life swepts like this...

It is almost a year since I have been away from my blog bogging. Most of the time was spent on reading a lot and also drawing few outlines for writing. (None, though, culminated in a fruitful direction.) However, I learnt translitrating in hindi... (thanx blogspot) .. a few drafts at present may see the light of the day soon.....हिंदी  और english ... both..... LET THE "BLINK" BE THERE......

Before parting,  a tale >>> (which occurred in my home one day):

father: dear son, you must toil hard.. see for example .. a knife made of best qulity steel but not sharp enough is of no use. so my dear sharpen yourself.. your mind.. by working hard.......[INTEREPTED]

son: but dad! the butter knife is never sharp one ... is there anything wrong with it ?????

{Ponder (as much you can) O! worthy reader!! }

 

(C) Ashok Kumar Pandey,Noida (India)1988-2010

O SERPENT ! BEWARE..!!

Surprized by the fact
That the black serpent
With  raised hood and fuming
Did not bite,
But looked straight in to my eyes
In the gesture of questioning....

I asked -
Why, O black cobra, you spare me?
Are you out of venom or lost your poison teeth?

He did not answer, did not move...

I looked deeply into his eyes
And spoke
The man of the day had stolen the venom
And had grafted poison teeth in his mouth

O my dear!
Beware....
As I fear the Man of the day may bite you up!!


(C) Ashok Kumar Pandey,Noida (India)1988-2009

The Seven Chakras

The seven chakras are infact the pranic energy channel system wich is responsible for fusion of conciousness in the bio-mechanical body systems.

While these are present and functional in all living beings on this earth, it is possible to realise them in Human body. Also in this way it is possible to awaken the dorment energy system (Kundalini) and thus by purification through this awakened energy it is possible to have full realisation of Soul and God with manifestation of true universal love.

Following diagram may be helpful to generate basic understanding about the chakras in human body:


(C) Ashok Kumar Pandey,Noida (India)1988-2009

Facing the World

A recent news article read about a young man around 30 years, an MBA from a reputed institute and senior executive with a MNC company, who tried to kill himself out of the fear that he might get a pink slip soon. The point is - even much before his job would have been at stake in today’s turmoil reeling under the global recession, the poor fellow could not cope with the fear of something unseen and yet to happen. God saved him but the natural question is - why did such an intelligent and successful person lose all his patience and endurance?

Today, life has become quite stressful making us confused about the very essence and purpose of life. Posed before many fears of life, we constantly suffer challenges and seek respite. We ponder many a time - why this life and why we are made to live at all. While seeking such answers one is not alone, we all face the same problem and find ourselves stirred within us trying to find out how to face the world and yet lead a meaningful life deriving satisfaction and happiness out of it. 

Life is generally viewed as all about joy and happiness to be experienced. In order to achieve it, the desire engine works through the human body and mind. This desire leads to an urge for action and the resultant achievements translate into a deep sense of joy and satisfaction. This is the way life seems to be designed and bestowed upon us on this planet. However, generally these accomplishments do not bring contentment to us and we desire for still more. This happens mostly due to the flickering nature of our mind and not for genuine reasons. Thus we miss the moments of joy to us. Having lost this paradise of joy we fail to experience true happiness and become victims of endless ‘desire-action-desire’ loop, leading us nowhere. Thus, the desired satisfaction being thwarted, we fall victims to anger coupled with the loss of the power of discrimination. It twists our personalities in such a manner that we find ourselves low in confidence, patience and endurance. This is the exact point where fear peeps in and enters our mind leading us to total destruction.

In the Gita, Lord Krishna tells Arjuna:

Krodhat bhavati sammohah

Sammohat smritivibhramah

Smritibhranshad buddhinasho

Buddhinashat pranashyati (2 / 63)

(From anger comes delusion; from delusion

loss of memory; from loss of memory the

destruction of discrimination; from destruction

of discrimination, one perishes)

The essence of life is in living it to its fullness. This can be understood by the enormous zeal and survival quest present in every living being, be small or mighty. Swami Vivekananda, the apostle of Vedanta, also advocated this point. He said, “Compare the mighty steam engine whistling and rushing on the rail tracks and a small insect walking on the same track a little away. No doubt that the mighty engine can crush it in moments, but the little creature uses all its efforts and intelligence to save his life”. He further questions if it is not a miracle that mostly such efforts succeed. Now just think - while this little creature had courage to face the mighty engine with his intelligent action, the mighty engine will simply crush anything in front of it, if not controlled by a driver having intelligence.

The Indian philosophical system describes the human body as comprising of gross i.e. physical (Sthula), subtle i.e. astral (Sukshma) and causal (Karana) bodies. These bodies are inter-connected and operate through Pranic (life force) energies in any living being, otherwise composed of gross physical matter. Thoughts and actions are stated to be having three gunas (qualitative manifestations) known as Sattva (sublimity), Rajas (passion) and Tamas (ignorance). According to presence or play of these three gunas in varying degrees, the mula prikriti (basic nature) of an individual living being is established. Most of the worldly actions and thoughts are guided and governed by the rajas and tamas, while the Sattva leads one to higher and noble deeds, including those that lead to liberation.

Further, there are seven wheels (Chakras) or energy transmission centres, stated to be located in the spinal pathway, regulating the entire physical & astral body complex under pranic forces. The mind can be taken as a manager making the interaction between the external world and the inner life intelligence possible with the help of the sensory organs, which record and communicate the stimuli received from outside. So, it is a well-defined system with such refinement and automation that most of the time we can only feel amazed and clueless. 

Therefore, it is important to recognise the basic intelligence present within and directing every moment of action. It works through the thoughts emerging in the mind prompting us for action within a fraction of a second. The mind is the instrument between the thoughts emerging out of the inner life intelligence and the body making the physical act possible. This is again evident from the fact that having completed an action, we analyse them and the experience gained at the thought-level only. It is now clear that subjective satisfaction of action and experience so gained lies with the core intelligence – referred to as ‘Atman’ in the Indian system of philosophy. 

Complex it may seem but the dynamics of this system, like any scientific process, are very simple. For example, at the core electron-flow level, the electricity flowing from a dry battery cell or a power generation plant are alike except for voltage and amperage; yet the dry cell and a power plant are distinct in their form, operation and complexities. In the same manner, the life-force energy or Atman (Pure Self) and the universal creative intelligence or Isha (God) are actually alike but seem to be complex systems due to expressed and perceived manifestations. These perceivable manifestations are the foundations of Maya (Illusions), which builds up the mansions of unending cycle of worldly affairs with the help of duality present in nature coupled with our own desires. We had already seen that desires stem out of the basic inner quest to find the everlasting joy and happiness.

The physical plane on earth is mostly governed by action and so is known as Karma-bhumi. Every living being here is bound by various karmas done, being done and to be done including the basic set of compulsive actions like eating breathing, moving, reproducing, and excretion etc. The human beings, in addition to this, can think, analyse, create, explore and so on, having, therefore, unlimited possibilities to act. Of course, a few animals on this earth have some special faculties of skills and actions but these are learnt and imitated from the human beings, which indicates that this earthly plain is to be commanded by the human beings by desire-linked intelligent action. 

Now a question naturally arises: If the earth is an action-plane, why action creates bondage and why it does not always result in joy? To understand this, we need to understand the external world stated to be an illusion (maya) i.e. which is not real but appears to be so. Whenever maya has to influence an act, it puts forth another comparable choice before us, making us indecisive for the moment. These choices are put forth again and again as we eliminate options against them in order to take a decision. In this process, decision is delayed and so is the subsequent action. The lag of time and distraction so created results in change in terms of reference to the desired action since its inception. Thus the entire action path is changed with loss of original direction. This is further modified by ego-driven logic of mind and external stimuli perceived. 

Hence, the stimulus of the original desire is compromised and the action, though accomplished, does not bring the inner joy for which the desire arose. In absence of the joy sought but not experienced, the inner self keeps demanding it, and deluded under maya we continue to act, act and act…but for no avail. This causes dissatisfaction which, many a time, results in fuming anger. The qualities like patience and endurance are lost in these situations and man is lured even more into the desire-action loop creating bondages for him. In this manner a common man misunderstands the inner urge for joy or happiness for material possessions or ego-gratification.

What is the way out, then? In order to live we have to perform action every moment of our temporal existence and expected to perform these in such a way that they bring joy to us and not bondages. The key to is being truthful to ourselves. This approach to world, while facing it for challenges, is very well reflected in a popular Bengali devotional song – “I dare, the Mother Divine care…” , which means taking oneself as merely performer of action, while surrendering the fruits at the feet of the Divine. This principle is known as Karma Yoga in Indian philosophy.

In Shrimad Bhagvad Gita, Lord Krishna speaks about how action should be performed:

Karmanyakarma yah pashyed

akarmani cha karam yah

Sa budhiman manushyeshu

sa yuktah kritsna-karma-krit -- Gita, 4-18

(One who sees inaction in action,

and action in inaction,

is intelligent among men,

he is a Yogi and a true performer of all actions)

It is further declared:

Na kartritvam na karmani

lokasya srjati prabhuh

Na karma-phala-samyogam

svabhavas tu pravartate – Gita, 5-14

(Neither agency nor actions

does the Lord create for the world,

nor union with the fruits of action.

But it is Nature that acts)

However, the embodied beings are bewildered while doing action due to ignorance, which veils the real knowledge. As we had seen earlier, maya or material envelopments around us play a significant role in draping and drawing the curtains of ignorance to hide the real self. Therefore, to remove this veil of ignorance, Lord Krishna in his great sermon of the Gita suggests a mantra for the deluded mankind:

Karmanye va adhikarste,

ma phaleshu kadachana – Gita: 2-47

(Thy right is to work only, but never to its fruits)

We had begun with the present day stress and turmoil which takes away the inner calm and tranquillity in our day-to-day life. Having understood the mechanism of maya and the mind dancing to the tune of the external stimuli perceived, it should be easier for us to direct our energies in a way that restores the inner state of calm filled with joy. For this, we must first try to understand the root of an emerging desire. Then one must test it on the benchmark of being selfless or selfish. Here a larger good of the beings of the universe will indicate the selfless nature of our actions. Again, it is important to see whether at the end of the action so accomplished, it generates the satisfaction and joy which just does not fade away in a short span of time. The fickle mind can be calmed to a great extent either by doing some deep breathing exercises (pranayam) or engaging in some creative pursuits.

Mahatma Gandhi used to say that there should be a right cause or reason behind each action, and if it is not so, then the action should be abandoned. This provides a great insight for all in understanding the Karma-Yoga philosophy, and also becomes an important guidepost for our day-to-day actions. The right attitude and commitment for selfless action, as far as possible, need to be nurtured, inculcated and practised by us to reap the real fruit of action, which bring in its wake everlasting joy and not the temporary material gains. If we succeed in this endeavour, the stress will bust and we may find the treasures of happiness right here, even while performing actions related to worldly affairs.

(C) Ashok Kumar Pandey,Noida (India)1988-2010

Being Together

while walking
i found a little single branch,
it reminded me of being alone.
i made two of it,
placing them side by side.
for being together...
.... i walked past, alone!


(C) Ashok Kumar Pandey,Noida (India)1988-2009