Namaste All,
Welcome Raviji! I have been reading your posts along with R.Subramanianji's and Nagarajji's in David's blog. I have learnt a lot from the blog.
This forum is also really very helpful, mainly because people are very honest and share their strong and weak points in their spiritual journey. Thanks to all the members for this satsangha.
I am facing a conflict between my worldly life and trying to practice Bhagavan's teachings. I trust Bhagavan when he says this world is just another dreamlike state and it is false identification that is leading to the suffering. I am trying to use the sakshi bhava and question who is affected when faced with a tough situation but sometimes all I am able to do is pray to Bhagavan because I am too upset. In some ways the teachings and small glimpses of peace are making it harder to accept both good and bad situations like before.
I was listening to Nochurji's Kurai Onrum Illai discourse. It is definitely Bhagavan's grace to even listen to such messages. In this discourse, he compares the delayed start of an airplane's engine to a person's heart opening. I can relate to this and recognize the call from the Self or Bhagavan. But there is frustration and some guilt when I get depressed and give in to my old habits and watch some comedy or eat some sweets. Probably mind needs more purification for these vasanas to reduce?
Dear Latha,
your post reminded me Kabir's wonderful doha:
चलति चक्कि देखकर कबीर् दिया कबीरा रोय
दुइ पाटन के बीच में साबुत बचा न कोए ॥Your plea or cry or lament is exactly the cry of Kabir, who sees a woman grinding wheat using the grinding stone, and he contemplates himself as the the wheat, being ground, by the heavy stone, without being spared, it is made to crush, forcibly into fine powder, which cannot be segregated eventually. Seeing this, Kabir cries, because of the pain of Samsara,
दिया कबीरा रोय in between the sky and the earth दुइ पाटन के बीच, all this takes place, all emotions, such as happiness, sorrow, pleasure, pain, goodness and badness, and so on, all the dualities. The bottom stone is the earth and the sky is the upper grinding stone, and the wheat being us, is being crushed, ie., these dualities is being crushed, it is painful.
But Kabir realises the grinding process, he realises the dualities, he realises the transient nature of all the dualities, you are feeling crushed because, even the idea that there is worldly life and spiritual life separate and distinctive to each other is also a duality, which is being crushed. You are begining to see the transient nature of experiences of worldly life, but also the transient nature of spiritual experiences as well.
Since you have become aware, of the duality of worldly life and spiritual life, you are being finely ground, when the wheat, before it is ground, we can segregate the wheat seeds separately, but when it is fully ground, it is impossible to segregate the finely powdered wheat, the process of coming to awareness is painful. Like the pain experienced by a mother during child birth, is both painful for the mother as well as the child. This also is a process of being born, the process of birth of Jnana is painful, too.
Kabir laments, and, cries too, realising the truth, yet, he has to undergo the drinding, he has to allow himself to be ground, powdered finely!
Till then, pray for strength, clarity, keep with your daily sadhana, hoping and striving to inculcate more and more sincerity to it.
I share with you this very famous, Serenity Prayer:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.Carl Jung, the famous psychiatrist, observed and quoted:
.... there is no coming to consciousness without pain." In the process, just slowly begin to trust your own Chit Shakti, ie., your own discerning light, your own intelligence. This Chit shakthi from where all discernment originates, and which alone is the sakshi, which alone is the final judge, which gives out judgements without words or thoughts, but only through the silence, Mauna Vaakya, is the one of the names of Goddess found the Lalita Sahasranaamam, Chidagni Kunda Sambhoota -
Chit Agni Kunda Sambhoota - Chit + Agni + Kunda + Sambhuta: Chit : It's the fire of pure consciousness Agni, the inteligence, the discerning source : The fire Kunda : The altar, the reflection, which also done from the same source, Kunda is the Later, where Homa fire is set, which is yourself, yourself Sambhuta : To be born.
Also, You are the Karta, you are the Discerner, you are the fruits of your discernment as well. in Vishnu Sahasranamam, yajna bhruth yajna kruth yajni: yajna bhuk yajna-sadhanaha:
Yagna brit = He who accepts yagna
Yagna krit = He who doer of Yagna
Yagni = He who is the Yagna itself (everythin, all of above and below)
Yagna bhug = He who enjoys the fruits of Yagna, ie. the clarity that is seen or the discernment that is known is also He himself.
Yagna sadhana = He who puts efforts, Purashkara as a method of attaining Him, that effort also is He himself
So, now, we can discern that the grinding stones are also oneself only, the one pure self, from within, which gets all his power from the one single source, which is God, Self, Atma, Guru.
You are the wheat, you are the top grinding stone and the bottom grinding stones as well, and the handle that is used to rotate the grinding stone is also yourself as the doer, and the purushkara or the effort that is needed to rotate the grinding stone and also the intelligence by which you knew that you have to rotate the handle inorder to grind the wheat also originates from yourself. The finely grounded wheat, that is the Clarity, the Peace, the Samadhi or the Samatva, Shanti, is also yourself.
Keep the Yajna on, add lot of Ghee, add lot of fuel, ie. Sadhana with purity.
Salutations to Bhagavan
