Lack of Renunciation --- The main problem

[Nagaraj]

Dear Srkudai,

yes, apparently, in the original Mahabharatha, the Bhagavad Gita does not appear in 18 chapters as we see today in all publications, and each of these chapters are classified as different yogas, Karma yoga namah, Bhakti Yoga namah, etc... In the original it is just continues.

It is said that it was Sri Shridhara Swamigal who classified the Gita into 18 chapters and attributed each chapter to each Yoga.

Originally, Gita was a direct responses givenby Krishna to Arjuna for the questions asked by Arjuna then and there.

It was simply guiding Arjuna from Asatoma to Sadgama (Darkness to Light)

Salutations to Bhagavan

[Nagaraj]

Dear Srkudai,

Lets go a little to the fundamentals. What is Abidance. What is Nishta.

According to answers.com

Abidance means -
The act or condition of abiding; continuance.
Adherence; compliance: abidance by parliamentary procedure.

And Nishta is same.

Next to understand is, when we say, Abidance, what is it that makes the abidance? what makes the effort to abide? what is it that aspired to abide?

Questions arise -

Is it our mind/thoughts?
What is 'that' that needs to abide?

What abides?

Salutations to Bhagavan

[Nagaraj]

Dear Srkudai,

Here is where Bhagavan's teachings comes in to light. He says "Atma Vyavahaaram"

the "I"being in abidance, or being seated in the awareness. what makes us "I" unable to be seated in that nishta or what are the reasons why it is always only temporary? it is because of Vyavahaara

I am wondering how is Vyavahaaram possible being seated in Nishta!

You perfectly quoted "For a thought... whats behind ? Awareness"

For or From awareness, thought is not there, Thought is illusion (or thought itself is awareness), Mind(or mind itself is awareness) is not there. Then how can Vyavahaara be possible? for Vyavahaara is of the mind and not awareness, Vvavahaara itself is illusion!

How is Atma Vyavahaara possible? when the latter is unreal and only former is the Truth!

Salutations to Bhagavan

[Nagaraj]

Dear Srkudai,

yes, you are correct, but the key word is "operate in small activities here and there"

what we can do hereafter is that we can slowly reduce all our official responsibilities, bring it down to basic minimal levels of requirement and not desire any more advancements and make new karmas and when time is crisp, we can totally devote all our time to Bhagavan and Self. Untill then we have to remain patiently and better our practice in abidance and achieving Atma Nishta.

attend to our responsibilities till nature itself relieves us from those responsibilities!

Salutations to Bhagavan

[Nagaraj]

Dear srkudai,

yes, absolutely with you!

कर्मण्ये वाधिकारस्ते म फलेषु कदाचना
कर्मफलेह्तुर भुरमा ते संगोस्त्वकर्मानी॥

You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action। Never consider yourself the cause of the results of your activities, and never be attached to not doing your duty.

What more can we do? that is it!

Salutations to Bhagavan

[Nagaraj]

Dear srkudai,

it subtly also conveys that we have a choice over our Karmas. What we do - we have choice on this But not on the outcome!

Personally, in my case, I observed that most karmas that I am doing, are really not at all necessary but just doing it as a course of past conditioning or due to making past unwise choices! Now that discernment and recognition seems to sprout showing light on the Karmas.

Its quite clear enough in this that we have choice over what we do and we CAN CHOSE WISELY what minimal we can do! Its also 100% sure that the very life is only for the purpose of realising oneself and in perfect abidance. Instead of this, out of avidya, we have got onto ourselves various Karmas in the past, whose fruits, we are being fed today! So we should be careful and wise not to make any more newer karmas. Just finish off accepting the fruits of our past karmas and remain perfectly still. Simply being.

Karma is hindrance for abidance.

When we have choice to chose what we can do, we also have the wise choice to NOT DO ANYTHING too  and just be

your thoughts?

Salutations to Bhagavan

[Nagaraj]

yes very true, infact, doership of karmas only indicates expectation of a particular result.

But not all karmas an be classified as the above. I mean, certain karmas which we have unwisely chosen in the past, with some desire to its fruits, are no longer relevant after this discernment. For example, say Jai had wanted to become a great businessman and very famous and he also had good mind and also thought that when he earns lots of money, he would do a lot of charity, he would help poor people and he would do lots of Sevas for people and he would do lot of Pujas for God etc...

you know, when the light over Karma daws on Jai, he realises that all these are unnecessary, what is more important than all the above is complete abidance in Self and that itself is the greatest service.

"sukha tyagi , krishna bogi, nrpa janaka raghavau ..." beautiful quotation, also it is said that Krishna was a Brahmachari even though he had thousands of wives!

The magnitude of Karmas what Krishna did is unfathomable and yet he remained a Sthithah Prajna. Where as Ramanar did very very meagre karmas. Its just choice or we can say their respective prarabdha karma!

Krishna could have chosen to remain like Ramanar and Ramanar could have chosen to be like Krishna!

For me to look at Krishna is absolutely unfathomable, to live like Krishna is impossible, only in 4 yugas only one Krishna was there, Krishna way is not even graspable, I mean to live like krishna is verily impossible atleast in my case.

Where as Ramanar, also made lot of choices, he chose not to allow devotees to prostrate, if he willed he could have made a great Peetham like a Shankara Matam for posterity and also he chose not to have a sishya parampara.

we have the right to make some wise choices, i felt.

Its impossible to be like Krishna. again this is different for each person based on their nature.

Salutations to Bhagavan

[Nagaraj]

Dear srkudai,

I agree with you. you are correct, I guess most of us face this problem, if we are able to discern to remain in abidance as we do our work then there would be no difficulty. yes we need to overcome the pull of our vasanas then and there with our conscious effort - is the way!

just going with the flow of the river of life as it goes instead of force changing the direction of the river of life!

[Nagaraj]

Its like Action in Stillness

its like violating the law of magnets - "like poles repel and unlike poles attract"

In this case of Atma Nishta it is "like poles attract"

fore really thereis only one, there is neither like pole or unlike pole but still it remains like Mirage.

udai, you always mention that after discernment, the mirage will remain, but it will not affect you. This is the theory of Visishtadwaita of Ramanuja. Where as in advaita, that mirage does not exist at all. as in, the seer of mirage and seen (mirage) is one and the same!

Intellectually one can only reach to Ramanujars theory and what Shankara and Ramanar saw is beyond.

[Nagaraj]

Dear srkudai,

while i have little difference with your in this understanding (we have discussed this even before), like Bhagavan says, all the 3 - advaitins, visishtadwaitins and dwaitins - all of them agree with the realisation of oneself as Atma as he says, first its important to realise oneself and thereafter we can discern whether it is advaita, visishtadwaita or dwaita. I admit I started it in my previous post, but lets leave it for it is not of relevance as the more immediate concern is constant abidance as the Self. How can we strive to achieve stillness in action without our minds being perturbed!

salutations to Bhagavan

[Subramanian.R]

Dear srkudai, Nagaraj,

Here is a conversation from Day by Day with Bhagavan:

Bhagavan: So long as you have not renounced the belief 'I am the doer',
keep in you mind the correct perspective that your responsibilities are
your alone.

Question: If I am not the body, am I responsible for he consequences
of my good and bad actions?

Bhagavan: If you are not the body and do not have the idea 'I am the doer'
the consequence of your good or bad actions will not affect you. Why do
you say about the actions the body performs, "I do this or "I did that"?
As long as you identify yourself with the body, like that you are affected by
the consequences of the actions, and you have merit and demerit.

Question: Then I am not responsible for the consequences of good or
bad actions?

Bhagavan: If you are not, why do you bother about the question?

Question: Then does that mean if one has not the sense of 'I do this'
or 'I am the doer', one need not do any thing at all?

Bhagavan: The question of doing only arises if you are the body.

An ignorant person thinks, through the delusion I am the body, that an
individual 'I' exists separate from God, the complete and utter fulness.
So long as he believes himself to be an individual, it has to be accepted
that he will alternately perform good and bad actions through the ego
feeling, 'I am the doer' and will necessarily receive and experience their
results in the form of joy and misery.

True renunciation is the renunciation of the ego.



Arunachala Siva.       
     

[Nagaraj]

Dear srkudai,

What i conveyed is this conversation with Bhagavan given below -

in Talks 282,

D.: If the advaita is final, why did Madhvacharya teach dvaita?
M.: Is your Self dvaita or advaita? All systems agree on Self surrender. Attain it first, then there will be time to judge whose view is right or otherwise.

Well, its of absolutely no use to discuss if it is Advaita or Dvaita or Visishtadvaita for all of them agree that everybody has to attain Atma-Jnanam and they all agree that we are not the body but the Atma. So Bhagavan clearly states that instead of delving into whether it is dvaita or advaita or visishtadvaita, first we have to attain atma Jnanam.

The debate whether the Atma-Jnanam is Advaita or Visishtadvaita or Dvaita can be looked into after Atma-Jnanam. Therefore it is our immediate concern that we focus completely in realising this Atma and abide as the Atma which we truly are. It does not matter if it is advaita or dvaita or visishtadvaita. I tried to convey this aspect.

Subramanian Sir,

This reply by Bhagavan conveys everything in a nutshell -

Bhagavan: The question of doing only arises if you are the body.

I feel we need to delve more in to this statement by Bhagavan and how we can live this in our practical daily life without the identofication with body, intellectually I understand, we all understand what Bhagavan says but when it comes to crux of the situation, we get carried away and we lose this recognition, no matter how much we try. This discernment is not complete yet for, if we get the absolute discernment, then we can never fall from our Tapas.

Salutations to Bhagavan

[Subramanian.R]

Dear Nagaraj and srkudai,

Sri Bhagavan said that all the three schools [Advaita, Visishtadvaita
and Dvaita] speak of surrender. He told the devotee: First surrender
to the godhead and see if there are really three such schools!  Once
you surrender completely, the ego is submitted to godhead and there
is no one to discuss about the three schools.

Again about the "four  paths" [i.e Jnana, Bhakti, Yoga and Karma]
He said :
 Absorption in the Heart of Being,
 Whence we sprang,
 Is the path of action, of devotion,
 Of union and of Knowledge.

[Upadesa Saram, Verse 10.] 



Arunachala Siva.

[amiatall]

I believe what srkudai tries to point out is that as long as one believes in body as himself so long such discussions will appear again and again as 'working in practical life', 'quelling vasanas' etc. To my mind there is no such thing as intellectual understanding. Either understanding is there or not there. There is no in between. If it appears so that there is 'intellectual' understanding but at the same time a conflict arises because the action is not in alignment with that understanding, then there is no understanding, only thinking that one understands. These are two different things. For if there would be an understanding then what 'body' does would be of no concern, for there is no body and no doer.
Then question arises how can this understanding arise? We all have read it is written "you are not a doer" and it is a fact. Where is the problem? The believe is the problem. It means that 'I' have seen myself as the doer ant cannot accept this fact, for if it has been seen clearly that there is no such thing as 'I'-the doer, what remains is That which always is, without any concern, right at this second. In other words this 'I' that presents to have problems have not been seen through or not have been investigated properly.

[Nagaraj]

Dear srkudai, amiatal,

The grace of Light can be felt only in darkness. Arjuna was given the Gitopadesa during a battle, in the same lines, we are in a battle field of our very own, words such as intellctual understanding etc... are only used for mediums for communication.

I am completely in agreement that either one knows it or does not know it. We are all here only because, we are still not reached that distinction yet and hence we are seeking light from the grace of Bhagavan.

Whether we term it as practical or otherwise, we are facing situations of contradiction in most moments of our life and its only due to lack of proper discernment that we are unable to stand straight for we are in midst of utter confusion as udai pointed out, in our daily life, we are in times whether we have to follow rules or not, whether to pay bribe or not and many many more such contradiction.

What i am trying to investigate is that inspite of 'knowing' that we should drop all expectations, we are unable to carry out that manner (hard truth) which is the fact and this is simply because contradiction still exists and we have been tying to surrender innumerable no. of times are still failed at it! It all goes to show that we are missing something very fundamental, very basic, which we are unable to discern! It raises certain questions whether it is even possible to act without having expectation, to act without having the desire for the fruits, is it even possible! Hence a need arises to question our own understanding as well!

Salutations to Bhagavan