My mails with Mr.Kiran and our discussions on spirituality

We had a very interesting discussion about spiritual matters. I wish to share these with my other readers. My understanding about spirituality for which the sole credit should go to my association with Chinmaya Mission and my guru Sir.Prasad Chaitanyaji. If there are some flaws in my understanding, they are due to my lack of comprehension about the truth revealed by my master and I stand corrected.
Please go through this series of discussion and add your comments:
Gopi Kishan
hi all
this surely is a very thought provoking mail. But the key to implement this in our otherwise busy life if i can say so lies very much within us. most of us confuse spirituality to be something which is best left for old age and with ritualism and get caught. but having read a few of books by great mahatmas and shastras dealing with our upanishads and commentaries what i could assimilate is that spirituality is in fact a change in attitude. If we take the example of BABA, we can be awestruck by the miracles he performed and would get struck with his form alone, but BABA is universal consciousness that has taken a form temporarily to serve the purpose of an avatar. the same consciousness exists in us too and that is the reason why he is ANTARYAMI i.e ominipresent. if you negate his existence in any thing whether living or non living you are commiting a spiritual crime. we need to be conscious of HIS existence in all. if we can adopt this attitude then that is true SHARANAGATHI. we will automatically respect all and love all and in the process love our BABA. Dear ones lets spread this love and rise in this love. Knowledge alone is power and it alone can help us realise our true self, i.e, BABA the inner ruler.
This is what i was inspired to write. hope the message reaches you
Kiran,
Thanks for forwarding this. I have a couple of points to add to this thread. Thanks to Mr.Gopi for starting this aspect of thread, which very much strikes the point.
If we go through the Satcharitra with a spiritual bent, u will realize umpteen number of examples where Baba drives us through spirituality and it needs some time and constant meditation on the aspects mentioned to understand the concepts. While God is both SagunSakar and NirgunNirakara, Baba with his avatar drove the wrong concepts that He isonly NirgunNirakara into a dustbin, but on the other hand, He promises us to ferry across the spiritual journey like a mother tortoise looking from the other bank. One more way to look at this concept is everyone of us have Him in us like a clean mirror, which can reflect the Godliness, but we are not able to do so, due to lots of old samskaras and anthahakaranashatrus besmearing the mirror and we wouldn’t be able to “realize” Him in us. Once we clear these, through the spiritual way of living, we can thus realize “Him” in us. Agreed that Spirituality mellow downs some of the rajas/tamas and pushes us more towards the Sattvic way of living, and the practice method that Baba taught us is very unique and to get the most from that, we need to completely submit ourselves to Him, SARVASYA SARANAGATI and realize that “Anyadha saranam naasti twameva Saranam mama”. One all our ego goes away, He comes and drives your chariot as Krishna.

Gopi Kishan,
Hi All
I appreciate the views of Kiran and feel good to know that someone in our family atleast has this bent of mind, especially among my contemperories. Most of the guys either shy away from spirituality or are too busy with their life that they have actually misses their true purpose of this human birth and the importance of it. Satcharitra is such a great biography that it appeals to its readers in several ways. Each one of us will interpret it according to our spiritual evolution. We need to accept that that we are a different levels of consciousness. I appreciate Kiran's usage of Antahkarna, according to our vedas, it is a combination of Manas(mind), Buddhi(intellect), Chitta(memory) and Ahamkaram (Ego). Consciousness(or Brahman or paramatma or God or energy etc.......) whatever the name that one would like to give gets reflected through this equipment called antahkarana. As Kiran said, only when the mirror is clean the reflection is perfect otherwise it is distorted (this is what we call individual perception in layman's language). All our so called rituals and spiritual practices are aimed at cleansing the antahkarana(equipment) so that the reflection is clear.
There are 3 stages of spiritual evolution:
Dwaita i.e me and god are seperate (madhavacharya was ardent proponent of this philosophy)
Visistha Adwaitha i.e worship of specialized god (ramanujacharya was proponent of this)
Adwaitha i.e god alone exists (adishankaracharya was proponent)

these 3 stages exist in all of us too
at first we feel the god to be seperate from us
at the second stage we choose a particular diety, declare that diety to be supreme
at the final stage we find identity with the choosen god

Now coming to spiritual practices:
What Kiran pointed was towards 3 gunas (Sattva, Rajas and Tamas)
the entire creation comprises of the three gunas and hence we too have these 3 but each one has these in different quantities. Our aim should be to increase Sattva guna. This can be done by diverting one's self towards sattvic food, reading spiritual books, being in the company of sattvic people (satsang, hope that is what we are doing now) and practice of austerities like mounam, dhyanam and tapas.
Ultimately Lord Krishna says in his Hamsa geeta that even Sattva guna should also be abandoned. This leads to final emancipation or self realisation (trigunateetha). This final process is possible only through knowledge, for example: how is fire produced in the forest? obviously when the branches of the tree rub together the fire is produced, this fire burns the trees too and entire forest and ultimately when everything is burnt it dies on itself. Similarly when we produce friction through the fire of knowledge and meditate, the sattva guna produces this fire and ultimate all the gunas, samskaras, karmas and vasanas burn and we become the pure self and realise that Atma alone exists every where and Jeeva atma (misconception that I am different from parmatma) dissolves into paramatma.
now tell me:
1) what meditation or spiritual practice that a wave needs to become one with ocean?
2) what special austerities that a pot needs to undertake to become earth (matti)?
3) Can you seperate gold from a gold bangle?

yet another thought provoking statement would be:
We use a soap to clean ourselves, after cleaninig ourselves do we still need the soap? obviously not we pour more water untill all the soap too is washed away.
Similarly only through detachment from every thing that is temporary and attaching ones' self with what is permanent is actual spirituality.
Definition of Guru in sanskrit is Dispeller of darkness.
This darkness is nothing but our ignorance that we are jeevatma and seperate from paramatma. This guru too resides in us and guides us. he is both with form as well as formless.
Let us recollect the bold declaration by Lord Krishna:
Yada yada he dharmasya, glanir bhavati bharatha
abyurdhanama dharmasya, tadatmanam sruyamyaham.

Which says that the lord takes avatars in order to alleviate the masses from delusion.
I would like to conclude by saying that He(sai or any god of one's choice) alone exists, in living as well as non-living, good and bad, as well as in all opposites because he alone is the supplier of energy for one and all and he infact is the energy for all manifested and unmanifested. the moment we live in this awareness day in and day out, automatically our attitude changes because we cannot do anything wrong as he is a witness to all our actions, we will not discreminate between anyone and love everyone as our own BABA.
lets spread this love and grow in it. let us become instruments in his hands and surrender our ego and accept anything that comes our way as his prasad and at the same time be prepared for his tests.
god bless all.
With lots of love.
Gopi

Kiran,
Hi
This was a great discourse from Gopi. Happy to find some one who is
already treading the path. I don't qualify even to the first step of the
spiritual path. I am still learning ABCs and there is a long way to
reach the goal. Couple of points that I would like to add to what Gopi
has rightly pointed out. Dwaita (Difference between Jeevatma and
Paramatma) was proposed almost at the same time by both Madhwacharya and
Vallabhacharya and they too have the same personal God as what
Ramanujacharya proposes (Srimannarayana). As rightly pointed out, these
are the stages of the spiritual evolution, where we generally start with
the conception of duality and later we realize that we are a
part/component of the great personality(leading to the visishtadvaita)
and end with non-duality(as proposed by AdiSankaracharya).

I am not aware of hamsageeta, could u point me to a good pointer about
it.
I would try sharing some of the thought provoking questions u posed

1) what meditation or spiritual practice that a wave needs to become one
with ocean?

Wave is a part and parcel of the ocean, and doesn't need any, but on the
other hand, if the question is related to the river mingling with the
ocean, it makes more relevance to us explaining the perseverance of the
hardships the river has to take and the long journey it has to travel to
identify as one with the ocean. It makes more relevance to our journey
where we start somewhere and have to travel miles and miles(Shraddha) to
reach Him and the perseverance and the Saburi we have to adopt to face
all the hardships and then finally reach Him. It needs constant
meditation and patience.

2) what special austerities that a pot needs to undertake to become
earth (matti)?

Both the ways around, it has its own significance. The other way gives
us more motivation towards the spiritual, ofcourse could be related to
material aspect too. The mud has to undergo different hardships and has
to be moulded craftily with in the hands of the potter (Guru), which
takes it a lot of patience to face the hardships and its natural time to
dry up and encompass the nectar pouring in it.
On the other hand, the path other way is simply uniting the moulded
earthen pot with earth. At the end of the life, anyways the material
body gets united one with the earth, but on the otherhand, if we got to
make our jeevatma one with paramatma, u got to do the austerities and
tapas, while the pot is still available(life is present)

3) Can you seperate gold from a gold bangle?

Though the innate material for the bangle is still gold, same as what
there is one atma in all the living beings and the outward appearances
differ, the avidya once lost will lead to the pure gold.


We use a soap to clean ourselves, after cleaninig ourselves do we still
need the soap? obviously not we pour more water untill all the soap too
is washed away.

Agreed, but on the other hand, we need to clean ourselves every day,
because there will be lots of dust and stuff depositing on us. We need
constant practice and regular cleaning of our mirror, else we are bound
to fall in the clutches of maya and become dirty again (for ex. The
story of sage vishwamitra and the story in the Upanishad where the sage
gets attached to a small deer and after ending his life takes a birth of
deer in the next birth and takes couple of rebirths to realize as one
with Him).

What Baba has shown us is a way that we need not renounce everything in
the life and run away from ur assigned karma to reach Godliness, but a
way to reach the ultimate destination, by still participating in the
daily activities and get detached from the kartha-feeling (as what
Bhagawadgita says) and also like what janaka maharaja continued his
dialy routines, though achieving Jnana.
- Thanks and Regards
M V Achutha Kiran Kumar

Gopi Kishan,
Thanks a lot Kiran, but let me take the previlege of correcting you. I too am a student in this path and I just expressed my assimilation of thoughts, discourse would be a big word to discribe, I am a long way behind to become a guru. (this ofcourse is in a lighter sense)
About hamsa geeta, there are various geethas like Bhagavat geetha, Hamsa Geetha, Kapila Geetha, Astavakra Geetha, Rama geetha, Bhikshu geetha. All these are asimilation of the knowledge of upanishads in a nutshell. All these teach about various paths to self realisation.
The problem for a seeker on the path to spirituality is unless he sets his goal on the ultimate i.e self realisation, he gets lost in the path. Even the Masters (gurus) that he encounters are according to his evolution. The Lord takes the form of gurus of different kind because of this very fact. The words that we freely use such as SHARANAGATHI, ANTARYAMI, NISHKAMA-KARMA etc. are very easy to understand intellectually. But true spirituality is not intellectual appreciation of these because BRAHMAN state of consciousness is beyond intellectual understanding, that is a state that which can only be experienced. As it is beyond senses, antahkarana, gunasa and awastha. No one can escape the KARMA unless he gets self realisation. These birth-death-rebirth process continues.
Our soul evolves successively, but tell me if we have taken say 1 lakh births by now and in each birth we have performed karma and we have a vast store house of karma as well as vasanas(unfulfilled desires) then how is it possible to exhaust all these in this birth and get liberated?
The answer lies in disowning all these through jnana. That is by getting attached to our true self i.e ATMA and removing the dirt of all the equipment of antahkarna(mind, intellect, memory, ego).
In HAMSA GEETHA this question about self realisation was posed to Braham(the creator) by his 4mind-born sons known as KUMARAS, these were very advanced beings, very pure.
Their question was when every thing is a form of BRAHMAN(please dont get confused between Brahman and Brahma) or consciousness then why is it that The supreme God doesnt get affected by dwaitha and Maya? Why is it that all other beings like humans, demi-gods(devatas) and all creatures living and non-living get affected?
When Brahma couldnt answer this question then the supreme consciousness takes the form of a swan(hamsa) and answers this question.
Lord Krishna is known to be that consciousness and he speaks about the discourse given by him in the form of hamsa to his disciples in dwapara yuga. This is hamsa geetha in a nutshell. Actual discourse if it is interesting to you I shall send you the synopsis later.

I presume we are just sharing information and the purpose of our mails is to evolve spiritually as well as to get to know one another better. I sole intention is to provide you with food for thought and get you acquainted with our scriptures. I too am an ardent devotee of baba. Infact he is the one who guided me into this path and has been there with me throughout my life.
If you find time please go through my blog on spirituality and reiki. Please read from the first post so that it makes better understanding.
Let us continue our correspondence as it is beneficial to both of us, I will get to know how much the subject could sink in me and you will have the benefit of knowing the same as well as expanding your horizon of thinking. It is a win-win situation.
Awaiting your response.
With love
Gopi

Gopi Kishan,
Hi
Here we go with the first question
1) what meditation or spiritual practice that a wave needs to become one
with ocean?
So long as the wave feels itself seperate from the ocean it cannot become one with it. But as the time progresses the wave ultimately dissolves into the ocean and becomes one with it. From spiritual point of view this hold good too, so long as we identify ourselves with the body, mind or intellect, we are different from brahman or consciousness. The moment we disidentify with there knowing these to be of temporary nature (just like a wave's seperate existence from ocean) and identify ourself with the energy or spirit or the soul or the atma or the consciousness(all these terms can be used to indicate the same), we become one with it. Self-realisation is here and now the only tools required are dispassion(towards temporary issues such body mind and intellect) and abidance in the self with knowledge(jnana). This is the real meaning of ANTARMUKHI. Now you may consider why is all this necessary as the wave ultimately merges into the ocean in no time. Time is man's creation (past,present and future) and is very relative. Consider this birth (may be we live of 75 or so years) and compare it with millions of births that your soul has already taken. In this context even this time we have too is very short(alike the wave). Ultimate reality is that eventually every soul would realize its ownself through this process of births and deaths. Yet here we have an excellent opportunity to realize our true selves and find ourselves in the state of everlasting happiness(Sat-Chit-Ananda Swaroopa) in this very birth.
Real spiritual sadhana that anyone of us can do is disidentification from unreal and abidance in the real.
We all actually go to this state unconsciously during deep sleep. We do not know what happens, infact we are not aware of our existence too, yet we continue to exist. During deep sleep even the mind to doesnt exists and that is the reason why we do not know what is happening around. A Yogi enters this state of no mind consciously during samadhi state where he merges with consciousness. The actual sadhana is to go to the state of samadhi and be there(unlike unconscious sleep).
By meditating one gains concentration, by concentrating on truth during meditation one becomes one with the truth.
At this stage one realises that he is the same consciousness that pervades the entire universe and enters into deeper state of samadhi where there is not break NIRVIKALPA SAMADHI even during his awakened state. This Yogi treats every one with equanimity as he sees every one as his own expression and hence there is only love.
This Yogi performs all his duties just like an ordinary person, he too talks, laughs, gets angry does work of society, yet his focus is always in the self i.e ANTARMUKHA. So one need not leave the society and run away into the forest.


Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi of tiruvannamalai very lucidly puts all this in a very simple sentence, the rememberence of this will drive away stress instantaneously and make us calm:
What is deemed to happen will definetely happen irrespective of any amount of effort to stop it from happening. What is not deemed to happen will never happen dispite herculean trials. Hence the best way out is to reamin Silent.
This is what a yogi does, he accepts every thing that happens to him to be Eswara's prasada and knows that it is infact Eswara who does all that he does, the energy for doing things comes from Eswara and hence Yogi remains unattached to the results of his deeds. He is inwardly silent and outwardly acts as if he is doing. Karma and karma-phala doesnt affect this yogi.
This yogi knows that if a person travelling in a train tries to reduce the burden of the train by keeping the luggage on his head, after some time his own head and body will hurt and hence it is better to keep this luggage down and travel joyfully. Similarly why should we take the burden and ownership of karmas being done by Eswara through us, we have the freedom to free ourselves and become a witness to all that is happening around. When a sadhak with Jnana practices this way of living then the benovalent Eswara gladly accepts him into his fold and makes him an instrument in working His divine plan. This sadhak over constant practice becomes a yogi, and this knowledge that he is the Atma (or consciousness and not this body,mind,intellect equipment) becomes instilled in him. At the time of departure from this body, he merges into the consciousness (just like a wave merges into the ocean). He becomes free and goes into brahma loka and attains everlasting happiness till the end of this creation. He has the freedom to come down to earth in the form of avatar anytime. But during his entire Avatarhood he has complete understanding and knowledge that he is a free soul and knows the purpose of his birth. Karma has no effect on his. That is is what our scriptures declare.

If you are interested, I shall pass a very simple meditation technique taught by my guru. The practice of which shall give you a taste of the joy and oneness. Ofcourse only through a constant practice can one become adept at it.

I dont know how clearly I could communicate this knowledge. I welcome your clarifications and suggestions. I dedicate all this at the feet of my guru. If I could be of any help it is due to him and I take the ownership of all shortcomings.
With lots of Love
Gopi

Gopi Kishan,
Hi,
How are you? Guess you were busy, I was waiting for your mail.
I am picking up the discussion from where I left.
2) what special austerities that a pot needs to undertake to become
earth (matti)?
Inorder to drive in a clear understanding about this let us take the example of space. Is it not a truth that we exist in space? Now the question is, Is there any difference between the space inside an empty pot and the space outside the pot? Again the answer has to be no, because there is only one space and the pot too exists in the same space. The moment the seperation is broken between the space inside the pot and the space outside it, it is all the same. Similarly, there is individual mind (coz. each one of us think differently) and at the same time there is total mind i.e sum of all individual minds. Both this individual mind as well as the total mind derive their existence and energy from the consciousness (Atma or Brahman). This same consciousness supports the entire universe. The real spiritual practice that one can do is drop the ego (myself being seperate entity thought) and live with the total mind.
This practice elevates you to equanimity under all circumstances as well as with all beings.
This person continues to exist without ego.
This is what Gurus such as Jiddu Krishna Murthy and Osho try to explain.
This state can be explained with yet another beautiful example:
Let us take the story of a Rose-
In a jungle a rose blossoms on a rose plant. It is joyful and is in its natural state. A person passes by and sees this rose.
If he can just look at the rose and not have any more thoughts. At this level both the rose as well as this person are at the same brahman level. (Advaitha level)
If this person on seeing the rose gets a string of thoughts that describe the beauty of the rose and stop at that. The person comes to (Visista Advaita level) yet there is no significant change, because appreciation of creation is appreciation of the creator.
If the line of thoughts take him further and he perceives this rose to be seperate from him he comes down to Dwaitha, yet this is still o.k because this too exists in the creation of God. The same god created both this person as well as the rose.
But the real problem of the world starts here, when this person on perceiving this rose to be seperate from him wants to possess this rose for his own self. He go down to Priya level where he has already developed fasination towards an object because it is beautiful and he dislikes any creation that is ugly. Continuing our story if this man tries to pluck this rose for himself and in the mean time some other person comes and takes it. There he gets an unfulfilled desire to possess the rose. He also develops hatred and jealosy towards the person who go the rose first. It results in arguement and krodha develops. He forms a perception (a coloured one) towards the other person and brands him as fortunate or bad. This is how the ego gets stronger and the down fall occurs. This ego is bolstered by every thing which seperate and imprints the mind over numerous births and deaths that we are the mind, intellect and the body equipment and each one of us is a seperate entity. We stoop to the level of being responsible for all our actions as well as inactions and get caught in the karmic web. Where each action produces a karma. All good deeds produce good karma and all bad deeds produce bad karma. All the karmas together with all the unfulfilled desires (vasanas) get stored in our astral and causal bodies (all of us have 3 bodies- physical body, that which we use during the waking state. Astral or subtle body-that which we use in the dreaming state. Causal body- comprising of ego, ignorance, unfulfilled desires- this body is in the deep sleep state. Whenever a person dies it is actually the physical ody that dies, the subtle body comprising of jnanendriyas and mind, intellect, memories and ego. This subtle body leaves the physical body and travels to other worlds and again the same subtle body is provided with a physical body by nature (prakriti). This subtle body chooses a part of karma to be worked out during the birth from a vast storehouse of karmas it had acquired over countless incarnations. It also chooses the parents and the circumstances in which it wants to be born. It retains the memories of all the births even while it is in the womb of the mother and daily prays to the god that it will work for salvation in the current birth. But the moment the child comes out of mother's womb and is born an air called vaishnava prana touches and completely erases the memories of previous births and the child is born with a clean slate (mind) without any impressions. Slowly this child creates impressions in his mind in the form of experiences as well as the influence of parents as well as the society. These impressions over a period of time take a shape and perceptions are formed. By the time the child is about 7 years old he starts judging the people around him based on his coloured perceptions and ego solidifies into a very hard shell. Yet, the beauty of all these is that every thing is happening according to his own karma because it was he that chose the parents as well as the circumstances. But he forgets his real mission i.e purpose of his birth and starts craving for a different set of things thereby creating fresh vasanas and karmas through his coloured perception. This is how the life goes on.
In this entire process his soul is intact it is his mind that enjoys all the happiness as well as sufferings.

If anyone wants to get out of this mess the only recourse is to aim at a state of no mind and reamin in that state. This state is otherwise known as a state of samadhi. When there is no individual mind automatically there are no karmas to be worked out and vasanas to be fulflled. Remaining in the total mind that person still continues to exist till the force of his karma for the present birth (prarabdha karma) is exhausted because this is what created the body in the first place. And when the physical body dies, this consciousness exists as there is no subtle and causal body. This is called final release. This is possible only when a person can have enough dispassion to disown every thing that is not real through the application of knowledge (jnana) and attaching to only thing that is real Brahman.

In this process the god too helps a sincere seeker by sending him Gurus according to his spiritual evolution. As the say "when the disciple is ready the master appears". These gurus show the path but ultimately whether the shisya travels the path or not is again upto the free will of him.
The real freedom that one has at any point of time is not his control over circumstances because they are all predecided, the freedom lies in excercise of options available under the prevalent circumstances. This excercise of option determines the future thread of circumstances. So we are always free to choose our action and hence change of our attitude is vital for any progress either at the spiritual or at the physical level.
There is law of karma.
There is free will.
There is also Eswara krupa.A wise person understanding all these can modify his destiny.
Again I would like to reiterate that every thing that has been discussed above is my assimilation of various scriptures and upadeshas from my guru. There may be flaws in my presentation (again my perception of reality), I take the ownership of these and dedicate whatever truth that is there at the lotus feet of my guru.
Om Sri Sai Ram!
With lots of love
Gopi