Manifestation

The supreme Lord manifests in numerous forms. In the Bhagavad-Gita, He asserts that, “maya is created in my seeing. People are mesmerised by this maya. ‘My’ maya is so sweet, a person cannot understand how very sweet is this ‘I’ is. Oh Arjuna, do not forget me; is you do not forget me, maya will not be able to do anything to you.” Further, He, the Lord goes on to say, “See the characteristics of maya! She created a huge lake and birds and insects! Observing this, it all appears to be true, but it is nothing. There is no escape from the hands of maya. Yet God saves one who takes refuge in Him. That person alone whom God bestows his grace can escape the hands of maya.”  This ‘i’ is the maya. The jiva goes on saying ‘i did this’, ‘i did that’, and ‘i am so and so’, etc. It disappears as soon gets into deep sleep (sushupti) every night or day. The moment one gets out of sleep, this ‘i’ appears! None has understood where this exists and when it makes its appearance. All the problems of the jiva are created by this ‘i’- the ego (ahankara). The moment this ‘i’ disappears (as saint Kanakadasa said), the jiva is liberated from the clutches of maya, that binds the jiva due to ignorance. Thus, ‘i am’, ‘i is’, i only, is the maya. This i merges in Brahman every night when we are deep sleep and the jiva enjoys a blissful existence unaware of the world! This i only will come out ignorance refreshed after a night-long sleep.  “This gross body of liberated souls will decompose; yet, even if the body goes, their powers remain; it does not go.” The vasanas, karma kleshas form the seedlings for next birth. People unmindful of this go on quarrelling themselves. They create divisions. So long as there is divisive thinking, divisive actions, so long will people create sects. If the divisive attitude departs, the upadhi, false identification, is destroyed. At the destruction of the upadhi, one becomes aware of one’s divine consciousness. The realization comes when one realizes that “One Brahman has manifest as many. When one becomes pure, one will have the understanding that: I am verily Vishnu. I am a child of Vishnu.”

    Our existence on this planet is almost a miracle. Mysteries surround our birth and death. So far, no plausible explanation is forthcoming for our existence. It seems ‘no purpose is served merely eating and sleeping, whiling away time in seeking joy in extraneous things’. Moreover, all our thoughts and actions, behaviour, problems of hunger, disease, old age and death are not in our hands. Life is full of and probabilities. Nothing is certain here. What we see and believe may not be true at all! Things have to be seen in the background of an unstable earth, a vast expansive universe that is ever on the move, a universe of no known magnitude or dimension, and of illusory nature bound by Time and Space. In fact, this Time that creates Space by its movement is by itself an illusion! If Time is illusion, the space created by it as well as the objects that fill it and endure are also illusion. Illusion of illusion is delusion. Thus, there is no end to this delusion, ignorance. We, as the humans, should realize the fact that we are nothing but specks of dust, star-dust at that. These jivas or vibrant life-forms are like sparks of fire flying out of flames. Once we realize ‘who we are’, where do we come from, and where do we go from here when we die, or how we give up one mortal body and take another soon after, the ‘Reality’ dawns on us. We are truly the spiritual entity- the atman, embodied in an earthen shell like a pot made of clay susceptible to leakage and breakage. Symbolically, a pot filled with water is broken at the time of cremation of the dead bodies. This signifies the fact that the inside and the outside separated by an earthen shell is no more, and everything is one! 

    However, the purpose of our existence is yet to be defined. The ancient scriptures are our best guides. But, we neither have the complete texts of these, nor do we ever understand their coded language. The story of the arrival and departure of a jivatman on this planet is narrated here. It is an autobiography of the soul. Thus, the soul only speaks here. It is an intuitional knowledge obtained from parame vyoman in yogic trance.

     This spiritual study, like any other discipline calls for determination, steadfastness, keen interest, focused attention, concerted effort, and serious practice of yoga, and devotion to Guru. There should be a sense of purpose in life in order to attain to the highest level of existence and enjoy supreme bliss that is possible for any human being. Spiritual journey is more arduous than the journey in the material and sensuous world. Material world is also hazardous full of uncertainties, failures, disappointments, disillusionment, and frustrations. It is endless, with countless wants, insatiability, cravings for more and more, and finally, ordained to repeated births and deaths. The spiritual path is no less unpredictable and hazardous- full of unknown twists and turns and glaring mysteries, secrets, and coded secret words (mantra) that may often lead to doubts and disbeliefs, and sudden loss of faith and interest.

   Another hazard of this spiritual journey is that the sadhaka moves slowly away from the lower, ’here’, the concrete, the sensible, logic and sensuous gibbering towards the higher, ‘there’, abstract, nonsense, rather senseless(?), and silence. Worldly people are prone to treat this as madness. Most of the teachings of Great Masters are based on these principles and still people run to them! It seems paradoxical that people want solace in times of their distress and look to these renunciates, but do not want to follow their teachings in their daily life! For instance, if one tries to become a Raghavaendra Tirtha, one should follow in his footsteps and take to sanyas at the early age. If one follows his footsteps, the first casualty would be his wife and the next, his mother. As we know, Raghavaendra Swamy’s wife Saraswati Bai committed suicide and mother died in distress. In fact, most of the mystics have undergone untold misery and sufferings in their life before looking to higher spiritual power for solace.  

  The teachings of Acharyas like Shankaracharya, Madhava (Vidyaranya), or Badarayana can never be understood unless one experiences the times and way of life they lived. Shankara experienced untold misery and things have changed over time. It seems thus impossible for a common man to come to spiritual field, adhyatma, giving up the hearth and home, sensuous worldly life. Nobody wants to leave the cosy life of comforts and take to a life of a recluse and do severe askesis (tapas). Hathayoga is out of question. Even those who have tried and succeeded to some extent have suddenly fallen from grace!