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Pujya Dr. K.C. Varadachari - Volume -1
 

Discourses on The Philosophy of Sri Ramchandra's Rajayoga - Lecture -5

  
Master has declared that he has discovered this condition which was not approached by anybody so far in the history of the human race, namely the state of TAM, which is beyond SAT or Existence, which all people hold to be the highest. The state of TAM is very difficult to attain and it has been possible only for our Mission to help people reach up to this particular point or the Ultimate Reality. In fact, Master even goes a step further. He says even that TAM is a kind of reflection of the Ultimate Reality. So you will understand how difficult it is to communicate the very nature of that state except by putting one into that condition. But then he says, it is a condition where there is neither light nor darkness. And, all our knowledge is said to be of light. So 'what is that, that is beyond light?' - shall we say it is darkness? No, it goes farther beyond darkness. It is difficult to describe that condition. In fact Master goes to the extent of saying that a person who has reached that condition will not be aware of it except when somebody calls him back to answer a condition. That is only when what we call existence 'Truth' is introduced one becomes aware of his condition. This is one discovery.

Of course, when I had asked this condition to be given, he said that most people will not like that state at all. They do not want that stage at all. Most of us like to have knowledge, like to have power and all those things which we think as the 'summit of perfection'. A man who goes beyond all these will not have all these things. But then, he goes to the Root from which all these things arose. And therefore, I said it is worthwhile going to that condition. Anyway so long as there is something still farther mentioned there are some people who like it go to the farther limits. Whether it means death or final dissolution, they do not worry. Many people do not like to go farther. They would like to have what they have and not miss all these things of the world. Of course Truth comes only when we go far beyond knowledge, far beyond happiness and perhaps even far beyond darkness.

The next step that Master illustrates is about that condition. Do you think that in that condition, do you exist or don't you exist. Will you have your identity or not? Are you lost completely? It is said as one of the argument against losing oneself in God, that such a condition is of no use at all and must, indeed, be unreal. There are theories of Vedanta - I don't say it is Advaita - which hold that the individual Soul (that is you) is immortal and is Eternal. If you do not exist God does not exist - so you must exist. That is why they say the individual soul is eternal, indestructible and so on. That may be alright for people to say so. Actually what happens? It is an experience not only in spirituality but almost at every level that True Love involves a dissolution of oneself, a giving up of oneself even to the point of annihilation of identity. This we call merging. The religious people who are anxious to experience God do not like to be merged or lost in God. To them realisation means looking at God, enjoying God, worshipping Him in all sorts of ways, but not to feel one with God. That is, these people want God to live for them and not they for God. So, almost all religions want God for the sake of the individual. Nobody is thinking of living to exist for God. So many people want to have their identity kept up. And we find their identity is tried to be fostered by names, works and so on and those remnants as the delegates of such people. They are trying to give immortality to the works of those people. So to that extent we create a kind of immortality to their identity.

It is only a philosophical feeling that you must have been previously. There are arguments for that. But ultimately do you exist as a separate entity, keeping your own identity till the very end? Our Master says, the identity which each individual has, continues to be even till the last date of Maha Pralaya. Some people said even at Maha Pralaya, a person goes on existing. That is a philosophical necessity. Even when a man enters into the state of Tam, he continues to have a little of identity till the very last when everybody goes to the Centre which is the Tam, and everybody at that stage enters into it and after that period of Maha Pralaya they come back again. The question is whether they themselves come back again? Can we believe that Markandeya comes back after every Maha Pralaya? Most probably we must accept it. But then, it is not clear whether it is a problem for experience or for imagination.

The Upanishad is very clear in this matter. The very same problem is stated in Katopanishad. Nachiketa asks Yama 'What happens to me after I get realisation, whether I exist or not?' 'It is very difficult' Yama said, 'do not ask me that question'. But he insisted upon the answer. Yama replied "Well, you will come to a stage where you are so much one with That that your distinction from it is very little. When you come out of It, a distinction comes out". That I is the Existence. The I or identity is that from which thought arises. Individual thought arises from the I. Now, it is a very difficult question to explain unless you go through that experience. Master says there is an element of man running parallel to the Divine. And the man who realized the Tam is one with the Tam. He almost identifies with the Tam. The human element or identity remains to the 'minimum extent' and it will remain till the very last, viz., Maha Pralaya. The realisation is that. If you want to have realisation here with the body, then you must have a minimum of identity and a maximum of the Divine. That is what we are seeing in the Master. In other words, it is precisely zero added before I and the number added after the decimal point which makes your identity less, nearing absolute Zero. This can be experienced in the lives of people. I can only represent this point by referring the Master himself. This condition can be said to be pure thought, with that slight point. And all his actions come from that Tam, through the infinitesimal. It becomes the passage through which the individualization takes place. In other words, Master says individuality is brought to the minimum. What is lost is individual and not Divine.

Master feels there is a great mystery, a mystery which is, beyond all spirituality also and if you want to experience, just try by adding a little bit of what you call Truth or existence. Then you will see whether He exists or not. The person who reaches Tam is more real than you. A man who thinks he exists, perhaps does not exist really. That is a condition indistinguishable from nonexistence. Existence and nonexistence are transcended in this condition. In other words, all our normal ways of describing this condition do not go far, and we are left to experiment on this aspect.

Do not have a fear that your identity is going to be completely lost, if you have any love for identity. Some people will say and in fact the great distress of Buddha was as everybody tells, that he was a nihilist. He said the human individual is a bundle of Samskaras and so everybody said he was a Sunya Vadin and that is how they follow him. What he means was that Ultimate cannot be described in the language of real experience and it is something to be experienced by Dhyana as he himself said. And Dhyana means what? Try to understand the original cause. If not, go on asking what is the cause. You come to the final point of the I. Can you then stop there? No, you have to go still farther, beyond the cause. So you see at that point, are you to say that you are born out of nothing? All that you can say is yes and no. It is very difficult. So, the Divine is completely different from the human and there is no graduated process. So, Buddha was misunderstood because the people who argued for him were intellectual, not those really experienced and lived for that. With a bit of the Divine, they expanded their individual and called themselves God or Superhuman. But He who is fully merged in that Tam and gives more importance to that Tam, creates a new kind of personality. That is a very great point which Master has stated. That is why, to understand fully the magnificence and attractiveness of the Tam, one has to put aside all the prejudices about the nature of identity. You must realize that Sat there is something greater than the identity.