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

Discourses on The Philosophy of Sri Ramchandra's Rajayoga -

Lecture -12
  
I was speaking about prayer last week. I also mentioned about the form which we have to worship. The most important aspect in all worship is, I suggested, surrender which develops into "devotion" when we surrender to the Master and place ourselves entirely at his training. We will have to surrender all our being, the physical, the vital, the mental and the spiritual. It is, of course, difficult to do all of them at the same time, but we feel that it is more easy to prostrate with the body than with our vitality or with our mind, though we are loquacious about the matter. We almost utter continuously "I surrender, I surrender" but the real surrender does not normally take place. Therefore, it is necessary to feel that the surrender will be accomplished and completed by the Master Himself. That is why, I think, the Upanishad rightly puts it in this form.

"Om Krato smara Krutham smara;
Krato smara Krutham smara".
"O lord of Sacrifice or Surrender! Remember what I have done and the second statement "Remember what I have done" means God will have to complete the act of surrender Himself. Now this is a very difficult point to explain and many people want to be lazy enough to say "let Master surrender. Why should I surrender, let Master do everything and I shall be the recipient". I do not think that is the meaning. If we go a little way, God takes us a long way. If we make total surrender, He will complete the surrender by taking us up. That is, we are enabled to surrender more and more willingly to His treatment and training without any protest, without resistance and without egoistic self assertions that we have done the surrender and that he has not done it. The whole point therefore is that our devotion will develop when we observe that not only our physical body is prostrated before the Master every day or every hour, but our vital bodies which are full of desires, cravings and other tendencies, get controlled. "Sama" and "Dama" equally follow it. Then, the mind also ceases to wander and we find constant remembrance and our spiritual faculties begin to develop. In other words, we find that we are more and more absorbed even without our being conscious that we are in God or the master. This is devotion. Once this occurs we recognize at once that God's Grace is flowing through us. And I hold the view that God's grace has begun to flow through us the moment we surrender either mentally or physically or vitally. Now all these things show that God is constantly with us and ready to take us up at the slightest sign on our part of accepting Him.

The most important thing in this matter is, we are willing to seek God or Master. That is an act of "will" not of "inclination" alone. If we have decided that we want the Master's help for our own higher evolution, or to reach the Ultimate, we will find that God is very near.

Now devotion is something which is like the fire of aspiration. Now whilst the old view was that devotion is a continuous, uninterrupted flow of aspiration upwards, and is described as a kind of liquid flow, (they call it "Thaila Dhara aviccinna Vat"). It is really a fire. It is a flame of aspiration which moves upwards and expands itself. But what is the function of this flame of devotion? Every flame as you know has its nature to burn whatever it touches.

Now the most important thing which has to be burnt in us is the "poorva samskaras" or habits of mind. The tendencies of our mind are always moving outwards to objects. Now those things produce certain complications in our affections. We get attached to those things. Those attachments have to be burnt up. And there are attachments of lifetime within us. All those things will have to be burnt up.

That is why Master says that the first experience that happens to us in this training is that we feel the Pranahuti which is a kind of air that makes the flame inside us burn brighter and look brighter and we experience a smoke, dark thick smoke, coming out of us. Some people are frightened about the matter. That is nothing to be frightened about except, I think the smoke. The same then slowly evaporates or goes out and we are left cleaner and lighter. There is also a light or heat produced in our bodies during that stage and that is why some people said it is Tapas. Tapas is that which heats. A heated condition is called Tapas. And when this increases, we find the old samskaras breaking from us and we get "Uparathi" as I may call it i.e., we do not worry about any enjoyment or we reverse ourselves from enjoyment. Now this is very important because, after the smoke goes away, the second stage is when we see a kind of light in our heart. Some people experience, it as a dawn light as Master says. But the beginning of the dawn is not the end. The dawn is the first stage of experience, and is not the final one. Some people say that when they reach the higher and higher levels, they will see more and more of the dawn. I think we should see more and more of the Sun. But actually we go far beyond the sun. The fact remains that Sun and all these things are on this side of the spiritual experience and not on that side of the spiritual experience. We go beyond the Sun and the Dawn and what we experience is a farther-dawn, not the dawn of this side. That is why, the veda has beautifully put it "There is many a dawn which has not yet shed its light". We go far ahead. Those who had some experience know that those two points are somewhere at this particular region - No.3 or 4 as we number it, i.e., on the left side just above the original point, is a point called `devotion'. It generates sufficient heat and when it comes to this point 4 which is said to be the point of fire or "invisible black fire" we would be having almost every one of our previous samskaras connected with this body taken away from us. Now that is a very big step. But that is achieved almost within the shortest time in this system. Many people say it is at the state of Jeevanmukti that we get rid of these. But actually it will take place long before Jeevanmukti, because even if we destroy all the samskaras of the past, we yet generate certain samskaras of the present which will bring us back.

Now, the final step, of course, is when we transcend and go beyond the fifth or the sixth point. Whatever it is, Master says that we can, by the grace of the Master, cross over the two points which produce the smoke and these ordinary frictional heated lights. That is the power, electrical power, which is introduced by the Master. So much so we have the experience of a smokeless light. Now, that is something which we will have by experience, but mostly through these two states - first when the burning of the samskaras take place, there is heavy smoke passing out of us mostly in the back and not in the front, and secondly we find ourselves light or lighted. We might find ourselves lighted all through. And if our previous training has been alright, we might be able to see ourselves at the Atma point. When the devotion becomes firmer, we find that the heat is so much that smoke is not found and light becomes something of a very pleasant experience. Now, it is not heat, We are afraid of fire, I know. But here is a fire which 'cools' rather than 'heats'. Obviously, our very nature is purified in our upward march. Now upto that point Master gives what happens through the preliminaries of training - meditation on the heart, prayer, surrender and also the way we have developed perfect devotion for the Master. By this time we must have sufficient trust and faith in the Master that he can take us far beyond what most people teach. For, many people stop at what the call 'Jeevan Mukti'. A place of no return or salvation. May be, they are a little freed from the old samskaras, which will not breed new lives and births. But that is not the goal. The God in a sense is far short of the Real Goal which we have held to be the Supreme, the Ultimate condition of the Master Himself. So, upto this point the preliminaries of the day to day should be adopted in a simple way.

The next step, of course, is what the Master has to do. As we have already said, in this system of Sri Ramchandra's Rajayoga our main pivot is the Master. If the Master is not capable, all these things which I have mentioned can not even take place. I am afraid we would not start our journey at all, though we might have appeared to have a lot of devotion, but such devotion is not reciprocated firstly by the Divine and secondly by our own nature. Our interior nature refuses to confirm to devote to any other being, however, well known for all purposes of the world. They might even perform great miracles; they might do so many things which I think are good. Master might not be able to do, for whatever reason I cannot say. One of the most important things in Yoga is, how so ever eminent a Master becomes, he shall not exercise miracles. Now that is a renunciation which is very difficult to get for the Master. That is the reason why I believe great Patanjali says interference of the Abhyasi may be a miracle or Siddhi, but the greater danger is to the Master himself, because he cannot get out of the rings of egoism which he does not seem to be aware of because for him God is the greatest egoist and the greatest miracle monger. For us, God is not that. God is a perfectly law abiding law giver. So He cannot do things which will break the law. He is not an arbitrary power, but the most righteous divinity. That being so, the whole purpose of yoga is to unite us with Him and get us the same condition as God Himself - impersonal, unattached, stainless, bodiless and so on as the Upanishad puts it:

"Chukram Akayam Avranam; Asnaviram Asuddham, Apapa Viddham Kavithi Manishee Paribhuh Swayambhuh ...."
These are the names and He is also said to be incapable of any low attachment and His only purpose is to see that we are lifted up to that condition where we abide by nature out of Yoga, and make us the most lawful citizens in the freedom and to feel free in a lawful world. That is the aim. So, both the world which he has made and Heaven would be meaningless if they lie as the gift at the whims and fancies of a God. I do not believe God wants any Freedom for Himself. Whatever it is we are asking for a condition in which we shall feel free, and that condition is where we can trust the Law of God and which is uniform for all. Therefore, those who entertain the view that God is just a miracle monger and is going about performing miracles, would not be right. That goal is wrong, in which case a Yogi who follows them must certainly get the miracles. I wish they all get the power to perform them because one man does miracles, others just follow him. You see the sheep, that is all.

Here, we are asking for freedom. So Master's responsibility is very big.

Now Master mentions in a way that most of us do not like a Master. That is, we do not follow the 'Guru Mata', but 'follow the Manmata. That is our own, just because we have come across many Masters who would like to make us their slaves. I believe they have got to make us free but not slaves. And a doctrine which teaches us that God wants us to be slaves of Himself is a very bad type of philosophy or religion. It may be that slaves live more freely than God Himself. But that is a different matter. Now why did we get into difficulties with the Masters. As I told Masters tend to make us slaves. They do not liberate us really. If they liberate us from one set of bonds, they impose another set of bonds which are not intelligible even and are inexplicable. So we try to be our own Masters. That is Manmata. So I myself directly will get into God. Very good. There are rare souls who get into Him. I do not know how they do it. But there are such cases. But exceptions should not be the rule. Most of us are not capable of taking up the direct inspiration of God. Now does God take us directly? I can only say the Great Master Sri Krishna Himself stated: "I choose the person whom I want to reveal myself". That is a very strange thing. But it is not arbitrary in my opinion. There are certain specific occasions in which a choice should be given. Our own great Grand Master seems to have been one such, because I do not hear he had a Master. The description is that when he was some 8 or 10 years, he suddenly felt that he had come for some other purpose. Immediately he began his voyage. That is extraordinary. Do not think that everyone of us is like Him. That is why Sri Ramkrishna Paramahamsa seems to have said that there are two types of souls the Iswarakoti and the Jeevakoti. Some people are born with the Power to do the will of God. That is the meaning of Iswarakoti, not one who goes about like a dictator chopping off the other people's heads and putting everybody in chains. They serve the will of God in the very cosmic and trans-cosmic structure. Our Master also speaks of the Supreme Personality which comes to this world once. I do not know in a millennia or more. Once in 10 thousand years perhaps, I do not know, the timing has not been given to me, but in a way such people are very rare. Suppose such a personality is present with us today normally we should avail ourselves of Him and follow the Guru Matha instead of struggling with out own little efforts which are crowned with defects in many cases. In every case we find people struggling because they could not accept authorities which had failed. We have met with Gurus who have been not in the true sense Gurus at all either by their precept or by practice or both but who are trying to make the falsehood appear truth and truth appear as falsehood and who have got such perversities and monstrosities. Now, in order to set right that condition, a Great Personality is born. Naturally He becomes the Guru. But then, it is not easy to recognize Him by the looks. I do not know how we can recognize the person when we come across Him. Even the Master says: 'please meditate and hope for seeing Him'. So all that I can say is, when we meditate and seriously pray for such a Personality, He comes to us. Obviously he may not be seen by anybody. But if we pray in earnest, if we really want a guide to help us to reach the Ultimate Reality, he comes. He may not come when we ask for any penultimate things of the world because it is not His duty to come for those things. He has come for the Highest knowledge, to give us the Highest Truth in the simplest possible way without complicating our body. That is why we hold that the Master's role in our practice of training is very important. We cannot train ourselves even with the help of the text books. That is why, it is very difficult to get a Great Master; and if we can get such a Master, our ability to pass these things would be increased and we would attain the Ultimate State in shortest possible time.