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IDEAL (Commandment 3)     

  

The third commandment pleads with us to, "Fix up your goal which should be complete oneness with God, Rest not till the ideal is achieved".

In order to achieve success in any sphere of activity, we should have clear idea of the goal to that endeavour. A firm determination to reach the desired end goes a long way in strengthening our will for the task. If however there is no clear determination the chances are that we end up with penultimate results. A student seeking to have his honors in the graduation if he is not clear about his aim, is likely to end up in sports or in theatres or simply to have squandered his time and resources. It is true in the beginning we have no practical idea of the goal in any task. But we have before us persons who have aimed at the same goal and achieved a great degree of success. Their lives become our basic information in the task at hand and they become our models to emulate. We have earlier while studying the Prayer given to us by the Master stated that the goal of human life is the Master. The idea of the Master as the goal is likely to attract many ideas about God/Master we are accustomed to either through study or cultural inheritance. The most mature concept of the Master is that he is a Samavarthi one who does Just.

The Master exhorts us to fix our goal. This call for "Fixing up our goal." many of us have heard several times as some sort of a choice before us. We can choose either Hell or Heaven or Paradise or this earth itself or we can choose God. That seems to be our approach. Revered Babuji's approach on the contrary is, it is our duty to reach the Ultimate. Thus in Raja Yoga to reach the Infinite Absolute is one of the primary duties of man. Master explains that 'the currents flowing from the Origin manifest themselves in diverse ways. They had descended not without purpose. They were in fact powers, which began to act in numerous ways, producing the required results. All these powers had emerged from the Origin and began to manifest their actions'.

Similarly in the case of man, Master explains 'the multiplicity of actions made him incognizant of all the various changes which, he had undergone during the march towards grossness. Now he is so intensely engrossed in it that it defies all efforts to get out of that state of complete grossness. Later on it took another turn. He came in touch with the world around and was influenced by the dealings and associations of others.' This explanation is one of the best we have on the concept of 'Anadi Karma' (Original Action) propounded by several systems of Vedanta. God had his own purposes of creation, but then what made us jump into it, is a question. That is the reason for our fall. What is that reason except our interest in a display? Then it is our duty to get back to Him. Why did we wait all these ages? Thousands of years, thousands of lives we have gone through, in the display forgetting our primary duty to get back. So we should note, fixing our attention on Ultimate as our Goal is not a choice. When we don't do it we are not discharging one of our primary duties that is expected of us by Divinity and is the ultimate good to ourselves. Duty is for one's own good and is a concept that is to be understood well. If we understand the seriousness of it, we will appreciate why Revered Babuji again and again brings this concept of the time before creation. We may understand why at every stage, he brought the concept of creation. If we go through His books we see on every possible occasion He impresses upon it. He reverts to the subject very often, only to make us understand or remember our Homeland as He puts it, to be with Him.

Our duty is to be with Him. Not to be elsewhere. Not to discharge a few functions that are entrusted to us by the society. Not to discharge certain functions our family expects of us. Not to discharge certain functions which will improve our prestige in society. None of these social goods, answer the call deep within.

This has an implication on the "problem of good". We feel compelled, very often to alter existing circumstances to what we may consider as 'correct' or "good" and in the process find fault with others, their behaviour, their conduct etc. When someone is not behaving in the family/social/personal life according to established ways and manners, we tend to ask how is it that he is in the company of the Master? When someone else seems to be a person without good character as judged by us we ask how is he in the system of spirituality? There is a case, long back at Tirupati, a Professor of the University there, refused to sit along with another Professor of the University whom he considered as basically unspiritual, irreligious etc; He said "how can I sit by his side, his very sight makes me abhor him". My father's answer was, "do you come for his sake or are you coming for Divinity's sake? Are you coming for meditation to realise your true nature or are you going to bother about him". But he never understood. He never understood his duty. We always tend to evaluate others, though we have no business doing that. Every person has a right of freedom to live according to his desire and will. If such living is not according to established social and legal norms there are institutions to attend to that problem. It shall be none of our concerns.

The other man's concern is the other man's concern; if he is not well, he is not well. How does it concern us? We have been fools on our own, leaving the Homeland, working up our veils, doing all sorts of Karma, getting entangled in a mess. Now if somehow we are able to remember the homeland, then we should get back to it. We have no right to judge others and evaluate them by our standards, forgetting our duty. In the process we tend to be uncharitable to the other person being evaluated. It would be wise to desist evaluating others until we see things from a calm mind and a calm vital consciousness. We are in general, always more able to criticize sharply the work of others and tell them how to do things or what not to do than we ourselves avoid the same mistakes and wrongs. If defects are found in others according to our judgment it is our duty to correct it if we can and not find fault for such lapses or actions of the other person.

Until we have this clarity, it is a big confusion for us. The defects are found in others, in society and in the relations we have with other societies and countries. Are we to totally ignore our duties to correct others? How are we going to bother about society here in this context! After all things are happening in such a way outside, that on the road today somebody almost challenges that he will immolate himself, some boys are immolating in the North, there is riot, the Naxalites demand so many things. We may ask - are we not to respond to the social needs? Yes, we can, we should, but there is always a limitation to the individual involvement in this matter- these are issues to be tackled primarily by the Governments.

There are two attitudes we can have, one, either an attitude of equality to all regardless of their friendliness or hostility and two a general goodwill to all. It is improper to have an attitude of cursing or hatred to others. The imperience had during our sadhana, enables us to look upon all things and all people with a calm and clear vision and be impartial and uninvolved in our judgments. But this attitude is likely to lead to neutral indifference to all problems of society and Nations. If there is no kind of general action desired or needed, no loyalty to Truth is involved and no will for Truth to triumph and it is an action for one's personal sadhana then the attitude of neutral indifference and samata would be enough attitude for us to progress. The message of Lord Krishna in the Gita is our guiding principle in these matters. Arjuna wanted no action against assailants; Lord Krishna who advocated the philosophy of Sthitha Prajna, rebuked Arjuna and insisted equally on the need to fight the adversary. The lesson is we should throw away personal and egoistic feeling of hatred and ill will and take sides with the Truth and refuse to concede anything to the falsehood that attacks us. With this attitude we see that the inner spiritual equality is right and the active loyalty and taking firm stand with the truth is equally right- they are not incompatible.

We shall examine the next concept introduced by Master in this Commandment. "Rest not till the ideal is achieved". Here there is an advantage for those practicing PAM, because the influx of Pranahuti is a matter of abiding experience of the aspirants, and this propels them to not take rest till the experience matures into a state of being with the Lord. By saying that we will not rest till the ideal is achieved, we are firming up our will to be with the Master till the goal is achieved and thereafter abide in His Consciousness. We have accepted Him and we can always feel that His support is there. He is ever prepared to help us. He needs no rest. Because even if we rest He will be active still, once this path is followed.

We may recall Revered Babuji's illustration of a person getting drowned; the restlessness to reach the homeland should be like a person who is getting drowned. In one of the stories illustrated by the Saint Paramahamsa Ramakrishna we find, a person who went to him and wanted to know how restless a man should be in spiritual life. The Saint took him to river Ganges and then forcibly put him below the water. That man somehow wriggled himself out and then the Saint Ramakrishna said 'if you develop this type of restlessness to get out of this world, you will reach God.' It is for us to evaluate ourselves. We hear often "Am I not restless, am I not coming for meditations whatever may be the problems, am I not able attending to morning sittings, am I not attending satsanghs." We go on giving certificates for ourselves, but then these certificates do not work. It is like the same thing as a person who is going to get drowned. This question will be for persons who are not already drowned. All of us are drowned in the mire of Maya, in the mire of Prakriti, stated in whatever language we may like; in the display of Nature. We are lost here in the display of Nature; we have to come out to reach our Homeland. Do we feel so? We feel now and then perhaps that this is not all that convenient, like a fish, come up to breathe and again we go down. How long should we do this?

How long should we continue with our Sadhana? As long as it is required by us to become a 'Big Zero' and allow the Divinity to express itself through us. In us others shall see Divinity alone, we shall be totally forgotten by others. When they see us- they must see Divinity in us. Let us take for example, our Master Revered Babuji. We know He has not given us a scope to think that He is father of Prakash or father of Umesh or son of Sri Badriprasad or disciple of somebody else. We know fully He has not given that image at all to us. He has given only one image to us and that image is He is Divinity in expression. There is no other image that He is capable of giving us. He annihilated Himself to that extent and He pleads with us to come up to that level. Nothing short of it is our Goal.

The Goal, the imaginary goal of complete oneness with God during meditation is not the Goal advocated by Sri Ram Chandra. That is not what He is asking us to achieve, whatever we say of our state of mind during our meditation shall find expression outside and when can it be? When we are a total 'Zero', not when we become zero during meditation, which most of us become-most of us have achieved that stage. Most of us have achieved a stage of oneness with Him, in meditation we are finding ourselves calm, absolutely undisturbed, no thought, and everything is fine in deep Samadhi. Still when others see us, they see us as X, Y, Z. They don't see Divinity in us. The reason for that is we have still hidden Him inside, the Divinity is still inside the cave. That is what Revered Lalaji Maharaj said about God Realisation. He said,' now you have been displaying yourself having Divinity hidden inside, now you hide and allow the Divinity to be seen by others.

Many seekers enter into this field of spirituality and express keen concern for realisation of their true nature. The rigors of practice and the experience they have make them move a considerable distance. But a state of complacency develops when the experience of meditation and the changes observed in oneself are felt as satisfactory. In the long journey through the desert, oases are there but they shall not be our resting places. The famous story of the race between rabbit and the tortoise is a standing example of taking rest forgetting the goal. Unless a Master of caliber is available one is likely to lapse into deep slumber half way in the path.

That is all about Sadhana and restlessness required of us. Once we understand our inseparable relationship with the Divine during our meditations through our progress in the path of spirituality, and this gets fomented by the constant watchful eye of the Master, clarity of the goal emerges and we implement this commandment easily.