What is new
Pujya Dr. K.C. Varadachari Complete Works Vol -1
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Talks and Lectures on the System of Sri Ramchandra's Rajayoga Evolution into True Spirituality |
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What is the necessity for the New System when
there are so many missions about us working for
the spiritual uplift of the people? The
necessity for this Mission is not a doctrinaire
necessity. Nor is it a necessity for giving just
ideas about God or individual salvation, which
are said to be capable of liberating man from
his miseries of the world around him. Ideas gain
force and are forces only when they cease to be
just ideas. Ideas have legs or rather grow legs
only when a dedicated soul gives them power. Bad
ideas engender bad forces as in the case of
ideas of inequality, class-conflict and
religious differences. Similarly, good ideas are
those which promote unity and charity,
truthfulness and non-violence, personal
necessity for character and devotion to supreme
ideals of welfare and spiritual growth.
Tolerance and personal cleanliness in mind, body
and speech are the necessity and these ideas,
though they have been bandied about both by
those who follow them and those who pay
lip-homage to them while practising
contra-ideas, and ideals, lead to a dangerous
condition of corruption of the mind and morals
of mankind. Therefore, individual missions must
watch whether corruption has crept into their
body politic and their souls are torn with
pragmatic compromises in the name of need for
unity. Unity can become a terrible catch-word
even as Advaita has become and not only does it
create conditions of fission and frustration but
also in the end defeats the goal of spiritual
freedom from miseries of all kinds. Therefore,
if we observe the workings and ideals of the
several missions, we would be appalled by the
divorce between ideas and facts or the force
said to be motivating their practical
operations. Therefore, new missions are needed
to purify them or bring about a realistic
relation between idea and force. But it has been
found that new missions are springing up like
mushrooms imitating all the weaknesses and
perpetuating all the vices of the previous
institutions so much so one gets disgusted with
them and man seeks a non-institutionalised
religious atmosphere and repels every suggestion
of starting new missions. Shri Ram Chandra
Mission has been started not merely to cultivate
a new dogma nor imitate other missions to make
real ideas forceless or prostitute them for the
selfish purposes or even unselfish purposes of
humanity. It is not just a mission for serving
humanity in all its aspects nor just a revival
or renaissance Institute for the rehabilitation
of ancient religions in a new garb. It is the
rehabilitation of man in his divine nature that
is the aim. For this purpose neither dogmas nor
slogans would do. No books are held sacred but
none is rejected in a sense. There has come a time in the world set up when man has the temerity to test the old dogmas and either accept them or reject them. The tests of truth are all there, but spiritual values are not capable of being tested except by experience of their validity or value on all tests. Neither mere perception nor mere inference nor analogies or even scriptural testimonies of the Veda can finally escape the final test of personal realisation of what one is, and what he is here for and what indeed is the Ultimate purpose or goal of man. Is it the knowledge of Nature; then does mere observation and inference or analogy help us to discover the truth. Would the tests of truth applied by sciences give us the ultimate truth? Our answer would be negative. Would these prove the truth of our psychological nature? The answer would have to be again negative. Surely these tests cannot help us to know the nature of God, unambiguously. Even the Veda requires apologetics (mimamsa) and these are as many as there are individual giants of logistic and philology. Therefore, for knowing and realizing Ultimate Experience or Reality one has to go beyond these. A mission dedicated for this only or sole purpose thus is the primary need. Shri Ram Chandraji claims that this Mission is for this purpose alone. To help an individual to arrive at that Ultimate Reality by means which are other than and loftier than the usual pramanas or means of exteriorised knowledge is the aim of the Mission. By all means it would be clear that this way of 'realizing' by being united with the Ultimate Reality or Being or God is not unknown to the past. It is known as 'Yoga' or Rajayoga. But the several missions have used yoga in so many different ways as disciplines of the body and the eradication of mind and speech or in diverting the mind to works, albeit disinterestedly, at the beginning of the world and institutions and this use has taken away its merit. Further the hypocritical usage of renunciation of family life has made yoga odious. Religion was said to be better than yoga and a religion without yoga is said to be good. This reminds me of the great vogue that the slogan Religion without God held in the early twenties of the century. It only meant the substitution of man in the place of God, though this man may be the self-styled or really worthy Guru. If Yoga means the linking of oneself with the Ultimate Reality then, the idea-force, which moves the individual towards union with the Infinite Ultimate should be of the subtlest order and divine. This is not by personal mental effort, or persistent repetition, which simulates remembrance of mantras or the worship of yantras and mudras and so on which form such a large part of ritualism that this union or yoga could be got. It is by the conscious acceptance of the Divine as the only goal of man and one's life, and being one's being. Surrender, of all other goals to this one Goal is the sine qua non or necessity for this inflow of Divine Prana or life-breath. If earlier yogas had stressed on the control of mental modifications by individual effort the more ancient method was to bring about the condition of union with the Ultimate by linking up one's breath or life-force which is more than our breath with the Divine Life-force by the Divine Himself, or through those who had attained this union with the Ultimate earlier by His Grace. Pranahuti is the principle of yoga or divine uniting Idea-Force which the preceptor or the Guru does and thus from the very beginning establishes the seeker in yoga. It is through Yoga that one grows in Yoga and evolves into the perfection of the Yoga. At no time does one get the feeling of being separated from the Divine presence and life force once having been introduced into this yogic condition. Not that some have not turned away from this union, which is subtle and spiritual, and because of its not being appealing to the sense-organs and motor-organs as other methods do, but that does not in any way lead to the attainment of real Union. It has been stated that there are three stages in the Yoga-the gain of salokyata, samipyata, sarupyata the gain of vision of the Ultimate the nearness to the Ultimate, the form of the Ultimate-but all these are gained through Union-Yoga of Pranahuti by the Divine. The final condition of being eternally one with that Ultimate Being is Sayujyata, then does one unite oneself with all even as the Ultimate does with one and all. Surely not through karma, not through jnana not even through mere devotion but by means of integral surrender which links one with the Ultimate does one get this condition by the descent of the Divine Prana itself which gives up itself to the individual for his emancipation and beatitude and irreducible peace. Therefore, this Mission which provides opportunities for this Pranahuti Yoga is unique and unlike other missions and as such is necessary for man's evolution into true spirituality. |