Bhagavan did not deliver discourses. But in every moment in his life, he ceaselessly communicated one teaching, using no words - let go of jeeva bodha, allow the aatma bodha to manifest. Do not block it with your ego. This struggle between the jeeva bodha and aatma bodha, is the spiritual journey.
The key message I have been able to take away from Sri Arunachala Aksharamanamalai, is the prayer 'Arunachala! You alone exist as sat-cit-ananda svarupam, as the true 'aham'. Let me not remain under the illusion that I am an individual apart from you. Destroy my jeeva-bodha, let aatma-bodha be my own reality'.
The aatma shines inside you eternally. Recognise the substratum, do
not attach yourself to the name and form. In the classical example of the
wooden elephant toy, the one who sees the wood, does not notice the elephant.
The one who sees the form, misses the real stuff - bheda is inbuilt in the name
and form. If we are carried away by the name and form, we will miss the
substratum, which is the aatma-svarupam. For the right perception to happen, several things
need to fall into place. Bhagavan brings in prayers for all these, in
Aksharamanamalai.
We need to choose the aatma. The one who chooses the path of shreyas, is chosen by the aatma to reveal itself. Arjuna chose Paramatma. Nachiketa refused all the worldly temptations thrown at him and chose the path of shreyas. Lord Yama then gave him the teaching about his own immortal nature. We should too choose our refuge wisely, discriminating between the eternal and the non-eternal.
We need to surrender the mind to Ishvara. Bhagavan
Shankaracharya says कमर्थं दास्येऽहं भवतु भवदर्थं मम मनः (Shivanandalahiri
# 27) – what else can I give you, except for my mind? The highest bhakti is
this – aatmanivedanam. Once the ego is surrendered to Ishvara, there is no more
delusion. This is true prapatti.
One can continue with one’s karma while in the state of yoga. Yoga
is the severance from our contrived association and identification with that
which gives sorrow - with the non-self. This identification manifests as doership,
enjoyership, attachment and aversion – कर्तृत्वम्, भोक्तृत्वम्, रागः-द्वेषः. The
important message of the Gita is - Perform your karma in the state of yoga,
always remember me and fight, always be a yogi. (योगस्थः कुरु
कर्माणि (2.48), मामनुस्मर युध्य च (8.7) सर्वेषु कालेषु योगयुक्तो भवार्जुन (8.27)). The real difficulty
arises not from our karma, but when we perform it without remembering our true
nature and under the assumption 'I am the doer', expecting our selfish desires
to be fulfilled by it and expecting it to bring us peace. Bhagavan did not ask us to renounce karma – he asked us
to renounce the person doing the karma, the jeeva, the ego, which we are
clinging to.
We need to be tender and humble, let go of the ego. When one
is an instrument of Ishvara, and converts all work (including dhyana) into work
of Ishvara, every action is an expression of devotion, and the ego is never at
play. This makes the jnani equanimous to the result and light in the mind. The most endearing quality that
devotees found in Bhagavan, was also this humility and tenderness.
People in the lowest strata of the social hierarchy were also treated with utmost kindness by him, not because he felt that he should set an example or that he should do social service. In fact, such motives feed the ego and reinforce wrong identities. He simply did not perceive anyone or anything as different from the self. He saw the world as the self, the world as Arunachala-svarupam. Ishvara was his aparoksha-anubhava, not an entity to be remembered separately while praying. This was not his imagination (he himself often said that never used his mind) - it was his living reality. He was the living example of what Bhagavan Sri Krishna describes in Gita shlokas 6.29 and 6.30 - He who sees the self in all, and all in the self, is the sama-darshi. He who sees me, Vasudeva, in all, never loses me and I shall never forsake him.
Bhagavan had reached, through atma-vichara, the state of sarvaatma-bhava - this is described as the maha-vibhuti, in the last shloka of the Dakshinamurthy stotram - सर्वात्मत्वमहाविभूति - the mighty grandeur of being the universal self of all.
We need to have bhakti and shraddha. In Gita, Bhagavan Sri
Krishna describes the kind of bhakta he likes - in #12.13 he says निर्ममो निरहङ्कारः – the person without the notion of I and
mine, is dear to Ishvara. Such people cannot protect themselves but Ishvara
protects their yogakshemam. When one reads about Bhagavan's initial years in Tiruvannamalai, when he was deeply immersed in samadhi and oblivious to the state of his own body and the world around him, one is astounded by the number of devotees who showed up out of nowhere, protected his body and helped his sadhana. He recollected years later, that Arunachala had taken care of him as if he was a chakravarti.
Relationship with Arunachala:
Arunachala is Paramatma. Bhagavan uses the expression 'Arunachala Paramatman' in several occasions.
Bhagavan and Arunachala were one. Bhagavan lived each moment
absorbed in the self. He considered Arunachala to be a manifestation of the
self. His devotees believed that Bhagavan was Arunachala’s human form, taken
for the purpose of teaching the nondual truth to the world. Simply put, for Bhagavan, Arunachala was Ishvara, Guru and aatma.
Living in the highest nondual state of reality, one would expect
that Bhagavan was a dispassionate and detached jnani. This is where the Sri
Arunachala Aksharamanamalai comes in to show us the other side of Bhagavan - as
one who shed tears of ecstasy out of devotion for his Lord.
He repeatedly pleads for ‘arul’ (grace) - probably the most commonly-used word
in the entire work. Sadhana was not externally evident in Bhagavan, and in many
of his devotees, but grace was showered on them by Arunachala. As Bhagavan Sri
Krishna says in the Gita, their sadhana must have been completed in their
previous births. The shower of ‘arul’ was a result of this. After all, the sadguru is the अहेतुकदयासिन्धुः - the ocean of compassion without reason.
The goal that was reached by this culmination of bhakti and jnanam,
is that of peace. Santosham was the word Bhagavan often used. This is
the state of the absence of sankalpas, that of peace arising from a mind
without ripples. In such a mind, in the chidakasha, Arunachala dances. How does
he dance? Bhagavan says हृदयकुहरमध्ये केवलं ब्रह्ममात्रं
ह्यहमहमिति साक्षादात्मरूपेण भाति – In the center of the heart-cave
Brahman alone shines in the form of the Self with immediacy as 'I-I'. If one had to pick one of Bhagavan's teachings as the most profound, it is probably this. This is the mahavakyam he gave us. The goal of human birth, is to experience this as one's own reality.
Wherever I may be physically located, Arunachala shines as I. He is
self-luminous, as my aatma-anubhava.
When one goes around the physical form of Arunachala, it is a powerful sadhana – a reminder to us to recognise the form as a manifestation of the one nondual really. The Giri-pradakshinam is not a physical exercise but a reminder of the journey inwards towards the self-luminous aatma-jyoti. For us as sadhakas, Arunachala serves as a vibhuti - a physical manifestation of Paramatma for the sake of upasana, to help rein in the mind and turn it inwards.
A devotee Frank Humphreys writes about his experiences - “When we reached the cave we sat before Him at His feet and said nothing. We sat thus for a long time, and I felt lifted out of myself.”
“I could only feel His body was not the man, it was the instrument
of God, merely a sitting motionless corpse from which God was radiating
terrifically. My own sensations were indescribable.”
With the blessings of Bhagavan, let us proceed on our journey by
contemplating on this outpouring of love and knowledge, Sri Arunachala Aksharamanamalai,
which serves as a constant reminder to us, as to who we truly are - Arunachala.
यत्र योगेश्वरः कृष्णो यत्र पार्थो धनुर्धरः । तत्र श्रीर्विजयो भूतिर्ध्रुवा नीतिर्मतिर्मम ॥
सर्वं श्रीकृष्णार्पणमस्तु
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