Spiritualizing the whole life: Swami Sarvapriyananda

Swami Sarvapriyananda

Spiritualizing the Whole Life

Who am I? 

May be the all this and the first question  that the first, that the first philosopher must have asked himself or herself and today I am going to take you to Vedanta philosophy, the philosophy of our Upanishads and an attempt to answer that question Swami Vivekananda said that each, each soul is potentially divine. That we are divine. The Upanishad say that you are non-other than God. But then what does this mean? what does it mean to say we are divine even, even me? So I am going to take you through one of the methods of the many methods you find in Vedanta to at least intellectually appreciate what Swami Vivekanand and all the teachers of Vedanta have been talking about. In what sense are we divine? Now what I’ll ask you to do is to work with me, metaphorically. I will guide you through a series of steps. You have to think with me, trying to understand what I am saying and feel it. Most important of all, feel it. So let’s go. What are we going to do? Answer the question who am I at the deepest possible level.

There is an ancient text called ‘Drigdrishya Veveka’ written some 700 or 800 years ago and I am going to take you through the very first verse of that text. What it does is; it tries to find out who we are and uses very simple technique. The technique is this. This is something that you will keep in mind while we will move deeper and deeper into the very deepest layers of our being. The technique is, the principle is, this operating principle is, the knower and the known are different. That which you see must be different from that which sees. The verse starts with very simple way, very innocuous, very innocent way; like any good teacher takes you from known to the unknown, from what is near to what is far. The verse starts with “ Roopam Drishyam Lochanam Drig”. The world, the world of forms and colours are the seen and the eyes are the seer, fair not, eyes are the seer and what I see in front are the seen and what is the principle. The seer and the seen must be different. They are different entities. So I can see you all in front of me. The eyes see you all, ……. the lights are so bright and that is possible because you are actually different from my eyes. You can see the hand in front of you because the eyes and the hand are different. In fact, the only thing that the eyes cannot see are the eyes themselves. Somebody said that. The limit of the vision, the limit of our vision is not out there but actually here. The eyes you can say, I can see a picture of my eyes or a reflection of my eyes but those are pictures or reflections. Though eyes do not directly see themselves. So it is quite fairly obvious that the seen and the seer, the seer and the seen must be different.

Second point to keep in mind is that the seen are many in number but the seer is just one. I don’t mean I have one eye but it is just one organ of vision. So here is the organ of vision and there are many things. The same pair of eyes, it sees may things. The seer being one, the seen are many. The third point I am pointing out the obvious; the third point is, the seer remaining unchanging, the seen keeps changing. Forms change, colours change. The world is continuously changing before my eyes and the eyes relatively unchanging, see this changing panorama. So three things we have got; the seer and the seen are different. The seer is one the seen are many, and the seer remaining unchanged, the seen, the objects in the world, they keep changing. Fair enough, very obvious I am just stating about the very common fact of life. Let’s go deeper.  The next stage of the verse says “Digdrishyam Drigtumanasam”. The eyes become the scene or the known the knower is the mind. In what scene? My eyes are open. My eyes are closed. I can’t keep my eyes open. This guy is boring me so much but who knows that. The mind knows it. The mind knows that my eyes are open, or eyes are closed. I can see fairly well with my eyes, I can’t see well. I need specs. All the conditions of the eyes are known by our mind. So the mind is the knower and the eyes are the known. Mind becomes Drista in Skt. Eyes become the Drishyam. the known. And as we said the knower and the known are different and obviously, the mind is different from the eyes, not only the eyes, all the sense organs. And the second thing is the mind remaining the same, sees the, sees the eyes, understands the eyes, the ears, all the other sense organs. Many sense inputs understood by the same, same mind. And the third thing, the seer or the knower remaining unchanging relatively, the eyes, the various conditions, the changing conditions of the eyes are understood by the same, unchanging, relatively unchanging knower. Three things; the knower and the known are different. The knower is one, the known are many. The knower is relatively unchanging the known is changing. 

Also obvious, let’s go deeper. And now the magic begins. The third quarter of the verse says Drishyathi Vrityah Sakshi: all that is happening in my mind, all that is happening in our minds, we know it that I am happy. Obviously, I know it, who else doesn’t know it, that I am unhappy, I know it. That you are interested or bored.  Who knows it? You know it, you feel it, there is something within us, which knows, which watches, which recognizes or which illumines the mind and for want of a better word, they simply use the word ‘Sakshi which any Indian knows means witness. Any Indian knows that it means witness, the ‘Sakshi’. Now, now let’s, let’s use that that principle. The knower and the known are different. This is a very interesting principle to apply right now. The Sakshi must be apart from your mind right now. You the Sakshi, the knower right now inside you must be apart from your mind because the knower and the known are different. This is a tremendous fact. There is an interesting story about this. A person, unhappy, goes to a Mahatma in the Himalyas as Indians are habituated to do and the Mahatma lives very high up because apparently the higher up you live the more wise you are. So this Mahatma lives fairly high up in the Himalyas. This man goes to the Mahatma and says Mahatma ji “I am miserable” and the Mahatma says, “Do you know your misery? Do you experience your misery?” This person says, “of course I experience my misery. I am unhappy and that’s why I have come to you. I am miserable I experience my misery and now you can sort of guess what the Mahatma told him. If you experience your misery, if you know the misery in mind, then you are the knower of your misery. You are the experiencer of your misery. Then the misery is in the mind and if you are the experiencer and the misery is experienced in your mind then you must be the experiencer and the experiencer and the experienced must be apart. The experiencer and the experienced, the knower and the known, the Dhrista and the Drishya they are apart from each other. So you are the experiencer of the misery in your mind. You are not miserable. You are not miserable. You are apart from the misery in your mind and that man he thought about it and you know what happens, the punch line comes next. You know what happens, when you think like this. I have tried it and anyone who tries it will feel it. Immediately when you feel it the mind gets a sort of peace. The moment you dissociate yourself from the tensions, the worries, anxieties of your mind you get a sort of peace. The mind calms down and this person came and told the Mahatma, “O Mahatma Ji, you are right. I am very peaceful now.” Immediately the Mahatma told him “you are not peaceful you are the knower of the peace in your mind and, and that is so important you know because the moment this person goes back to his city and back to his business and family as the nature of the mind is, it will become disturbed again. There will be problems again and what will you think when I was high up in the Himalayas with the Mahatma. I was so happy. I was peaceful. Now I am disturbed again.

So you are the knower of the peace in your mind. You are the knower of the anxiety in your mind. You are apart from the peaceful mind. You are apart from the anxious mind and that is real peace. This thing is called Sakshi. It is what you are right now. This is pure consciousness why do I call it pure consciousness because it illumines the mind. You are aware of whatever is happening in the mind right now. You are aware of it because of this Sakshi. Because of this pure consciousness. Vedanta says this Sakshi. Vedanta says this pure consciousness is what you are. If you have followed me so far I have told you that you are pure consciousness. If illumine the mind directly. Through the mind you know the body, through the mind and the body you know the entire universe. You experience the entire universe. But you are that pure consciousness.

If you have followed me so far two questions will come to your mind. The first question is. There are 400 people here in this very audience then from 6 to 7 billion people in the world and so many animals and other living creatures. How many Sakshis, how many witnesses are there? In each body and mind, behind each body and behind each mind is there a separate witness, a separate pure consciousness? or is it one and second you are the man of religion and talking of Vedanta. When do we get to get God. Where is God in all this? The answer comes in a most dramatic line in the Bhagvat Geeta where Krishna tells Arjuna in 13 chapter 2^nd verse. Krishna tells Arjuna, “ O Arjuna, in all these bodies and minds the consciousness, the witness in all these bodies and mind is one and I am that.” God says, “I am the consciousness shining through all these bodies and minds and this, one consciousness is where we are all one.” This is what Swami Vivekananda taught. This is the core of his teaching your all divine. Each soul is potentially divine.

The second thing he taught was the oneness of existence. The divinity of all human beings, all living beings and the oneness of existence. We are all one in that divinity in that pure consciousness. Where, when are you one. When we become a monk and realise it in meditation no, right now, I remember I was in Gangotri sitting at the feet of very old Swami. He was teaching me to this Vedanta and then he looked at us and he said ‘ye badi ulti Darshan hai Mahatma ji, Tum Jaano ya na jaano, Maano ya na Maano, Tum hi Ram ho’ I will translate for you, “ this is a very strange philosophy O Swami whether you realize it or not, whether you accept it or not, whether you know it or not. You are the Ramum. You are the divine.”  This is the core teaching of Vedanta. You have all heard of Shankara Charya singing, “ Mano buddhi ahankari chittaninah  roopah Shivoaham Shivoaham.” Many of you must have heard that. Now you understand what it means. I am not the mind, I am not the sense organs, I am not the intellect, I am not even the eye, why? because you can feel the eye, you can actually experience the eye right now ego. So I am not all this I am pure consciousness and bliss, “Chidanand .roopahShivoaham Shivoaham”, when the Upanishads tell you, “Taatwamun see you are that. When the Upanishads tell you Aham Brahmashmi. I am the Braham and the vast spiritual reality. This is exactly what they mean. The pure consciousness within each of us now which unites all of us. The pure consciousness is apart from the body and mind. It is unchanging while bodies come and go. It is unchanging while thoughts and ideas and emotions and flow and that unchanging, untouched pure consciousness which is neither born nor does it die. That is what is known as God in Vedanta. And we are actually identical with that.

Now, what is interesting in the little time remaining to me. I will tell what Swami Vivekanand did with this magnificent philosophy. What he did with this was beyond conformity. Tremendous, what he did, was, you know, a sort of revolutionary. All these years this philosophy had been here. Vedanta was with us for thousands of years. And Monks, Sanyaases they are expected to teach religion and go from door to door and beg for their food and they would go around teaching religion. That’s all that was expected of monks. What Swami Vivekanand said was “Shivagyane Jivseva” worship God in all living beings through service. After all what God are you seeking? The God which is within of all human beings. The totality of human souls is the only God I know Swami Vivekanand says. And how do you worship that God? You can worship God in temples, in Churches and Mosques but you can also best worship God, he says, through the poor with economic aid, to the sick with medical aid and help and care and the ignorant with education. It is not social service. It is spiritual practice you are literally in a most fundamental sense you are actually worshipping God. God has appeared to you in the form of the needy person, in the form of a sick person, in the form of the ignorant person and so he said monks should practise this kind of spiritual practice. See the tremendous change that has come. When the first Ramakrishna matth started a hospital in Haridwar, other monks used to call them Bhangi Saadhus, sweepers, why? because these people go and clean the dirt of patients and they wipe the urine and the stool and clean the blood and pus and treat the patient. “ye to bhangi saadhu hai, kya hai.” And today anyone of you everywhere in India, wherever come across an ashram, any kind of religious institution not just Ramakrishna mission (these people do for the society) in on a totality, what you say, what don’t you ask,  isn’t that a question in your mind? It is in everybody’s mind. See the change in mind set that has come. Spirituality is deeply connected with the service.

Another great change which Swami Vivekananda brought about. According to him there is no difference between the spiritual and the secular. No difference henceforth between the spiritual and the secular said sister Nivedita, one of the greatest disciples of Swami Vivekananda. And what it meant says, it is the same consciousness that is manifesting through all of us why should we say that one set of activities in a temple or a church or a mosque is religious. What about the school?What about the factory? What about the house hold? the workplace: all of them can be places for spiritual practice and you can have spirituality through art, through music, through science. In fact it will be interesting to know that last year the highest science award given by the government of India, The Bhatnagar, Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar award, was awarded to a monk, a mathematician of the Ramakrishna mission, Vivekananda university. And he is a pure mathematician. He got this Bhatnagar award from the government of India for his work in pure mathematics and topology. When the Times of India asked him. He is very shy. He is running around and the reporters started chasing him, you know. I said you give an interview, they will stop chasing you and they asked him how do you reconcile the two being a monk and being a mathematician?  And he said it is not contradictory for me, “being a monk- mathematics is my spiritual practice. So the sacred and secular are not different. We can all spiritualize our life. The implication is spirituality is for everybody not for just for monks or Sadhkass. It’s for all. You convert your daily life into spiritual practice and worship the living God in front of you. That’s what swami Vivekananda taught. 

Thank you.