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Unity In Diversity
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To: alt-hindu@uunet.uu.net
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Subject: Unity In Diversity
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From: bnaik@tezcat.com (Bharat Naik, M.D.)
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Date: 10 Mar 1995 23:15:37 GMT
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From root@quilla.tezcat.com Fri Mar 10 18: 05:49 1995
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Newsgroups: alt.hindu
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Organization: Tezcat.COM, Chicago
Unity In Diversity
Salutations to all seekers of God. Here on this board, we have
one thing in common, that is - We all are believers of Almighty God and
we all are seeking him one way or the other. Above all, most of us are
Hindus or followers of “Sanatana Dharma” which cater to the needs of
people with different personalities. And precisely because of this,
there are various paths outlined i.e. - Path of Bhakti or Devotion for
the people who are emotional, capacity to love being their strong point.
Path of selfless work (Path of Action) or Karma Yoga for the people who
are physically able and could exhaust there inborn tendencies or Vasana.
And lastly, the path of Knowledge for the people who are obsessed with
dry logic and intellect being their strong point. In short, path of
Devotion for emotional, path of Selfless work for physically able and
path of Knowledge for intellectuals.
Normally all of us are combinations of all the above
personalities - we are emotional, intellectuals and able bodies. At
times we are emotional while other times we resort to logic. However, in
most cases, there is predominance of one over the others. Remember, I am
not saying one is better than the other. What I am saying we are just
different and that makes each one of us so special. When we are sitting
on the dinner table, we do not expect each one to like the same thing
that we like the most. There we respect each other liking according to
one’s own taste but when it comes to religion and various paths, we are
so intolerant. The religion which teaches intolerance and hatred that I
have been witnessing on this board, is not worth two cents. Obviously,
there is some problems with our understanding of validity and
desirability of different paths for different make up of our body, mind
and intellect.
There is a lot of intolerance of Advaitas by Dvaitas and vice
versa. Path of devotion has been regarded to be the simplest for most
of us and in that there is obvious dualism, one who is a worshipper and
other is worshipped. What one requires is faith in Guru and
predominantly emotional nature. Faith is firm unshakable belief in the
words of teacher. Bhakti begins in love, sustains in love and ends in
love. Bhakta gets so much of fulfillment in loving the personal God that
it is the means and the end both. He does not want to have anything, not
even liberation. As the love becomes more and more intense the distance
between the worshiper and worshipped becomes less and less and ultimately
he merges with the God, the ego is annihilated completely and he realises
the truth which Jnani realises by method of enquiry.
Is Bhakta’s personal God is different from Jnani’s impersonal
God? Is Bhakta’s God of love is any different from jnani’s Brahman? Is
the fulfillment and pleasure that Bhakta gets in love of God is any
different than the bliss that Jnani experience in the raveling in
Brahman?
There is one danger, however, in the initial preparatory phase
of Bhakti in which Bhakta has intense and exclusive love for his ideal
personal form and even suggestion of any other ideal or other point of
view becomes so intolerable for him that it evokes hatred for the ideals
of others, hence lead to fanaticism. There is no such danger in the
highly evolved form which is also known as Para Bhakti, in which Bhakta
has realized the ultimate reality that God is omnipresent. He sees him
everywhere and everything. How can he hate anything?
The problem initially for some that they can not accept anything
unless it is logical and satisfying to their intellect. When Guru points
out the to worship and surrender, he has thousands of why’s pops up in
his mind. I mentioned earlier that path of Bhakti is the simplest but
because of the texture of his intellect, he finds a lot of difficulties
especially initially with that. He wants to know if there is God how
come he can not see him or feel him? He is not ready to accept anything
and start worshipping idol. The intellect itself becomes hurdle. Guru
who has known the ultimate truth, who is on pinnacle can see that are
various paths which can lead to the same peak of the mountain of truth
immediately recognizes the problem and use his intellect to lead him to
the ultimate truth by the path of enquiry. Teacher tells him the first
mahavakya - “Pragyanam Brahman” and ask him to think about it. Meditate
on this. The journey of inquiry begins. Student finds it very appealing.
He experiences peace when he becomes one with the unconditioned
consciousness. Before it becomes monotonous and boring, teacher
introduces him to second mahavakya, “Tat twam asi.” The student find
something new and interesting. Until then he always perceived he is
5’10” and thin (identified with body), or at times he was angry and
irritable (identified with mind) or at times he thought he was truthful
(identified with ideals and intellects). On inquiring he realized for
the first time that what he thought he was, was really his equipments and
he is really unconditioned consciousness (pragyanam). He identified
himself with ever changing material things and consequently suffered with
their changing natures. Before he start thinking he knows it all and
unraveled the mystery of ages, the teacher throws the 3rd mahavakya at
him, “Ayam Atma Brahman”. Apparently thrown off balance he continued
his enquiry and experienced the pinnacle of truth - “Aham brahmasmi!”
Note that this is the experience. His intellect is satisfied. All the
questions raised by his intellect is answered by his own experience. Now
he understands that the paths which he had problems with initially are
the valid paths for appropriate personality make up. He sees the common
thread to all paths - that is annihilation of ego. Bhakta achieves this
with surrendering the lower self (ego, body, mind and intellect) to God.
He says “Thy will be done.” Karma Yogi achieves this by selfless work,
and not aiming at the fruits of action. For most of us, we get
fulfillment from the results of the action. For Karma Yogi, action
itself leads to the fulfillment. In other words he works for work sake.
I can hear Karma Yogi saying, “I did the God’s work, the best I could.
I am very happy regardless of whatever is the outcome.” but and Jnani
achieves this (annihilation of ego) by merging with unconditioned
consciousness.
Bhakta realizes the same truth when he reaches to the pinnacle.
Study any Bhakta who has realised the ultimate truth, you will hear
nothing different than what Jnani is saying. Listen to any Jnani who is
realised, his language is no different than that of Bhakta. Most of the
time, it is difficult to label them as one.
I am troubled by the word “Mayavada” on this board used
improperly by the people who should not even talk about Maya. The concept
of Maya has been used for the explanation of world of plurality which
seems to be in apparent contradiction to the reality and ultimate truth
which was unequivocally proclaimed by all realised ones that there is
only Brahman (God of Bhakta) and nothing else. Love being his core
personality, Bhakta has no problem. As mentioned earlier, love is the
means and the end for him. He does not need any philosophical
explanation of Maya or law of karma before he embarks on his journey to
realisation.
There is too much discussion here about our relationship to the
God. One would say, He is master and I am his servant. The second one
would say, “I am part of the God himself.” And other would say, “I am
the God.” These seemingly different statements have one thing in common
that they all are right !!! Let me explain before you start jumping your
guns. Most of the time we are steeped in our body consciousness. We do
not think ourselves any more than this flesh and bones. When we have
this kind of consciousness, there can only be master and servant
relationship. At other times, we rise above the limitation of our form
and establish link of our consciousness with the subtle body. This is a
big jump. In this consciousness, we overcome the limitation of the body.
We think only sky is the limit. We also appreciate, “what mind can
conceive and believe, it can achieve.” In other words, he appreciate his
god-like power in this state of consciousness. Not only that at time when
he is completely consumed in this consciousness that leads to such a
creation that he would not believe he could have done it without
superpower implanting his will or working through him. If you study
scientists and poets, you would get the picture. Thomas Alva Edition
stated that it was like some higher intelligence was manifesting through
him. No wonder, one feels, he is part of God in this state of
consciousness. On rare occasions in the height of meditation, our Rishis
of yore, managed to transcend the gross body and the subtle body both and
reached to the innermost core of his personality that is “Atman” which
they found no different than Brahman and in the height of ecstasy he
proclaims, “Aham Brahmasmi !” I am the God.
Nobody will make this point clear than Hanuman while explaining
his relationship to Lord Rama. “Oh Lord Rama, when I am steeped in this
body consciousness, I am your servant. When I identify with my subtle
body, I am a part of you. But when I identify with Atman, you and I are
the same.”
Spiritual unfoldment is a journey. We have to go from the
grossest to the subtlest in this journey. Each one of have to go pass
through all these phases. No, we visits this different states of
consciousness several times a day. More effortlessly we remain in
identification with subtler, higher is our spiritual evolution.
