The Nectar of Gita…for you, me and all! Essay 9:The Four-pronged Practice Methodology (Sadhana Chathushtaya) for Achieving Life’s Goal

Om Namo Bhagavathe Vaasudevaayaa!

Essay 9:            

The Four-pronged Practice Methodology (Sadhana Chathushtaya) for Achieving Life’s Goal

We all know very well that for achieving the ultimate goal in one’s life, one has to endeavor relentlessly on the chosen path and practice the virtues that go with it. Any detour or shortcuts lead to the person not reaching the goal. The path to success is not generally an easy one…but it is the right one. A follower of this path not only has to do certain things, but also has to strictly avoid or discard a lot of other things. Such a disciplined approach applies uniformly to the goals in the mundane world and also to that of the spiritual world. To make matters clear, let us consider two examples from both these worlds … an aspirant for admission to IIT or MIT, Harvard, Stanford and the likes on one side and a spiritual practitioner on the path of Gyana Yoga working towards Self-realisation. Both these practitioners need to follow a time-tested practice methodology that takes them to the desired goal. Let us see what it is!

Sadhana Chathushtaya (The Four-pronged Practice approach):

Self-realisation or Enlightenment is the ultimate destination of a Gyan Yogi. As discussed earlier, the path to Enlightenment is not an easy one. It requires stringent sadhana as per the ‘Sadhana Chathushtaya’ or the Four-pronged approach. The four key elements of the approach are:

I. Discrimination (Viveka)

II. Dis-passion or non-attachment (Vairagya)

III. The Six Virtues (Shat sampat)

IV. Longing for Liberation (Mumukshatva)

Now let us see by following these, how a goal seeker in the materialistic life and a practitioner or sadhak in the spiritual world would equally benefit.

I.Discrimination (Viveka):

It is the sense of choosing between good and bad; helpful and detrimental; constructive and destructive. A right choice would help the progress of the aspirant. An IIT aspirant should be able to choose the right approach that would be helpful in his endeavors. Similarly, a sadhak has to be able to choose between what is real or unreal (sat or asat); permanent or impermanent (nitya or anitya); self and not-self (Athma or Anathma) matters. So, the beginning starts with the right choices through an evolved sense of discrimination.

II. Dis-passion (Vairagya):

A student has to exercise a sense dis-passion or non-attachment to things that distract his energies. Passion about sports, movies, outings, etc. come in the way of his preparation. He has to be detached with these if he wants sure success in his endeavors. Similarly, a sadhak has to develop a detachment to worldly distractions and the pleasures they give. He needs to be above these material things. He need not avoid doing his worldly activities; but he needs to develop non-attachment to the outcome of such activities.

III. The Six Virtues (Shat sampat):

These six virtues are very essential for training the mind into developing the right attitude and equip oneself for the goal on hand. These virtues hold equally good for a student or the spiritual sadhak. These are namely;

1.Tranquility (Shama):

Developing an attitude of inner tranquility and balance of mind and composure, is the first step.

2. Sensory Control (Dama):

Controlling the sensory organs and directing them into more constructive ways is Dama. The eye desires to watch a movie or a game, the tongue wants to go out for dining; the ear wants to listen to pop music. Such distractions derail the efforts of the practitioners. So, controlling and channeling the energies of the sensory organs is very crucial for success either at the University entrance examinations or for entering the world of spiritual enlightenment.

3. Withdrawal (Uparathi):

Discriminatory withdrawal of the senses from outside distractions and concentrating them inwards brings calm and satiety. Such inward looking approach helps one stay focused on his goals.

4. Forbearance (Titiksha):

Tolerance to external situations and their undesirable consequences with equanimity is called Titiksha. Unfavorable situations during practice may occur…outside disturbances, inner urges like hunger and thirst, weather oddities like heat and cold, activities of detractors; all these may disturb the balance of the practitioner. Cultivating a sense of forbearance helps the sadhak to stay on his path.

5. Faith and Dedication (Shraddha):

An unwavering faith in the direction chosen; in the counsel taken; in the body of instructions and knowledge taken from the trainer; is imperative for success. Skepticism in any of the above will steer the sadhak off the course.

6. Focus (samadhana):

Resolute focus and concentration of all thoughts and energies on the goal will negotiate the practitioner to the destination.

IV. Longing (Mumukshatva):

An intense and longing desire for enlightenment or for attaining the desired goal is called Mumukshatva. This longing desire as an undercurrent, steers the practitioner away from various distractions on the way and finally reaches him to the desired destination.

As you have seen, the ‘Sadhana Chathustaya’ encompasses virtues that are very much applicable to anyone having set goals. He could be a student or professional in the material world or a sadhak in the spiritual world. The road blocks and distractions are the same on any path of progress. Overcoming these hurdles requires concerted efforts and a time-tested strategy. The Rishis have given us this highly time-tested strategy of ‘sadhana chathustaya’ thousands of years ago. It is necessary for us to be aware of this and adopt it for success both in the day to day life and also for spiritual progress.

The Nectar of Gita…for you, me and all! Essay 8: The Six Thieves that destroy happiness from within!

Om Namo Bhagavathe Vaasudevaayaa!

Essay 8:            

The Six Thieves that destroy happiness from within!

It is not uncommon for most of us to be unhappy for some reason or the other both in personal and work life situations. The reason could be anything…. not able to get a physical possession of our choice, or get a hike at work, or not having a choice of boss or subordinates, etc. The unhappiness becomes more pronounced, if our neighbor or colleague, another family member or a friend appears to be more successful in this regard.

In such times, we generally try to look around for finding the source causing such unhappiness and often times, we may even be successful in pinning the blame on someone around us. But do we ever care to look inside us for seeking out the real cause for such unhappiness? While the unhappiness is a feeling within us, we look for the culprit outside of us. strange but true. Isn’t it?

So, let me introduce you to the 6 Thieves, that lurk within all of us and take every opportunity to mislead us into doing actions detrimental to our well-being. This path surely leads us to despair, dejection and unhappiness. Only a well aware person knowing their existence could consciously work towards not falling prey for their fatal attraction and lead a life of all round happiness. So, let us start by knowing them.

The 6 Thieves:

These are called ‘thieves’ because they sneak into us and work from within, without we being even aware and steal our happiness; just like an ordinary thief sneaking into a house and getting away with our prized possessions. These are namely;

1 Desire (Kama):

This starts as a seed and grows very fast and envelopes us in its fatal charm. In its worst form it becomes lust. It destroys our reason and our only intention and effort would be to satisfy this desire by going for that object. For instance, our neighbor buys a car and we would like to go for similar or a better one. Even if our financial position does not permit us, we may be tempted to go for it by taking personal or an EMI loan. If the finances do not cope with, this may end in a disaster leading to unmitigated happiness. While our unreasonable desire was the culprit, we try to find fault with the car financier or our job for not affording us enough incomes.

2. Rage or Anger (Krodha):

When our desire for car ends up in a financial disaster, our unhappiness pushes us into a fit of rage or anger against people, who we mistakenly think to be the cause for such a situation. Anger kills reason and prompts us into doing some more disastrous actions.

3 Greed (Lobha):

“Greed gets grief” is an old saying. A healthy, legitimate and controlled desire for something is welcome, but greed for something lands one into grief. We get to see the stories of many public servants, politicians, Industrialists, etc.…in their greed for amassing wealth, power and control, they resorted to unethical means that finally landed them into disrepute and grief. So, it becomes necessary for each one of us to draw a line between desire and greed and act with discrimination.

4. Attachment (Moha):

We often get attached to people, places and physical possessions. While a general liking is desirable, unreasonable attachment may lead to grief when one is forced to get separated from it. It could be our undue attachment to a place, a position, some people or our material possessions. When the time comes for separation, we will be grief-stricken. So, it is always wise to be aware of this fact and be prepared for it mentally. It saves us from a lot of grief subsequently.

5. False Pride/Ego (Mada):

While it is a good thing to be proud of our endowments, false pride or ego stands in between us and people and destroys human relationships. So, respect for others as we respect ourselves is the key to sustaining happy relationships. One who is aware of this and puts it into practice will always be in state of happiness.

6. jealousy (Matsarya):

Jealousy like cancer grows silently and kills our happiness. One who is always jealous of others progress and well-being, can never be happy. Jealousy is the root cause for prompting us to do undesirable things for destroying the peace of others. One who is aware that jealousy destroys oneself more than the other, will never be jealous of others.

Gita calls these six as ‘Arishadvargas’ and exhorts sadhakas to be aware of these 6 internal enemies and through conscious spiritual practices overcome these for an enlightened living full of bliss and happiness. Overcoming these will make one lead a happy and contented life at home and also at work.

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The Nectar of Gita…for you, me and all! Essay 7: Are you aware of your ‘Internal Hierarchy’?

Om Namo Bhagavathe Vaasudevaayaa!

Essay 7:            

Are you aware of your ‘Internal Hierarchy’?

As employees working in different organizations, we all are quite conversant with the Management Hierarchy of the organizations we work for. It is generally a linear controlling structure vested with supervising and controlling the activities done by a level lower by the next higher level.

Typically, any Organization will have a main office building out of which all functions are done. At the base and the front office level, we have the Executive Wing(EW) that is responsible for day to day operations like sales, service, marketing, customer interaction, etc. This wing is the interacting point with outside world. All experiences with the outside world are handled by this wing.

The EW reports to the Business Head(BH) who supervises, reviews, approves or disapproves the deals done by the EW. The BH consolidates all the deals or activities found suitable by him and presents them to the CEO for final endorsement. The CEO being in a position of high responsibility, uses all his mental maturity and wisdom, evaluates the deals for their short term and long-term impact on the sustainability and finally approves or disapproves all or some of the deals that are recommended by the BH. His decision is final and is carried out by the organization. Beyond the CEO, there is a non-executive Chairman who watches over the affairs of the company. He does not get involved in the day to day affairs but gets posted of the developments and keeps an observant eye.

Corporate Hierarchy: Lets summarize this as under:

Office Building ---- Executive Wing(EW) ---- Business Head(BH) ----- CEO ----- Chairman

While this is the typical Organogram of the companies we work for, do you know we have more or less similar Hierarchy within us doing similar functions? Surprising, isn’t it?

Internal Hierarchy:

To start with, let’s look at our physical body which is the Corporate Office from where all actions are carried out. We have the 5 sensory organs – Eyes, Ears, Nose, Tongue and the Skin which form the Executive Wing of our Body Corporate. These interact with the outside world very strongly and transmit this data to the Mind which is the Business Head of our Body Corporate. The Mind experiences the sensory data and undergoes its own feelings of pleasure and pain. It gets influenced by the sensory experiences and strongly gets associated with such experiences and desires to go for corresponding actions. But we have the ‘Buddhi’ or the discriminating intellect which is the CEO of the Body Corporate who carefully evaluates the short term and long-term impact and propriety of such actions and decides to act in a befitting way. Finally, the decision of Buddhi or the CEO shall be implemented.

Watching from a distance with an observant eye, is the Aatma (‘I’) or Soul, which is the non-executive Chairman of this Body Corporate. Here, all actions of the Body corporate are done in the name of the ‘I’, though the actual sensory experiences are undergone by the Mind. That’s why we say “I saw it’; “I heard it”; “I ate it”; I smelled it”; ‘I touched it” etc. Without this “I”, one cannot have any experiences.

So, Let’s summarise our internal hierarchy!

Our Body (Office) --- The Sensory Organs (EW) ---- Mind (BH) ---- Buddhi (CEO) ------ Aatma (Chairman)

Gita says, controlling the sensory organs and mind through discriminating intellect is the key for sustained happiness and bliss. The sensory organs are compared to horses tied to a buggy which run amok if not properly reined in by the driver. So spiritual progress leading to eternal bliss and happiness requires an effective control of the sensory organs and the mind by a discriminating intellect. This can be achieved through ‘Sadhana Chathustayam’ (The 4-pronged Practice methodology) about which we will discuss in subsequent blogs.

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The Nectar of Gita…for you, me and all! Essay 6: The Five Approaches to ‘Action’ (Karma)

Om Namo Bhagavathe Vaasudevaayaa!

The Five Approaches to ‘Action’ (Karma)

Gita talks a lot about ‘action’ (Karma) in the Karma Yoga chapter (The Path of Spiritual action). However, Gita does not talk about what actions to be done; instead, it talks about how the actions are to be done. It categorically says that each one has to do his or her enjoined actions. The day to day life in the world is full of actions. Actions happen every second. Life comes to a standstill without actions. That’s why, Vasudeva Krishna says He continuously does actions so that people emulate Him. He says if He stops doing actions, taking cue, people also stop doing actions.

Gita talks about five approaches to action. There are five categories of people in the world following 5 different approaches to action or Karma. Let us see what these are:

1.The non-doers:

These are a category of lazy people and work-shirkers who avoid doing any action. They think action leads to consequences and consequences lead to pleasure or pain. They do not wish to face any such outcome and hence feel not doing any action is the best course and try to live like parasites on others. We often see such people in our day to day lives at work, families, society and public life. They waste away their precious lives and become a burden on the society. Gita strongly denounces such ‘non-doers’. This is the state of ‘no-action’ or ‘Akarma’.

2.The indiscriminate doers:

These are a category who do all kinds of actions. Good or bad, they do all kinds of actions for their self-interest. They cannot discriminate between what is good or what is bad. They do actions with the sole intention of benefitting themselves. These pose another type of threat to humanity. Gita does not speak good about these indiscriminate doers. Nevertheless, it says these are a shade better than total non-doers. This is the state of ‘action’ or ‘Karma’.

3.‘Discriminating Doers’ with attachment to Results:

These are the middle category who very well discriminate between good and bad actions and do only good actions. These people can understand the consequences of each action and have the ‘discriminatory intellect’ (Buddhi) to filter out the actions with bad consequences and are capable of choosing actions that give rise to generally good consequence. While performing such chosen actions, they are guided by their results and get strongly attached to the outcome. Gita calls them as ‘Karmisthi’. To quote a contemporary example; at work, it is generally believed that hard work leads to rewards by way of pay hikes and promotions. So, the desire for hike or promotion prompts these people to put in hard work. They get strongly attached to the outcome of such hard work and get overjoyed if they get the desired result. The flipside is, they get depressed and disgruntled if they don’t get the desired result. We find a large number of these people at home, work and in the society as well.

4.‘Discriminating Doers’ with non-attachment to the results:

These are a class of people ranking above the previous category. These can discriminate between good and bad and perform the actions with all sincerity and competence. But they are indifferent to the consequences of such actions. They are non-attached to the outcome of their actions. They perform actions as they are required to be done by them but are not affected by the outcome of such actions. They don’t get elated at success or dejected on failures. These stay balanced and are in a state of equanimity. These are spiritually evolved people and one will be lucky to find them in daily life. Gita calls them ‘Karma Yogi’.

5.The ‘Gyani’ or the one who has no requirement for any action:

This is the rarest of the rare category of people. One may find one in a million. He is a spiritually realized person who has no material desires and hence has no requirement for any action. But in the physical world, they may be doing certain actions for the general welfare of the world with no personal interest or attachment. Gita calls such a person ‘Gyani’ or ‘Aatma Ram’. In the spiritual world one can find many examples of such a category of people like Ramakrishna Paramhamsa, Sri Ramana Maharshi, etc.

A Gyani does not gain by doing an action or does not lose by not doing any action. He has no requirement of any action. Nevertheless, he may still do some actions in the best interest of the world. But they are not bound or attached by the results of their action.

Gita places this as the highest form of ‘Karma yoga’ and impresses upon people to gradually move up from the state of ‘in-action’ to ‘action’ and then to result-oriented discriminating ‘action’ and then to discriminating ‘action’ with total non-attachment and then finally reach the destination of the state of non-requirement of action in the journey on the path of ‘Spiritual Action’ (Karma Yoga).

The flow chart in the jargon Gita would be as follows:

Akarma ----Karma ---- Karmisthi -----Karma Yogi ----Gyani

The Nectar of Gita…for you, me and all! Essay 5: Myths around the concept of ‘Moksha’

Om Namo Bhagavathe Vaasudevaayaa!

Essay 5:

Myths around the concept of ‘Moksha’

In our day to day life, we often hear people using the word ‘Moksha’ quite liberally. Often times, it is loosely used to indicate death, liberation, freedom from worries and the like. This word ‘Moksha’ is a very mysterious and elusive concept for many, more so, in the contemporary world. Even the educated lot from the practitioners of Hinduism tend to believe that it is something esoteric.

If someone was speaking about ‘moksha’, people tend to move away. This happens on account of the following reasons. The young think that it is more relevant for their parents, the middle-aged think that it is for the retired and the old think that it is something that comes after death and are therefore reluctant to deal with it. The reality is that, people have neither clarity on this nor do they make any effort to actually understand the concept of ‘Moksha’

Let us try to see a few myths around this concept arising out of a sheer lack of understanding and try to demystify the same.

Myth 1: “Moksha means death”

For many, moksha means death. It is the end of life. It is something that happens concurrently with death.  

Fact: The fact of the matter is, moksha does not mean death. It means ‘Liberation’. Liberation from the cycle of ‘births and deaths’. In fact, it leads to immortality. When someone is free from the cycle of births, he has no death. Hence immortality.

Myth 2: “Moksha is the ‘other worldly’ thing”

For most, it is something not relevant for this world and happens only in the ‘other world’. They believe it is something to do with living in ‘swarg’ or heaven after death.

Fact: The fact is that, ‘moksha’ as per Gita, is to be attained in this world, in the current life itself. It is a state of ‘self-realisation’ or ‘Enlightenment’ or destruction of ‘avidya’ or ‘ignorance’, which a person has to attain through continuous ‘saadhana’ on the path of ‘gnana’ or ‘Knowledge’.

Myth 3; “Moksha is for the retired and the aged”

People try to move away from understanding this concept, thinking that it has relevance for the retired and the aged people. So, the young and the middle-aged happily defer knowing this concept.

Fact: The fact is that it is as relevant to the young as it is to the aged. It is the knowledge about one’s ‘Inner-self’ that is synonymous with the ‘Cosmic self’ and it helps an individual to lead a life of eternal happiness and bliss. The sooner in life one understands this concept, the better it is for him to lead a life of bliss in universal harmony for the rest of one’s life.

Myth 4: “The desire for Moksha is a selfish goal”

We often come across this kind of baseless criticism from people who seem to hardly know the concept of moksha leave alone understand it. They tend to say that, our scriptures impress upon the individual to attain this goal, which is aimed at the selfish interest of an individual and not the community as a whole. They say that, it may help an individual to benefit but does not benefit the community as such.

Fact: This criticism comes out of total ignorance. An individual is a part of the whole and when all individuals work for it, the community itself moves towards the common goal. Here, the ‘saadhana’ or the training is individualistic. Attainment of moksha does not happen through community prayers. If a person wants to become a police officer, he has to work for it and undergo the training grind to be successful at it. Similarly, a saadhaka has to work persistently on the laid down spiritual practices that lead him from ignorance to knowledge and eventually to the state of enlightenment.

The concept of moksha directs an individual to look inwards and realise his ‘inner-self’. Once he realizes this, enlightenment dawns on him that the ‘Chaitanya’ that flows within, is no different from the ‘Chaitanya’ that is pervading in everything and everywhere. In other words, the ‘aathma chaitnaya’ or the ‘inner energy’ is a reflection of the ‘vishwa chaitnaya’ or the ‘cosmic energy’. One who attains this state of Enlightenment does not differentiate between self or others and exudes universal love. He will be in a state of eternal happiness and bliss. If all the individuals reach this state, the entire community, state, country or the whole world will be a place bathing in universal love and brotherhood. Such a world has no place for hatred, enmity or war.

Now it is for you to decide whether the desire for moksha is really a selfish goal or not?  

Once these common myths are demystified, we can lean more about what Gita tells us about the concept of moksha in the coming blogs!