Vivekachudamani
In the first sloka Sri
Sankara pays obeisance to God and his own Guru. The sloka says: I bow down to
Govinda who is the goal of all Vedanta, who is beyond words and thought, who is
supreme bliss itself and who is my Guru. By the word Govinda the supreme Lord as
well as Sri Sankara’s Guru Sri Govindabhagavatpada are meant. It is laid down
in our tradition that the Guru should be looked upon as God Himself and not as a
mere human being. In his work entitled Satasloki, in the very first sloka Sri
Sankara declares that the Sadguru is incomparable in all the three worlds. He
says:
“There is
nothing in all the three worlds that can be compared to the Sadguru who imparts
the knowledge of the Self. The legendary Philosopher's stone may perhaps be
suggested as an apt comparison, because it has the capacity to convert a piece
of iron into gold, just as the Sadguru converts an ordinary disciple into an
enlightened person. But this comparison cannot stand because, while the Sadguru
makes the disciple another Guru like himself, the Philosopher's stone does not
have the power to convert a piece of iron into another Philosopher's stone like
itself. Therefore the Sadguru is incomparable and his glory transcends the
world”.
Human birth is precious.
After paying obeisance
to God and Guru, Sri Sankara says that birth as a human being is difficult to
get. A jiva goes through innumerable births in the form of various other
creatures before being born as a human being. Even after birth as a human being,
to have an inclination to study the scriptures, to attain discrimination between
the Self and the not-Self, and ultimately to attain liberation, are the results
of punya acquired in innumerable past lives.
Three things are very rare, and
attained only through the grace of God: the quality of being a human being in
the true sense of the term (not mere birth as a human being), an intense
yearning for liberation, and association with a great soul. A person who, in
spite of having the advantages of birth in a cultured family and study of the
Vedas does not strive for liberation wastes his precious life. Liberation cannot
be attained through acquisition of wealth or through mere performance of rituals
laid down in the Vedas or through noble deeds, as long as they are performed
with the desire to get some personal benefit. This should not be understood to
mean that rituals and noble deeds are to be discarded. On the other hand, Sri
Sankara stresses in many places that the actions ordained by the Vedas should be
performed in order to attain purity of mind. If the same actions are performed
as karma yoga, that is, without desire for any personal benefit for the
performer and as an offering to God, they will lead to purity of mind. Even a
good action, whether ritualistic or worldly, performed with
the desire to derive some personal benefit or just fame, creates bondage.
Even the acquisition of punya by the performance of good deeds produces bondage
because the person has to be born again in order to enjoy the results of his
good actions. So a spiritual aspirant has to perform actions in such a way that
they do not produce even punya. The Gita says that no one can remain without
performing action even for a moment. Since the performance of actions is
inevitable, one has to perform them in such a way that they do not produce
either punya or paapa. The method of achieving this is karmayoga. Sri Sankara
explains in his commentary on the Gita that in the word ‘karmayoga’ the word
‘yoga’ is used in the sense of the
‘means to attain union with Brahman’. So ‘karmayoga’ means action
performed in such a way that it becomes the means to union with Brahman, which
is liberation. The statement in Bhagavadgita, 2.50, “yogah karmasu kaushalam’
is interpreted by Sri Sankara in his Bhashya thus: Yoga is skilfulness in
action. The skilfulness consists in converting action which is by its very
nature the cause of bondage into a means for removal of bondage. This means is
karmayoga. Karmayoga purifies the mind. It is only a pure mind, that is, a mind
free from desires, greed, infatuation etc., that is fit to receive the knowledge
of the Self. Liberation is attained only through knowledge of one’s real
nature and not by actions alone, whether Vedic or worldly. For attaining
knowledge of the Self one should give up the hankering after worldly pleasures
and approach a Guru who is an enlightened person.
He should then enquire into the nature of the Self, in accordance with
the instructions of his Guru.
A man who has mistaken a rope for a
snake in dim light is frightened and screams for help. His fear will disappear
only if he finds out the real nature of the object in front with the light of a
lamp. No action to drive away the illusory snake will help. Similarly, one
should enquire into one’s own real nature by hearing the scriptures from his
Guru (sravanam), reflecting on what he has heard to remove doubts (mananam)
and meditating on the teachings (nididhyaasanam).
Why liberation cannot be the
result of any action.
The results of all actions fall
under four categories only: production,
attainment, modification, and purification. Brahman is ever-existent and so it
is not something to be produced. We are always Brahman even when we do not know
it and so it is not something to be attained. Brahman ever exists as changeless
and so it is not something to be attained by modifying something. It is ever
pure and so it is not to be got by purifying something. As we know from actual
experience, anything brought into existence by action has a beginning and has
therefore an end also. But liberation is permanent. Because of all these reasons
liberation cannot be the result of any action. Liberation is nothing but the
removal of our ignorance about our real nature. Ignorance can be remove only by
knowledge and not by any other means.
The spiritual aspirant has to acquire certain preliminary qualifications
known as saadhana-chatushtaya. These will be described in the next
article.
******************