Hari
OM
Application - that is what 'Workings-days' are about!
The text under study is BHAJA GOVINDAM, song of despair of time-wasting, by Sri Adi Shankaraachaarya.
Last
week we read a verse describing the nature of walking in life as a living
divinity. If that is the goal of life, then how is it we might work towards it
ourselves?
kSTv<
kae=h< kut Aayat>
ka
me jnnI kae me tat>,
#it
pir_aavy svRmsar<
ivñ<
TyKTva Svßivcarm!.23.
Kastvam
ko'ham kuta aayaataH
Ka
me jananii ko me taataH,
Iti
parbhaavaya sarvamasaaram
Vishvam
tyaktvaa svapnavichaaram ||23||
Who are you? Who am I? From where did I come?
Who is my mother? Who is my father?
Thus enquire, leaving aside the essenceless
World of experience - a mere dreamland born of
imagination.
The
relationship between us and the world we inhabit is to be closely inspected
through strong intellectual inquiry - this is the demand of the guru of this
verse.
In
life we are called upon to keep intelligent contacts with the world around and,
therefore, the most profitable knowledge is to know ourselves. In our ignorance
of ourselves, we act through the poison of our ego-selves; we are rendered as
if delirious, misapprehending the world and our relationship with it. Wherever
there is non-apprehension, the human mind is apt to mis-apprehend… we make it
up! The classic example in Vedanta is that of the ghost in the post. The more
we allow the external to delude us, the further from our core Truth we are
taken and our lives become a battleground for emotions, situations and so on.
Thus, to make a full and scientific enquiry upon the nature of ourselves and
who we actually are would indeed be a profitable pursuit.
Enquire
the sources from which we must have risen. Let us not take things for granted;
use the rational intellect. Research into 'where from… where bound…?' The key
questions are placed here directly. Go beyond the surface responses.
At
the moment we are so attached to the ego 'me' that we cannot see there is a
deeper more meaningful 'Me'; one which can still Love but not be attached,
which can still act but not be concerned with outcomes, which can be in the
world but not of it. Until we withdraw our mind from the preoccupations of the
external and dive into the internal, we shall remain forever tossed by the
vicissitudes of life and our thoughts, words and deeds will not shine as they
might. There are different levels, of course. We may not be able in this
lifetime to reach the status of illumination observed in verse 22 - but at
least we will have lifted our karmic debt somewhat and in future life there is
stronger chance again to rise.'
However,
if we can find it within ourselves to fund the desire for such liberation -
there is nothing to say it cannot be achieved in this life itself.
