PART 14 – YAKSHA PRASHNAM SATSANGH
WHAT IS IGNORANCE? WHAT IS IDLENESS?
TRUE IGNORANCE DOES NOT KNOW ONES DUTIES. NOT DISCHARGING ONES DUTIES IS IDLENESS.
(WHAT IS DUTY?
Duty or Swadharma is decided based on the 3 factors namely Desha (place), Kaala (time), Vastu (role). We all are placed by the Lord in different situations in life; in different varnas (based on our Gunas) and ashramas (stage of life – Brahmacharya, Grihastha, Vanaprastha and Sannyaasin). Based on this we are allotted some actions which we have to do, choicelessly as it were. Duty is always done without expecting the fruit of action. It is done with total love and as dedication to the Lord.
WHAT IS IGNORANCE OF DUTY?
When we compare our stage of life with others, we feel ours as inferior or superior. Accordingly we decide whether to continue or take somebody's action as ours. Sometimes we feel better not to work or act. Action is not only what we do physically. Breathing is an action. Thinking is an action. Lord says in Gita that no one can remain without actions; the nature will force them to act. Only by doing one's own duty one can reach the Lord. One who is ignorant of this truth, is ignorant of his Swadharma.
WHEN DO WE FAIL TO DISCHARGE OUR DUTIES?
Whenever there is attachment, there is a failure of duty. This failure is not recognized by the performer of duty. If recognized, it is brushed aside saying 'I need to do at least this much as a help to my son' – Guruji's Gita summary Chapter 1.
The person who refuses to take the burden of the family, may take up samnyaasam/wife employed, husband enjoys the fruits of her hard work/a housewife watches TV serials and orders food from hotel/children make the parents to lift their school bags/children who do not study on time/reading and engrossed in a book without being aware that the people at home are hungry/housewife not looking after the house – untidiness, unorganized home/doing household works during office hours/not declaring dutiable goods to the customs/throwing papers and other wastes out of the window/not obeying traffic rules – there are innumerable things which we fail to recognize as 'duty' and act contrary to it. Without performing the primary, important actions required at the given stage of life, if one performs other actions even it may be a puja or a social work, it is considered as idleness only (done without understanding).
Ignorance does not know who we are; where we have come from and the purpose of having this body. We think everything is our duty because of our attachment. Attachment is the thought 'me and mine'. We feel it is our duty to decide what our child has to become – an engineer/a doctor. We feel it is our duty to have two flats in Chennai, two in Bombay. We feel it is our duty to be a part of a sangam and attend all parties.
When attachment comes, there is no clarity of duty. Arjuna came with strength and determination to fight against the Kauravas. But when attachment took over him, he said he will not fight and put the bow and the arrows down. Ignorance took over him and he forgot his duty. He forgot so many people are ready to give up their life for the sake of dharma.
NOT DISCHARGING ONES DUTIES IS IDLENESS
ATTACHMENT BLINDS A MAN AND IT MAKES A MAN IDLE/ PARALYSED/ UNABLE TO HANDLE THE GIVEN SITUATION.
Yudishtira says here that a person can perform his duty, if he has knowledge. Attachment, body consciousness, confusion, depression all have their root in ignorance, 'I'. If this identity is removed in action, it becomes duty.
One cannot judge oneself rightly with a sick, grief-stricken mind. A grief stricken mind loses discrimination. It is easy to run away from this battle field of life. We can produce various arguments supporting our action. But in the eyes of the truth nothing can escape. When we say 'idleness', it means 'it does not move'. Even though we move with this body, if we don't perform our duties in life, we are considered mere stones. Stones do not think and its life begins and ends in ignorance.
WHAT IS PRIDE?
PRIDE IS A CONSCIOUSNESS OF ONE BEING HIMSELF AN ACTOR OR SUFFERER IN LIFE.
(There is only one doer in this creation and that is the Lord alone. A person who is with pride thinks that everything is happening because of him and his efforts. Pride is the expression of strong ego, the 'I' sense.
One morning, a person was looking out for a parking place in a crowded area. He had an important meeting to attend. So he prayed to God 'Lord! Please show me a parking slot. If you show me, I will come to temple every Friday'. In a few minutes he found a parking place. Immediately he closed his eyes and said 'No need Lord! I have found one'.
Where there is pride, there is no surrender. The person always looks high and misses all basic truths of life. The stories of the Asuras are the stories of pride. The pride itself destroys a man. He forgets there is the Lord who is the source of everything. He completely depends on the world and worldly things. He is tossed between the pairs of opposites and the 'I' faces the end. The Lord says in Gita 'ahamkaara vimudaatma karthavyam iti manyate' – the person with pride is a 'Mooda' who thinks 'I did it; I can do it'.
A Bhaktha/a Jnani leaves everything (mind and the intellect) at the feet of the Lord and he neither enjoys nor suffers in life.
WHAT IS GRIEF?
IGNORANCE IS GRIEF.
(Ignorant about one's own true self is the grief and it is the heaviest of all sorrows. Getting out of ignorance is the one and only medicine to all our problems in life. When we even think on worldly terms, not knowing about a place or language or people becomes a source of grief. Children who think 'I can't score marks or I am weak in Mathematics' does not know the truth that all children have the same level of harmones and cells in the brain. We all have what Einstein had. But how far we are making use of it is the question. Lord is repeatedly showing light in every chapter of Gita that He is present everywhere – in You, in Me, in all movable and immovable things. But out of crores of people one is able to realize this divinity. One is able to realize that He is the limitless soul and not this limited body.
Anything we are attached to (to our body, to the worldly things) results in grief. Lord Krishna says in the 8th chapter of Gita that this world is a place of misery and impermanence. Depending on this world for our happiness is ignorance. The worldly pleasures have a beginning and an end. We perform all actions to satisfy this body which has come with an expiry date. Shri Jakki Vasudev has said the truth wonderfully that "We all think we have climbed up the mountain; climbed down the mountain; achieved this; won that; but this body does not know anything. It is steadily walking towards the grave".
Thinking 'I am this body' is ignorance and this thought and the action followed by it can only result in sorrowful life.
Time will take away everything mercilessly. History has proved this statement. How much ever far we swim in the pond of the world, we are still in ignorance. Our problem is not in having things/relations. But when it leaves us, we are depressed. We become mad. We lose our intelligence. Grief strikes us. One needs extra strength to get up from that state.
Swami Chinmayananda says 'Who said there is no pleasure in a cup of tea?' and he adds to it 'there is, but it is only temporary'. Understanding the nature of things (impermanent) and understanding the higher nature in us (permanent) will bring us out of grief.
SUMMARY:
All answers have one word in common – 'ignorance'. It is always compared to darkness, as it makes man unhappy, dissatisfied in life. Like a small candle light can destroy the darkness of a big room, the dawn of knowledge will destroy all our unhappiness in life.
1. One can understand 'duty', if one leaves the attachment. Attachment (to the action and the result of the action) is ignorance.
2. Pride is the expression of not understanding that we are the instruments in the Lord's hand.
3. Ignorance is thinking 'I am the body' – source of grief.
4. Knowledge is 'I am the Atman/ 'Lord is residing in me' – source of happiness.
Liberation is possible only when one practices Karmayoga. 'one' means householders, sanyasis working in society, anyone who is forced to 'act' in the world - Guruji.
HARI OM!
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