Unrated
The
Chandogya Upanishad relates how Indra, king of the devas, and
Virochana, king of the demons, both became students of the science of
self-realization under Brahma. Brahma, to test them first, told them
that the self was what they saw when they looked into a mirror or a pan
of water. Virochana believed and went back to become a guru, teaching
this to the other demons, who also believed; but Indra had second
thoughts and returned to receive the true knowledge of the self as soul.
The
coming of the year 1974 saw my mind roiling with confusion. I had
become a bibiliophage, a gourmand of esoteric books on everything from
astrology to Zoroaster. And I'd been offered tantalizing glimpses into
heightened states of awareness by beings mysterious and divine. But it
all had left me fundamentally bewildered. So many paths to so many
goals - which one should I dedicate myself to? Which one led to Truth?
Though
I couldn't see it at the time, the problem was the very nature of my
desire to know. It is said that there are two kinds of curiosity: that
for what is useful, and that for what others don't know. Mine was the
latter. I wanted not so much to know as to be known by others for
knowing what they did not.
And the visitations of divinities?
Even if it was true a great siddha-yogi or Karttikeya or Devi had come
to me, they, like Brahma, held mirrors in their hands.
After
returning to Salem, I took up the worship of Bala as the little girl in
Mahabalipuram had advised. It did chasten my outlook on women. But I
found it impossible to fix my mind exclusively in the Shakta discipline.
I
had no doubt that worship of Devi, who carries twenty weapons
representing twenty kinds of pious deeds recommended in the Vedas for
subduing vices, purifies the base animalistic desire. I'd discovered
this years before in Kerala. But I questioned the final goal of it all.
The Devidham (place of Devi) is the material universe. It contains
fourteen levels of worlds in which the souls transmigrating from
species to species are confined. The goddess is named Durga (dur -
difficult, ga - movement) because she imprisons these souls in matter.
The
philosophy of the Shaktas is called Sambhavadarshana. The goal is to
become identical to that Divine Mother who is the origin (srishti) of
material existence. Everything has its support (sthiti) in her. At the
time of cosmic dissolution (pralaya) everything merges into her. In
Sambhavadarshana there is nothing beyond this continual cycle of
creation and destruction, so there is no provision for liberation from
matter. The meditation of the Shaktas is to consantly think of
themselves as women, because in their view God is the original female
(adyashakti).
Durga has two sons, Ganesha and Karttikeya. Both
are deputed leaders of Shiva's ganas (followers); Karttikeya is
specifically Shreshtharaja, the sublord of the bhutas (ghosts). Ganesha
represents material success and Karttikeya material beauty. Worship of
Ganesha or Karttikeya can gradually qualify one to enter Kailash, the
most elevated plane of material existance, the abode of Shiva. But even
here one does not surpass the cycle of birth and death. One of the
great saints of Shaivism, Sundaramurthi Nayanar, is said to have taken
his birth in South India after falling from Kailash due to becoming
lusty for one of Shiva's female servants.
Shiva, the master of
siddha-yoga, is ever fixed in meditation upon Transcendence. Those who
are austere and determined enough to follow his example may by his
grace cross from Kailash into Sadashivaloka, his eternal realm forever
illumined by the rays of the effulgent spiritual sky, just beyond the
threshold of Devidham.
This was the path taken by Brahmendra
Avadhuta, and it was surely closed to people like me. I was not
prepared to meditate naked in the cold Himalayas for years together.
But
many of the Advaitist books I'd read averred that realizing Brahman was
not so difficult; it was all a matter of mind-set. One should conceive
of the manifest world as maya, an illusion having no more substance
than a dream. Hidden behind maya is the impersonal Absolute, the only
reality. The central theme of Advaita philosophy is expressed by the
declaration tat tvam asi, 'you are that (Brahman).' If I am Brahman,
then the world is merely my own hallucination. By proper discrimination
(viveka), I should be able to negate the world and achieve the supreme
bliss of the self (ananda).
The Advaitist doctrine relies on
clever syllogism to defend its theory that everything we see is really
only formless Brahman. This has popularized it among those fond of
speculation.
For instance, Advaitists say that the material
world is a reflection of Brahman, like a reflection of the moon on
water. To the objection that this analogy betrays Brahman's
formlessness because to be reflected Brahman must have form, the reply
is that form should not be mistaken for substance. When we see a
reflection of something, it is of the form, not of the substance
itself. Thus form is distinct from substance. And because form can be
reflected it is inherently illusory. Moreover, Brahman is not a
substance - it is ineffable. So the rule of symmetry of comparison does
not apply.
Shankara conceived of three levels of awareness:
pratibhasika, complete illusion; vyavaharika, conventional or useful
illusion; and paramarthika, transcendence. In complete illusion, one
thinks the reflection is real. In conventional illusion, though still
seeing it, one knows it is a reflection and acts to overcome it. That
ultimately means one must become a sannyasi ordained in Shankara's line
and follow the strict code of monastic life prescribed by him. In the
paramarthika stage, one's sense of individual identity, the substance
that gives form to illusion, is eradicated entirely. Only then is
illusion vanquished. There are no words to describe the experience of
transcendence, because words are also forms of the substance of false
identity.
Because the means of awakening to transcendence is
itself illusory, a cogent explanation of just how illusion is overcome
is not possible in Advaitism. A great Advaitist scholar, Jayatirtha
Muni, compared it to having a nightmare. When one is sufficiently
frightened, one awakes, and the nightmare (the vyavaharika illusion)
disappears.
On the vyavaharika platform the Advaitist worships
the form of God (as Devi, Ganesh, Surya, Shiva or Vishnu), but with the
intention of seeing the worship, worshiper and worshiped dissolve into
impersonal oneness. It is sometimes said that this dissolution happens
'by the grace of maya.'
Thus Advaitists are also known as
Mayavadis. Because their perfection ultimately depends on the grace of
maya, there are now many Mayavadis around the world who feel no
compulsion to adhere to Shankara's methods. If life be but illusion,
then distinguishing between a monastic life and a licentious life is
also vain illusion. His commentary on Vedanta-sutra, a weighty Sanskrit
lucubration of dry abstractions, was traditionally required daily
reading for his followers. But nowadays Mayavadi Vedantism has been
reduced to trite sloganeering like 'It's all in the mind,' 'It's all
one,' and the final twist: 'I am God.'
While appreciating the
slipperiness of some of the arguments, I found the Advaitist denouement
disappointing. If my self is already identical with Brahman, then why
is the realization of this supposedly universal truth limited to just a
few rare souls? If I am one with those souls who have realized Brahman,
why didn't I and everyone else realize it when they did? It added up to
a free lunch I couldn't afford.
When I once expressed my
dissatisfaction with Advaita philosophy to a disciple of Brahmendra
Avadhuta, he sent me to a sadhu who was an adherent of the Sankhya
doctrine.
There is a theistic and an atheistic form of Sankhya.
The theistic Sankhya tradition begins with the Puranas and was first
taught by the sage Kapila, an incarnation of Vishnu. The atheistic
version is recounted in an ancient treatise called Sankhya-karika by
Ishvarakrishna. He gives credit to someone also named Kapila as the
inventor, though no writings from that Kapila are extant. The sadhu I
met was from the atheistic school.
The word sankhya means
'count'; Sankhya philosophy counts up the elements of reality and
categorizes them within two ultimate principles: purusha (spirit) and
prakriti (matter). Because it identifies these two as the opposite but
complimentary factors of existence, Sankhya is free of the
unintelligible solipsism that plagues the Advaita doctrine.
Prakriti
gives form to the world, and purusha gives it consciousness, and both
are real. In the purusha category are innumerable individual souls,
called jivas,
who are eternally distinct from one another. Under the influence of
prakriti, they become bound by the three qualities (gunas) of goodness
(sattva), passion (rajas) and ignorance (tamas). Thus they develop
physical forms consisting of gross and subtle material elements and are
forced to suffer the pains of birth, old age, disease and death
repeatedly. But in their essence, the jivas are always pure.
The
means to liberation in Sankhya is detachment. When the soul ceases to
identify with the external coverings of the false ego, intellect, mind,
senses and the sense objects, he is released from suffering. The means
to detachment is self-analysis through yoga.
My Sankhya teacher
was invited to an Advaitist ashram to engage in debate with some of
their scholars. I accompanied him, and was amazed as he defeated
fifteen Mayavadi sannyasis in a row. Seeing this convinced me that the
Advaitist philosophy has serious shortcomings.
Further
investigation of Sankhya led me to books expounding the theistic
version. And here again I found two divisions: Vishishtadvaita and
Dvaita, the first propounded by Ramanuja and the latter by Madhva. Both
are systems of Vaishnava Vedanta in which Samkhya plays a supporting
role.
In Vishishtadvaita ('qualified monism'), the jivas and
prakriti are held to be qualities (visheshanam) of Vishnu, the highest
truth. Ramanuja compares them to the body, and Vishnu to the soul, of
Brahman. Vishnu is therefore the only Purusha.
The jivas are
classified as superior spiritual energy (parashakti), like Vishnu in
quality. But they are small in potency, like infinitesimal particles of
sunlight. Vishnu, their source, is the Greatest Being (Vibhu), just as
the sun is the greatest light in the sky.
Matter is like a
cloud. Though also generated by the sun, a cloud is inferior in energy
to the sunlight; thus matter is called inferior energy (aparashakti).
Matter is the cause of maya, and just a cloud blocks a portion of the
sunlight, maya deludes some of the souls. But compared to the sun, maya
is insignificant.
Both the souls and maya are fully dependent
upon and in that way inseparable from Vishnu. He is the transcendental
Lord, eternal, full of knowledge and bliss, and ever a person. In the
philosophy of qualified monism, tat tvam asi ('you are the same') means
'you, the individual soul, are the same in quality as Vishnu.' But it
can never mean 'you are God.'
Madhva was implacably opposed to
monism, so he boldly called his system Dvaita, or Dualism. His main
target was Shankara's Advaita, but he also took exception to certain
tenets of Ramanuja's Vishishtadvaita.
The word advaita is taken
by Shankara and to a certain extent by Ramanuja to mean 'not
different.' Madhva was strictly literal: advaita means 'not two' as in
the sense of the Upanishadic statement eka brahma dvitiya nasti,
'Brahman is one, there is no second.' Dvaita philosophy thus
established that God is unrivalled and aloof. He has no competitor, nor
is He beholden to anyone. Therefore He cannot be bewildered by maya as
the Mayavadis believe. Nor can the souls and maya be said to comprise
His body, because that would imply His dependence upon them.
In
other words, advaita really means 'unique.' God, being unique, must be
distinguished from that which is under Him. But this does imply utter
severance of the souls and matter from God. For example, the statement
'the lotus is blue' is not rendered untrue by acknowledging that the
flower and the color are not one and the same. Thus Madhva's Dvaita is
not like the fundamental dualism of atheistic Sankhya. It upholds one
God and one God only who is the source of everything. Dvaita indicates
'distinction' in the dual sense of discrimination and eminence, i.e.
Dvaita distinguishes God because God is distinguished.
For the
two questions I considered most important - 'What is God?' and 'How do
I attain God?' - Ramanuja and Madhva gave identical answers: Sri Vishnu
is God and is attained by bhakti (pure devotion of the soul). Both
further agreed that liberation is never wrested by the strength of the
jiva's knowledge or detachment, and it is certainly not awarded by
matter. Liberation is granted by Divine Grace, and is not confined to
those who make effort to receive it. And liberation is not merely the
cessation of suffering. It is a state of positive spiritual bliss
obtained through association with Vishnu, the All-Blissful.
I
thought the Vaishnava teachings were easily the purest of the
philosophies I'd covered. But I had my reservations. Foremost was the
fact that I found the other doctrines more accessible. Without much
endeavor I was able to master Shakta, Shaiva, Advaita and atheistic
Sankhya to the point where I could easily pass as an authority. But
whenever I read the Vaishnava texts, I felt like an outsider looking
in. It just didn't fit my mentality.
Another doubt arose from
the visits I'd made in my life to Vaishnava temples. I couldn't see
anything in the priests or the faithful that really distinguished them
from the general mass of pious, ritualistic Hindus. I'd read the
biographies of Ramanuja and Madhva, and I believed they were ideal
saints and teachers. If I'd met Vaishnavas like them, it would be much
easier to accept their fine philosophical conclusions. But from what
I'd seen, the Vaishnavas were just another orthodox Hindu community
going about their everyday lives.
The sampradayas or schools of
Ramanuja and Madhva upheld the Hindu tradition of Brahmanism by birth.
To be sure, the Vaishnavas admitted that a man, woman or child of any
caste or even no caste could be blessed by Divine Grace. But it was
only the Brahmins who by birthright were the special servants of Vishnu
in this world. They alone were pure by nature and thus entitled to
perform the temple rituals. This smacked of elitism, and I didn't like
it.
It appeared that Vishnu Himself didn't always like it
either. Ranganatha, the Vishnu murti at the temple of Rangakshetra in
Trichy, is said to have locked the head priest out of the sanctum
sanctorum because he had abused Tiruppan Alvar, a Vaishnava saint from
the pariah caste. The murti refused to open the door until the priest
carried Tiruppan into the temple upon his shoulders.
Andal,
another famous Vaishnava saint, was a young girl who stepped boldly
into the sanctum sanctorum to accept Ranganatha as her husband. As a
class, women are considered ritualistically impure and are not
permitted to enter the altar of the murti. But Vishnu does not care for
ritualistic purity as much as pure devotion. Andal was miraculously
absorbed into Ranganatha and is honored today as an expansion of
Lakshmi, the feminine personification of Vishnu's spiritual potency.
I
decided to just suspend belief in all these doctrines and go on with my
search for a direct experience of transcendence by which I'd know
intuitively which philosophy, if any, was true. But to impress others,
I used to assume these standpoints rhetorically. If I happened to meet
a Shakta, I might speak like an Advaitist. Or with an Advaitist, I
might argue Sankhya. Like the Muslim who became an infidel while
hesitating between two mosques, I was a general disappointment to
everyone.
My book-buying stops at the Shivananda Yoga Mission
had gotten me on friendly terms with with the director, a calm, sober
and well-spoken fellow a few years my senior. He disapproved of my
eclecticism and argued that to make progress on any path, I had to
first take up the prescribed sadhana.
"By
reading books you simply grasp the tail of the eel of enlightenment. It
will ever slip away from you," he told me in gentle, measured tones.
"Better you stick to one thing and perfect it. I can teach you a daily
program of yoga that will help you to concentrate your mind on the
inner light. You will become peaceful, and where there is peace, there
is God."
I tried, but my mind was too damned restless to maintain it.
When
I met him again and confessed my inability to keep up the program, he
closed his eyes for a moment in thoughtful silence. Then he opened
them, but kept his gaze lowered as he spoke.
"The single-minded
animal is captured by its deadly enemy because its actions are
predictable. But a man of many minds is captured because of his
unsteadiness." He paused, then fixed his eyes on mine as he spoke
again. "Do you know what man's deadly enemy is?"
"No," I answered in a small voice.
He
quoted the Bhagavad-gita: "It is lust only, Arjuna, which is born of
contact with the material modes of passion and later transformed into
wrath, which is the all-devouring, sinful enemy of this world."
