Sunday, March 14, 2010

SOP for Nirvana

Project “Nirvana” – SOP


Recently, I had read a few articles from a book titled “Neethi Manjari” (roughly meaning a Legal Digest). In an article titled “Means to happiness”, the gradual evolution of human being from relating himself to the physical body (ego and hence unhappiness) to that final stage of liberation (hence pure bliss) is brought out gradually in a language which is not too complicated. The book is in Tamil.

In sync with the current times, where one is more fascinated by terms like SOP, PPS, et al, I thought perhaps I could attempt an SOP, for this intent namely the transformation from mundane to the sublime state of Nirvana, in simple step by step procedure, and see whether something worth the while comes out. Of course attempting a Bar-Chart, fixing a time frame is beyond the scope of the exercise.

The blog habit ( to me) -- is more of a “thinking aloud” process, to find answers to ever increasing doubts that arise, in trying to unravel the mystery of our existence. And quite surprisingly, I am beginning to feel, that this exercise has helped in making some progress not only in my quest for knowledge, but get to a not-easily-explainable state of comfort, happiness, and peace. So the exercise continues.

There are however instances of feeling good, on writing a satisfactory piece, reveling more about its style than the intent. This becomes more pronounced when a favorable response is received. Thankfully, this has not yet reached the levels, which can reduce these exchanges to a mere “kalakshepam”(meaning literally a time- pass), which I attribute to His Grace.

Minimal responses, therefore are probably God-willed; as far too frequent responses, can not only cause a traffic jam, but take this exercise away to just looking forward to thrills of one-upmanship with finery in language, and competing to get absorbing pieces, instead of being a platform for genuine outpourings of ones “jignyaasaa” or simply an urge to share acquired knowledge/wisdom, in true spirit of a satsangham.

After this self –eulogizing and heavy preamble let me get to the main topic.

1. One of the undeniable facets of our lives is our constant struggle to find everlasting happiness. Since our current birth is a result of our own omissions and commissions in our previous births, the experiences can only be mixed. It is also true that the individual self (antharaathma/Jeevathma) which has just separated itself from that universal self, (paramaathma) is ever in blissful state. Thus it is safe to assume that all our experiences are that of the physical body; which is just an instrument/ a vehicle and a subordinate of lower status than the “self”. This habit of identification of everything with our body, “I” and “Me” is EGO.

From this ego springs a desire to covet pleasures, and there is no rest till the object of desire is acquired/owned, so that it becomes “mine”. (The marketing man of today is the devil who works overtime to keep this alive and vibrant… But that is another story). Once this pleasure is exhausted, the next desire comes, and this goes on and on endlessly. This fascination for this ownership is what leads to pride/arrogance.

Both these, namely ego/pride and arrogance are to be wished away, and looking inward, to that “self” would definitely help towards this goal of realization. Without a doubt, this being extremely difficult, how does one do it? One way is to strive towards developing a taste to be able to say “not I” or “not mine”, to anything connected with the physical body. This is the first step of SOP.

In pursuance of “not I” & “not mine” beliefs come the efforts to do paropakaram (as one is able to see the self in every one) and give donations (it is not mine, so I must part with). This will be step 2. When you donate, however there must be immediate acceptance of the fact that it no longer is yours, lest at a later date you get a feeling that it could have been yours or at a later date there is this temptation to say that such and such are actually your donation. The donation part, if it is for your elders or Devas, it is termed as Yagnyaas”. The familiar phrase “na mama” immediately after aahuti in a havan, is relevant even in mundane donations. (Step 3)

The next stage is to change that “not mine” to “created for me” kind of feeling. All efforts then to derive happiness, and at getting fruitful results by exerting your body, as part of our duty, can be undertaken. These are what are termed as “tapas”. (step4)

From this it’s next logical step is to slowly graduate to, “though it is created for me, this belongs to some one else I have no relation with it” kind of mindset. This coupled with the feeling of indebt ness to our parents, teachers, and the Lord Himself, is called “bhakhthi”(Step 5)..

(Every action or karma whether it be Sandhya, Parishechanam, or deferring to elders, offering worship to Lord everything it would seem, gets covered in the omnibus term “yagnya”).


You see an object of desire, persuade yourself that it does not belong to you, and donate it to someone who you consider more in need. Your next step would be to query whether the object of your desire has really any such quality, and slowly come to the realization that this is really not so desirable after all. This chain of thought leads one to acquire “vivekam”. From here comes a stage where there is elimination of all desires. This is vairagya.(Steps 6 and 7)



Once here, you get to the stage of controlling both your mind and sensory organs, in unison. This is termed “samadhishtakam”. (Step 8) The determination to pursue with these three aids to attain the ultimate purushaartham of “moksha” and rid oneself from the chain of birth-rebirth cycle is what is more commonly known as “mumukshatwam”(Step 9)

With these four aids, one attains the qualification to pursue the ultimate release from bondage. He then goes to a Guru, gets an initiation into Tathvopadesa, by Grace, this process being known as shravanam.(Step 10 )

To cogitate on this without any reservation, is called “mananam” , and to keep it there in mind is called, “nithyaasanam” and realizing that there is no need for even keeping it in mind but just arresting it, in ultimate “Samadhi” or fully liberated stage. (Nirvana), are steps 11, 12 and 13.

These steps collectively represent the “Gyaana Marga”, which enables one to reach the goal of “realization” as expounded by the Upanishads, namely there is only “one reality of the universal non-dual Brahman”.


“OM SHANTIH SHANTIH SHANTIHI”

Vichu

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