Towards Liberation
All the elements joining
together to produce a form, is what we call birth. But suppose a person has
done immense charitable deeds – assuming that the good exceeds the bad, then
after the exhaustion of the blissful experience of the soul in the Chandraloka,
there will be a coming back, to rebirth into this world. Then, what happens to
the bad deeds? The next birth will be determined by the balance of the karmas.
The Upanishads describe
several stages of ascent. There is no sudden jump into the Supreme Being. The
soul crosses through the worlds above, the five elements, the physical
embodiment of the fourteen lokas – Bhu-loka, Bhuvar-loka, Suvar-loka,
Mahar-loka, Jana-loka, Tapo-loka, up to Satya-loka. It moves direct towards the
borderland of the Universal Being – Brahma-loka.
The nearer you go to the
border of the Universal Being, the less you become conscious of your
individuality. You feel at that time that you are withering away and vanishing
like burnt camphor. Yet the individuality in a very rarefied form persists.
Only the individuality which is rajasika
(distracted) and tamasika (dark)
will have a consciousness of itself. Pure sattva-dominated jivatva (individuality) will not be
conscious of itself because it will be so transparent then. It is like a clean
glass. The glass, if we imagine that glass has consciousness, may not know that
it is existing because of the transparency of the glass. The glass attains a
transparency of the highest sattva-guna, and
loses self-awareness, individual consciousness. At that time, says the
Upanishad, the Great Creator sends a messenger. A being who is not human comes
and leads the soul along the path of the Supreme Creator. This is the stage of
cosmic consciousness but it is not liberation fully, because to have cosmic consciousness
there must be some object of which one must be conscious. Thus, it is still a
lower stage.
Saguna
Brahma Upasana and Nirguna Brahma Upasana
are two types of meditation.
The worship of God can take
various shapes. It may be an individualized, particularized God located in one
place or it may be a devotion to multiple Gods like Vishva-Devas
or it may be devotion to One, Creative Power, whatever be the name that we give
to It. We cannot imagine what the Creator could be. But by the purity of your
purpose and intention, if it is possible to expand your love to the dimension
of the Supreme Creative Principle, you will be the highest, most blessed
person.
The upasaka remains distinct from the upasya devata, and therefore it is
called saguna. What is the meaning of saguna? Saguna
means 'with attributes'; we conceive God with attributes. We, as human beings,
can think only as human beings even in respect of God. We think of a vast
dimension of the comprehension of God's Existence.
'All-knowingness', All-power',
'All-freedom', 'All-bliss' – these are the characteristics that we are able to
conceive and attribute to God Almighty. But there are other ways of conceiving
God, also. God can be the most beautiful Being. The aspect of sadhana which conceives God as the
most powerful Bliss is called 'aishvarya-pradhana'
bhakti – bhakti which takes into
consideration the Glory and the Might and Power of God for meditation. The emphasis is laid here on the Power and
Glory of God.
Truth, beauty and goodness are
considered as the highest characteristics of God. Truth means not
truth-speaking merely but It is an
eternally existing Principle. A thing that passes away sometimes cannot be
regarded as Truth; that is relative truth. The Goodness of God, the Power of
God and the Beauty of God – it is difficult to conceive these together!
We cannot conceive God fully
because we are not capable of imagining the extremely powerful God being
compassionate, good and loving, all in one. But when we try to conceive God in
our meditations, we segregate these qualities. All of these things do not come
to the mind simultaneously.
Madhurya-pradhana
bhakti is the type of devotion where the Beauty of God and the
Bliss of God is the object of meditation. You can consider God as your Supreme Father
and as your Mother also, because Protectively He is Father and lovingly He is
Mother.
He is also your Friend, as
shown by the relationship between Arjuna and Krishna. You can ask Him to do
something for you, and He will do it for you. In Maharashtra there was a saint,
whom Sri Krishna served as a little boy, washing his clothes and sweeping the
floor and cleaning the vessels and the like. Another saint went to Pandharpur
to have Darshan. A voice told 'Vitthala is not here! He is serving the other saint
there and washing his vessels; His name is Srikhandiya.' The saint ran to find
out where Srikhandiya was; by that time the boy vanished from that place. You
can consider God as your friend, as your beloved, as your father, as your
mother or as your master.
All these come under what you
call saguna bhakti. There is an
'otherness' of God to some extent here. Whether He is a father or a mother or a
beloved or whatever He is, He is 'other' than you. A distinction is maintained
for the time being. You attain to Brahma Loka with this kind of devotion – you
are not the Creator, Brahma, yourself.
At the end of the universe,
when the universe is dissolved; everything gets absorbed and the purified soul
which was living in Brahma Loka as a scintillating part of the Cosmic Being
merges in the Absolute.
Excerpts from:
Towards Liberation -Chapter 5: An Analysis
of the Brahma Sutra by Swami Krishnananda
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