(Sep 15,2013) Spiritual Message for the Day – The Significance of the Purusha Sukta

The Significance of the Purusha Sukta

Divine Life Society Publication: Daily Invocations by Swami Krishnananda

The Purusha Sukta of the Vedas is not only a powerful hymn of the insight of the great Seer, Rishi Narayana, on the Cosmic Divine Being as envisaged through the multitudinous variety of creation, but also a shortcut provided to the seeker of Reality for entering into the state of Superconsciousness. The Sukta is charged with a fivefold force potent enough to rouse God-experience in the seeker. Firstly, the Seer (Rishi) of the Sukta is Narayana, the greatest of sages ever known, who is rightly proclaimed in the Bhagavata as the only person whose mind cannot be disturbed by desire and, as the Mahabharata says, whose power not even all the gods can ever imagine. Such is the Rishi to whom the Sukta was revealed and who gave expression to it as the hymn on the Supreme Purusha. Secondly, the mantras of the Sukta are composed in a particular metre (chandas) which makes its own contribution by the generating of a special spiritual force during the recitation of the hymn. Thirdly, the intonation (svara) with which the mantras are recited adds to the production of the correct meaning intended to be conveyed through the mantras, and any error in the intonation may produce a different effect altogether. Fourthly, the Deity (devata) addressed in the hymn is not any externalized or projected form as a content in space and time, but is the Universal Being which transcends space and time and is the indivisible supra-essential essence of experience. Fifthly, the Sukta suggests, apart from the universalized concept of the Purusha, an inwardness of this experience, thus distinguishing it from perception of any object.

The Sukta begins with the affirmation that all the heads, all the eyes, and all the feet in creation are of the Purusha. Herein is implied the astonishing truth that we do not see many things, bodies, objects, persons, forms, or colors, or hear sounds, but rather only the limbs of the One Purusha. And, just as when we behold the hand, leg, ear or nose of a person as various parts we do not think that we are seeing many things but only a single person in front of us, and we develop no separate attitude whatsoever in regard to the various parts of the person’s body—because here our attitude is one of a single whole of consciousness beholding one complete person irrespective of the limbs or the parts of which the person may be the composite—in the same manner, we are to behold creation not as a conglomeration of discrete persons and things with which we have to develop a different attitude or conduct, but as a single Universal Person who gloriously shines before us and gazes at us through all the eyes, nods before us through all the heads, smiles through all the lips and speaks through all the tongues. This is the Purusha of the Purusha Sukta. This is the God sung in the hymn by Rishi Narayana. This is not the god of any religion, and this is not one among many gods. This is the only God who can possibly be anywhere, at any time.

Our thought, when it is extended and trained in the manner required to see the universe before us, receives a stirring shock, because this very thought lays the axe at the root of all desires, for no desire is possible when all creation is but one Purusha. This illusion and this ignorance in which the human mind is moving when it desires anything in the world— whether it is a physical object or a mental condition, or a social situation—is immediately dispelled by the simple but most revolutionary idea which the Sukta deals to the mind with one stroke. We behold the One Being (ekam sat) before us, not a manifoldness or a variety to be desired or avoided.

But a greater shock is yet to be, for  the Sukta implies to any intelligent thinker that he himself is one of the heads or limbs of the Purusha. This condition where even to think would be to think as the Purusha thinks—for no other way of thinking is even possible, and it would be to think through all persons and things in creation simultaneously—would indeed not be human thinking or living. Just as we do not think merely with one cell of our brain but think with the entire brain, any single thinker forming but a part of the Purusha’s Universal Thinking Centre, ‘a Centre which is everywhere with circumference nowhere’, cannot afford to think as  is usually attempted by what are called jivas, or individual fictitious centers of thinking. There is no other way—na anyah pantha vidyate. This is Supramental thinking. This is Divine Meditation. This is the yajnawhich, as the Sukta says, the Devas performed in the beginning of time.

The Purusha-Sukta is not merely this much. It is something more to the seeker. The above description should not lead us to the erroneous notion that God can be seen with the eyes—as we see a cow, for instance—though it is true that all things are the Purusha. It is to be remembered that the Purusha is not the ‘seen’ but the ‘seer’. The point is simple to understand. When everything is the Purusha, where can there be an object to be seen? The apparently ‘seen’ objects are also the heads of the ‘seeing’ Purusha. There is, thus, only the seer seeing himself without a seen.

Here, again, the seer’s seeing of himself is not to be taken in the sense of a perception in space and time, for that would again be creating an object where it is not. It is the seer seeing himself not through eyes, but in Consciousness. It is the absorption of all objectification in a Universal Being-ness. In this meditation on the Purusha, which is the most normal thing that can ever be conceived, man realizes God in the twinkling of a second.

Excerpts from:

The Significance of the Purusha Sukta - Daily Invocations by Swami Krishnananda
The Purusha Sukta by Swami Krishnananda– Slokha with meaning. Also click on the audio link to listen.

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(Sep 4,2013) Spiritual Message for the Day – The Stature of the Spirit of Swami Sivananda

 The Stature of the Spirit of Swami Sivananda

Divine Life Society Publication: The Stature of the Spirit of Swami Sivananda by Swami Krishnananda



Worshipful Sri Gurudev Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj, was a great combination, a great blending of apparent contradictions.  On the one hand, He was a renunciate par excellence, and on the other hand, He was rooted in God and thought of nothing else. He was a lover of all, but a friend of none. The world and the spirit came together in his personality. Such great souls are described in the scriptures as Mahakartas, Mahabhoktas, and Mahatyagis.

Mahakartas are stationed in the spirit of God and can do anything, in any manner they like, without adhering to the common norms of human conduct and thinking. Mahabhoktas can enjoy anything, and Mahatyagis can renounce anything in utter abandonment; even relinquishment of the notion of belonging to anything is abandoned. We cannot conceive such persons in our stereotyped human minds.

He maintained no connection with anybody in this Ashram, though he maintained an intimate connection with everybody and looked after everyone, as his own children. But it took only a moment for him to renounce everybody and to consider that he had nothing to do with any person.

His meditations were his strength and were based on the great Vedic cosmological hymn known as the Purusha Sukta.

In the morning he used to place a few flowers on the head of each of his attendants, one by one, with a mantra meaning, “One of the heads of the Cosmic Being has come.”  It is difficult for untrained minds to imagine that the heads of everyone are the heads of God only and all the eyes are His eyes. These ears with which we are listening now, this mind with which we are able to think, these feet with which we have walked up to this place and these hands of ours are the ears, mind, feet and hands of God, respectively.  It is God that pulsates in our hearts, breathes through our lungs, speaks through our mouths, and understands through our intelligence.

But this will never enter the mind of any person. The ego, the human nature does not permit the entry of any nobility or greatness that is external to itself. Everywhere this “I am” comes in and because of that affirmation which is so very unfortunate, the great ‘I’ of the Absolute God does not enter us.

We are told that there are three kinds of disciples. Even before the Guru speaks, the first type of disciple knows what the Guru is intending in his mind; the Guru’s very existence, being and demeanor become an instruction. The second type of disciple is one who has to be told, “Do this.” If he is not told anything, he will not do anything. The third kind of disciple will not do anything even if he is told to do something. He will have his own way. This is the attitude we develop towards God also. Even if instructions come that this has to be done, we shall not follow them because we believe that our way of living will continue for a long time, and we can easily be comfortable with all the mechanisms that we have created for prolonging our life and keeping ourselves happy.

Does it even matter when some just follow the letter of the instruction as given in the scriptures like the Gita, the Bible and the Upanishad, when the import has not been comprehended properly?

Gurudev was a Godman, and some call such great beings Mangods. All the gods are within them. Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa Deva was also called a Mangod. Sri Gurudev Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj used to say, “Do you know who I am? I can be Vishnu, and I can be Rudra, both. Lovingly I will take care of all of you, protect you, love you, and caress you as your father and mother. But I can be Rudra and I will not even look at your face.” He could be highly creative like Brahma, protective like Vishnu, and dispassionate like Rudra.

Many years have passed since he became invisible to this world, and he is remembered more now. His work seems to be getting more and more accelerated, much more than when he was physically available to us. The discarnate spirit of his universal presence seems to be operating in a more vigorous and expanded manner than the comparatively limited way that the work was going on earlier.

The liberated soul, a Jivanmukta, even while living, can maintain the connection with this world and with God, the Ultimate Reality, simultaneously. There are others who can be discarnate Jivanmuktas and yet maintain this relationship between the higher and the lower. The incarnate ones are usually called the Jivanmukta Purushas.

 

There are seven stages of knowledge and Self-realization. The first three stages are the stages of aspiration, spiritual effort and struggle in Sadhana, to which category the people of the world may be said to belong. But there is a fourth stage where the spirit ascends above the world and attains a state called sattvapatti. Flashes of the light of God become the light of day for that perception. This flash illuminates their own vision as well as the world below, so they can see themselves clearly, as well as the Reality that flashes the light, and the world below. That is the condition where we can contact them directly, even in our meditations. They will descend into our hearts, into our work life, and operate by their very thought. Such great Masters are many who can act for us and work for us, and do things for us by the very thought of them. Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj has been operating in this way.

This Purusha, the great mighty Being, is connected with this world, as well as not connected with this world. So are the great Masters, having enveloped the whole world of perceptibility, they stand above it to a large extent, uncontaminated, untouched, unrelated in any manner whatsoever. The greatest service that one can do is, to contemplate and meditate in this manner and to invoke them in their true spirit into our own hearts.

True service arises from the thought of the mind. We are told that there were great Masters who came to this world whose names are not known to everybody. They leave their thoughts behind when they go. These thoughts that they leave are the protective forces of this world. They are energies operating in the form of what we may call invisible incarnations of divinity.

Do not say, “I have done so much. I have been serving so much.” This counts little in the eyes of the higher values of life. Tell me what you are thinking in your mind. The whole day, from morning to night, what have you been thinking? What are the ideas that arose in your mind? That is the service that you have done, not the running about here and there, and seeing and doing many things.

Such is the series of thoughts that occur to my mind at this moment when I recollect my association with the great Master, Gurudev Sri Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj. I offer my humble obeisance to him, and request you to offer your obeisance to him in his great masterly stature of spirit.

Excerpts from:

The Stature of the Spirit of Swami Sivananda by Swami Krishnananda

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(May 3,2013) Individual Soul Attuned to the Ultimate Reality

Individual Soul Attuned to the Ultimate Reality

Divine Life Society Publication: Introduction to The Mandukya Upanishad by Swami Krishnananda

The theme of the Mandukya Upanishad is an exposition of the Mystic Syllable, Om, with a view to training the mind in meditation, for the purpose of achieving freedom, gradually, so that the individual soul is attuned to the Ultimate Reality.

The basis of this meditation is explained in the Vaisvanara Vidya -the secret of the knowledge of the Universal Being, designated as Vaisvanara. The simple form of understanding is a transference of human attributes to the Divine Existence, and vice versa. In this meditation, one contemplates the Cosmos as one's Body. One does not regard the different limbs of the body as distinguished from one another in any manner, all limbs being only apparently different but really connected to a single personality, so in this meditation, the consciousness is to be transferred to the Universal Being.

Instead of one contemplating oneself as the individual body, one contemplates oneself as the Universal Body. Instead of the right eye, there is the sun. Instead of the left eye, there is the moon. Instead of the feet, there is the earth. Instead of the head, there is the heaven, and so on. The limbs of the Cosmic Person are identified with cosmic elements, and vice versa, so that there is nothing in the cosmos which does not form an organic part of the Body of the Virat, or Vaisvanara. When you see the vast world before you, you behold a part of your own Body. When you look at the sun, you behold your own eye. All your actions are cosmic movements. Your breath is the Cosmic Vital Force. Your intelligence is the Cosmic Intelligence. Your existence is Cosmic Existence. Your happiness is Cosmic Bliss.

We can start our meditation with any set of forms that may occur to our minds and slowly expand our consciousness to the whole earth and, then, beyond as far as our minds can reach. Whatever our mind can think, becomes an object for the mind; and a part of the meditator's Body, cosmically. The moment the object is identified with the Cosmic Body, the object ceases to agitate the mind any more; because that object is not any more outside; it becomes a part of the Body of the meditator and is a subject. The object has become the Cosmic Subject, in the Vaisvanara meditation.

The Vidya has its origin, actually, in the Rig-Veda, in a famous Sukta, or hymn, called the Purusha-Sukta,   which commences by saying that all the heads, all the eyes, and all the feet that we see in this world are the heads, eyes, and feet of the Virat-Purusha, or the Cosmic Being. With one head, the Virat nods in silence; with another face He smiles; in one form, He is near; in another form, He is distant. So, all the forms, whatever they be, and all the movements and actions, processes and relations, become parts of the Cosmic Body, with which the Consciousness should be identified simultaneously.

The Chhandogya Upanishad concludes this Vidya by saying that one who meditates in this manner on the Universal Personality of Oneself as the Vaisvanara, becomes the Source of sustenance for all beings. We may recall to our memory the famous story of Sri Krishna taking a particle of food from the hands of Draupadi, in the Kamyaka forest, when she called to Him for help, and with this little grain that he partook of, the whole universe was filled, and all people were satisfied, because Krishna stood there tuned up with the Universal Virat. The whole universe shall become friendly with the Person who is in a position to meditate on the Virat and assume the position of the Virat; all existence shall ask for sustenance and blessing from this Universal Being. This meditator is no more a human being; he is veritably, God Himself. The meditator on Vaisvanara is himself Vaisvanara, the Supreme Virat.

Continue to read:

Individual Soul Attuned to The Ultimate Reality by Swami Krishnananda

  

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