Discourse on Yoga Vasishtha
Day 34, August 20
Jaya Guru Datta
Sri Ganesaya Namaha
Sri Saraswatyai Namaha
Sripada Vallabha
Narasimha Saraswati
Sri Guru Dattatreyaya Namaha
Sri Ganapati Sachchidananda Sadgurubhyo Namaha
asato ma sadgamaya
tamaso ma jyotirgamaya
mrityor ma amrtam gamaya
Om Santissantissantihi
Please lead me from untruth to Truth, from darkness to light, from death to immortality. May there be peace.
Guru Dhyanam: Gurur Brahmaa, Sri Bhooyuta.. , Ajnana .. Akhanda, Dehe …, Akhandam ..
Yoga Vasishtha Dhyana Slokas:
yatassarvāṇi bhūtāni pratibhānti sthitāni ca
yatraivōpaśamaṁ yānti tasmai satyātmanē namaḥ || 1
jñātā jñānaṁ tathā jñēyaṁ draṣṭādarśana dr̥śyabhūḥ
kartā hētuḥ kriyā yasmāt tasmai jñaptyātmanē namaḥ || 2
sphuranti sīkarā yasmāt ānanandasyāṁbarē vanau
sarvēṣām jīvanam tasmai brahmānandātmanē namaḥ || 3
Brahmanandam, … Ramaya, Aapadaamapahartaaram, Om Purnamadah …
Om Santissantissantihi
Gna-Na-Bha Yoga Sammelana is just beginning. As a part of this conference we speak about Kaaya Saarthakya – the benefit of having the body.
Yesterday we learned how Sri Rama described in 16 verses this body-house. He claimed that he did not like it the way it is and it needs to be improved upon. It is not fit for occupation.
It was said that the house is occupied by greed, lust, anger and excessive desire.
The old tradition of building houses is described. You see old homes to this day, built with wood in nearby villages like Mekedatu and Sogala. Like a nest the house is built. For excretions, the body is provided with ropes and tubes called nerves and Nadis.
Neshtam deha grham mama – is the refrain that will help us, by continuous repetition, to get rid of the negative features of our bodies.
The housewife managing this house is uncontrolled worldly desires. Excessive yearning for possessions or people is decorating the body-house as the rangoli/floor decoration at the entrance. Avarice is tied inside this structure as domestic animals.
In the olden days the floor was smeared with cow dung. The plastering was done with a special kind of mud/Kardama.
A wooden skeleton is inside this house consisting of our spine and other bones. A rope called bondage has woven a web around this house. The mud plastering was done to this body with skin, which hides blood and flesh underneath. Old age causes grey hair and pale skin. Such old age was used as a white wash for this body-house. But I have contempt for this body-house, says Rama. One worker observes the flaws in the structure and keeps fixing them. A person is hired just for this purpose. Every time we begin to feel like complaining about the house, he keeps fixing the faults, not allowing us to dwell on its weaknesses.
How does this house stand?
Illusion, delusion, ignorance, and falsehood are the main pillars supporting this body-house. Hence, I detest it.
A wonderful description is given here.
In this house, the small infant occupant is sorrow. He keeps crying. When we try to sleep, he wakes up and cries. We swing him in the cradle, we try to feed him, and we try to pacify him. But he simply refuses to rest.
We cannot recline even for a moment on our comfortable bed that we acquired for rest and relaxation. He will not allow us to. He pulls the roof down. We cannot go out for a diversion even.
Bad thoughts are the wicked servant maid/woman who occupies this house. She ruins the house and robs the valuables. The servant, unable to bear the crying of the infant, throws the infant here and there, and torments it by starving it, feeding it terrible stuff, and placing it in the hot sun after scratching and pinching it.
When people, even wealthy professionals, leave their child in the care of a servant, the infant is traumatized by the hired servant. After they placed a surveillance camera they found out how badly the servant treated the child. This news was published in the newspaper.
I hate this house-body.
Instead of such an infant, we should have a well behaved child to enjoy this body-house. Birds are better and bird babies are better. They wait patiently for the parents to return at night. I have seen how some children make life hell for their parents. When the child is born, the parents think that they are in heaven. But soon their lives turn to hell with the crying and misbehavior. The roof blows away with the screams.
If our discipline is the servant, it would be a different matter. Had our ignorance been the infant, then we could have given it some knowledge to pacify it. But it is not like this. We must replace good concepts to replace the bad descriptions and try to improve the condition of this body-house. If the child gives us comfort, we would not even wish to go out. We will not even need to take rest.
The way we store enough materials and supplies for the household to last for 3 months, wicked thoughts are treasured in this house, in large bins and in the refrigerators and freezers.
In places like Chennai you will find the salt crystals gathering here and there due to the salt breeze near the seashore. It causes things to rust quickly. I hence dislike this house-body.
This body is supported by weak and horrible pillars.
Swami Vivekananda demonstrated something: the foreigners placed several of their religious books on top of the Bhagavad Gita to show that their scriptures are superior to ours. Swami Vivekananda saw this. He gently pulled out the Bhagavad Gita from under the pile and all the other books fell. He said: See how the Bhagavad Gita is the foundation for all other spiritual teachings?
The Veda gives respect to the entire body equally. It does not discriminate or judge as one part of the body being superior to another.
The Universal Form of God, the Virat Purusha is described.
From the face are born the brahmins. From the powerful arms kings are born. From the thighs are born the merchants. From the feet are born the laborers. It means that in the Universal Form of God, every single part of the body is important.
Some people give false interpretations and accuse the Vedas of downgrading the labor section of society. It is wrong to speak like that.
The feet support the body. They are very important. We worship the feet of God/Guru first. And then only we look at the face. Even for Renuka Mata/Chinnamasta, they place sandals in front of the deity so that we first worship the feet before looking at Her face. All the parts of the body are equally important. The four are like the four pillars of society.
If Truth and Knowledge were the pillars, it would have been nice.
This body is very strange. Some people have skinny legs and the body is huge. You never know when suddenly this body will break down. The feet should be strong, to support the journey of the body towards God for darshan and enlightenment.
When people in the olden days abused and neglected the Sudras/the labor class, that section of society became weak the entire populace suffered.
The arms are the beams in the house. Worry is an occupant of the house. It has to be dispelled. For that Brahman/God/Guru should be remembered and praised. The sense organs are the windows that carry the intellect outward to shamelessly sport and frolic outside. The house gets destroyed thereafter.
A house without a housewife looks terrible. The intellect jumps out of the windows called ears, nose, eyes, and mouth. The moment discretion leaves the house, anxiety, as the daughter of the house begins to run amok inside.
How much worse can this get?
This hair is the roof for this house. It is trimmed or removed every few months. It is not permanent. It keeps falling off. It changes color.
Women are not allowed to remove their hair because it is considered to give them beauty.
The fingers are the paintings on the walls, or the decorative items.
From the cracks in the walls, the seeds dropped by birds take root and grow into mighty trees splitting the house apart.
The fingernails are like those.
We have to trim them and put nail polish.
The stomach is the central hall in the house.
In the house there are spiders and spider webs.
A female dog keeps barking like the pathetic, quarrelsome noise that fills the house, or is like the snoring of the occupants.
If so many people who snore sleep in the same room, we cannot sleep. I had this experience once in Trinidad. The sound pollution is horrible.
The entrance through which people enter, the inhalation and exhalation occurs. Even when the windows are closed, the circulation continues. The face is the entrance that is frightening to look at. The tongue is given by God. It has no bone in it and it cannot be controlled. It keeps wagging as it pleases.
Only those who can control the tongue both in eating and speaking will make any progress in life.
The door bolts in this house can never be locked. The doors are ever kept open like the open mouths of dragons. The fangs are like the curbside rocks. The skin is like the paint or white wash applied to the house. Like a machine, the mind keeps rotating and is in constant motion.
One moment the person laughs. It appears as if the light has been turned on inside the house. The next moment the light goes out. The happy laughter does not last.
One should be smiling or laughing either mentally, physically, or with the teeth showing.
Only the smile Rama approves of.
You should never sit lamenting and complaining. You should always remain positive.
For all diseases this house gives shelter. This house is ready to collapse at any time. This house is a shelter for mental ailments. This body is like a jungle.
These 16 verses describe the horrible body-house. Everyone should ponder about these points. These flaws exist in all bodies. To starve oneself and kill it is not the purpose here. One should be aware of the loopholes in the body so that we can get them fixed and turn the situation around. You should turn this poison into nectar.
I am sitting inside this room, this house. This room is not I. The actual resident of this house is the Paramatman. He is sitting on a beautiful swing and is enjoying Himself in peace and bliss. This is how we should visualize. There is nothing wrong in such imagination.
Who will think about us and our condition, if we do not do it? We can afford to be selfish in this regard.
This is not like a mummy in Egypt. They keep the body-mummy and bury a treasure underneath the corpse. They wait for the dead king to come back to life and enjoy the wealth.
This house has been given to us. In the previous lifetime you have not paid sufficient rent. Now you pay it back. We have to protect this property that belongs to God. Even if this body is not perfect, we have to take care of it. Then in the next birth perhaps we will be placed in a better body.
Because we have developed some degree of detachment, we were able to obtain the company of Swamiji. He has love for his devotees. That is why he has come to us. By being detached, Swamiji is happy. He is not suffering. He is distributing his happiness to all of us.
Had he pursued academic studies, he would have been in a high position and would have retired by now. But he followed a different path for our sake.
God’s Creation is such that age does not spare anyone. Whether he is a king or a pauper, he has to grow old. The body’s characteristics are the same for everyone. Some people are weak mentally, and some are weak physically. It is a result of past karma. We cannot change the will of God. We have to go according to God’s plan. See the divinity in the disadvantaged and offer them service. It is natural for people to serve those who are already in an advantageous position. It is up to us whether we keep weaving the thread around us in a web in which we get trapped, or whether we release ourselves from our bondages by unraveling the threads that bind us.
Rama the Guru of all gurus is giving us great teachings with the excuse of seeking advice from his gurus Vasishtha and Viswamitra.
We need to acquire knowledge that is of permanent value.
The animals that are tied inside the house should be devotion and good intentions. Then this same body will be transformed into a temple. It is up to us to make the necessary changes to improve it.
Some people donate their home to Sadguru. Sadguru consecrates a deity there. Then the home becomes a temple. Just as we remove soiled clothes prior to bathing, we must remove the Nirmalya/faded flowers from the altar. We must remove our bad tendencies. With each breath of pranayama with Soham mantra, you can do mental puja, removing all bad tendencies and infusing into the body all good qualities. Whether you have time to perform puja or not, which is very important to do daily, at least do a few minutes of pranayama without any lapse in the routine.
Children under the ages of 12 or 16 should not be made to practice Pranayama. They may not follow the procedure properly. Puja is necessary. If you do not have the time, at least compulsorily do pranayama for a few minutes every day.
Here Sri Ram says he does not like the body-house. What Sri Rama means is that this body-house should be transformed into a body-temple.
I detest this body. I hate this body, he says. It should be used only as an instrument to gain emancipation. We must make this body serve as a worthy instrument for spiritual practice and attainment.
We should select from all these examples, whatever we like the best and keep pondering over them. We should collect all the precious gems and keep a collection of valuable ideas and concepts to examine. Not everything will appeal to everyone. Our Sadguru will inspire us with new insights.
Jaitra, Phanisree and Mani will now explain the Tripura Vaibhavam, why Swamiji has used certain ragas in his compositons. It will be an interesting presentation. Please enjoy.
Om Santissantissantihi – May peace prevail.
Sri Guru Datta