Pranav Khullar
The search for a genuine preceptor is triggered in most of us in that moment of inner dissatisfaction with the material acquisitions one has stacked up in one’s life – in the need to find inner peace beyond the material flux of life.
Conversely, tradition has it that the guru seeks out those who genuinely desire to understand this matrix of bondage and liberation. Only a highly evolved teacher can guide and inspire the disciple to knowledge of the Self, beyond dualities of the empirical world.
Escape chute
Most seek out a guru as an external aid to help resolve the daily issues of life, as a means of escape, without attempting to understand their own problems. Many gurus today have therefore set up institutions and new creeds, reinforcing the image of a guru as a means of escape. But a real guru seeking out a real seeker of Truth, characterises the Ashtavakra Samhita, that records the ancient dialogue between the young Sage Ashtavakra and King Janaka. A rousing call to atmanubhuti, Self-realisation, lies at the centre of this dialogue, in which the guru appears as a physically infirm figure, as if to challenge the notion that the physical frame is the be-all of life, and to inspire his disciple to look beyond the mortal frame of the five senses.
“Non-attachment for sense-objects is liberation: love for sense-objects is bondage,” Ashtavakra describes the nature of knowledge thus, going directly into the central focus of his teaching, that the Self alone exists and all else, within the mind-senses matrix, is false and unreal. He draws his disciple’s attention to his own restlessness despite being a satisfied king. The seeker remains unfulfilled because of material preoccupation.
World as illusion
Ashtavakra deconstructs the illusory nature of the world further, by exhorting Janaka to renounce desire in all form, be it the desire for enjoyment and learning or even of pious deeds, for “bondage consists only of desire and the destruction of desire is liberation.” He asks his disciple to wake up to the transitory nature of all things, to cultivate dispassion. Compassion and dispassion are the twin characteristics of a spiritually evolved state of mind.
Ashtavakra goes on to annihilate the false sense of identification of the Self with mind, saying, “it is bondage when the mind desires or grieves for anything, rejects or accepts anything, feels happy or angry at anything .” He sums up a free and fearless soul as one who has renounced desire, for the “the renunciation of desire alone is renunciation of the world”. It is from a sense of reality of the world that the mind functions, creating a cobweb of emotions which bind and attach us to this notion of ‘i, me, myself ’, and cuts us off from seeing everyone else as a part of myself.
Only bliss
Ashtavakra then attempts to describe this state of bliss of Self, in which all notions of plurality fall away, in which even intellectual, aesthetic or ethical pursuits seem secondary, where “there is no heaven, hell or liberation ... nothing but Self in this expanded cosmic consciousness”. The fire of knowledge ignited by the guru burns away the desires of the disciple.
DISCLAIMER
The views expressed in the Article above are Author’s personal views and kashmiribhatta.in is not in any way responsible for the opinions expressed in the above article. The article belongs to its respective owner or owners and this site does not claim any right over it. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing."
Courtesy: Times of India: The speaking tree: July 2018
Pranav Khullar
The search for a genuine preceptor is triggered in most of us in that moment of inner dissatisfaction with the material acquisitions one has stacked up in one’s life – in the need to find inner peace beyond the material flux of life.
Conversely, tradition has it that the guru seeks out those who genuinely desire to understand this matrix of bondage and liberation. Only a highly evolved teacher can guide and inspire the disciple to knowledge of the Self, beyond dualities of the empirical world.
Escape chute
Most seek out a guru as an external aid to help resolve the daily issues of life, as a means of escape, without attempting to understand their own problems. Many gurus today have therefore set up institutions and new creeds, reinforcing the image of a guru as a means of escape. But a real guru seeking out a real seeker of Truth, characterises the Ashtavakra Samhita, that records the ancient dialogue between the young Sage Ashtavakra and King Janaka. A rousing call to atmanubhuti, Self-realisation, lies at the centre of this dialogue, in which the guru appears as a physically infirm figure, as if to challenge the notion that the physical frame is the be-all of life, and to inspire his disciple to look beyond the mortal frame of the five senses.
“Non-attachment for sense-objects is liberation: love for sense-objects is bondage,” Ashtavakra describes the nature of knowledge thus, going directly into the central focus of his teaching, that the Self alone exists and all else, within the mind-senses matrix, is false and unreal. He draws his disciple’s attention to his own restlessness despite being a satisfied king. The seeker remains unfulfilled because of material preoccupation.
World as illusion
Ashtavakra deconstructs the illusory nature of the world further, by exhorting Janaka to renounce desire in all form, be it the desire for enjoyment and learning or even of pious deeds, for “bondage consists only of desire and the destruction of desire is liberation.” He asks his disciple to wake up to the transitory nature of all things, to cultivate dispassion. Compassion and dispassion are the twin characteristics of a spiritually evolved state of mind.
Ashtavakra goes on to annihilate the false sense of identification of the Self with mind, saying, “it is bondage when the mind desires or grieves for anything, rejects or accepts anything, feels happy or angry at anything .” He sums up a free and fearless soul as one who has renounced desire, for the “the renunciation of desire alone is renunciation of the world”. It is from a sense of reality of the world that the mind functions, creating a cobweb of emotions which bind and attach us to this notion of ‘i, me, myself ’, and cuts us off from seeing everyone else as a part of myself.
Only bliss
Ashtavakra then attempts to describe this state of bliss of Self, in which all notions of plurality fall away, in which even intellectual, aesthetic or ethical pursuits seem secondary, where “there is no heaven, hell or liberation ... nothing but Self in this expanded cosmic consciousness”. The fire of knowledge ignited by the guru burns away the desires of the disciple.
DISCLAIMER
The views expressed in the Article above are Author’s personal views and kashmiribhatta.in is not in any way responsible for the opinions expressed in the above article. The article belongs to its respective owner or owners and this site does not claim any right over it. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing."
Courtesy: Times of India: The speaking tree: July 2018