MOkshasaadhanam (Means of Liberation) - 4

Krishna Sastri

GURU-SISHYA SAMVAADHAM

Guru: Who are you? Describe yourself to me.

Sishya: My name is Devadatta, son of a Brahmana of xyz lineage. I am a Grihastha who is eager to cross the ocean of samsaara.

Guru: My dear Devadatta, how do you propose to cross the ocean of transmigratory existence if your body is to be eaten by birds or animals or even burnt into ashes when you die. For burnt to ashes on this side of the river you cannot cross to the other side.

Sishya: Sir, I am different from the body. This body is born and dies and is eaten up by the birds or destroyed by the weapons or burnt down as ashes after suffering from diseases. I have entered into this body like a bird into a nest and due to the force of my karma I move from one body to another as the bird would move from one nest to another when the previous one is destroyed. I shall be entering bodies after bodies and assuming bodies of gods, men, animals and so on due to the punya and paapa that I have committed. In this way, I am going round and round like the wheel would turn endlessly. I have come to you, Sir, to put an end to this rotation. I am really, therefore, different from the body.

Guru: You do speak well, but, how do you then wrongly say: “I am a Brahmana of a certain lineage, a grihastha etc.”?

Sishya: How did I say it wrongly?

Guru: By your statement that your are a son of Brahmana of a certain lineage and that you are a grihastha etc. you have identified the Self that is devoid of birth and death and samskaaras to a body possessed of birth, death and samskaaras.

Sishya: Pray tell me Sir, then how is the body possessed of birth, death, lineage and samskaaras and how I am really devoid of them?

Guru: Then listen to my explanation carefully. Please recall of what I had told you of the inner-most Self which is the Self of all and such characteristics as described by the Sruthi and Smrithi such as ‘This was Existence, my child, One without a second.’ Etc.

That which was called “Aakasa’ (the self-effulgent one) is not possessed of name and form or bodies that are gross or subtle or afflicted with sins and unbound by transmigratory conditions. Brihadhaaranyaka Upanishad says: “yath saakshaath parOkshaath Brahma’ (This Brahman is immediate and direct), “ya Aathmaa sarvaanthara:” (This is inner-most Self). It also says: “adhrushtO dhrishta” (This is the seer but itself unseen), “asrutha: srOthaa” (The unheard hearer), “amathO manthaa” (The thinker who cannot be thought of), “avignaathO vignaathaa” (The unknown knower) etc.

This is of the nature of eternal knowledge (nithyavignaanaswaroopa), without interior or exterior (ananthara:), full and complete (paripoorNa:), of infinite power (ananthashakthi:)

and so on. It is this that causes the manifestation of the unmanifested, yet different from it. It is the seed of the universe which is neither identical with it nor different from it.

(contd.)