Vedanta Rocks -16/17 > Discover the four layers of your personal universe/ A divine sound that transcends space, time

Vedanta Rocks -16 > Discover the four layers of your personal universe
Part 16 of 46

Akara, ukara makara iti…amatras chaturtho…aumkara
Mandukya Upanishad 1-1-8, and 12
The syllable ‘aa’ the syllable ‘uu’ the syllable ‘ma’…and the syllable without a sound, these are the four syllables
of the sacred mantra Aum
Eka eva tridha smritaha
Gaudapada ‘Karika’

The three states, (the waking, dreaming and pure intelligence) are controlled by the one which is beyond the three.

You are a beautiful creative expression of the deep silence of infinity. You may not be aware of this in your waking or dreaming states, but the pure intelligence that runs your being knows this very well, for its roots are nourished by infinity all the time. At this very moment, if you can somehow touch that pure intelligence, you can reach out into the silence. Touching the deep silence is what is called being enlightened. It is a simple everlasting moment of great joy and a life altering experience. It will release you into a freedom beyond imagination. Deliver a bliss beyond expression. Reveal a truth beyond articulation.This is the essential wisdom of the great Mandukya Upanishad, a wisdom that has been accepted unquestioningly by all eastern religions as the core truth of existence.

The big question is how to make that connection. The other realm seems to be out of bounds for us. All our lives are spent in the waking or dreaming states. We never touch the state of pure intelligence, so reaching the deep silence appears out of question. There isn’t any mechanism that directs our energies inward. The waking state allows us to interact with the world and fulfill our ambitions, but all its energies are expressed into the world outside. The dreaming state seems to be totally useless since it takes us to a weird irrational domain, which vanishes into thin air the moment we wake up.

The Mandukya reveals the connection technique. It is meditation on the syllable Aum. The Aum is the core mantra of Hinduism. It is a most powerful and sacred word. The Aum has the power to take you from the waking state into the deep silence and deliver you into the arms of the infinite.

The Aum has four syllables, each syllable corresponds to each state of being. The ‘aa’ relates to the waking state, the ‘uu’ to the dreaming state, the ‘mm’ to the state of pure intelligence, and the fourth syllable of Aum is the syllable without a sound, the ‘amatras’ (literally ‘that which is beyond a matra or syllable’) that corresponds to the deep silence of infinity. When the Aum is chanted in the mind, it has to be expressed as a combination of the four syllables. Start with the ‘aa’ sound, then slowly morph it to the ‘uu’ sound, then flow into the ‘mm’ sound and then slowly taper the ‘mm’ into silence but keep flowing, for you are now uttering the fourth syllable which is pure silence. Keep flowing into the silence for a long moment before resuming the chant. This is the technique. Let’s discuss its secrets in detail next week.

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( Source: Mani Shankar/ Deccan Chronicle, Hyderabad 19th April 2009 )

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Vedanta Rocks -17 > A divine sound that transcends space, time
Part 17 of 46

Yach chaanyat trikalateetam, tad api aumkara eva
“If there is any state beyond Time, that too is the AUM.”
Mandukya Upanishad 1-1
Advaita evam aumkara eva, samvishaty atmana atmaanam…ya evam veda
“The Source of your self can be felt as AUM, and he who knows this becomes enlightened…this is the truth of the Veda.”
Mandukya Upanishad 1-12

The primordial AUM has remained an enduring mystery even for mystics. Since thirty five centuries no one,including the great masters, has been able to say why AUM works. All they can say is that it does work - it takes the individual into another realm of experience - and reveals visions and truths he will never be able to articulate when he surfaces. The AUM is considered as the Pranava, the primordial resonance of creation, and the Maha Bijakshari, the great seed sound, the first and original expression of the formed universe. The AUM is not of this age or this place. It transcends Time and Space. It can represent the past, the present and the future - or even an unimaginable state where time does not exist.

All this sounds close to a description of the Quantum Domain as described by bewildered physicists who have reached the edge of knowledge - and reason. Indeed, Vedanta has had a profound impact on the minds of the greatest nuclear and particle physicists - like Frank Oppenheimer, Erwin Schrodinger and many others.Its almost as if they took refuge in Vedanta after coming up with bizarre and nexplicable observations. Frank Oppenheimer was the creator of the atomic bomb, and was intrigued to no end by the famous verse of Katha Upanishad, ‘Anor Aniyan, Mahator Mahiyan’- “I am hidden in the atom- but I am unimaginably mighty and powerful.” He could never shake of the notion that Vedanta contained coded secrets that scientists would keep unraveling for generations to come.

Indeed the mystery of AUM may be unraveled someday by a Quantum physicist, applying as yet undiscovered theories about matter and the universe. Meanwhile, lets master the technique without worrying over how and why it works. The AUM is a sweet and beautiful sound, but saying it in the mind isn’t so easy.In fact it’s almost impossible for people who have lived on the surface all their lives. It needs a pre-requisite of silence and inner calm. If you don’t have the calm you can’t chant it. The reverse is also true - if you can repeat it inside your head effortlessly, you are already an evolved person.

For those who cannot intone the AUM easily, there are other techniques - which we shall see next week. To those who can chant the AUM, here are a few tips. Treat the AUM with respect and reverence. Remember to flow with the fourth syllable - which is pure silence. So in effect, with each chant, you must be able to feel the pure silence. As you get better, extend the duration of that silence.

A time will come when you don’t need to chant the AUM anymore. The pure and beautiful silence will ever remain with you at all times.

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( Source: Mani Shankar/ Deccan Chronicle, Hyderabad 3rd May 2009 )

Vedanta Rocks -15> Discover the four layers of your personal universe

Part 15 of 46

“Of the Upanishads, the Mandukya, by itself, is sufficient to enlighten.”
Adi Shankara
“Behold the chatushpat…the four layers of your being”
Mandukya Upanishad 1—1-4

Of all the great works of wisdom which collectively comprise the Vedanta, the Mandukya Upanishad is the smallest. With only 12 short verses, this phenomenal treatise fills up less than a quarter of an A4 page. Yet it ranks among the most potent.

Adi Shankara wrote a comprehensive treatise on it 21 centuries ago. His guru’s guru, Gaudapada also wrote a famous commentary. Every Indian mystic has commented on it, discussed it, been awed by it.

At the heart of the Mandukya is a vibrant model of your personal universe — the Chatushpat. The Sanskrit is easy enough to understand Chatur — four, Pat — way, layer, or quarter. The universe within, called ‘you’, has four layers. Grasp this scientifically, intuitively, emotionally and you are through to the first stage.

You are an entire universe, the roots of which go all the way to infinity. Since you live only on the surface, the waking state, you are unable to figure out the true quality of your being. Below the waking is your dreaming self,where you are vaguely aware of an internal being as images, feelings. Further below is the state of pure intelligence, which manages the 100 trillion cells of your body and knows everything that is happening to you at all times. This intelligence isn’t the brain or your IQ. It’s the stuff that designed your brain and manufactured it from the rice and dal your mom ate when she carried you.

From your waking state you cannot even begin to understand how powerful and complex it must be. The task it performs is truly mind boggling. If somehow you could touch this state of pure intelligence, you would intuitively grasp the extent of your real capability. But this is not all.

Behind this pure intelligence is the deep silence. The infinite. There is an intimate relationship between the two. The first is the deepest part of your finite being. The second is an indefinable part of infinity. It cannot be spoken of or described, but it is the ultimate source of your being. It is also the source of everything else in this universe. In that beautiful way everything and everybody is connected. This, in essence, is the model of your personal universe. Hold it as an abstraction in your mind for a while and let it grow on you.

To most of us the abstraction is as far as we can ever get. Acknowledging the intelligence and the silence is one thing while connecting with it is something else. Even though the intelligence is roaming everywhere, it is accessible nowhere. You cannot measure it, grasp it, or quantify it in any way. It remains till date, among the most elusive mysteries of science.

In fact some believe it is theoretically impossible to connect with because the mind is too small and insignificant to come to terms with an giant intelligence that created the mind in the first place.

The Mandukya Upanishad lays out a connection. A slender but strong lifeline to the deepest most hidden part of you. This is something we shall discuss next week.

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( Source: Mani Shankar/ Deccan Chronicle, Hyderabad 19th April 2009 )

Vedanta Rocks -14 > Compassion opens up path to endlessness

Part 14 of 46

Hrt Ayam iti…tasmad Hrdayam…ahar ahar va evam vit svargam lokam eti
“He is in the heart… and so the heart is full of compassion, anyone who knows this evolves day by day and finds the kingdom within.”
Chandogya Upanishad 8-3-3

The Sanskrit word for the heart is Hridaya, which is a beautiful blend of two words — Hrt and Daya. Hrt means heart. Daya means compassion. Heart and compassion together make the true heart. The implication here is that unless compassion sits in your heart, it isn’t much of a heart. It is just a pump that moves blood around. It’s a physical organ with no great significance.

Why compassion, of all emotions? Why not courage, determination or love? Because of all the feelings that we express, compassion is the only one which is altruistic and unselfish. Compassion gives. All other emotions take. Even love doesn’t come close to it. Love celebrates itself, yes, love energizes the heart, but at the end of the day, plain everyday love is still a selfish emotion.

Unselfish love is compassion. It gives with no regard to getting anything in return. This isn’t an easy emotion to have. All our systems are geared to looking after just ourselves, our families and no one else. It’s the basic principle of life. In a hostile world compassion doesn’t have much place by design. Yet a time should come in our lives when we find place for a little bit of compassion. When we break the manic hold of life’s preprogrammed design to always think of I-me-mine and no one else.

Vedanta says a life full of compassion is a life truly worth living. Compassion opens the heart to its hidden potential. It spreads warmth and energy all around. A healing quality emerges. Such a person acquires a natural aura of being. Surprisingly another principle of life opens up, and we tend to get back whatever we give. It usually comes through another route, in most unexpected ways. Nature seems to be giving back a return gift for every act of kindness. As your heart opens up, everything about you, around you undergoes a magical change and you discern the hidden presence of your true self. Hrt Ayam iti.

Note the elegant play of words. Hrdayam is now expressed as a combination of Hrt and Ayam. Ayam means “He, or this one”. So Hridayam now means “He is in the heart.” When your heart brims with compassion, you begin to discern a truth, beauty and joy beyond description. You go on giving, go on emptying your heart, and find to your surprise that more and more is coming your way. You discover an endlessness — an ecstasy no words can express.

This is the way of the heart. 1500 BC or 2009 AD — hearts and humans have remained the same. It was the way of Jesus, the way of Ramana Maharshi, and the way of thousands of Indian masters — ancient and contemporary. It’s the easiest most accessible way — and wide open to you — right now !

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( Source: Mani Shankar/ Deccan Chronicle, Hyderabad 12th April 2009 )

Vedanta Rocks -13 > Switch off the outside world to find your undisturbed core

Part 13 of 46

Tam akratuh pashyati…
Katha Upanishad 1-2-20
“The undisturbed one arrives at a state of grace effortlessly.”

If you can wake up one fine morning and be naturally silent and still, with no itch, no thought, no frustration, no disturbance, no panic -where you naturally think nothing, do nothing -you have become the akratuh, the undisturbed one. It means you have really truly arrived in this life. In terms of spirit you can count yourself among
a handful of life’s lucky billionaires. You have found an unshakable peace within. Outside you will sense a storm brewing in everyone else’s mind but your own. They will resent your calm, your placid poise. Let them. You have spent a lifetime in sympathetic vibration where you reduced your poise to street-level noise just to be one with the world. It is time to say goodbye.

Five minutes of renunciation is all you need to kick start an irreversible chain reaction that will eventually liberate you. Let the world go jump for five minutes. Take no calls, either on your cellphone or in your head. The latter isn’t easy. The calls in your head will keep ringing, and you will have to struggle to find the switch that turns it off. You will have to pull out the sticky strings that bind you to the world. It’s a tricky gluey web, and all of us are stuck on it. Don’t pull too hard, or a mental spider will bind you some more. That’s the way the mind works. It deceived you into the web, and now you need to deceive it to get out.

Your warped self image was the primary deception. The mind pulled your image into the marketplace to draw you into the web. It gave the world power to alter your image, and the moment you accepted that, you became stuck to it. At first it gave you an illusion of happiness and mirth, for what could be better than to be wanted and respected?

But deep inside all the laughter you could sense a residue of pain. It was the stress of constantly striving to keep up that silly image of yourself to the rest of the world.

So now you deceive the mind to try and get out. Just five minutes, you plead. I will return to the web in five minutes and bind myself in. Keep at it and one day the mind will show you where the off button is located. You will spend perhaps one minute in serenity before the web snakes out and pulls you inside.

Once you taste this freedom you will wrestle with your own mind and negotiate terms. A stiff price will eventually be paid. You will have to renounce your self image before you walk free to a new world of unlimited freedom and creativity. You will become the akratuh, the undisturbed one. It is a price worth paying.

It is your life after all -you’ve been seeing the same old boring you -now see someone totally different.

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( Source: Mani Shankar/ Deccan Chronicle, Hyderabad 5th April 2009 )

Vedanta Rocks -12 > Wisdom is a connection with deepest part of self

Part 12 of 46

Prince Janaka: Sage Yajnavalkya, Have you come to my court to earn gold or to spread wisdom?
Yajnavalkya: I came for both, your majesty.
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad Ch 4.1-1

Most of Vedanta is expressed in a terse ultra compact sutra form with rivers of meaning running in between lines. One needs to unravel it and I have attempted my own creative interpretation using a dramatic tool of dialogue and punch lines. Yajnavalkya’s "unspoken words" have the power to shake the world with their truth, beauty and utter fearlessness.

The prince: Do not speak to me of wisdom yet. Speak to me of the world instead. Speak of so-called wise men, who claim access to gods.
Yajnavalkya: Anyone who claims access to a god is a clever hollow man.

The prince: Why is that?
Yajnavalkya: Because gods are figments of human imagination. The real power, the true source of the universe is beyond mind or words.

The prince: Well said. Tell me, is it not true that most of the so-called pious men are in truth pretenders?
Yajnavalkya: Yes it is true.

The prince: How can I know if I am really pious and not a pretender?
Yajnavalkya: Watch over your dreams prince. If by day you feel virtuous and by night you frolic in wild fantasies, you are surely a pretender, for a man may control his desires, not his dreams.

The prince: There are frauds among holy men who can sense a devotee’s fears and hopes. These people can hook a victim the way a fish is hooked with a bright insect of desire. What do you say of them?
Yajnavalkya: If you are willing to be a fish, then you deserve the hook, your majesty. It is not the fisherman’s fault, but your own. He was merely hungry. You were greedy.

The prince: Yajnavalkya, you say you came for gold…isn’t that contrary to wisdom?
Yajnavalkya: Even wise men need a bit of gold to get by in life. We don’t live on air, as some would like you to believe.

The prince: Tell me, how shall I address you? As divine master, great teacher...
Yajnavalkya: Call me directly by my first name. I want no titles.

The prince: Why?
Yajnavalkya: Spare me from my vanity, prince. Men like me get giant size egos easily.

The prince: What about women? Are you celibate?
Yajnavalkya: Why should anyone be celibate? I love the company of women.

The prince: If you are so worldly, how can you be wise?
Yajnavalkya: A man of wisdom delights in the world without drowning in it. All wisdom is essentially an attitude — a connection with the deepest part of your own self. The world will always remain the same, whatever happens. It is your attitude to it that will change.

Silence.

Yajnavalkya: Sir, if you have finished with the interrogation, ask me a real question.

The prince: What?
Yajnavalkya: Ask to be taught to live, to love, to rejoice, to become innocent again, to discover a deep happiness within, to connect with this endless universe, to arrive at a beautiful state of being where you accept each moment with grace and joy.

I came to teach you that and take away the gold of course.

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( Source: Mani Shankar/ Deccan Chronicle, Hyderabad 29th March 2009 )