Refrain From Asking

Heaven is not on high, beyond your ken.
It is very much here, in the world of men:
Deny the ego, deep-hid in you;
And, you are ‘there’ in Heaven on Earth.
For liberation, O man, why plead before
Three crores of Gods is despair?
Deny the ego, deep-rooted in you—
And you are free, no pleading therefore.

The attainment of the Absolute or Brahman is not the end result of a course of spiritual effort. The jivi (individualized soul) is the Brahman. Jeevo devassanathanah—”The jivi is the eternal Godhead.” Even when involved in worldly activities, the individual cannot discard this reality of his. His belief that he is just a man arises from delusion. The ocean may be known by many names in many areas through many ages, but its nature is unaffected thereby. So, too, however many forms and names he assumes and adopts, the Brahman-principle persists in him and remains the goal of awareness.

Krishna says in the Gita, “The eternal I, a part of Me, has manifested as all individuals.” This is what that statement implies. Mother Veda [Veda Mata] declares to all the worlds, “Since a person is limited by a body and entangled in the senses, he is bound by ignorance and led to believe that he is a mere man. He is a child of immortality.”

Mind is polluted by desire 

Ignorance is caused by attachment. Attachment results in identification of the I with the body, senses, mind, etc. Attachment leads to desire; desire results in anger; anger blinds reason and promotes ignorance; ignorance breeds dualities of mine and thine, good and bad, etc.; these lead to activities to make gains, and avoid losses, etc.; these produce consequences of merit and demerit; they have to be consumed in this life or future lives; so one has to go through suffering.

Suffering is caused by janma (life) that presupposes suffering. Karma [action] is due to belief in dwaita (duality). Dwaita is the result of ignorance, the product of anger. Anger is the child of affection, and attachment is the parent of affection.

Even Arjuna, the greatest bowman and warrior of his age, became a victim on the battlefield itself of this insidious, false, and enfeebling attachment. The mind obeys the senses and defiles man. It is well nigh impossible for man to master the mind and turn it away from the objective world. Arjuna confessed to Lord Krishna that the mind was uncontrollably wayward and could not be stilled. The mind has two phases: the unpolluted and the polluted. The mind affected by desire is polluted; when it is unaffected by desire, it is unpolluted.

For liberation from bondage to desire, the mind is the only instrument available to man. Turn it toward the objective world, you are bound; turn it toward God, you are on the road to liberation. The mind refuses to be calm even for a fraction of a second. When a continuous shower of stones is falling on the waters of a lake, how can the surface be calm and unruffled? So too, man is throwing stone after stone of desire on the calm lake of the mind.

Bhaktas [devotees]—indeed all vyaktis (those who seek to manifest their inner reality)—should therefore prevent the stones (desires) from disturbing the equanimity of the mind. The fly rests one moment on the sacred food-offerings on the altar of God and the next moment on filth. The mind seeks refuge in holy thoughts and things; the next moment it revels in some fearsome foul ideas. The mind is like the elephant. The mahout gives it a nice bath, he scrubs it clean, and chains it to a shady tree. But it gathers dust with its trunk and scatters it all over itself! Man, too, urged by the senses, pours into his own mind dust and dirt.

Senses are the servants  

In fact, the function of the mind is to act as controller of the senses. The role of the senses is to serve the mind. The right relationship is for the servants to obey the master and for the master to rule over the servants. But when the master falls into the hands of his servants, he becomes the victim of all varieties of loss and grief.

The Ramayana [the epic] provides a fine illustration for this danger. Kaikeyi, the queen, was the mistress; Manthara was her servant, her maid. But since the queen was subservient to her maid, a whole series of tragedies happened. Kaikeyi came from a famous royal dynasty; she was the favorite consort of a famous emperor. She was the mother of Bharatha [Rama’s brother], who was famous for his dutifulness and righteousness. She loved her stepson Rama as dearly as her life-breath. Yet, despite her own virtue, learning, and authority, she gave ear to her attendant, Manthara. She drew upon herself eternal infamy from everyone. She landed in a situation where her beloved son came to despise her. Even the names Kaikeyi and Manthara have become obnoxious.

The lesson is: we should not allow the senses, which are only servants, to lord over us. If we do so we invite the fate of Kaikeyi. Wherever you are, however rich, learned, or powerful, when you advise someone to do wrong, you invite on yourselves the fate of Manthara. Since men yield to the blandishments of the senses, they are becoming Kaikeyis and losing the divine nature, the quality of the master.

Role and purpose of mind 

We store the waters of the flowing river in reservoirs. But one has to take care to close the sluices before the water is let into the reservoir. Or, else, the water will flow out through the sluices and cannot be stored for use. Likewise, the atma–shakti (the inner soul force) has to be let through the intellect channel into the reservoir, mind. We can utilize that force for our benefit and for promoting world prosperity and peace by tightly closing the five sluices—the outward-bound senses.

The closing of the sluices is the process that the yoga shastra of Sage Patanjali describes as chitta vritti nirodah—preventing agitations in the mind. The mind is designed for a specific purpose: achieving the four goals of human existence, dharma [righteousness], artha [wealth], kama [desire], and moksha [liberation], the attainment of a happy life through righteous means (artha through dharma) and the cultivation of desire for liberation. It has not been designed to promote greed and hatred, pride and possessiveness. This truth has to be believed.

The wind gathers clouds and equally swiftly scatters them. The mind can create conditions of bondage or of liberation. So, one must slowly loosen the bonds of attachment to the physical body and its components, the senses. The senses rob us of physical and mental strength.

Are all who live in the body and move about with the body attached to it and to the senses etc. that go along with it? God, too, comes with a body, as Avatar, and when He moves about He seems to be only human as far as one can see. But there is a fundamental inner difference. The incarnate God, the Avatar, is unconcerned and is indifferent to results. While the ordinary man with the body has yearning for the result. Mamatwa (mine-principle) is human; Brahmatwa (Brahman-principle) is divine. You cannot discern the distinction, even when you look or listen. You can understand only by experience. The Avatar has no wants. He has no egoism. He is ever alone in the Brahmatwam. Look at a record or tape, it is blank, silent, same! Activate it with a sound box, it sings and speaks with fluency.

Avatar in body & ordinary man 

The Avatar appears as any other human being, equipped with body, senses, mind, etc. But consider the vast difference in thoughts, feelings, and emotions. The Avatar is the total, the all comprehensive, the poornam (full). The human is partial, narrow, negative. But in the human the Divine exists as the core and can manifest as bliss. We pay all attention to the external trappings of knowledge; we do not transform the deeper instincts and impulses inherited from animal ancestors.

Place jasmine garlands around a monkey’s neck, dress it in shiny silken clothes, and seat it on a gem-set throne. Can it forsake its apish tricks?

Once it was a monkey; now it is a man. And as man through many lives, crookedness and cruelty have struck deep roots. These cannot be destroyed soon. It is a very difficult task indeed.

This is the reason why God assumes the Avatar form and decides to award mankind the power to discriminate between right and wrong, between truth and falsehood. The Avatar does it through precept and example. The scriptures teach that life is, unfortunately, short. So the Gita advises man to appreciate three facts: (1) To be born as a human being is a precious opportunity; (2) To yearn to realize God is another precious piece of good luck; (3) The greatest good fortune is the chance to be in the presence of God, to be immersed in the service of God and to be engaged in fulfilling divine commands.

God responds to pure devotion 

Sathyabhama, in her pride, imagined that her Lord Krishna could appreciate her if jewels and gems were presented. She piled them on one pan of the balance that was weighing Him. But this was of no avail. Rukmini had effaced herself and knew only the Krishna-principle. So when she placed a single tulsi [holy basil] leaf with her prayer on the pan, Krishna could be weighed, and the pan with Krishna rose up.

Unadulterated devotion, total renunciation—these alone can help us to achieve the awareness of our divinity. Kooresa was the headman of a village in the days of Ramanuja [a saint]. His other name was Srivatsanka. He revered Ramanuja, the Acharya [preceptor] of Visishta-adwaita (qualified non-dualism), and the great Master of Vaisnavism [follower of Lord Vishnu], as his guru. He renounced his riches, lands, and home in the village and proceeded to the holy shrine of Srirangam on the Kaveri River. His wife Andal accompanied him. They had to walk through a thick jungle when night fell. The wife asked him, her voice tremulous with fear, “Are there robbers around?” He replied, “Why should we fear? We have nothing with us for them to rob.” The wife confessed that she had with her a small gold cup, which she had brought along to serve water to her husband. Kooresa did not approve of her action. He asked for the cup and threw it far into the jungle, and they proceeded in peace.

God fulfills the devotee’s need 

They lodged in a choultry [a free inn] near the temple at Srirangam. Kooresa was far too exhausted. He had no food throughout the three-day long trek. The wife heard the temple bells ringing to announce the “Presentation of food offerings to Lord Ranganatha.” She cried out to the Lord, “Your servant is stricken by starvation. How can you, O Lord, feast on the offerings knowing how he suffers?” In a few minutes, a procession from the temple reached the choultry. A band of pipers and drummers led the long line of priests and Pundits. The Lord had commanded them to take the food offerings to his devotees at the choultry. They brought silver plates and vessels full of a rich variety of dishes.

Kooresa rose and sat up. He protested, “I did not pray for food. The Lord should grant me what I need and pray for, He cannot give me what I did not ask for! How can this atma ask the Paramatma [the Supreme Lord] for something to fill the stomach?” Because the temple priests pressed him to partake of the prasad (food offered to idols), he tasted a little and gave a little to the wife. Then he questioned her, “Did you commit the mistake? Did you pray for food?” She replied, “Lord! I did not ask so. I only had a feeling in my mind, ‘How could you, O Krishna, accept those offerings when your servant is starving’?”

You need only God 

He who gives when asked and what is asked for is the Prabhu. He who gives unasked what one needs is the Vibhu. Prabhu means a Lord, Vibhu means the Cosmic Ruler. We should not use the Vibhu to acquire what we feel we need most. This is the reason why the poet has sung:

Refrain from asking, O mind!
The more you ask, the deeper it plumbs
And the longer it takes for the answer to rise.
Did He not, without being asked,
Fulfill Sabari’s anguished wish?
Did He not bless the bird Jatayu
Who died for Him,
Asking for nought instead?

Thus, Kooresa instructed his mind and earned peace. Every Avatar seeks to raise humanity to the level of Divinity by laying down such paths of devotion and holding forth such examples of surrender.

“I do not know anything other than you.” “You are the one and only.” When one has this faith, why allow desire to creep in? Why ask for this or that? Have faith in God, the Giver of all, the only treasure you need; He will fill you with contentment.

Source: Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol. 15