Manah Sodhanam -Verse 7

After discussing so long about the need to purify our mind, verse 7 goes on to tell us how we can do this. For me, mind purification essentially means getting rid of all unwanted thoughts and let peace prevail in me. Unwanted thoughts include all sorts of rubbish like fear, worry, envy, anger and all other negative things that you can possible think of. After all, according to the Vedas and all the great Gurus, we are nothing but beings of bliss. So, working in reverse, to become a being of bliss, if I get rid of all that are "not bliss", then I can get a glimpse of my true state. Right? My Guru keeps saying "பற்றது பற்றி விட்டால் பற்றற்றது தானாக விட்டுவிடும்." So if I focus on the truth, all other distractions will automatically melt away.

Verse 7 tells us how to actually get rid of all the distractions. It goes like this.

MANASSUDDHIKARANIHA  SADHANANI  VADANTI  HA
YAJNO  DANAM  TAPASCAIVA  JAPASTIRTHAM  VRATASTATHA

The meaning is very simple. Great teachers prescribe many methods to purify the mind, such as yajna, charity, austerity, japa, pilgrimage and vows.

Now now now, let us not immediately imagine all the scenes from Mahabharatha and Ramayana TV serials when we hear the words like japa, thapa, yajna etc. Let me take a moment to write about a small tangent here. This incident kind of made me marvel at our culture and also, incidentally made me understand the true meaning of this verse.

A very good friend took me to the dance performance of her guru. And I was absolutely blown away by her performance. As I was immersed in the dance, a thought struck me. All our traditional art forms centered around God. For our ancestors, entertainment also was somehow related to God. Be it dance, music, harikathas, sculptures...God somehow wormed his way into them. And this God, is nothing but the Paramathma that resides in all of us. So, in a nutshell, meditation upon the self was subtly inculcated in their day to day lives.

Any form of creative pursuit brings our mind to a single point. Doing any work that we enjoy also brings our mind to a single point. And when we are in that state, all our unwanted thoughts just disappear. When I write, or when I run, or at the risk of sounding borderline OCD, when I clean my home, my mind calms down and ultimately, becomes silent. (Now, I also feel that way when I am drooling in front of a television or drown myself in pulp fiction. But that is more in a mindless and dumb way..tamasic right?)

So what will happen if I club such activities with self inquiry? Then this becomes my Sadhana? My brother tells me that when we tread in this path, we have to turn the focus light on us. All through my life, I have spent, and still continue to spend so much time on reacting to words and actions of "others", so much of my happiness depends on external things, so much energy is wasted on judging others, being angry/upset/irritated with others, doing things to get approval and appreciation of others, trying to mold people and situations to meet my expectations, time wasted in worry and fear...what an utter waste?

I feel it is now time I turn the focus light on myself. Do things that brings my mind to focus. Do those things with discipline and conviction and regularity. Whenever unwanted thoughts creep in, immediately switch my thoughts to the Paramathma -who is still a Rama, Krishna, Pillayarappa and Govinda to me. And more than anything, try to be good and kind to all those around me and help others in whatever way I can, without any expectations. Hari Om! Have a blessed 2015.

Comments

Post a Comment

And they blabbered back!

Popular posts from this blog

How much longer will India be the land of festivals?

Image
There are so many things that I want to write here, that I don't know where to start. But there was one predominant thought I had when I got up at 3.30 am on Sunday morning which I wanted to compulsorily blog about -The Karadaiyan Nombu. For the uninitiated, Karadayan Nombu falls on the first day of "Pangunii" month as per the Tamil calendar. Legend has it that Savitri, rescued her husband Satyavan's life from Yama on this day. So every year, young girls and married women pray to the Goddess to bless them with good husbands and for longevity and good health of their husbands respectively. We wear a yellow thread around our neck on this day and make a special delicacy -the jaggery adai and the salt adai. The time to tie the thread around the neck is usually the moment the month is born. As far as I can remember, it has been at convenient times. Even on those days when the month is born late in the afternoon or evening, we all managed -even if it came on
Read more

Karma Yoga -Part 1 -What and Why

Image
For the longest time, I was under the impression that the term Karma yoga only means doing social service -maybe sweating it out in a beach clean up, sweeping the temples, cleaning the animals in a shelter and doing physical work for charities and NGOs. And needless to say, I felt that Karma Yoga makes no sense because I didn't have enough time to walk around with a broom stick. Looking back, it kind of feels funny that I have always associated Karma Yoga with sweeping and mopping.  Then came my initial Vedanta classes. When our Acharya used to talk about unselfish action, not working for fruits of action, work for work's sake, working without attachment and so on, I was still left scratching my head -not because of what she was telling, but because of my limited understanding and evolvement. At that time, I was still working in corporate and I often used to wonder, what it meant to work unselfishly? It is not that I was a selfish person anyways, so where am I
Read more

Manah Sodhanam - Verse 1

PARAMATMA'  DVAYANANDAH  SARVABHUTASTHITO'  PI  HA AJNANENAVRTO  DRSTAH  TATHAIVA  CA  MANOMALAIH That sounds pretty straight forward eh? The Paramatma is non dual and full of bliss...present in all beings. But then, we don't get to experience the Paramatma due to our own ignorance and impurities of the mind. The thing that really stumps me is this truth -stated over and over and over in all scriptures -that we are beings of bliss. Our true state is that of happiness. If we can actually get to experience that bliss, won't our lives be just fantastic? Our happiness is strongly associated with what we have and don't have. A good job, a steady income, health, love, children, new car, own house, vacations -we run behind all these things and much more - just for the sake of some imagined, temporary happiness. While we undoubtedly feel happy when we get what we want, our mind immediately creates another void. Then we run to fill that void to experience our nex
Read more

Love

Image
Love, such a commonly used word. We all know what it means. An intense like for something, a feeling of attraction etc etc. In today's colloquial parlance, we "love" anything and everything. Right from the pizza with extra cheese topping to the new dress that we brought. We love our new haircut, we loved the trip that we took last year, we love that actor and we love hanging out with friends.  We love the rain and we love that cup of coffee. And then, we also go around, holding this love as a precious burden in our heart for that one person we "love". Isn't this funny? If love is so easy, so commonplace in our lives, then loving should also be equally easy, right? And this so called love, as we know it, should be liberating. It should only bring us joy and peace and contentment. But many times, especially when it is latched on to people, all it does is bring heartache. Oh, the misery is all too familiar, isn't it? The way our heart broke
Read more

Purpose

Image
Why we do what we do is a very important question. And I had been struggling to answer this for the five years I was working in commercial banking. Why am I doing this job? Apart from salary, there was absolutely no other answer that I could give myself. Good pay, yes. In fact, a very good pay. Work life balance, yes. It was a five day week work. Work profile, yes. I had to interact with and manage the commercial accounts. Which means, low volume and high value. So yes, it was a good profile with amazing exposure and learning. But, I hated going to work. Every morning, it was a struggle for me to go to office. Often, I just had to switch off my mind and completely ignore its protests. Because, fairly speaking, I had no reason to complain. It was a good job with good pay with a very comfortable work environment -in both the banks that I was working. But still, it didn't make me happy. I used to go through the five days of the week, looking forward for the weekend. And I use
Read more

One Size DOESNOT Fit All

Image
It has been exactly a year since I quit my corporate job. And first things first -that does not make me a quitter. All through my 28 years of life, I have been made to believe that life follows a single course and as if to reinforce this, everyone around me was taking the same course. School, under graduation, then a post graduation or a job, buy a house / car, get married, have kids, work, work, work, then go on vacations now and then, grow old and then die. The life in between is peppered with all sorts of emotions and dramas and love and hate and gossip and expectations and gratifications and disappointments and whatnots. Well, I also embarked on the same course -school, under graduation in engineering, because only an engineering degree has job value and no one who does a BA Lit, or BA History or Journalism gets a well paying job, then a post graduation because I am not an engineer material and I wanted to escape working in an IT firm, got a job offer in a MNC bank, got m
Read more

Absolute Relative

Image
It is kind of sadly funny or rather, funnily sad, when we come to understand that to know the absolute, relative is the key. Absolute by itself is beyond comprehension. How can one define absolute? The dictionary definitions are rather interesting. These are some of the definitions given. absolute ˈabsəluːt / adjective 1 . not qualified or diminished in any way; total. "absolute secrecy" synonyms: complete ,   total ,   utter ,   out-and-out,   outright ,   entire ,   perfect ,   pure ,   decided ;   More 2 . viewed or existing independently and not in relation to other things; not relative or comparative. "absolute moral standards" synonyms: universal ,   fixed ,   independent ,   non-relative ,   non-variable ,   absolutist ;   More noun PHIL
Read more