Transcriptions
Dev Priyānanda Svāmī Bhagavān
Video Link: YouTube
Namaste. Now we’re back with the second part of Anatomy of the Path.
So once you have Right View, once you really understand the Path and how Enlightenment works, and the guru recognizes this and approves it, then you can get started on the actual practice.
What is that practice? It begins with karma-yoga. karma-yoga is desireless action, niṣkāmya-karma, dedicated to God, and it will purify the mind and show the path to liberation.
Not just anyone can attain liberation, or enlightenment, or Self-realization. You have to be properly qualified. What is that qualification? niṣkāmya-karma: You should work without desire.
Now this is mentioned in Bhagavad-gītā and all bona fide scriptures, that one should work without desire and dedicate the results to God. Now that may mean giving in charity, or giving to the guru, or helping the guru with his mission as an apprentice, as a disciple, or it may mean simply living at home with one’s family and so on, and contributing to the guru’s mission.
But one must at least dedicate a percentage of one’s hard-earned income and assets to the mission of spreading this message. And then more than that, be a good person in the ordinary sense and do one’s duty in the world without seeking credit, without being egotistical, and giving up the results to God, knowing that He is the actual doer.
Karma will not give you self-realization, but karma-yoga will because it detaches you from karma.
Next verse:
This is certain: pūjā, japa, and dhyāna are actions of the body, speech, and mind, respectively. Each succeeding one is superior to the last.
So these are the methods. These are the actual processes that we perform in karma-yoga. Pūjā means offering things to God, and it can be in a ceremonial way or it can be in an informal way. It doesn’t really make much difference. Japa is recitation of a mantra, and that can be either aloud or silently. And dhyāna, of course, is meditation.
So these are actions performed with the body, speech, and mind that lead us towards liberation. And each one of these is better than the last. So if one spends all one’s time doing pūjā, that’s good. But if one is doing japa, that’s better. And if one can perform dhyāna, that is the best.
Worship of any of the eight forms, thinking that all the eight forms are forms of God, is good worship of God, pūjā. The eight forms are the five elements, earth, water, fire, air, and ether (space). And then there are the animals, the earth itself as a being, and of course other human beings, especially the guru and the other devotees.
So if one makes offerings to the water, for example, one should offer water. If one makes offerings to the sun, which is fire, one should offer fire. And if one is making offerings to the guru and the devotees, one should perform appropriate service, like giving food, giving clothing, shelter, different kinds of help and assistance, and so on. These are in capsule form the methods of karma-yoga.
Rather than praising God, japa is good. Rather than japa done in a loud voice, japa faintly whispered within the mouth is good. And rather than japa within the mouth, japa done by mind is good. This mental repetition, or mānasikā-japa, is what is called meditation, dhyāna. So japa is the royal road to meditation.
In the beginning, the mind has to be fixed. What does it mean to fix the mind? It means to fill the mind with one thought. This could be a mantra of the name of God.
If you don’t already have an object of meditation, for example, a particular incarnation or avatar of God, then I would recommend the Gāyatrī mantra. Gayatri mantra is direct worship of Brahman. So Gāyatrī mantra, we have a whole series on Gāyatrī mantra.
And later on, we will go into some of these other methods as well. But the japa which is done out loud is not as powerful as japa which is done quietly. And that is not as powerful as japa done within the mind.
So this mental japa is really the beginning of meditation. And as meditation matures, it can lead directly to Self-realization.
The next stage is bhakti-yoga. Bhakti-yoga has basically three stages. The beginning is called vaidhī-bhakti. Vaidhī-bhakti** is bhakti performed with rules and regulations, getting up at a certain time of day, usually before sunrise; fasting, eating only food which is offered to God and prepared in a certain way, pure vegetarian food, like that; or doing different kinds of pūjā or prayers, different ceremonies such as āratī ceremony, doing kīrtan or japa.
These are all part of bhakti, taking care of the temple, taking care of the devotees, and especially guru-bhakti. Guru-bhakti is very highly recommended.
So what is the advantage of bhakti over karma-yoga? Because it seems like some of these methods are already part of karma-yoga. Well the difference is in bhakti, the methods are done with love.
Now, love is something that you don’t just turn on and off like a faucet. If you love someone, that love is there all the time. It’s an attitude, not just something you do and then you stop at a certain point. No, love is part of our being. So if we love, we love all the time.
So bhakti-yoga is very similar to karma-yoga in the beginning, but it’s done with love. That’s the main difference. So:
Rather than ānyabhava, anānyabhava, done with the conviction—”He is I”—is indeed the best among all the various kinds of meditation.
Now in many cases, bhakti is done with a feeling of difference between the subject, the bhakta, and the object of bhakti. But here Rāmaṇa is saying that the best kind of bhakti is done with the feeling, “I am He; He is I.” There is no difference between me, myself, and the object of my bhakti.
So this brings us to the higher level of bhakti, spontaneous bhakti. Bhakti done with love can be spontaneous, but bhakti done with the feeling ananya: there is no difference. Anya means other: that my worshipable object is none other than my own Self—Self with a capital S, not the little ego, the little selfish mind, or the temporary desires that lead to enslavement by karma.
But a better form of desire, desire for liberation, desire for spiritual love. And this lifts one out of ordinary karma and it becomes karma-yoga. And then when love is added, it becomes bhakti. When that love becomes spontaneous, it becomes rāgānugā-bhakti.
Rāgānugā means following one’s emotional attachment, following one’s ecstasy. And then finally, the realization that “He is I.” This is the topmost level of bhakti.
By the strength of such ānanya-bhāva, or Self-inquiry, abiding in the state of being which transcends meditation, alone is the truth of supreme devotion, para-bhakti-tattva.
Now here, bhakti reaches the highest stage where it merges with jñāna. Jñāna is knowing the Self of all, the Supreme Self. You might call Him God, but we call Him the Self, because when we experience God, we experience God as oneself: ānanya-bhāva.
So abiding, having subsided in the place of arising, in one’s source, the real Self, is truly karma, desireless action; bhakti, devotion; *yoga, union with God; and jnana, true knowledge.
So in this way, jñāna includes all the lower stages in itself. This is the link that connects and ties together all these different means, or paths, into a single whole. So most people will find that bhakti-yoga, karma-yoga, and so on, leading to meditation that brings the realization of jñāna—”I am He”—will be the preferred path.
However, some people who are predisposed towards knowledge, who are very intellectual, will need to go on the path of rāja-yoga.
Rāja-yoga is the path of meditation, where one gradually destroys the mind, layer by layer, until he comes to nothingness or emptiness.
By restraining the breath within, the mind will also subside, like a bird caught in a net.
This practice of breath restraint is a device to restrain the mind. How does this work? It begins by simply watching the breath. Don’t try to stop the breath artificially—that won’t work. Rather, watch the breath and allow it to subside naturally.
You reach a point where the breath will subside completely. Don’t panic, and don’t fall asleep either, because the body will then begin to breathe on its own. There will be no need to make any effort.
Just like during sleep, the body breathes all by itself. So in the same way, once the breath becomes subsided, then autonomic breathing will start, and it will go on, while one engages in the deep practice of jñāna.
Mind and breath are two branches which have knowing and doing as their respective functions, but their origin is one.
Mind and breath are both involved in perception or being, but one is passive and the other is active. That’s the only difference. So consciousness is very much involved with breath. And you’ll see when you begin to watch your breath, if your breath is jagged, uneven, or forced, there’s a lot of ego, a lot of desire involved.
And when the breath becomes smooth, quiet, and steady, then the ego is dissolving, mind is becoming quiet, and one is moving toward the source.
When one makes the mind, which has subsided by restraining the breath, go on the one path of knowing and becoming one with self, its form will die.
The form of the mind is the form of the body. The mind takes the form of the body and says, “I am the self.” But of course, this isn’t true. The real Self is the awareness within, which has no form. Like a mirror, awareness simply reflects whatever form is put in front of it.
So consciousness does not have to be restricted to the body. In fact, one of the jhānas or meditative forms in Buddhism is to expand the space of the mind until it becomes infinite. And in that infinite space, the whole creation becomes insignificant and simply disappears.
For the great yogī who is established as the Reality due to the death of the mind form, there is not any action to do because he has attained his nature, his natural state of Self-abidance.
Abiding in the Self means union with Brahman. One becomes the universal consciousness. And this is experienced by meditating ultimately on emptiness, because consciousness is emptiness.
Consciousness is simply a space with nothing in it. And consciousness is a space that has awareness, so that whatever shows up in that space is recognized, seen by consciousness. To contemplate these things gives a joy which is so subtle and so marvelous and wonderful that it can’t be described.
I invite you all to go back and view some of our videos on Nirvāṇa because it gets into this really deeply. And anyone who has to take the rāja-yoga path, because for one reason or another they couldn’t realize through bhakti, will find these immensely rewarding and wonderful.
So finally, jnana-yoga. Jñāna means knowing or knowledge—not ordinary knowledge, but Absolute knowledge—experiential knowledge of the Self, with a capital S: Brahman.
When one scrutinizes the form of the mind without forgetfulness, without pramāna, slackness of attention, it will be found that there is no such thing as mind.
This is the direct path for all. So this is what Rāmaṇa teaches, when one is ready. This path of ātma-vicāra means seeking the Self or inquiring into the Self: “Who am I?” And not just a verbal inquiry but an existential inquiry, a phenomenological experiential inquiry.
Where is this “I”? Look into the mind. Where is the mind? And it will be found that mind doesn’t exist. There are thoughts and thoughts and thoughts, but nothing we can really call ‘mind’.
Similarly, look into this “I”. Where does this “I” exist? And it will be found that there is no “I”. Not only there is no “I”, there never has been an “I”. This realization is called Third Path in the Buddha’s teaching.
And it’s a wonderful thing because if there’s no “I” to maintain, then the whole struggle of asserting the ego and the identity can be dropped. And what a great relief that is!
The mind is only the multitude of thoughts. Of all these thoughts, the thought “I”, the feeling ‘I am the body’, alone is the root.
What is called mind is this root thought, “I”. So when we can get past that thought of ‘I am the body’, in fact getting past the thought of “I” altogether, then the whole issue of the mind simply becomes moot.
This is Self-realization. This is realization of the actual Self, which is just pure awareness. Unconditioned, non-dual, objectless awareness. There is no person. There is no “I”. Actually, there is no world or God or body or any of this. It’s all a dream.
And great souls like Rāmaṇa have showed us how to reach this by, once the mind is settled in meditation, going into ātma-vicāra and finding the root.
When one scrutinizes within, what is the rising place of “I”? The “I” will die.
This is self-inquiry, jñāna-vicāra. So, we already covered this. I’ll just go on.
In the place where the mind or ego merges, the one existence consciousness appears spontaneously as “I-I” or “I-am-I”. That itself is the whole, pūrṇa.
So, what happens when the mind goes away, the personality goes away, there’s no more “I”, no more thoughts, where one realizes infinite space, emptiness, infinite consciousness, something will happen.
And this is the reason why I left the Buddha’s teaching and went looking for a teacher in Advaita. That when I had realized that complete emptiness, that infinite space, something spontaneously appeared within it. And that is the I, the real Self, I-I.
Why is It called I-I? Because there is no other. There is no object. It’s pure awareness of awareness. And this is the ultimate state of Self-realization.
That “I-I”, the whole, is always the import of the word “I”, because of the absence of our non-existence even in sleep, which is devoid of the thought “I”, the mind.
So, in other words, realization is that which always is. The mind, the thoughts, the ego, the world, action, and so on, are temporary. They come and go. They’re like shadows in the world of Brahman. They don’t really exist because they’re temporary.
And in between this temporary coming and going we were always the Self. We were always I-I. We just didn’t realize it.
So, when we become cognizant of this, then there’s no more to know. There’s no more to do. There’s no more to see. There is only to be.
So, I’ve given a very quick scan of these different categories of consciousness and being, starting from gestation through decay and death in the fall, and starting from Right View all the way through jñāna and Self-realization on the Path.
So, in the future episodes we’ll discuss more details about each one of these. And for now, it’s time to say ĀŪṀ Tat Sat; ĀŪṀ Hariḥ ĀŪṀ.