True Spiritual Living

by Swami Krishnananda

So, the achievement in yoga becomes a sort of awakening rather than an activity. When we wake up from sleep or from dream, we are performing an action. Though we are not engaging ourselves in any kind of work, we are not doing anything at all when we wake up from sleep, yet there is such a tremendous difference in our achievement. We enter a new world altogether when we wake up from dream or sleep. The achievement called ‘waking up from sleep’ is not the result of an action. This is why Acharya Sankara tirelessly hammers upon the idea that liberation is not an action, and it cannot be achieved by any kind of action. The reason behind this extraordinary proclamation of his is that what is to be achieved is so intimately connected with us that any activity of our personality cannot touch it; and moksha is nothing but an awakening into a wider reality which is already planted in us and is not external to us.

All activity is an externalised movement of consciousness towards an object outside. But here the object is ourself, and therefore there cannot be such a movement of our consciousness. Here, again, is the reason why ordinary activity is of no use. Not the greatest of virtuous deeds can make us fit to visualise the cosmic form, says the Bhagavadgita towards the end of the eleventh chapter. Whatever be the virtue that we do in this world, that would be unsuited and inadequate for this purpose. Na veda-yajnadhyayanair na danair na cha kriyabhir na tapobhir ugraih, evam rupah sakya aham nrloke (11.48): Even the most terrific form of ordinary austerity, even the breaking of our head through the greatest of philanthropic deeds and services in the world – all these put together cannot be adequate for the purpose. This is because all these wonderful deeds in the world that we are speaking of are things ‘of’ the world, but we are not ‘of’ the world; we are something different from the world. Why are we different from the world? Because the world is a name that we give to the externalisation of consciousness, but we cannot be so externalised inasmuch as we are indivisible. Indivisibility means universality. All these are words for the novitiate, meaning nothing ultimately, but they convey such a tremendous significance that even a mere thought bestowed upon their true meaning is enough to shake us up from our very roots.

So, the yoga system tells us that the control of the modifications of the mind is to be effected with great caution. Why do they say all this is so difficult – it is like a razor’s edge, sword’s path, path of the fish, path of birds in the air, and so on? These are only analogies to give an idea of the difficulty of understanding the whole procedure, and putting this understanding into practice. Thus, we come to the conclusion that yoga is a process of awakening, rather than an activity in an empirical sense. It is not a work that we perform. And what is this awakening? How is this brought about? The answer is: by control of the mind.

But, we have been talking about the very same thing as being almost an impossibility before us. Now yoga answers this entire question. Most of the higher truths are explained only by analogy, comparison, image, and not by logic or scientific analysis. Sometimes stories give a better understanding of a thing than a logical, precise, analytical deduction of it. The Yoga Vasishtha is a scripture which has concluded that analogical stories are better means of conveying the nature of Reality than logical arguments, because logical arguments are infected with the defect of logic itself. The defect of logic is that it initially requires a dissection of the subject and the predicate, and then it endeavors to join the predicate with the subject by a synthesis. We break the leg of a man so that we may join the leg together by medical means. Such is the thing that we generally do, even in the best of logical deductions. But the nature of Truth is such that it is incapable of being approached in this manner. It requires a purification of the self, which is the means of self-awakening; and this purificatory process is analogous to a gradual rise of the soul from one stage of self-identification to another stage of self-identification.

The whole of life is nothing but an awareness of selfhood. If we properly and deeply think over the matter, we will realise that there is no such thing as an object in this world; there is only a self. Even that which we call an object is a part of our self in the sense that we associate that object with ourselves and make it a part of ourselves, and the moment it becomes a part of ourselves even in a social sense, it becomes a social self and it is not an object anymore. The family is a self, though it is constituted of external members. It is because it is a self that we are so much attached to the members thereof. It may not be the real Self, because it is involved in space, time and causality; but in spite of the fact that it is not a true Self because it is not indivisible, it is a self. Otherwise, why are we related to it? Why are we thinking about it? Why are we concerned with it? Why are we attached to it? We have a national self, and because of the existence of such a self, we identify ourselves with a nationality. We identify ourselves with a creed or a cult or even a language group, and we identify ourselves with the human species. We are very much concerned with humanity, much more than we are concerned with anything else in the world. Is it not so? This is also a kind of selfhood. Whatever we are doing is for man only, and we are not concerned with anything else – as if the world is exhausted only by man, and God has created only man, with nothing else but man, though it is not true. Why are we so worried about mankind and not about animals – lions, tigers, snakes, scorpions – as if they are not existing? Well, this is a peculiar isolation of ourselves by identification with another kind of self altogether, namely, the species.

There is no such thing as a self getting connected with an object, ultimately speaking, because the moment the self gets connected with an object, it ceases to be an object. It becomes a part of the Self itself. This is why it is said that what we love is the Self only. There is no such thing as love of an object, because the moment we love the object, the object ceases to be the object; it becomes the Self. It is the Self that we are loving even in the so-called object. The great sage Yajnavalkya has proclaimed that no love is possible where the Self is absent. Atmanastu kamaya sarvam priyam bhavati (Brihad. 2.4.5): It is for the sake of the Self that we are loving things. It is not merely ‘for’ the sake of the Self that we are loving things – we are loving only the Self, and nothing else. And when we extend our selfhood, what we are doing is not the action of the love of an object outside, but only another form of the Self. We love the bodily self if we are utterly selfish – only this body. Otherwise, if we are more altruistic and civilised, we become a family self, a social self, a political self, an international self, a human self. We may become even a world self. But, it is after all the Self. There is nothing but that.

The whole point is that there is nothing but the Self anywhere, in one form or the other. Whether it is a counterfeit self or a real Self, that is a different question, but it is a self. Counterfeit currency notes may look like genuine currency notes. Though they are counterfeit notes, they are passed for genuine notes; otherwise, they have no value. Likewise, even if we create an artificial self, it is to be valued as the Self; otherwise, it has no sense.

Thus, yoga takes us to the root of the whole matter, and wishes to disillusion us of all our prejudices and old notions of things, so that we may know what it is to control the mind, what is meant by all this. To control the mind and to control the self are the same thing. Mind control is self-control. Chitta nirodha is atma vinigrahah; they are identical. Inasmuch as it is difficult to understand what the Self is, what the mind is, what its modifications are, yoga practice becomes difficult; and, therefore, with tenacity of purpose and incisive understanding, we have to take to the various prescriptions given by the Yoga Sastra in a methodical manner.