Musings on the Philosophy of a great Sage

 Photo Courtesy: bhagwan-ramana-maharshi.blogspot.com

There are some arguments that stop even before they have started and one that glares at me is the continues debate of that which is unreal vs that which is real. Pure spiritual philosophies define the real world as unreal which is the basic argument that people agree to disagree on even before they tried to understand the potential deeper meaning of the words.

Here is an eye opening statement of Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi that helps me understand this phenomenon a little better from my perspective.

Quoting from "The Teachings of Ramana Maharishi In His Own Words" by Author Osborne:

"The world is perceived as an apparent objective reality when the mind is externalized, thereby abandoning its identity with the Self. When the world is thus perceived the true nature of the Self is not revealed; conversely, when the Self is realized the world ceases to appear as an objective reality."

Let me first start with the meaning of externalizing and internalizing the mind. We live in 2 states of the mind all the time, that which we stitch into the external world around us, which we call "real" and that which is a figment of our imagination and perception which is apparently internal and "unreal" from our own perspective.

To put this in a practical example, the real world could be defined as what my boss expects me to do at work tomorrow and the unreal world is my apparently realistic imagination of how beautiful Lord Shiva Nataraja looks in the great hall of Chidambaram when I imagine Him through my devotional mind. As I am extremely connected to the external world, it is very difficult for the mind to state it as unreal and try and connect to the "Self", hence the external world appears as the apparent objective reality. In case, in all sincerity I made the dance of Lord Shiva Nataraja all real in my mind and enjoyed the blissful moment of viewing his divine presence in my mind, that world built on the river of Bhakti is far more real than a distant boss I may or may not meet tomorrow.

The next word I would like to explain is what the Self is. This of course is my understanding and purely my perspective, and I may be wrong :). To my understanding and realization, the Self is the definition of ME, at this present moment in time, with no thoughts that cloud my mind, with no intellect that defines my ego, with no rules that define my identity, with no relationships that govern my role, and with no possessions that define my earthly existence. I am free off the world, I am free off society, I am free off my ego, I am free off man made rules and I possess nothing. When the mind tunes itself to this thinking for even 5 minutes and connects with this reality, I have touched the Self, that is the real ME. Hence the world now ceases to appear, it is non existent, and therefore not real.

This explanation in simpler terms defines the deeper truth of what the Great Ramana Maharishi might have tried to indicate, but now, there is the other argument of how do we call an ever changing world as unreal and illusionistic specially when the changes are visible right before our eyes?

Let’s revisit this statement of the illusion in this so called real world. Let’s take the step back and view the history of this country and its people across the ages. We have had a colorful past, there have been enough battles, there is enough diversity in language and life style, and yet the religious nature of Hinduism in the country is intact, and as ancient as ancient can get surpassing all the other world religions in terms of time and tolerance to withstand any form of destruction.

As Vedanta explains, that which changes is unreal and that which remains unchanged with the tolerance of time is real. People have come and gone, generations have changed, dynasties have been wiped out and replaced and yet the basic religious identity hardly got shattered by these blows. Isnt the faith of Hinduism, this way of life, this art of spiritualism actually real that it didn’t depend on any one human being or time for its sustenance? The thought of Lord Shiva is as powerful today as it was in the Indus valley ages. The thought of Vishnu is as profound now as it was during the Aryan age [If there was a disputed Aryan period at all?!]

Change is not permanent, and that is best explained by the recent turmoil brought in by the wealth revealed after centuries in the ancient temple of Lord Padmanabha Swamy. The wealth belongs to no one; the wealth in our system of rules still has great value, without an owner. Our rules don’t define what to do with this wealth, but this wealth certainly reeks fear into people about who will manage it and how justly they will be honest to the Lord's earthly possessions and hopefully it will not go into the wrong hands. The wealth cannot be used [to be fair to all] and therefore much as it is of great value, it is as good as sand for it belongs to no one.

Conceptually, what good has "Change" brought to this newly found wealth at an ancient temple? Is Lord Padmanabhaswamy suddenly that much more important because of the wealth he now has revealed to us as we perceive it through our minds? He always had it, we found His wealth now! This wealth was illusionistic and conceptual till it was brought to the surface, and now it controls the mind a lot more than the Bhakti that rules the devotees mind to Lord Padmanabhaswamy. He is no longer the Great divine being who rests in the enigmatic ocean of time, he is now the owner of Rs 90000 crores which will again disappear with time, but Lord Padmanabha Swamy as a concept will remain even if this temple is ravaged by time. 

Its a matter of time, the wealth that was once open treasure was buried for more than a century, and is now revealed and will be buried again. As we have seen before, what will remain is the unchanging principle of spiritualism defined by the existence of the great Trinity, by the spiritual presence of the Gods who rule the Indian mindset. We are part of the change, the physical body will give itself up, its the astral body that will bail us out to the next level in our spiritual journey. The change as we perceive it is limited to this life, the unchanging is the Atman that pervades the space and will leave the physical body at will survive the individual after death.

To the great Sage Ramana Maharishi, I bow in all humility for these divine teachings.

The power of the Shankaracharya

Srinivasan took out the wooden box that lay untouched within his puja room and laid it on the floor. He stared at it closely and thought to himself over the many circumstances that had brought him this far. He looked up at the little home he had made with great care for the Lord to be housed in and now it was the most important thing he would guard, because his soul was in there protected and safe.

In the early hours of the morning before the sun rose, Srinivasan lit a small ghee lamp and incense and placed it next to the box. His heart beat fast as he slowly opened it. Within it lay a few items of puja, a yellow cloth and in its center in a cloth bed lay a piece of bamboo. It was smeared in turmeric and had a lot of threads rolled around it. He picked it up carefully and laid it on the floor. He whispered a prayer to himself and bowed to it, holding both the corners. Srinivasan was surprized as he had never felt this before. His arms shook as they could not withstand the energy that flowed through them. He was unable to hold the bamboo, as his arms trembled. With humility he raised himself up again and placed the piece of bamboo back into the box.

Srinivasan looked up to the Lord seated within the chamber of his little throne. He wondered what spiritualism was, what the energy of the Lord was and who he was as a drop of atman floating in this consciousness in this universe at this time in this space. He closed his eyes and a mantra of the three eyed Shiva flowed into his mind. He looked up at the slab of vilva wood that lay within the chamber. He had heard a story about it.

There was a saint who walked the earth in these times and touched the souls of everyone with his humility. It was one morning at his ashram that he walked up to a vilva tree and sat under it. In a while the tree descended to lie next to him. He spent hours with the tree in divine conversation, unmoved, unshaken and in complete deep thought. After a long time, he turned and asked his pupil to get a peice of bamboo shaped as an axe. The dying tree was cut, and each part of its trunk was made into a slap and given to his disciples with instructions to give it to anyone worthy of it.


Srinivasan looked back at the spiritual journey he had made in his life. He meditated over these simple things that had far more value than gold. He revered his Guru, the symbolism of whose he worshiped before he started his prayers to the Supreme. He had heard great stories about the Mahatma, of his appearance well after he had left his earthly self. He had revisited his disciples, and instructed them about their activities. He had blessed them and disappeared. All they ever saw was the sacred Dandam (staff) that represented the great Shankaras stand in front of them held by a hand mid air in space.
This was the great emblem of the Shankaras, a bamboo staff that was so simple to look at but so sacred that its energy could be felt within the mind when it was clean and immersed in divine love for the Guru. It was the staff of enlightenment that represented the ending symbol of every mantra written. It was the staff of knowledge that represented the supreme guru who is the solution to our earthly presence and our learning about quality life.

The great staff, is what we limited human beings are able to see because this is the only visible symbolism of the other world, the celestial world and the empowering knowledge that it comes with feeding our thoughts with divine wisdom. This is the dandam of the Shankaracharya. This is the emblem of wisdom and this is the power of learning that we lesser mortals need to worship. The truth is, the Lord is not out there, but he is in here within us and the noise of our worldly problems is the Maya that bars us from listening to his silence.

He awakens the other world, that which is fed by words and sustained by imagination, that which is invisible and needs to be sort after, that which speaks in silence and disappears in noise, that which is felt with emotion and logic, that which has rules that are never broken, that which always was and never changed, that which springs from deep rooted energy that gives us life, that which neither you nor I have ever cared to understand.

Srinivasan thought to himself, as he stood at the gates of his own divine world of imagination like a gatekeeper who guarded because he believed but didnt really know what was inside. He felt like a blessed ignorant fool, holding a diamond in his hand and not believing so because it didnt shine!

Tears rolled down his eyes as he stared on at the divine, he felt miserable that this was he, and he felt happy that at least he had come this far and now this was he. He felt the dualism in his existence, he felt the incompleteness in his form, he felt the inprisonment in his flesh and he experienced the dumb ignorance within his mind. This was he, this is he and hopefully will not continue to be him.

The depth of Dakshinamurthy Shiva

Srinivasan breathed a heavy breath, he was exhausted and he wanted to just settle his mind on the form of Dakshinamurthy. Shiva, the intellectual, with his eyes closed in dhyana sits under the fig tree with the six great sages; the Sanakadimunivars listen in silence as the pearls of wisdom fall into existence. This is a form of Shiva who is composed of bliss, intelligence and existence, who controls the world of Maya at will, who has no beginning nor end and yet is formless himself.

There is eloquence in his being; there is purity in the air around him and the soft verses of praise rhythmically bathe the ambience for the seeker to listen.

Through the illusion of Atman, he who sees the universe exist within himself during his hours of sleep, like a city exists within a mirror, such that the universe looks like a manifestation of its own, he who beholds himself when awake, his own, the incarnate of the teacher, to him, the teacher who faces south, to him I bow.

He manifests himself in the bodies of all, of Brahma, of the devas, of Purusha (man) and of pashu(lesser animals). He is within those that are womb born, egg born, sweat born and earth born. When he is realized the world melts into him as if it were a blissful dream. And therefore I come into existence, I am life, I am consciousness, and I am pure.

Tat Tvam Asi

But I am a prisoner in this thick fog of Maya, my consciousness manifests itself as imagination, doubt, confusion, memory, determination, guess... Thus I adopt a school of thought, to understand and find, to realize myself. And thus I hold on to life, to meaning and to philosophy, to escape the clutches of this Maya that imprisons my mind. And so philosophy was born.

Charvaka: or Lokayatas hold that nothing is real except that which is revealed to the senses.

Kanada: founder of the Vaiseshika school of thought, believe that character and attributes are inherent in the atoms themselves and thus gives rise to objects of creation as well as their qualities.

Sugata: the popular Buddha believes Atman is not independent of the state of consciousness which is ever changing with every moment

Sankhyas: who follow the doctrines of Kapila and Patanjali, that the universe consists of two realities, Purusha(consciousness) and Prakriti(phenomenal realm of matter), the experience and the experienced, and where ultimate realization is achieved by following Ashtanga yoga.

Vedantins: who believe in the system of Sariraka-mimamsa, that explains the nature of Brahman

Pauranikas: who believe in the puranas that explain the creation of the universe and its beings and explain the histories and descriptions of various Gods and Goddesses.

Pratyakshas: who believe in sensuous perception, right knowledge obtained by sense organs coming in contact with external objects, like color is obtained through the eye.

Anumana: right knowledge obtained from the process of inference, that where there is smoke, there has to be fire. Hence the inference is fire as the presence of smoke reveals it.

Sabda: right knowledge obtained through verbal statement from a trust worthy source.

Upamana: right knowledge that is obtained from the process of comparison

Arthapatti: knowledge in the form of presumption, surmising a thing to account for something else that is known.

Abhava: immediate consciousness of the non existence of something by the non perception of it, therefore if it existed it should be perceived.

Sambhava: the right knowledge as to the existence of a part, when we know the whole of which it is a part also exists.

Aitihya: right knowledge obtained by centuries of tradition, transmitted generation to generation of which the source is unknown.

Srinivasan sighed, feeling the silence and bliss within him. Time doesn’t exist, its part of the very Maya we are engulfed with, Kala defines the change that is felt or perceived in that which is living, that which has prana, that which is Atman. Srinivasan stood bewildered with the thought of the great Lord of the South, who touches the consciousness, who governs the ever open mind into a state of everlasting bliss.

He had awoken to the truth of Dakshinamurthy and yet he could scarcely comprehend it. The truth echoed in his mind and yet the fog didn’t lift. The peace of equilibrium and high emotional bliss touched him and yet he felt it was momentary. The thought of coming back to this world brought his mind crashing into the depths of Maya we all know so well.

Srinivasan opened his eyes, Lord Dakshinamurthy continued to be in dhyana with his eyes closed. The apasmara purusha, the emblem of ignorance felt like that of Shrinivasan’s as he felt the warm force of divine Lord gently crush his “imagined” self. He was the seventh present, who tried hard to listen to the truth of the universe and yet those words felt like they fell on deaf ears.

Gurur Brahma Gurur Vishnu | Gurur Devo Mahesh Varaha||

Guru Shakshat Para Brahma|Tasmai Shri Guruve Namaha||
Guruve sarva lokaanaam Bhishaje bhava roginaam|
Nithyai sarvadhiyaanam Dakshinamurthaye namo namaha||

Related topics:
Shiva Dakshinamurthy, Vadapalani, Chennai
The realm of Shiva, the meaning of Atman

Content Courtesy:
Dakshinamurthy stotra of Sri Shankaracharya, text translated by Alladi Mahadeva Shastri