In Days of Great Peace

The Highest Yoga as Lived

Mouni Sadhu

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780429677328
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophie
• Subtopic: Histoire et théorie de la philosophie

For several years Mouni Sadhu steeped himself in the teachings of the foremost Hindu ascetic, Sri Ramana Maharshi. This book, first published in 1957, is the best attempt by a European to describe without technicalities what such teachings entail, what meditation is about, and why Indians worship their gurus. Mouni Sadhu's rare facility for describing his own mental and spiritual states enables him to pass on to the reader his knowledge and enthusiasm. It is an authentic account of life with an inspired Hindu yogi and spiritual teacher.

CHAPTER L

Appendix—Matter for Meditation

In order to train our minds properly to approach spiritual axioms, meditation is necessary. The immortal treatise Viveka-Chudamani (The Crest Jewel of Wisdom) by Sri Sankaracharya is a fruitful source. It is incomparable evidence of the heights to which the human spirit can soar, and is useful as a subject for meditation.

From meditation on these verses—not only reading them— there arises an appropriate attitude of mind.

This attitude is equivalent to the purification and making sensitive of our as yet imperfect organ of cognition of spirit.

The conceptions embedded in the teachings of Sri Sankaracharya are not contrary to mental logic, but they are the ultimate extension of it in the unconditioned truth in ourselves.

The verses given here are from the translation by Mohini M. Chatterji.

For all those not yet acquainted with the age-old conceptions of Vedanta, these few extracts may serve as a necessary preparation.

At least they help towards an understanding of how a human being, seeking spiritual Light here and now, may proceed.

1. I prostrate myself before the true teacher—before him who is revealed by the conclusions of all systems of Vedantic philosophy, but is himself unknown, Govinda the supreme bliss.

4. One who, having with difficulty acquired a human incarnation and in that manhood a knowledge of the scriptures, through delusions does not labour for emancipation, is a suicide destroying himself in trying to attain illusive objects.

6. He may study the scriptures, propitiate the gods (by sacrifices), perform religious ceremonies or offer devotion to the gods, yet he will not attain salvation even during the succession of a hundred Brahma-yugas except by the knowledge of union with the spirit.

8. Therefore the wise man strives for his salvation, having renounced his desire for the enjoyment of external objects, and betakes himself to a true and great teacher and accepts his teaching with an unshaken soul.

9. And by the practice of right discrimination attained by the path of Yoga he rescues the soul—the soul drowned in the sea of conditioned existence.

11. Actions are for the purification of the heart, not for the attainment of the real substance. The substance can be attained by right discrimination, but not by any amount of Karma.

32. Among the instruments of emancipation the supreme is devotion. Meditation upon the true form of the real Self is said to be devotion.

33. Some say devotion is meditation on the nature of one’s Atman. He who possesses all these qualifications is one who is fit to know the true nature of Atman.

39. The great and peaceful ones live regenerating the world like the coming of spring, and after having themselves crossed the ocean of embodied existence, help those who try to do the same thing, without personal motives.

40. This desire is spontaneous, since the natural tendency of great souls is to remove the suffering of others just as the ambrosia-rayed (moon) of itself cools the earth heated by the harsh rays of the sun.

46. There is an effectual means for the destruction of birth and re-birth by which, crossing the ocean of changing life, thou wilt attain to supreme bliss.

53. Sons and others are capable of discharging a father’s debts; but no one except oneself can remove (his own) bondage.

54. Others can remove the pain (caused by the weight of) burdens placed on the head, but the pain (that arises) from hunger and the like cannot be removed except by oneself.

61. If the supreme truth remains unknown, the study of the scriptures is fruitless; even if the supreme truth is known the study of the scriptures is useless (the study of the letter alone is useless, the spirit must be sought out by intuition).

62. In a labyrinth of words the mind is lost like a man in a thick forest, therefore with great efforts must be learned the truth about oneself from him who knows the truth.

63. Of what use are the Vedas to him who has been bitten by the snake of igriptures, incantationnorance? (Of what use are) scriptures, incantations, or any medicine except the medicine of supreme knowledge?

64. Disease is never cured by (pronouncing) the name of medicine without taking it; liberation is not achieved by the (pronunciation of the) word Brahman without direct perception.

66. Without the conquest of enemies, without command of the treasure of a vast country, by the mere words ‘I am a king’, it is impossible to become one.

86. He who lives only to nourish his own body, is like one who crosses a river on an alligator thinking it to be a log of wood.

87. For one desirous of liberation, desires pertaining to the body, etc., lead to the great death; he who is free from such desires is alone fit to gain liberation.

92. Know that this gross body, on which depend all the external manifestations of the purusa, is but like the house of the householder.

128. Who during waking, dreaming, and dreamless slumber knows the mind and its functions which are goodness and its absence—this is the Self.

134. This unmanifested spiritual consciousness begins to manifest like the dawn in the pure heart, and shining like the mid-day sun in the ‘cave of wisdom’ illuminating whole universe.

160. Full of misery, covered with flesh, full of filth, full of sin, how can it be the knower? The Self is different from this.

161. The deluded man considers the Self to be the mass of skin, flesh, fat, bones and filth. The man of discrimination knows the essential form of self, which is the supreme truth, to be without these as characteristic marks.

166. Because the false conviction that the self is merely the body, is the seed producing pain in the form of birth and the rest, efforts must be made to abandon that idea; the attraction towards material existence will then cease to exist.

175. Having produced attachment to the body and all other objects, it thus binds the individual as an animal is bound by a rope, afterwards having produced aversion to these as if to poison, that manas itself frees him from bondage.

176. Therefore the manas is the cause of the bondage of this individual and also of its liberation. The manas when stained by passion is the cause of bondage, and of liberation when pure, devoid of passion and ignorance.

178. In the forest land of objects wanders the great tiger named manas; pure men desirous of liberation do not go there.

220. The fool, having seen the image of the sun in the water of the jar, thinks it is the sun. So an ignorant man seeing the reflection of the Logos in any of the upadhis (vehicles) takes it to be the real self.

221. As the wise man looks at the sun itself and not the jar, the water, or the reflection; so also the wise man looks towards the self-illumined atman through which the three (upadhis) are manifested.

222, 223. Thus it is that the individual, abandoning the body, the intellect and the reflection of consciousness, becomes sinless, passionless and deathless by knowing the self-illuminated atman, which is the seer, which is itself the eternal knowledge, different from reality as well as unreality, eternal, all pervading, supremely subtle, devoid of within and without, the only one, in the centre of wisdom.

229. By reason of ignorance this universe appears multiform, but in reality all this is Brahman (which remains), when all defective mental states have been rejected.

235. The Lord, the knower of all objects in their reality, has declared, ‘I am not distinct from them nor are they distinct from me’.

236. If this universe is a reality, it should be perceived in dreamless slumber. Since, however, nothing is perceived (in that condition) it is as unreal as dreams.

240. When all the differences created by maya (illusion) have been rejected, (there remains) a self-illumined something which is eternal, fixed, without stain, immeasurable, without form, un-manifested, without name, indestructible.

241. The wise know that as the supreme truth which is absolute consciousness, in which are united the knower, the known and the knowledge, infinite and unchangeable.

271. Having given up following the way of the world, the body, or the scriptures, remove the erroneous conception that Atman is Non-atman.

274. As by mixture with water and by friction, sandal-wood emits an excellent odour, removing all bad smells; so divine aspiration becomes manifest when external desire is washed away.

276. The aspiration towards atman is stifled by the net of un-spiritual desires, for by constant devotion to atman they are destroyed, and divine aspiration becomes manifest.

285. So long as the notion ‘I am this body’ is not completely abandoned, control yourself with great concentration, and with great effort remove the erroneous conception that Non-spirit is Spirit.

298. Abandon the notion of ‘I’ in family, clan, name, form and state of life, which all depend on this physical body and also having abandoned the properties of the linga s’ arira, such as the feeling of being the actor and the rest—become the essential form which is absolute bliss.

316. Vasana, nourished by these two,* produces the changing life of the ego. Means for the destruction of this triad always, under all circumstances (should be sought).

317. By everywhere, in every way, looking upon everything as Brahman, and by strengthening the perception of the (one) reality this triad will disappear.

318. By the extinction of action, comes the extinction of anxious thought, from this (latter) the extinction of vasana. The final extinction of Vasana is liberation—that is also called jivanmukti.

327. The mind directed towards objects of sense determines their qualities (and thus becomes attracted by them); from this determination arises desire, and from desire human action.

328. From that comes separation from the real self; one thus separated retrogrades. There is not seen the reascent but the destruction of the fallen one. Therefore abandon thoughts (about sense-objects), the cause of all evils.

329. Therefore for one possessed of discrimination, knowing Brahman in samadhi, there is no death other than from negligence. He who is absorbed in (the real) self, achieves the fullest success; hence be heedful and self-controlled.

330. He who while living realizes unity (with the supreme), does so also when devoid of the body. For him who is conscious of even the slightest differentiation there is fear—so says the Yajur-Veda.

368. The first gate of yoga is the control of speech, then non-acceptance (of anything and all), absence of expectation, absence of desire and uninterrupted devotion to the one (reality).

376. For him w...