Contentment in a nutshell - a practical guide - one

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Introduction:

        This post is an attempt to approximately document the content of the speech by Sri Nochur Venkatraman on the topic know yourself. Sri Nochur Venkatraman is a devotee of Ramana Maharishi. He talks on various topics like Atma Vidya, Knowing Self, Ulladhu Narpadhu of Ramana maharishi, Bhagavatham, Bhagawad Gita, Ramayana, Yoga Vasishtam, etc. He mainly quotes Ramana maharishi on all his talks. Bhagwan's teachings are the central theme of all his lectures.

Sukham a.k.a. contentment is our natural state:

        Why do we go to temple? What do we pray to God? We all pray that we should be happy, blissful, contended, etc. We do all kinds of prayers and meditations and yogas for the same reason. Just imagine, if headache is the general norm of all living being (all living beings are born with headache and live with headache throughout their life), if someone isn't having a headache s/he would ask doctor medicines for getting headache. Being without illness is the natural state. That's why we go to doctor when we are sick. We want to go back to our natural state of being without any illness. Our natural state is being content. That's why we seek it when we don't have it. Atma vidya is the medicine for contentment. Unfortunately we're all stuck in our own world situations that it becomes difficult for us to observe ourselves and pursue Atma Vidya.

        In Katopanishads, there's a saying which loosely translates to:

Rarely people would be inclined in receiving this knowledge, so they wouldn't listen. Even if, due to situations, they happen to listen, the subject matter (vidya of knowing self) won't sink in their heart. It's hard to find receptive people of this vidya.

        The receptivity will come only when we realize that we're caught in the sorrowful world and want a relief. Kunti of the Mahabharatha asks Lord Krishna to keep giving her sorrows so that in the attempt of finding remedy she'll get the receptivity.

        Gautama Buddha, when he was prince Siddhartha, had not experienced any hardships in life. Astrologers of the kingdom had predicted that He would either become a chakravarthi or a sanyasi. His father, king Suddhodhana wanted his son to inherit his kingdom and didn't want his son to become an ascetic. One fine day when he was going through the roads of his kingdom, he sees 

    > a dead person being carried by four men, his relatives crying around him, 

    > a man suffering from disease and 

    > a man in his death bed in his old age. 

It was a shocking trip for the young prince as it revealed him the great sorrows of life i.e. death, disease and old age. It's this fear, this desperation for relief that led him to go in search of permanent remedy. That's how receptivity comes. Sorrows are indeed blessings in disguise. Once the receptivity comes, we'll be able to receive this knowledge (atma vidya). Then we'll be able to get contentment, our natural state.

No complaints in life (kurai ondrum illai):

        Kurai ondrum illai in tamil means 'I have no worries or complaints in life'. It's also a famous song sung by MS Subbalakshmi. The song was penned by Rajaji. In that, Rajaji says to Lord Krishna,  

"I have no complaints even though you don't manifest before me." 

Very few people attain this level of nyana. This state of no complaints comes when one sees god in all creations. This state is hard to get for many as we're all burnt by desires.

        Swami Vidyaprakasananda Giri used to narrate this funny interesting story to his sishyas and people. When Narada and Vishnu were traveling around the earth, they heard a hearty singing of Meera's bhajans by a group of people. Narada halted. He couldn't help stand still and listen to the music. But Vishnu kept moving. He asked Vishnu why he is unimpressed and why he doesn't manifest before them. He replied Naradha that if they were genuine, He'd have definitely manifested before them and that their devotion was not as pure. Naradha wasn't convinced. On Naradha's insistence, they both manifested before them. No one really cared. After the bhajan was over, a couple of men approached Vishnu and Naradha and asked, "From where did you get the costumes? They're so realistic!" Vishnu laughed and introduced himself that He was Lord Vishnu and the one with thambura was Naradha. People didn't believe. Vishnu offered to prove. One of the guys from the bhajan group brought a stone and asked Vishnu to turn it into gold which he did. Immediately all of them went out and came back with bigger stones than each others. Vishnu sarcastically looked at Naradha and said, "Don't you see? Nobody wants me, they only want my wife (gold / wealth)!!"

        People who headed big organization and who held great positions in various organizations, who had children and grand children, came in BMW car, wearing coat suite, came to Ramana maharishi (who just wore a komanam/kaupina) complaining about their lives and seeking remedy. These are classical examples of how we're burnt by desires and how desires block our vision.

Ramana maharishi's central teaching (as perceived by me through Sri Nochur Venkatraman's lecture):

        Science & technology is doing wonders. Yet they seem to be incapable of solving our miseries. We have seen many rich people who had all things in life yet very discontent. 

        A magician visited a school. He had a ribbon with few knots in it. He gave it the students in a class and asked them to untie. Each of the students attempted and none could untie. Also each student put extra knots in their attempts to untie. When the ribbon finally reached the magician, it had several knots. He held a marma (secret) point in the ribbon and pulled it out. All knots including his knots got untied. We also have a marma/secret point which is a remedy for all problems.

         We research things as small as molecules, atoms, sub atomic particles and we also research things as large as galaxies and universe. Have we ever researched who's the one (who am I ?) researching the sub atomic particles and the universe? Answer to that (who am I ? -- self realization) is the marma/secret point that will relieve us out from all miseries.

Search in the right place -- golden toothpick anecdote:

        There was a lunatic in a village. He was harmless, so he roamed about freely in the village. Many a times people made fun of him. He used to sleep in a dark deserted room in an abandoned hall in the village. One day he was searching for something in the entrance of the hall. When people asked what he was searching for, he narrated, "When I was lying down in the dark room, I was using a toothpick and I couldn't find it now." People laughed at his lack of intelligence and said, "That's why people call you a lunatic! You should search where you lost it." He instantly replied, "If I were to be called lunatic, you also have to be called so." He means, 'You look for contentment in the outside world. That's not where you're going to get it.'

External pleasures are momentary -- pursuing it is useless:

        The lunatic had strange ways. He would move a huge rock to a hillock top and he would push it from there to just see it roll from the hillock and fall in the pond. People asked, "You move the rock all day just to push it from the top. What do you get out of it?" He replied, "I love to see the rock roll in the hillock and fall in the pond." People laughed again and said, "No wonder people call you lunatic. You work so hard for hours to move the rock to hillock top just to get the pleasure of watching it fall." He again replied, "If I have to be called lunatic for this, then all are!" We toil for most of our lives just to get few moments of pleasure. Should we not aim for permanent happiness? Pleasures we get from external sensory world don't last.

Difficult or easy:

        Is the remedy for all miseries, the absolute wisdom, the self self realization easy or difficult? It's easy as well as difficult. People who wear spectacles would have experienced this at least once in their life time. We would have searched for our spectacles wearing our spectacles. 

There are possibilities of realizing that we already have 

> quickly, 

> late and 

> never. 

But the fact remains that the atma/brahman/soul is inseparable from you.

Very obvious:

        Imagine you are put in a pitch dark room. There is no sound in the room. Your whole body is made numb. You can't even see yourself. Now you neither see yourself nor feel. Do you exist? Obvious answer would be: of course yes. We don't have even 1% doubt about our existence. 

        We have to seriously ponder: on what basis are we saying "I exist" despite being unable to see or feel through senses.

        

        Also interestingly, when we look at our photograph taken when we were 4 years old, we say, "that's me". We say the same thing when we look at a photograph taken when we were 10 years old. We have to wonder what has remained constant. Have our bodies not changed? Have our minds not changed? If the existence was to be identified with body or mind we wouldn't say "that's me" seeing our past photographs.

        So "I" is beyond body, mind and intelligence. We just have to ponder about ourselves.

        For learning any language, art, science, technology or anything for that matter we have to study, understand, practice, etc. But atma vidya is different. It's like spectacles on the nose. This vedanta doesn't require you to do any home work or practice. You already have it. You just have to understand/realize that you already have it, something very different from other vidyas.

Jagrat, swapnam, sushupti and beyond:

Jagrat - waking state. In this state both body and mind are active.

Swapnam - dream state. In this state, body rests but mind is active.

Sushupti - (loosely) deep sleep state. In this state, both body and mind rests. No misery can be smuggled into this state. This is the nature's way and natural way to be in samadhi.

For anyone wanting to get relieved of worldly sorrows, sushupti is the most desirable state. Unfortunately, when nature decides to get you out of this state it will. We need a conscious process to be in this state. This state can be achieved through self realization. Upanishads say, "You are turiya (the fourth)." You are not any of the three: jagrat, swapnam, sushupti. We can go to our natural state of being turiya, through self realization.

[ part 2 to follow. no eta ;-) ]