Nirvana Darsana verse 5

Having burned everything with the fire of wisdom,

aiming the good of the world,

doing action according to injunction,

the knower of brahma remains firm in brahma.

Nataraja Guru’s translation:

Established in the Absolute, a knower of the Absolute,

By the fire of wisdom having burnt everything up,

Aiming at the good of the world,

Performs action according to what is considered as right.

         At long last we arrive at the peak of earthly existence, midway through the Nirvana Darsana. Beyond this the verses chronicle the progressive disappearance of individuality. Here, as with the Buddhist bodhisattva, the realized seer hangs on with whatever remaining shreds of intentionality cling to their person, in order to assist other souls to achieve psycho-spiritual freedom.

         Narayana Guru’s attitude about this special moment was detailed in the general introduction, and is reprinted in Part II for convenience. He notes the powerful attraction to merge and disappear into the Absolute, but admits he cannot let himself go, as there are so many miserable people in need of all the help they can get.

         Nitya once or twice told a story that humorously illustrates the concept. A huge crowd is gathered in front of a high wall, speculating on what is on the other side. Finally one of them offers to climb up and take a look. Some friends boost him so he can just reach the top and pull himself up on it. He stands and gazes in rapt awe for a moment, murmuring “Oh my God! How amazing!” Then he jumps off and disappears from view. Calls of consternation do not elicit any response.

         The crowd is now wild with curiosity, and they lift another volunteer up onto the wall. She stands like the first, stunned with amazement. “What do you see?” they call to her. “It’s indescribable; so incredible!” “Please tell us!” Then she jumps.

         Now everyone is dying to know what is beyond the wall, imagining how beautiful it must be there. They help another brave soul to struggle to the top. He stands up in wonder, but this time as he is about to leap they grab his legs and pull him back to the ground on their side.

         That fellow is the guru.

         I think Nitya loved the story in part because he sympathized with the desire to dive in to the Beyond and never come back. Being a guru is a bit like being second best, the one who didn’t quite escape. Yet he did love to jolt his friends into higher awareness if he could, and developed early on into the most loving, supportive and enthusiastic teacher anyone could imagine. So he definitely made the best of being caught, and cherished the thousands of lovers of life who came to him in a steady stream for his blessing, if not his instruction.

         I was curious if I’d told this tale in the previous 10.5 class notes, from almost exactly 10 years ago. I hadn’t, but it was a fun read that included Peggy turning us on to Jill Bolte Taylor’s TED talk about her stroke, now revered in the Portland Gurukula. Here’s what I wrote about it:

Earlier this week, Peggy sent a fascinating talk by a neuroanatomist, which you can hear or read at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/229 . An expert in brain structure, she had a stroke that temporarily wiped out the left side of her brain. She was able to observe the right brain on its own, which she describes as nirvana. The right brain is the oceanic, nondifferentiated “side” of us, while the left brain is the part that makes distinctions and calculations, that knows “me.” In Nataraja Guru’s terminology, left brain uses metalanguage, while right brain uses protolanguage. From the neurological standpoint, our study is to learn how to integrate left and right brain hemispheres.

Getting back to the present, Deb opened the conversation saying how much she loved Nitya’s iron analogy, which demystifies the bipolarity between guru and disciple:

In constant proximity with a magnet, a piece of iron transforms into a magnet. Likewise, in proximity with fire a piece of iron becomes red hot. In either case the transformation occurs as a result of intimate bipolarity. It is to a similar bipolarity that an aspirant exposes himself through love and devotion when he relates himself to the Absolute.

This is especially excellent because it isn’t that the iron becomes changed into something else. It is still exactly what it was, yet a latent propensity is actualized, so it is simultaneously the same and different. Regardless, its former status as an inert lump fades into unimportance. The iron is much more interesting and useful as a magnet, and much more workable when it is red hot. So it is with us, ignited by a bipolarity with a magnetic personality.

         In case we haven’t made that leap of connection on our own, the kindly teacher does it for us:

The Absolute is not a thing but an irrefutable certitude that dispels all lurking fear and suspicion which clouds consciousness. Such an intimacy with the Absolute inevitably becomes a purificatory process by which the luminosity of the Self becomes rid of all stains that color individuation.

In Vedanta, the coloring stains are what keep the iron a weighty mass of metal instead of an attractive magnet. They are so much a part of its identity that it cannot become magnetized by its own volition. It has to be “turned on” by another lump that has already undergone the transformation.

         Of course, humans work with words and are convinced by them, while iron does not. Nitya nudges us in that direction:

Eradication of the coloration of consciousness is called vairagya. Presence of darkness remains real only until the radiation of light is kept steady and constant. The steadying effect in the form of the clarity and certitude of the Self is realized by living the Word of the Guru and sastra, the science of wisdom.

We should keep in mind that the Word of the Guru is a force similar to magnetism, and not mere verbal communication, though often supported by it. Otherwise it would be hard to imagine how such an induction could take place. Nitya elaborates:

The Word or Logos is identical with the Absolute, and it is this Word that is shining forth as the instruction of the preceptor and the injunction of the scripture. A posteriori certitude is preceded by an a priori revelation. The Absolute transforms the Guru and the scripture into Word wisdom. The Guru and the scripture transform a seeker into a seer. By the same token, a seer becomes the refuge and consolation of the world. The energy source of the world is its natural fuel, and the wisdom source of the world is the seer who retains integrity at the level of interpersonal transaction.

Bill talked about how as part of his practice he tries to imagine how this works. He pictures a recent or impending action of his, and then ponders what the action would look like devoid of personal coloration. It leads him to think about action in inaction and inaction in action, one of the dialectic instructions of the Gita that Nitya includes in his commentary. (I’ll append those Gita verse excerpts in Part II.) Bill feels that by doing so he is able to be more present to the needs of the moment.

         Deb shared a practical example of the kind of yogic detachment that leads to nirvana. A fairly young friend recently underwent a gruesome operation for a cancerous tumor in a sinus cavity next to her brain. She was severely shaken, and still has to do extensive radiation therapy for some time. It involves wearing a restrictive and claustrophobic mask so she doesn’t move even a slight bit. She was terrified at the prospect of being strangled by a mask while being bombarded with radiation, but she had no alternative. Her solution was to leave her body during the treatment. She imagined herself as an abstraction, and looked down at that girl, and those doctors, and what they were doing, and how they were working to heal the girl, and so on. It did the trick! She is able to get her regular treatments and keep her cool. This is a woman with no ostensible spiritual beliefs—she came up with this solution of detachment on her own.

         Two main points are brought out in the verse, and the class worked hard on both of them. The first is burning everything in the fire of wisdom, a perennially challenging concept. The tremendous deconstructive effort guided by Darsanamala should have exemplified this beyond question. Simply put, when we are caught in confusion, the clouds are cleared away by bringing insights to bear. It’s always possible to exaggerate the situation and throw up more dust and chaos, but then you remain in the dark. Light allows for the Aha! moments when extraneous ideas are cleared away, leaving only the untinted essentials of the situation. The wise build this into their outlook, while manipulators rely on dust clouds of confusion to promulgate their nefarious schemes. This is not a class for them!

         Our clinging to individuality (yes we do!) also gets burned away by an enlarging perspective that embraces the whole. Still, for a long time a vestige of the seer remains perceivable. Nitya introduces it in this way:

Even when a fuel is burning with a bright flame, part of it is not fully transformed into light. Similarly, the seer who is in the final stage of reduction is in the process of diminishing individuation and maximizing universalization. The whole process is thus one of vairagya and sraddha, in other words of purification and bipolarity.

As this takes place, the image of the rope remains even as the rope’s content transcends all personal limitations:

Even after the burning of a rope one can see in the ashes the form of the plaited strands. Similarly, there is a semblance of the personal factor of an individual in a person even after his having attained his realization. That is why he is placed one degree below the most pure. At the same time there is not even the slightest stain of the ego to separate his interest from the good of the world. So he is included here among the pure. Such a knower of the Self is again and again alluded to in the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita.

Narayana Guru himself is an ideal example. Anyone looking at him would think, “There is Narayana Guru. What an amazing guy,” or whatever. To them he looked like a “rope,” a definable entity. But Narayana Guru wasn’t thinking of himself in any terms. To him there was no Narayana Guru. All his self-identity had burned away. Yet he was still there in a sense. He did things. He made things happen. But he never said, “I am doing this now,” or “This is what I’m going to do.” It was simply a flow. The action was just happening. Moni added that he always referred to himself in the first person plural, never saying ‘I’. The most famous example is his response to the compliment of Tagore about his great work, a retold in Word of the Guru: “Neither have we done anything in the past nor is it possible to do anything in the future. Powerlessness fills us with sorrow.”

         The delicacy of the burned rope reminded Paul of a time as a kid when he had gone camping with his dad. For light at night they used a kerosene lantern with a mantle, which is a cotton wick that works properly only when it has been burned to ash. Mantles are very delicate, so Paul’s dad told him not to touch it. Of course this made Paul unbearably curious, so when his dad wasn’t looking he ever so lightly touched it, and that was the end of the lantern for that trip. Oops! Hard to disguise the crime. Paul didn’t relate the aftermath, but we can note the inception of a skeptical seeker of truth in this tale.

         If Paul had had a copy of That Alone, he might have read this in verse 78 and stayed out of trouble:

The example is given in Vedanta of a burned rope. The charred ashes of a rope still keep the shape of the strands, but as soon as you touch them the shape disintegrates. It still looks like a rope even after it has been burned up, but it crumbles to ashes as soon as you touch it. A sannyasin is like the burned rope: if you touch him he goes away. His existence is a very ephemeral one, as he does not believe he exists. (548)

The key to remember in this seemingly dire consequence of being burned to a crisp, is that the fire is wisdom, so it is understanding that cooks our outlook, and not any ordinary flame. What a way to go!

         Nancy added that the reason camphor is revered and used in fire ceremonies in India, is that it leaves no ash—it burns completely away. There is no residue.

         The second point is what Nitya translated as doing action according to injunction. Injunctions are nowadays defined as commands or orders, and so are anathema to the modern mind, because we have been soaked in bad ones for centuries. In Vedanta, however, they are ideal directives for how to live. Nataraja Guru handles this conflict nicely in his translation: the injunctions are about how to do what is right. (This reminds me of his lovely definition of God to a nonbeliever: what is right when you are wrong is God.) We defer to scriptures and gurus because they are well thought out, while not all of ours are yet. The rishis were wise enough not to specify behavior by rules, but to provide general principles to measure your actions by. Narayana Guru summed up his injunction very simply as aiming the good of the world, and Nitya expanded this only slightly with a clever paraphrase of our favorite Brihadaranyaka Upanishad chant that we do before every class: “The good of the world is turning it continuously from falsehood to truth, ignorance to knowledge, and expenditure to conservation.”

         Aiming the good of the world shouldn’t be radical, but it is radical now and perhaps has been since the dawn of civilization. Before that working for the good of the group was perfectly natural, according to paleontologists. Currently, as I’m sure you are well aware, the dominant paradigm is one of self-interest with utter disregard for the needs of others, as trumpeted by Ayn Rand and the neoconservative movement. Egos are easily attracted to selfishness, and spirituality is staunchly opposed to that trajectory, advising egos be reined in in deference to more global concerns. I just came across a very sweet turning of these tables, in case you’d like more input on this, in a 12 minute talk by Margaret Heffernan:  https://www.npr.org/programs/ted-radio-hour/?showDate=2018-04-20. Hers is the first of several on the page. It relates experimental proof that individual empowerment must not be the sole consideration in a healthy society, and what goes wrong when it is.

         There is plenty of good science to show that a unified perspective of caring and sharing is what got our species as far as it has come, but that doesn’t stop the greedy from scheming to work for themselves alone. They believe their success at stealing vast amounts from the commonwealth justifies their beliefs, even as the world crumbles to pieces around them. Narayana Guru’s visionary social philosophy bears repeating often, and these four verses from Atmopadesa Satakam (22-25) seem even more relevant that ever:

The happiness of another—that is my happiness;

one’s own joy is another’s joy—this is the guiding principle;

that action which is good for one person

should bring happiness to another.

For the sake of another, day and night performing          action,

having given up self-centered interests, the compassionate person acts;

the self-centered man is wholly immersed in necessity,

performing unsuccessful actions for himself alone.

“That man,” “this man”—thus, all that is known

in this world, if contemplated, is the being of the one primordial self;

what each performs for the happiness of the self

should be conducive to the happiness of another.

What is good for one person and brings misery to another

such actions are opposed to the self, remember!

those who give great grief to another

will fall into the fiery sea of hell and burn.

That’s the kind of burn we want to avoid, that sea of hell business! The kind that’s fulminating in the halls of power in the US these days. Ulcer-making. So we turn to wisdom-healing instead.

         From here on the Nirvana Darsana is like a magnificent wave that has broken and is sweeping toward the shore, gradually losing power, until it is only a rim of foam left on the beach, its energy “gently, gently merged in sat-aum.”

Part II

         Swami Vidyananda’s commentary:

Here the term brahmavit (knower of the Absolute) refers to one who has attained salvation and has no need to perform actions, but nonetheless continues to do action without any selfish motive and which are conducive to the happiness of the world. The knower of the Absolute, although he has merged his intelligence in the bliss of the happiness of contemplating the Absolute, is still in the context of nirvana, continuing at the same time to act in the interests of kindness to all living things. Although he is detached from all actions, he will not engage himself in wrong action. Vidhivat means what is compatible with the rules laid down for conduct. This indicates (a knower of the Absolute) will not engage in wrong action. He will, however, remain untouched by both good and bad actions because of his neutrality to both.

In three different contexts the Bhagavad-Gità refers to the fire of wisdom burning up all karma (action), which explain the position here:

That man whose works are all devoid of desires and wilful motives, whose (impulse of) action has been reduced to nothing in the fire of wisdom, he is recognized as a knowing person (pandita) by the wise. (IV. 19)

Relinquishing attachment for the benefit of works, ever happy and independent, though such a man be engaged in work, he (in principle) does nothing at all. (IV. 20)

Just as fire when kindled reduces to ashes the fuel, O Arjuna, likewise the fire of wisdom reduces all works to ashes. (IV. 37)

(For a description of the brahmavit (knower of the Absolute) see chapter II, verses 55-72 in the Bhagavad-Gità).

The eloquent description on the part of Lord Krishna correctly answers to what constitutes a brahmavit as intended (by us) in this chapter. In various contexts found in the wisdom texts, a knower of the Absolute has been described and praised in the following ways:

The knower of the Absolute becomes the Absolute.

The knower of the Absolute attains the Ultimate.

Established firmly in his understanding, without having any false notion, that man who has established himself in the knowledge of the Absolute, is called the knower of the Absolute. He does not become glad when obtaining favourable results, nor does he become sorry when obtaining bad results.

*         *         *

This is from Nitya’s Taittiriya Upanishad commentary, describing the terms we are encountering in the Nirvana Darsana:

         The Absolute can be conceived as one which brings forth countless millions of pleasures and pains. That fecund possibility is called vibhuti, specialized manifestations of the Divine. In the Bhagavad Gita, this is exemplified and described as Vibhuti Yoga. Then one sees the special manifestation of the Absolute as the fragrance of earth, the taste in water, form in fire, the touch of wind, the encompassing of akasa, the stability of an oak, and the all-consuming fire of truth. In so many ways this is a coupling of two exercises in the path of the seeker, that is, to decide what one’s sustaining intrinsic values are, called svadharmanistha, and out of the emanation of relativistic values, choosing to be with all the auspicious qualities which bespeak the glory of the Absolute, called samasthakalyanaguna, the plethora of auspicious qualities. When such kind of awareness of unity becomes a steady state of wisdom, a person becomes blessed with an attitude of maintaining their poise and sensitivity. Arriving at such a state is called avyakrita, which is an imperturbed state of only seeing the One. When one becomes established in the retention of unity, which is imperturbably held as one’s own true foundation, the state of the brahmavit, the state of all as brahman comes to stay.

         After attaining that blessed state, if one retains a fragment of ego for the purpose of acting as an agent of true knowledge, a precipitator of goodness, and a bringer of beauty to the world, then that person is called a brahmavid. A further excellence can come to that same person identified with the perfection of the Absolute. That is the state of brahmavidvilashyam. This ultimate state of the supremely peaceful and blissful brings an aloneness that has no comparison. This aloneness is called kaivalya. When one remains in that state of aloneness, there is no second to shake that unity. Coming to the state of being permanently established in the Absolute is described as brahmavidvarishthan, where there is only the pure existence of the pure knowledge of the summum bonum, sat-chit-ananda. Thereafter, there is no repeated life and death. That is termed as natpuravritti, there is no return. On attaining such a state, the original ego, aham, is fully transformed into the absolute state of consciousness in which there is no relativistic blemish. The state of that being is aham brahma asmi. This peak experience of imperiential identity is ananda.

*         *         *

This is a good time to reprise the outline of the Nirvana Darsana from the Introduction:

         The various grades of absorption in the totality of consciousness are discussed in the final vision, Nirvana Darsana. Nirvana is here translated as extinction, meaning the extinction of limited awareness in the bliss of the Absolute. Still, the term ‘extinction’ can have some rather frightening connotations. It is important to realize that the final verses do not represent the goal of Narayana Guru’s teaching, but are included to round out the thoroughgoing presentation of awareness that is required by the Guru’s methodology as well as by Indian philosophical tradition. To misunderstand the significance of the last five verses could have a negative effect on the seeker. Nataraja Guru points out: “Here it is the inner enjoyment of the high value implied in the notion of the Absolute that serves as the diagnostic factor. The outer evidence of such enjoyment might be feeble in the eyes of an onlooker who is not conscious of the Bliss of contemplation of the Absolute.” As stated earlier, Narayana Guru’s highest ideal is closest to that given in the fifth verse, where the knower of the Absolute retains his realization while interacting with the world for its own benefit. This is poetically presented in verses 11 and 12 of his Subrahmanya Kirtanam, in a free English translation by Guru Nitya:

All discernible forms disappear where light is not paired with shadows, and all imaginations cease where beatitude reigns supreme. Such is the resplendence of your supreme state. It is as if your brilliance has swallowed the sun and the moon. Your lotus feet rest in the brilliant fire of the wisdom of the third eye. Oh Lord, reposed on the colorful wings of the phenomenal peacock, my supplication to you is not to disappear.

The moon has gone beyond the horizon. With it also have gone the fantasizing dreams of the night. The sun has risen in the firmament. The moon and the shimmering stars are no more to be seen. It is a good time to immerse deeply into the depth of beatitude. Alas! That does not befit the occasion. It is not the time to be lost in spiritual absorption. Look, here is the world drowning in the dark ocean of misery. In body and mind millions are diseased. By drinking they have increased their torpor. These unfortunate wretches are to be roused from their drunken madness. Oh ye people, wake up now! It is time for you to enter into the cleansing river of eternal wisdom and perennial joy.

Narayana Guru was a living example of his own highest ideal.

*         *         *

Here are the Gita verses quoted in the commentary:

The seer described here as brahmavit is presented in the fourth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita as the truly wise person:

One who is able to see action in inaction and inaction in action – he among men is intelligent; he is one of unitive attitude, while engaged in every (possible) kind of work.

That man whose works are all devoid of desire and willful motive, whose (impulse of) action has been reduced to nothing in the fire of wisdom – he is recognized as a knowing person by the wise.

Relinquishing attachment for the benefit of works, ever happy and independent, though such a man be engaged in work, he (in principle) does nothing at all.

One free of all expectancy and of subjugated relational self-consciousness, who has given up all possessiveness, and is engaged merely bodily in actions – he does not acquire evil.

Satisfied with chance gains, and unaffected by conflicting pairs (of interests), non-competitive, remaining the same in gain or no gain, he remains unbound in spite of having been active.

(For him) the Absolute is the act of offering, the Absolute is the substance offered into the Absolute which is the fire, offered by (him), the Absolute, the end to be reached by him being even the Absolute, by means of his peace supreme of absolutist action.

                                                        (IV: 18-24)

In the fifth chapter of the Gita we again read of [the knower of the Self] as follows:

To those, however, in whom that unwisdom in the Self has been destroyed, wisdom shines sunlike as the Ultimate.

Thus having That for reasoning, That for the Self, That for finalized discipline, That for supreme goal, they go to a state of final non-return, all their (relativistic) dross being cancelled out by wisdom.

In regard to a Brahmin endowed with learning or humility, a cow, an elephant, and even a dog, as also one who cooks the dog (for food), the well-informed ones see the same (differenceless reality).

Even here creative urges are conquered by those whose minds are balanced in sameness; free from blemish and unitively balanced is indeed the Absolute; therefore such persons become grounded in the Absolute.

He should not rejoice on good befalling him nor be disturbed by a mishap; stabilized in reason, delusion-free, as knower of the Absolute, firmly established is he in the Absolute. 

                                                               (V: 16-20)