Nirvana Darsana verses 2 & 3

Most pure, pure – thus

the pure is of two kinds, and similarly

the impure also is said to be

impure-pure and impure-impure.

The most pure is again of three kinds:

one in the superior, one in the more superior,

one in the most superior; and thus

the pure is established in the brahma-knower.

Nataraja Guru’s translations:

As extra-pure and pure, the pure also

Is of two kinds, likewise,

The impure also as pure-impure

And impure-impure is spoken of.

The extra-pure is again of three kinds,

One is the elect, one is the more elect,

One is the most elect, while the pure,

Exists in the (simple) knower of the Absolute.

         The Nirvana Darsana strikes me as somewhat of an anticlimax, included to complete the full spectrum of consciousness but not overly interesting or even germane to life issues. We agreed that perfection can be dull—at least it’s the conflicts that make the good stories. Moreover nirvana is presented as an utter paradox: a unitive condition filled to the brim with a hierarchical series of subtle distinctions. Despite this, our estimable class used the opportunity to reflect on the study as a whole, and apply its relevance to important aspects of our own lives. Because of our preparation we made the most of a simple pair of verses.

         Yoga only works properly when the full range of possibilities are taken into account. This includes uniting the one and the many, and in this sense nirvana is the graduation exercise of yoga. As soon as you leave yoga and choose sides, you have stepped out of nirvana.

         I’ve included a batch of terrific excerpts from Nataraja Guru, especially the Integrated Science, in Part II. Within one of them he lists many of the dichotomies that are to be united by the yogi:

We find here that everything takes place within the limits of the heart itself. Heaven and hell are both transcended by a superior kind of space that is both physical and metaphysical at once. Heaven and hell are brought as close together as possible within such a space, which is itself independent of bigness or smallness, part or whole, far or near, gross or subtle, one or many, etc.

Definitely “a superior kind of space”! Our meditations on the Nirvana Darsana will ideally be grounded in such a (non)place.

         In his brief commentaries Nitya mainly refers to the various categories that will be mentioned in the later verses, though there is one paragraph hinting at an active contribution:

The ascending and descending dialectics of union with the Absolute is conceived schematically without having any reference to the spatial format of ascension or descension. In this scheme the immanence and transcendence are so poised that the progression from immanence to transcendence can be said to be one of ascension, and progression within transcendence as descending to the inestimable depth of the Absolute.

Anyone wanting to explore ascending and descending dialectics further is directed to a compilation I put together from Nitya and Nataraja Guru’s writings: http://aranya.me/uploads/3/4/8/6/34868315/ascending_and_descending_dialectics.pdf. In it I make the comparison with asti asti (ascending) and neti neti (descending) movements, which is the best nutshell I can come up with. The idea is that linear progressions don’t tell the whole story—the full dynamism of spiritual awareness is only unveiled by dialectic contemplation.

         The class wrestled with the idea of impurity, as the verses make their distinctions based on various combinations of purity and impurity. Deb suggested that impurity was the degree of not being completely immersed or suffused in the Absolute. I added that we habitually think of impurity as bad and purity as good, but that is not necessarily the case here. Our impurity is the degree we take interaction with the world into account. To me in fact, purity is almost the negative and impurity the positive factor. The bodhisattva impulses of Buddha and Narayana Guru are technically due to their impurities, their connection with actual events. The truly pure, in the extreme definition of the Nirvana Darsana, are unknown to anyone, because they have withdrawn totally from the world. We know, love and appreciate only those seers impure enough to stick around and lend us a hand. So at the very least we must not forget our yogic training and side with purity over impurity. If it wasn’t for impurity we wouldn’t exist—thank God for it! The combo is the cocktail: impurity stirred up out of the purity of the absolute ground of existence.

         So in the Nirvana Darsana death—either physical or psychological—is the only perfect purity, but we needn’t be in a rush to attain it. Deb has been reading The Word of the Guru, Nataraja Guru’s biography of Narayana Guru, and assured us that in realization you can still be in your body and relate to other people. She was struck by how Narayana Guru expressed the compassion that naturally flowed through him, his resonance and openness to the numinous.

         In a way Narayana Guru is the perfect example of this. What we know of the Buddha is strictly legendary accounts, but several of us actually knew people who knew Narayana Guru in person. He has a living vibrancy for us, and his direct influence and liberating activities are only beginning to become legends. I suppose such degeneration can’t be helped, and it surely has its high value.

         Moni neatly defined impurity as bondage, and Deb added that bondage is when we are holding on and not letting go. Letting go is the perfect term to indicate the several degrees of release in nirvana. Perfect purity means totally letting go. The mixture of purity and impurity we will be examining describes those bodhisattvas like Narayana Guru who are totally detached and yet continue to interact with the world. Verse 5 deals with them, so we can wait till then to really get into it.

          Moni related what is valuable for now: those realized people acted with pure compassion, compassion for everything around them. We can take note of the degree of impurity in ourselves by the way we personally or egotistically react to turmoil or threat. It tweaks us and we can feel it, and we usually rise to the bait with a programmed reaction. Narayana Guru would just laugh at adversity—no threat ever concerned him for himself. If he cried to show his sadness over some injustice, they were tears of pity, of empathy, not of any personal pain or frustration. He was sometimes threatened, and he took it like a great soul, responding with supreme wisdom from a state of perfect balance, often vividly demonstrating the correction in the process.

         Perfect balance is what the Yoga Darsana fully instructed, and what we have been preparing for throughout. Narayana Guru undoubtedly knew we wouldn’t all get the lessons right away, but he presented his garland of visions as if we had. Each darsana leads seamlessly to the next. Nataraja Guru assures us that yogic equanimity reveals the Absolute. We could say that nirvana is the revelation of the Absolute. Ultimately the drop of our individuality is merged in the Ocean, but thankfully there is often a measure of impurity that keeps the drop intact for a little while even after it intuits the grandeur of its source.

         Verse 2 makes the most basic division of nirvana into four quadrants, as pure-pure, pure-impure, impure-pure and impure-impure. The pure are seers and the impure are seekers. Lately a bio-pic of Rajneesh has brought him back to mind as a corrupted seer. He was really in the sage category, the impure version of which focuses on siddhis or psychic attainments, but the description of impure seekers is more apt, and was what Deb cited: they are the “passionate ones who are enamored with the magical potentials of psychic attainments, and what they seek is the power of position and the following of multitudes.” Rajneesh is a case study of how easily the ego can be deceived by its secret desires for wealth and glory.

         Happily this reference led Nancy to reminisce about how strongly Nitya resisted the lure of power. It was one of his very best qualities, and one he never relinquished. Though he complied with the demands of guruhood and tolerated those who wanted to touch his feet, he didn’t like it. He was always being invited to speak to large audiences, and complied, but invariably undermined attempts to place him on a pedestal. He shied away from adulation, and so we were able to easily access him in person for our own development. I have included several of his eloquent observations about this in Part II—really inspiring statements. He often cited Satan (disguised as one of his disciples) offering the whole world to Jesus, and Jesus refusing, saying, “Get thee behind!” as his most closely-held ideal. “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” is a question of our time too, of all time. Nitya also lived by Rumi’s stirring proclamation: poverty is my pride and obscurity my refuge.

         Nancy noted how being led astray is a subtle thing. Even armed with the best of intentions, they can be undermined step by step so we don’t even realize it.

         Deb related a time when she had come back from her world tour with Nitya and had attended talks with the famous Chogyam Trungpa in Colorado. She invited Nitya to meet him, but the morning of the meeting he said he hadn’t slept well and didn’t feel good enough to go. She knew it was some kind of deviousness. Chogyam Trungpa was a wise seer like Rajneesh, yet he wound up being drawn into alcoholism and wild parties, becoming ever more absurd in the guise of “crazy wisdom.” It’s the slipperiest of slippery slopes. The ego always makes the best excuses for itself. Deb also cited the hilarious avocado story, which I’ve added as the very last item in Part II. Deb’s takeaway from these examples was to never forget what your focus is on, so that you don’t get diverted by what other people think or expect of you. She also noted how whenever Nitya would start to get a successful scene going, Nataraja Guru would come along and smash it to pieces. Love and Blessings is full of such tales, and they always led Nitya to make valuable progress. One essential role of a guru is to see and relay the mistakes the seeker does not realize are happening, and a wise seeker takes the advice to heart.

         Deb noted how Narayana Guru had to be far away from distractions when he was going through his search. Once nirvana was established in his heart, though, he could be fully present in every situation. We “impure” seers strive to have every situation the way we want it. With Narayana Guru, whoever he was with or whatever the problem, he was settled in his heart. Turmoil didn’t change his inner state. In fact, it brought out the best in him. The most moving stories are the ones where he healed some long-standing grievance, sometimes with only a simple word or gesture.

         So here we are, invited by such a great soul to shed our limitations and have a go at unitive action—nirvana we can use. Prabu really liked Deb’s latest response to the internet Gita class, the exercise to “Examine how goal-orientation may be present in your spiritual attitude, and find examples where not having expectations served you especially well.” He liked the pulsating dynamism of it. So here it is, reprinted for your delectation:

Ah, the lesson that requires only a lifetime of pondering and expressing!  Learning to stay with the flow, to not be seduced by expectations or demands for a certain outcome—easy to say and to desire, not so easy to do.

I am particularly struck by the way Nataraja Guru uses the word unitive, it’s an active and moving sense of unification. Not an already actualized unity but the process of being unified. And that’s how I visualize it: a movement of parts that becomes a dynamic gestalt. As if the symbol for eternity is pulsing, not simply static on the page. Like arias between two singers in an opera where the voices twine around one another creating a living, three-dimensional song. Like a dance where the individual dancers are moving with one another and their bodies, their gestures, create a larger, inclusive world that is the dance.

The tree outside is in constant dialogue with the ground, the wind and rain, the birds, squirrels, people.  It doesn’t “decide” how it wants to be in the world. It responds to all the other beings around it and together they create something unexpected.

I may want to tell my daughters something, convey an idea, or pass on an understanding—but it isn’t an object to be handed over. I share what my experience has been and what I have learned. That then is part of their experience, which becomes mixed in with all the other “weather elements” they live with. And another expression comes into life, not an exact replica of my world but their world in which I am one part. This can be with any one, not just family. And it applies to our own personal experience: I am in constant dialogue with all the beings around me.

We don’t come up with a plan and focus only on certain goals.  Yet it isn’t as if we don’t make plans either. We can look ahead, assess our situation, think of what to do—but then we also respond in the moment to what happens. Out of our these interactions something new is brought into being—through unitive action we are co-creators of a beautiful, alive universe.

Back to the class, Deb summed up that yoga, the cancelling out of counterparts, is the discipline that leads to nirvana. And life always affords us opportunities to engage in unitive behavior, as in the examples given in Deb’s Gita response.

         Nancy gave another “natural” example. Our town is currently inundated with homeless people, who I’m now calling refugees, because the social agreement that they once were sheltered under has been destroyed by vicious economic pretensions. It’s a kind of war, and they are its victims, trying to find a place that will allow them to exist. Anyway, a local CEO of a large company recently complained that these refugees were driving business away from his store, and he was going to pack up and leave if something wasn’t done immediately. Then—miracle of miracles—he had a change of heart, and decided to donate a large sum of money to build a shelter for the refugees. He said in a nationally broadcast interview that he had met with some of the homeless and realized they were just like the rest of us. They had different problems, but they weren’t different people. He said when you get involved with these people and you find out what their needs are, you realize what you can do for them. Instead of treating them as bad or disgusting he immersed himself in the situation and saw there was something to be done. As Paul recalled the interview, the CEO said, “Now I get it. These are the same people, the same problems, the same addictions as the rest of us, the only difference is they have no shelter. I now realize I can do something about it.”

         Moni summed it up, saying with every issue, we have preconceived notions of it. If we have a face-to-face encounter then we have a totally different experience. She has had a similar experience in her work, where she now offers benefits to needy people like those camping on our streets. She acknowledged the fear she has when walking alone past scruffy-looking people, but now she has met several of them at work, and her fears are eased. They really are just sad people who need help.

         Nitya tells of Nataraja Guru’s attitude in L&B, and it seems like a perfect way to end this excursion into humility:

He never liked the idea of calling someone poor or pitiable. “We are as poor as anyone else and really pitiable,” he would say. (195)

Boy, is that the truth! Till next time….

Part II

         Swami Vidyananda’s commentaries:

It will be hereafter described in detail that pure nirvana belongs to liberated men while still in life, and impure nirvana belongs to those who are attached to psychic powers and who merely desire liberation. It is based on the superiority or inferiority of liberated people in life that the divisions of pure nirvana  have been made. Under the impure class of nirvana there are only two subdivisions.

The extra-pure (i.e. the superior nirvana) under reference here has three grades: the elect, the more elect, and the most elect. Thus, those who have attained liberation while yet in life are of four kinds. Among them the pure abides in the knower of the Absolute; the positively pure abides in the elect; the comparatively pure abides in the more elect, and the superlatively pure abides in the most elect. The personal characteristics that distinguish these four jivanmuktas (those attaining liberation while still alive) will be described below.

*         *         *

Another structural decoding from ISOA, also cited earlier, by way of review:

The methodology and structuralism tacitly presupposed in Darsanamala implies both a reduction and a construction by which multiplicity is first reduced to negative unity in the first five chapters. Both plurality and duality get abolished by a method of elimination of what is doubtful and unessential. Having touched the rock bottom of ontology by this negative reduction, the last five chapters aim at a more positive construction implying the normalizing of existence with its own rational subsistence. There is a construction implied in the method here by which ontology gets transformed into a value-world where teleological first and final causes gain gradual primacy. Even at this stage of reconstruction there are always the Self and the non-Self involved as irreducible counterparts related by complementarity, reciprocity and cancellability. (217-8)

And, from the Yoga Darsana:

As envisaged by Narayana Guru in this chapter, yoga is not a passing way of practising light-heartedly, artificially, as a hobby or pet regime, certain attitudes or disciplines, but is instead an integrated, wholehearted and lasting way of meditative life to be treated with seriousness throughout one’s lifetime. As a discipline leading to nirvana, found in the next chapter, it also marks the culmination of the devotion or contemplation described in the previous chapter. (385-6)

More:

In describing the spiritual effort that one has to make in transcending these levels, the Upanishads bring in the analogy of a horse that shakes off its loose hair. This is evidently a verticalized version of a pure act by which nirvana is established in the heart of a yogi. Instead of referring to an Inferno or a Paradise, far removed from each other in poetic imagination, we find here that everything takes place within the limits of the heart itself. Heaven and hell are both transcended by a superior kind of space that is both physical and metaphysical at once. Heaven and hell are brought as close together as possible within such a space, which is itself independent of bigness or smallness, part or whole, far or near, gross or subtle, one or many, etc. (468)

The man of nirvana is a living human being whose thought and behaviour can be observed or diagnosed for purposes of classification. Activity, purity, joy, and a complete cancellation of counterparts are the four grades of diagnostic characteristics outwardly visible or inwardly assumed in each type of nirvana. (470-71)

Speaking of verse II.47 in the Gita, the one dealing with not having expectations, Nataraja Guru has this very pertinent observation:

This is a much-quoted and much-abused verse which has been bandied about by pseudo-pandits who seem to support the idea that a man who works should not think of any results. If a man should cultivate a field, and if, when the corn is ripe, he himself should set fire to it to prove to his neighbours that he does not care for “the fruit of action,” that would almost correspond to the sense in which many such pandits seem to interpret the meaning of the verse. To expect reasonable results from any action that a man might do is but normal, hence purposely to minimize the importance of results in the sense indicated in the above example would be absurd….

         The fruit (phala) of action referred to here must mean, not results that are desirable in the proper context of wisdom, but only third or extraneous “fruits” or ends in the context where ends and means are treated dualistically. When an artist paints for the joy of painting, ends and means coincide; but in the case of a mercenary soldier, ends and means do not coincide, since he is thinking of his payment as a “fruit,” and such an end is extraneous to the bipolar situation between victory and fighting which are the proper ends and means; although to the degree that he treats his remuneration as incidental, the duality may be minimized. This is exactly what is being attempted to be explained here by the phrase mà karma-phala-hetur bhur (be not benefit-motivated).

I’d add that any activity done for money instead of love is mercenary, and Nitya lived that truth, as evidenced in the next quotation. He used to say if you charge money for it, it isn’t truth.

One more just made itself known, from Love and Blessings:

“Enthusiasm for the Absolute to prevail is the only medicine for states of depression. The human mind is so constituted that its instructive dispositions need a strong numerator interest: a passion for Truth, Justice or Beauty. When one supplies this element all blues and troubles vanish.”

*         *         *

Here’s a collection of a few of Nitya’s thoughts on fame and fortune. First, from his Letter to Ananda found on his website (http://aranya.me/read.html):

It took many years for me to find out how I could enter the big world without seriously damaging my veil of obscurity. Two great maxims that I prize very much and still hold in high esteem are of Jalaluddin Rumi. They are “poverty is my pride” and “obscurity is my refuge.” I could have become very rich in India. At least five times big fortunes came unsought to my doorstep, and it was by God’s grace that I was not caught in the trap of the glittering devil.

  I had the privilege of facing ten to twenty thousand people and on a few occasions even fifty thousand people to talk to and play on their sentiments whatever games I liked. I also rejoiced seeing my name appear on posters and in daily papers. Again it was by God’s grace that I could turn away from the world of public media to the cloister of spiritual obscurity. I certainly do not want to return to the world of money and publicity. My friends are not rich. Some of them are extremely poor. But they have no poverty in their hearts. They are not the emotionally charged followers of Christ consciousness. I have seen how dangerous cults can become. My friends may be shallow; I like that. They will not keep any dangerous secrets hidden in any inaccessible depths.

  There are people sent by God with definite missions and purposes. I am not sent by God. I came with a flock which he is grazing on his hills and in his meadows. I am not a savior but one on whom great saviors are lavishing their grace.…

  My words appear to be wise. I happen to be listening to a wise man who sat at the feet of another wise man. All wisdom really belongs to them. My contribution is to water down their wisdom and sometimes make it muddy because my pigs do not like clear water.

  When Valmiki wrote his Ramayana and Vyasa wrote his Mahabharata, they did not print a thousand copies, let alone bring in a mass production of paperbacks. My poor shallow nonproductive friends at least help me in neatly typing and making five xeroxed copies for me and twenty or thirty for others. I don’t think I deserve more than that during my lifetime. If these words have the worth and dynamics of the eternal words of the Buddha or Christ, they will rise up from the typescript and immortalize themselves without anybody’s aid.

  Here is the bit from That Alone, verse 12, before Rajneesh was much more than a blip on the screen, given probably late 1976, that really references his archetypal situation:

         The spiritual ego is very hard to overcome. If ten people bow before you and show reverence, you may be able to retain your sanity, but it will soon leave you when more and more people show an attitude of reverence. It is extremely difficult to maintain a proper attitude.

         We have a story in India that some people decided to make fun of a simpleton. He wanted to sell a small goat, so he was carrying it to the market. These people stood at different places along the way, knowing that he would soon be passing. The first man said, “What kind of a joke is this? Where are you going with that dog?”

         The simpleton replied, “Dog? This is a goat.”

         “Goat, eh? Can’t you see its a dog?”

         “Dog?” He looked it over and said, “Its not a dog, its my goat.” He took the first man for a fool. But when the second man asked him about his dog, he began to suspect something was wrong. He wasn’t sure if the problem was with himself or the other people. When he came to the third man who called it a dog, he was all the more troubled. How can you disagree with three people? He thought, “This is probably neither a dog or a goat; it must be a devil. The devil may be showing itself to me as a goat, and showing itself to others as a dog.”

         When he came to the fourth man, who said “Hey, man! Is that dog for sale?” he thought, “This is really a dog. I am absolutely mad, thinking a dog is a goat. This is a real devil, and I am carrying it around!” He walked a little farther, and when nobody was around he threw it down and ran away. That was just where the fifth man was hiding; he picked up the goat and went to join his friends.

         Like that, when the first man comes and says, “Oh, great Guru!” you say “No, man! Don’t make fun of me.” Then two people come and say “great Guru!” “Eh? Am I? No, I am not.” Then ten people come and bow and call you a great Guru. You look at yourself and ask, “Am I a great Guru, or not?” Then a hundred people come, then ten thousand in seven jumbo jets. Now you cannot deny that you are really a great Guru, it’s all confirmed. So you have to say, “God, come and save me. This is where you are needed. I won’t be able to get over this temptation by myself.”

         The New Testament begins with the same idea. The very first event is Jesus being taken to the top of the tower and told to jump. “See the whole world. It will be yours!” Jesus said, “Satan, get thee behind.” This kind of firm attitude is what is needed. “Satan, get thee behind; you should not tempt your Lord. I am here to bow before my Lord and not before any worldly temptation.” If we substitute the term ‘ego’ for the devil or Satan, we will never go far wrong in our interpretation of the old scriptures.

Also, when Deb asked Nitya about us starting a Gurukula, he sent an amazing detailed critique of the idea. Brilliant. It’s in Love and Blessings, starting on p. 470 (Nov. 1979). It includes the other blip that stays in my mind, the ever-horizontalizing mesh of institutional demands:

         I’m not trying to stop you from having a Gurukula center in Oregon or anywhere, such as we are having in Ooty or Bangalore or Kanakamala. If you understand it as a place for daily or periodic gathering to share, study, discuss, play music or anything that has an ennobling effect on people, you are most welcome to have such a center. If you do not want to be caught in the ever-horizontalizing mesh of a structured institution, be a respecter of each person’s freedom to be what they are and don’t expect more than what they can sincerely and spontaneously give without any demand from you.

Lastly, here’s the story Deb referred to as demonstrating Nitya’s humility, from my introduction to Love and Blessings:

Guru Nitya’s anonymity was intentional and jealously guarded, and his intimate friends appreciated that the distortions of fame seldom intruded into the peaceful atmosphere around him. There are several stories of the Guru intentionally avoiding the limelight, but one of the most amusing took place in the late 1970s. Nitya and a small entourage were passing through Las Vegas, and the anchorman of a local TV affiliate arranged an interview. Cameras ready and notebook in hand, he asked a few innocuous questions, building to a stereotyped climax. Prepared for soundbite revelation, he pitched a slow one over the plate: “And what kind of belief is it that binds your group together?” Nitya looked thoughtfully into the middle distance and slowly answered, “We are all united by our…deep love…of the avocado.” He looked questioningly at his students to see if they were willing to go that far in agreement with him. The interviewer closed his notebook and tucked it away with the flicker of a pitying smile, the cameras were turned off, and Nitya was able to continue on his way as an ordinary human rather than a cult hero. The subtle point that no self-respecting guru would demand any kind of belief from anyone was completely missed.