10/16/18
MOTS Chapter 13: Intimations of Immortality
Having offered the flower of your mind to that Lord
smeared with sacred ashes, the three gunas,
having cooled down the senses, unwound everything, and
become calm,
when even the glory of aloneness has gone, become
established in mahas.
Free
translation:
To become established in the Supreme Being, offer the
flowers of your mind to the Great Lord, whose body is smeared with the ashes of
the triple modalities of nature. Incline before Him in devotion. Turn your
senses away from all objects of desire. Feel freed of all bondage. Become cool,
and do not be excited even by the wonder of the Absolute.
I
again received catcalls for claiming that this was another of Nitya’s greatest
essays, which it is. The problem is there are so many that the term “greatest”
hardly makes sense anymore. I suppose it only means that this one speaks
volumes to me, but I don’t think I’m alone in this….
We
used the chapter reading as an extended meditation, and really there is hardly
anything for me to add to it in the notes. It’s eminently clear and
straightforward. Nitya shows his familiarity with the normal condition of all
humans, and provides a fully vernacular reading of how a Vedantin upgrades it
to a love-drenched, incisive version of normality.
Nitya
was very fond of the dialogue style he uses here. His book on the Bhagavad Gita
uses it throughout, as an echo of the Gita’s epic dialogue. He used an
identical technique in One Hundred Steps to Realization, serialized in Gurukulam
from Spring 2007 through Spring 2013 (we only got through 25 of them before the
end of the Portland-issued magazine).
Dialogue
is central to the traditional guru-disciple relationship, as mutual give and
take between them goes far beyond one dictating an instruction and the other
following it. It’s like what Baird Smith disdained as “Power Point Churches,”
where projected instruction is given in a pre-produced set form that can never
vary, as contrasted with churches where there is an active engagement between
the preceptor and the congregation. The former is constrictive, the latter
expansive.
Nitya
opens with an account of interacting with someone he despises, in order to
demonstrate the three basic emotional states known as the gunas: tamas, rajas and
sattva. This is helpful since we don’t always realize which one we’re in,
and as they each provide a different coloration to our perceptions, we have to
extricate ourselves differently from them. The conclusion of each category is:
To feel negatively towards
another person and to have a closed mind is evidence of a state of
consciousness that can be described as tamasic,
meaning dark or opaque.
Rajas is a state of emotional turbulence which makes
the mind very
self-centered or egocentric.
The clear state of mind of calm
disposition indicates a sattvic
state.
Nothing too arcane here! I think we all are very familiar
with those states. Nitya then presents the yogi’s method of coping with them:
It is not unnatural for us to
become negative and angry, but it is not spiritual either. The path I have
chosen is the way of a yogi, a contemplative who is also a man of unitive
action. The model or pattern of life recommended to a yogi is that of a gunatita. A gunatita is a person who has
tamed his natural urges and has successfully transcended the unilateral impact
of any of the three functional dynamics of nature: sattva, rajas and tamas.
Many allegedly spiritual techniques amount to repression of
these states, yet modern psychology is well aware that repression leads to a
number of bad outcomes. Yoga provides a much healthier alternative. Nitya
muses:
I cannot simply swallow my anger
or annoyance. If I do, it may cause the malfunction or dysfunction of my
psychosomatic system and make me sick. Nor do these emotions disappear by
themselves without leaving karmic traces. So I prefer to express my annoyance
and anger rather than repressing them.
Jan
seconded the idea that repression causes illness, and that denying outlets for
our emotions is not healthy. Giving our full being valid and valuable outlets
is a real art form, and in a way that’s exactly what we’re studying here.
Yogis
include the calm state of sattva in the same category as rajas and tamas in
terms of its effect on the psyche, so even when in a state of euphoria, as with
upsets and callousness, we should “Allow it to prevail for a while and then
pass on like a beautiful cloud formation gently floating over the hills.” This
poetic line may have been inspired by the Wordsworth poem that gives the
chapter its title. You’ll find a link to it and some excerpts in Part II.
Deb
felt it was a perfect lesson the way Nitya stays free of the clutch of the
gunas, and how we have to allow the cycling of the various states to abate
before taking a course of action. Jan agreed and was appreciative of Nitya’s
honesty in admitting to having all the turbulent emotional states the rest of
us do.
Nitya
always strove to demystify the post of guru, to show that all humans were
basically the same. Meeting their disciples where they actually are is
essential to having a meaningful exchange with them. If the teacher is thought
to be in any way different than the student, it instills a subtle resignation
in the seeker’s mind that they are unworthy of the attainments the teacher is
trying to lead them to. Nitya had to battle such deeply entrenched mental
blocks all the time. Pretty much all of us had a tough time thinking of him as
a normal human. We were awed.
Bill
was also touched by Nitya’s honesty, humility and clarity, showing him how even
gurus are caught up in the modulations of being, while remaining quiet within.
Each and every one of us experiences the transactional plane, but we can come
back to the place of witness.
Nitya’s
answers to his questions in the dialogue are intended to go beyond the limits
imposed on Western psychology, where identifying the problem is the primary
thrust, and considered to be the end of the psychiatrist’s role. In Therapy and Realization in the Bhagavad
Gita, you may recall, he muses “If self-realization is the motive of the
psychologist, why do we stop half way? Why don’t we push it all the way until
the patient is no longer a patient but a student, and further, not a seeker but
a seer?” That’s really what’s missing in the lives of the dissatisfied. They’re
already aware on some level of their miseries, but unaware of their innate
grounding in an exalted state. So the questions pose the problem and the
answers give a way toward the yogic ideal of “disaffiliation from the context
of suffering” by making our way to fullness.
Nitya
presents several alternatives for processing anger and other negative states of
mind. First is direct confrontation—after bringing ourself to a clear and more
or less calm state first, of course. Then there’s talking it over with a
neutral friend, shown experimentally to be very therapeutic. When those option
aren’t available, Nitya would do something we could all relate to:
I’ll write a letter conveying all
my self-pitying anguish and wrath to a friend who lives in a far off country.
When it is all out of my mind I just tear the letter up. I don’t have to mail
that dirty laundry to anyone.
Nowadays we are more likely to type our complaints up on the
computer, but experiments have also shown that actual writing is more
therapeutic. Regardless, don’t accidentally hit ‘send’ before trashing your
work, as Bill laughingly warned. Got to be careful!
Again,
many people imagine that we are spiritual if we don’t get angry or upset. Nitya
calls this a pathological state, a kind of numbness. It’s much better to feel
fully and then process our experiences of all types.
Nitya
is busy throughout the book in countering the overly worshipful attitudes many
of us have about gurus, showing himself to be a perfectly ordinary human being:
I don’t think I’m very firm. I’m
a somewhat weak person. There is a mighty unknown force on which I lean with
trust for all decisions. Only this gives me the strength I need.
Deb got a delighted laugh out of his admission of what could
be called a mean streak, another feature many of us are loath to admit to:
My astrological sign is Scorpio.
Those who dabble in astrology say that altruistic idealism and forgiveness are
strong in me. Equally strong is the negative tendency to reduce an adversary to
dust. I get strong pulls to hit hard long before a potential rival even dreams
of hitting me. It is only by God’s grace that I have never succumbed to such
negativity.
Scorpio is a scorpion, famed for the lightning fast strike
of its poisonous tail. While this may be exalted in Mafia-style behavior, it’s
far from yogic.
This
brings us to an essential question: do we initiate action or should we simply
respond to provocations, or even do nothing at all? In Indian tradition,
quietism is central, and busyness is considered non-spiritual. But Nitya was of
an active temperament, as he admits here:
Did I not try to become a Ramana
Maharshi? It didn’t work. I also tried to sit quiet for many months without any
word or activity. It was like a young bull trying to fast and meditate. My mind
always wanted to graze in new pastures. Eventually I found out that was not my
trip. My gregariousness has become somewhat chronic, and my hands are always
hungry for action. As a young man I initiated several ventures and got into
endless troubles over them. I think I’ve learned my lesson. I do not any longer
initiate any new programs of action, but that does not mean I wantonly avoid or
escape action situations.
All of these allusions are fully recounted in Love and Blessings, including the
hilarious results of his business ventures, and are really fun to read.
Deb
agreed it was really important to not either initiate actions or refuse them
(which is a kind of negative initiation), but simply to attend to natural tasks,
endeavors and relationships.
While
in Bombay, Nitya was given several opportunities for fame and fortune, which
can easily lure us into initiating action. In his Letter to Ananda he writes:
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.
This marks the boundary between the ordinary person and a
true contemplative. Nitya saw firsthand the impositions of fame on two of
India’s most prominent citizens:
Nothing is more inconvenient and
troublesome than being famous. I have seen with my own eyes what it did to
Mahatma Gandhi and Ramana Maharshi. Nobody wanted to leave them alone even for
an hour, except perhaps when Gandhiji was in jail. Otherwise, he could only
slam his door against the waiting multitude. I always think of the wise words
of Jalaluddin Rumi, “Poverty is my pride and obscurity my refuge.”
So here we are. We want to bring about change and growth,
yet we are wary of initiating action in any ordinary sense. So what do we do?
Here is where charlatans and politicians offer to lead us, so that we can stop
thinking for ourselves. They’ll take care of it. It’s an easy way out of the
dilemma. But anyone who is paying attention will soon see the dangers. We must
never surrender our good sense, even as we are aware of its limits. Nitya
insists we don’t abandon our mind, tempting as it is:
We have no instrument other than
our mind to take us to our own true being. The mind, however, has some grave
defects. It is conditioned and colored by its past experiences. It is burdened
with many dormant habit traits. When we employ it to observe, reconnoiter or
measure consciousness, it merges with it and becomes part of the uncharted and
indistinct “conscious- unconscious.” Instead of reporting back it loses its
identity. So we cannot depend on our mind as a foolproof instrument.
Despite this, Nitya repeats, “Still, in our search for the
Self we have no other option than to use our mind.” Then a broad hint: “The
first step is to give it a direction.”
Nitya
isn’t talking about having abstract goals like becoming enlightened. To me,
this idea of direction means becoming steady and brave enough to examine our
state of mind right now with a
neutral air. If we can resist either ignoring or getting entangled in a
situation, while remaining present, it is already quite liberating.
The
idea of detachment really baffles some seekers of truth. There is much to
confuse and distract us in our environment, but we have to be careful not to
tune out the important stuff, the good, the true and the beautiful. We find our
center right in the bliss of being in contact with life in all its richness.
Don’t turn away. Nitya truly believed and lived this. He advises:
Retain your liaison between your
senses and the mind. Allow your senses to bring home all that you love, such as
the sunrise, flowers, children and lovers. Every item of affectivity touches
your center. Make yourself familiar with that spot in your inner awareness. It
is right here. The spirit dwells in you. It is the auspicious Siva, the
transcendental joy of eternal peace, dancing his cosmic dance.
This is not a call to worship any deity, but to attune with
a freeing principle. Nitya mentions Siva because he is the Lord smeared with
sacred ashes of the gunas of the opening verse. He is often feared as the God
of Destruction, but Narayana Guru well knew his destruction was to sweep away
the garbage that keeps us in thrall to mediocrity, and that opens our hearts to
supreme love.
We
are well instructed here to not turn away from all the beautiful things in
order to find our center—they lead right to it. It’s just that we shouldn’t be
stuck on our preferred version, but open and tolerant of other versions as
well. And we do not have to merely quiet the mind to become more aware, we can
also offer the joy to others. We don’t have to remain isolated.
Jan
was really touched by this, how the senses are given a vital role in bringing
home all we love. It’s frustrating how even in the Gurukula people cling to the
idea that the senses are the enemy. One thing that sets it apart for me is the
enthusiasm for lived experience, for making love a reality and not simply an
abstraction. Distrusting our own experience is one of the most deeply lodged
impediments—habits of thought—we humans suffer from. As Deb added, it is love
that transforms you, rather than a sterile program. And we love what we see and
know. This down-to-earth approach also helps keep us sane, by the way.
Nitya
winds down with a magnificent paean:
No one can attain to the status
of the Absolute without cultivating an overwhelming love for it. When such a
love fills our heart, our vision changes. Relativistic considerations are
caused by patterns of love and hatred engendered by partial visions. When the mind
is filled with an overflowing sympathy, its resultant neutral vision will
liberate us from all lopsided obligations and tribalistic or clannish vested
interests. When all the unhealthy feverishness of life leaves the mind it
becomes cool and collected and will be filled with a sense of wonder at the
vision of the Absolute.
So this is where we’re headed, and the determination to go
there is the direction we want to give to our mind. Love is a direction? Yes,
the kind meant, anyway. It sounds simple enough, yet it is elusive to many, and
hardly mentioned at all in the mainstream of social life.
Nitya
concludes with the merging of seer and seeker, the ultimate achievement of the
dialogue form of wisdom transmission:
In the reciprocation of identity
that naturally becomes established between the self that admires and loves and
the Transcendental Self that is seen and adored, one experiences the ecstasy of
Union. When the seeker attains to the status of a seer and continuously
experiences the neutrality of spiritual vision and the abiding joy of the
Absolute, it becomes a matter of course to accept such a condition as
permanent. This is the true state of Blessedness. This is the intimation of
Immortality.
I noticed, maybe for the first time, that Nitya secretly
infuses the definition of the Absolute, saccidananda,
into his closing blessing. Sat is the
permanent condition, chit is the
continuous experience of a neutral spiritual vision, and ananda is of course the abiding joy of the Absolute. So there
you have
it! About as clear a presentation of the game and the goal as the Gurukula has
ever produced.
Part II
Baiju
has taken leave for a time to attend to pressing matters. Here’s a link to
Imitations of Immortality, by William Wordsworth, the amazing poem that
inspired the title of this chapter. It’s little wonder that Nitya found it
enthralling:
https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/ode-intimations-immortality-recollections-early-childhood
Reading it at the end of class, we noticed how it was
enriched by the thoughts we had discussed, or I should say, our appreciation
was enriched. It was clear that in a pure form the fall from grace and return to
God of Christianity is a close parallel with the tenets of Indian philosophy,
where a single Substance is altered to produce the mystifying many, and our
call is to rediscover the essential oneness. Wordsworth sketches the idea in
terms of the innocent bliss of childhood corrupted by the cares of older age.
So
many great lines here! Let me share a little. The opening first:
There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore;—
Turn wheresoe’er I may,
By night or day.
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.
Wordsworth
hears the call of the return to grace:
The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;
No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;
I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng,
The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep,
And all the earth is gay;
A
few more classic bits:
Oh evil day! if I were sullen
While Earth herself is adorning,
Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
Where is it now, the glory and the dream?
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;
Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie
Thy Soul’s immensity;
O joy! that in our embers
Is something that doth live,
That Nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive!
Delight and liberty, the simple creed
Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest,
Hence in a season of calm weather
Though inland far we be,
Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
Can in a moment travel thither,
And see the Children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.
What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.
in my heart of hearts I feel your might;
And
the last sentence:
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
Part III
A
wheelbarrow full of our homegrown quinces greeted class members as they
arrived. We’ve had a bumper crop, and they are gorgeous. Later it occurred to
me that quinces are candidates for being Hercules’ golden apples of immortality
of his eleventh labor, the same as the ones that caused heightened awareness in
the Garden of Eden. So intimations of immortality were literally parked at the
door.
* *
*
In
working through my chapter VI Gita commentary, preparing the next lesson, I
came across a few paragraphs that are quite relevant to this chapter also:
About verse 36:
Those lucky ones who have had a transcendental experience by
accident spread the word that it can only be attained by not trying. And yes,
striving can block any number of possibilities from spontaneously springing up.
But we lay the groundwork for wisdom by bringing our intelligence to bear, and
bringing it back when it wanders. Without that effort, we become sloppy and
unfocused and little or no transformation will take place.
Under 37 & 38:
The truth is that realization is not only of the special and
spectacular, it includes the ordinary quotidian side of life too. Every bit of
existence is miraculous, and it’s only because we have become dulled to it that
we long for “signs and wonders.” Instead of looking for something far away, we
should bring our attention to the here and now, and accord it its full measure
of wonder.
Verse 39 includes one of my favorite quotes from That Alone:
We have not seen the Buddha, we have never met Jesus Christ,
nor Socrates. We have never seen Kant or Spinoza, Shakespeare or Shelley,
Kalidasa, Valmiki, or the philosophers of far-off China. Bach, Mozart and
Beethoven were isolated within a tiny section of our planet. Still, our human
heritage is molded by the brilliant thoughts of all these wonderful people from
all around the world: the poets, storytellers, those who made the myths and
legends, the inventors, composers, scientists and discoverers. Whatever they
have contributed is still present in our lives, guiding us, teaching us, and
helping us every moment. But they are not here. Only the friend next to you is
here, the friend who exemplifies and incorporates all those wonderful qualities
and insights. And we can all share this tremendous inheritance and even more,
with each other, to make life an ecstatic and joyful experience. (140)