KARMA YOGA 10

This world is Maya and whosoever is caught in it is doomed to its dark dungeons for aeons till in some time propitious, the soul awakes to its pristine glory and shakes off the fetters that bind it to emerge free, a mighty lion. A million years of bondage is gone in a trice as the Self shines in its own splendour lighting up the recesses that were dark and illumining the whole of the being in a radiance of pure joy.

The light issues from the deepest cavity of the heart, spreads through every cell of the being, then envelopes the whole universe. A rapturous bliss floods the soul as the aspirant loses himself in the infinitude of the cosmic being. The ocean of bliss rushes in from all sides deluging and drowning the soul even as the vast all-pervasive One absorbs it in its embrace.

The whole of Nature pins down the aspirant with all its vehemence and reduces him to nothingness and so, transforms him into the living-free being, the jeevan-mukta. The three modes of Nature are transcended and the soul stands shorn of all attributes as the supreme Self, the transcendental being, the Brahman with Nature lying at its 'feet', a subservient entity devoid of capacity to hold. The locks are unbarred; the golden gate to freedom is open. The soul transits at will between the relative and the absolute, savouring the bliss of both.

Such is the transformation that mortal man is heir to. Such is the aspiration of the intelligent one. And such is the destiny of man awaiting fulfilment the moment he chooses to veer round from his habitual state of bondage and avers his rightful status as the monarch of all he surveys. Karma has bound him and it is karma that will release him from his age-old captivity. The Bastille will fall, revolution will rage and the prisoner shall be set free in the sunshine of the new republic.

Hail revolution! Liberty! Equality! Fraternity! Such a liberty that needs no rationing though it is precious, such an equality that envisions the same Self in all behind the apparent inequities and such a fraternity that sees oneself in all of sentience, such is the revolution that the enlightened have given utterance to as the ultimate repose of man.

This then is our karma on earth, the ideal to be aspired for and by austerity achieved. May we attain to this supernal level by karma yoga? Sure we can and this shall be the subject of our discussion now that we have set our eyes on the pinnacle of glory, the Everest of the ascent of man.