WHY AM I WHAT I AM?

WHY AM I WHAT I AM?

We are what we are, not merely on account of our own karma but because of our specific locations in the phenomenal world owing to the primal dispersal of the seeds of creation resolving out their motions in the earthly terrain. As structural elements in this universal network we are being dragged into positions, momentary and shifting, by the cosmic interplay of forces. Units we are of a magnificent whole and, yet, encapsulate the possibilities of the totality of power and attributes, so to say. It is bewildering that the vast remains embedded thus in this minuscule body and the much broader mind and ever broadening so, till in vain attempt of self-extension it gives up its ambitious claims to infinite stretch in the domain external and resigns to its fate in reverse contraction till dissolution it mercifully seeks in self-immolation. The Atman now unfolds in all its glory and life which was but a dreary drill through the routine rigmarole of material things opens out into the heaven of freedom, its green pastures in endless stretch across the valley of flowers of a variant hue altogether and a variant essence, too.

But the moot point remains still. Why am what I am? Some people cut a sorry face all the time and I, through some quirk of fate or by self-effort as someone said, remain out of bounds of sadness and childishly happy. The one that said so may have scrupulously avoided being sad through a persistent programme of self-induced happiness but I have not been privy to such experience and cannot comment beyond what lies within the ambit of academic discussion on it. It is said that it is constitutional in some to be buoyant and blissful while some others are born as if to bear the burden of sadness all the time, so constituted are their nerves that carry the sorrowful burden. This is a physiological order that has its psychological effect as its natural corollary. But statement is one thing and explanation quite another. The phenomenon is there and there are multiple shallow and deep theories that abound as to its attempted explanation. But we still hunt in the dark for the most plausible explanation, although, most are satisfied with a surface analysis of things.

Practice makes a man perfect, so the saying goes. The Geeta also says it thus :
श्रीभगवानुवाच |
असंशयं महाबाहो मनो दुर्निग्रहं चलम् |
अभ्यासेन तु कौन्तेय वैराग्येण च गृह्यते || Chapter 6, verse 35||
The mind, doubtlessly, is difficult to restrain but with practice and renunciation (disenchantment / discolouration) of worldly desires, it may be brought under control.
Here, practice is being coupled with renunciation and this is crucial. Mere practice of spiritual exercises will be of no avail if they are not accompanied by a corresponding disenchantment of worldliness which is now seeking its channelisation in the deep interior of the being. We are too lazy to practise in the first place the exercises our spiritual preceptor assigns for us and then we immerse ourselves in worldliness despite that and come to grief. Even if we practise spiritual austerities while keeping ourselves entrenched in the world of delusive dreams and desires, we will not be at peace with ourselves, for the system, being oppositely pulled by the spirit and matter, will be torn apart between their reverse tugs. And if we give in entirely to the desires of the flesh and the lowly mind, we will be consumed by the vile vultures that haunt the murky sky of materialism and feed on carrion flesh. On either side there is no hope to be happy.

But there is a third side to the game and it is this. The optimal mode of living between the life of the senses and the life of discrimination as prescribed by the spiritual preceptor who knows the transcendent Truth can bring the secret of happy terrestrial existence home to the disciple who yearns to learn and is willing to diligently follow the prescribed path. The Guru becomes the physician for the cure of this disease called worldliness that throws the disciple off-balance at every turn of daily living, causing him immense enormous physical and psychological distress and allows him neither peace nor easy happiness. But the Guru must be an adept in the communication of this profound spiritual truth of human existence and the disciple ardent, too, about receiving it in the depths of his being. As the Kathopanishad has so poetically expounded it thus : 

श्रवणायापि बहुभिर्यो न लभ्यः श्रृण्वन्तोऽपि बहवो यं न विद्युः ।

आश्चर्यो वक्ता कुशलोऽस्य लब्धाऽऽश्चर्यो ज्ञाता कुशलानुशिष्टः ।। 1.2.7 ।। (original text of the Kathopanishad)

।।1.2.7।। Of that (Self), which is not available for the mere hearing to many, (and) which many do not understand even while hearing, the expounder is wonderful and the receiver is wonderful; wonderful is he who knows under the instruction of an adept. (commentary in English by Swami Gambhirananda of Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission)

This is it. The passage of wisdom from the preceptor to the pupil, the ignition of the fire within the disciple by the divine grace of the Guru, the awakening of the kulakundalini shakti (the coiled-up dormant serpent-power of the soul at the base of the spine that rises, on being awakened, from one centre of consciousness to the next higher one progressively till it eventually reaches the sacral plexus of the brain where it merges with the Being in the ocean of infinite consciousness) --- this is the cause of the transformation of the disciple from earthly attachment and its corresponding woes to the sublimity and serenity of transcendental realisation whence, on return to earth-consciousness, all is blissfully fine and happiness a fait accompli.

...unfinished and on...

Written by Sugata Bose