Collections from Sri NV Raghuram Pooja vs. Prayer and worship Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah
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NV Raghuram After completing Bachelor of Engineering from Regional Engineering College Bhopal, in 1970 N.V.Raghuram joined service as engineer in various departments and carried on varieties of civil engineering works until 1998. His interest in spiritual learning and in the philosophy of yoga and allied subjects started during his teen age. He had on several occasions met several spiritual masters and sought guidance. It is in the year 1978 he took training in Kanyakumari and started his association with Vivekananda kendra and later since 1980, since inception he is associated with Vivekananda Kendra Yoga Anusandhana Samsthan, (VYASA/ Vivekananda Yoga Research Foundation Bangalore) as senior faculty. In this connection he extensively travels several countries such as Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Turkey, Romania, England in Europe, USA and Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, Sri Lanka, Singapore, etc in south east Asia to conduct several yoga courses, spiritual retreats, Yoga therapy classes for various ailments, Yoga courses for personality development in children and Yoga instructors certification programs. He is also instrumental in training of Indian astronaut Rakesh Sharma and in starting yoga therapies in MD Anderson Cancer research center in Houston/USA, Stift neurological clinic in Germany and Memorial hospital in Turkey. He also took active part initiating partnership programs with Central Michigan University in USA, conducting more than one thousand stress reduction programs (SMET) all around the world and starting yoga therapy research projects for various aliments at medical centers in USA, UK, and Germany. He is honored by YogaShree Award in 2007. Mr. N.V.Raghuram is married with a son. His wife, Dr R.Nagarathna, is the chief medical director and Dean of medicine in VYASA. His Son Amrut is in Japan introducing yoga and yoga therapy in a hospital in Kagoshima in Fukuoka.
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Pooja vs. Prayer and worship A friend of mine Dr Anirudh having read my article on the meditation and Dhyana expressed that I should write about pooja or worship also giving the picture according to Indian philosophy. Pooja is one of those words, which is very widely used in the Indian culture. This is so because in Indian culture, every house is having temple in the house and they offer daily pooja. This house of pooja will normally have the idols of or pictures of several gods of their own choice and many houses also keep the photographs of the saints sadhus or swamiji’s who either lived in the recent past or who are also living even now. Therefore, pooja is a very common word in the household in India. I do not think pooja to be translated as ‘prayer’. It is very different as pooja does not emerge from praying per say. in English we may say it as worship but we need to understand pooja clearly. I do not know the full meaning and philosophy behind the English word called ‘WORSHIP’ but let me here give some of the details of pooja its philosophy, which may help them not only to appreciate the depth of the ideas about pooja but also to follow it with this understanding in the day-today life. The pooja place in a house is very intimately and emotionally associated with the owner of the house, I observed several times that the owner started building the house and the engineer would have put the marks on the ground about foundation for various walls. The moment the marking for the pooja room is there on the ground, the owner does not step there with his foot wear on because going into pooja room with footwear is disrespect to god! One could see such a thing in the earlier days where the owner would have built house himself and not like the culture of apartment houses these days. According to Sage Narada, pooja, or what we translate as worship, has two components. Poojadishu Anuraga iti prasharyah II [The anuraga in pooja and other things is Bhakti according to Parashara’s son Vyasa.] The component called Anuraga is the element of Bhakti in the case of doing Pooja. This brings about a question what is the other component, which is there in our culture along with the Anuraga? That component is the Physical details of the practice of worship. He did not specifically make mention of it because this is some thing which one can see very clearly out side. The problem is that many people take this alone as the Bhakti. Let us try to understand it in detail. Like many other things in the nature, pooja also has two components. One is the outer component and the other is the inner component, like the body and the soul. What we normally see is the outer component, the visible component and the other the invisible component or the hidden component. The outer part the body is having meaning and purpose only when there is the inner component. The freedom the growth, and the joy and satisfaction, which we see in the body, they all belong to the soul and not to the body. Body alone does not have any of these things.
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A friend of mine Dr Anirudh having read my article on the meditation and Dhyana expressed that I should write about pooja or worship also giving the picture according to Indian philosophy. Pooja is one of those words, which is very widely used in the Indian culture. This is so because in Indian culture, every house is having temple in the house and they offer daily pooja. This house of pooja will normally have the idols of or pictures of several gods of their own choice and many houses also keep the photographs of the saints sadhus or swamiji’s who either lived in the recent past or who are also living even now. Therefore, pooja is a very common word in the household in India. I do not think pooja to be translated as ‘prayer’. It is very different as pooja does not emerge from praying per say. in English we may say it as worship but we need to understand pooja clearly. I do not know the full meaning and philosophy behind the English word called ‘WORSHIP’ but let me here give some of the details of pooja its philosophy, which may help them not only to appreciate the depth of the ideas about pooja but also to follow it with this understanding in the day-to-day life. The pooja place in a house is very intimately and emotionally associated with the owner of the house, I observed several times that the owner started building the house and the engineer would have put the marks on the ground about foundation for various walls. The moment the marking for the pooja room is there on the ground, the owner does not step there with his foot wear on because going into pooja room with footwear is disrespect to god! One could see such a thing in the earlier days where the owner would have built house himself and not like the culture of apartment houses these days. According to Sage Narada, pooja, or what we translate as worship, has two components. Poojadishu Anuraga iti prasharyah II [The anuraga in pooja and other things is Bhakti according to Parashara’s son Vyasa.] The component called Anuraga is the element of Bhakti in the case of doing Pooja. This brings about a question what is the other component, which is there in our culture along with the Anuraga? That component is the Physical details of the practice of worship. The pooja place in a house is very intimately and emotionally associated with the owner of the house, I observed several times that the owner started building the house and the engineer would have put the marks on the ground about foundation for various walls. The moment the marking for the pooja room is there on the ground, the owner does not step there with his foot wear on because going into pooja room with footwear is disrespect to god! One could see such a thing in the earlier days where the owner would have built house himself and not like the
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culture of apartment houses these days. According to Sage Narada, pooja, or what we translate as worship, has two components. Poojadishu Anuraga iti prasharyah II [The anuraga in pooja and other things is Bhakti according to Parashara’s son Vyasa.] The component called Anuraga is the element of Bhakti in the case of doing Pooja. This brings about a question what is the other component, which is there in our culture along with the Anuraga? That component is the Physical details of the practice of worship. He did not specifically make mention of it because this is some thing which one can see very clearly out side. The problem is that many people take this alone as the Bhakti. Let us try to understand it in detail. Like many other things in the nature, pooja also has two components. One is the outer component and the other is the inner component, like the body and the soul. What we normally see is the outer component, the visible component and the other the invisible component or the hidden component. The outer part the body is having meaning and purpose only when there is the inner component. The freedom the growth, and the joy and satisfaction, which we see in the body, they all belong to the soul and not to the body. Body alone does not have any of these things. Similarly, the practice of pooja also has two components. The practice details, the gods and their details, method and the ingredients involved, are the outer structure and what Narada calls as anuraga, is the inner component. This anuraga is again very difficult to translate in English. Roughly this can be understood as the feeling intimacy with, the feeling the presence of god in your heart and not in head. Anuraga is richer and nobler than attachment. You are doing out of pure joy in giving or doing for others! Feeling is some thing you can see from out side. It is one’s own experience happening inside. It is intimacy with the god or with the other so that the other will not be there as other any longer. Pooja is the real one when the feeling of intimacy leads us into pooja or the worship. At that time in just doing pooja, you are satisfied and you are not looking for any further happenings. If there is any other demand or other expectations and the satisfaction depends upon any further happenings such as some grace or some benefit f winning a lottery or exams etc then the pooja becomes secondary. Therefore, anuraga is the seed for the pooja and your feeling is the seed, as the plant is the expression of the seed planted. Anuraga comes from deep respect, love, wonder, closeness and intimacy all blended into one thing! The technique of pooja involves saying some mantras in Sanskrit and in between offering various things. If you look at these mantras they give a very simple meaning like this. To start with, you offer your prayers and welcome the god. Offer him water so that he can wash his feet and his hands before entering so that he is purified of all the dust from out side. The corresponding mantras are ‘Padau prakshalayami and Hastau prakshaayami’. Stapayami poojayami, make his to sit down Asanam sweekrutya requesting god to
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accept the seat. The moment god comes light comes in to the house.. Symbolically the moment he comes in the lights are lighted and you offer him fragrance by lighting the dhoop sticks. The mantra for that is dhoopa deepam agrapayami. Depending up on the god we are worshipping we select the items for pooja. When we do the pooja of lord Ganesha because he is with elephant head he loves to eat the grass and fresh leaves his appetite is vast so. We prepare several varieties of sweets and offer him grass and variety of leaves and sugar cane etc. While offering with each mantra, which is the praise of god, we offer one thing. Since he is a child he likes to be with children so that day all the children go round several houses to see Ganesha and in his presence which ever may be the house children do some simple yoga exercise, scientists found in USA recently that this exercise is good for improving memory and attention. When we offer food to the god especially whenever any item is felt to be having spicy taste then naturally, he requires water in between to feel cool inside. There is a mantra for that saying, madhyemadhye paneeyam samarpayami. In between water is offered. In the evening, we offer music and dance programs and in the night, there are special rituals suggesting god Ganesha is being put to bed and there are bed tie stories. There are lullabies for all gods in Indian philosophy and culture. In the morning, there are wakeup songs for the lord. These activities are so sweet that they do not pace god far above beyond clouds. Thus, pooja is a practice for a very intimate specialized guest for you and the family. All these steps create the necessary psychological posture and inner preparedness. There are also substitutes in case you miss some thing you do not have to feel guilty about it. Rice with yellow colour and some times even some camphor or other essence is added, can substitute any of the missing items. Like the mantra says offer nice dress to god and if not available offer handful of this rice known as akshata in place of the cloth or dress. Vasteram samarpayami.
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Offer cloths and if not available offer akshata. tadabhave ashatam samarpayami. The best available material such as curd, coconut water, honey, thick milk, and dry fruits etc are all material for offering because god likes them! Having used the substitute items at the end out of humility there are also mantras praying to the god, ‘oh, lord, please for give me if I had done any thing wrong knowingly or unknowingly since it is not out of intention of doing things wrong way but my own other limitations. Since the pooja is the expression of the deep love and oneness with god, you are experiencing the day of pooja you are not to get angry or irritated towards anybody and to keep cheerful mood and freely exchange cheers with all. Thus, these pooja will make our mind positive and helps arise above the level of complaints. This has to be done with pure inner experience of divinity. Now the question comes how to develop this feeling of presence of divinity! Our life gives us many experiences or opportunities to develop this deep respect and love. On many occasions things will happen to you unexpectedly which brings about great happiness to you! If only you think deeply you will realize that things would not have happened if you planned and worked for it. It is not by your effort that things happened that way. Many times even in spite of you things would have happened in a favourable way to you and this can only be possible due to some grace from some unknown quarters. If you think like that, you will be filled with unusual joy and at the same time filled with such great reverence that you feel the help you received is from god beyond! We can let this situation slip away by saying egoistically that we have achieved it and it is purely our effort! Only when one gives up this claim on the doer-ship and deeply feels touched by god then pooja the feeling of prardhana comes up whose expression is pooja! This feeling inside is the mother of all the rituals and all the forms of god and all the mantras and chantings which are the manifest form outside. Not only in Indian philosophy but also in all the spiritual paths have emerged with the practices that are, expressions of great saints who gave the expression to their inner experience. Those who must have been around such great personalities would have seen their masters and would have been seen the shades of god on the faces of their masters and thus they adapted the rituals very diligently! However, later persons would have only followed the practices and further they become mechanical rituals and the soul the anuraga is not adapted. If we observe the details of pooja one can notice that pooja consists of treating god as human being and welcoming him in the best possible way and offering him the water to wash his or her feel and fanning him after making him sit comfortably before you start any thing further. In case of Lord Ganesh since he is a child we need to get the permission from his mother so that we can take him to our house and for that you worship her before and please her so that she will not deny your request when you ask her permission to take lord Ganesh with you. In addition, all the days the god is with you provide time-to-time food entertainment and all that so that he will stay with you very happily and finally send him back to his abode with all care and love. Thus in all the pooja methods god is personified. For some people it may look silly but nature is such that all our emotions we need personification to find expression. Simple example is the dreams! Dream are he expression of our motions like fear anxiety or anger deep in our minds. They find their vent in our dreams where we see some persons or some animals and we have expression of our emotions. When we wake up we realise what we have seen is not real but in the process we find expression for our emotions. Bhakti is conscious tool to manifest our good emotions of
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love, reverence etc. However, unless until we bring god to the human level and treat god, like another human being very intimately related to you, we will not give expression to these emotions. Then the whole practice becomes mechanical and there is no devotion behind our doing pooja. Once I was giving a series of lectures on Upanishads in a temple in Los Angeles. The organisers wanted to introduce me to the pujari who is employed to do pooja in the temple. When my fried took me to him he was talking to some one holding the phone in his right hand to his ear discussing about the share market and with the other hand he was offering the flowers to the god image and with the same hand he took the holy water ‘teerthem’ and offered to me! My friend felt that he has not heard him earlier introducing me so he attempted to tell him that I am the speaker on Upanishads in the temple, for which he replied ‘yes I know sir’, and continued to talk on the phone. Where is the spirit of pooja in this? pooja is not just a worship where you follow some rituals or say some mantras - holy chants, ringing some bells and finally feel relieved at the end of all that exercise relieved in the sense that now you can establish your claim for his grace and put in front of him your demands list. It is a method, which can flow the fullest expression to your heartfelt emotions and you are fully absorbed in his consciousness so that you become one with the divinity. The earlier sages who have given expression to their experience in the form of pooja methodology will feel satisfied. That is the reason Nerada expresses in the subsequent sutra that you become one with god, ‘tanmayah’ out of love. When you go to god out of fear or favour god is not important, you are important. God is some one who is attending to your demands. If he has to keep his position then he has to attend other wise in your eyes he looses his position as god! When you go to god out of love, which is enriched in the form of devotion and deep respect and intimacy, then god is important and you are unimportant! Your worth is only in dissolving in god!
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In the beginning, you become self-conscious about others observing you when you are doing pooja. Therefore, all cultures provided methods, which people can follow in the group so that you can do the rituals. Soon it is important that you do the pooja in aloneness and not in the presence of others where you can freely express your feeling from your heart, you can cry you can dance or you can use any other form of expressing your heart. That is the reason, sage Narada said in another sutra ‘Bhaktinah Ekantino Mukhyah’. Bhakti practitioner needs to practice in aloneness with god so that he can find his true expression. Therefore, people go to the temples and we have group ritual practices in the society but at the same time, every house we have temples where people do their pooja alone! Many times people do not find that kind of devotion in the, so-called big temples, what they get in their simple home temple. True pooja is to surrender to god and no to claim the achievements and it should make you humble. The people how does pooja and becomes arrogant and looks down upon others who do not do pooja are not sincere in their pooja. A little child is playing with her doll for hours and mother was happy that the child has not done mischief. The child is engaged in offering child in doll food and tea and all such things. The child also changes the diaper of the doll child raises the tone like mother does and gives instructions to the child. Mother has seen the child is playing for hours. I the evening the mother now instructs the child @ now you played enough with the doll now keep it a side and wash your hands and legs and come for dinner. Child replies to the mother “please, mom, don’t shout I am coming in few minutes child will be sleeping any moment and you don’t raise your voice that will disturb the sleep of the child”. Mother in reply says, “There is nothing like child and after all it is a doll. Don’t worry”. Pained in her heart the child says to the child doll motherly words, “you please you don’t take it to your heart, mom shouts and that is her nature, you go to sleep now. I will come back soon and be by your side”. Child feels the presence of consciousness in the doll, which mother does not see. Same way the person who does pooja must see the consciousness being present and not the stone idol; then only pooja is real pooja or worship is real worship and not otherwise!
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Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah Sarve bhavantu sukhinah= may every one be happy Sarve santu niramayah= may every one be free from all diseases Sarve bhadrani pashyantu = may every one see goodness and auspiciousness in every thing Ma kaschit duhkha bhaag bhaveet- may none be unhappy or distressed Om shantih, shantih, shantih-Om peace, peace, peace! May all be happy, may all be free from sickness, may all see things good, and may none have misery. Om peace, peace, peace! This is a very simple prayer applicable to one and all. Millions and millions of Indians have been offering this prayer for last five thousand and odd years. The prayer is so simple that one can easily remember the simple meaning as ‘ may all be happy and healthy’. As we go into the depth of its meaning there is lot more to understand about the psyche of the sages who offered this universal prayer which is wholesome, all encompassing, purely socialistic and highly spiritual. It brings out the uniqueness of a spiritual master who develops enormous love for the entire creation so that he not only does whatever best he can do for others and also offers prayer to the higher forces that are beyond one’s control .Thus, this prayer is not just a simple prayer but becomes a mantra, a goal for a sadhaka (spiritual seeker) to meditate upon and move on in the path of spiritually to achieve universality. Let us dwell on these thoughts in. Today’s satsang .
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Why do we need to pray? Before I go on to explain the meaning of the mantra, let me give you an example from Mahabharata to show how the great warrior Bhishma was a living example (now there is enough proof through archeological studies that mahabharata is a history and not just an imagination of a poet) of this Indian (Hindu) advise that ‘we only have the right to pray for others and never for seeking favours for ourselves’. This is brought out beautifully by the poet through Bhishma’s own statement in the warfare. When every one had assembled for war at Kurukshetra, Krishna and Arjuna stood in the battle field discussing about the vital questions of life which turned out to be BhagavadGita, the divine hymn, an all time message for humanity at large. Although the conches were already blown with full readiness for the orders from the leaders , the entire army had to wait and could not start off the war as Bhishma the senior of the two captains did not give the orders. The restless Duryodhana asks Bhishma ‘what is happening there? What are they discussing in the middle of the battle field? Why don’t you give the orders to start off?” Bhishma in turn replies ‘My dear son, let us wait for a few moments to start the destruction. They must be discussing some thing important’. Duryodhana says with arrogance, “Oh, what else could it be, I know it! Arjuna must be terrified looking at our army and he must be discussing how to run away from the war field!’. Bhishma replies to Duryodhana, “Why do you want to show off you ignorance.” and adds, “in all my life, I have never prayed for any favour for myself; whatever was given to me I accepted wholeheartedly. Only at this moment I feel like praying to wind God to blow towards me so that a few of those divine words of wisdom pouring out from Krishna’s lips may fall on my ears”. . This shows how great masters like Bhishma were living examples of this prayer that we only have the right to pray for others and not for self and it had percolated as a living culture of the Indian society. Thus, this prayer that carries such a great message has been sung and chanted heartily all over on this Indian soil over five thousand and odd years for the welfare of ALL. In the first place one may ask ‘what is the need for a spiritual master who has mastered all laws of nature, to pray to Gods (higher forces of creative intelligence), either for himself or for other? This is because the sage who has gone through this highest experience of oneness of the universal consciousness or self realization knows that praying is the mode and tool to manifest that experience and compassion for the fellow beings. In fact you will realize through your own experience that we cannot really change a person, unless he wants to, except to pray and pray for his or her well being which can fructify if done with full sincerity and integrity. You know that happiness is not something that you can get by possessions of material things. One may possess every thing one can think of that is meant to give happiness, but he may be the most miserable person. Money or position or power or authority can never ensure happiness. In fact, with a small introspective observation of the society and friends around you, you will realize that these two are not connected to each other at all. I am sure you have come across many people who do not have any luxurious possessions and do not have big laurels to their credit and live a very simple life, but they are very happy .You can see the pure genuine smile on their faces always. You also have examples of persons who have every luxury you ask for, but the happiness is not there. A person who is poor but unhappy, at least has a hope that one day he can find money and that he would become happy in future by satisfying his wants. But a person who has tons of money but is not happy is all the more miserable because he does not even have this hope that money can bring happiness. Similarly, the so called educated and knowledgeable person can be much more unhappy than an uneducated and ignorant person!. Upanishad goes on to unravel this truth systematically to reach the right
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understanding. These sages realized that real happiness is to ‘Know’ that ‘I’ am made of the stuff called ‘Ananda or happiness’ and also that ‘prayer’ is a wonderful tool to tap this divine happiness for one and all. Thus, having realized that satisfying the material wants of an individual cannot give the lasting happiness, what else can a sage who is established in this eternal happiness do as an expression of the great compassion that he nurtures for the fellow beings? How can he express his universal love? How can we the mortals who have not yet attained that highest experience of eternal happiness culture ourselves? Only thing any one can do is to pray that may every one be happy! Seeds contain the entire tree within them. Just this knowledge about its potentiality is of no use. You should allow it to express itself as the fully grown tree by preparing the soil and providing the necessary nourishment. If you do not prepare the ground and give the right type of environment the seed cannot sprout and yield a healthy and useful tree. In addition to this, once the sprouts have come up, it is also very important to deweed the wrong sprouts around. Prayer is like weeding out the wrong sprouts. It is important to carry on our duties with utmost care and efficiency and then the prayer works by deweeding the unseen obstacles. Rishis give these prayers with love, compassion and deep concern. But the prayers do not eliminate the need of our efforts to work with efficiency and commitment. Prayer is not for a lazy person.. Now, with this understanding let us try to understand the ideas in this prayer “Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah…” ‘May every one be happy…’ Every one here refers to the entire creation, to all sensuous beings including plants, animals and human beings. Although this prayer is in Sanskrit and though this is given in the so called Hindu scriptures, when the sages say “sarve…” they do not exclude nonHindus. The prayer does not say, I pray God to give happiness to Hindus only and you do not deserve my prayers if you are not a Hindu! Some times the religious institutions can be so narrow that the God you believe in may be the same, the heaven and hell are the same, and the prophet also is the same, but you cannot pray for the well being of people of other sects. One of my Christian friends was saying that when she was a young girl in US, the church school she was going to, taught her that they are supposed to pray only for those who go to that particular church and those who are associated with other churches do not deserve their prayers. She realized the shallowness of this when she grew up, but for many of her friends this remained as a belief for life time! Religious fundamentalists in every religion have been responsible for creating such illogical unhealthy beliefs and even wars have been waged for protecting such doctrines. This is rampant even today when we are in this 21st century of science and technology, when man is considered to be dominated by logical thinking. Thus we see that our prayer shall reach every one , every human being, every one belonging to all religions, all castes, all creeds, all races, all animals and all plants not only on this planet but to all living beings on any planet in the galaxy. Then a question arises as to why we should pray for the protection and well being of bad people? Is it not important that we protect the good and destroy the bad? Does it not appear very logical that we pray only for protection of the good?
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No one is bad by birth When the sage is saying ‘sarve…’ he is so large hearted that he includes not only the believers of God but those who do not believe in God. One may believe in god but he may be totally anti-social and inhuman, but on the other hand one may be a non=believer of God but very highly spiritual. Therefore the prayer does not exclude the non-believers of God!. This mantra says that we are supposed to pray for the well being of every one including the good and the bad, the lazy and the hard worker, a burglar and a savior or the downtrodden and the knowledgeable , Sarve…. therefore appears to be beyond all differentiations and denominations. How can the intellect accept this idea ‘May the good people be happy and the bad people also be happy!’ If good people are kept happy, they will continue to do good, but if the bad people are happy then they will continue to be bad. Only if they are unhappy or suffer then they have some chance of becoming good. This is the simple logic which appears to be the basis on which we have created courts and prisons to punish the bad and protect the good to maintain social peace.. This concept believes that if the criminals suffer tortures in the prison cell, then he will change into a good man. Hence the persons who manage the prison are trained to be cruel in their appearance and behaviour. I have never seen any prison myself but that is what is shown in the movies! Let us ask ourselves as to how many criminals have changed truly through these prisons and tortures? . We know that, a person who has been a criminal out side and who has never gone to a prison may have some fear about the life in the jail and the torture he has to face but once who has come back from the jail he will not even that fear any more. Not only that, once he is in jail he will have an opportunity to see several people who are more professional than himself and he would have had an opportunity to learn more tricks of committing crimes without getting caught. Out side they may to have had gurus to guide them, but once they are in side there are maha- gurus to guide them in many more tricks of the trade! Do you think cheating can not go on within the prison? One can pretend to be an obedient inmate, so that he can cleverly escape difficult jobs. This I have seen happening in many Ashrams, churches, organizations and amongst politicians too. In Ashramas , if you are close to the chief guru, you can be exempted from waking up early in the morning and sitting for meditation sessions like other inmates of the ashram! .Nadir Shah, the emperor was known to be some one who used to invent new types of tortures for the criminals every day. He thought that this may stop people from revolting against him. There is a story about him that once he asked his minister, ‘they say sleeping for long hours is bad for health according to scientists; is it true?’ The minister replied , “sir, the scientists’ findings are true in case of ordinary people but you are an exception .This does not apply to you, In your case the longer you sleep and lesser you are awake, the more healthy people will be!” Thus, you can understand that, the fear of punishment may not change a person to become a good man and in fact it can make him worse. It is all hypothetical to say that punishment can change a bad person to become good. Of course it is necessary to punish the wicked and keep them away from the society so that they will not team up to destroy the entire society. But for individuals or groups to change we need a different approach. . These days revolutionary thinkers and reformers of prisons like Ms Kiran Bedi of Tihar jail or Mr Vyavahareji of Vivekananda Yoga research foundation, teachers of Sri Sri Ravishankar who teach the ‘art of living program’ etc have successfully introduced
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methods of vipassana meditation, and yoga in prisons with positive results of real change in these criminals . There are examples of a few of these criminals who have taken to teaching yoga and leading a respectable life in the society after they came out of the prison.. Hence, this assumption that ‘bad people will become good through unhappiness’ does not seem to have a solid foundation. In addition, saying that good should be happy and bad should not be happy presupposes the idea that basically there are two different categories of people namely originally good and originally bad people. This also is not true by the simple logic that good people can turn bad and vice versa over time. How can we think that God creates originally good people and bad people! Why do you think that God would create some one bad? Is it by chance that some one is good? Is the creator partial to someone? How can we accept a universal creative intelligent being which is very partial to be ‘the God’?! Some religions posit other assumptions to explain this discrepancy that we see in the world. They say that God created good people and Satan created bad people! All these assumptions are so illogical that it cannot be the truth. According to the sages this prayer has a deep presupposition that by birth every one is good. If so, then why do we have bad people in the society? Why some people create problems to others? Why are there people like Hitler? God has not created any one originally bad or good. In their original nature every one has only goodness as his true nature. The real self, the “I”, the auspicious being, the changeless, the basic stuff of this universe made of Ananda is free from any taint of badness. Hence every one in their true nature is good and it is only the situations that make men behave badly. The difficult circumstances have forced them to become bad. In the given circumstances they found it so difficult to survive as good people and it pushed them to become bad as he had no other choice for survival. Even a bad guy, is only bad in his business hours and tries to be good wherever possible and expects others to be good to him. Even the worst of the criminal, a dacoit, wants his subordinates not to tell him a lie or be disloyal to him. Most of the Indian movies on any criminals show how caring he is for his mother, wife and children and can do anything to protect them. Intuitively, can you not feel this goodness in everyone? I do not think it requires any great spiritual master to tell you this .This is the reason that when you happen to get introduced to a new person for the first time ,you spontaneously greet him and say, “hello, nice to meet you or good to meet you!!”, even before you have known anything about the person. This is the wonderful expression of the positivity that you are able to see in the stranger about whom your mind has not yet formed any opinion... You never greet a person in a negative tone and not even in a neutral tone. It is spontaneously positive .You will never say, “ok, I am meeting you now, let me decide later on after some time whether it is nice to meet you or not!” At the outset you presume that he is good and only later when you find out that he has many unacceptable qualities you may change your opinion. Even then we need not say that the person is bad. You will only conclude that this person’s behaviour is not acceptable to ‘me’ and to the society at large.
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Seeing good in every one is the beginning of spiritual journey You start a great spiritual journey when you nurture these spontaneous expressions that are inbuilt into our system and make it a Sadhana that you will consciously dwell on this thought that’ every one is good’. You don’t have to be defensive. The very thought that every one is good irrespective of gender, religion, colour or creed, brings out the feeling that every one belongs to me. You start recognizing that everyone is ‘my own ‘. And there is no need to be defensive about the people and society around you... This simply paves way to peaceful coexistence. It will add strength to your personality and makes you feel secure. When you think of goodness all the time, then all good aspects of your personality such as love and compassion, sharing and caring become visible and you get controlled by these good qualities... On the other hand when you become defensive you start looking at all the wonderful qualities in a person with suspicion. When we assume a positive attitude, the world becomes a heaven the same world appears to be a hell if you look at this with a negative attitude. Just because you want to look at things in positive attitude it does not mean that you could be careless and reckless. Chanakya says you lock the house not because the people around you are thieves but let your unlocked house not tempt people to become bad.. We don’t require to be policing the so called bad people all the time. On the other hand when you approach them with love, care and concern and pray for their well being, there are better chances that they change to become good people. Another question that you may ask is,’ if every one is good, then why do we have bad people around us? Why do we have criminals all over?’We have already answered this. To start with, a person was made good, but when he could not cope up with circumstances, he must have felt that he has exhausted all the fair means of overcoming the intense distress and was left with only one choice-either to take to wrong means or commit suicide. He did not know that he had yet another choice, a third option. He is stuck with the wrong notion that the cause of his unhappiness is the world around and the people around him. With this wrong notion, when he faces difficult situations and cannot come out as a successful happy person, he decides to take revenge on the society that caused the problem by torturing or disturbing or creating unhappiness to others. Generally this tends to show up as a torture for the innocent and the gentle ones in the society. Do you think he would have turned to be a bad person if he did not have to face such difficult situations? We said there is a third option that could have helped him to continue to be good. What is this? This is the notional correction; a cognitive correction; a correction at the level of perceiving the situation in an entirely opposite way; i.e. to recognize the inbuilt freedom to change your perception of the situation and correct the wrong notions about happiness and unhappiness itself. To understand this and find a permanent solution requires a small twist in the question. This shift in the question provides the answer. It removes the root of all distress and unhappiness. What is that shift? Ask yourself ‘what is unhappiness?’ instead of ‘what makes me unhappy?’ Or ask ‘what is happiness? Instead of asking “what makes me happy?”
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What is Happiness? No prayer will give happiness. Nothing from out side can give you happiness. No out side situation can give us sorrow too. If out side can give us happiness the same out side can take away our happiness too. No outside agency has the authority on you more than you have. Out side can only create good or bad situations, but whether the situation makes you happy or unhappy is in your hands. The sage is one who has realized that he is the master. His prayers are therefore his wishes. He wants every one to realize this truth. He is not going to more happy or less happy by this prayer. It is his heart’s wish and enormous love for the creation that pours out in this form. Then it becomes a mantra.
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Unhappiness is a learnt habit Our wrong understanding has given us unhappiness. For example, we feel very unhappy when we do not win in any game or feel miserable when some one gets more points. Playing any game is actually is meant for recreation and at the end of the game winners are happy and losers are miserable. It is obvious that all can not win. We forget that playing a game was for recreation and as a part of the game we created teams and rules etc. If we are not caught up in success or failure then we can always be happy. I watched a tennis game wherein the loser was so happy and cheerful that the winner became confused and dazed and lost his happiness. The crowd in the gallery turned and cheered up the loser as they found it very strange! Thus the loser won the hearts of the spectators than the winner.
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Unhappiness is a learnt habit As parents, we have created higher value for unhappiness in the minds of our children. We create the feeling in the child even before he knows any thing about the world that we love him and care for him only if he is unhappy or at least he shows he is unhappy and he is suffering. Only when the child is suffering then the mother leaves every work to take care of the child. The child learns that if he is happy the mother has no time for him at all! Dad will talk only when he is sick! If the child falls but is not hurt then the parents brush it aside. But if he cries for the hurt, then the parents are with him all the time. This way, unconsciously we are giving the message to the child that if you have to be important then you have to be sick and suffering. When he comes back from the school happily and shows no strain then he is not paid attention. On the other hand if the child shows he is tired and exhausted then he receives a lot of care. This message is used after he grows up also. The husband working in a government department comes back home tired and exhausted whether he works or not. These days in government offices who does any work? Every work in every country is out sourced! Then wife will come to him to take off his shoes and she serves him fresh coffee. Thing come to him... He has all sympathies. If the same person comes back home normal and not tired then he will only hear an instructions about where the milk is, where the sugar is etc and he has to fix his own coffee. Same thing happens to the wife too. She has also understood the trick of the trade. Child may have behaved very fine through out the day. But when the husband returns home, she has to show that she is exhausted taking care of the child whole day so that she deserves his sympathies! I therefore tell people that I and my wife have equally shared the burden of work and responsibilities this way. “She is busy and I look busy”! Another peculiar concept is ingrained in our minds right from our childhood. If one is happy for some time then he has to face unhappiness immediately after that. We are all the time living in the fear of unhappiness when we see a child happy and joyfully playing; we say ‘oh, now child is laughing so much that certainly it is going to cry soon’. If a child drops some thing on the floor and the thing breaks then it gets scolding but if the child breaks it and also cries, it gets sympathetic remarks from the parents! When we have given so much value for suffering, how can we expect that one can be happy always under all circumstances? Everywhere suffering has gained an upper hand and therefore it is hard to believe that every one should be happy and could be happy always. There is a difficulty in the education we give to the child. On one side we expect the child to get all top marks and top ranking in every thing he takes up. Even if he gets the second position, every one around him starts questioning why he did not get the first position? The child hears this so frequently that he feels his life is useless because he did not stand first. We forget that in every class only one person can be the first one and the rest are losers and every loss can make one miserable. Even the so called spiritual practices have also given too much importance to suffering. If you torture others, law is there to punish you but if you torture yourself then the society respects you as great spiritual person. When we portray the lives of great spiritual masters also, we tend to emphasize the torture they have undergone in their Sadhana. Talking about Buddha, I heard someone saying how much torture it was that he was not even getting enough food to eat and he had to go through so much humiliation etc. I am sure Buddha never felt that it was a torture or distress to go for alms. His only goal was to find what is there after death and this was so intense that nothing could disturb him. Buddha’s
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focus was some thing different and the emphasis given by the onlookers about his Sadhana was different. About Ramakrishna and Sharada Devi also people take so much joy in portraying as if it was a life of torture. If you torture others you will be prosecuted whereas if you torture yourself you will be decorated. What we need to learn from the life of these saints is that, being happy or unhappy does not depend on the circumstances and what appears to be torturous need not make you unhappy. If one wants to be unhappy and tortures himself then no one can help him and he will continue to be unhappy. Hence it is not the circumstance that is making us unhappy but it is the learnt habit of responding to the situation that has made us suffer and be unhappy. Thus, Sarve bhavantu sukhinah is essentially said to remove the wrong notion that suffering is valuable. Does this mean that a spiritual seeker should not be looking for comfort? Even the notion that comfort will give me happiness is as wrong as suffering takes you close to spirituality. Material can not give any thing. Simplifying life is the essence of spirituality and not to subject to self torture! Dukha or suffering can not give us spirituality; therefore let us aspire for every one to be happy through this prayer Sarvebhavantu sukhinah. Let me sum up the ideas about happiness. Let us not have a wrong value for unhappiness and let us also not be confused that happiness can be achieved from out side or given by some one else. The sage realized that happiness is his true nature and he has a compassionate appeal and prays ’may everyone realize this truth’ that ‘happiness is my true eternal unchanging nature’.
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Freedom from sickness Next sentence in the prayer is Sarve Santu Niramayah meaning ‘May every one be free from sicknesses. In Sanskrit we have a very interesting word for health. It is Swastha or Swaasthya, which means ‘to stay in oneself’ or ‘being oneself’. It implies that when you are Swastha, you are in total harmony with yourself which means that you have realized your original nature that ‘you are made of the stuff called happiness’. Thus, if health can be defined as being in oneself, then it is obvious that sickness or unhappiness is, being away from oneself. Thus our original nature is to be blissful and unhappiness is something that comes and goes like the violent waves on the surface of an ocean. We cannot think of an ocean without waves. The waves are soft sometimes (happy mind). They may be violent sometimes (distressful). The non moving stable unperturbed water is not visible on the surface. We tend to conclude ‘an ocean is made of only the waves’. Life appears to be made only of these waves of happy or unhappy moments. But what one needs to realize is that it is all water. The waves on the surface and the non moving deep waters underneath are both made of the same stuff, the water. The entire stuff of our existence is the quiet non moving blissful awareness that forms the background or the screen on which all experiences happen. Thus blissful awareness whether you have realized it or not is the basic swa- stha state or the healthy state of being. Look at every child. They are naturally blissful. They don’t need any thing to be happy. Only thing that happens with them is that they some times go away from the happiness and there is a reason for that. Those situations which bring them away from their nature called happiness are only the hunger, thirst and sleep. Some children are very conservative. They come away from their very nature only in the last second. Until that time they are happily playing and when the situation occurs that they can not stay any longer without food then suddenly they start crying. Mothers tell the children “wait my baby, don’t cry. Why don’t you give me two minutes so that I can fix your food?” But if there was one more minute’s time the child would have been blissfully playing! The same way the child gets irritated when they feel sleepy and they fall off to sleep within a minute .They are playing until the last second of their wakeful state. Once they get up again they are blissful. Thus the baby comes away from happiness when the basic needs bother the original nature. As adults these basic needs of drinking and eating are no longer guided by thirst or hunger but we have made it a habit to go on and on with eating and drinking incessantly. We need to have a bed coffee and then a small breakfast, followed by another coffee and then a small munch and another small coffee etc. This story of repeated coffee and munching goes on and on. Especially on a holiday when you are not doing any thing then the requirement goes on multiplying. When we grow to become adults, it is not only the physical needs of thirst; hunger and sleep that take us away from our natural state of bliss but the wants are at subtler levels of our personality, the mind. Our needs are now completely at the level of intellect and emotions that takes us away from our natural state. Hunger, thirst and sleep no longer give us an alarm because all other things at a subtle level have silently taken over. These keep us so much preoccupied that we get lost in the ocean that is full of waves and waves alone and forget to see the bed of non-moving layer of water. The events of life that result in multitude of reactions including distress, agitation, depression, fear, excitement etc occupy all our wakeful hours. We wake up with problems and sleep with problems. We wake up into violent waves of activity and keep our mind and body active until the last second before we go off to sleep. Thus what was a natural state of happy blissful swastha
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state as a baby now became a state preoccupied with worries and unfulfilled desires. We have forgotten our basic blissful true nature .But remember you have not lost every thing. You have not lost anything, although you feel that you are always miserable and unhappy. The fact is that this state of bliss, whether we recognize it or not is still the background screen on which all this drama of unhappy violent waves can exist. The unchanging vast blissful existence and consciousness is always the base like the water under the waves. It is the background blissful awareness that is reporting to you that you are happy or unhappy. It provides the base on which we experience suffering or joy. Thus the agitations and waves are visible on the surface at different levels of our personality as shown in the table below. The remedy is to enter into the background by recognizing the freedom that is inbuilt into our system by using techniques to get back to our natural state. These are at different personality levels namely annamaya pranamaya manomaya and vijnanamaya and anandamaya kosas. The details are given in the table below.
Note: Yoga practices take us back to our nature consciously! In the modern life style, stress related problems are on the increase. Medical professionals are talking about mind body medicine indicating the need to deal with these diseases at a psychological level. Yoga texts said that all unhappiness and bondage including physical illnesses are traceable to an imbalance that starts at the mind level (Mana eve manushyanaam karanam badha mokshayoh). They also gave a model to explain how these diseases that begin in the mind level percolate into the physical system through these kosas. They also went on to describe how practice of these techniques can take us to our original nature and help in prevention of many of these diseases. When the sage is saying ‘niramayah’ he means ‘may every one live in harmony and balance of all these kosas so that one can prevent and /or cure diseases’. I have an earnest appeal to you all. Please do not allow doctors to pump in medicines and carry out surgeries for diseases that are born out of mismanagement of your life style. Learn to recognize the root cause of the problem within yourself, do yoga practices that are therapeutically designed so that you can remove the root cause of the problem. Surgeries and medicines do have a role for immediate relief and taking care of injuries, infections etc. Since deep inside our true nature is this blissful awareness which is the basis of spirituality we need to nurture the spiritual attitude consciously as much as possible. This requires constant awareness and regular practice. May all see things good and auspicious!
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Next sentence of the sloka is sarve bhadrani pasyantu… This requires again our own awareness. There is so much comfort in looking at every thing as auspicious and good. Several people are of the opinion that if we do not look at the defects, then we can not improve ourselves or help others. This is not true. Appreciating the goodness in others does not disturb growth. On the other hand the growth that takes place by a positive feeling is the real spiritual way of growth. In fact if you appreciate the work done, your employee will put his heart and soul to function better each time. Seeing the good and treating every one as a manifestation of divinity helps you to develop a positive attitude towards life and be happy under all circumstances. This also helps the people around you to unfold their innate ability to keep growing continuously. Let there be no sorrow. And finally the sage says ‘Makaschit duhka bhagbhavet!’What a universal prayer. He has no enmity towards any one in the entire creation. This is the true wish of a great master who has seen the unity of existence. By saying this prayer the sage is leading us through the real spiritual journey which will lead us to the realization that our nature is bliss. Life is full of events. Some events lead to happiness and some are unfortunate and can make us miserable. Here the sage is giving us this spiritual lesson that even these difficult moments of life triggered by unfortunate events need not make us miserable. He is hinting that you have the inner freedom to accept them without any complaint.
Once again let us recollect that a prayer is complimentary to hard work .It is not some thing some one can give us with out putting our effort. It is also not some thing which can reject the unseen higher force behind any activity. Prayer is to give additional inner strength that can give us confidence to work with full energy. When we pray, you are tuning yourself to the un-manifest good forces in the web of universal consciousness that can help you to get the desired results. It tunes you to the natural laws. Many a times when your prayer was very deep and heartfelt it worked wonders, is it not? The results were so rewarding, you got more than what you expected. You wonder and say ‘Oh God, thank you so much. Your grace is so great. Things are too good. ‘I’ could never have planned it this way, Thank you my Lord!!. Let us remember that all this process of spiritual satsang is useful and meaningful only if we recognize that ‘peace within is the basis of establishing peace in the entire globe here and now!’
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About Yoga Bharati Yoga Bharati was conceptualized by Raghuram ji and was started in the San Francisco Bay Area in early 2002. Under the guidance of Raghuram ji, yoga classes in the SF Bay Area started by a Vivekananda Yoga University trained instructor. Fresh impetus was provided by Raghavendra Kulkarni ji who conducted yoga workshops. Daily yoga classes in Sunnyvale temple followed soon. Yoga Bharati volunteers organized a well-attended residential camp to host Raghuram ji, which gave a big boost to Yoga Bharati's growth. Realizing the importance of providing a theoretical background of yoga, Yoga Bharati hosted talks by famous yogis - Raghuram ji, Swami Bodhananda Saraswati, Swami Anubhavananda, Swami Sukhabodhananda and others who became advisors to the organization. To build a group of authentic local yoga experts, the first Yoga Instructor Certificate Course (YICC) was started in October 2002, with active support of Raghuram ji and VYASA. Subsequently, YICC has been conducted every year to boost the ranks of certified yoga instructors in the SF Bay Area. Yoga Bharati started organizing Yoga Therapy workshops and customized sessions for pregnant ladies, kids, schools and companies. To promote easy-to-practice yoga in the broader community and provide a short daily routine for those not familiar with yoga, Yoga Bharati started Suryanamaskar Yagna (Sun Salutation Marathon) as a new-year resolution for a healthy lifestyle. Self-less service, strong commitment to the goal of spreading yoga, a committed and supportive volunteer group, and a diverse range of activities brought in many volunteers, who have been committed to serving the community through the platform of Yoga Bharati For more information: www.yogabharati.org
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About sVYASA Svyasa - Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Sansthana, is the academic wing of VYASA, that has been running short-term courses, Certificate and Diploma courses for the last 15 years. Situated amidst nature within a 110 acre campus in Bangalore/India, SVYASA is a recognized university of Higher Learning in Yogic Sciences. The educational system in sVyasa is holistic, based on the consciousness-based approach of yoga systems and spiritual lore. It is not merely a bread-earning educational system but a personalitydeveloping and world-building tool through yoga. It is established to bring the awareness among the people about their health and innerself. To achieve this ultimate goal Svyasa offers various courses in yogic and Vedic sciences. It provides several courses at all levels, beginning from a prerequisite of 12 years of education to graduation, post-graduation and also doctoral level programs. While sVYASA has been running certificate and Diploma courses in yoga from its campus, it also has several affiliated centers that also train the people from different parts of the country. These Affiliate centers provide certificate courses, vocational courses and shortterm courses to learners. SVYASA has been providing training in yoga and spiritual lore to further the vision of Swami Vivekananda which was to combine the best of the East with the incomparable precision of the West. The best of the East is the remarkable knowledge scripted in the ancient texts and the significance of spirituality in human life; the unmatched skill of the West lies in its emphasis on scientific research and analysis using advanced technology. To read more about the courses, programs and activities of SVYASA, please visit the SVYASA website at www.svyasa.org
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www.nvraghuram.org www.yogabharati.org www.svyasa.org