Ramana Maharshi's Upadesa Sara - Day3 update

Guruji started the session by explaining how the Upadesa Sara came into existence. He remembered a great tamil poet by name Muruganar who lived when Ramana Maharshi was in his physical body. Guruji also narrated the incident between these two that made Ramana to create Upadesa Sara on request of Muruganar.  Guruji then gave lot of importance & significance to one’s own Sadhana and how we can relate Ramana Maharshi’s Upadesa Sara with our individual Sadhana. Below is the brief synopsis of Day 3 program.

Guruji's talk on Ramana's Upadesa Sara

When you start contemplating on Ramana’s Upadesa Sara, it gives the essence of Atma Gyana (Self Knowledge).  In the name of Meditation or Sadhana people have become lazy & lousy people by condemning the outside world and stopped working in the external world. However if you see, All great masters, they work continuously 24 hours non-stop. If you are a true meditator, every cell in your body should charge with enthusiasm. If that transformation is not in us, then it means there is no Atma Gyana. If we are struck with the act of irresponsibility by not taking care of our health, body & family, there is no Atma Gyana in us. 

Guruji then recollected the first sloka from Ramana Maharshi’s Upadesa Sara. Whatever happening is at the will of the karthu only. Without karthu, no activity, no action, no effort can take place. So one has to find out who is this karthru? How to find out? One should start from negating the false karthru’s. After beautifully explaining this, Guruji then moves on the 2nd Sloka of Upadesa Sara:

Krithi mahodadhau pathana kaaranam
Phalam asaashvatham gathi nirodhakam

Krithi mahodadhau – One action takes me to next action, one krithi is taking us to another krithi. It has become like addiction.

Pathana Kaaranam – Where is one failing miserably? Ramana says Krithi mahodadhau. Find out yourself how you are adding activities after activities. Any desire we create, we have to maintain them, and for the same maintenance, we are building up another set of activities. Go back to your life and analyze how we are expanding and how we are behind activities after activities.

Phalam asaashvatham  –  All our identification are with the krithi’s which are not permanent. They are temporary in nature. Since it is temporary, it leads me to frustration. Any pleasure or any emotions are all temporary. Anything which is impermanent, it is like a speed breaker, it blocks you and it does not make you to proceed further. Deep inside there is a seeking for something permanent and we are going in search of that in external world. The outside world does not give anything which is permanent. So the very seeking gives us the frustration, dejection, depressed etc. Every experience is creating extended dissatisfaction in me. This is creating another karthru called 'craving'.

If you do your Sadhana sincerely, you would realize 70% of the things that are in our home are nothing useful to our path of Sadhana. But do we have the guts to throw them out? Who is creating this kind of web and getting caught & suffocating in the web? It’s all because we have not identified the karthru.

Do your 'Sadhana'

The problem with most of us is that we don’t wake up and we don’t want to wake up, that is the crux. We are not interested to know the original karthru. So what needs to be done? Guruji now moves on the 3rd Sloka of Upadesa Sara:

Ishwara arpitam na icchayaa kritam
Chitta shodhakam mukti sadhakam

Guruji says, Ramana is suggesting a Sadhana for all of us. What is that?  Ishwara arpitam. If you are not able to find out the true karthu, Ramana says, you feel there is something called Ishwara, and you feel this Ishwara is very affectionate, respectable & revered personality. Guruji says, you keep working in the external world, after performing every activity, you offer them to Ishwara. Before starting an activity, you feel that you are doing this to please the Ishvara.

For e.g. if Guruji is coming to your house, your every action/ selection / attitude is guided by Guruji and you do everything for Guruji. You don’t prepare something which you like it; you prepare something which you think Guruji likes it. Another good example is 'Sabari' in Ramayana. Every day, while getting up in the morning, it is 'Lord Rama', the day starts with the thought that my Rama is going to come today; every activity of hers was on Rama. In the night, if Lord Rama does not come, she says to herself, “OK, I know my Rama might be busy, he may come tomorrow, whatever I have done today, let me take it as a Prashada from my Lord Rama". 

Guruji puts a question to us, Is it possible for us to develop that feeling in us?

Guruji says, Every action is completely guided by that which you respect the most. So here, if Ishwara is everything for me, I do everything to please my lord. Here our Gurudev Shri Pattabhiram shared about his personal Sadhana that is given by His Gurudev, Swami Rama of Himalayas. "Selfless Service" is the sadhana our Guruji has been doing over the years for the humanity. 

Why one has to do this sadhana? Because for Chitta Shodhakam, Mukti Sadhakam. The purification is the purpose of our life. Mukthi sadhakam, mukthi means liberation, liberation means freedom. The purpose is to free this consciousness completely from everything.

Na icchayaa - In every action, I have to see, whether 'Icha' the desire is entering or not. If 'Icha' is entering, then we have to purify.

Guruji says, Purification is a very painful process.  That’s why very few get onto this kind of Atma Sodhana. Is it possible for us to purify ourselves every minute? Ramana says, Ishwara is the karthu. At the command of the Ishwara, everything is going on. 

Guruji here also gave lot of insight on how he relates with the Sadhakas & His students and why He does not impose a rigid approach to His students.

Moving on, Guruji then explained why we have to surrender? According to Ramana, We have to surrender because, chita sodhana & mukthi sadhana has to happen. The individual self has to move from its entanglements and experience the universal consciousness. To experience this, impurity has to be removed. The purpose of our life; is to expand the consciousness so that it merges with the universal consciousness.

Life is nothing but, unconditional energy of joy. When this unconditional energy is confined within the boundary, then it becomes misery. When you put any boundary and divide that is impurity. If you put boundary in your own self and if you have separated other Sadhana Parivara, you have created a poison. Direct approach is to take the poison out. All other solutions are temporary, and it’s expensive if you go into temporary treatment.

We don’t see the last step, and we always take step after step. So see the last step, then take the first step. What is the last step? Mukthi sadhana is the last step. What is the first step, chitha sodhana is the first step. How to do Chita Sodhana? Through Ishwara arpitam. What is the dynamism here?  Naa ichaya kritiam, that’s all.

Friends, Hope you liked the Day 3 coverage of Guruji's program on Upadesa Sara at New Delhi. What we have put in here is very brief synopsis and there were lots of insights that Guruji talked on Upadesa Sara. If you want to listen to his previous lecture on Upadesa Sara, you can get the DVD & get benefited.

Happy Sadhana...

- 'Bansuri'
(the messenger)