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by
Sri Bimal Mohanty
VOL
No. 74
April: 2007
PURUSHARTHA’s LARGER DIMENSION AND MORE ABOUT SANYASA
Based on the lectures by Sri Bimal Mohanty
So Purushartha is verily the operating manual of life for every individual soul- the jiva- that comes to exist in this sansAra or the created world. It is also the progress document of every one’s movement from one life to the other, the basis of our karmaphala or the so-called destiny. It is also the determinant of the form and character of our next life and the measurer of our level of consciousness of our ultimate aim.
That is how important it is.
The Sanatan philosophy, which may easily be recognized as the oldest of all ‘life sciences’, analysed thread bare of all the four aspects of purushartha namely dharma, artha, kama and mokshya, as defined in the last lecture/article, and then the collective wisdom of millions of enlightened minds codified them for all future generations to follow. The oldest of human knowledge, spoken, remembered, practiced, written down and religiously handed down through that unique system of guru-shishya paramparA- the teacher- disciple system, is not to be narrowly misunderstood as a mere Hindu or even Indian culture. It had originated and gifted out from this part of the globe (India, Bharat, Hindustan call as you like), but is the heritage of the entire mankind. Embedded in the scriptures, they are an amazing array of documentation of human culture and inspiration to all intelligentsia- whether acknowledged or not.
With so much of knowledge available, why then the human race continues to be miserable and unable to yet reach that critical mass beyond which lies a higher dimension of existence, a greater richness of life in all its glory?
That is a question to be analysed- but not at all as a declaration of defeat or despair. Because the sanatan
Philosophy believes with determined faith, and we also have the divine assurance, that the ultimate achievement – the satchidananda- the absolute truth, its realisation and the ensuing bliss is achievable by all. It is every one’s birthright. It is a promise that the Lord shall keep.
It is only the intervening period of struggle and strife, of pain and suffering, that is our concern. Shortening that period and quickening the pace is what yogasadhana is all about.
That defines the imperativeness of purushartha in every life.
A point never to be missed is that, as the name suggets, purushartha is most applicable to the ‘human life form’. A human birth is earned with great good deeds of the past behind all. Narajanma durlabhatama said The great Sankaracarya. The human birth is most difficult to acquire, and therefore, only a fool would waste it away without properly using it. Who knows whether in my next birth I shall again be a human or not? Whether the conditions under which I shall have to live my next life will be better or worse?
It is for me to earn my destiny. That is how important purushartha is.
Yet I falter. Yet I fail to discriminate between preyas and shreyas, the unreal and real. Whom shall I blame?
There are many reasons and most of us are confused, trapped in the darkness of our ignorance. Yoga is the only remedy. TasmAt Yogi bhavArjuna, the Lord advises; Arjuna! Remain in yoga all the time. Yoga is the only means by which the answers to all eternal riddles are found.
Out of the many confusions, there are two most important ones that bewilders and waylays most people.
The first question is, whether purushartha is my individual business or is dependent on the collective effort of everyone and everything around me. Can I pursue purushartha in isolation of the sansara around me?
The second question is, given that my own conduct influences and is influenced by the collective aggregate around me and we are all collectively progressing in the path to liberation, why bring in sanyasa or renunciation into it? If sanyasa is an inevitable need for mokshya then how does one reconcile both?
One of the accusations often hurled at Sanatan philosophy by its critics and even followers with clouded understanding is that it is a self-centric philosophy. Its object of emancipation is ‘individual’ first and reaching out for others takes secondary importance.
This is not only a gross misunderstanding but also unfair to a school of philosophy which was first to proclaim such universal concepts as, the oneness of the creation and the creator. The basic adveitavada is its very foundation. The concept of single, homogenous, interconnected and interdependent matrix and the inseparability of any individual (vyakti) from the totality (samasti) is its expression.
Whether the Isa Upanishad talks about ‘oneness’ –ekatvam, the The Bhagavad gita sees everyone strung as a single necklace in one string which is the Brahman- (mayi sarvam idam protam sutre manigana iva), the Brahman as the real, apparent and intelligent cause of all as the Brahmasutras say and the advice from Brhadaranyaka that everything should be seen as part of that single one- ekadheiva anudrstavyam etad apramayam dhruvam, there are innumerable reiterations of that single truth in practically every leaf of the scriptures. All these painstakingly try to remove any doubts about the real truth terming the separateness to be utter ignorance, and juvenile thinking.
For this very reason, the ignorance has to be overcome first in one’s own mind. The individual purushartha as part of every one’s sadhana only prepares the way for the higher realization of the collective aggregate. When every individual raises himself with his own individual efforts, the overall base of the ‘collective’ is also automatically raised. Individual stink adds to the stink all around as individual knowledge raises the level of collective knowledge.
So purushartha begins with individual. A sick man has to first cure himself to cure others. Being obsessed with samaritanism without personal purity is nothing but an ‘ego game’.
My dharma is not my dharma alone. It is tested with my relationship with others. My artha is not only for my sake but acquired through me to be spent with others for the collective good. I can not indulge in my desires if they are not in harmony with all beings in the entire creation. My moksya is unachievable unless supported by all around me. I am indeed one with every one. We learn from the words of Swami Vivekananda - in all hands I work, through all mouths I eat, through all nostrils I breathe, through all minds I think. The whole universe is me; the universe is my body; I am the universe both formed and unformed. I am the soul of the universe and the its body also. I am God, I am the angels, I am the man, I am animals, I am the plants, I am the minerals, I am everything; the manifestation of everything is me.
With that scenario, how can I not be obsessed with my own conduct. How can I be the bad apple in the basket and expect others not to get contaminated by me? Hence my sadhana, my purushartha is not only essential for me, it also is in the interest of all.
The soul of me is also the soul of the universe. Again as Swami Vivekananda pointed out : ‘There is only one Purusha. The universe is you yourself, the un-broken you; you are throughout the universe. The Infinite cannot be divided. …This is the Advaita conclusion.’
That happens to be purushartha at its higher dimension where the individual endevour is seen with a holistic view of being part and parcel of the collective endevour. That is the lofty ideal that truly reflects the all encompassing character of Brahman and His divine principle, overriding all pettiness and narrow thinking. That is the spiritual approach at its highest dimension as conceived in sanatan philosophy.
Thus seeing my actions, unrelated to all actions is absurd. Sri Aurobindo explained the character of the sadhak by saying ‘ Personal salvation he does not seek except as a necessity for human fulfillment and because he who is himself in bonds can not easily free others.’
There is nothing like an individual existence unrelated to collective existence.
Since I exist for all and all exist for me, I have to remain amongst all through out my existence and through out my evolutionary process. Looked from this angle, the entire concept of renunciation or sanyasa or being removed from the world, assumes a much clearer perception.
By sanyasa what we all understand is an enforced separation from the world. Contrary to common belief, this is not the true meaning and purport of sanyasa. These words of Sri Aurobindo make it easy to understand. ‘By discipline or positive practice we confirm in ourselves the truth of things, truth of being, truth of knowledge, truth of love, truth of works and replace with these the falsehoods that have overgrown and perverted our nature; by renunciation we seize upon the falsehoods, pluck up their roots and cast them out of our way so that they shall no longer hamper by their persistence, their resistence or their recurrence the happy and harmonious growth of our divine living.’ So the true renunciation is the renunciation of falsehoods.
To be able to renounce the falsehoods, one has to work through the falsehoods, not necessarily indulging in them but being always in full awareness of them. Running away to somewhere thus becomes a false step itself if that is what we understand from sanyasa.
Sri Aurobindo says again ‘If there is an opposition between the spiritual life and that of the world, it is that gulf which he is here to bridge….If the world is ruled by the flesh and the devil, all the more reason that the children of Immortality should be here to conquer it for God and Spirit. If life is an insanity, then there are so many million souls to whom there must be brought the light of the divine reason…..Not by the luminous example of escape from the world can we help the world.’
But of course sanyas is indeed greatly advocated in our scriptures and we have many examples of enlightened souls who have embraced sanyas. Like all other stages of purushartha, sanyas also has a logical explanation to it. The knowledge of detachment, vairagya or vitaraga nishkAma bhava, does not develop easily until put into practice and lived. Therefore all stages of purushartha has to be lived by the sadhak, if necessary more than once in his long period of sadhana and experienced by him to develop the sense of non-detachment and firmly relate everything to that ultimate objective. When we see someone having taken sanyas, it is not that he has jumped into the stage of sanyas without the knowledge and experience of other purusharthas behind him. We do not realize this when we think of great saints who have taken sanyas from their early lives and have apparently skipped kama or artha. That is because in our limited vision we think of everything in terms of a single visible life before us and do not believe in the effects of multiple births as a continuous journey without interruption by the individual soul. A true sanyasi is well aware of his sanskAras inherited from previous births. When the stage of sanyas becomes inevitable and necessary he then embraces it. The stage of sanyas also does not guarantee that the next stage is only mokshya. We have many anecdotes in our scriptures where true sanyasis have returned back to worldly experiences to clean out any remnants of attachment or raga kama etc. The cycle goes on until all traces of impurity are removed and the pure only, goes to merge with pure. That is indeed mokshya.
