Month: June 2017

Inspired by Bhishma, a practising yogi can come to terms with the mystery of death with a peaceful mind. We may also receive inspiration from other great ones, well known or less known, the manner of whose death can guide us.

What we say about yogis is true of any one to whom philosophy and spiritual aspiration are a true reality. Such beings consider death not to be relevant to their processes of thought and emotions. They are neutral to it or create a mind-set whereby they welcome a spiritual dying to all worldly attractions.

The example of Socrates is well known and can be read in the Greek classics. Then there is the story of the Roman philosopher Seneca. He had been a tutor and mentor to a number of emperors in succession, and finally to the notorious Nero. Nero could not tolerate the good philosopher’s advice for long. Nero did not want to kill Seneca outright so he ordered him to go and commit suicide. Death meant nothing to Seneca. He chose a certain day to die. All his main disciples gathered around him. He opened a vein in his leg and continued giving his final discourse on philosophy. The blood was not flowing freely; so he ordered a vessel of hot water in which he soaked his bleeding leg and continued teaching. The disciples came closer and closer leaning over him as his voice began to go feeble and they tried to catch the last of his words. Finally he fell silent and was gone – calm as ever.

Such accomplishment is not possible unless one has first learnt to die to one’s false ego, to the identifications we have erroneously established with physical entities. When the monks of the Swami Orders take their vows, they perform unto themselves the ceremonies that are commonly performed in India after someone’s death. They burn all their identifications into a sacred fire by way of recitations and herbal-incense offerings, with verses like the ones below:

OM;

May my prana, apana, vyana, udana and samana be purified.

May I become a being of light, stainless (viraja) and sinless.

OM; Svaha

I offer my prana, apana, vyana, udana and samana.

They are no more mine

OM;

May my speech, mind, eyes, ears, tongue, nostrils, sexual essence, intelligence, wishes and resolves be purified.

May I become a being of light, stainless and sinless.

OM; Svaha

I offer my speech, mind, eyes, ears, tongue, nostrils, sexual essence, intelligence, wishes and resolves. They are no more mine.

OM;

May my epidermis, skin, flesh, blood, fat, marrow, muscles, and bones be purified.

May I become a being of light, stainless and sinless.

OM; Svaha

I offer my epidermis, skin, flesh, blood, fat, marrow, muscles, and bones. They are no more mine.

OM;

May my head, hands, feet, sides, back, stomach, thighs, and organs of elimination and generation be purified.

May I become a being of light, stainless and sinless

OM; Svaha

I offer my head, hands, feet, sides, back, stomach, thighs, and organs of elimination and generation. They are no more mine.

These are just a few of the offering verses recited. Having thus died, having symbolically cremated all his fleshly parts, the novitiate now becomes a new born swami with a new name granted by his spiritual guide.

This concept of dying to one’s old worldly fleshly self is well known in the Christian tradition. Christ taught his disciples to die to their old selves if they seek immortality in the kingdom of heaven. So, Saul who died to his old self on the road to Damishq (Damascus) and became St. Paul later challenged: O Death, where is thy sting?

So, among others, we read the inspiring story of Sister Clara, sister in God to St. Francis of Assisi. One night she chooses to abandon the worldly life. In those days the houses in the town of Assisi used to have two doors, the regular front door and a small back door only for taking out the dead. It was never opened except at the time of a funeral. On the night of her renunciation, she chose to clear up the clutter that was blocking the back door, normally reserved for the dead bodies, and stepped out of the house through that door.

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Editor’s Note:

This passage has been taken from the book Death, Your Servant: Mahabharata´s Bhishma, Examples from a World Classic by Swami Veda Bharati

The word, Guru, is used in many different contexts in India. The Yoga-sutras of Patanjali, the most important text of yoga philosophy and a bible of the yogis says that God is the Guru of even the most ancient ones of the earliest one. Nowadays anybody who teaches you anything is a Guruji. You hear about all kinds of gurus nowadays. Anybody who can touch his nose to his toes advertises himself as a great Guru, great teacher. Is there some kind of a certification to make you a Guru? Maybe you can have a university degree, or some kind of test or become a paying member of the Guru association! What is all this Guru business anyway? What makes you a Guru? When the Beatles became disappointed with Maharshi Mahesh Yogi they said that in India a person becomes a Guru by the same process by which you become a popular rock band in the West. You develop a following.

So, what is a Guru and what is the test of being a Guru? It’s very difficult to start the discussion on this subject. The word is used in so many different contexts. Sometimes it’s just an expression of respect. We are told in the tradition, in the culture in which I was born that your mother is the first Guru. Your father is the second Guru. Your teacher is the third Guru, and your spiritual Master is the fourth Guru. Then there is a book called The Laws of Manu. The major ancient book of laws for the Indians, for India, which says that one Guru equals ten paid teachers. A hundred gurus equal one father, and hundred fathers equal one mother. So anywhere that you derive wisdom from is Guru. There are also great women figures, great women Masters and sages in the history of India.

The Sanskrit word for a school is Gurukula, the Guru’s family. And a child’s education took place in Gurukula, in the Guru’s family. A child was sent between the ages of five to eight to live with the Guru’s family away from civilization in the forest, in the hermitages. They had special areas preserved and those areas were sacred. Those were places known as ashrams. Those places were so sacred that a king could not enter but in a humble garb. He could not carry the signs and symbols of royalty with him when he entered an ashram. A policeman had to remove his badge. No authority was allowed. No animal could kill another animal in those areas. No hunters, no trespassers. You could go there only with a very, very spiritual outlook. There was no taxation. Some of these ashrams became great universities like Takshashila in the fourth century BCE. It had 20,000 resident students [whose expenses were] paid for by the State. Yet the State had no say in deciding policy. If there is one motto of the civilization in which I have grown up that would be, “knowledge above all”.

Vidyayam amritam ashnute, one gains immortality from wisdom, from knowledge.

Political power or monetary power are nothing. They are there. They are not to be avoided. But the highest caste in India, the brahmins, were the poorest people in the country. They were regarded as the highest caste because of their knowledge, because of the traditions they carried. In that context you have to understand the importance given to someone who is a teacher. These people, the brahmins of India lived on offerings. Their knowledge was free; but they lived in a society little of which remains today. You won’t see it when you land in India. You will have to look for those pockets, but whatever is there is a continuity from a very, very ancient tradition.

They give of themselves free. A student was not charged a fee. You may say, “that’s very convenient,” but then what was it that the student did? He gave his heart and soul. Then he deserved that knowledge, that wisdom. A Guru could place any test on that student. It was not a monetary arrangement. It does not mean it was not an arrangement. It was a spiritual arrangement because knowledge itself cannot be valued in terms of finances. It cannot be valued. It cannot have a price tag. It sounds a contradiction to the practice you may find right here [in USA]. Providing of necessities is completely separate. There is no connection between that and the wisdom that one receives. The two are not connected, cannot be connected. It is not possible for you to weigh so much knowledge for so much money.

So, a child went to the ashram of a Guru. The child lived under the Guru as his own child, and the princes and the paupers both together lived an ascetic life up to the age of 24 or so. The period of study was a period of ascetic life. It was a period of total equality. Then the prince went and ruled over the country, the brahmin went and taught the people, and the traders’ son went back into the business, but the values that were inculcated in that period of life remained.

Now you can view the Guru on two different levels. One is again giving information. We are not talking about study of economics or study of physics, although the same people in ancient India, the very same people who developed yoga science, also developed all other sciences. The texts they wrote on political science also started with the discussion of metaphysics. Why should the society have political stability? Why should people have economic security? Why should you run a country? Why should you run a government? And the answer given in this tradition is so that they have the facility to meditate, so that they can go towards self-realization, so that one person does not go out of his way to interfere with somebody else’s karma. A trader, a businessman should earn so that he supports the student, so that he supports the seeker, so that he gives to the ashram, so that he builds a well in the village. He who earns only for himself earns only sin. It’s a question of the whole value of the society.

All these material facilities are provided in the society only for one purpose and that purpose is those who are seekers may seek without interference. And so that you may fulfil your karma, your present duty at a certain point you should do it to the fullest of your ability and use it for the benefit of others in such a way that a person who is teaching in an ashram, a person who is studying in an ashram, which were vast institutions away in the forest, continue their life; that you should have the facility in your society that people can follow the inner seeking and if you claim anything beyond that to be yours then you are a thief.

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Editor’s Note

This is an extract from Guru Disciple Relationship, Volume-I by Swami Veda Bharati, pages 1-4.