14 October 2001, 01:38am IST
MUTHUSAMY VARADARAJAN.
All his life, man is beset by fear. the macabre tragedy of september 11 brought home the fact that fear traumatises not man alone but nations. bhartrihari enumerates the many causes of fear: bhoga roga bhayam... kaaye krtanta bhayam or fear of ailments during enjoyment of life’s pleasures, of forfeiture of wealth, of enemies, of illogic ridiculing knowledge, of loss of reputation, of old age, and always, of the fear of death. is there nothing in life then that is not fearsome? bhartrihari assures us, bhuvi nrnaam vairagyamevaa bhayam . only vairagya or renunciation is bereft of fear. renunciation is not the abandonment of action, nor does it call for retiring to the forest. was it not said of prophet mohammad that god wanted him to be a shining example to humanity — to live among others like any ordinary man, to have a family, to work for a living and to have his share of joys and sorrows. renunciation, exemplified by king janaka, is the ability to be totally tranquil as well as vibrantly and selflessly active. vibrantly active where? bhagwan ramana answers: ‘‘within myself’’. there is this incident of a young aspirant for moksha or salvation seeking ramana’s guidance on the path he should take. ‘‘go the way you came’’. said bhagwan. seeking to know ‘‘who am i?’’ is the surest way to moksha. ‘‘go the way you came’’, meant that if you investigate and pursue the path from which that ‘‘i’’ emanated, you will find moksha at the end of it. bhagwan defined the dawn of such comprehension as grace. ‘‘grace is within you. it is not manifest due to ignorance; with sraddha or devotion it becomes manifest’’. the highest form of grace is mouna or silence. taking the example of lord shiva as dakshinamurti or gurostu mounam vyakhyaanam... bhagwan defined it as the state that transcends thought and speech, as meditation without cerebral activity. he classified silence into four categories: silence of the tongue, of the eyes, of the ear and of the mind. only the last is pure silence, this is deep meditation, the eternal speech, the one word, the heart-to-heart talk. similarly, the essence of vedanta can be expressed in four words: deham naaham : the body is not i. koham ? who am i? soham : that i am; that is i. he who sees the self sees the self alone in the world too. in a beautiful enunciation of socialism in action, bhagwan says that a member of society thrives when, through selfless service he is loyal to it. ‘‘while serving society faithfully in thought, word and deed, a member should also promote its cause among all other members of his community by awakening them to similar service’’. bhagwan reassures us that just as no man needs a mirror to know that he is himself, no scriptures are necessary to know the self. bhagwan clarifies, ‘‘the upanishadic saying aham brahmaasmi simply means that brahman exists as i; and not ‘i am brahman’. brahman exists as ‘i am’ in all things and every being’’. this is best illustrated by the story of the man who walked straight onto the path of a royal elephant and barely escaped with his life by jumping out of its way at the very last moment. he complained to ramakrishna paramahamsa, ‘‘you told me that the self is in every being. i almost got crushed by that self in that elephant’’. bhagwan ramakrishna asked him if there had been anyone on the elephant. ‘‘yes; the mahout’’. ‘‘what did he tell you?’’ ‘‘he kept yelling at me, move away, move away’’. ‘‘why did you not, then, listen to the self in that mahout?’’ said the saint of dakshineswar and walked away smiling. simply put, one has to listen to the voices around and within, not the voice of only militant islam, or chauvinistic hinduism or strident judaism but the still small voice of humankind. one has to learn, to be still, amidst conflicts raging outside and fermenting inside. and one has to find oneself not merely as a speck in the society of one’s own land or religion but a behemoth in the society of the world and of the spirit. that is the only way to prevent the ides of september from haunting us and successive generations. my humane daughter-in-law, an american, holds out promise, as she wrote to me: ‘‘everyone seems determined not to live in terror...maybe americans have to get used to what people in other parts of the world have to deal with. i have more sympathy than ever for the people who have had to live with it for decades’’. this indeed is the small but eloquent voice of humankind. it is this that gives us hope.
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