Girish Bhandari.
The sanyasopanisada talks about four kinds of ascetics: the first is initiated by one’s nature. such an ascetic has accumulated, on account of his past karmas, an attitude of complete indifference to pleasures gained by sensory organs. the second category is of those who, through jnana or deliberating upon the scriptures and living lives according to them, have chosen the path of asceticism. the third is a combination of those whose past karmas make them fit to pursue the path of knowledge or jnana and become ascetics. the fourth is those who have passed through the stages of brahmacharya, grihastha and vanaprastha, and then become ascetics after taking to sanyas. in a great formalistic tradition characterised by rigorous thought, the upanishads classify asceticism into six categories. the kutichaka sanyasins wear their shikhas and sacred threads and can be devoted to the service of their parents or act as gurus. they can establish hermitages like bharadwaj, yajnavalkya and vasishtha did. the bahudaka sanyasins live on alms — eight morsels gathered from eight houses. the hamsa sanyasins subsist on food gathered from anyone they wish. they are enjoined to wear clothes. the next stage is of paramahamsa sanyasins. they don’t need to wear any shikha or the sacred thread. they may or may not wear a single unstitched cloth. they have no possessions except the sacred ash. the turiyateet sanyasins may subsist on fruit or alms from three houses only. they are clad only by the principal directions: north, south, east and west. they are the digambaras, literally meaning ‘clad by the space that surrounds them’. the last category is of the avadhoots, have no set of rules — they make their own rules like shukdev, the son of vyas and dattatreya. their nature being of the brahman, the sanyasins cannot think of being made of transient worldly elements. they think that their ‘nature’ is not made of either dhwani or sound, touch, taste, form or smell or of any other attribute that can be approached or savoured by sense organs. they are not extensions in space either, the fundamental property of a ‘body’ defined by descartes. in the third chapter of the maitreyopanisada, maitreya, after a dialogue with lord shiva, describes his own experience of brahman. the experience is of pure consciousness alone, where the sense organs fail to reach. it is as if the sensory capabilities are too gross to enter the region of the subtle brahman. this is also why our eyes fail to see atoms, let alone the nuclear set-up. only here there is a qualitative barrier also. the realised sanyasins think that being part of the ultimate light they are the lights in whose luminescence all other lights are seen. this was the direct experience of many leading sufis also. in an unusual sloka, such realised souls offer salutations to themselves — being brahman, they are beyond all phenomena, yet are the cause of all phenomena. they describe themselves as the seats of consciousness. this consciousness is beyond time and its effects. there is no past, present or future in this ever existing stream of consciousness. there is, thus, no self separate from brahman and to speak of individuality or duality is ignorance. another sloka talks of the non-dual atman as being ‘established’, but ‘not yet established’. ‘though moving’ it ‘does not move’. though still it is active, and though engaged is not governed by causes or their consequences. the nature of atman is pure consciousness, and though the phenomena are perceived to be taking place, in reality they are only aspects of consciousness. consciousness is not affected by them. the atman is ‘hidden’ inside all of us, as a bee is hidden inside a lotus flower. it will be futile to seek it in the water or air outside. the sanyasin, who has realised his true nature, is just an observer of the phenomenal world. since his mind is calm, nothing perceivable is distorted by the mind. this has been described as the severance of the connecting thread between the observed and the observer. the connecting thread can distort if it has distortions in its weave. obviously, in such a state there are no desires left. they have been burnt in the fire of realisation. therefore, there is no sprouting or germination of the desire seed, much the same way a roasted seed would not germinate even when all other conditions may be ripe for germination. thinking stops. pure consciousness takes over. ‘desires’ or ‘non-desires’ do not exist. there is pure bliss. this is the state of nirvikalp samadhi. nirvikalp means having no alternative to the state of samadhi. this is brahman - where the mind is still and the self has been purified by washing it with jnana and the crystal clear waters of vairagya.
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