Tiny Trace of Ego

Shaanta-swarupulaara (Embodiments of peace)!

I am addressing you thus today; perhaps, I should have said, “Ati Shaanta-swarupulaara!”, for you have shown not only shaanti but ati shaanti (extreme calmness), not mere ordinary forbearance. You have been squatting on the floor for nearly three hours. Perhaps, you yourselves have not realized it because Bulusu Appanna Shastry’s learned discourse on the Geeta and Kalluri Veerabhadra Shastry’s interesting discourse on the Bhagawata entranced you greatly. I realize that you also want Me to speak. These florists from Bangalore, devotees for many years—why, for twenty years, I should say—are preparing a floral jhoola (swing), insisting that I should sit on it and give audience to all. I have given them My word that I shall not disappoint them. So, I shall be very brief.

You will have known by now that the Chinese, of their own accord, prompted by the mysterious working of a higher power, withdrew from the advance lines they held on the night of the 22nd, and as I said, My Birthday was celebrated in an atmosphere of joy. Some unseen force caught them by the neck and hurled them back. Man is impelled forward in aggressive warfare by the asure-shakti (demonic power) of greed and lust, but he is compelled to retrace his steps by God, by the Daive-shakti (divine power).

Appanna Shastry is the doyen among the scholars of the Geeta. The Geeta has as many commentaries written on it as there are hairs on My head! Yellappa’s commentary attempts to distort the Geeta into a Yellappa Geeta, while Mallappa, by his commentary, proves that it is a Mallappa Geeta and nothing else. Everyone forgets it is “Bhagawat Geeta,” the Geeta that Krishna taught and Arjuna learned. What was Arjuna’s condition, and how did Krishna cure it? That question has been tackled only by the commentary of Shankaracharya.

Role of Braahmana in Society

Appanna Shastry said that the Avataar comes for dharma-sthapana (establishment of righteousness) and that is achieved by fostering and safeguarding the Braahmana. A braahmana is one who is installed in Brahma-tattvam (essential nature of the supreme being), who has realized _Brahma Satyam_—that Brahman is the truth and no other, or at least one who is keenly following the discipline prescribed for attaining that knowledge. The Braahmana is the instrument by which society has to excavate the treasure of Brahma-gnaana (sacred knowledge of the absolute reality). Some individual instruments have become blunt and unfit. Why? Many have lent themselves to other purposes and so rendered themselves inadequate for the task. But, there is no doubt that the instrument can be fashioned again out of the same metal; the Braahmana can, even now, restore faith and morality by devoting himself to the original function for which he was designed by the founders of Sanaatana-dharma (eternal religion). So long as that possibility is there, do not ridicule or condemn the Braahmana. Ridiculing him is but ridiculing God and the Vedas, to which he is the accredited signpost.

Correct Your Vision, Remove Your Delusion

All this creation and all this history is His leela or rather, Himself, Brahma Satyam, also jagat satyam. Only jagat (world) is ‘relatively real’ until the distinction between Brahman and jagat disappears, and then even jagat is seen to be Brahman, felt as Brahman, known as Brahmam. Then, you know Sarvam Brahma-mayam (all is full of the supreme being). To be more correct, there is no separate Sarvam (all) to be recognized as mayam (full of). Brahman alone is, one without a second, adviteeyam, Ekam, nityam, vimalam, achalam (non-dual, single, eternal, pure, and immovable). Who created all this variety from that Ekam (single)? The answer is, there is no variety at all, so the question makes no sense. No person, force, urge, concatenation of circumstances, or accident produced this multiplicity.

There is no multiplicity! The one remains as one. You mistake it as many; the fault is in you; correct your vision, remove your delusion. Brahman (supreme reality) did not change into prakriti (relative world); the rope does not change into a snake. Only, you mistook it to be a snake. Brahman is Brahman forever and ever; your ignorance of this fact makes you see it as prakriti. The world stands on one leg, delusion. Cut down that leg, and it falls.

You experience the disappearance of this variety, this multiplicity, this prakriti, this world based on delusion, every day, but you do not hold on to that experience. That is the tragedy! When you are asleep, what happens to your world? In what are all your manifoldnesses subsumed? What is the source of the feeling of joy, which sound sleep brings? Sleep keeps a tiny trace of the ego as a memento of the world and so, when awake, you are the same deluded individual, pestered by creatures of your own fantasies!

That is why I very often tell you not to identify even Me with this particular, physical build-up. But, you do not understand. You call Me by one name only and believe I have one form only. Remember, there is no name I do not bear; there is no form which is not Mine.

Prasanthi Nilayam, 24-11-1962