TWELVE - Know the Secret of Your Own Heart
Question: From the most ancient times the teaching methods of gurus were to describe the goal, clarify the methods and practices for attainment and finally to fully divulge the hindrances to that attainment. Since we are learning of the means toward the highest Realization, one must assume that the obstacles to attainment are real and formidable. What obstructs our achievement of the ultimate goal of life?
Let us address this question first with a profound answer according to the religions of the world, and then with the ultimate answer.
The Saints and Sages unanimously agree, that regardless of any chosen path, it is ‘practice’ that makes us perfect. For it is through practice that we attract the ever ready Grace of God. The greatest obstacle to practice is not only formidable but completely beyond the realm of our control. This hindrance and greatest foe to Enlightenment is all consuming and devouring Time. The servants of this enemy of the evolution of man, are called the devadutas (divine messengers). There are five separate devadutas, of which three are for us of major concern. When these visit us we become fully aware of the transitory and limited nature of our physical existence. These three, that for practically every living being are the ultimate obstacles to the achievement of immortality, are Ageing, Illness and Death!
The Wonder of Wonders
When time is ‘on our side’ we fritter it away seeking what comes naturally to us, the enjoyments and the love of material life. When the day of the eventual, inevitable, and unpredictable arrival of the devadutas dawn, we are consumed with resentment and dread. Our resentment seems legitimate for we find ourselves unable to further enjoy the possessions that we strove a lifetime for. We dread that many of those that loved us for the wrong reasons might lose their attraction to us. In this condition, the very last thing that we turn to is the arduous and grueling practice of meditation. And even if, by God’s grace or sheer desperation, we somehow seek solace with interior spiritual practice, we find that the mental faculties and physical endurance needed for the task have long ago departed from us. This is, simply speaking, the human condition. None are exempt! It is a wonder to behold.
In the Mahabharata Epic this ‘human condition’ is portrayed with an encounter of the Pandava brothers meeting Dharma (the eternal rhythm within time), disguised in the form of a raksha (demi-god), by the shore of the cooling waters of a lake. Each of the five brothers, suffering greatly from thirst, in turn were approached and warned by Dharma not to quench their thirst before answering certain questions. In turn each disregarded the warning and drank and immediately fell dead.
Finally the eldest, Yudhisthira came and seeing the corpses began to lament. Dharma spoke bidding him to first answer his questions and then he would cure the thirst and grief of Yudhisthira.
The most significant of the few questions asked and correctly answered was:
“Of all the world’s wonders, which is the greatest wonder?”
“That every man, though he sees others dying all around him, believes that he himself will remain forever. What can be a greater wonder than this?”
The profundity of this might be argued but ultimately this truth can never be denied. The problem facing all is that when this truth is finally seen, it is to late to do anything about it.
Give Peace of Mind a Chance
All of the Saints and Sages, who have propounded ‘practice’ to be essential and Time to be its hindrance, ultimately agree that the ‘perfection’ from the practice is a Pure Mind. And further that the mind is everything and precedes all states and conditions. A genuine understanding of this reveals the secret behind the ‘problem’ of birth, ageing, illness and death. The eternal religion (Sanatana Dharma), if practiced correctly, does not guide man towards a spiritual preparation for death, but rather towards a transformation into eternal life before death.
It is not the revenges of Time’s ‘rough handling’ that are at the heart of the problem of the cycle of life and death; it is our mental reaction to it! Time has been ordained to have dominion over our physical condition. Its dominance over our mental condition is a matter of our own choice. The peace and purity of mind that can be achieved through abhyas and vichara is founded on solid experience within the depth of meditation.
The state of samadhi in deep meditation gives us experience in a timeless world. The constancy of this experience solidifies our ability to remain merely a witness to the movement of ageing and illness. In reality, we are now experiencing a very vivid timeless state, and our spiritual heart, wherein our divine Self resides, is supremely attracted to it. We know by experience and the promptings of God’s grace that if we cultivate this, if we befriend this, it will draw us into Itself. By further practice we will make this our best friend, one who never betrays. Therefore we will carry this keen and lively awareness and experience of stillness and peace right to the door of death. At that moment we are ‘steady in wisdom’ (sthita prajna).
We will not be ravaged and overcome by death. We will calmly understand that the body is no longer habitable, and we will consciously step out of it as if we were stepping out of one room into another. The body will go the way it came, unto dust. We will go the way we came, unto God.
Salvation from Fear
This is known as the deliverance of the Nobel Ones. Our deliverance is the deliverance from the fear of death. Death loses its ‘sting’. The sting of death is the belief, and for most the mistaken experience, that the loss of the body will cause the loss of conscious existence. The lives of the Saints, and those who through effort and Grace have entered the ‘stream of timeless existence’, prove this utterly false. Many of these Nobel Ones have further ‘proved their divinity’ to those around them who remain embodied. Their transforming process of divination was perfectly complete, transmuting every cell in their bodies. Thus that which at birth was destined to return unto dust, was rendered physically incorrupt after death. Their minds became transformed and sublimated by their cultivation of the timeless Spirit within the Heart. Their physical ‘vehicle’, which was used skillfully during this transformation, also became thoroughly steeped with incorruptible immortality. They reached that which we must ultimately strive for and achieve, the “fullness and perfection of the stature of the Consciousness of Christ”.
“When all the essences of carnal things have been transmuted into soul, and all essences of soul have been returned to Holy Breath, and man is made a perfect God, the drama of creation will conclude. And this is All.” 1
To know of that which is deemed “All”, one must surely surrender to It with devotion as well as with knowledge. These two are in essence one, for the secret of Enlightenment is the Love of God!
Thus the Maharshi, the embodiment of Love, enticed us with His words, with His glance, with His life that shone upon us as a brilliant sun to know:
“The eternal, unbroken, natural state of abiding in the Self is jnana. To abide in the Self you must love the Self. Since God is verily the Self, love of the Self is love of God; and that is bhakti. Jnana and bhakti are thus one and the same…. their purpose is to lead you to dhyana, to meditation, which ends in Self-realization.” 2
And all the Sages of all the worlds will say: “Amen. Om.”
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1. The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ, by Levi, Devorss
2. Maharshi’s Gospel I, The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi. Sri Ramanashramam 2007, p. 17-18.
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