Lustre Lost to Lust - Part 2

by Sri P.C. Lahiri

The following is the second part of Sri P.C. Lahiri’s article ‘Lustre Lost to Lust’, the first part of which appeared in the 2012 Janmastami issue of e-Sanai, and can be accessed via the following link:

http://e-srisanaijanmashtami.blogspot.in/

 

How can we discover the I within us which is unlimited, eternal and the Absolute - discovering which there is nothing left to be discovered, getting which there is nothing left to be got, knowing which there is nothing left to known and becoming which there is nothing left to become?  Master (Prajnanpurush Sri Sri Babathakur) often said that I itself is asking itself ‘How can I know I? How can I get I?’  Isn’t it funny?  Yet we all search for our Real-I (Self), albeit unknowingly, within the likes of greater I’s --- Ram, Krishna, Jesus, other prophets….and now in the all-Divine Master Sri Sri Babathakur, without ever being able to accept them as our own Self-I.  Never are we able to accept them as one with ourselves.  There is always some distance maintained by our ego-I between the greater I’s and ourselves.  This deep-rooted malady hasn’t allowed us to be one with the Supreme Divinity within each one of us - the Absolute Self I-Reality.   The greater I’s on the other hand do not maintain any such distance, and inspire us to not do so as well.

An original coinage of the Master---‘World phenomenon is the sportful dramatic game of Self-Consciousness’--- explains it all.  Self-Consciousness (Atma-Chaitanya) is playing with Itself, in Itself, for Itself and by Itself only;  by assuming the forms of millions of seekers, wherein each one is searching for his/her own higher Self-I in the self-imagined God/guru.  This game goes on and on in a not so enjoyable fashion, till the identity is re-established between the Immortal Self and the imagined mortal self and then the game becomes truly divine, full of eternal bliss and peace.  The drama in this game comes due to the shadow-play amongst innumerable mortal selves, in conjunction with the gross outer world - trying to outdo each other in one form or the other, totally oblivious of the unreal nature of it all. The drama is sportful because there is always “a goal to achieve” against odds and it is full of the spirit of competitive play “against others”, i.e. until the dawn of Self-Knowledge when the concept of “against others” and “a goal to achieve” are totally gone, to be replaced by the divine game of “I against I” and “I to achieve I”.  

The drama is compounded by the rare arrival of an extremely powerful actor (the real hero of the world stage) who not only inspires us to understand the all-round unreality of the drama of apparent diversity from various angles, but also enacts the role of playing the all-inclusive game of I to perfection on the same stage.  This unique and extraordinarily powerful enactment wins the applause of a vast majority of that section that has seen the drama.  After the drop-scene, the viewers disperse discussing various facets of the show witnessed.  Most of such viewers go back home and gradually forget about it, influenced by the mesmerizing and blinding illusion of the show of diversity and many-ness presented on the stage outside (which also happens to be the routine of their daily life).  It is very difficult to move away from the habits, mindset, knack, styles and competencies developed over the years in the company of like-minded average fellow actors acting together on the same stage.  All the competition and/or camaraderie on this stage are amongst these innumerable ordinary actors only, because the most powerful actor is beyond competition and/or camaraderie. However, a few amongst the applauding audience get inspired to understand and study the life of the hero, and discuss it off and on. Amongst such inspired lot, only a few devote and dedicate the rest of their lives to sincerely follow that extraordinary actor. Out of such devoted and dedicated handful, only one or two (koti te gotik) are able to truly imbibe and accept in totality, the whole presentation of, and be one with the direct experience (Swanubhuti---Self-Conscious Awareness) of that extraordinary actor. This new inductee into the list of Supreme Actors is now free from the quick sand of apparent world drama, and chooses to play the next role as per his own wish.

This essentially means that Absolute Masters are equipped with that Science by which they can take a new body as they wish, when they wish, and the way they wish.  A gross example of the mundane world is in the Bollywood actor of the millennium, Mr. Amitabh Bachhan. He more or less chooses the roles to play, and the producer/director feels humbled and gratified when he does so.  They then change the script and the other areas of the film as per the suggestions of the super star.  The producer/director in the cosmic scenario is Prakriti (mother-nature). She remains ever eager to please the Lord-incarnate. It is a different matter that the Lord-incarnate does not ask for anything and keeps on acting knowing the Real Nature of everything, including His own Self.  Prakriti does not know this, hence plays the game to some extent unknowingly like ordinary mortals, but from the state of being much more empowered and elevated.  Only God-incarnates/Absolute personified/Self-realized souls (in whichever way we may indicate) are identified with the Absolute Truth and hence understand the whole game perfectly to be one with their very Being. Therefore, they only play the game in the true spirit, and enact their roles as they should be - in the end leaving the supreme gift of right path to follow without any distinction, for all the rest who are playing the game or enacting their roles imperfectly.

I am reminded of an incident narrated by Sri Sri Babathakur, Himself.  During the time of the infamous Naxalbari movement in India, two young followers of that movement were ready to shoot the Master at point blank range.  They considered religion as opium for the masses, and had mistaken Him to be a “religious person”.  The Master very calmly and boldly told them inter alia, that He knew the science of coming back to this world with a new body as per His choice, but the young men did not know it and will suffer because of their misdeeds.   This part of the incident is relevant for us here; hence I am not getting into it further.

In light of the above, let me carry forward the presentation of my last article concerning an actor with the stage-name of Rajat Gupta, falling from grace due to his misdeeds. Another actor by the stage-name of Preet Bharara, through sheer hard work and proper use of buddhi (intellect) under the given circumstances, catapulted himself to a higher position in the eyes of the rest.  This sort of game shall go on getting enacted on the world stage for years to come with only change of forms, names and ideas.  What is the way out of this relative game of good-bad, right-wrong, suitable-unsuitable, true-false and so on and so forth wherein the world stage actors get divided taking one side or the other. The relativity of this game along with the accompanying tensions, worries, agonies etc. suck all the actors into keeping themselves strongly entangled in the powerful and dazzling mesh of relativity for a long-long time.

The way out is to understand and follow the exceptional, unconventional and original actor who appears very rarely on stage--- one such rare actor is the all-Divine Master, Sri Sri Babathakur.  Such a Master says that buddhi (intellect) is bud-bud akarey dhi (Intelligence), dhi sagarey bud-bud.  It means that in the ocean of Intelligence, intellect is only a bubble. The bigger the bubble, the higher is its visibility (name and fame).  But little does the bubble realize that the bigger the size, proportionately lesser is its contact area with the substratum/base which is its source, i.e. the ocean of Intelligence.  In the quest for more and more visibility, the bubble loses its stability. The bigger it becomes, the more is the air in it and lesser is its thickness.  A stage comes when it bursts and loses that very visibility for which it craved for and worked very hard.  If the bubble had remained one with the ocean, then it would have been the ocean itself, infinitely vast and one with the supreme nature of the ocean.  Intellect (bubble), born of the ocean of intelligence, plays all its intellectual games on the bed of the ocean of Intelligence - in other  words, it is sustained by the ocean of Intelligence - and finally bursts/dissolves in the ocean of Intelligence.  Alas! Intellect does not accept that its True Nature is the ocean of Intelligence Itself.  Intellect does not have to play its life-games imagining itself to be a separate individual entity which has to establish its superiority over others.  All appearances, anywhere and everywhere, with any form-name-idea, are nothing but the same very Essence.

All we (individual I’s, imagining ourselves to be having separate individual existences) have to do is to totally accept our True Entity/Nature, and lead our life with the full awareness of this (mene maniye cholo). 

Submitted at the lotus feet of the Master