Desire – Knowledge – Action
Murugan in Hindu Mythology is the son of Shiva and Parvati. He has 2 wives Valli and Devasena. Murugan and his 2 wives represent 3 powers which all of us have and which we can develop in our life. Guruji in 3 session profound talk on the deeper meaning of this. After each session Guruji asked us to write a brief summary of the days session below for our reference. Below are the summaries which I have noted after each session. Also in some cases I have added my interpretation or examples which I have added to make my understanding deeper.
Valli - Desire
Desires have arisen in us from time immemorial and have burnt us up, they have driven us to do so many things, some of them good, some of them bad and some of them which (look now) very ugly.
Every desire is generated out of rajas, that is active component of our self. It’s a natural energy which Guruji compares to a tribal wild lady. Only when she is married to wisdom will she be happy. Similarly when our desires are not clubbed with wisdom they will lead us to suffering.
Desires are waves of energy rising in the vastness of our being. The nature of our being is happiness or bliss. When we were a small infant when there were very little desires, this nature shines thru easily and that is why infants are in such obvious bliss and happiness. As they become older as desires start coming, then this natural state of bliss is slowly obscured by the waves of desire which crop up.
When a wave of desire comes up, there are 2 things which can happen
1. Its satisfied fully, this will lead for it to vanish and we will get a glimpse of our natural state of being in which it has come. We will feel the happiness and we think it was because the desire got satisfied the happiness has come, where happiness was the screen or background on which desire had come. The desire was obscuring the screen of happiness and when it vanished we got a glimpse of the background and we feel the happiness. However the problem is that once a desire is fulfilled , one more comes immediately or very shortly and again the screen of happiness is obscured and again we run behind to fulfil it
2. The desire is not satisfied or partially satisfied and it still remains fully or partially on the screen of our being and we are left with a lingering sense of unease. This sense of unease is not because the desire is not satisfied, it’s because it has not disappeared and we are unable to see the screen of our self.
The bigger problem is that it is not one desire or few desires thousands of desires have come in the past and obscured the screen so much , that we are not even aware that the screen is there.
Identification with the desire
We have so much identified with the desire that we think we are the desire. We think that if the desire is not satisfied, we are not satisfied, and this leads to misery and unhappiness. Guruji says it’s this identification with the desire and the forgetfulness of the self is the root cause of all misery.
The Desire Framework
A Desire arises – Evaluate the desire – Is it connected to our role or Duty?
If yes – do it a Yagya , that as a service to mankind or the world without a goal of selfish achievement from the same and without attachment to the result
If no – Ignore it if it’s a small or petty desire which is not very essential for our well being .If it still persists, surrender it to the divine and let him take care of it.
In both the above circumstance be aware that I am not the desire, it has arisen in me , I don’t want bliss , happiness from the fulfilment of that desire as I am already bliss, happiness. Rather the desire is obscuring my natural state of bliss and happiness. That is why I am not going to pursue unnecessary desires, as it will make them stronger and they will obscure my natural state more. I will not resist them or pursue them.
As a person sitting on sea shore is aware of the waves of the ocean, I will be aware of the waves of desires which are arising in me. I will abide peacefully in the screen of happiness which I am .
Murugan - Knowledge
The World is infinite, some things we know very well, have the confidence and satisfaction of this knowledge, many things we don’t know, we should have the acceptance, humility about this lack of knowledge. There is always possibility for things to be other than what we have imagined, known and believed to be, this realization gives us, peace when we accept that . This combination of knowledge and ignorance, confidence and humility is real knowledge
True knowledge makes a person beautiful, not the beauty of features.
If we have to pray for something pray for knowledge as that will lead to all other achievement, if that is not there even if any achievements happens it won’t be long lasting or won’t give the desired happiness.
Real Knowledge comes only through grace.
Body is healthy through exercise, mind through avoiding negativity, soul is known through Seva, prayer and grace. It will come at its own time.
Diskha or Knowledge transfer happens through meeting the guru, seeing him and being seen by him, through following his techniques, and it is completed by full surrender in him.
Many times we have had wrong knowledge that people are a certain way. We have wrongly believed them to either good or bad and that has led to a lot of suffering to us, because of this wrong belief. Most of the time they have not even thought of us and they were in their own world, but our wrong assumption about them led to us suffering or bondage.
Also this is true specifically about the objects which I thought was giving me pleasure like alcohol, non veg food etc where as they were actually giving me a lot of problems. Knowledge of their true nature led me to relief from the pain caused by them
Ignorance also has given a lot of benefit. We might chose take up a very complex problem, without real awareness of the true extent of the problem. If we were aware of the full extent of the problem, we may not take up many of the challenges we have taken up in the past. This happened when I purchase my apartment without real planning as to the full extent of how I would pay for it. But the problems, caused by ignorance were solved by divine grace, because the intention was noble or sattvic .
And even in rajasic or tamasic situation it might cause suffering but if surrender is there, that suffering is minimum and divine will bring us out of that situation smoothly
Devasena -Action
Only Desire without action leads to frustration
Many times we have multiple desires but not able to focus on the desire which we want to achieve, this scattered focus leads to less results.
To decide on which desire to focus we need Knowledge
Proper Goal +action = strength and happiness
Knowledge + action = success
Best is to do action for pleasing the divine for the benefit of the world
This because whatever goal the mind decides at the starting, over a period of time because the mind is fickle it keeps on changing and we are not able to focus on the goal. Once we have decided on any goal with a higher intention ( i.e. for pleasing the divine , serving the world) there won’t be confusion and we are able to work towards the Goal with full focus.
Goal of ordinary action is happiness
If we do action with higher intention every step is filled with happiness
Rajasic action i.e. with feverishness leads to sorrow
Tamasic Negative action i.e. out of anger, selfishness leads to misery
Sattvic action – out of enthusiasm will lead to happiness
Most actions have limited impact. The impact of the karma whether good or bad is for a limited time and then after the time is over the impact also gets over. This knowledge really helps us when we are feeling pain or suffering due to any karma. If we just remember that this will also pass with time, it will give us the strength to go thru pain in much more balanced state.
Very rare karma has timeless impact. This refer to the action by divine beings or masters in which their divine energy is imbibed in the action For e.g. Krishna giving the Bhagvad geetha to Arjuna is timeless action, the benefits of which are being felt even today after 5000 years.
The world is Maya which means ever changing. There is nothing in the world which is constant
Karma is immediate and changes every moment, but impact of karma is for a longer period. We hold on to the impact of karma and keep it longer. If a crow shits on us, we can choose to curse the crow or go to hit the crow and disturb ourselves more or we can choose to wash our cloth and move on. Thus the outside action is the same but impact on us is much lesser because we reacted to the negative action with wisdom.
Knowledge, Devotion and faith in the divine minimizes the impact of the karma
Don’t worry too much about success, failure, joy and loss because all people have to die one day
Do your duties to the best of your abilities and keep moving thru the changing karma.
Whatever mistakes we have made in the past, we are innocent in the present. If we don’t realize this we get into guilt consciousness and which leads to anger and sadness.
All divine qualities have been given to us , to exhibit , use it. Otherwise no point in having it
Deep rest of meditation is complimentary to action as it gives rise to dynamism. Thus we should regularly meditate which will give us the energy to do our activities in the best possible manner.
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