Sri Krishna through Sri Ramchandraji

My dear associates in the Path, Pranam at the holy feet of all the devotees of the Master.

On this auspicious occasion of Sri Krishna Jayanthi I try to share some of my understanding on the thoughts of our beloved Master Sri Ramchandraji Maharaj of Shahjahanpur in connection with Lord Krishna. Since they relates to changing the course of ones’ life I thought it is relevant on this occasion.

In the article “SPIRITUAL TRAINING THROUGH YOGIC TRANSMISSION” he wrote that “By the grace of my master I shall try to reveal a great secret, or a mystery, which the people in general do not know. It is a great wonder when a great personality like Lord Krishna, Swami Vivekananda or my master changes the entire course of a man's life. How is this done?”

“Some skeptics may say it is after all due to the person who wanted to change himself, and the master or Guru was the cause merely for name's sake. If Lord Krishna had such power why did he not change the heart of Duryodhana instead of bringing about the battle of Kurukshetra? They may also quote many stories wherein somebody taking a worthless person or even a lifeless object as a guide has become a great saint. But this need not hinder us in trying to find out the reality, because God's ways are mysterious. Some are deluded by their own thinking and some are illumined by Divine Grace.”

True, that some of us think that we understand everything or are capable of understanding with our intellectual endowment everything. While this is good the avoidable irrational corollary to this, that ‘what I do not understand is not correct’ is not very helpful in the search of Truth. As Master has warned us we should not get deluded by our own thinking which many times are based on partial facts and fragments of truth. There can be many points of view and it is obvious that the point of view of the Centre is the best though it is not that easy to have. Every sadhaka tries to go near the Centre from his angle and as he approaches the Centre his vision gets broadened.

Master continues “If the question as to from whom Lord Krishna got light is put to me, my answer would be that He is Self-luminous. But then this need not mislead the enquirer that he too is self-luminous and everyone else is also such, and there is an end to all enquiry. Logical speculations are no substitutes for the cravings of the heart. The heart is not satisfied even if the logic stops dead in some blind alley.”

The inquiry that we are having into the nature of real self or God or Master is not something that we can restrict to the realm of the intellect. In which case it will be partial and the result would be partial truth or shall I say partial untruth! We are surely part of the divine and an integral part at that. But our mind cannot be Masters’ mind unless we purge out all the dross and dirt out of our system and make it as pure as we can. It has been stressed by Master many times that our conscience can be pure only when our mind, manas, chit and ahankar are purified. Perfection we know is an Utopian goal but, near perfection is what we can strive for. It is here we need the help of others to purify ourselves and the relevance of Pranahuti. For this we attend to purification of our system assiduously practicing the methods given by the Master.

Master continues his message saying that “Pranahuti is effected through the power of will which is always effective. If a trainer in spirituality exerts his will to mould the mind of the trainee it will bring effective and excellent results. Many swamijis, who start the profession of Gurudom as soon as they put on the ochre-coloured uniform, complain that although their shishyas (disciples) listen to them with interest, yet they remain as crooked as the tail of a dog. The reason is obvious. Either the swamiji does not exert his will or he has got no power. The teachers prescribe many laborious and brain-taxing practices and leave their disciples to their own fate. Neither does the teacher know the result of the methods nor does the disciple care to use his discrimination. The result is internal grossness, dullness of the intellect and loss of freedom on the part of the disciples, and corruption, degradation and moral turpitude on the part of gurus, who are very conscious of only their right to teach, but quite unmindful of their duties and responsibilities towards their disciples.”

“The worthy trainer with the power of yogic transmission weakens the lower tendencies of the mind of the trainee, and sows the seed of Divine light in the inner most core of the abhyasi's heart. In this process the trainer uses his own will-force which has the Divine Infinite power at its back. In a way he is conscious of “That” and he just focuses “It” through the lens of his own will upon the heart of the trainee. The trainee may not feel anything at the beginning. The reason is that he is accustomed to feel only through the senses, and the Divine power is beyond senses. After some time, however, he may feel the results of such transmission, which also are in the form of subtle changes of the workings of his vital parts and of the tendencies of his mind.”

Master in the same article states what happens to spiritual training in some organisations. “There is an organisation in this part of the country which professes to impart spirituality. It commands a pretty large following, and people who join it seldom break off even though some of them, to my personal knowledge, are greatly disgusted and averse to it. I find that they have adopted unspiritual ways to keep the abhyasis bound fast not only by inducements and allurements but even by fright and threats. And when I study their inner condition, I find not one of them having any spiritual achievement, but they are only caught up by some material force. You will find hardly one amongst them who is nearer the mark in any way. Whereas, in our sanstha, you will be happy to note that none of the preceptors has even the slightest touch of maya in all his Transmissions. It is only the pure wave that flows from him to the abhyasi. In my opinion such pious methods must at all cost be adhered to in order to promote piety and righteousness all over. I pray for the making of such noble personalities to work for the enlightenment of the world, and time alone shall bring the results to light. We must try heart and soul to prepare such worthy souls as may be useful and helpful to the future world. It matters little if a few break off from us, because what they have gained during their brief contact will develop in the subsequent life, if not in this one. Thus our labour is by no means wasted or lost.”

Kindly note the purpose of the system given by the Master. He said “I pray for the making of such noble personalities to work for the enlightenment of the world and time alone shall bring the result to light.” His system is meant for transformation of the world in contrast to that of Lord Krishna where individuals’ realisation to his duty is said to be the goal. It is useful to recall certain fundamentals about the concept of God with reference to the attitudes that get generated in us.

When we view the Master in first person we get one who is a granter of our wishes and the pinnacle experience in such cases can beAham Brahmasmi.

When we view Master in second person “Thou” we move into the realm of devotion and surrender.

When we view the Master in third person “IT” or ‘Tam’ we get a special personality who is working out the transformation of human consciousness in which we have a part to play so that we live in an enlightened world.

Lord Krishna in his Bhagavad Gita explained the intricacies of Yoga of different types adding the Bhakti aspect also in Yoga. Different types of yoga that do not have surrender to a Master as an integral element of the system lead to what is termed as self realisation. It is the common perception that yoga sadhana leads to Advaitaanubhuti or to the awareness of Aham Brahmasmi. It is held by many scholars that yoga as taught by Sage Patanjali is nir-Iswara or without God. There are many hold the opinion that Iswara Pranidhana is part and parcel of Patanjali Yoga. But in any Yoga where God is not in the picture the pinnacle experience can only be AhamBrahmasmi. In such an experience the question of surrender is not possible. Lord Krishna was emphatic in stating that without the surrender to God no real progress in the path of realisation which leads to active participation in the divine plan is possible. We should remember the purpose of Lord Krishna in delivering the Gita is to motivate Arjuna to fight the battle for the sake of righteousness. It was not surely to make him a saint. If one has to act and not get tainted by the action there is only way of doing it namely dedicating the entire actions to the divine for the divine purpose and according to divine will. This state of consciousness is possible only through surrender and not the methods of Ashtanga Yoga or other yogas bereft of bhakti and surrender. Thus the Lord was presenting Himself in the first and second person aspects of God.

Master even while giving the prayer for all occasions starts with the words “Thou art” and thus makes it clear that we should start with the state of surrender to the Master so that we reach His stage. His stage being TAM we find the Master keeping before us the second person and third person aspect of God. That is why while he talks about surrender he gives a definition of total surrender as surrender to all that exists in the universe. It is no surrender to any person or God that he talks but surrender to the Infinite Being which expresses itself every where.

The transition from an orientation to the second person God to the third person is not that easy for the sadhaka. I seek your indulgence to quote Dr.K.C.Varadachari from his diary "Thus I found myself made to abjure the old theoretical ways of approach. I had to remake myself in a new way. I had to take stock of my whole past. All sectarian and caste conceptions had to be rethought. Philosophies help bind people to set notions. Thus I was to meet the challenge of the New. It happened that I should meet Shri Ramchandra ji.

Firstly his views were clearly different from my whole past. The conception of the Ultimate as Zero was quite against my philosophic inclination. Having failed with the positive concept it is time to experiment with this - Is it likely to be true?” The Zero has to be understood as the Beginning or Origin of all possibilities being nothing of what it becomes.

The concept of Invertendo shows how the deformation of evolution is natural and the power inherent in Zero (Nirguna). I began understanding the meaning of Vivarta. All flow necessitates the inversion and it is natural. The formations of the descent are clearly on this principle of inversions. The vast Brahman extends up to our knowledge of it. Thus Truth, Consciousness and Bliss themselves are attributes which get transcended in higher approaches. Satchitananda are not the Ultimate Reality, they too being terms of knowing - Sankara too gets transcended.

The individual is continuous with the Universal and the Ultimate, and is not abolished. The Pralaya or mergence is cosmic and supracosmic and then all are withdrawn into the Ultimate. The individual ray of the Ultimate has created for itself an organic organization of physical-vital, mental and supramental centers and organs. These may well be the knots which have demarcated the several systems known as the physical, vital, mental or the bonal, muscular, circulatory, alimentary, hormonic, nervous, supranervous, and psychic etc. They have become autonomous in a sense but have to be opened up for higher control. This is possible only by bringing down the highest power of the Centre and not merely the higher power just above the human. It is the necessity to mould the lower in terms of the highest through the higher which has also to mould itself to receive the highest. That leads to going beyond Sri Aurobindonian Vijnana - moulding of the mental, vital and physical.

This is done by means of the transmission or descent of the highest consciousness or condition (Zero) itself into the lowest region of the human heart or the organism as it is. The yogic process is this transmission from the Ultimate which alone can shape the entire being, of the abhyasi for the experience and realisation of one's oneness with the Ultimate and experience it in one's own physical, vital, mental and supramental levels - called by Shri Ramchandraji, the Pinda, Brahmanda, Para Brahmanda and Central Regions working under the direct force of the Centre".

Shaping of the entire being or moulding ourselves thus means a total integral and holistic transformation in our way of living. We are aware that during meditation we do go into very deep states and some times we are at the gross level. Broadly we may say that from the ego centric awareness to ethnocentric awareness is the normal mode of meditation of many of the meditators. However we do seem to enter to cosmic and pan cosmic or para cosmic levels of consciousness. And surprisingly in almost all the sincere meditations we do we enter into a state of Tam or Total Ignorance as Rev. Master calls it. This is the one imperience that impels us to continue our meditation even as our Master has stated in his Commentary on Ten Commandments.

If it were not so we will be facing the problem stated by Lord Krishna in the XII chapter of Gita sloka 5 which was translated by Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan as “ The difficulty of those whose thoughts are set on the Unmanifested is greater, for the goal of the Unmanifested is hard to reach by the embodied beings.” One of the, if not the unique feature of this system of Rev. Babuji is that such Unmanifest Tam is within our reach during our life time. This is one singular contribution of this system for which humanity shall be indebted. It is this awareness of the Tam that makes us live the fraternity that has been spoken for over several millennia.

Prayers have been the time tested method of reaching the Lord. That we should pray for all in the Universe for the spiritual good is by itself a great prayer no doubt. But that we can will for such a change is the possibility the imperience of Tam grants us and this has not been heard of so far. The method of this prayer which uses our will while stating that “all the people of the world are my brothers and sisters and that we are developing true love and devotion” is no ordinary petitioning prayer. It is an expression of a will and determination to live according to the will of the Master.

Lord Krishna appealed to Arjuna to act in such a way as to discharge his duties as enshrined in the sastras. He was talking of Swadharma though that is done ineffectively is more important than the para dharma even if done effectively. Commentaries and criticisms of the commentaries is not our concern. Master has stated clearly that it is our primary duty to realise our oneness with God. And this duty is some thing universal which does not distinguish between castes and races. When God is taken in the third person perspective, this can only mean that we should partake in the divinization of man which is the real duty waiting to be done by all of us. The third commandment is categorical in stating that our duty or dharma is to achieve oneness with God. A deeper understanding of this commandment would enable us to understand that we cannot have other goals like artha, dharma and jnana. This is in contrast to Lord Krishna accepting four categories of devotees. In this context it is prudent for us to consider the statements of the Master regarding what type of prayer we may make. To quote him from his commentary on the second Commandment “One should pray to Him alone who is the Master in the true sense. I donot think it proper to pray to the slaves i.e., those powers which are subordinate to man who are potentialised by him…. …It is also sheer folly to pray to the great Master for worldly gains except in most special cases.” When this is well understood our clarity regarding the goal gets established in our hearts and we seek Oneness with Him.

It is not as though I have said something that is not known to you. I am only placing these ideas in the spirit of Bodhayantah Parasparam. My salutations to all.