8Great Spiritual Riddles Of Vedanta 

 

 By RAJU S CHIDAMBARAM

 

Vedanta is nothing if not revolutionary in the way it upends many of our commonly held notions. That is the reason why we cannot readily comprehend some statements made by Vedantins such as Sw Chinmayanandaji’s assertion that “Not to do what one feels like doing is true freedom”. Scientists, who insist on searching for truth based only on what they see, will not easily embrace the view that “

 

Truth is not in the ever-changing seen, but in the changeless seer”. The 8 riddles listed below are few examples. ● World cannot be improved. We must work to improve the world. ● Evil must be avoided. Evil is necessary. ● We have choices. The choice is not ours. ● With Love for everything. In love with nothing. ● I have nothing to do. I do everything well. ● There were problems, there will be problems. There is never a problem. ● We have nothing to complain about, except that which complains about everything. ● I am a saint. I commit sins day and night. Let us consider these riddles... World cannot be improved. We must work to improve the world:

 

The world is notoriously resistant to attempts to make lasting improvements to it. Like an old home, it is in a perennial state of disrepair. We succeed in fixing something only to find some other things breakdown. Any gain we make is at best temporary. In saying “sambhavami yuge yuge”, even the Lord seems to concede that what He accomplishes in one avatar does not fix the problems in His creation forever! Ultimately, as science and many religions believe, the universe itself is bound for destruction or dissolution making all our efforts to improve the world seemingly meaningless. Yet there is a sound basis to the advice we get from the wise that we must do what we can to serve the world and make it a better place for everyone. The karma yoga taught in the Gita urges us to serve without any selfish desire or without expecting to realise the fruits of our action hoped for. Moral: We must serve the world, not necessarily to improve it but to improve ourselves. Evil must be avoided. Evil is necessary:

 

The world has always had evil and always will. It is a necessary part of God’s divine play whose theme is the victory of good over evil. Goodness shines best when it confronts evil. We must certainly avoid evil but must also actively oppose evil when needed. This world, by the design of the Creator, provides enough opportunities for evil to rear its ugly head and for us to show how good our goodness is. The tragedy is not that there is evil in the world, but that the good people do not show their goodness in actively opposing evil. Moral: There is evil in the world so that goodness may manifest and assert itself in all its glory. We have choices. The choice is not ours: Vedanta does not accept that everything is “fated” but recognises that there are choices available to us “to do, not to do, or to do otherwise” with respect to our actions.

 

These choices are made by us freely. Even when there are societal laws prescribing what can or cannot be done, we sometimes use that freewill to transgress those laws. Thus there is undoubtedly freewill. The question is whether that freewill really belong to us. Here science and logic, Vedantic scriptures and Masters inform us clearly that the freewill does not belong to the jiva. Rather it belongs to God whose will is the one and only determinant of all happenings in the world, including choices and actions of all jivas. Moral: There is freewill, but it belongs to Isvara and not the jiva. With love for everything. In love with nothing: Vedanta gives us what appear to be two conflicting pieces of advice to follow. On the one hand it asks us to cultivate detachment or dispassion (vairagya) from all things worldly.

 

At the same time it upholds universal, unconditional love for all beings as the highest ideal. On examination, however, the two are not actually contradictory but complementary. The spiritually evolved jiva practices both simultaneously. To be “in love” with something makes our own happiness dependent on it. This is not love but attachment. We are rightly cautioned against developing attachment to anything. In contrast, when we have unconditional love for another being, we bring happiness and comfort to that being, without making our own happiness dependent on it. Isvara embodies this principle Himself. Moral: To be in love with something is attachment that results in suffering. Unconditional love for all beings is experienced as pure joy and is apex of spiritual perfection. I have nothing to do. I do everything well: Contrast this statement with our usual condition in today’s hyperactive (rajasic) way of life. We have a long to-do-list but only a limited amount of time and often limited skills and resources to get it all done right. The result is we constantly fret and panic; in the end we do not do many things right. This is not a happy situation. Vedanta teaches us that we are not really the doers of anything, everything being done by Prakrti (nature) through our body-mindintellect complex. It advises us to drop the “doer-ship” mentality (kartrtva bhava) even when engaged in work.

 

In Gita, Lord tells Arjuna that “there is nothing in three worlds for me to do or to achieve; yet I am engaged in action always.” The Yogi, having realised the blissful Self, also has nothing more to do but cheerfully and unselfishly applies to any situation requiring action. Moral: For one established in Self, there is no other goals left in life and hence no other work. But whatever is to be done for the welfare of the world the yogi does with skill and success. There is nothing in the world to complain about except that which complains about everything: No thing or no being of this world deserves our complaint when in reality they only act as per the laws of Prakrti and the Will of Isvara. Our complaint should be really about our mind which has the annoying habit of constantly grudging about the perceived deficiencies in the world around. The remedy is to get rid of the impurities in mind and make it less dependent on the world for its own peace and comfort. The world is not improved by expressing our displeasure about it; it only makes us miserable without helping anything or anyone else. Moral: The only thing in this world we should complain about is our own constant complaining mind. I am a Saint; I commit sins incessantly: Vedanta says that in reality we are the pure, blemish-less, saintly Self. Ignorant of that Self we “live in sin” of mistakenly identifying with the body-mind-intellect and their demands. The worldly pains and pleasures we endure is the punishment by the sin for that sin. Many of us lead a totally worldly life without even being aware of this condition. But someone with spiritual wisdom is ever sensitive to the occasions when the mind yields to the demands of the body. By developing such sensitivity, a seeker strengthen himself mentally against worldly desires and progress on the path. Moral:

 

The real sin is the ignorance because of which we forget our true Self and live identified with the Non-Self, namely our body. There always were problems, there always will be problems, but there never is a problem: This speaks to a strange affliction affecting human beings today: Constant worries amidst a materially comfortable and even luxurious life. At any given moment we are either worried thinking about possible difficulties looming in some unnamed future or regretting past mistakes and losses. Such thoughts overpower our mind and make us overlook the present living moment where we have no problems whatsoever, physical, or mental. If only we could shut our minds and focus on the present we would usually find there is only peace and calm.

 

Moral: Past and future are fictions of the mind. A mind focused on the reality of the present is the witnessing consciousness; it is pure, immaculate, devoid of all dualities, and full of peace. (The author has been in the Chinmaya Mission and has authored four books and several papers; he is developing a mathematical theory of spirituality based on Vedanta. Interested readers can visit mathematicsofspirituality.com) ■