Practical Advaita
Preamble
A child watches ever changing forms on a glowing Neon board and is fascinated. The child knows the ever changing glow as real. When grace attends, then only the child will know that the neon board as the sub stratum is the truth.
His Instructions
Suppose you are of the form of a beautiful flower vase. You know yourself as a beautiful thing. You have pride of your thin neck, wide middle, and tapering base. You also have pride that you are so useful; you are beautiful and help to uphold beautiful flowers. But you have fear and anxiety about your fragility and about your temporary existence. You can’t do anything to enhance your longevity; your longevity is outside your power. You are jealous of more beautiful but more fragile flower vases. You are also jealous of less beautiful but sturdier flower vases. Now suppose you know that you are the clay; the substratum that makes the pot. Now you are immortal. Your knowledge that you are a temporary form and name is your egoity. Remove the illusion of the egoity, identify yourself with the substratum and be immortal.
Suppose you are a shining leaf in a big Banyan tree. You have forgotten that you exist for the tree. You have forgotten that you are the tree. You have forgotten that the tree flourishes aided by your unselfish efficient work but you as a single leaf is not indispensable. You and infinite others will come and go. You have forgotten that the tree will exist for a very long time and you fear that you will fall and die the coming winter. Realize that you are the tree; the substratum -- and you are immortal.
Suppose you work for an efficient organization under a super efficient boss. You have pride that you are doing profoundly important tasks. You also have become vain. You feel that you are indispensable. You have pride that you have fame. But you also enjoy comforts and you are fearful of losing those comforts. You are anxious about changes. According to the master plan of your organization and your super efficient boss, you are asked to relocate to Nigeria. You fear mosquitoes will finish you off in Nigeria. You lament the loss of comfort, telephones, cars, and what not. But your boss knows better. He knows that with super abundant profits from the Nigeria operation, the company will flourish and you will also. Suppose you hinder the relocation plan. The Boss will simply get rid of you and send someone else. Now suppose the organization is our universe and your super efficient boss is the all knowing Lord, the supreme. This understanding will solve all your negative mind problems. Identify with the Boss. Become one with him. Work with your soul for him. Do not work for your small, fragile, and illusory egoity.
How to identify and become one with the substratum, with the Boss -- so that you may be immortal? You will, through meditation, by enquiring into your real nature. Imagine you are a fruit. With the illusory sense of egoity that you have, you are pained that you will rot in no time. If you enquire, you will find that you have a more durable seed inside you. But that does not give you complete peace since you will worry whether the sprouts from the seed will survive? You enquire further and wonder what the power of the seed is; how it will replicate your form again? You go inside further and see that there is empty space inside the seed. The empty space is the substratum and the substratum that is empty space is Him. He is the empty space, present everywhere, present in every one, and He is one. He is indivisible, undifferentiated, unchanging and ever-present One. He has the master plan. He is in the seed and he is in you. You are Him.
Realize that the examples are approximations. I can understand a report created by me but it can never understand me. Likewise I will never understand Him fully.
Do not associate with matter – money and other material resources. Do not associate with physical forms – beauty and physique. Do not associate with the power of mind. Associate with the Boss.
The prayer
O, Lord, you have become the greatest sage and leader of the thief. You have become joy and you have become pain. You have become Rajasic and you have become Tamasic. You are the subtle and the gross. You are the smallest and the infinite. You are the Sun and the moon and you are air, water and fire. You are the plants. You are Sat-Chit-Anand and you are the reactive anger and the subsequent sorrow. You are the fragrance, the nourishment, and the knowledge – Vidya and Avidya both. You are the eternal substratum that is one without a second.
But you are the eternal Sat-Chit-Anand that is ever auspicious, the substratum that is real, everything else is transitory. You only open the gates to the Vidya.
Thus I prostrate to Sat-Chit-Anand that is auspicious and alone remains on dissolution of forms and name. I prostrate to you who is Guru Ramana. I prostrate to you who is Ganapati who guards the gates to the Vidya. I prostrate to you who is all pervading pure sattvik Vishnu. I prostrate to you who is ever compassionate Annapurna. I prostrate to you who is eternal auspicious Shiva. Let your grace never depart from me and my friends.
Pray, let what you have expressed remain eternal fragrance
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