[Advaita-l] Digest of Paramacharya's Discourses on Soundaryalahari(DPDS-25)

[V. Krishnamurthy]

Namaste.
FOR NEW READERS of this series, it may be worthwhile to go back
to  the Introduction  about the objective of this Digest and the
Note on the Organization (both at advaitin Message No.18425;
ambaa-L message no.5273; advaita-L message No.14046;
Sadhana_shakti message no.334). 
Let us recall that  the entire contents of the Digest are from
the Paramacharya’s ideas and words, including the first person
reference to himself,  except for my English rendering. Wherever
he uses specific English words himself, I have drawn the
attention of the reader to that fact. Recall particularly that
‘our Acharya’ or ‘The Acharya’ in the discourses, means ‘Adi
Sankaracharya’.
V. Krishnamurthy
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A Digest of Paramacharya’s Discourses on Soundaryalahari -  25
(Digest of pp.883-887 of Deivathin kural)

Note: This is a difficult part. So I have given almost
 a close translation rather than a ‘Digest’. - VK

It is not necessary to go the Kundalini way. Whatever path you
take, whatever method of upAsanA (spiritual worship) you follow,
without having to go  through the regimen of the kundalini yoga,
if you sincerely follow any one  path with an one-pointed faith,
you will, when you reach a certain advanced stage, get those
breathing-in and breathing-out experiences exactly as you would,
in a yoga sAdhanA, all by itself. You may not even feel it. It
will get transformed by itself. In a still more advanced stage,
when we are in one-ness with the object of our upAsanA, the
breathing may even be stationary in the kumbhaka state.
 
In ordinary mundane activities of ours we usually exhale by the
left nostril. On the other hand, the same exhaling, if you
carefully observe it, will come by the right nostril, when you
have just had a noble elevating experience of peace like the
darshan of a deity or of a saintly sage. At a higher stage, the
exhaling will be equal in both nostrils, to the extent that, it
will then be  only one step short of staying in the kumbhaka
state,  but at the same time, without any tendency to suffocate,
the whole system being light and comfortable – all these changes
in the breathing will certainly occur.
 And thus, at the end, one may even reach the penultimate state
to advaita-siddhi, namely, the movement of breath reaches the
top, touches the divine feet of ambaal and the nectar starts
flowing! Even in our ordinary day-to-day life, if we have an
extraordinary experiencee of happiness, we sometimes suffocate
and swoon; that is actually a reflection of the taste of
kumbhakam. That also is a fragment of a fragment of the
experience of the  sprouting of the nectar at the top of the
head !

I am telling you all this just to point out that even in the
path of bhakti such superlative experiences do occur. 
Just have a look at the great devotional songs and poems of
confirmed devotees of God, like the shaiva saints of Tamilnadu,
the vaishnava Alvars, the devotees from Maharashtra, Bengal,
North India, Sufi saints, and also of Christianity. All these
songs  will only flash the many yogic experiences and spiritual
experiences of enlightenment. 

It is not just yoga and jnAna. We should also mention the
experience of Love, premA. When we talked of fundamentals like
ichA-shakti, Kameshvara and Kameshvari, it is all  very subtle
and pure Love.  The word ‘kAmam’ brings to our mind various
connotations. It may be thought that the fact of a sannyasi
talking about it strikes a discordant note. But in reality, in
terms of an esoteric context there is no fault there. It only
indicates by symbols that Shakti intertwined with the substratum
of Peace  is what creates ‘Creation’. There is nothing wrong
here. That is why ambaal brings the experience of premA (Love)
along with those of yoga and of jnAna, to many great people, at
the very end of their sAdhanA. 

In the evolution of the Origin into multiplicity, the very first
thing that happens is the icchA (Wish, Desire) and the
Love-pair. So also, at the very end of the sAdhanA for  the
involution of the jIva into the Source,  the sAdhakA goes
through the nAyikA stage just before the last stage of the Union
with the Supreme. That is the stage of identity with Shakti.
That is when there is an anguish for union with the nAyaka, that
is, Shivam.  It is in that anguish one surrenders totally with
the attitude: “I am incapable of doing anything. It is all Your
Wish”.

 Then even that desire to merge in Shiva disappears and there
remains only the Will of the Lord. In other words, the
involution that the jIva made with deliberate effort merges in
that first evolution of Shiva. At that point, as far as that
jIva is concerned, Shiva Himself, without expanding in
evolution, involutes within Himself and receives the jIva into
Him. Think of a flood of flowing water. Put some object  into
it. The waves will toss it back and forth and push it over to
the bank. This is natural. But when there is a great vortex in
the current, it takes the object into itself and consumes it.
This is what happens here also.

(In the above paragraph Ra Ganapathi in his Tamil version 
does not use any Tamil or Indian language word 
for ‘Involution’ and ‘Evolution’. 
Obviously, the Paramacharya himself must have used
 these english words only. – VK)

The first ‘wish’ of Shiva, and the last ‘wish’ of the jIva
together coalesce into a symbolic Love here! We can get
confirmations for this from the songs of great devotees across
the world and acoss religions. The songs of Manickavasagar and
Mirabhai have excellent parallels in the songs of Sufi Saints
and Christian mystics. It is all an experience of Yoga, jnAna
and PremA.  

Though we have said that it is the ‘wish of Shiva’ and ‘wish of
jIva’ , it is all only the cit-movement of ambaal only. Only
when the complete merger has taken place it is shivam. So when
we say that He takes something into Him, that action itself is
Hers only.

I just talked about the highest yoga-experiences that occur in
the path of bhakti. Without going into yogic sAdhanA or tAntric
sAdhanA, if one follows the bhakti path with the attitude: “All
this is beyond me, Oh Mother, You are my Refuge”, then even the
self-pride that ‘I am doing a great sAdhanA’ will not arise. The
Mother Herself will lift up even the lowliest and grant him  the
highest experience.

One might feel let down that he cannot get that flow of nectar
from the full moonlight-glow that occurs when the prANa-shakti
reaches the thousand-petalled lotus called sahasrAra. One need
not regret the absence of this experience.
‘pariNata-candra-vadanA’ says the sloka 7. That full-moon-face
is easy to be kept in mind. Stick to it. Think of the nectar
flowing from the graceful glance from those eyes and the nectar
of the blissful smile of that face . She gives you what you
thought about and grants you the internal light of the moon and
an internal flow of nectar.
(To be Continued)

PraNAms to all advaitins and Devotees of Mother Goddess
Profvk
 




=====
Prof. V. Krishnamurthy
My website on Science and Spirituality is http://www.geocities.com/profvk/
You can  access my book on Gems from the Ocean of Hindu Thought Vision and Practice,  and my father R. Visvanatha Sastri's manuscripts from the site.