[Advaita-l] Karma yoga: the kinder, softer preparation for self-inquiry and surrender

[Ven Balakrishnan]

Dear H S Chandramouli

My apologies, I cannot read Sanskrit, so pease could you translate the two definitions of DSV that you give.

Bhagavan’s Ulladu Narpadu is essentially from the perspective of DSV - so for example v26:
“If the ego comes into existence, everything will come into existence. If the ego does not exist, everything will not exist. Hence the ego itself is everything. Therefore know that scrutinising ‘what is this ego?” Is alone giving up everything."

Though ultimately he subscribed to ajata vada, he felt DSV was more easily understood by seekers.

In GVK he / Muruganar writes:

534 Let highly mature and courageous aspirants who have a bright and sharp intellect, firmly accept that soul is only one and thereby be established deep in the Heart. It is only to suit immature minds that scriptures generally say that jivas are many.

In a conversation with Chadwick, recorded in “Living by the Words of Bhagavan”:
“The world does not say that it was created in the collective mind or in the individual mind.  It only appears in your small mind. If your mind gets destroyed, there will be no world”.

Bhagavan's self-enquiry is not strictly a method or practice, which is why he doesn’t give detailed procedures.  It is best laid out I think in his essay Nan Yar? (who am I) - which I recommend.  His advice is to turn attention away from external objects, and rather to attend to the ‘I’ that sees and thinks.  Every thought, every sense perception, every desire / fear, is not true, not real.  So he says to investigate the originator of the thought - and see if there is anything firm that can be grasped hold of as I.  In this process, which is essentially the vedantic application of knowledge neti neti, one discards all attachments, including the body-mind as not “I”, until all that is left is existence-consciousness - in which one abides.  So in one of his talks he said:

"If you withdraw your mind completely from the world and turn it within and abide thus, that is, if you keep awake always to the Self, which is the Substratum of all experience, you will find the world, of which alone you are now aware, just as unreal as the world in which you lived in your dream.”



Best wishes,

venkat