IN THE VORTEX OF MAYA
“Ka te kanta kaste putrah
Samsaro’yamateeva vichitrah
Kasya tvam kah kuta ayatatah
Tattvam cintaya tadiha bhratah (8)
Who is your wife? Who is your son? Very strange indeed is this ‘samsara’ (family bond). Whom you belong to? Who are you? From where have you come? Oh, brother! Reflect on the truth of it all.
Sandeep: “Sir, is the Acharya talking here about Maya?”
Anandavardhan: “Yes. A legend is there in which sage Narada once approached Krishna and said: “Lord, show me Maya.” After a few days, Krishna asked Narada to join him on a trip to a desert. They started, and after walking for several miles, Krishna said: “Narada, I feel very thirsty. Can you fetch me some water?”
“Sure, master. I will go and get water for you.”
Narada went in search of water. After covering some distance, he found a village. He went there and reached a house. He knocked at the door. After a few minutes, the door opened, and he found a beautiful girl standing in front. When he looked at her, Narada forgot everything else, including his purpose of reaching there.
He started to talk with her. Hours passed like that, and Narada failed to return to his master, who was waiting for drinking water.
The following day, he again went to the lass and spent time with her. Their talk ripened into love; Narada asked the girl’s father for her hand. He agreed, and they were married. Narada started living there itself. Over time, three children were born to them.
Twelve years went by. His father-in-law died, and Narada inherited his property. He lived a happy and contented life with his wife and the children, looking after their fields, herd of cattle, and so forth. Then one day, there came a flood. The nearby river rose until it overflowed its banks and inundated the entire village. Houses got immersed in incessant flood water. Men and animals were swept away and drowned.
Narada wanted to escape with his dear ones. Getting hold of his wife with one hand, two children with the other, and perching the youngest on his shoulder, he tried to move forward, wading through the rising flood water. After a few steps, he found the current was too strong to withstand. The child on his shoulder fell into the water and got instantly swept away.
A cry of despair arose from Narada. He found that he also was losing his balance, and in the attempt to save the other kids, they slipped from his grasp and flew away. At last, his beloved wife, whom he clasped with all his might, was also mercilessly torn away by the current, and he got thrown on the bank. He wept and wailed in bitter lamentation and utter helplessness.
Behind him, now there came a gentle voice: “My child, where is the water? You went to fetch me a pitcher of water, and I have been waiting for you for the past half an hour”.
Narada, who came to his senses, exclaimed: “Half an hour!?” Twelve long years have passed through his mind, and all these scenes had happened in half an hour!!
Krishna smiled and asked: “Where is your wife? Where are your children? What happened to them, Narada? What happened to the property and the cattle you inherited, my boy?”
Krishna continued: “A few days ago, you wanted me to show Maya; and you lived through it.”
The world we live in is Maya. As observed by Swami Vivekananda, who narrated the above story (CW 2: 120–121), we are all slaves of Maya, born in Maya, and live in Maya. It is against this backdrop Adi Sankara’s words and questions become relevant.
Who is your beloved? Who is your son? Very strange and enigmatic is the world and the bond of relationships we cherish. After all, whom do you belong to and who you are? From where did you appear in this world? Sankara, addresses the listener as a brother, and suggests to reflect on these things. The wife and children — none of them was born with you, and none of them would die with you. Nobody accompanies you in birth or death.
You had perhaps never met your wife before marrying her. On a fine day, a lady from somewhere became your better half, your life partner. Who will die first, and then what happens? Who can predict life? As passengers traveling together in a train compartment meeting for the first time, sharing and caring for one another for some time, when your station to disembark arrives, you leave them all. Is not marital and other relationships also like that? Just reflect on it, my brother; think over the truth of this transitory life journey.
And think of your son. Just consider your relationship with him. You became a father after his birth. Before his birth, where was he? In his mother’s womb, as an embryo. Before that? There was this sperm within you and the ovum within your wife. From where did these two come? From the food, both of you ate. And the source of that food? The earth. That means a lump of earth was transformed and evolved through different stages to become the food, the sperm, the ovum, the embryo, the fetus, and the child you call your son. The same is the transitional story behind your birth as well. In other words, we all came from Earth and will return to Earth.
Sankara is saying: One lump of transformed earth is calling another lump of earth its own, and they love and care for each other as if they came together and would go back together. Can anything be stranger than this? A bizarre play of Maya indeed.
Who am I?
Ramana Maharshi clarified and answered the question: “Who am I?” The purpose of asking this question is to withdraw the mind from wandering in the outer world and to make it dive deep into one’s Self. The monkey mind, nothing but a bundle of thoughts, will eventually vanish through constant meditation on the question: Who am I?
Why we are unhappy in life? Sri Ramana maintains that this is because we fail to appreciate our true nature, which is happiness and is inborn in the True Self. The reality is that the constant urge of all of us to secure happiness in life is an unconscious search for our True Self.
We are our minds, and the mind consists of thoughts. ‘I’ thought is the first thought produced by the mind. When the ‘I’ thought is earnestly pursued by the inquiry ‘Who am I?’ and followed up, all the other thoughts will get destroyed. Finally, the ‘I’ thought also will disappear, leaving the supreme non-dual ‘Self’ alone. The false identification of the Self with the phenomenon of non-self, viz., the body and the mind, thus ends, and there is illumination (sakshatkara).
For the mind that has acquired the skill to concentrate, self-inquiry is relatively easy. The thoughts are destroyed by ceaseless inquiry, and the Self stands realized. All living beings long to be happy at all times, without any misery. There is observed supreme love for oneself within everyone. And happiness alone is the cause of love. Therefore, to gain that happiness, which is one’s nature and which we all experience in the state of deep sleep where there’s no mind, one should seek to know oneself. To achieve this, the Path of Knowledge, the inquiry in the form of ‘who am I’, is the principal means.
Through the verse, Sri Sankara is suggesting not to confuse the body, which is perishable, with the soul, which is imperishable, and not to be a victim of attachments. Kattopanishad says: “Paraanchi khani vyatrinat swayambhuhu, tasmat paraan pashyati naantaratman……. (2.4.1). It means, God has created the sense organs as outward-bound and therefore the human mind can engage itself in the objects of the outer world only.Therefore, if you want to know who you are, redirect your attention and concentrate on the inner Self. When that is actualized, all the delusions and illusions will vanish forever.
DR. K R S Nair
https://www.amazon.com/ART-MAN-MAKING-Vol-1-Philosophy-Man-Making-ebook/dp/B0B2KLPBS7/
