Spiritual (Story) Message for the Day – The Importance of Right Approach by Sri Swami Sivananda
Baba Times Digest© | 17 November 2014 14.41 EST | New York Edition
The Importance of Right Approach
Divine Life Society Publication: Importance of Satsanga and Guru-Bhakti by Sri Swami Sivananda
If Satsanga is the supreme factor in the unfoldment of one’s spiritual consciousness, why is it that each and every aspirant that comes to a Guru does not receive the same illumination and the same mark of illumination, the same fruition of his Sadhana upon the path of Yoga? Lord Krishna lived and had his wonderful divine life in Dvapara Yuga and He was the visible manifestation of the Supreme Lord and among the people who constantly moved with Him who had His company, who spoke to Him and had dealings with Him, there were some who had the intimate knowledge of His Divine nature and became blessed, and there were some who remained unchanged and they perished in the great war which was Lord Krishna’s own making. What is this wonderful thing? It is, in one word, the approach. The approach of the Jiva, the approach of the individual soul, is the factor that decides whether the Satsanga of a seeker becomes fulfilled in realisation or fruitless in its barrenness. For, when the Kauravas approached Krishna, their approach was one of Dosha-drishti. They were blind to all the good that was in the Lord and their entire vision was focussed upon the seeming, apparent defects. The Lord moves with His Yoga-Maya and Yoga-Maya is the mysterious indefinable Prakriti. If our attention is focussed upon Prakriti, then the light of the Atman is lost upon us. It is the mode of approach of the soul that decides the benefit that he can derive from the Satsanga.
The Classic Example of Yudhishthira and Duryodhana
Krishna sends both these people upon a mission. The mission that He gives to Yudhishthira is, “You try to go and get a man totally bad, completely devoid of any virtue, completely full of vices;” and He calls aside Duryodhana and says, “You try to get a person who is full of virtues, devoid of any defects.” Both of them go on their mission, and after a period of time, they both come back to Krishna and approach Him separately. Duryodhana says, “I have tried my best to find a man full of virtues and devoid of defects, but try as much as I could—I have gone everywhere—I could not find a man who was without defect. Everyone is full of defects. If he has one virtue, he has a dozen evils. And after making a thorough search, I find that the man without the least defect is no other than myself. I am the man, and therefore I have come to you, and therefore do what you want with me.” Krishna smiles and says, “This is very good. I am really glad to see a man with all virtues and no vice.”
Yudhishthira says, “O Lord, even in the worst felon, even in the man whom the world calls the worst, I find qualities which are worthy of being emulated, I find traits which are good, and therefore, try as much as I could, I could not find any person who was full of defects. Each one has got some good point. It is impossible to find a man full of defects, and I analysed myself and I find that I am so full of defects, imperfections and vices that I cannot find a more suitable man to present to you. I am the only person who can fulfil the description you have given me. So I have presented myself before you.”
Use and Misuse of the Fault-finding Faculty
These are the two methods of approach. Yudhishthira’s approach was the approach of the aspirant in whom the fault-finding nature is directed not outside, but within himself. Fault-finding is the worst canker that dwells in human nature. It is universal. But then, the seekers form a special class by themselves. They are not one among the many. They are a distinct fraternity who have begun to see the importance of correcting oneself and not correcting the world, who have begun to see the importance of analysing oneself and trying to improve, and not analysing the world, for if you are going to analyse the world, thousands of lives are not enough to find out its defects. For a Viveki, the world is full of imperfection. Perfection is in the Deity, in Parabrahman. Perfection is not in the work of Prakriti. Prakriti is the very antithesis of Brahman. If Brahman is supreme perfection, Prakriti is all imperfection. If Brahman is Light, Prakriti is all darkness. The world of Prakriti is Apoorna, full of Doshas. Therefore, thousands of lives are not enough if we get ourselves caught in fault-finding. So, this faculty has to be directed towards oneself. Then only one’s life gets transformed, and infinite scope is opened out to you to improve yourself and become better. But, if this faculty is turned outside, the entire world becomes to you a teacher of evil. For, that upon which you constantly fix your mind becomes the sustenance of your personality. Your personality feeds upon, and grows and develops into, those things whose mental pictures the mind holds. This is a psychological fact. If you always contemplate on perfection, if you contemplate on beauty, if you contemplate on peace, you grow into the likeliness of perfection, beauty and peace. If you hold before yourself thoughts of imperfection, ugliness and gloom, you will find everything so. If you always think of the biting cold of the Himalayas, the beauty of the snows will be lost for you. You see the beauty of the Full Moon day, but if at the same time you are thinking of the other side of the moon, that circle of intense blackness, blackness will be in your mind and heart and not the radiance of the Full Moon. The fault-finding nature is the greatest obstacle, because it forever ties down the seeker to his lower Prakriti, to his defective Prakriti and he takes with him to the feet of the Guru, into the sanctuary of Yoga, into the pure spiritual path, that nature of the mind which has made him ever tied down to the lower sensual life of defects; and if this mind is taken to the sacred sanctuary of Yoga, instead of becoming the receiver of light, he will become the hugger of darkness, for he has taken hold of his Prakriti and he would not allow himself to let go out of it, and what happens? The light of the Guru, the light of Yoga, is completely barred out of his head, because his impregnable wall of Dosha-drishti is within him, and-therefore, to ward off that danger, the ancients gave him the Upadesh:
Yasya deve parabhaktih yatha deve tatha gurau,
Tasyaite kathita hyarthah prakasante mahatmanah.
To that great soul in whom there is extreme devotion to the Highest Divinity, God, and equal devotion to the Guru as there is to God, to that soul all the truths of the scriptures become revealed. And therefore, deification of the Guru has been specially put as a condition prerequisite for approaching the spiritual preceptor in order to avoid this grave error of Dosha-drishti in the aspirant. If this error is removed, the iron wall is removed between the seeker and the perfected sage, and the grace of the Guru begins to flow to the disciple. You immerse a stone in the sea for ten thousand years, yet at the end you will find that the stone is the same stone which it was ten thousand years ago. The millions of tons of water that flowed on it did not change it, because it had made itself completely impervious to the influence of water. It is this nature of the aspirant, where he is satisfied with his own little knowledge and little personality, with all its self-assertive nature, with all its Rajasic tendency of clinging to its own pre-conceived notions, to its own pet conceptions—it is this that is the greatest bar to the fruition of Satsanga into the highest Sat-darshan. As long as the aspirant would cling firmly to his own old nature and refuse to admit the need of a change in himself, so long the Satsanga becomes absolutely barren of result. The aspirant must effect a change of attitude. He must accept, “I know less, the Guru knows more; I know less, and the saint has something to give me which I do not know.” That attitude is the greatest requisite for the fruition of Satsanga.
Excerpts from: The Importance of Right Approach - Importance of Satsanga and Guru-Bhakti by Sri Swami Sivananda
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