Blessings indeed to have heard Swami Ishvarananda's talk on "Selected verses from Gita'' on the 72nd Aradhana of Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi, held at Fremont, CA.
To start off, there were three chants of OM and right then we knew Swami Ishvarananda (Swamiji here onwards) was in a different league. The first OM seemed to go on and on, and the second one, I was curious and counted how many breaths I had to take for Swamiji's one! (easily five breaths). Swamiji had a majestic voice and yet again like every other swamiji talk we have been hearing, did not have one hesitation, one rephrasing, one correction to make. The whole talk was one majestic message that everyone should realize and proclaim "Aham Brahma Asmi".
A devotee of Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi had asked him to select important verses from Bhagavad Gita and Bhagavan selected 40 (or 42, I keep seeing different lists) verses in a particular order. Swamiji said he has chosen 4 out of that to discuss today.
He started with the Mangala Stotra:
pārtha sārathi rūpena srāvayitvā subhām giram | pārthasyārtiharo devah kṛpāmoortih sa patu nah ||
May the Supreme Lord who, as an embodiment of compassion appeared in the form of a charioteer to Arjuna and removed the distress of Arjuna by instructing him in words leading ultimately to Self-realisation and liberation, protect us all
Then he started with the first verse which when someone had asked Bhagavan what is the ONE MOST IMPORTANT verse of BG according to him, bhagavan said bg 10.20.
अहमात्मा गुडाकेश सर्वभूताशयस्थित: | अहमादिश्च मध्यं च भूतानामन्त एव च ||
O Gudakesha, I am seated in the heart of all living entities. I am the beginning, middle, and end of all beings.
The next verse he chose is one of our all time favorties, bg 2.16.
नासतो विद्यते भावो नाभावो विद्यते सत: | उभयोरपि दृष्टोऽन्तस्त्वनयोस्तत्त्वदर्शिभि: ||
Of the transient there is no endurance, and of the eternal there is no cessation. This has verily been observed and concluded by the seers of the Truth, after studying the nature of both.
From then on, the third verse for discussion was bg 18.61.
ईश्वर: सर्वभूतानां हृद्देशेऽर्जुन तिष्ठति | भ्रामयन्सर्वभूतानि यन्त्रारूढानि मायया ||
The Supreme Lord dwells in the hearts of all living beings, O Arjuna. According to their karmas, He directs the wanderings of the souls, who are seated on a machine made of material energy.
Culminating with bg 18.62. (these two 18.61 & 18.62 are the last two shlokas in Bhagavan's list as well).
तमेव शरणं गच्छ सर्वभावेन भारत | तत्प्रसादात्परां शान्तिं स्थानं प्राप्स्यसि शाश्वतम् ||
Surrender exclusively unto Him with your whole being, O Bharat. By His grace, you will attain perfect peace and the eternal abode.
To be honest, it did not look like a talk with four shlokas, rather it was just one continuous talk and each shloka seemed like an appropriate quote in the right point.
Okay, now on to some interesting anecdotes that Swamiji narrated.
[अहमात्मा] The main realization that we need to have is that the same brahma is in each one of us.
[नासतो विद्यते भावो नाभावो विद्यते सत:]
Adi Shankaracharya also said "Brahma satyam jagat mithya" ... but the order is equally important. It is only after realizing "Brahma sathyam" that from that standpoint one can then declare the world as Mithya.
The "sat" is which is true and real. The "asat" is which is untrue. Truth never goes away. Untruth never even appears.
Swamiji (being a Tamil native) gave two nice tamil words that are derived from "Sat" (truth). The tamil phrase "sethu poittar" means "this person is dead". "sethu" => dead. That is derived from "sat is gone".
He also mentioned that someone is called a fool with the word "Asadu" - which is also loose transmorphing of "Asat".
Swamiji beautifully described the flowchart of bg 2.62 and bg 2.63 (ध्यायतो विषयान्पुंस: .. onwards) of how it is thoughts that when given seriousness and we take it to be real, that we dwell on it, that we give our vasanas a chance to act on it. That is the point at which we are supposed to cut it off. When the thought arises, tell yourself that it is temporary, it is not real. Even the mind which is creating thoughts is not real - it is also temporary.
The sense objects are made to perceive differences. Hence we see multiple colors, forms; hence we hear multiple sounds; we taste multiple food types.
Swamiji said "Coke" and he said, now some of you will have an urge to have a drink. Some of you might already be contemplating and now it will be stronger. if I have never had coke, or if I didnt like it, then I wouldn't pay attention. I will say, forget it and move on. But if you give it more thought, then it will grow on you.
So don't blame the sense objects; it is their very nature to be that way. The problem is not with the world but with one's own.
He mentioned the three realities that we deal with. We never discard the other realities but we know that it is temporary and not to be taken seriously.
Transactional reality Perceptual reality Absolute reality
He gave the example of how in a dream world, everything is real. But we know it is temporary only after we wake up.
He gave another example of when he was walking via Bombay airport customs with a friend and they were passing through the duty free shop. Even while Swamiji was talking, the friend disappeared to the "spiritual" section. Swamiji asked : why was I not affected and he was? The path is the same, the shop is the same, the bottle and the contents inside are the same and both of us saw it.
A great point nicely illustrated! One gave it more serious thought and another did not.
Swamiji also joked about the "Perceptual reality" of how we think other people are sometimes not behaving as we want. Swamiji astutely asked, forget about controlling other people's mind, see if you can first control your mind.
He quoted Swami Chinmayananda too: Some people have problems; some people are problems.
Yet another example of how we accept "untrue reality" in transactional world. The sky is blue .. but sky has no color. We see sun-rise and sun-set .. the sun doesn't rise/set, it is the Earth that spins. But we happily go about using these phrases , examples but with the true understanding.
The Gnani lives this way. Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi lived this way.
He concluded the talk with the message of how everything happens by Lord's divine will (beautiful phrase: yanrtra arudani) as though it is a wheel in motion. Each thought that comes up, we ask : can this be for loka kalyanam? (for the good of the world), if so, do it. Otherwise discard it as temporary thought. Flowing from this to the next shloka (bg 18.62), do everything as an offering to me and accept whatever you get as a Prasadha for a happy life.
After the talk was over, during lunch time, my wife, Lavanyaa had a question to the swamiji : There is so much war happening and so many people are suffering. How can we help them all? Sometimes we feel guilty and helpless.
Swamiji's answer: Think about a Doctor. They see so many patients with so many diseases. If they get intimately involved with each patient they will not be able to help them well. The doctor has to help them all with a steady yet compassionate mind and understanding. So in this case, we do our best with the right mindset.
It was a very blissful experience that we didn't realize that one hour had passed.
Great to meet Ashish, Rajesh/Preethi and Kishore/Preethi. Please kindly add your notes too to this.
Hari OM!