Indic Wisdom: Tasmaat Yogi Bhav…

Who doesn’t wish to be wise? Why wisdom is valued most? Both these queries may be answered in several ways in different contexts. But there is one universal context to which everyone can relate and ascertain why wisdom (Vivek) is an essential need of human beings.

All of us know individually as well as collectively that our physical appearances have to disappear someday, but there is an ‘intrinsic emotion’(aatm-Vivek) which doesn’t give up; it somehow assures us that ‘Will to live’ is deeper than these recurring events of one’s physically appearing (taking birth) and disappearing(dying). Wisdom (aatm-anaatm-Vivek) is needed to know the nature of ultimate truth that can be realised during the period of our being in this human frame by ascertaining the reality of aforesaid intrinsic emotion.

But before we attain to ultimate wisdom, we may begin by asking simple questions about it, such as, what do we mean by it in common parlance? Though Vivek is untranslatable in the English language in its entirety yet, in common communications, supreme consciousness, wisdom, knowledge, equanimity, discernment, perception, judiciousness etc. are utilised to mean/translate as Vivek.

Vivek (wisdom) is an unimaginably enormous phenomenon. Even if one writes about it throughout one’s life and in consecutive lives, still it remains undescribed in its entirety. More you write about it, more the portals so far undescribed and unknown keep appearing before you; the journey of revelations is infinite. The expanse that encompasses the purport of the Vivek is endless in reality. And, the route to realise its entire (eternal) purport goes through yog and meditation.

And, glimpses in the lives of seers/yogis/wise make it amply evident. And witnessing the spectacle at United Nations that how most of the nations of our contemporary world readily agreed to celebrate international yoga Day makes one hopeful that someday whole humanity will grasp the real and ultimate meaning of yog and dhyaan (meditation) as well as its rightful place in life.

Bharat-Bhumi (India) has kept the real light of yog flickering, hoping that with the spreading of this light more and more through the incidents of individual awakening (Vivek), one day whole humanity will discover its intrinsic value. And it will definitely put humanity on an entirely unprecedented feat in terms of unified collective consciousness.

It has been observed that the ones who have realise the value of yog in their own life, they somehow become instrumental in imparting its value to others. There has never been an exception in this observation, only the scale of impact varies across individuals. We all know that the Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi, follows yog in his daily life. And, it he alone who had proposed the idea of an International Yoga Day during his speech at the United Nations General Assembly on 27th September 2014 and the proposal was cosponsored by 177 countries. And since 2015 it is celebrated on 21st June across the globe.

There is no doubt about it that celebrating Internal Yoga Day will help a lot in spreading the awareness about yog across the globe and, in course of time through their own Vivek (sense of self-interest), people will discover its deeper aspects which lie beyond its commonly perceived aspects of physical and psychological well-being. However, looking from a yogic point of view, it seems a bit strange to note that while yog itself is a means, medium and conduit through which awareness emanates among human hearts despite that, it is requiring awareness about itself among human beings.

In an eternal sense, Yog is attaining that stage of seeing at which the supreme consciousness mirrors itself through the yogi, utilising the yogi’s pure mind as a mirror. At the aforesaid stage of seeing the ego of the yogi gets fully sublimated(krit-kruty), the realisation dawns upon him/her that the mirror (yogi/he/she) is also constituted of the same consciousness which is looking at itself. In our life, endeavour and spectacle of meditation(dhyaan) appear as a component of yog in attaining that stage of seeing in which the individual self merges/sublimated/annihilated and only the consciousness is seen by the consciousness reflecting/mirroring itself. Yog is practised/lived under the guidance of a living person whom in Indic spiritual tradition we have been identifying by the upaadhi(title) -guru from the very beginning(dwait). Maryada (etiquette) ordains that none claims or declares oneself the guru. Readers may rightly ask if none declares oneself as a guru, how will one know who one is a guru?

(The writer is the propounder of Sahaj Smriti Yog System of Self Realisation. Founder Darpan Foundation @ Bengaluru, Karnataka and Darpan Ashram@ Urigam, Krishnagiri Distt, Tamil Nādu)