I
After describing two
principal means of controlling the thought waves, abhyasa, practice, and
vairagya, renunciation, Patanjali states that success is speedy for those who
are extremely energetic and have great intensity or yearning.1
He is more pragmatic when he
says that there are aspirants with three grades of yearning: manda, madhyama
and adhimatra, i.e., mild, moderate or great.2 This could apply to both practice and renunciation. Some
may be intense in their practice, but their renunciation might be mild. Others
may have great renunciation, but may not be so intense in their practice. Thus,
Vyas in his commentary mentions that there could be various degrees and combinations.
Intensity or yearning for
God-realization is also one of the most important teachings of Sri Ramakrishna.
When ‘M’ asked Sri Ramakrishna, ‘Under what condition does one see God?’ he
answered: ‘Cry to God with an intensively yearning heart and you will certainly
see Him. People shed a whole jug of tears for wife and children. They swim in
tears for money. But, who weeps for God? Cry to Him with a real cry.’3
Sri Ramakrishna gives
various illustrations to explain the meaning of yearning:
As the drowning man pants hard for breath, so must one’s
heart yearn for the Lord, before one can find Him.4
Do you know what kind of love is required for gaining the
Lord? Just as a dog with a bruised head runs restlessly, so must one become distressed
for His sake.5
This yearning is like the state of mind of a man who has
some one ill in the family. His mind is in a state of perpetual restlessness .
. . Or again, one should feel a yearning for God like the yearning of a man who
has lost his job and is wandering from one office to another in search of work.
If he is rejected at a certain place which has no vacancy, he goes there for
the next day and inquires, ‘Is there any vacancy today?’6
One must be restless for God. If a son clamors persistently
for his share of the property, his parents consult each other and give it to
him even though he is a minor.7
Or when the child demands some pice from his mother and
says over and over again, ‘mother, give me a couple of pice, I beg you on my
knees’, then the mother, seeing his earnestness, and unable to bear it any
more, tosses the money over to him.8
Can you weep for Him with intense longing of heart? . . .
So long as the child remains engrossed with its toys, the mother looks after
her cooking and other household duties. But when the child no longer relishes
the toys, it throws them aside and yells for its mother. Then the mother takes the
rice-pot down from the hearth, runs in haste, and takes the child in her arms.9
A guru took a disciple to a lake and both of them got
into the water. Suddenly the teacher pressed the disciple’s head under the
water. After a few minutes, he released him and the disciple raised his head
and stood up. The guru, asked him, ‘How did you feel?’ The disciple said, ‘Oh!
I thought I should die. I was panting for breath.’ The teacher said, ‘When you
feel like that for God, then you will know you haven’t long to wait for His
vision.’10
While commenting upon the
Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra I.21, dealing with intensity, Hariharananda Aranya, the
well-known commentator on Yoga Sutras, gives two very apt examples: Just as a
whipped horse moves faster and just as man hurries his steps at the approaching
night in a forest for fear of wild animals which would come out at night, so should
one become intense in search for God.
Swami
Vivekananda has given yet another example:
A great sage used to say, ‘Suppose there is a thief in a room and somehow
he comes to know that there is a vast mass of gold in the next room, and that
there is only a thin partition between the two rooms, what would be the
condition of that thief? He would be sleepless, he would be unable to eat or do
anything.’11
To these can be added the
illustration given by Adi Shankaracharaya of a person who runs with haste
towards water if fire were put on his head. With such intensity, should one
approach the Guru for help and guidance for attaining liberation.
II
We have, thus, many
illustrations of yearning for God: a drowning man panting for air, a dog with a
bruised head, the state of mind of one who has someone ill at home, a person
who has lost a job, a son clamoring for his share of parental property, a child
demanding a penny from the mother, a child crying for mother throwing away
toys, a whipped horse, a man in forest hurrying his steps as night approaches,
a man with fire on head, and a thief near a treasure of gold.
On analysis, these
illustrations point broadly to three situations: (i) a person in agony
and getting restless to get over it, (ii) although not in discomfort,
seeking something more pleasing or desirable, and (iii) trying to avoid
or escape an imminent danger. A dog, with bruised head, a disciple with fire on
the head, a person who has lost his job or is having someone ill in the family,
a person drowning or pressed under water, and a horse whipped, fall under the
first category. A child crying for the mother, or asking a penny from her, and
a thief anxious to get the treasure
close by, are the illustrations of the second type; and to avoid being caught
at night in the forest is of the third type.
While all in the world are
familiar with these three types of experiences mentioned above, they are
relevant in the context of this article and its theme only if they could be
utilized for increasing one’s yearning for God, or for intensifying the
practice and renunciation to achieve control of thought waves. But this does
not generally happen.
Most of us are busy with
‘toys’, one after the other, and never get bored by them, nor throw them away
and call on God, our Real Mother. Warning against such callousness, the sages say:
‘If one has realized It (one’s real nature) here in this life, then there is
true life. If It is not realized, there is great destruction.’12
All get whips—mild or hard
every day— in family, office or worldly situation and yet try to ‘adjust’ with
them rather than hastening our steps towards God. Even though getting old and
getting closer to death day by day, we never become conscious of the imminent danger
that we are in the world-forest and would be caught in the dark night. The
divine golden treasure is just within our hearts, but we don’t get restless
like a thief. None has probably told us that a great treasure is indeed stored
within us only—it is so close. Even if Sri
Ramakrishna tells us that the treasure, the Divine Mother is so close, we
probably don’t trust or accept his words and become restless.
Says Vivekananda:
As soon as a man begins to believe there is a God, he
becomes mad with longing to get to Him. Others may go their way but as soon as
a man is sure that there is a much higher life than that which he is leading
here, as soon as he feels sure that the senses are not all, that this limited material
body is as nothing compared with the immortal, eternal, undying bliss of the
self, he becomes mad until he finds out this bliss for himself. And this
madness, this thirst, this mania, is what is called the ‘awakening’ to religion
. . .13
A true yogi, an awakened
soul is never lured by transitory joys and pleasures of life. His mind is
extremely sensitive—like the cornea. Like the Buddha, he never rests until he
has found final solution to the problem of suffering. According to Patanjali, a
yogi finds/sees pain and suffering even in the apparently pleasant.14 Such was the
Buddha.
Although he never
experienced pain and suffering in his royal home, he was so sensitive that the
very sight of three scenes of old age, disease and death brought home to him so
strongly these imminent dangers that he left everything and struggled till he
attained Nirvana total extinction of suffering.
We have already seen that
there could be grades of such yearning or intensity. It could be mild, moderate
or intense.15 Sri Ramakrishna too says that one could reach God even within
three days if one has intense yearning and weeps for Him. The task before all
spiritual aspirants is to go on increasing the yearning for God in whichever
way they can.
References
1. Teevra Samvegaanaam aasannah, (Patanjali
YogaSutra I, 21)
2. Patanjali Yoga Sutra, I, 22
3. The Gospel of Sri
Ramakrishna, Sri Ramakrishna Math, Chennai, p. 83
4. Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Ramakrishna
Math,Chennai, 620
5. Ibid, 627
6. The Gospel, p.96
7. Ibid, p.384
8. Ibid, p.97
9. Ibid, p.149
10. The Gospel, p.674
11. The Complete Works of
Swami Vivekananda, Advaita Ashrama, Mayavati. Vol. II p.46
12. Kena Upanishad, II, 5
13. The Complete Works, Vol. II p.46
14. Patanjali Yoga Sutra, II.15
15. Patanjali Yoga Sutra, I-22
