What is the best way to become stronger and more focused? Not everyone is superhuman but that need not stop us from trying to rise above our normal potential. By developing superhuman powers we can awaken the element of eternal humanity in us, Brahmn or Universal Consciousness. To attain this power, meanness must be shunned, because this is sadhana for the Infinite.
Feelings of differentiation are a great impediment. So stop thinking of people as being this or that -- he is a Muslim, another a Hindu, yet another a Brahmin – for all such identification comes from mean thoughts. When every living being is a manifestation of Brahmn, how can you know yourself, without shedding these differentiating feelings? No one is high and no one is low. Of course, according to one’s virtues and vices one is happy, miserable, rich, or poor; one is a fool and another is erudite, but all are fundamentally human beings. Therefore it is better not to differentiate between people.
There is a story in the Mahabharata. Both Yudhisthira and Duryodhana had invited Krishna to their respective houses for dinner. While on his way there, Krishna entered the house of Vidura. Vidura was not home. Vidura’s wife became nervous on the sudden appearance of Krishna. She did not know how to receive him properly. Moreover, there was no food in the house except for bananas. Therefore, after washing His feet she seated him and began to feed him the bananas.
When Sage Vidura returned home, he saw Krishna sitting and his wife, fully absorbed in her hospitality, was feeding him the peel of the bananas. Krishna was eating so happily, that it seemed as if he had never tasted a more delicious food. Vidura was greatly troubled at the folly of his wife and asked: “What are you doing? You are feeding banana skins to Krishna instead of banana fruit!” Vidura’s wife was taken aback and started apologising. Vidura also implored. “O Lord, Thou hast taken a good many banana skins; do kindly oblige this poor woman by taking a few bananas.” But Krishna said, “Vidura! My stomach is full now. These banana-skins had such an exquisite flavour that there could be no superior food. So long as your wife, forgetting all differences, was feeding me, ‘I’ was not there, but now that the difference between the banana and its skin has intervened, ‘I’ is there.”
Shankaracharya was an erudite scholar. No doubt he was a great advaitist, yet there was a lack of full harmony between his principles and practices. Once after having a dip in the Ganga at Kashi, he was walking toward the road and he saw an ‘untouchable’ walking with a number of dogs. For fear that his body might be touched, he tried to bypass them. He even asked the man to stay away from his path. To which the ‘untouchable’ said: “O Lord! Is this the result of your principle that there is only Brahmn and nothing else? You are known as a Brahmajṋani. Yet you differentiate between you and me.”
The Supreme Brahmn resides within the feeling ‘I am’ situated amidst the concealed intuition of the mind. Our existence is in Him. Due to Him the perception of the world is possible. Having created our ego and scattered innumerable toys around us. He has hidden Himself among them. When we come to see Him in all things created by Him, our ego gets lost. The feeling of unit ‘I’ shall be merged in the Universal ‘I’.
COMMENT