The Ascetic Fire of Spiritual Knowledge

Transcript ~ The Ascetic Fire of Spiritual Knowledge

Answers to Questions by Sri Raghavan Iyer

Tapas means to think gratefully of all those who made it possible for you to put body and soul together.

Professor Raghavan N. Iyer

From the Ageless Wisdom Series

Crosbie Hall, 1980

The first three questions are interrelated, very closely. How can we learn from pain? How can suffering be pure? How to do tapas for others?

Well, presumably the third is very painful. It’s painful to have to do tapas for oneself. But to take on, you know, everyone else’s as well, presumably it’s going to be even more tough, even more painful. You’re going to be meditating not only for your own sake, but for the sake of every human being. That’s a very tough job. So it’s very difficult. And Kilian’s question is about detachment, vairagya, indifference to pleasure and to pain.

Now, the fourth question relates to what starts everything. It’s a starting point that is very difficult—vairagya, detachment. Because unless you can have a certain minimum detachment from your self-image, from external conditions, from sights and sounds, from ideas and words, from emotions, from memories of the past, from fantasies about the future, from anxieties in the present, unless you can have a minimum, just a bit of detachment, you cannot really begin, begin the search for truth. It’s very tough. It’s not easy. It is very difficult.

So if it is difficult, then maturity consists in recognizing this needs to be done and it is not easy, but I am going to make an attempt. Three things: This needs to be done. Secondly, it is difficult, it is not easy for me to do this. But thirdly, I am determined to begin. I am going to start doing something about this. That is where tapas begins.

And when you begin there, and you are trying to become detached, so you are walking in the Santa Barbara streets, slowly, calmly, without being afraid. Don’t be afraid that somebody is going to hit you. Walk. Walk. Walk. It is sunshine. It is fog. Notice children. Notice, you know, pensioners. Notice young people in a rush. All kinds. All kinds. And as you notice all of these, they’ve really only one thing in common, that they are human beings. That’s all. There is nothing else in common between them. They come in different shapes and sizes. One of two sexes. They look in many different ways. All that they have in common is that they all breathe, that they all have two eyes, two ears, one mouth, two nostrils. All of them have seven centers in the human face. That is all they have in common. But that is quite a lot, actually, if you think about it.

So, which means you have to start thinking. And when you start thinking, it is going to be painful. So you get pleasure and pain all over again. There are the pleasures of thinking, but there are the pains of thinking.

Now, we don’t want to bring back bad childhood memories, but you know when you sat down to your maths lesson at the age of seven, at the age of ten, it was not easy, was it? Who is kidding who? We know this. And you would like your child to do better. True. But you do remember it was difficult, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it difficult to learn maths? It is not going to be any easier for your child, is it?

When you tried to learn a musical instrument, do you remember? It was tough. Not easy, was it? And you wanted to. Because you had a choice. You could fantasize, or you could learn how to play a violin. But the learning is different from imagining. You really wanted to learn. And then you found hard work, hard work, hard practice. . . .

. . . So you wanted to get this right. But that made you afraid. That made you nervous. That made you so nervous, so afraid, that you developed only one mode of relaxation: making fun of others. Because when you don’t like yourself, and when you’re afraid, how is it you’re going to relax? Making fun of other people. But when you made fun of others, you were condemning yourself. You were imprinting upon your life atoms injuries. Your life atoms are against you. So you cut yourself when you handle a knife, when you handle an electric saw. Because all your life atoms are against you. Why? Because you have polluted speech. You have used it against human beings. You have made fun of and condemned your fellow man. So therefore, you’re surrounded by bad elementals. My heavens. So it’s very difficult. And what Kilian is saying is true. . . .

. . . Birth. Suffering. Death. It’s universal. And therefore, in ancient days, when rishis came to the courts of kings they said, now these things are going to happen. So if they’re going to happen, you might as well know ahead of time. Don’t have false expectations in reference to the world. Don’t have false expectations. In other words, don’t take your gurus from Madison Avenue. Don’t. You’ll pay for it heavily. And you won’t get the profits. Others will. You’ll pay for it. Others will invest the profits. And they’re on percentages. Percentages. They’ve made money out of your illusions.

So, that’s the thing. It’s sad, but is there an answer? Yes, there is an answer, because Shankaracharya says—quotation for the week in the Almanac—that when you experience pleasure and pain, realize, my brother, that former works are being experienced by you. Every time you feel something good or you feel something painful, old karma is coming back to you. Old karma. That’s karma over eighteen million years. That’s a lot of karma.

But you’re not straight away taking on all the karma of eighteen million years. The universe is not so constituted. No, you’re only taking a portion of eighteen million years of karma called prarabdha karma, the karma of your commencement. And your commencement was not when you left school, but at the moment of birth. You had your own sum total of karma. And therefore, over twenty years, fifteen years, thirty years, you have been spending that karmic sum total. There’s still quite a lot left. There’s still a lot of karma left.

But that karma is coming to you, and it is coming to you in the form of two giants, but don’t be afraid of them. One giant is called “pleasure,” and the other giant is called “pain”. They’re twins. These giants are twins. You can’t have one without the other. If you went to the circus show and you want to see pleasure, no, you’ve got to see pain too. They are twins. If you want to see pain, you’ll see pleasure too. They are twins. Two giants. Why are they giants? Well, because it’s the Fourth Round and they are very busy. It’s the Fourth Round.

So pleasure and pain, these are twins. And if so, old karma is coming back to you. So tapas then means recognizing, ha, karma is coming back, let my karma come, I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid. Because I’ll make new karma. But not only that, I’m ready for everything. Because however bad my karma, it won’t be as painful as that of millions of human beings who have very little to eat, who have very little to wear, who have very little living space.

So I can take all the suffering that comes to me because it’s nothing. Nothing compared to the misery of mankind. And it doesn’t matter what pleasure I get, it’s small. It’s small compared to all the joys I would wish for every boy and every girl and for every child. All the joys I would wish for all the human beings who are yet to take birth and who will occupy this good earth twenty years and more from now. I would like them in the twenty-first century to have a better time than has been possible in the twentieth century. I would like them to enjoy trees and flowers and good food. That’s the human story.

Come out of your cocoon. Of your small time, small town, small world. Breathe the air. Look at the stars. Humanity is great. The moment you say that, you say: “Ha! Tapas is joyous. Of course I want to get with it. Of course I want to forget my gloom. I want to come out. I’m disgusted by that gloom. Is that what I’m born for? Is that what my parents gave me a body for? To be gloomy?”

Am I one of these unworthy people who live in Santa Barbara, California? Who insult the sun by gloom because of selfishness? Am I so sick as an ego? No! That’s over for me. I will smile because there are other human beings on this earth. I will sing my heart because there are many people on each day getting wedded and many people being born. I will begin to have respect for the whole of America, for the whole of the state, for the millions of my compatriots; indeed, for the billions of human beings on this earth. And indeed, I know when you tell the total story it is good. It’s not very good for the selfish, and I want to come out of the snake pit of the selfish, and I want to take my place under the sun. Because I grudge no man breathing space, living space on this good earth under the sun.

And therefore, I want to make my suffering constructive, creative. I don’t want to be moaning and groaning. I don’t want to go back to the old monasteries or the false asceticism of the past. But I want to make a break with the fakery of America. The fakery and tomfoolery and the clowning of America. I want to be a real human being. I want to stand up and be counted. And I cannot respect myself unless I fulfill my obligations. And I cannot fulfill my obligations unless I can strengthen my spiritual will. . . .

. . . So if this is the case, then how can suffering be pure? Two contributions. One says, how can suffering be pure? He’s asking a question. And the other says, how can we do tapas for others? Actually they’re the same question. Same question. If you can do tapas for others, your suffering is pure. If you do tapas for yourself, your suffering is impure. But you can’t go from impurity overnight to purity. No, don’t be a fool.

When you’re in the sea of impurity, or more likely the pond of stagnation, try to remember that other people exist. The moment you remember that other people exist, instead of being a frog in a well, or instead of being like a crab in a pond, you can come out of the pond. You can come out of the pond because there are a lot of other human beings. There’s a great deal to see in this world. So you can get out of a crab’s view of the world. You can get out of a frog’s view of the well. You can see the sun. There are many beings, many different kinds. There are lions, there are tigers, there are snakes, there are all kinds of animals. It’s an incredible world out there. So you can come out.

So if you can come out and there’s a great deal going on, then of course you suddenly find you notice. You notice that there’s a lot of suffering. You’re not the only one. Nobody picked you. You don’t have to be paranoid. No, because you see that when one animal is enjoying its food, another animal is securing its food through destruction. You begin to see these things. This is going on. This sounds very cruel. Tennyson said, “nature, red-toothed and claw”. It’s not red-toothed claw. You are anthropomorphizing nature. For you it is death. You are putting human labels.

No, the cat is doing a favor to the rat, because the rat has no ego, you see. And it is dispersing the life atoms of the rat. It is sending them back to the great washing machines of nature. The great washing machines of nature. So they clean out the life atoms and then these life atoms come together in the form of another animal. But meanwhile, what is in the rat gets a promotion. It doesn’t come back as a rat. It comes back as a cat. So in other words, eating in the animal kingdom is a very different story. It’s a very different story from the human story.

So how then can you have pure food? By pure thought. And if you can remember all those who made it possible for you to get your bread, remember, you know, the person who cooked, helped, etc., all the people. Now I don’t say you go around thanking everybody and creating a lot of confusion in Santa Barbara. All these bakers, they get up early. You see these bakers, they get up at 4:00 a.m. They have made all their bread before you got started. Now the least you can do is not go and bother the baker. Thank you, baker, I like your bread. Please don’t bother him. He’s done it already. He’s ready to move on to the next item. He’s getting ready for his rest, because he’s been at it since 3:00, 4:00 a.m. He’s made his bread.

So you may want to be grateful. But no baker ever objected to gratitude in your eyes. You can look at him gratefully. That’s allowed. That is tapas. Tapas means to look gratefully at the baker who gave you bread. Tapas means to think gratefully of all those who made it possible for you to put body and soul together. And it’s done on behalf of your soul, not your body. So instead of looking at the mirror all the time, you want to once a day look at the mirror, the mirror of your soul. And that is called self-study. . . .

. . . So America is very easy for the Mahatmas. Have no externals and nobody will know what you are doing. Because you are on meditation. And if you are really meditating, no American is going to bother you. He is not going to bother you if you haven’t a yellow robe, or you threaten him or he might want to come and see what’s in it for him. But if you are not wearing a yellow robe, you see, but you are just wearing a very ordinary set of clothes and you are meditating quietly in your room, nobody will bother you.

And by meditating, you heighten the power of thought. And when you heighten the power of thought and make thought expand, travel at the speed of light throughout space, then of course you burn out the self. You burn out the little self within the fires. The fires. The fires of purification. What Krishna calls “the ascetic fire of spiritual knowledge”. But you make that knowledge real. How? He says, “the mystic power of self-ideation”. Why is it possible? He says, “because of the Eternal Thought in the Eternal Mind”. “The Eternal Thought in the Eternal Mind”.

And you can take the ascetic power of spiritual knowledge, and you can moisten it. You can moisten this knowledge. You can moisten it. Moisturize it. Moisturize it by compassion. So the knowledge isn’t dry. You can moisturize it by compassion. And you can release energy. It’s called the energy of self-ideation.

Is it taught? Yes, it is illustrated from the very moment of the beginning of the meeting. The way one thinks, sits down, everything. Close your eyes and draw within. Center yourself. Extend the circle. Totally forget self and breathe. Breathe like the ocean. Breathe deep, and expand, and expand, and enclose. But the more you expand, the more wide awake you must be. Because on this particular Boeing aircraft you don’t know how to fall asleep at not 20,000 feet, but 20,000 miles above the earth. You’re going very far. Which means you really want to be wide awake. Which means meditation is a training in wakefulness. Because most of the time you’re drowsy.

So tapas means to wake yourself up. And therefore, the reading ends by saying, “Arise”. One word: “Arise”. “Arise”. That’s what Krishna is telling Arjuna. You want to do tapas? Wake up, Arjuna, get up. . . .

. . . The great fire. The fire that is the fire of purification, that is hidden in the heart of the cosmos, the fire of cosmic purification, the akashic fire, the fire of Brahman, Krishna calls it. Because it is into the fire of Brahman that we throw every human being, so they get burnt. But when they get burnt, they get purified, their ego gets burnt. And out of being burnt, and their ego being smoked out, they become more human, their breathing improves. And therefore, they are better able to look with sweetness, sadness, and light, but the light of love, courage, compassion, and daring upon other human beings.

And when they do this, they are able to do as Gandhi said, to make a start. The Buddha said, “If you want to make a start you have to become very patient. You will only know what is it you really can do at the moment of death. Don’t ask me before. I am not here to waste my time. No promises. You will only learn at the moment of death. So if you can hold out until the moment of death, fine, then you can learn from me, otherwise goodbye,” says the Buddha.

And Gandhi says, “Well, you can learn right now”. But he says you can learn if you truly, truly make an attempt to master your mind and your emotions. Because when you make an attempt to master your mind and your emotions, you learn the ABC of morality. Gandhi was onto the ABC. He wanted human beings to learn the ABC of morality. And you can’t learn the ABC of morality from a book. You can only learn it by trying to control your emotions, by trying to control your mind, so that you can direct your mind at will. And then you will make discoveries, Gandhi said, about yourself.

So doing you will know yourself. So doing what? In the very attempt to control your mind, you will make discoveries about yourself, what kind of mind you have. Is it a wandering mind? Is it a blunted mind? But in controlling your emotions you will make discoveries about your heart. Is your heart capable of non-violence towards all? Very tough. Of course it wants to love everybody. No, Gandhi says you have to purge yourself of something in you which is untrue, that has to do with fear, and that has to do with holding on. And therefore, it’s called fear of death. And therefore, it is called intense craving for life.

And Gandhi is only saying what the Buddha said. You can’t become fearless of death, you can’t let go of life itself, then of course you’re not ready for total non-violence. But you can make a start, you can make a start, you can reduce the circle of himsa. List all the elements of violence in your words, in your thoughts, in your deeds, in your attitudes, and don’t be spending too much time on yourself. Do this fast and move on. They can be purged. They can be removed.

And when you purge yourself of these, you come closer to the very lie, the lie in your soul, which the Buddha called, “the lie, and lust of self”. Because as long as you think philosophically that you are separate from others, that you are a particular entity with a name, you have got it wrong. You have got it wrong because this is an illusion. There is no such entity, there are only life atoms. And all that you are here to do as a ray of light is to learn true science, the science of devotion, the science of spirituality, you learn the religion of responsibility, you learn to take responsibility for yourself and for others.

And when you do, even a little goes a long way, because you will find, you don’t have to worry about how wrong you were. You don’t have to punish yourself in the name of the ideal. No, you can begin right where you are and try this one experiment. Take the Almanac, use it for one week, and do it for its own sake, because it’s right, not for any result. And do it in the hope that you will be able to prepare yourself to become a better human being between Christmas and New Year, when you make your resolves for 1981.