FIRE OF FREEDOM IN THE HEART!
Freedom is available only to those who want it not merely more than anything else, but to the exclusion of everything else. ~Poonja ji
[Grace Notes: To explain this, Sages often give the example of a person whose clothes are on fire, who is running towards a river so that he could jump in and quench the flames. Or a person whose head is held under water and who wants to come out of water to breath.]
Preparation on the Path: Becoming an Informed Seeker
What qualities of head and heart are required to embark upon the path of Self-knowledge? As in every field of study there are pre-requisites, even so for a seeker after Self-knowledge, Vedānta lays down four-fold qualification (sādhana-catuṣṭaya), as follows:
- Discrimination—viveka—of real from unreal
- Dispassion—vairāgya—of the unreal
- Discipline by way of Six Virtues/Treasures—ṣatasampatti—of self-control
- Desire for freedom—mumukṣutvam—from all limitations
The first quality is sense of discrimination[i] (viveka) between the real and the unreal (sat-asat), permanent and transient (nitya-anitya). The next discipline is the detachment or dispassion (vairāga). By virtue of discernment about what is real and what is unreal, one develops a natural dispassion toward what is unreal. The third discipline is the practice of six virtues to stabilize the mind and emotions, beginning with calmness of mind (śama), regulation of sense organs (dama), regulation of action (uparama), forbearance (titikṣā), trust in the teachings and the teacher (śraddha̅), and one-pointed, steadfast mind (samādhanam). The fourth discipline is the intense, passionate, desire or longing for liberation (mumukṣutvam).
Although the qualifications are four-fold, the real qualification is the intense desire for liberation.
The following long extract illustrates this point very well. It is taken from David Godman’s wonderful interview where he narrates his adventures in the e-book titled Mostly about Books: Recording the Lives and Teachings of India’s Gurus:
Poonjaji would say, ‘You are running towards the river with your clothes on fire. You have only one goal: to get to the water as quickly as possible. If you meet a friend on the way who invites you in for a coffee, do you accept his invitation, or do you keep on running?’
He wanted people to be on fire for freedom, to want it to the exclusion of everything else. When nothing has the power to distract you, you race towards the Self and immerse yourself there. The following story, which I think Papaji made up to make his point, is taken from The Fire of Freedom. It is an elaborate parable that illustrates his basic thesis:
All jivas [individual people] are going home to the Self, but because they imagine themselves to be real, separate entities, they forget about going home and get distracted by other things.
There was once a king who had no children. Since he was getting old and had no heir to succeed him, he decided to adopt one who would be the ruler of the kingdom when he died.
He thought to himself, ‘If I don’t have an established heir in place when I die, there will be a lot of trouble in the kingdom after I die’.
He called one of his guards and asked him to make an announcement that he would open the gates of his palace the following day from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. and that all the people of the kingdom could come in and be interviewed for the job of being the next ruler. No one would be prohibited from coming in.
The next morning crowds of people assembled at the gate, each of them hoping that he or she would be the next ruler. They were greeted by the guards and the courtiers.
One of the courtiers announced, ‘You are about to meet the king and be received by him. You must look good when this happens. Look at you all! Some of you are just dressed in rags. We will clean you all up, give you a nice bath, feed you and give you some nice new clothes, and then you will be presentable to the king. Come with us.’
Everyone was taken into the palace and offered all the facilities that the king enjoyed. For this one day all the visitors had the run of the palace, which meant that they could take and consume whatever they wanted. Those who were interested in perfumes collected bottles of perfume; those who were interested in clothes collected many items of clothing. Other people luxuriated in the king’s baths, ate his food, and watched his dancers and singers perform. This went on all day and everyone forgot what he or she had come to the palace for. The king waited in his throne room, but no one went there to see him because all the candidates were too preoccupied with enjoying themselves with the king’s luxuries. At the end of the day, at 6 p.m., when no one had shown up to claim the throne and the kingdom, the king withdrew his offer and asked everyone to return home.
If anyone had gone to the king immediately, without getting sidetracked, all these treasures would have been his or hers permanently, not just for a few hours. But everyone forgot the purpose for which he or she had come to the palace.
This is what happens to jivas. The throne of the kingdom of liberation is waiting for anyone who wants to walk in and claim it, but these jivas all get sidetracked into enjoying pleasures and accumulating possessions. At the end of their lives they die and get reborn again and continue with their pleasures and sufferings.
You are all so busily engaged with your attachments and desires, you have forgotten the purpose for which you incarnated. You have forgotten that you came here for liberation. What good will these desires, attachments and possessions ultimately do you? What will you leave this world with? Nothing.
Alexander the Great conquered all the known world of his day. All the riches and territories of the world were his while he was alive, but when he died he had nothing. And he knew this. Before he died he gave an order: ‘When you put me in my coffin, leave my hands on the outside. That way everyone will know that I am leaving here with nothing.’
Make the best use of this moment in time, this moment that you have in which you can look at your own Self and not at the objects of your desires. This moment may never come back. If you postpone because you want just a little more enjoyment before you go to the throne room of your own Self, you will be lost, you will be washed away. Your chance will not come again. You can see your own true face only in this moment, not in the next or the last. You have to do it now, not later. In this instant of time you have to devote yourself to your own Self.
To accomplish this you don’t have to study, you don’t have to practise and you don’t have to go to the Himalayas. Just this moment, here and now, is quite enough. Put your face inside and you will see it. Don’t waste this moment. It is a very precious one. I am not going to discourage you. In fact, I congratulate you for being here. There are six billion people in the world, but there are only twenty people here today saying, ‘I want freedom. I want to sit on the throne of freedom.’ Well done! All I ask is that you don’t postpone. You have been postponing all your life – ‘I will do it later today, tomorrow, next week, next year,’ and so on.
Postponement is the mind. Mind is the past. Mind is manifestation. Manifestation is samsara. And samsara is suffering. You have to choose and decide what you want, and you have to choose in this instant of time, not later.
In this instant look at your own Self. If you allow this moment to slip, it will become the past. Don’t allow it to slip….
All are enjoying, eating and dancing. Whose fault is this? Freedom is waiting for you with extended arms, but you are not responding to the loving embrace that it wants to give you. You are otherwise engaged. What you don’t understand is that when you try to get happiness from all these objects of pleasure, you are really searching for the happiness of your own Self. Your search is simply misdirected. You are all looking for happiness, but you never find it because you are all looking in the wrong place. If you find the correct place to look, instantly you will get it. That instant is the moment you drop all the pleasures of the king’s courtyard and walk directly into the throne room to meet the king. How much time do you need to do this? How much time does it take to turn your back on all these enjoyments in order to accept the invitation of the king? In this story, the gate was open for twelve hours, from six in the morning until six in the evening. In your lifespan you have eighty years. You can enjoy that life, but remember that the most important thing you have to do in this incarnation is to run into the king’s throne room and claim that prize. Don’t postpone. Don’t think that you have time to do it later. Make it your first priority. Reject transient pleasures and run inside to meet your inner king. Once you have done that, the whole kingdom will be yours.*
*Source: David Godman, Mostly about Books: Recording the Lives and Teachings of India’s Gurus. 50-53. E-book retrieved August 24, 2016: http://davidgodman.org/interviews/mostly-about-books.version-2-b.pdf
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[i] In the common parlance, the word ‘discrimination’ has negative connotations. However, in Vedānta, it refers to a certain type of discriminative discernment, a certain ability to differentiate between the real and the unreal.
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