Loss and Advaitha

Just as morning follows night, gain inevitably follows loss. At each important stage of our lifespan we leave behind a part of us who we identified with and step into a new sense of identity. Life is a series of alternations between expansion and contraction. Though we may desire  just the positive and dread the negative , the impersonal current of our existence inexorably moves by laws over which we have little or no control. Our destiny is already pre-ordained according to Bhagawan , it is just a question of whether we identify with the prarabdha of our body-mind complex or not. 

Arthur Osborn once described life in terms of an analogy of sitting in a boat going down a stream without any idea of its course and without knowing what bends or falls loom ahead. The only one who could know all that he said , was one who was sitting on a hill over looking the stream and seeing exactly where the travelers were going. We live with approximations and our understanding is fragmentary. Though we have religious , scientific , social and personal explanations but none of them are ultimately satisfactory because death is implacable.

Bondage and Liberation

It is only if bondage is real that liberation and the nature of its experiences have to be considered. So far as the SELF (Purusha) is concerned it has really no bondage in any of the four states. As bondage is merely a verbal assumption according to emphatic proclamation of the Vedanta system, how can the question of Liberation ,which depends upon the question of bondage , arise when there is no bondage? Without knowing this truth, to enquire into the nature of bondage and Liberation , is like enquiring into the non-existent height, color , etc of a barren woman's son or the horns of a hare. 

Sadhana and Sadhaka

 Long time since I started blogging. But Bhagawan's Grace which is ever flowing initiated me to write this.

The foremost sadhaka is he who has surrendered himself completely to the practice, which he views as the only reason for his being in an embodied existence. Nothing else matters to him. His mind remains fixed on the search for the Heart , whether in hi meditation, which is the time for intense concentration, or in his studies. In this mood he mood he makes rapid progress, for then the mind will be able to shed quickly much for its inherited encumbrances and propensities, its vasanas- and replace them by the habits of the QUEST. He asks nothing of the Guru that has no bearing on his Sadhana , and desires nothing but to be left in peace to pursue it in his own way. 

Page 28 Advaitic Sadhana S.S.Cohen