SOME GEMS -2

Adwaita with a difference

Sree Narayana Guru gave us the roadmap to bring Vedanta home. He demystified it from the intellectual plane and brought it down to ground zero. Spiritually and materiality cannot be separated, he said.  Both are interwoven in such a way that one cannot differentiate between them. In fact he deviates from Adi Sankara on this count. Jagat Guru leaned on his brain mainly to formulate the Adwaita philosophy whereas Narayana Guru employed his heart too.  According to Sankara, Jnana is the only escape-route and the person who practices it shuns karma. In contrast Narayana Guru upholds karma.

The senior Guru discounts the physical world. He sees it as a manifestation of Maya which is unreal. One should not give any importance to the illusionary. However, the Guru who came more than a millennium later urges us not to run away from the realities of daily life.

suresh k. nair

അല്ലെങ്കിലന്ത്യം വരെയും

കർമം ചെയ്തിങ്ങസ്സംഗനായ്

ഇരിക്കുകയല്ലാതി

ല്ലൊന്നും നരനു ചെയ്തീടാൻ

Go ahead and do your pravirthi (karma) without any aaru (fastener). Till the end.

He further says one should be free while doing karma. The obstacle to freedom is fear. It originates from “the other”, the entity which is separate from you. One becomes two. The root-cause of fear stems from duality. If one cuts across this double vision everything becomes one. Fear gets dissolved.

Now, the ground is cleared for doing karma.  Guru gives an important guide line here.

അവനവനാത്മ സുഖത്തിന്നാചരിക്കു -

ന്നവയപരന്നു സുഖത്തിനായ് വരേണം

suresh k. nair

This is the secret of happiness. Anything sought for private enjoyment should ultimately lead to enjoyment for others. That which makes me happy should make others happy as well.

It should be a win-win situation always.

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