From Religious Books:

There is a coconut tree in front of me with a straight trunk, a few leaves and fruit. Is what I see only a tree or something else? I cannot see the seed that produced the tree. I cannot see the vital force keeping the tree alive, which enables it to produce sustenance and to breathe.

Our sense organs cannot go beyond the visible world. They cannot tell us anything about the invisible world because they cannot establish any kind of contact with it. They cannot even reject it because it has not been known.

Visibility and invisibility are relative terms. If there had been a wall between me and the tree, my eyes would have failed to see through it. Even without the obstruction of a wall, I would not be able to see the tree from a distance. Distance obliterates vision with the result that the otherwise visible world becomes invisible. What we can see with the help of the microscope, we cannot see with bare eyes. We can see only the gross material world. The eyes are also gross. Reality is subtle. So it can be grasped with only the intuitional vision that is developed after the karma particles eclipsing consciousness have been removed.

Consciousness is formless. We cannot see it as we see the tree. There may be an obstruction between us and the tree, or the tree may be at a distance from us, but consciousness is neither hidden nor at a distance from me. The ego is the manifestation of consciousness and a bridge between it and the world.

Neither consciousness nor the atoms feel hunger, but I do, because I exist between the two. Consciousness and the atoms do not speak, only I do. The world that we perceive with the help of the sense organs stands on the borderline between the world of consciousness and the atoms. Pleasure and pain are experienced only on this borderline. Pure consciousness feels neither. On the plane of pure consciousness we experience nothing but our existence. We may call this a state of bliss if we like.

In a state of pure consciousness there is neither bondage nor freedom. Here we feel nothing else except our existence. We may call it a state of liberation if we like.

Feelings of pleasure and pain, bondage and liberation are experienced by the ego, which stands between pure consciousness and the material world. It is from the relative point of view that we call the state of pure consciousness a state of bliss and freedom or liberation. This state exists in its own perfection in limitlessness or infinity and boundless bliss. It is a state higher than the state of sense experience, and therefore, one who has achieved the right vision raises himself from a lower state to a higher state.

The desire to renounce present pleasure in anticipation of pleasures we are likely to get in the future is just like climbing out of one ditch and falling into another.

Indra said to the royal sage Nami, "I wonder why you are prepared to relinquish present pleasures in the hope of enjoying better pleasures in the future. You seem to be running after a mirage." The royal sage replied, "Indra, you do not have the right vision. Sensual pleasures are like a canker. The wounds caused by them will never heal. One who runs after sensual pleasures becomes lost in the labyrinth of desire. I am relinquishing these pleasures in order to get out of the labyrinth."

Bhrigu said to his sons, "Why do you propose to renounce the pleasures that grandeur, high family, wife, and objects pleasing to the senses have given you to attain what people expect to obtain through penance?" The sons replied, "Father we want to renounce them in order to obtain that which these cannot give us."

Physical pleasures are so easy, natural and attractive to get; no one wants to relinquish them. Only he who has a strong longing for attaining a state of pure existence of his soul can resign himself from them.

Those who had attained bliss classified pleasures in an ascending order. Physical pleasures as compared with bliss occupy a lower position. There are three reasons for this:

1. Physical pleasures are relative.

2. They are fraught with obstructions.

3. They are finite.

Bliss on the other hand is absolute, free and infinite, and therefore, more reliable. As physical pleasures are related to material things, they appear to be easily attainable. Bliss, on the other hand, is connected with inner vision, and therefore, in spite of its being easily available, it appears to be difficult to attain. We can change our conception of pleasure only if we do not confuse what is real with what is not and vice versa.

One night, I was sitting in the light of an electric lamp. Suddenly the electric current went off leaving me in complete darkness. The light revived within two seconds. This happened three or four times within a span of ten minutes. It came to my mind that electric light is not natural, but artificial. Only darkness is natural. It needs neither a power station nor a button to bring it about. For electric light, we need a power station, an electric current, lamps and so on.

I began to wonder how unreasonable man is. He insists on running away from that which is natural and makes efforts to achieve that which is unnatural. For example, it is not in the nature of man to forgive. It is human nature to be violent.(2) An aggravating situation makes one easily angry. Forgiveness does not come so easily. One has to practice it, and yet on innumerable occasions anger has the upper hand.

The chain of thoughts continued in my mind. I am an ascetic, and therefore, a preacher also. I have been extolling forgiveness in my sermons. I have never extolled violence. Still people continue to be amenable to violence rather than to forgiveness. Why would I then canvass forgiveness?

We are usually prey to fears. We are not only afraid of natural things, we entertain imaginary fears also. We know that we are alive and are not going to die immediately. And yet the fear of death hovers over our minds. I have tried to persuade people not to be afraid of death.

I have tried to argue that it is foolish to entertain the fear of death when everyone must die one day or another. The death of one who is afraid of it will be more miserable than that of one who is not. And yet, I find that man is more of a coward than brave. Fear is a natural instinct, whereas courage needs a lot of effort.

Stoics in all ages have said that Eros is the progeny of the mind of man. If you do not think of it, it will never seize you. And yet, it is these stoics themselves who have time and again been possessed by Eros. Celibacy has been such a rare and exacting discipline that one is forced to the conclusion that it is alien to the nature of man.

I wonder why we run away from things towards which we are naturally inclined and run after things that are artificial.

It is natural to be attracted towards things we need. We feel hungry and thirsty. We do not need anybody to tell us that we should drink water and eat food. I have never come across preachers preaching this. We have been eating food and drinking water instinctively. It is impossible to remain hungry and thirsty.

If I were to ask you whether you instinctively feel the need for religion and whether you feel restless without it, you would reply that you do not. You would adopt religion if it were necessary and would not need anybody to recommend to you that you should practice it because it has great merits. We therefore come to the conclusion that religion is alien to the nature of man. Only those things that the human body and mind need may be said to be natural. What is life except the combined activities of the body and the mind? In other words, life aims to satisfy the natural needs of man. Religion does not seem to be concerned with such a need.

For thousands of years, people have been trying to treat unnatural things as natural, and the stone wall dividing the two has not yet disappeared. People continue to value food, sleep and sex. They continue to be averse to fasting, willful waking and celibacy. They continue to like fighting, hating others and attaching importance to grief. And so, we are as far away from peace, happiness and love as we were thousands of years ago.

You may ask what the value of medicines is when, in spite of their use on a wide scale, diseases continue to multiply. Nature works through dualism and that is why medicines and diseases continue to exist together. There is no use in blaming the doctor!

Footnotes:

1. Excerpts from the book 'Ramblings of An Ascetic', published by Books Today, New Delhi, India 1979. Back up

2. According to the basic tenets of Jainism, man is nonviolent by nature. However, these observations of the scholarly acharya relate to human beings who have passionate regard for the material world. - D. C. J. Back up

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