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Lasting happiness

CHENNAI: An individual who pursues happiness through obtaining the maximum good materially in this world and heavenly pleasures in the afterlife by the performance of sacrifices prescribed in the Vedas with the notion that these will give him lasting joy is ignorant says the Upanishads categorically because his joy is based on objects which are themselves not permanent. Even heavenly joys last only till the merit (Punya) is there after which one has to be reborn in this world. Only realisation of one’s spiritual nature can bequeath endless joy as the Self (Brahman, Atman) is eternal and blissful in nature.

In his discourse, Sri R.Krishnamurthy Sastrigal said the Mundaka Upanishad stated that a spiritual seeker should seek a preceptor (Guru) to learn spiritual knowledge after he was convinced that the performance of rituals and sacrifices (Karma) would not lead to Self-realisation. The Upanishad also states that a Guru should impart the truth to a sincere spiritual aspirant when he approaches him as the removal of ignorance which liberates him from the cycle of transmigration is a sacred obligation that has to be discharged in the interest of the transmission of this knowledge through the lineage of preceptor-disciple. Spiritual knowledge cannot be learnt otherwise as only a Guru, who is a man of Self-realisation, can impart this from his experience.

One of the methods of teaching adopted by a Guru is to point to the self-identity (notion of “I”) which is a palpable experience in all beings. Then the disciple is led step by step to explore the nature of the “I” to show that the identification with the body-mind-intellect personality is due to ignorance to enable him to probe the subtler levels of his personality and discover the Self within by meditation. The analogy of hitting a target with a bow and arrow is adopted by the Guru in this Upanishad: “Taking hold of the bow, one should fix on it an arrow, sharpened with meditation. Drawing the string with a mind absorbed in Its thought, hit that very target that is the Immutable. Om is the bow, the soul is the arrow and Brahman is its target. It is to be hit by an unerring man. One should become one with It like an arrow.”

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