Saturday 20 December 2014

Have a balanced approach

|| योग: कर्मसु कौशलम् ||
Manaeeya Eknathji wanted all the workers to work in the society and for the society without any bias. It should be real Karma-Yoga. But that needs shedding of earlier samskaras which would crop up while doing the actual work. If the work itself is to become Sadhana, it has to be done in absolute sense.
Therefore, the need to have total change in mind set is very important. A workers who wishes good of the people should never be a fanatic. And to save a worker from such fanaticism and how a worker should take a balanced approach, Eknathji says :

There is utter poverty and there exist manifold evils in the country. We have to prove ourselves useful to the country. We must lead a purposeful life. These two things, the spiritual and the practical life appear to be not only different, but opposed to each other. But there should be no confusion in our minds. We should be clear about our purposes. We know that when we speak of Brahman, our feet are not on the ground. People steeped in spiritual life think very highly of themselves and refuse to come down to the earthly level. On the other hand, there are people who do not bother about spiritual problems. This world is too much with them and they hardly think of another world. They think only of the hard realities of this world. As a matter of fact, both kinds of people are fanatics. We forget that we are both body and soul. The soul cannot exist without a body and a body cannot live without a soul. We cannot think of the one without the other. In speaking about both of them, we must remember that different yardsticks must be used. You cannot measure the problems of the one with the same yardstick used for the other.

He very aptly gives the example of Adi Shankracharya to illustrate this point. He says :

The verse says:  Brahma Satyam Jagan Mithya Jeevo Brahmaiva naparah. "Brahman is the only Truth and the world is only an appearance, an illusion. The individual soul is no other than the Highest Soul." Very unkind criticism has been leveled against Adi Shankaracharya. They narrate a parable about Shankara's running away when an elephant was coming towards him, in one of those notorious small lanes of Banaras. Somebody mischievously asked him  Kim Palayanam. Gajah Mithya. "Why run away! The elephant is just an appearance!" The ready-witted Shankara replied Gajopi Mithya Palayanamapi Mithya "If the elephant is just an appearance, the running away is equally an appearance!"

Things spiritual cannot and should not be measured by the yardstick of worldly life. We see a cinema show, we enjoy the same, but we leave the things there only in the cinema theatre, as they are useless in the world outside. We never confuse the cinema show and the actual environment in which we live. There is a wise proverb of practical life. It says: "Work while you work, play while you play."

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