La India del Auto-Conocimiento

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hasta el domingo 20 de Septiembre de 2009 Casa de Cultura de Nuevo Leon, Monterrey, Mexico.

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AKINCANA (devoid of material possessions)

By Matsya Avatara Dasa

From the book: The 26 Qualities of the Spiritual Researcher

Other meanings: not searching for material objectives, simple, non-possessive

We find this principle in an important passage of Patanjali's Yogasutras¹, where it is said that in order to attain perfection or samadhi, the yogi must renounce two attitudes: asteya and aparigraha, respectively misappropriating things we do not own and cultivating a sense of possession towards things or persons.

Many psycho-pathologies are not very explicit; in the name of affection some people morbidly control others, something that is absolutely not favorable to anyone's growth, development or maturity, including one's children, spouse, patient or disciple. When there is a sense of possession, the carrier of this sensation is unable to grow and remains on a childish stage for the rest of his life, frivolous and incapable to cope with the needs and problems of everyday life, unable to think with his own brain.

We should never desire to deprive others of their ability to reason and decide, of their intellectual faculties, by blocking and inhibiting them. On the contrary, we should favor the development of such abilities and potential.

Someone could think that if we seriously consider Krishna's words in Bhagavad-gita we could remain conditioned by them, but this would be an excellent conditioning: it would be an honor to depend on the words spoken by Krishna or by the Spiritual Master; only when the Master is blocking us in our development we need to understand that we are not facing a Guru but something else.

The Guru is a friend and facilitates the expression of all potentials, virtues, qualities and talents. He rather tries to offer some orientation and to purify the qualities that are often covered by innumerable anarthas.

A person who is culturally and spiritually immature will think he needs to keep a distance from everything and everyone lest he compromises the principle of akincana; actually we need to keep our distance from the sense of possession, not from the utilization of what is useful. The money that we need to live in a healthy, honest, sattvic way is called lakshmi and is a blessing, while the extra money, that serves vice and mere sense gratification generate attachment, and we should be wary against it. To own warm clothes for the winter does not break the virtue of akincana; possessing a collection of overcoats does. Having a pair of sandals to walk and spread the glories of the Lord is very good, while having wardrobes filled with shoes produces confusion in the mind.

In order to be in harmony not only with the principle of akincana but also with the principle of ahimsa, we should avoid purchasing leather clothes or shoes: they are not required to protect ourselves from cold and rain. Fur coats are much better suited to the animals: killing animals to get clothes or food belongs to a barbarous and unevolved mentality.

If for some reason we had to live at the North Pole and there was no other way, then eating fish or meat would be acceptable, but in the place where we live there is no need to inflict violence to other beings.

The sense of possession blocks, inhibits, dulls our consciousness. Even persons who have serious personality disturbances still have intact talents deep in their consciousness, but they do not know how to activate them any more, because they are not even aware they have them. Our intention is to operate in such a way that our interlocutor rediscovers it and reclaims his natural talents.

Akincana is an important virtue; one who possesses it does not desire anything for himself, he only wants to have the instruments to benefit others and be useful. He finds satisfaction in awakening others and because he is not interested in their body, their possessions or their minds, he can be trusted. Such a person sees others as traveling companions, helpers to spread his mission. Abstention from material and psychic possessiveness helps us to unblock our complexes.

This is why dhana (donating) has a crucial importance in the culture of classic India. One can donate things and eventually oneself; we must remember that if we are not trained to donate objects, we will never come to the level of donating ourselves.

The beautiful prayer called "Gurudev" asks the Master to liberate us from the desire for personal honors: this is undoubtedly one of the greatest and most important acts of renunciation. In fact, as stated in Isha Upanishad, we are not owners of anything, nothing belongs to us in this world and the proof is that at the time of death we must leave everything. So for what reason should we desire honors? The radiant path of bhakti rather asks us to respect and honor all creatures, not to feed our thirst for personal honors.

Some people make important choices for the life of others, thinking that in this way they will be possessing them; this is a very widespread phenomenon. Instead, we should start from the concept that our interlocutor has his own personality and the right to decide. We can offer some perspective but we cannot demand anything from anyone. In some relationships, such as between parent and child, Guru and disciple or therapist and patient, there is naturally a pact or we make a pact by which the one who is responsible for the other can have a justified measure of authority, but he should always use it very cautiously. There is also a pact between parents and children, by which parents have the duty to educate the children, but we need to make a distinction between educating and controlling choices.

A head of State in a dictatorial regime decides by himself also for the others, disregarding the will and wishes of innumerable persons, creating discomfort, dissatisfaction, fear and resentment.

Some foolish and ignorant people read the stories of the Puranas, Mahabharata² and Ramayana³, and confuse the Vedic kings with the modern kings, but the monarchs of the classical Indian times used to take care of their subject as their own children. Kings of this type have disappeared long ago, and considering the trends of the present kings, the disappearance of monarchy has been a blessing.

Nobody can have dominion or possession on the lives of others. We must teach people to think with their own head, to take care of their own needs, to respect others and to express genuine sentiments. This is the purpose of a master, a therapist, a parent. Being surrounded by capable and self-sufficient persons is a great satisfaction; on the other hand it is very painful to be around people who move like robots, without any creative ability.

If we do not re-establish our spiritual health we will simply chase mirages, because it is precisely this loss of connection that caused the pathology. The disconnection on the ontological level where we belong is the origin of alienation. When we say we care about someone we should demonstrate it with what we do to wake him up spiritually. Even those who will not listen to deeper, metaphysical discussions can be offered unlimited information and be greatly influenced by our personal behavior. A person can pretend he is not watching, he may act as if he is not interested, but in time the model will become ingrained because it is already engraved into the heart, because it is Truth, Reality. For example, everybody knows that animals have the right to live; simply they pretend they do not know.

The model has an archetypal function. We can make good sculptures only when the model has penetrated deep within ourselves, thus we first need to absorb it. This is why it is important to have a relationship with the Guru, to work with him and perform activities that enable us to be corrected; this helps us proceed towards perfection.

Akincana is the practice of detachment, a sort of vairagya, it means renouncing what is unfavorable to spiritual realization and immediately utilizing all that is favorable.

1 Author of the famous aphorisms on Yoga (Yoga-sutras) and codifier of the Yoga Darshana. Tradition also ascribes to him a study on Panini's Sanskrit grammar and an authoritative treatise on medicine.

2 Famous epic poem of ancient India, the greatest ever written by mankind, constituted by more than one hundred thousand stanzas in classical Sanskrit, a vast catalogue of divine and human personalities, an encyclopedic poem expressing the spiritual, ethical and social values of Indo-Vedic society. Also called "the fifth Veda", Mahabharata is traditionally ascribed to the great sage Krishna Dvaipayana Vedavyasa.

3 Literally, 'Rama's journey'. Epic story (Itihasa) composed by Valmiki in 24.000 stanzas in splendid classical Sanskrit. It narrates the descent and the divine deeds of Rama in the role of the perfect monarch.

SHUCI (clean, pure)

By Matsya Avatara Dasa

From the book: The 26 Qualities of the Spiritual Researcher

Other meanings:morally and ethically whole

Shaucam means cleanliness, whiteness, purity: all terms that apply to one concept. Cleanliness refers to the physical body and purity to the mental body, but they are the same principle, also because cleanliness and purity are strictly connected. We cannot speak of spiritual purity because the soul is pure by definition, constantly and intrinsically, and therefore there is no need to purify what is eternally pure. Rather, it is the mirror of the mind that becomes contaminated, and it must be carefully cleansed.

The soul is imprisoned in a psychic bubble, a fake mental structure, a hallucinating vision of the world; it is the crystal of the mind that needs to be purified.

As an attribute of the atman, consciousness can be altered and create a series of mind distortions, but there is also a super-consciousness. Western psychology only considers mental pathologies, only conditioned consciousness, but it does not consider the reality of pure consciousness.

The purity of consciousness is obtained by eliminating what contaminated it in the first place. Water is tainted by the penetration of organic particles; the bad smell that emanates from a pool of stagnant water is not due to the water itself, but to the deteriorating suspended particles. Just like there is pure water and putrid water, there is also pure consciousness and consciousness that produces psycho-pathologies because of the waste matter it carries.

The great majority of the physical and mental diseases can be avoided with a healthy life by applying the twenty-six virtues we are talking about. We become and remain healthy by good habits, not by using medication. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada used to say that disease is generated by three main factors: uncleanliness (physical and psychic), anxiety and imbalanced diet. Thus the principle of the application of shaucam in our lives is essential to remain in psycho-physical health and to proceed on the path of spiritual progress.

The discipline of sadhana bhakti primarily serves to inner purification, that automatically also produces external purification. What happens to the body is thus the result of what happens in the psychic structure; any action that is performed by man in the world basically depends on the level of purity or impurity of his own mind, and the results are evident. Our mental shape makes us dirty or clean, pure or impure.

The two great enlightened spiritual Masters, Christ and Shri Krishna Caitanya Mahaprahu, to whom their contemporaries attributed a divine nature, taught that besides law there is forgiveness, a deep innovation introduced by these two revolutionary figures in religion. Forgiveness purifies, while betrayal and resentment contaminate. There can be no justified resentment: from the human perspective we can justify many things, but nonetheless some dynamics remain a source of contamination. One who is able to forgive is situated on a higher level of consciousness, but those who wish to forgive don't always have the strength or qualities to do it. What do these qualities depend on? On the development of the personality - on how shuci one is. By feeling resentment, envy, jealousy towards someone we live miserably, we pollute our psyche and the others' psyche, and when we face acute suffering our immune defense drops, like in a mourning person who has lost a dear one.

Imagine the benefit, just simply on the level of general health, of attaining a level of consciousness where we are not contaminated any more by losses or betrayals. These are all masks for the ego: it is the masque ball of the ego - these disasters affect the ego, not the self. In his essence, the being does not see persons who betray or die. In Bhagavad-gita Krishna tells Arjuna:

"Although you are saying wise words, you are lamenting for what is not worth of lamenting. The wise do not lament either for the living or for the dead"¹.

People are so absorbed into the mirages of the world that they give too much importance to who comes and who goes, as if those who take birth were beginning to exist and those who die were ceasing to exist - this is not so. The wise sees these individuals in a cycle of births and death called samsara. Having big celebrations for one who has come to take a body and will eventually have to die is not a big demonstration of wisdom, just like despairing for one who has gone away, who has put down a dress that has become too worn out and painful to wear. Thus people come and go, but the wise do not see this as a tragedy.

Shuci is the result of wisdom as well as the path and the means to attain it. The purification of the mind produces vision, clarity, discernment, and in turn all this produces mental purification. A purified mind keeps the body healthy; hygiene is much more effective than medication against diseases, this is confirmed by the fact that the great epidemics have disappeared not so much because of the pharmaceutical discoveries, but rather thanks to the use of running water.

Diet, too, is important in order to remain clean and pure: those who eat fresh, healthy, non-preserved foods, cooked simply and consumed within three hours from preparation, can attain psycho-physical well-being. Bad habits, the use of alcohol, tobacco or bad foods aggravate and shorten the duration of life.

The ancient Indian medical science, Ayurveda, informs us that the proper utilization of food becomes an instrument of purification and that nutrition becomes treatment, therapy. The issue of food is at the center of a wide speculation: the reflections of many sages fill entire pages of sacred texts such as the Brahmanas, Upanishads, Aranyakas, the Veda itself, because the Vedic rishis had understood that through food we can become contaminated or purified, and that they were aware that there is a food for the body and a food for the mind², that is mostly accumulated through impressions.

Of course attention and sensitivity towards food should not become an obsession. In fact virtues can also be lived in a distorted, neurotic way, conditioning the individual and leading him to believe he has become a benefactor of mankind.

In average, human beings eat three times a day, so every day they have three opportunities to become contaminated or purified. Thus we need to be careful about what we put into our mouth and what comes out of it, because an offensive language can be very contaminating. The Mahabharata informs us that hurtful words penetrate the heart worse than sharp arrows and they don't come out again, often leaving permanent scars.

In order to become or remain shuci we thus need to be careful in choosing thoughts, desires, emotions, actions and words that must be pleasing, mridu, or sweet. We should always meekly encourage everyone to care for their own good and the good of others.

The morning practice of the Harinama japa is a supreme method for the purification of the heart and the mind. These two words, heart and mind, refer to the unconscious and to the conscious part of the personality. In symbolic language, the mind corresponds to the karmashaya³ or unconscious. There is something that lies deep into the maze of the psyche, and something that is on the surface. This practice purifies both levels, which for study purposes are described as two categories - one the category of sentiments, feelings, emotions, consistent and stable affection attitudes, and the other, the category of the ripples on the restless mind: an inner mind and an outer mind.

In Vedic psychology treatises these levels are explained and called with different names. The method of Harinama japa is a practice of repeating a transcendental sound vibration, a mantra in the japa⁴ mode. For innumerable generations the Acaryas, the spiritual Masters, have stated that the divine name of Hari⁵ is an extremely powerful bija mantra, capable of purifying the mind in the most unfathomable depths, where the conscious ego cannot reach.

The Vedic sages guarantee that through the Harinama japa one can reach all levels of the psyche, from the external sensory level that is connected to the phenomenal world to the deep psyche, the seat of the samskaras, the latent recordings that are emotionally charged with psychic contents that are not accessible any more by the conscious ego. While water and soap are sufficient to wash the body, water is not sufficient to wash the samskaras from the deep levels of the consciousness. We need a special detergent, a method that can reach those depths, that is able to penetrate the mind and cleanse it from the waste of negative impressions that constitute the complexes. I would like to highlight the important connection between external and internal cleanliness. Among the two the most important is internal cleanliness, but we should not neglect external cleanliness, that favors internal cleanliness and is often its evident symptom. External uncleanliness, and especially untidiness, creates inner disorder.

According to the teachings of Yoga, the mind takes the form of the objects it contemplates; if it contemplates lack of order in a room, a wardrobe, a desk, a laboratory, an office, or untidy persons, it will take the same shape. For this reason, before going to sleep it is better to tidy up the house, so that our resting period is influenced by the last recorded impressions. Before going to sleep, try not to give any bad news to others, no to scold anyone, even if they deserved it and especially children, because they will not have the time to elaborate the punishment and thus the negative impressions slides into the depths of the consciousness and often it cannot be removed for years or decades. Do not have arguments with your husband or wife in the night before going to sleep, before going to sleep everything must become harmonized; it is better to discuss everything on the next day. This, too, is tolerance, patience: postponing the discussion to the appropriate moment, because the mind is an extraordinarily sensitive film that is impressed very easily and those impressions remain. Fragile individuals and tired persons should not be disturbed because one who is tired does not have the ability to elaborate; one who carries on some big responsibility or a heavy load should not be engaged in mental speculations or difficult abstract evaluations: first they need to rest. A sick person must not be punished or forced into important choices; one who is tired, depressed or saddened should not be subjected to any further aggravation.

The best way to keep cleanliness is to avoid becoming dirty. In daily life we will accumulate a little dust, so the body must be washed every day and the mind must be washed, too. This could seem obvious, but many people do no do it - however taking bath is important because it re-establishes a good level of consciousness, it changes and improves it. Sensory perception does not work very well in a dirty body; a person who does not take bath and lives in a cloud of bad smell becomes unable to perceive bad odors and therefore he can expose himself to many dangers including contaminated foods, because uncleanliness and contamination are very similar.

Bhagavad-gita informs us that tamasic persons eat tamasic foods; persons whose intellectual functions have been reduced to the minimum also eat rotten food and their taste develops in that direction. Some typical specialties consist of practically putrid food that attracts the mind and the sensory apparatus of persons who are subjected to the influence of that particular guna. At that level it becomes impossible to understand higher concepts, truths that due to their nature are situated beyond sensory perception because they disappear; what remains is only the physical objects that can be touched and seen. Everything that produced the physical world becomes a fantasy, and these people remain excluded from spiritual realization.

To implement or maintain shaucam, the Vaishnava tradition prescribes a morning practice consisting in meditating on the name of Hari, on the Divine names. This practice has the power to purify the mind at all levels. Also the daily study of the Scriptures, svadhyaya, puts us in contact with our own self, with the most intimate part of our personality, with our ontological identity rather than with the transient, impermanent personality donned by the historical ego.

It is not easy to attain shaucam. External cleanliness is more accessible, while internal cleanliness is more difficult. Those who are contaminated by kama, or lust, can take bath many times, but all their interests focus on some particular dynamics and therefore they remain dirty inside. Washing and purifying oneself to evolve spiritually is a totally different thing, thus the practice of taking bath in itself is not a great merit unless it is supported by a meritorious motivation. Cooking for friends, relatives or lovers is not a merit in itself, but it becomes a merit when we cook for God and offer the food in sacrifice, applying all the rules of purity, cleanliness and kindness to that cooking that does not violate norm and nonviolence, dharma and ahimsa.

Prayer, meditation, diet, worship, good company, everything must rotate in the sphere of cleanliness and purity and be shuci. Economy too, should be ecological, as well as what we read and write, the words we use to express ourselves. The clothes we wear should be clean: elegance is secondary. We should be vehicles of purification, not of contamination; one who attains this level of awareness wants to live in cleanliness, so his gestures, words, actions become first of all consistent and then this extraordinary energy of consistency enables us to penetrate inside the hearts of the people we meet. Our speech must correspond to our actions, we need to move in a consistent, harmonious way, when everything we say, think and do has this rigorous consistency the message becomes penetrating and moves the mountains, it becomes the sword inside the rock described in many myths.

1 Bg, II.11.

2 See the article (with the same title) by Marco Ferrini, available from Secretary, CSB.

3 ‘Karma reservoir’; the part of the psyche that is not accessible by the consciousness, where all the experiences of this or of previous existences accumulate. The unconscious.

4 The word japa means ‘chanting softly’ and also indicates an individual and concentrated manner of praying.

5 Literally, ‘He who takes away [the obstacles]’.

MRIDU (meek, gentle)

By Matsya Avatara Dasa

From the book: The 26 Qualities of the Spiritual Researcher

Other meanings:

sweet, peaceful

having a pleasant character

not harsh or rude

The virtues that we will study now are meekness and purity: we will analyze them by connecting them to social life as much as possible, and studying them closely also on the psychological level. Often when people speak of spirituality one thinks about something abstract, not well defined, and we also must admit that undoubtedly there is also an abstract kind of spirituality that is not useful to anyone. On the other hand the spirituality we are discussing here, as the focus of the Bhagavata teaching contained in Bhagavata Purana, Bhagavad-gita, Vedas and Upanishads, is extraordinarily concrete and represents the essence of life itself. The virtue we describe have innumerable applications in individual life also at the level of family and professional occupation, and the person that carries them has a beneficial and extraordinarily positive influence on all the environments around him. Even persons who carry serious character defects or personality disturbance have a negative and heavy influence, therefore we can state that such defects weigh down not only the individual that has them, but his family, co-workers, friends, and the entire community as well.

Mridu means sweet, meek, and meekness is a characteristic of enlightened people, a valuable quality of the soul; to possess it, the individual needs to have solved his problems - if not all, at least most of them.

It is not rare to see a pseudo-virtue that may externally look similar to meekness, but is actually weakness or shyness. Sometimes one who seems meek is definitely not so: he is creaking inside, even if he does not show it. A weak person seems to be meek only because he does not have the courage or the strength to affirm his own opinion, but genuine meekness is inner strength and a person who possesses it remains equal, undisturbed and kind in all situations. A really meek person moves in the world in a delicate way, walks almost on tiptoes, going through obstacles lightly.

Living in this world requires a lot of effort, because any action meets with resistance, including the simplest and most natural actions such as breathing, evacuating, digesting, obtaining the necessary in order to survive. One who is able to perform all these actions in a meek way, expressing this virtue especially in the relationships with others, must be considered an evolved person, who possesses one of the noblest qualities of the soul.

After we have ascertained that the person we face is not a weak or shy person, but a meek one, then we must consider that our interlocutor is a person of great value. When someone's projects of power, fame, sense gratification or wealth are modified or obstructed, if the person is not genuinely meek we will notice that he immediately changes tone, expression and attitude, because he does not have inner strength and thus he has a global collapse.

One who has realized a quality, mridu, is aware that people understand better if we relate to them in a sweet way. It is evident that in this case the presiding guna is sattvaguna. When rajoguna dominates, in the face of obstacles the reaction is passionate, nervous, impulsive, sometimes violent and destructive. When the personality is influenced by tamas, often the reaction does not even manifest because the individual lacks the power to understand what is happening.

A person who really possesses this quality is generally rigorous with himself and expects much from himself, well knowing that the journey towards the peaks of consciousness is very hard, but is just as tolerant towards others and always tends to encourage them, even when he needs to correct. The quality of kindness is considered so important that often we find puranic stories that highlight it; for example there is a rather famous one narrated in Bhagavata Purana, about the episode between the saintly king Ambarisha and the sage Durvasa. Thanks to the austerities he had performed, Durvasa had developed many siddhis1, but he behaved in a despising and offensive way against the generous and pious Ambarisha, to the point of exciting God's anger. In one of the verses in this story we read: “for a brahmana asceticism and knowledge are desirable assets, but if they are not accompanied by kindness they lead to degradation”2. Thus, even two jewels such as tapas (asceticism) and vidya (knowledge) get polluted or even transform into something that weighs down the consciousness if the person who carries them is not mridu.

Is it possible for anyone to adopt meekness as a way of life? Can a policeman be meek to an armed bank robber, or a magistrate be meek in front of heinous crimes, towards acts of violence that have damaged individuals and societies? Can a parent be meek towards a son that stubbornly keeps doing wrong, that repeatedly commits the same mistakes? Is it good to show meekness towards those who may mistake it as weakness and take the opportunity to keep indulging in deviant behaviors?

Meekness, too, like other virtues, is the result of a series of coordinated efforts performed consciously and deliberately, and is therefore a result that corresponds to a divine grace, a connection to the higher reality. It is not by chance that the persons who possessed this quality in the highest degrees were the saints described in the Scriptures. Yudhisthira Maharaja was famous for his meekness, although he was the world's emperor and frequently found himself in difficult situations. However the great souls, the masters, are such precisely because they are able to act in the world without losing their divine qualities, without staining them, without allowing them to fade away. These special personalities inform us that at the time when we need to be hard, strong, rigorous, we must be so only for the minimum required, so that we do not leave unnecessary agitation behind us. It is said that the Guru is as soft as a rose and as powerful as lightning: one quality does not diminish the other, and because we are on an absolute level they can perfectly live together without contradictions.

A father needs to correct his son, but if he does so correctly, meekness can return immediately after the correction, without creating a split or a drop in the quality of the relationship. Meekness can be substituted by another equally effective virtue when the situation requires it: a magistrate, a policeman, a father, a mother, an elder brother must sometimes intervene in a hard way. Meekness is not apathy or lack of responsibility; weakness is a fault, not a virtue. If at the time when a Guru is educating a disciple there is need to replace meekness with another virtue, he must do it. A meek person tolerates offenses towards himself, but not offenses towards God, the Master, or well-wishers. If rigorousness remains within dharma and is intended to support it, there will be no negative reactions: when we scold or punish someone, as much as the case requires it and with the intention of helping his progress, then it is very likely that this person will be grateful to us for his entire life. This is very different from punishing someone to gratify our own ego.

The citizens expect to live honestly, peacefully, serenely; the intrusion of thieves and criminals creates serious disturbance or even traumas, and the policing forces have been constituted to prevent that. In the name of meekness, a policeman or a magistrate cannot "let people be", just like a physician cannot neglect a festering wound: he must act even if that causes pain. In some situations meekness is madness rather than virtue; it also needs to be applied at the proper time, place and circumstance.

Stability in mood is an unequivocal symptom of mental health, in fact when an individual is affected by some psycho-pathology, one of the most obvious symptoms consists in mood swings. Contemplating the sense objects and depending on them is the cause of mental instability; the Vedic science can help us understand why. According to the Samkhya3 philosophy, probably one of the most ancient Schools of thought in this world, there are two archetypal energies: purusha and prakriti, spirit and matter. The universe is the result of their combination, and the embodied being, too, the jivabhuta, is nothing but a spiritual spark (purusha) encaged in a body made of matter (prakriti). The psychic structure is constituted by prakriti, matter, and is very sensitive to the energies that pervade this world. Vedic scientists made a great and important discovery that would be an extremely interesting concept for modern Western psychology: objects are charged with psychic energy, called pratyaya: a current of energy that from the psychic field of the objects stimulates the sense organs which in turn, working as transductors, transform the energy impulse they received into another wave length. If the individual is not stable, these psychic currents modify his psychic field in the form of vrittis, or mind waves. Vrittis are so powerful that they not only deviate but also attract and condition in an almost hypnotic way, leading the individual to believe they are factual, while on the contrary the individual is being overwhelmed by psychic currents.

The ancient treatises on Vedic psychology say that the mind takes the form of the vrittis that shape it, and someone who identifies with its fascinating play believes he is living the highest level of reality. Only one who is situated on a transcendent level, who has attained perfection in the self that goes beyond the body, the mind and the intellect, can remain stable in spite of innumerable currents of pratyaya or psychic energy constantly flooding his mind field. In Bhagavad-gita (chapter 2, shlokas 55-56), Arjuna asks Krishna a question:

"What are the symptoms of a person whose consciousness is immersed in Transcendence? How does he speak, and with which words? How does he sit, and how does he walk?" God, the Supreme Person, answers:

"O Partha, a man who becomes free from all desires of sense gratification generated by mental speculation and whose mind, already purified, finds satisfaction in the self only, is situated in pure consciousness. One who is not agitated any more by the threefold miseries or intoxicated by the joys of life, and is free from attachment, fear and anger, is considered a sage with a stout mind".

Mridu is the visible characteristic of this awareness and inner stability. The attempt to artificially search for happiness through the inadequate support of the body and mind produces frustration and agitation. When a person has become free from all desires for ephemeral gratification generated by mental fantasies, when the mind stops running here and there and is well settled under the control of the self, then the individual becomes stable and kind, too, because he is not goaded by the demands of the ego any more. This does not mean that we should think that the sage's personality is boring or shapeless; actually it has many characteristics and its own colors and peaks, just like a beautiful melody. In beautiful music or high-quality singing we find highs and lows, but they are all so well harmonized that they are almost undistinguishable because they all create pleasure. On the other hand, highs and lows in noise create irritation and sometimes headaches.

VADANYA (magnanimous)

By Matsya Avatara Dasa

From the book: The 26 Qualities of the Spiritual Researcher

Other meanings:

charitable

Rupa Gosvami glorified Shri Caitanya Mahaprabhu by calling him maha-vadanya, supremely magnanimous, or greatly merciful. A really magnanimous person is benevolent towards everyone, not only towards human beings, what to speak of only to some human beings.

Generosity is a natural characteristic of one who is vadanya. There are two forms of generosity: one is about gifting things, and the other is about giving oneself. Bhaktivedanta Svami Prabhupada has explained that we can engage in devotional service by donating our intelligence, our resources, our time, and also by donating ourselves. Giving things is a gradual process through which we learn to donate ourselves: this is why dana is important. Dana means wealth, money, donation. Today everybody is obsesses by the idea of having or receiving, but in the light of the Shastra we can state that in order to have, we need to give: one who has given more will receive more. This is another example of symmetry.

If we have excess of something and lack of something else, this means that we have given much in one sense and little in the another sense, so if we want to receive more in the future we need to learn to give in the area of our shortcomings.

However, being magnanimous is not simply about being generous. It also means we have the tendency to great actions, great missions, and in spiritual realization the greatest thing we can do consists in offering, to those who want it, the opportunity of knowing oneself and to reconnect with the Divine. In order to do big things, we first need to become victorious over our wild ego, to tame our inner beasts; in this way we become more open to others, too. We become more understanding, more generous in a wider sense.

In his Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle describes the non-assuming greatness of a magnanimous person, who must be good and virtuous: "he does not become depressed because of criticism and does not become excited because of glorification: he is silent, and when he speaks, he does so in a soft voice." This closely resembles some passages of Bhagavad-gita that describe the sage or mahatma, the bhakta or devotee. Here is an example:

One who is impartial with friends and enemies, balanced in honor and dishonor, heat and cold, joy and distress, fame and infamy, always free from all bad association, always silent and satisfied about everything, unconcerned about his dwelling, fixed in knowledge and engaged in My devotional service, is very dear to Me¹.

Vadanya is a person who is open to everyone, able to give to everyone. This does not mean we want to discourage those who give in a more "restricted" way, or once in a while, because this is good practice to learn to do more and better.

The highest and most complete sense of vadanya consists in donating oneself without reservations, being able to attain that state of consciousness where we think that the time we have been given is not ours to spend, but is intended to help others, that the body we have been entrusted with is not for us, but it is intended as an instrument to be used to help many people, that the intelligence we have been granted must not be utilized for selfish purposes, but to help others to solve their problems, and similarly also the fire in the stomach, agni²: we must become aware that it is intended to transform the energies contained in food not to do whimsical activities, but to spread the message of salvation.

A devotee eats, gets informed and acquires means in order to operate a primary transformation from the heavier material elements to the subtler and spiritual elements, just like a tree wants to offer its fruits and shadows to others.

Thus vadanya is a mahatma, a great soul that like an ocean receives thousands of rivers and does not get agitated, does not spill out, and never dries.

Some people become agitated for very small things, when anything does not go according to their own wishes: these people are the opposite of vadanya, they are kripana or narrow-minded, small and miserable. On the other hand, the magnanimous persons can receive the troubles of many and absorb them, sublimate and purify them without getting agitated; and they are also able to help those who suffer from those problems to integrate their personality.

In this case we have vadanyas that are not just great souls, but also have a great mind and great intelligence. In order to get to this platform one must take distance from mental dullness and the tyranny of one's own senses, not only from the sense objects.

1 Bg. XII.18-19.

2 Fire (see Latin ignis) and the deva of fire, through whose mouth the offerings of the sacrifice are consumed, accompanied by the threefold repetition of the word svaha (oblation).

The Basic Sources of Religious Traditions

Agliati (PI), Sunday June 28th 2009 16.30

Interreligious center of Agliati (PI)
Lecturer: Marco Ferrini, Founder and President of Centro Studi Bhaktivedanta

On June 28th Marco Ferrini (Matsyavatara Dasa), president and founder of Centro Studi Bhaktivedanta, held a conference on “The basic sources of religious traditions” at the interreligious center of Agliati (Pisa). It was the last meeting of the year, in a nice hermitage sunk in the green and sounds of a still uncontaminated Nature, where representatives of different religions gather to discuss universal themes and values which go beyond limits of space, time and culture.

The Vedas - Ferrini explained - express values which are to be considered legacy for all of humanity, as also declared by Unesco. These sacred texts teach efficacious methods and shiny ways to come to spiritual realization. The path goes through an harmony between earth and sky, in order to satisfy our highest ideals without neglecting duties and responsibilities we have here in the world.
Indovedic texts continuously remind us our divine nature and destination but at the same time they give practical teaching, to help us living in our “here and now”.
To deny the need of ideality means to deny life, because we all need freedom, justice, peace and love; life tends to transcend matter into which it is wrapped up. But in the name of ideality – Ferrini underlined – we should not choke our earthly needs, as if they are artificially denied and therefore not overcome, they take us back to matter in an undesirable way.
As in a huge painting, the Indovedic texts narrate the story of the human being between tragic fall downs and enlightening ascents, vile degradations and noble elevations of the soul.
Spiritual desire and faith are the engine of our transformation and inner elevation, Ferrini explained. Shruti and smriti texts teach how to transform our bad desires (lust, avidity, anger, envy) into a pure feeling of love: the original feeling every creature naturally and since ever tends to.
The Vedas explain that also here, by overcoming the limits of our bodily existence, we can learn to love God and all creatures in Him, by descovering in such a divine love the source of the highest bliss.
Particularly in the Bhagavata Purana, Ferrini said, we can read about the supreme value of bhakti, pure love of God, the immortal love free from all conditionings of the ego, which produces endless joy and represents the highest function of the soul. To rediscover and practise this divine love is the highest goal of human life.
In the course of his speech Marco Ferrini also mentioned some of the most important traditional works of Indian literature, like Itihasas, Dharmashastras, Puranas and Shad Darshanas.
The questions and answers part was an occasion to go more in depth with some interesting matters, for example the translation of sacred texts, the different forms of yogic meditation, the sacred wisdom of the Masters and the practice of compassion and charity.
The meeting ended up with a pleasant sharing of a vegetarian dinner in a joyful atmosphere centerd around common spiritual values and reciprocal respect and enrichment.