Acharya Mahaprajna
The Art & Science Of Living
Chapter 4.
Awakening
29
Self Management
[Religion is mainly meant for improving conduct and not merely for praying, worshipping or performing rituals. Society, without the spirit of cooperation and compassion, loses its existence. The awakened person is one who has compassion, mental peace and commitment towards the truth. Society must reform but before that, the person changing the society has to perform. The process of Prekshadhyan is primarily meant to reform the one who reforms society.]
One routine of life is to sleep and to wake up. When the conscious mind of a man is awake we say that the man is awake. When the conscious mind is sleeping, we say that the man is sleeping. Infact, people who have contemplated deeply have realized that though the conscious mind is awake, the man may be sleeping physically and vice versa. An American named Robert, used to sleep in meditative caves in Rajsamand Tulsi Sadhana Sikhar (an institute of meditation). One day he said “I was sleeping inside the cave. I saw that my body was sleeping and I was witnessing that body. One body was sleeping and other body was awake. One body was dreaming and other was witnessing the body which was dreaming.” This shows the difference between sleeping and becoming aware, and also indicates the truth of our being separate from the material body.
The mind has two levels, the level of conscious mind and the level of unconscious mind. One activity of sleeping and awaking is at the level of conscious mind and the other activity of sleeping and awaking is at the level of unconscious mind. We understand the activity of sleeping and awaking from the materialistic point of view - that man sleeps at night and wakes up at daytime. At which level did he sleep and at which level, did he wake up? This question remains a mystery, until awareness descends on man and his nature is changed. There is an important statement of Mahavira in this regard, “A person, who is not a mystic does not have knowledge. He remains in sleep always. A person, who is a mystic, has the knowledge. He remains awake. A non-mystic sleeps even while waking, where as a mystic remains awake even while sleeping.” Lord Krishan has also supported the same fact in Gita, “Some people keep awake, even during sleep and some people keep sleeping, even when they are awake.” A controlled person remains awake even while sleeping and an uncontrolled person keeps sleeping even when he is awake. We should try to understand the meaning and secret of sleeping and waking in the context of spirituality. The person, who has become aware from within, is truly awake irrespective of his age and experience. The person who is not aware from within may have attained a ripe age still he is in the state of sleep only.
Today’s genetic scientists claim that the attitude of man grows from within along with his life. Yesterday I read an article in which the discussion was centered on the subject that the attitude of man is determined on the basis of his hormones and it is already predetermined. As a matter of facts, we have to retrospect and become aware, where our nature is actually being formed for true awakening. In case, we cannot retrospect, then there is absolutely no difference between sleeping and waking.Today we have a burning question - that in spite of so many preaching and sermons from different religions the actual conduct is not changing at all. Man is the same, unchanged. Anuvrat revolution (a movement initiated by Acharya Tulsi in 1949) explored its reasons and preached that human conduct is most important from religious point of view, not the worship or performing of rituals. The foremost is conduct; worship and rituals are secondary. Unfortunately, the harsh reality is that nowdays a prayer, worship and rituals have become primary and human conduct, behaviour and character have been rendered secondary or ignored. Deliverance cannot be achieved by repeating any word in particular; it is achieved by directly experiencing the ultimate truth. Also there is no predetermined path. That is the reason that religious sermons appear ineffective, dull and impotent. Religion is not able to influence and transform the individual and society.
The second important subject is to authorize only the pious in behaviour for conducting worship and performing rituals. People with good character feel uncomfortable in the company of bad characters. Will God not feel uncomfortable when worshipped by persons with polluted and perverse character!
In Jain tradition, there is a categorized list of sins. In that, eighteen kinds of sins have been explained. If man can live avoiding them then he can automatically solve and check most of the problem in his life. I am just explaining four sins out of those eighteen sins. These sins are quarrelling, blaming, backbiting and censuring. Yesterday somebody asked, “Is the definition of sin and sacredness eternal or impermanent?” though the nature of sin and sacredness changes in the context of social values, it remains eternal in the context of attachment and hatred. Quarrelling is eternally sinful. Some people take interest in quarrelling. They are always inclined to indulge in squabbles and tussles, and never want to avoid them. A religious man should always avoid quarrels; this is his primary duty. He should never indulge in quarrels knowingly.
The second doctrine of awakening is to be free from the act of blaming others falsely. Without proper and complete knowledge, we should never blame each others. It is the greatest sin. It tantamount to murdering the person, though death comes to all one day, whether naturally or unnaturally, timely or untimely. His chapter of life is closed after death. But assassination of character is the biggest sin. An awakened person avoids it and never gets involved in it.
The third doctrine of the awakened life is commitment towards the truth. Today, materialism is at its height and it is expected that in the 21st century, man will not have to do any work; the machine will do everything. That will be totally a machine era. Even after attaining the machine era, if man still does not reform then people will prefer to have that old, less developed era and culture, because, in due course, the situation may worsen to the extent that is may not be reversible and reparable. That is why, it is essential that man should develop his commitment towards truth:
Compassion is an important principle of social change. It is one of the most authentic expressions of spirituality. Compassion involves standing together with all. Man should not torture any creature. In spite of so many doctors, hospitals and advanced system of medicines, we have many diseases. On critically analyzing with profound insight, you will observe that there is extreme cruelty behind the modernization and advancement of medical systems. In order to diagnose and find treatment for a disease, thousands of frog and monkeys are killed in the wake of initial trials being done on them. The single, onerous purpose of the merciless killing of mice and monkeys is to keep man healthy. There is so much of cruelty at the background of health that obviously the number of diseases will increase. So the diseases are the outcome of the cruelties inflicted upon innocent frogs, monkeys and guinea pigs.
Today the system of monarchy has collapsed in India. Formerly there were so many kings, now there are none. Their cruelty was responsible for their unforeseen death and removal. Kings had been relentlessly killing millions of bird just for the sake of their lustful desires. They indulged in the cruelest acts to excite and fulfill their lusty feelings. The tongues of lakhs of birds were used to make aphrodisiac for them. This is the height of cruelty and madness. Till today, history has witnessed several instances that wherever cruelty reigned, the society or individual had a downfall. The society, which is plenarily devoid of cooperation and compassion, loses its existence itself.
The awakened person is committed towards truth, compassion and mental peace. These are the doctrine of social change. For developing awareness, a calm compassionate and truthful personality is imperative. A thoughtful person has to seriously and meticulously contemplate today about the process of social change. Society should change but before that the individual responsible for changing the society must change. The process of Prekshadhyan is not to change the society directly but first to change the individual constituting the society. As long as the individual constituting the society will not change, no radical change can be expected.
Two friends belong to a village. One of them occupied the chair of power in the government. His friend came to meet him and called him by his nickname. The friend in power gets enraged and kicked him. The villager said “I have heard that you have changed and become a big shot since you occupied a powerful chair in the government but I find you are the same stupid ass.”
You cannot achieve anything by sitting in a chair alone. The most essential thing is that, first of all you should be transformed. Once you are transformed, then you can transform the whole society by being part and parcel of it.