Text V
aham prapanno’smi padambujam prabho bhavapavargam tava yogibhavitam yathanjasajnanamaparavaridhim sukham tarisyami tathanusadhi mam
O Lord ! I am surrendering at Your lotus feet, upon which yogis contemplate and which can liberate one from the bondage of time. Please teach me the quickest means by which I can cross the shoreless ocean of ignorance, comfortably.
The previous verse declared the student’s acceptance of the teacher as more than a mere person or individual: he recognized in him the very presence of the infinite Self. This kind of a glorification of the teacher is beneficial to the student because the physical presence of the teacher becomes to him a symbol to remind him of the final goal and destination,, the Self. Secondly, it also turns the teacher’s beam of special attention upon the student. Thus, a mutual tuning-in can be brought about between the teacher and the taught for ready and easy communication.
In the Indian tradition, extreme importance is given to showing respect and reverence at the feet of the Lord, and again at the feet of those we love and respect – “touching the feet” of the elders. The teacher stands rooted in Truth. Since the student cannot directly reach this subtle and transcendental Reality, the best he can do is worship the Truth upon a symbol nearest to it, the teacher’s feet, upon which he stands, just as he stands rooted in Truth. Sri Rama’s feet are the object of contemplation of every devoted seeker, every developed spiritual seeker in his seat of meditation.
Time is the medium in which the world of plurality comes to play. The equipments of experience, the body-mind-intellect; our fields of experience, objects-emotions-thoughts; and even the very experience, the perceiver-feeler-thinker, all exist and function in time, Time is ever changing, and therefore everything in time must also constantly change. Caught up in the present state of consciousness as we are, we can exist and function only in the realm of time in the world of change. Nothing is permanent; every experience is ephemeral. Thus, our individual selves are tossed about mercilessly in this endless tide of time. To establish ourselves in the contemplation upon the Lord’s feet is to enter into a harbor safely away from the tyranny of time.
Laksmana, the student and disciple, after surrendering thus to Rama, his teacher, demanded knowledge and help. He wanted to know what is the quickest means for going beyond the ocean of ignorance.
It is a trick of the human mind – perceptible everywhere and to everyone – that when we don’t know the real nature of something, in our nonapprehension our minds project a newly created reality, and we experience misapprehensions. On a dark, moonless night, when we come across a misshapen post at the roadside, we may not apprehend it properly in the dim light and therefore convince ourselves that we are seeing a ghost: the nonapprehension of the post gives rise to the misapprehension of a grinning, frightening ghost. The noapprehension of Reality given us the misapprehension that we are the limited, tired, sorrowful individual (ego). This nonapprehension of Reality and the consequent misapprehensions of the same are together termed ignorance (ajnana) in the subjective science of Vedanta.
Laksmana has pointedly asked what is the quickest means by which one can cross over this shoreless ocean of ignorance, comfortably and effortlessly (sukham). “Teach me that path, instruct me upon this secret means, guide me. O Teacher, to the yonder shores of this boundless state of ignorance.”
English Wording: srutvatha saumitrivaco ‘khilam tada praha prapannartiharah prasannadhih vijnanamajnanatamahprasantaye srutiprapannam ksitipalabhusanah
Then, having heard all that Laksmana had said, Sri Rama– the serene jewel of royal kings, who destroys all sorrows of those who surrender to him – gave out to Laksmana, who was eager to listen, the Knowledge, for dispelling the darkness of ignorance.
Every teacher becomes extremely happy and enthusiastic when he recognizes the glory, ripeness, and devotion in a student’s heart. The guru in Rama finds an ideal disciple in Laksmana, an therefore he declares pure Knowledge as the most direct means to end ignorance. The teacher represents the infinite Self; to contemplate and meditate upon Him and thus come to surrender to Him is to end all miseries felt by the ego in its own limitations. The knowledge that Rama imparts to Laksmana is not anything new or original. It is the very knowledge declared in the ancient Upanisads by the masters of yore.
According to the Vedic tradition, once the seeker has purified the mind and intellect and gained a steady consistency in thinking, he or she must strive to employ the mind in a mood of unwavering contemplation, analyzing and discovering the total identity of the essence behind both the individuality (jivatma) and the universal Self (Paramatma). Knowledge then becomes both the means and the goal. Knowledge gathered from the Upanisads (jnana) takes us to a direct spiritual apprehension of the higher state called vijnana. To gain this direct spiritual apprehension of Truth is the last leap of the limited to reach the Unlimited, for the finite to experience the Infinite, for the mortal to arrive at the state of Immortality.
Text VII
adau svavarnasramavarnitah kriyah krtva samasaditasuddhamanasah samapya tatpurvamupattasadhanah samasrayetsadgurumatmalabdhaye
First of all, after we have performed all the obligatory duties required of us due to our position in society (varna) and status in life (asrama), and thereby have gained a purified mind, we should give up all these earlier karmas, and thus endowed with the necessary qualifications, we must surrender totally to the teacher in order to attain the Self.
The great rishis of yore have prescribed to the individual in the community certain irrevocable duties in his or her social life, and these are prescribed with an eye to the status of the individual in the society (varna) and the stage of life he or she is in (asrama). When these obligatory duties are performed without any anxieties for their fruits, they tend to exhaust th vasanas and bring the mind to a quiet, vigilant, and alert composure, ready for study and contemplation.
With such sensitive equipment, the student must arrive at the feet of the reacher in order to gain the maximum in his or her interaction with the teacher’s words.
