The Seed – Part 5
It was a pleasant morning. I saw Guruji sitting in the verandah of The Guru Kutir. I went in and touched his feet. He asked me to take a chair.
Guruji asked, “How are you playing your role?”
I was not clear about the meaning or the direction of his question. I asked, “How is ‘doing a job’ different from ‘playing a role’?
Guruji said, “When you play a role, you don’t identify yourself with the role. You may be playing the role of a king, but you know you are not a king, you are just playing a role.
On the other hand, when you are doing the job as a king, you are a king, not someone just playing a role.
Have you not heard the assertion – ‘Ekoham Bahusyama’? Brahm, not Brahma, decides to be ‘many’. You know there is only Brahm and nothing but Brahm, and he decides to be ‘many’, the ‘many’ are also elements of Brahm. And each element has to play an assigned role. Karandikarji, who is sitting in front of me, is a part of Brahm, he is thinking of Shailaja, his wife, that Shailaja is also Brahm, so is Guruji, so is the duck quacking in the pond behind you. The water in the pond is also Brahm. Nothing other than Brahm exists.
And each one of these elements of Brahm has a role to play.”
This was a new subject for me in the sense that I had not heard Guruji talking about Brahm before.
Guruji continued, “Each one of us is playing a role but we identify ourselves with the character so deeply that we forget our Brahm-Tattva.
There are two dimensions of this practical issue.
One, since we are assigned a role, we must play it truthfully, with our utmost effort.
Two, we must recover from identification with the role; why? because this identification completely masks off our true identity, the truth that we are elements of Brahm.
Maharshi Patanjali addressed these two issues beautifully; he shows the way – so that you do your role in its fullness and also you regain your identity as Brahm.
How?
There is a key Sutra in Yog Darshan. In Vibhutipad Maharshi says,
“TRAYAM ANTARANGAM POORVEBHYAH”.
The Poorvebhya leads you to play your role sincerely irrespective of whatever you may face. This ‘Poorvebhyah’ brings you to “Yogah Karmasu Koushalam” as Shri Krishna says in Shrimad Bhagavat Geeta. Poorvebhyah leads you to “KarmasuKoushalam”.
What about ‘TRAYAM’of the Sutra?
It leads you to the realisation that you ARE Brahm. That is why ‘TRAYAM’ is ‘ANTARANGAM’.
To be continued…
Laxman Sakharam Karandikar
Leave a Reply