Srimad Rajchandra on Necessity of Direct Living Sadguru

Author(s): N M Kansara
Publisher: ZZ_Anusandhan
Catalog link: https://jainqq.org/explore/269109/1

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Srimad Rajacandra on the Necessity of a Direct Living Sad-guru - N. M. Kansara Srimad Rajacandra (1968-1901. AD) was a very grand soul with prodigious prenatal memory, unusually spiritual poetic tendency, and direct experience of Self-realization. His master piece work, named Atma-siddhi-sastra (ASS) composed in Gujarati, is written with the sole purpose of saving the humanity from mere ritualism and pursuance of barren knowledge that leads them but to the hell, to save them from it and show them the entirely hidden secret path of Truth. Herein is emphasized the ideal of Self-pursuit, Self-realization and Self-absorption. In about twenty-eight doha verses of his ASS he has made various statement that emphasize the need of a direct living good preceptor on the spiritual path of Self-realization. At the outset he bows down to the feet of the Holy True Teacher, the Adored Jina, who explained the real nature of the Soul, without understanding which he suffered infinite misery.' Emphasizing that a true teacher is essential, he adds that he who gives up his individual theories, such as whims, delusion, etc., and serves the feet of the true Teacher, finds his ideal and attains Self-realization. However low, as compared with the Arhant, a living teacher be, he is necessary to guide the seeker after truth. To this effect Srimad Rajacandra says that even the obligation to Jina who is invisible is not comparable to that of a visible living true teacher. Without attending to this fact, self-contemplation does not arise. Referring to the True Teacher, he says that these are the admirable qualities of the True Teacher, viz., knowledge of the Self, equanimous feeling at the contradictory pairs of the world, such as pleasure or pain, praise or censure, gain or loss, etc., worldly life only due to the operation of the

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HET-89. 67 past Karmas and not due to present attachment to good or hatred towards bad surroundings or circumstances, unique speech distiguished by sweetness, truth, inner conviction, beauty and authority, and knowledge of the supreme scriptures. Without the teaching of a True Teacher, the character of the Jina is not understood. How can any good be done to a soul without such understanding? With such understanding alone, it is possible to comprehend and attain the full and true character of Jina. The scriptures which establish the existence of the soul and non-soul including matter, time, space, motion and rest, are the prop of the souls deserving liberation, when the facility of a visible living true teacher is not available. Or, if the true teacher had ordered the reading of such scriptures, then the pupil should always contempate such ones, after giving up the disputations and distinctions of different schools of thought.? After giving up whimsical self-guidance and obstinacy of holding up one's own views, the soul follows the guidance of the True Teacher. Knowing this to be the visible cause of liberation, the Jina has called it Right Belief. The mighty foes in the form of the passions of anger, pride, deceit and greed, attachment and hatred, are not destroyed by whimsical self-guidance. By surrendeting unto the True Teacher, they go away with but slight effort. While discussing about a perverse bigot, Srimad says that even in the presence of the visible True Teacher a bigot asks a perverse view, and follows the untrue teacher with determination chiefly to gratify his own vanity. 1deg True sainthood is there where there is Soul-Knowledge. Saints are the True Teachers. Else it is delusion to revere the teacher's of one's own family merely as such. The persons who are soul-seekers know this." The soul-seeker should reckon the attachment of a living visible True Teacher as a great blessing, and

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37814-4468 act on his precept, with the united activity of the energies of mind, speech and body.!? In the three ages of past, present and future, the path of the Highest Ideal is one and the same, and that life alone is worthy by which the Highest Ideal is attained. Keeping this in the mind one should acquire the proximity of a True Teacher, and one's mind should be rid of all other diseases, and have the desire for Selfrealization only." When passions recede, and the only desire is for liberation, and there is sorrow for continuous rebirths, as also compassion for all beings, that is the abode of SelfIdeal.!4 Where this condition is attained the wise teaching of the True Teacher is palatable, and from it there arises bliss-giving Right Thinking.' : A soul-seeker that gives up his bias for one's particular school of thought and religion, and follows the precept of the True Teacher, gets pure Eight Beliefs, in which there is neither distinction nor partisanship.16 If such aspirants for Self-realization get wise guidance of a True Teacher, they acquire Right Belief, and lead a life of purification." By the teaching of the True Teacher new light dawns in a pupil, he gains self-knowledge and his ignorance disappears. To him his own nature appears to be pure and consciousness itself, undiminishable, immortal, indestructible and of a nature entirely independent of and separatre from the body. He come to see that he is the doer and enjoyer of Karmas, only where there is delusion about the identification of the soul and body. As soon as his life flows in his own nature, he at once becomes non-doer and non-enjoyer.is In conclusion, Srimad declares that there is no desease so bad as soul-delusion, and there is no doctor so skilled like True teacher, there is no prescription so good like the commands of the Teacher; and there is no medicine like contemplation of and concentration upon the true nature of

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TER-949.69 the soul.'' All souls are alike Siddha, i.e. perfect or liberated souls. He who understands this becomes Siddha. Of this the essential auxilary cause is the obedience to the percepts of the True Tracher, or the contemplation of the state of Jinahood.20 And, finally, he offers innumerable obeisance at the feet of the Self-realized one who, though living in a human body, nonetheless lives a life transcending all attachment for the body.21 Thus, in the light of his self experience, Srimad has composed his Atma-siddhi for the benefit of a true seeker of Self-knowledge, and therein he has expressed his recommendation with regard to the importance of a True Teacher (sadguru) in very clear terms. In view of the fact that Srimad was himself a Self-realized person, that the memories of his past lives dawned on him at the tender age of seven years, and that he had no need of a guru in his current life, his recommendations carry an authority and realibility. His motive in composing the work was just his help the true seekers for Self-realization. Although those thoughts of Srimad have Jainism in their background, they have an added value in that similar thoughts and recommendations have been made by some other Selfrealized saints in other non-Jaina traditions, too. Thus, the famous Saint Ranga Avadhuta of Naresvara (in South Gujarat), who was a devotee of Dattatreya, has specifically confessed, in one of his devotional songs (bhajan), that it was by the holy Word of Guru that he was awakened although he was sleeping since numerous lives." In another devotional song he declared that only the grace of a Guru is enough for the welfare of a disciple, and that the physical strength, backing of residential property, might of wealth, power of mind or intellect, are all helpless without it.23 Julian Johnson24 has listed, and discussed in detail, four cardinal precepts of the Sikh religion of India: (1) First of

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3IHAN-89.70 all, there is a necessity of living Guru, a genuine saint who has been appointed by the supreme Sat Purush to act as Guru. By living we mean one who is still in the physical body. After his death, or departure from his body, the Guru will still take care of all whom he has initiated; but he cannot accept new disciples. This is not because the Guru is limited, but because the disciple himself is so limited that he cannot receive instructions and initiation from a departed Guru. (2) The second fundamental of this system of the Masters, the pure Sant Mat, is the vital fact of the audible life streum. This stream is in fact nothing less than the Supreme One, projecting Himself on all planes of life in a constant stream of musical vibrations, through which flows the most incomprehensible power, life-giving and creative. This current is also the central factor in liberation and salvation from the endless rounds of births and deaths. This stream can be received from a living Guru only. (3) The third general truth emphasized by the saints is complete liberation and spiritual triumph while still living in the physical body. It is a central precept of the Sant Mat that nothing can be accompished after death in a way of spiritual liberation unless it is at least begun during this life. In every case, when the individual has not been initiated during the lifetime, he must return to earthly life for another chance to meet and follow a living Guru. (4) Unless a man is able to give initiation and lead his disciple upon the inner planes, he is not a Master and should not be accepted as such. And it must be remembered that initiation is of first importance. All these things are taught with great clarity and force repeatedly in the Adi Granth. The tradition of the Radha Soami Satsang Beas is very specific on the point of the necessity of a direct spititual Master on the path of Self-realization. Truth itself may be

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371Hn-ple. 71 universal, but a spiritual Master can function here as a Master only so long as he lives in a physical body. I'ne Gita was spoken to Arjuna by the living Kssna. The very reason that impelled God to take a human body in the first place suggests that such work as he has to do can be done only in a human body. If it were otherwise, then he never had a need of coming in human form.25 Jesus Christ too said: "I am the light of the world; he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. 26 Every Master is the light of the world, He brings with him the light of the Eternal One. If anyone centers his attention upon the Master and walks in his light, there can be no more darkness in him If the disciple opens the gates of light in himself, as the Masters urge him to do, he walks unobstructed into the kingdom of heaven. But he can do this only by the light of the living Master. It was this elementary truth which Jesus was trying to inculcate.27 Usually when people accept a book as the authoritative word of God, then they assert that all revelation is closed. The last word has been said. Believe it now or be condemned. This has been the supreme tragedy of history. The Vedas, the Sastras, the Puranas, the Gita, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, the Zend-Avesta, the Bible and the Koran, and other religious scriptures - all these books are to be worshipped and obeyed. They are declared, ex cathedra, to be the inspired word of God. Ergo, it is the duty of all men to accept and believe them. And all of them are fetters to intelligence. No matter how good they may be in themselves, they become fetters because their followers insist that all revclation be closed. All spiritual instructions are finished. Instead of listening to a living Master in each age, their respective books are considered to be the infallible word. Crystallization of thought always goes before moral stagnation. Without a living Master

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3ta-8172 spirituality wanes, as a lamp goes out when the oil is exhausted. As soon as a religion becomes fixed, static, crystallized, upon that foundation a corrupt priesthood is established, and at once the whole thing begins to decline into an insipid formalism. This is history. It is no theory,28 No one can possibly gain spiritual freedom except by and through the Shabd-dhun, and no one can possibly get that Shabd-dhun without first placing his life in the hands of a Satguru. On the other hand, if you get a Satgutu, you cannot fail to get jivanmukti, redemption from all ills of this or any other life. And this is because the Satguru never fails to connect his discipline with the Shaba-dhun. And so, having both Satguru and Shabd-dhun, one cannot fail to get spiritual freedom, which is called jivanmukti. 29 In the Swaminarayan tradition, the founder of the sect, Sahajanand Swami known popularly as Bhagavan Svaminarayana became the object of worship and mediation as the perfect manifestation of God in human form. In its new tradition of the Akshar Purushottam Sanstha, the distinctive belief of its members is that contact with the manifestation of Aksara on earth is essential for one to reach Purusottama, God Almighty. Only after the devotee has reached Swami who is Aksara can he reach Narayana who is Purusottama. The Aksara, as one of the succession of God-realized' saints, is the representative of God on earth; he gives the perfect example, speaks with the authority of God, and receives reverence and worship of the devotees. All spiritual aspirants accept him as perfect ideal for emulation. Members of this new school believe that Bhagavan Svaminarayana has been keeping Himself primarily present in the person of the successive Gurus, viz., Svami Gunatitananda, Bhagatji Maharaja, Sastriji Maharaja, Yogiji Maharaja and Pramukha-svami Maharaja, as also in the images and sacred scriptures. The

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3FELETT-919. 73 Guru, i.e. the Aksara, is spoken of as "the sacred texts personified' because he lives in harmony with all the percepts of the scriptures given by Bhagavan Svaminarayana. Without such a Guru, it is said, there can be no Satsanga. It is only through association with the Aksara who has come to earth in a personal form that one can get rid of one's vices, baser instincts, and the clutches of Maya and thereby gain release. 30 . Foot-notes 1. ASS.,1: Je svarupa samajya vina, pamyo duhkha anamita / Samajavyum te pada namun, sri sadguru bhagavama / /1/1; The author of this article acknowledges his gratefullness to the edition of the Atma-siddhi of Srimad Rajacandra by Rai Bahadur J. L. Jaini, with English translation and Introduction, of which I have made fuil use, of course with necessary modifications. NMK. 2. Ibid.,9: Seve sadguru-caran-ne, tyagi dai nija-paksa / Pame te paramartha-ne nija-pada-no le laksa /1911 3. Ibid., 11: Pratyaksa-sadguru sama nahin, paroksa-jina-upakara/ Evo laksa thaya vina, uge na arma-vicara //11// 4. Ibid., 10: Atma-jnana sama-darsita, vicare udaya-prayoga / Aparva-vani parama-sruta, sadguru-laksana yogya //10/1 5. Ibid., 12: Sadguru-na upadesa vana, samajaya na Jina-rupa / Samajya vana upakan so ? samajye Jina-svaripa //12/1 6. Ibid., 13: Armadi astirva-na, jeha nirupaka sastra Pratyaksa sadguru-yoga nahin, tyom adhara supatra //13// 7. Ibid., 14: Arhava sadguru-e kahyan, je avagahana kaja / Te te nitya vicaravam, kuri matartara tyaga 1/14 // Svacchamda matu agraha taji, varte sadguru-laksa/ Samakita tene bhakhiyun, karana gani pratyaksa //17/1 9. Ibid., 18: Manadika satru maha, nija-chamde na maraya / Jatan sadguru saranaman, alpa prayas jaya //18/1 10.Ibid.,26: Pratyaksa sadguru-yoga-mam, 'varte drsti vimukha / A-sadgur-ne drdha kare, nija-manarihe mukhya //26/1 11.Ibid. 34Ania-jnana tyam munipanun, te saca guru hoya / Baki kula-guru kalpana, atmarthi nahi joya //3411 12.Ibid.,35: * Pratyaksa sadguru prapti-no, gane parama upakara / Trane yoga ekatva-thi, vart ajnadhara 1/35 13.Ibid. 36-37: Eka hoya trana kala-mam, pararamaratha-no pamihal 8.Ibid., 17:

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31EA-969 74 Prere te paramartha-ne, te vyavuhara samasta // Ema vicari amtare sodhe sadguru-yoga / Kaja de Otmartha-ruen, bijo nahim mana roga /36-3711 14.Ibid.,38: Kasaya-ni upasantata, matra moksa abhilasa / Bhave kheda, prani-daya, tyam armartha-nivasi 1/38/1 15.1bid.,40: Ave jyam evi dasa, sadguru-bodha suhaya / Te bodhe su-vicarana, tyam pragate sukha-daya 1/40/1 16.Ibid., 110: Mata darsara agraha taji, varte saduru-laksa/ Lahe suddha samakita te, jemam bheda na paksa //110/1 17.1bid., 109: Te jijnasu jiva-ne, thaya sadguru-bodha / To pame samakita-ne, varte antara-sodha //109/1 18.Ibid., 119-121: Sadguru-na upades-thi, avyum apurva bhana / Nija-pada nijc-manhi lahun, dura thayum aruna /11911 Bhasyum nija-svarupa te, suddha cetana-ripa/ Ajara am avinasi ne, dehatita svarupa 1/2011 Karta bhokta karma-no, vibhava varte jyanya / Vritti vahi ruja-bhava-man, thayo a-karta nyamal121/1 19.Ibid., 129: Atma-bhranti-sama mga nahim, sadguru vaidya sujana / Guru-ajna-sama pathya nahum, ausadha vicara dhyana //12911 20.1bid.,135: Sarva jiva che siddha-sama, je samaje te thaya / Sadguru-ajna jina-dasa, nimitta karana mamya /1135/1 21.1bid., 142: Deha chatam jeni dasa, varte dehatita / Te jnani-na carana-nam, ho vamdana aganita //142/1 22. Guru-carana prita mori lagi re Soti thi mam janamo-janama-se, guru-sadada-se jagi re //// 23. Guru-krpa hi kevalan sisya-praramamangalam / Deha-balam geha-balam vitta-balam citta-balam / Tad-vina iu sarva-balam viddhy-asara-nisphalam il 24. Johnson, Julian, The Path of the Masters, Radha Soami Sarsang Beas, Punjab, India, (151h revised ed.), 1993, pp. 136-138. 25. Ibid., p. 80. 26. Holy Bible, John 8.12. 27. Johnson, op. cit. p. 122. 28 Ibid., pp. 132-134. 29. Thid., pp. 417-418. 30. Williams, Raymond B., A New Face of Hinduism: The Swaminarayan religion. Cambridge University Press Cambridge, 1984, pp. 80-81; Davo, Ramesh M. Ethics of the Shikshapatri, in Swaminarayan Magazine, 1978, pp. 9-10, Ahmedabad, Akshar Purushottam Sanstha.