Vivek Chudamani

Author(s): Chandrashekhar Bharti Swami, P Sankaranarayan
Publisher: Bharatiya Vidyabhavan

Page 36

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VIVEKACŪDAMAŅI
people engaged
is only those who have scana
reatest horizontal
but what good do they do to the world? This is a question which many people ask, contrasting the jīvanmukta with people who engage themselves in what goes by the name of social service. A jivanmukta is an enlightened person, a virakta, who has conquered his passions, who has given up his possessions and is at peace with himself. As such, he is at peace with the entire world and is characterised by universal benevolence and goodwill. His look is a benediction, his words are wisdom; and his conduct a consecration. In his presence, all physical and mental ills disappear in the sense that their edge is blunted and one becomes able to bear them with fortitude. Than this there cannot be a higher service to suffering humanity. They leaven society by their presence and raise its moral and spiritual tone. They are really the benefactors of mankind in a truer and more purposeful sense than any number of people engaged, honestly and sincerely as it may be, in acts of social service. It is only those who have scaled the vertical heights of the Spirit that can generate public weal to the greatest horizontal extent without consciously intending to do so. Have we not seen in recent times Bhagavān Ramana, a jīvanmukta in sahajasamadhi, effecting, by his very presence, a Copernican revolution withdrawing men's minds from things material and centering them on the ātman? For, as the great men have taught us, the happiness which the pursuit of worldly things and the removal of physical ills will give us is neither unmixed nor lasting, and is nothing when compared to the peace and bliss of ātmalābha exemplified by these jivanmuktas. In fact, as the śruti recommends in the words: tasmat ātmajñam hi abhyarcayet bhūtikāmah,13 even for the worldly' prosperity, one should seek it from a man of self-realisation who has it in his power to bestow it without consciously endeavouring or appearing to do so. For, by his very presence in society like all saintly personages, he wafts the fragrance of the Spirit far and wide, and helps to dispel the ills of body and mind that afflict men about him. And, all the world over, in every age, have we not seen countless instances of the victory of the Spirit over Matter?
To know Advaita Vedanta is not the same as being Advaitin with ātmajñana and ātmānubhava. One can be a Brahmavit as a matter of parokşa-jñāna or textual knowledge. Lecturing or writing on Advaita to the amazement of others is easy, but to go through the sādhanas with faith and determination cut off from the limelight
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