There
is an interesting Indian story that is relevant to the commencement of your
studies here:
A great Sanskrit scholar,
whose father and grandfather were also scholars, had set out on a pilgrimage.
He had to cross a wide river on a boat. Since he was the only passenger, he
struck up a conversation with the boatman and asked him if he had studied
grammar (vyËkaraÙa).
“No. What is grammar?” the
boatman replied. Because his father and grandfather had been boatmen, he had
not thought it necessary to study in order to make a living. Nor did he know
that there was a discipline of knowledge known as grammar. The scholar was both
astounded and horrified. He had lived among scholars all his life and could not
imagine anyone not knowing grammar. He said to the boatman, “You do not know
grammar? You do not even know what grammar is? What kind of a life is that? You
are only living three-fourths of a life. One fourth is gone!” The boatman did
not seem to mind.
The scholar continued, “Did
you study literature?” The boatman once again answered that he had not. “Did
you study poetics? Did you study Kalidasa?” Again the answer was no.
The scholar then told him that another fourth of his
life was gone.
“Can you read and write?” he
asked him. “No, I cannot read nor write. I cannot even sign my name.” “You
cannot read! You cannot write! What can you get out of life? You can only enjoy
what your simple senses can satisfy, nothing more. This means that yet another
fourth of your life is gone.”
The scholar concluded that
the boatman was living only one-fourth of his life since he was alive and
rowing the boat. So he told him that three-fourths of his life was gone. With
that, the boatman became very sad. Rowing the boat, he thought to himself, “I
should have gone to school. I am living only one fourth of my life!”
As the boat continued to
proceed, the scholar noticed water seeping into the boat and brought it to the
boatman’s attention. All efforts to block the hole failed. The boat was now
half-filled with water and sinking. Knowing that he could not save the boat,
the boatman asked the scholar, “Panditji, can you swim?” “No,” the scholar
replied. “I cannot swim.” Then the boatman said to him, “Panditji, I am very
sorry. Your whole life is gone!”
When I look at my
experiences in life, I see one invariable: the struggle to be different, to be
different from what I am. The struggle is universal. Man or woman, young or
old, there is a continuous effort to be different. This process of becoming
begins at birth and has its basis, not in joy or in some creative power, but in
a certain sadness on my part that is self non-acceptance.
Self non-acceptance is the
basis for all attempts to become different. If I want to become someone in order
to be somebody, there is definitely a self-image that I don’t accept. There is
the idea that I am a nobody, and so the need to become a somebody arises. The
expression “wanting to become somebody” refers to any form of struggle with a
particular end, whether be it money,
profession, or family. If having achieved a particular end, I can say that I no
longer want to become somebody, then I can say I have made my life; nothing
more needs to be done; thereafter, any becoming is just for the joy of it.
Whatever end I pursue, it is
for me and not for the sake of the end itself. This is a very central fact in
the life of a human being. In the BÎhadaranyakopanishad, this is beautifully
presented in one sentence:
atmanastu kamaya sarvaÑ priyaÑ bhavati
“All things become dear for
one’s own sake.”
The whole tradition of Vedanta is based on this one fact.
Any struggle is meant for myself alone. The self I want to be is different from
what it is now. In the different self that I am going to fashion out of some
economic addition, rise in social status, or some other comfort, the central
figure throughout is ‘I’, the self.
I do not accept myself as I
am now, nor have I since the day I was born. Crying as a child for want of
something is no different from the crying I do now for want of something. This
non-self-acceptance is the invariable basis for all human struggles. The
question is, when am I going to accept myself?
Is there any goal in life
that is not aimed at total self-acceptance? Suppose someone says, “My goal is
to go to heaven.” If we ask him why he wants to go to heaven, what will he say?
Whatever words he uses will reveal that he does not accept himself. There will
be heavenly pleasures and so on in heaven. All of these are nothing but possibilities
of seeing himself as acceptable.
Generally, you prefer to
have others accept you. “If they accept me, I will be more acceptable to
myself.” The more you seek the acceptance of others, the less you accept
yourself. The poorer your self-image, the more you depend on the favorable
opinion of others. When others say something nice about you, you think you are
acceptable. This is why love becomes so important. At least in one pair of
eyes, you are acceptable and through that person, you can accept yourself, if
only a little. But you also seek recognition or acceptance from society that
further proves that you do not accept yourself. Thus, whichever way you look,
the problem is one of self-non-acceptance.
If self-non-acceptance is
the problem, self-acceptance must be the solution. This seems quite simple, but
in order to accept yourself many facts need to be addressed. Anyone can say
that all you have to do is to accept yourself and the problem will be solved.
But in your life there are so many deficiencies that you have to come to terms
with, such as deficiency in memory, knowledge, health, and so on. This list is
long, and ever getting longer. And yet you are told that the solution is to
accept yourself. How can you? You cannot. Therefore, the struggle to become
perfect continues.
Another problem with your
constant effort to become different is that with any change there is something
lost as well as something gained. In every gain brought about by effort or by a
process of change, there will also be some loss. This is why positive thinking
is improper thinking. Positive thinking is seeing only the good side of things
while the other side, the negative side, remains hidden. But it does make its
presence known at one time or the other because each side is as true as the
other. What you have is as true as what you do not have. What you gain is as
true as what you lose. Positive thinking does not change this fact. It may be
useful in changing the habitual thought patterns of someone who thinks
negatively, but it is not a solution for the problem of self-non-acceptance.
By a process of becoming,
you are not going to become the acceptable self. Therefore, there is only one
possibility: perhaps the self is already acceptable. If you are acceptable to
yourself, and you can know this fact, then gaining this knowledge becomes the
only meaningful pursuit. When you have this knowledge, everything else becomes
meaningful.
You also need the knowledge
that will enable you to cross from self-non-acceptance to self-acceptance. This
knowledge is not subject to choice, but once it is gained, you are free to
exercise your faculty of choice. When you accept yourself, then you will find
that you have the choice to desire, to do, and to know. When this particular
knowledge that “I am acceptable just as I am now” is there, then other
disciplines of knowledge and interests can be explored and enjoyed.
Why are we taking three
years to study Vedanta? In fact, three years may not be required at all, but this knowledge
does seem to have a particular element to it. It seems to grow, not in linear
way, but in terms of clarity. You hear me speaking today and you think you
understand. But when you hear the same topic again, perhaps after one or two
years, you will say, “Oh, now I understand.” Clarity comes in increasing
degrees—like a Polaroid picture. When the picture first comes out of the
camera, nothing can be seen; it is dark. As the picture develops, the image is
still a blur. The whole picture becomes clear gradually. There is a lot of
difference in what is actually seen between the initial recognition and the
final confirmation of the picture.
To know that the self is
acceptable entails study of the world and God also. Why do we need to study the
world? Because the self is connected to the world, an understanding of it is
important. Why should we talk about God? For the same reason: if there is a
God, we are definitely connected to that God. What are these connections? Are
we connected permanently, or are we “as though” connected?
As we proceed, we will find
a new vista of knowledge opening up. What starts out simply, and appears to be
very innocuous, becomes complex in the sense that there are many things to be
understood. This knowledge is gleaned from certain major texts, the study of
which traditionally takes twelve years. Thus, both the study and clarity take
time.
Inauguration of the three-year course
Arsha Vidya Gurukulam
