Vivekachudamani

In the first sloka Sri Sankara pays obeisance to God and his own Guru. The sloka says: I bow down to Govinda who is the goal of all Vedanta, who is beyond words and thought, who is supreme bliss itself and who is my Guru. By the word Govinda the supreme Lord as well as Sri Sankara�s Guru Sri Govindabhagavatpada are meant. It is laid down in our tradition that the Guru should be looked upon as God Himself and not as a mere human being. In his work entitled Satasloki, in the very first sloka Sri Sankara declares that the Sadguru is incomparable in all the three worlds. He says:

    �There is nothing in all the three worlds that can be compared to the Sadguru who imparts the knowledge of the Self. The legendary Philosopher's stone may perhaps be suggested as an apt comparison, because it has the capacity to convert a piece of iron into gold, just as the Sadguru converts an ordinary disciple into an enlightened person. But this comparison cannot stand because, while the Sadguru makes the disciple another Guru like himself, the Philosopher's stone does not have the power to convert a piece of iron into another Philosopher's stone like itself. Therefore the Sadguru is incomparable and his glory transcends the world�.    

  Human birth is precious.

After paying obeisance to God and Guru, Sri Sankara says that birth as a human being is difficult to get. A jiva goes through innumerable births in the form of various other creatures before being born as a human being. Even after birth as a human being, to have an inclination to study the scriptures, to attain discrimination between the Self and the not-Self, and ultimately to attain liberation, are the results of punya acquired in innumerable past lives.

  Three things are very rare, and attained only through the grace of God: the quality of being a human being in the true sense of the term (not mere birth as a human being), an intense yearning for liberation, and association with a great soul. A person who, in spite of having the advantages of birth in a cultured family and study of the Vedas does not strive for liberation wastes his precious life. Liberation cannot be attained through acquisition of wealth or through mere performance of rituals laid down in the Vedas or through noble deeds, as long as they are performed with the desire to get some personal benefit. This should not be understood to mean that rituals and noble deeds are to be discarded. On the other hand, Sri Sankara stresses in many places that the actions ordained by the Vedas should be performed in order to attain purity of mind. If the same actions are performed as karma yoga, that is, without desire for any personal benefit for the performer and as an offering to God, they will lead to purity of mind. Even a good action, whether ritualistic or worldly, performed with  the desire to derive some personal benefit or just fame, creates bondage. Even the acquisition of punya by the performance of good deeds produces bondage because the person has to be born again in order to enjoy the results of his good actions. So a spiritual aspirant has to perform actions in such a way that they do not produce even punya. The Gita says that no one can remain without performing action even for a moment. Since the performance of actions is inevitable, one has to perform them in such a way that they do not produce either punya or paapa. The method of achieving this is karmayoga. Sri Sankara explains in his commentary on the Gita that in the word �karmayoga� the word �yoga� is used in the sense of  the �means to attain union with Brahman�. So �karmayoga� means action performed in such a way that it becomes the means to union with Brahman, which is liberation. The statement in Bhagavadgita, 2.50, �yogah karmasu kaushalam� is interpreted by Sri Sankara in his Bhashya thus: Yoga is skilfulness in action. The skilfulness consists in converting action which is by its very nature the cause of bondage into a means for removal of bondage. This means is karmayoga. Karmayoga purifies the mind. It is only a pure mind, that is, a mind free from desires, greed, infatuation etc., that is fit to receive the knowledge of the Self. Liberation is attained only through knowledge of one�s real nature and not by actions alone, whether Vedic or worldly. For attaining knowledge of the Self one should give up the hankering after worldly pleasures and approach a Guru who is an enlightened person.  He should then enquire into the nature of the Self, in accordance with the instructions of his Guru.

   A man who has mistaken a rope for a snake in dim light is frightened and screams for help. His fear will disappear only if he finds out the real nature of the object in front with the light of a lamp. No action to drive away the illusory snake will help. Similarly, one should enquire into one�s own real nature by hearing the scriptures from his Guru (sravanam), reflecting on what he has heard to remove doubts (mananam) and meditating on the teachings (nididhyaasanam).

   Why liberation cannot be the result of any action.

    The results of all actions fall under four categories only:  production, attainment, modification, and purification. Brahman is ever-existent and so it is not something to be produced. We are always Brahman even when we do not know it and so it is not something to be attained. Brahman ever exists as changeless and so it is not something to be attained by modifying something. It is ever pure and so it is not to be got by purifying something. As we know from actual experience, anything brought into existence by action has a beginning and has therefore an end also. But liberation is permanent. Because of all these reasons liberation cannot be the result of any action. Liberation is nothing but the removal of our ignorance about our real nature. Ignorance can be remove only by knowledge and not by any other means. 

   The spiritual aspirant has to acquire certain preliminary qualifications known as saadhana-chatushtaya. These will be described in the next article.