Hold master’s hand to go beyond
Well begun is half done. We began well with the verses of Moha Mudgara—the hammer on our mental delusions. The verses by Sri Adi Shankaracharya and his disciples are otherwise popularly called Bhaja Govindam.
All the verses have been outlining clearly, the pitfalls of wrong thinking, the ways to think right, speak right and act right. The goal at the end in sight is freedom from the clutches of limited thinking.
This is called samsara or a constant attachment to movement and change at the mental level.
How do we get the results of all these qualities that have been mentioned in the Bhaja Govindam? Constantly cultivating them? No. The easy way has been shown by the Master himself. Guru charana ambuja nirbhara bhaktah (hold on to the feet of the Guru).
in Pune
This does not mean just a physical prostration and catching hold of the Guru’s feet. A constant remembrance of the form of the Master, the glorious name, the words of the Master in relation to the knowledge of the truth of the self he has expressed, the qualities that the Master exhibits in his lifetime that expresses the subject of reality that he has spoken about and a determination to walk the very path towards truth that the Master has walked, without a doubt that we would reach the same goal too.
If there is one relationship in this world that can never leave us derelict on the path, it is that of the Master and the disciple. It is that one relationship which takes us to the divine—the ultimate truth.
Remembering the one, who dispels the ignorance of a dual perception, born out of a cataract vision of seeing the physical body as the only reality—the disciple should march on with heart-filled feelings of love and devotion for the Guru. For such a person, the freedom from the intricate web of transmigration of birth to death and birth again is instant.
In a metrical verse called Prashnottari Ratna Malika, Sri Adi Shankaracharyaji says, “Who is the one who is said to be born?” The one who is never born again.
“Who is the one who is said to have died?” The one who has realised the truth of the self and hence has no birth again.
It is not only devotion to the path the Guru walked. The Acharya calls for a life of control and discipline of the mind and sense organs. All our feelings are in the control of the mind. The feelings are fuelled by our sense organs of hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting and touching. When the likes and dislikes of the mind constantly express through these senses, there is a spillage of energy. When they are directed to seeing the vision of reality within, then the disciple gets to realise the form of the true God. Totality or reality resides in the space of the heart within. So, let the tongue be sensitive only to praise that truth within—Bhaja Govindam.
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