Few Basics – My Boundaries

So, we are all Jeevathmas and not our ever changing and most certain to die bodies.

How about other stuff in this universe – what are they? According to Vishishtadvaita philosophy, there are three “thathvaas” or realities – Chit, Achit and Iisvara.

Chit refers to any soul. In another way, Chit is all entities with knowledge as their attribute. So, we humans, animals, trees are all “Chit”, since all of us are basically aathmas in different bodies. 

Achit is all things which don’t have any knowledge in them – basically, inanimate objects without knowledge. Tables, Chairs, buildings, stones etc., are all “Achit”.

Iiswara is the Lord who controls the Chit as well as the Achit. Iiswara is the loving creator, master, controller and protector of the universe.

Understanding this triad of “chit-achit-Iiswara” helps us in understanding about the real “us”, this world, our boundaries and ultimately our life.

Do we have boundaries? What are they? Aren’t we supposed to be “free” individuals?

I remember a meeting long back in my old company which was addressed by a HR Manager. One of the participants asked the HR Manager – “How much freedom do we have in our work?”

The HR Manager responded – “Good Question. But think for a moment. Do you think India is a free country? Do you think we are free to take whatever decision we want to?” He proceeded to answer himself - “Even the most powerful nation in the world is not completely free to take any decision that it wants to take. There are various constraints, various stakeholders and various considerations that the country’s government has to take note of before taking any decision. No entity has complete freedom in the world. Absolute freedom only leads to anarchy.”

He proceeded as we listened in rapt attention - “Freedom is always within a context. Within the context of the roles that you play as defined in the organization, you do have freedom”.

How true of the whole universe! In this sense, we are like cows tied to a pole using a rope. The freedom that cows have is limited by the length of the rope they are tied with.

Our evergreen account-of-Karmas are the rope that ties us and determines our boundaries in this world.

Until there is balance in this account, we need to be cows tied to this world. But isn’t it bad that we’ll keep going through this cycle of birth-life-death in this world with all its constraints? Yes, it is.

Do we have a way out? Is there a better option? Yes, we have.

Few Basics - "Another Chance" (Ensure to read "Few Basics - Me Who?" below, before you read this).

Karma to put it simply, means action. Any action that we do is karma. And as we sow, so we reap. Our actions give us their effects as well, which we need to accept.

Like a company having acceptable and not-acceptable practices and behavior, so should life have right? Like, how much ever technically advanced we become, to harm another person for my own selfish ends, cheat, lie, kill can never become good.

In Vedas, karmas are classified into two broad groups - “Punya Karma” or “Paapa Karma”. Punya Karma is a karma that Vedas consider acceptable, and produces good results for us and others. Paapa Karma is a karma that Vedas consider un-acceptable, and produces bad results for us and others. We need to reap the result of our punya and paapa karmas.

Sometimes in life (and only sometimes), we see good things happening to us without trying very hard for it – that is the result of our past Punya. Conversely, we see ourselves getting into problems without much of our fault – that is the result of our past Paapaa.

This is not to say that everything in life is determined – it isn’t. Between major milestones which are determined to an extent, we have our lives to ourselves to live properly. If we don’t use that and make wrong choices again, then it’s our fault. Besides, it’s not actually important as to what we face; it’s only important how we respond to it. The response can help an individual advance in his goal/mission or set him back by many yards. This is a topic where our understanding would get more refined as we travel further.

We take various births as long as we have Punya or Paapa karmas whose effects we haven’t yet borne. And that account is almost always evergreen – except if we consciously try and find ways to close it. This is because, even when we do something good, we do so many things that would result in various Punya and Paapaa. The rate at which we earn this is so fast, but we can’t really expend it at the rate at which we earned it.

Let’s see a little example for it. Assume that I am going to serve food for the needy - certainly a noble deed, no doubt. So, it should give me Punya right? Yes, it will. But I would earn many other Punya and Paapa in the process as well. I started my car and in my hurry to reach the place, yelled at the cook who cooked the food late (paapaa). I thought how noble I was and how I am superior to many others by my noble deeds (paapaa). I stopped to give money to some begging children on the way (Punya). Finally I did serve some needy people, which is a great deed (punya). All these in-process punya and paapa has also to be spent ultimately. So, even in this small example, even with the very limited combination of possible tasks, we see that we earn more than we can spend. Imagine this for all activities for the whole life! And for many births!

Since we have an evergreen account of karmas to exhaust, we take repeated births in this world to sort of close our karmic accounts by taking their effects and have another chance at advancing towards the ultimate goal of a jeevathma.

So, how do we utilize this “another chance” of a birth? For that we need to know what the ultimate goal of a jeevathma is.

Few Basics - Me Who?

An uncontrolled vehicle goes berserk and causes ruins. Similarly an uncontrolled life leads only to chaos and anarchy in our lives and others as well. When we have real control over our lives, we are free in our mind and can have better enjoyment that can lift our life. Life becomes a cool journey in a well-controlled vehicle.

A Philosophy of Life helps us there. It is like a Quality Management System for a company – a company simply can’t be run effectively with just commitment to some values, there needs to be a policy-based system at work in the company.

Mainly, a philosophy of life should address the fundamental questions of life – who we are, what is this life all about, what is our ultimate purpose in life, how do we achieve it and what do we do once we achieve it.

The Vishishtadvaita philosophy popularized by Swami Ramanuja addresses all these and much more in a stellar fashion. It is based on a complete and true interpretation of the Vedas.

The journey to understand this philosophy starts with the first question - who are we? Are we just our bodies? Or are we something else? As mentioned in the preceding sections, Vedas declare that we are not just mere mortal, ever changing, decaying and destroyed bodies – we are eternal souls. When we say “I”, we refer to the soul inside our body and not our body as such.

It is like understanding something as basic as me and my vehicle are different. I should be driving my vehicle and not vice-versa. Vedas say that we are the drivers and our body is the vehicle.

As a matter of fact, we all have an intrinsic understanding that we are in fact souls and not our bodies or our mind. Think about the following statements – have we not said it or heard it at some point?

“I have conditioned my mind to think positively and not to expect anything”

“I have conditioned my body well through regular exercises”

What do the above statements indicate? That I see myself  as different from my body and mind – as if I am above both of them and am in a position to control both of them. True. This is what Vedas also say – that you are a “soul” (“jeevaathma” or “aatma”) and not the body.

But too often, we forget this and think more from the angle of the body. The moment we get this clearly that we are “the soul” and not “the body” we have started recognizing the realities around us.

So, what is this soul stuff? Vedas say that we as souls are eternal in nature like energy – neither created nor destroyed, but take different bodily forms due to our various “karma”. And what exactly is karma?