Pujya K.C. Varadachari - Home Page
 
 
Pujya Dr. K.C. Varadachari - Volume -1
 

Talks and Lectures on the System of Sri Ramchandra's Rajayoga

Evolution into True Spirituality

  
What is the necessity for the New System when there are so many missions about us working for the spiritual uplift of the people? The necessity for this Mission is not a doctrinaire necessity. Nor is it a necessity for giving just ideas about God or individual salvation, which are said to be capable of liberating man from his miseries of the world around him. Ideas gain force and are forces only when they cease to be just ideas. Ideas have legs or rather grow legs only when a dedicated soul gives them power. Bad ideas engender bad forces as in the case of ideas of inequality, class-conflict and religious differences. Similarly, good ideas are those which promote unity and charity, truthfulness and non-violence, personal necessity for character and devotion to supreme ideals of welfare and spiritual growth. Tolerance and personal cleanliness in mind, body and speech are the necessity and these ideas, though they have been bandied about both by those who follow them and those who pay lip-homage to them while practising contra-ideas, and ideals, lead to a dangerous condition of corruption of the mind and morals of mankind. Therefore, individual missions must watch whether corruption has crept into their body politic and their souls are torn with pragmatic compromises in the name of need for unity. Unity can become a terrible catch-word even as Advaita has become and not only does it create conditions of fission and frustration but also in the end defeats the goal of spiritual freedom from miseries of all kinds. Therefore, if we observe the workings and ideals of the several missions, we would be appalled by the divorce between ideas and facts or the force said to be motivating their practical operations. Therefore, new missions are needed to purify them or bring about a realistic relation between idea and force. But it has been found that new missions are springing up like mushrooms imitating all the weaknesses and perpetuating all the vices of the previous institutions so much so one gets disgusted with them and man seeks a non-institutionalised religious atmosphere and repels every suggestion of starting new missions. Shri Ram Chandra Mission has been started not merely to cultivate a new dogma nor imitate other missions to make real ideas forceless or prostitute them for the selfish purposes or even unselfish purposes of humanity. It is not just a mission for serving humanity in all its aspects nor just a revival or renaissance Institute for the rehabilitation of ancient religions in a new garb. It is the rehabilitation of man in his divine nature that is the aim. For this purpose neither dogmas nor slogans would do. No books are held sacred but none is rejected in a sense.

There has come a time in the world set up when man has the temerity to test the old dogmas and either accept them or reject them. The tests of truth are all there, but spiritual values are not capable of being tested except by experience of their validity or value on all tests. Neither mere perception nor mere inference nor analogies or even scriptural testimonies of the Veda can finally escape the final test of personal realisation of what one is, and what he is here for and what indeed is the Ultimate purpose or goal of man. Is it the knowledge of Nature; then does mere observation and inference or analogy help us to discover the truth. Would the tests of truth applied by sciences give us the ultimate truth? Our answer would be negative. Would these prove the truth of our psychological nature? The answer would have to be again negative. Surely these tests cannot help us to know the nature of God, unambiguously. Even the Veda requires apologetics (mimamsa) and these are as many as there are individual giants of logistic and philology. Therefore, for knowing and realizing Ultimate Experience or Reality one has to go beyond these.

A mission dedicated for this only or sole purpose thus is the primary need. Shri Ram Chandraji claims that this Mission is for this purpose alone. To help an individual to arrive at that Ultimate Reality by means which are other than and loftier than the usual pramanas or means of exteriorised knowledge is the aim of the Mission. By all means it would be clear that this way of 'realizing' by being united with the Ultimate Reality or Being or God is not unknown to the past. It is known as 'Yoga' or Rajayoga. But the several missions have used yoga in so many different ways as disciplines of the body and the eradication of mind and speech or in diverting the mind to works, albeit disinterestedly, at the beginning of the world and institutions and this use has taken away its merit. Further the hypocritical usage of renunciation of family life has made yoga odious. Religion was said to be better than yoga and a religion without yoga is said to be good. This reminds me of the great vogue that the slogan Religion without God held in the early twenties of the century. It only meant the substitution of man in the place of God, though this man may be the self-styled or really worthy Guru.

If Yoga means the linking of oneself with the Ultimate Reality then, the idea-force, which moves the individual towards union with the Infinite Ultimate should be of the subtlest order and divine. This is not by personal mental effort, or persistent repetition, which simulates remembrance of mantras or the worship of yantras and mudras and so on which form such a large part of ritualism that this union or yoga could be got. It is by the conscious acceptance of the Divine as the only goal of man and one's life, and being one's being. Surrender, of all other goals to this one Goal is the sine qua non or necessity for this inflow of Divine Prana or life-breath. If earlier yogas had stressed on the control of mental modifications by individual effort the more ancient method was to bring about the condition of union with the Ultimate by linking up one's breath or life-force which is more than our breath with the Divine Life-force by the Divine Himself, or through those who had attained this union with the Ultimate earlier by His Grace. Pranahuti is the principle of yoga or divine uniting Idea-Force which the preceptor or the Guru does and thus from the very beginning establishes the seeker in yoga. It is through Yoga that one grows in Yoga and evolves into the perfection of the Yoga. At no time does one get the feeling of being separated from the Divine presence and life force once having been introduced into this yogic condition. Not that some have not turned away from this union, which is subtle and spiritual, and because of its not being appealing to the sense-organs and motor-organs as other methods do, but that does not in any way lead to the attainment of real Union. It has been stated that there are three stages in the Yoga-the gain of salokyata, samipyata, sarupyata the gain of vision of the Ultimate the nearness to the Ultimate, the form of the Ultimate-but all these are gained through Union-Yoga of Pranahuti by the Divine. The final condition of being eternally one with that Ultimate Being is Sayujyata, then does one unite oneself with all even as the Ultimate does with one and all. Surely not through karma, not through jnana not even through mere devotion but by means of integral surrender which links one with the Ultimate does one get this condition by the descent of the Divine Prana itself which gives up itself to the individual for his emancipation and beatitude and irreducible peace.

Therefore, this Mission which provides opportunities for this Pranahuti Yoga is unique and unlike other missions and as such is necessary for man's evolution into true spirituality.