Four practices to gain ultimate freedom
Dr Satish K Kapoor
Self realisation is the result of self awareness, self awareness of self knowledge and self knowledge of self conquest. Chatushtaya mukti sadhana is the cultivation of four spiritual qualities namely, viveka, vairagya, shat sampatti, and mumukshutva, so that one ceases to be a slave of the body, senses or the mind, and becomes one’s own master.
Viveka: Discriminative faculty
Viveka is the mental faculty that gives one right perception to discriminate between right and wrong, truth and untruth, the self and the non-self, the good and the pleasant, the eternal and the evanescent. It is inborn, or comes through study, true company, deep contemplation, or the guidance of a preceptor. Viveka is judging things as they are – calmly and dispassionately, without fear or prejudice. Discriminative faculty is hampered by ignorance, and vices like greed, anger, vanity, attachment and sensuality. By viveka one realises that man is not just the physical self but pure consciousness; that sufferings are caused by unbridled desires; that negative thought-waves drag one to wrong deeds, that inner peace comes not by material prosperity but by self transcendence.
Yaska (5th century BCE) explains in Nirukta, how every object undergoes a transformative process leading to its extinction in that form. It is born (jayate); it exists (asti); it grows (vardhati), it matures (parinamati), it decays (apakshiyati) and it perishes vinashayati). Viveka goads one to search for the imperishable reality behind temporal existence.
Vairagya: Dispassion
Vairagya denotes a sense of detachment from the body and the objects of sense gratification. To some vairagya comes naturally, as a result of cumulative actions of past lives. It may also be triggered by the words of a holy person, unfavourable circumstances, boredom from opulence, or too much indulgence in sensory pursuits, when the saturation point has been reached. Sometime, vairagya is the result of the yogic practice of pratyahara in which sense-organs are trained to remain aloof from worldly allurements.
Vairagya is not renunciation, but the mental disposition to give up sensory pleasures and to remain unaffected by the result of one’s actions. It is rising above the feelings of love or hatred for others, and living in the world like the lotus in a pond.
Shat sampatti: Six-fold wealth
The six-fold virtues conducive to spiritual growth are shama, dama, uparati, titiksha, shraddha and samadhanam. Shama, a state of inner peace, is possible by control of the mind, austere self discipline, eradication of subliminal propensities, and self realisation. Dama is control of the senses so that they do not transgress the moral law. The senses are fascinated to objects through the five perceptual faculties of sight, sound, taste, hearing and touch. Through discriminative faculty, one can restrain sense organs from mindless indulgence. Uparati is the intellectual conviction that ceremonial acts are futile as these restrict one’s consciousness to the physical self. It also implies contentment, absence of mental turbulence, withdrawal from mundane activities, or taking to mendicant’s life. Titiksha denotes the courage to face the vicissitudes of life with calmness, remain balanced in all situations, and tread the path of truth without fear. Shraddha is faith in the divine order, realised souls, scriptures, preceptor, and in oneself. Samadhanam is being established in the true nature of the spirit through concentration, contemplation and absorption.
Mumukshutva: Longing for liberation
Without intense desire for self realisation, one cannot progress on the path of spirituality. Mumukshutva is awareness about the ultimate goal of life that is to become divine. It is the anguish of the individual soul to unite with the source of being, so as to be free from the cycle of birth and death. Meditation is the means to contain mundane tendencies and strengthen the will to realise god within.
The aforesaid practices, if pursued with devotion and firmness of purpose, elevate the mind, dispel ignorance about the true nature of the self, and lead one to bliss.
(Dr Kapoor is a noted educationist,
historian and spiritualist)
