Once upon a time a musk deer went searching for musk. Round and round the forest she went,month after after month,quite unaware
that the heady fragnance, so desperately sought by her,lay beneth her own belly button. Many times, we humans, too, behave like the musk deer. We search for self-realisation outside, blissfully unaware that it lies within us, all the while untapped.
To experience this bliss, however, the seeker has to put in a different sort of effort with regularity and devotion. One way lies through the world of forms, through the path of bhakti, where the seeker concentrates of any of the manifest forms of the Ultimate. The other more arduous way of knowledge involves seeking the truth as the Unmanifest, without any attributes. The former is called saguna upasana and the latter, nirguna upsansa , of no-attributes.
"Of the two which is superior ? "the pandava arjuna asks Sri Krishna, His divine charioteer, in Chapter 12 of the Bhagavad Gita. While both paths lead to the same goal, the way of no-forms is not an easy journey for ordinary mortals, the
Lord replies.
How do you grasp That, which lies beyond all epithts and qualities even as you control your senses and keep searching for the truth with absolute even-mindedness?
Much as you may want to do so yu just cannot reject maya or illusion overnight. you cannot suddenly deny all that your senses are taking is as unreal or non-existent .You can only pray to the Lord to part the curtains. This then seeker takes sole rrefugewith the Lord with unswerving faith or bhakti. And the Lord, in turn, assures the bhakta that He will indeed redeem him swiftly from the ocean of transmi;gratory exilstence, over which the shadow of death hovers permanently. To earn such grace, however,the
devotee has to consecrtate all his actions, offer all that he is or does, to the god he worships. The devotee does not stop performing his duty, he only does what he has to do wiht constant
awareness of his ultimate objective.
The best way to get immediate and everlasting peace, Lord Krishna finally tells Arjuna is through the renunciation of the fruit of all action. This means doing your duty with the full faith that the fruit, whatever it may be is the prasad or blessing giftted by the Lord.Seeing this from the reverse perspective makes renuncitation of the fruit of action the first step in the ladder to ultilmate realisation. If you can be completely honest to yourself and truly act without clamouring for the fruit of your acation, positive energy will be relesed.This will automatically lead you to higher levels of awareness. However,one also needs to guard against complacency as well as feverishnesss if one is to prpgersss on this path of abhyasa .
"He who has schooled himself to rise above any rigidity; one who uses his judgment to accomodate change;he is free from ego, envy, fear and anxiety; he who remains unaffected by all pairs of opposites such as praise or censure, joy or sorrow; he who is clean and compassionate, selfless and detached, and most important, one who feels, nay, exults in the knowledge that he is working through Me alone-such a devotee is extremely dear to me" Krishna assures Arjuna........
saying this ending the pharse..................Wishing you good luck - prabha...