Dependence to Independence

 

(Based on Swami Paramarthananda’s talks)

Human beings have two layers of personality, one external and the other, internal. The external personality concerns the body-mind complex; relating to one’s family, interaction with people, objects and situations, and material accomplishments. The internal personality is based on one’s character, value system and emotional maturity.  Scriptures caution one that external personality is ephemeral and subject to end at death and so should not be given over-importance.  Scriptures lay emphasis on the growth of the inner personality that is carried over from birth to birth.

    The growth of one’s external personality is enabled by one’s worldly knowledge that helps in achieving worldly success and accomplishments. On the other hand, the growth of one’s inner personality is only made possible by one’s Dharmic life-style and commitment to the principles of Dharma.  A Dharmic life-style enables one to confront the various life-situations without emotional disturbance. It is for encouraging one to lead a life committed to Dharma, various rituals and festivals are prescribed in Hindu religion and sincere observance of them promotes one’s devotion to God and Dharma. These pujas and rituals can be performed by any devout Hindu irrespective of their level of spiritual maturity.

    The scriptures talk about three levels of spiritual maturity. They are; world-dependent level, God-dependent level and Self-dependent level.  A seeker at the first level of world-dependence worships God, seeking protection for himself and for his worldly support systems in the form of family, profession, power, wealth and so on, in order to ensure his emotional stability.  He has no fixed notions about the form of God or the mode of worship and also keeps changing his devotion from one form of God to another or even to more than one form, with prayers for getting material benefits or for getting rid of adverse circumstances, for himself and others related to him.  These persons are quite ignorant of the fact that such a worldly support system cannot be sustained permanently.

    The seeker at the second level i.e. God-dependent level is conscious of the futility of dependence on worldly support system which is impermanent and chooses to depend on God only for his physical and emotional security and welfare.  At this level the seeker chooses to worship regularly a particular form of God as his personal deity, Ishta Devata, and does not waver in his devotion to this deity. It can be any one form like Siva, Vishnu, Devi, Ganesa and so on.  He does not know the real nature of Iswara but he has firm faith in his Ishta Devata whom he worships regularly and sincerely and also offers special prayers and performs special puja to Ishta devata, in times of difficulty; emotional, physical, financial and so on for himself or his support group like family or for any special favours.  The sign of success of true God- dependence is achieving control over raga/dwesha and kama/krodha.

    The third and last level is Self-dependence that is independence.  At this level a qualified seeker takes to Jnana Yoga to understand the nature of God whom he is worshipping. The qualified seeker is one who has refined his inner personality through sadhana chathushtayam.  He has also come to understand that God-dependence is also some sort of bondage which he wants to outgrow. So he starts study of scriptures under the guidance of a competent Guru. Through diligent sravanam and mananam he acquires the Jnanam that God is the Supreme Brahman, of the nature of Existence, Consciousness, Bliss infinite and the various deities worshipped are manifestations of Brahman only with its power of Maya manifest.  He also learns that his Real Self, Athma, is Brahman only.  When this Jnanam gets firmly fixed through Nidhidyasanam, he has grown out of God-dependence to Self-dependence which is independence only.

    Though as a Jnana-nishta, established in Athma Jnanam, he has outgrown God-dependence, he does not give up the puja and prayer to God for two reasons. One as a form of thanks-giving to God for leading him out of the bondage to independence and the second to serve as a guiding example to others who have not reached this level of understanding and spiritual maturity.

(Adapted from Sri R.B. Athreya’s article on Swamiji’s talks)

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