A hundred and one are the heart’s channels; of these one passes to the crown. Going up by this, he comes to the immortal.

Katha Upanishad

 Viraga — indifference to pleasure and pain, illusion conquered, truth alone perceived — marks the beginning of the razor-edged Path. For reasons connected with the cosmogony of Gupta Vidya, human beings find the first step on the Path most difficult. They must come to an initial standpoint of detachment from the world, with its false values, its fickle glamour and attractions, its febrile nightmares and anguish. Indifference simply means perceiving no essential difference between pleasure and pain because both arise from compulsive cerebral reactions to sensory stimuli. They are alike devoid of intrinsic meaning for that impartite Self which sustains its own transcendent conception of spiritual growth. Two individuals, from seemingly identical experiences of pleasure or pain, may come to contrasting conclusions and derive radically different implications. Consider two persons who enjoyed identical dinners, containing ingredients guaranteed to produce an acute stomach-ache, such that both suffered severe gastric pains the next day. Similar facts yield no insights into the diverse meanings that persons might ascribe to their experiences. This points towards the philosophical basis for self-reference and voluntary action. Man is a reality-assigning, value-assessing and meaning-ascribing agent, who needs minimal freedom from titillation and disturbance induced by pleasurable or painful experiences. Once this initial standpoint of philosophical detachment is established even to a small extent, one will soon find out for oneself that it shows the spiral Path of inward growth.

 When one averts attention from the chaos of external events, through the dawning realization that ascribing meaning and assessing value is one’s own task (svadharma), one rapidly confronts a host of unresolved elements (unappeased devas and devatas) — repressed longings, fears and fantasies — within what is often wrongly called the ‘unconscious’. Once they are set in motion, one risks slipping into alternating euphoric and terrifying states of mind, losing hold over the real world of supernal light one seeks as well as the public domain of shared sensory impressions. To dare to face oneself fully is difficult, if only because the more illusions one strips away, the more illusions crop up, like a hydra-headed monster. The protracted and painful, self-reinforcing nature of mundane illusions is boringly familiar, but they must be firmly cut through. Sufficient detachment helps one to glimpse the central but undiscovered truth of transcendental Selfhood, shining behind and beyond the world of maya. This truth about the hidden SELF is also the truth about the secret Path, which must be trodden in solitude. Only by taking each step is the next revealed. Like a winding mountain path which cannot be discerned from a hazy distance, it cannot be traced without treading it.

 One must foster steadiness, determination and constancy, remaining fixed in the recognition of the spiritual insignificance of the passing panorama of the lunar subconscious and the supreme value of the single truth one now partly sees and wholly seeks. When a willing resignation (vairagya) is sustained at this level, one is ready to experience greater fearlessness (abhaya) and penetrating insight (prajna). Viraga is ‘the Gate of Balance’. Repeatedly, at different levels of inward growth, through daunting trials at successive stages of spiritual life, one needs to establish a stable fulcrum in consciousness, reflecting a mentally renewed standpoint of calm steadiness and cheerful balance. Though seemingly complicated, this is not unlike walking, or balancing on a bicycle, or standing on a tightrope. One only knows for oneself that it is possible to maintain balance, or that it is necessary to preserve absolute faith in one’s strength of mind and soul-wisdom. A tightrope walker cannot mechanically teach a doubter how to balance and perform delicate maneuvers upon a very thin, taut wire. The experienced acrobat can take all the appropriate security measures in regard to the wire, but it is the apprentice learner who must not move one iota from an absolute, immovable conviction that he can both maintain and restore balance, and that even if he experiences a sudden loss of balance, he can still bring himself back to a steady state of balance. Existential equilibrium cannot be taught to someone who is not whole-heartedly engaged in the elusive quest for balance amidst ceaselessly shifting variables and parameters. Yet, the more one gains proficiency in the practice of viraga, the more it becomes as natural as breathing.

 One must be yoked through raja yoga, by regular meditation (dhyana), deep self-study (svadhyaya), unconditional devotion (bhakti), sustained reflection (dianoia) and sagacious equanimity (sophrosyne) to the universal and indwelling Self (Avalokiteshvara) of Krishna-Christos. That Self is veiled rather than revealed by compulsive speech and chaotic thought-vibrations. One must sustain in the daily round of duties a secret spiritual discipline which no one else can discern from peering at perfunctory externals. This ‘divine discipline’ has to do with fidelity to that sovereign standpoint which steadily sees the unmanifest Self behind the mental furniture of the world and manifest selves. What is at first a simple exercise in repeated restraint and resilient balancing can become, after a while, a rhythmic mental breathing as natural as physical breathing, leading to a state of inmost tranquillity. The Voice of the Silence enjoins the lanoo or disciple to be ready to find “thy body agitated, thy mind tranquil, thy Soul as limpid as a mountain lake”. It is certainly feasible to realize this fully within oneself, to abide constantly in those depths of spiritual self-awareness (svasamvedana), wherein there are no waves or ripples, but rather a sublime experience of serene limpidity, crystalline clarity and radiant translucence, which are all intrinsic to Alaya, the universal Paramatman. This state of self-awareness must be brought down into the realm of the higher mind in a manner that makes for steady self-tranquillization and self-regeneration, which is compatible with vigorous incarnation in the sphere of active duty. Like all subtle delineations of spiritual detachment, these helpful lines from The Voice of the Silence have a hallowed, archetypal significance. These are vitally relevant at the very start, but they presage the sweet efflorescence at the end, and they have crucial applications all along the ancient Path.

 The Katha Upanishad teaches that once one hears of the secret Path to enlightenment and conscious immortality, one cannot pretend life will be the same again. Once the flashing insight has torn away ‘the loathsome mask’, the blazing words of truth cannot be set aside as if they were never heard. All who enter the sacred orbit of Great Teachers and true gurus are self-condemned: they will never again be able to nestle in the soft folds of delusion, for the ‘Hound of Heaven’ will pursue them to the bitter end. Not to recognize this is either naïve ignorance about oneself and the cosmos, or bovine perversity in the face of the precarious incarnation of supernal light within the imperfect vestures and inherent limitations of the deceptive world of samsara. Since supple balance in motion requires both vision and verve, when one is in right earnest about treading the Path, one will find that one cannot keep one’s feet on that arduous Path without the sustained practice of spiritual archery, taught in the Mundaka Upanishad. This requires the repeated realignment of mental vision, symbolized in archery by the correct relation of eyesight to the distant target, allowing for the trajectory of the arrow, the texture of the bow, wind and weather. AUM is the sacred bow, the arrow is spiritual resolve, and the fixed target is the indestructible, invisible, formless, supreme Self (Paramatman), mirrored in the embodied Self (Jivatman), the divine Triad within and beyond one’s manifest identity.

Raghavan Iyer
The Gupta Vidya II