Death to Deathless

By Swami Saurabhnath

I have written this book to share with readers my own understanding of life and experience of pure Consciousness. In this book you will find critical explanation of different views about Consciousness including modern science. I hope this book can be a guide to many people to remain peaceful in difficult situations of life and live life happily. - Saurabh

• Language: English
• Publisher: Swami Saurabhnath
• Release date: Aug 28, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310479519

Swami Saurabhnath

Swami Saurabhnath a. k. a. Saurabh A. Tambe is accountant by profession and lives in Phaltan, India. He is interested in spirituality from early childhood and studying philosophy for many years. He has been a disciple of Nath sect in India from year 2003. He writes books in English and Marathi to share his spiritual understanding with people who are interested in spirituality

Book preview

ALAKH NIRANJAN

Death to Deathless

A Beginners Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

By Swami Saurabhnath

Copyright 2014, Swami Saurabhnath, all rights reserved.

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Dedicated in the feet of my Master, though He is in name and form still He transcends name and form expressing the Cosmic Order. I must mention the love and support which I got from my Grand Mother Usha K. Pathak, Mother Alka. A Tambe, rest of the family and my friend Sri Makaranda P. Deshpande, I am thankful to all of them. - Saurabh

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter One: - Adhyātma (Spirituality)

Real definition of spirituality (Adhyātma)

Why should we think about spirituality?

Need of a Guru

More about This Book

Chapter Two: - Views about Consciousness

What is Consciousness?

Chārwāka or Lokāyata

Buddhist

Jaina

Sānkhya

Nyāya and Vaiśeshika

Yoga

Pūrva Mimānsaka

Uttar Mimānsa or Vedānta

Different concepts of Moksha

Chapter Three: - Critique of Atheistic Science.

Atheistic Science

Biggest hurdle for Materialist Evolutionists

Panspermia

Two sides of science

Artificial Intelligence

Intelligent Design Movement

God-of-gaps argument

Scientists’ Quotes about God

The Hard Problem of Consciousness

Chapter Four: - Secret Method of Vedānta

Secret Method

What is Enlightenment?

Significance of Enlightenment

Means of Enlightenment

Jīvanmukti

Does Enlightenment happen suddenly or gradually?

Videha Mukti

The Qualifications for Dnyānayoga

Māyā

Brahmsūtra and Srimad Bhagavad Gītā

Chapter Five: - Removing Doubts

Brahman itself appears as Jīvātmā to experience Māyā

Four Bodies of Soul

If we are born from Īśvara then why is there need for spiritual evolution?

What is ANĀHAT NĀDA?

Discussion with a friend about possibility of soul.

Is it possible to do something against Īśvara’s will?

Do we have free will?

How to destroy the ego?

What is good and bad action according to Karma yoga?

Is it right to kill the killer to save my body?

I do not understand how can enlightened people say that there is no doer, when I have to do work to earn money?

What is the exact meaning of chidābhāsa?

Does Advaita lead to a passive life?

If I am God then I am the creator of the world, but why can’t I live life as I want?

Do ‘I’ am also perceived by God?

Is this world real?

If we all are one, then, why I cannot feel your sensations?

Why suffering is there?

If everyone becomes enlightened then will this world come to an end forever?

When any animal is cloned then what might happen with its soul?

Why not everyone become enlightened with one person becoming enlightened?

Why should we bother about good and evil if everything is Brahman?

Is enlightenment a permanent new state of happiness?

Should we try to be happy in all situations?

What should I do with my anger?

Conclusion

About the Author

Other books by Swami Saurabhnath

Preface

Namaste,

Guru Vandanā - Om brahmānandam parama sukhadam kevalam Dnyānamūrtim | Dvandvātītam Gagana sadruśam tatvamasyādilakshyam | Ekam Nityam Vimalam Achalam sarvadhī sākshibhūtam | Bhāvātītam trigunarahitam sadgurum tam namāmi ||

(I bow down to the Master who is full of bliss and happiness, who is pure Consciousness only, who is beyond any duality and all-pervading like space, who is indicated by great sentence like tatvamasi. I offer my obeisance to the Master who is alone, eternal, pure, immovable, and witness of everything, who is beyond birth and death, who is beyond the qualities of nature.)

Before entering into the book, I would like to share with you the purpose of writing this book. This book is about spiritual enlightenment, which is the subject of many philosophers and mystics from unknown past. However, on the other hand there are atheists who always try to avoid this subject altogether by denying the very existence of Consciousness independent of matter and calling any spiritual experience as disfunctioning of neurons.

Since the dawn of thought, the debate between theism and atheism is going on. We have not reached any conclusion yet, and it seems this question is always going to remain there, because no matter how many discoveries science or our intellect makes, it is always going to be unsuccessful in explaining the purpose of life without Consciousness. Today intellectual process of science depends on observation and repetition of observed phenomena in labs. However, this process is useless in knowing the cause behind that phenomenon, such process explains us how an event takes place, but such process cannot explain why that event takes place if we deny conscious thought behind it. So far, in search of reality behind life, scientists have reached the quantum physics in material things and DNA molecule, which is a huge storage of biological information, in living things. Science can explain the functions of DNA, modify it synthetically and create hybrid species from it but science can never tell why and how the DNA is there, what is the purpose of material nature to give birth to that DNA, while matter itself is purposeless without Consciousness. By observing different functions of material nature, atheists keep telling how something functions and think that they are explaining the cause behind the natural events. This procedure of understanding functioning of nature’s events is not useful in understanding the purposeful behavior of entire nature in fixed but unknown direction. To this kind of arguments atheist answers is fixed that, there is no purpose behind life, everything happens just by accident. This statement is self-contradictory, on one hand, we see cause and effect relationship or purpose in every event that takes place and on other hand we say there is no purpose. Moreover, even deeper questions arise, why we all are here. Why this life is flourishing and why matter is purposefully following rules of physics to help life manifest and maintain itself. If we accept the atheist's postulation that the life is purposeless and it is just an accident then we cannot come to any meaningful conclusion. Scientists assume that matter is following rules of physics just because it is so. This kind of assumption is not useful in this matter, because matter itself is insentient, it cannot behave purposefully, and if it behaves purposefully then we have to conclude that the matter is not insentient as it looks, it has an inherent intelligence which is operating it.

We do not see anything happening in this world without any purpose or cause and effect relationship. Everything is effect of some cause. Nothing here is born out of nothing or without any cause. Then how can scientists deny this observation. Another problem that objective science faces is the problem of knower, scientists investigate into matter but they cannot investigate about themselves objectively, the knower of all objects remain untouched by third person observation method, because knower cannot be made the object of knowing.

Scientists cannot explain the cause behind life, however, our common sense can, and our ancient sages have explained it. The life we are living is not purposeless but it is there to express the energy and bliss universe has in it. How? We will discuss in the rest of the book.

I am Saurabh A. Tambe; a disciple of Nāth Sampradāya in Maharashtra, India. However, I am not a Sanyāsi (Monk). I live a very ordinary life, not a monastic life; however do my Sādhanā everyday as my Guruji told me. One night it happened that after doing my meditation I went to sleep. As always, before going to sleep I was getting trapped in thoughts, and suddenly my awareness became intense, thoughts disappeared from the scene. This world had already disappeared from the scene because of sleep and now thoughts, in form of dreams, were also not there. I was drifting into unfathomable & silent being, outside of the space and time that we always experience. A sense of worry about my body and my mother arose in me. I resisted to that drift and soon I was back in my body. Later I talked about this with my Guruji, he explained to me that in reality we belong to that dimension which is beyond space and time and not to the body-mind. There is no need to worry about body while going into silence because any way body works on its own. We have a very small role in maintaining body, most of the time it takes care of itself. The body is the part of the world of time and space, in the words of Vedānta, body is the part of māyā. This was the first profound experience of pure Self or Oneness or Brahman in my life, the deathless, which I mentioned in the title. It changed my understanding of life completely; life became more easy and blissful. By word bliss I do not mean objective happiness because objective happiness belongs to this world of duality and with it comes unhappiness, they are two sides of same coin; we cannot choose anyone of them independently. But bliss (ānanda) has got completely different quality; it does not have anything against it because it belongs to the Non-Dual Existence or one can say God, it is the experience of profound peace, always. In my mother tongue Marathi and in Sanskrit, there is a word ānanda, bliss is the English counterpart of this word. However bliss does not convey the complete and precise meaning of ānanda, if I try to explain it then I can say that ānanda means the happiness without any object of happiness, it is like the sweetness of sugar without sugar, just sweetness.

I thought I should share my experience with people but most of the people in society are not interested in such experiences. I talked about this with few friends but they also understood to a certain extent because it was useless for them. What would they do of it? Later, a thought came into mind that if I want to share my experience with other people then I will have to explain it in a way that they understand it completely. I will have to give unbeatable logic which will be difficult to refute by any ideology that is evolved at least until now, because people live in the world of thoughts if we have to explain them something then we have to put it intelligently. In addition, explanation has to be in a manner that it will help people to have this kind of experience themselves, if they want. Therefore, a practical Sādhanā or method to become peaceful is also necessary. However, all this is not possible in verbal discussions where we cannot put topics systematically because in the flow of talk main topic remains aside. Therefore, I thought it might be useful to write a book. Hence I started writing this book, this book is useful to understand about the concept of spiritual enlightenment. It is just introductory about the theory or philosophy but also contains practical method to achieve happiness and peace. I am planning to write more advanced books full of philosophical discussion in future if I get enough time. A doubt may arise here that what is the process of enlightenment? Does it happen suddenly as some enlightened people suggest or is it a gradual process and happens slowly as tradition suggests. My understanding is it depends on the concept that we have in mind when we use word enlightenment. If we consider any spiritual experience as enlightenment then we have to accept that it happens suddenly. If we consider Self-knowledge without any doubts as enlightenment then it happens gradually. However, no one can get the fruits of enlightenment i.e. peace of mind in all situations of life, happiness etc. suddenly; everyone has to go through a long process of purification of mind even if one has the experience of pure Consciousness. It might be possible that someone has completed the process of purifying mind in previous birth, and then such a person can have fruits of enlightenment immediately after realizing the Self.

Many people in past have mentioned spiritual experiences so I decided to read about different ideologies. I had studied Advaita philosophy from my childhood but was unaware of other philosophical explanations about the world and Consciousness. After studying different philosophical paths in brief, I found that Advaita Vedānta perfectly fits in the idea which I had in mind (to give a right kind of Sādhanā to people to live life happily and peacefully). As I know, Zen and Sufi people also have such experiences but I don’t know them thoroughly and don’t have enough resources to study about them. Therefore, I decided to take help from Vedānta to explain my understanding to other people. It is true that today we live in different kind of world than the one which was there at the time of Ādi- Śankarāchārya, the promoter of Advaita philosophy, that’s why I have avoided so many dogmas, which are there with Vedānta Philosophy because I don’t think they are necessary in today’s world of democracy. There are few people today who try to follow Vedānta as it was thousands of years before, I have deep respect for them and I apologize to them for using their ideology without formal initiation in Sanyās. I think though the writer of this book is not a monk still this book will be useful for people to understand Advaita more easily.

I have written this book as an introduction to spiritual Enlightenment especially for the seekers who want to experience life in a different way, who are in search for something mystical in our day-today life. These people will benefit most from this book. Though Advaita does not advice to go in search of any mystical experience but following the Advaita philosophy, one can have mystical experiences. Ultimately, our goal is not any particular experience which starts and ends in time but a continuous undercurrent of calmness which can last forever. Advaita also has same goal hence it refuses any attempt to achieve samādhi or trance and advocates to be always aware of Brahman.

The people, who want just entertainment or intellectual exercise, will get it to a certain extent through the logical discussion of different paths and science discussed in this book. I have used some logical points to prove the existence of Īśvara or Consciousness but in reality if somebody does not want to accept any proof other than direct perception then no logic or inference can prove anything to him. Therefore, this book will be useful for the people who don’t have any prejudice in their mind and who are ready to change their old thinking patterns without clinging to materialism.

The Nāth Sampradāya, in which I was initiated, also belongs to Advaita Philosophy but it is more for ordinary people than monks. In Nāth Sampradāya we don’t go to Himālaya to find Īśvara because Himālaya or any other mountain is also a part of this physical plane and there is not much change