SIRD Malaysia

Viveka can be cultivated, provided you take up and pursue causal thinking. You must be able to think about the cause behind whatever you perceive – whatever you see, hear, feel, taste, or smell, nay for everything that you recognize as the world.

Always try to link up, probe into and find out the causal sphere. Viveka is the art of discriminating between the real and the unreal. When we analyze to understand the real nature of the objects around us, including our own body, we will develop vairaagya (dispassion).

Dispassion is the most important acquisition in the spiritual quest. In the absence of dispassion, saadhana will not fruition. In the absence of dispassion towards the fleeting world, there cannot be any realization or liberation. So, when, through causal thinking, you develop viveka, understand that you will also gain vairaagya. They are very much interdependent. Any saadhana – through devotion, karmayoga or knowledge – will become effective only when it is strengthened and intensified by dispassion. And what is dispassion?

Dispassion is an attitude of indifference towards the objects of the world. The objects of the world always carry an alluring note, an enticing note. They will always enchant one's senses. This enjoyable nature of the world is what makes us so attracted to it. And this attraction acts as a pressure; so much so, that the mind is overshadowed and subdued by the objects.

This overpowering by the objects should be toned down. And the power that enables you to subdue the attraction towards the world, is dispassion. Now, dispassion does not grow easily. In some seekers it is inborn. For others, dispassion is hard to cultivate. How to develop dispassion as an enriching quality of the mind? This is where the spiritual and philosophical analysis along with the enlightenment it brings about, helps.

When we know that the objects of the world are ephemeral – fleeting and transitory – automatically the attachment and allurement which they bring about generally, will be countered by this knowledge and discrimination. The knowledge and its effects become un-negatable. Thus the buddhi starts acting upon the mind which is allured by the objects, and the allurement is progressively attenuated.

Diseases, old age and death – these are visible defects of life, teaching us the lessons of ephemerality. As you start feeding your intelligence with the lessons of ephemerality and illusoriness, the intelligence will have its effect on the mind. And the mind's allurement for the objects is bound to decline.

This is the beginning point of dispassion. When the dispassion grows in ample measure the mind will feel free and independent and start dwelling upon the Subject Self. When the mind is free of the hold of the objects and starts clinging to the Self, peace and bliss become unobstructed.

So the seeking has to be intensified by dispassion. Dispassion cannot grow unless you understand the ephemerality and illusoriness of the objects. Thus through viveka when the ephemerality and illusoriness of the world are sufficiently known, dispassion is born in the mind as a corollary of seeking.

That is why at onetime or the other, the analysis of the world and its authenticity becomes the all important part of this pursuit. Hence, dispassion is very, very important. It becomes inevitable. In fact you may not be a seeker. Even for enjoying the world without getting drowned by its troubles and defects, you must have dispassion.

[This is an extract from Poojya Swamiji's article published in the March 2003 issue of Vicharasetu]