तदेतदृचाऽभ्युक्तं क्रियावन्तः श्रोत्रिया ब्रह्मनिष्ठाः स्वयं जुह्वत एकर्षिं श्रद्धयन्तः । तेषामेवैतां ब्रह्मविद्यां वदेत शिरोव्रतं विधिवद्यैस्तु चीर्णम् ॥
tadetadṛcā'bhyuktaṃ kriyāvantaḥ śrotriyā brahmaniṣṭhāḥ svayaṃ juhvata ekarṣiṃ śraddhayantaḥ teṣāmevaitāṃ brahmavidyāṃ vadeta śirovrataṃ vidhivadyaistu cīrṇam
This is That declared by the Rig Veda. Doers of works, versed in the Veda, men absorbed in the Brahman, who putting their faith in the sole seer offer themselves to him sacrifice, to them one should speak this Brahman-knowledge, men by whom the Vow of the Head has been done according to the rite.
~ Verse 3.2.10
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तदेतत्सत्यमृषिरङ्गिराः पुरोवाच नैतदचीर्णव्रतोऽधीते । नमः परमऋषिभ्यो नमः परमऋषिभ्यः ॥
tadetatsatyamṛṣiraṅgirāḥ purovāca naitadacīrṇavrato'dhīte namaḥ paramaṛṣibhyo namaḥ paramaṛṣibhyaḥ
This is That, the Truth of things, which the seer Angiras spoke of old. This none learns who has not performed the Vow of the Head. Salutation to the seers supreme! Salutation to the seers supreme!
~ Verse 3.2.11
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Acharya Prashant (AP): Verse ten.
“This is That declared by the Rig Veda. Doers of works, versed in the Veda, men absorbed in the Brahman , who putting their faith in the sole seer offer themselves to him sacrifice, to them one should speak this Brahman -knowledge”—qualifications are being spelled out—“men by whom the Vow of the Head has been done according to the rite.” ‘*Śirovrata*’, that’s the word, the vow of the head or the rite of the head, the ceremony of the head.
Which ceremony is being talked of? What is śirovrata ? Very important. It is the fire ceremony of the head. Carrying the fire on the head—that’s śirovrata . Extremely evocative ceremony, a very powerful pointer.
What does it mean to carry fire on the head? To put the head to fire. Only those who have put their head to fire are qualified to receive Brahman -knowledge. If your head still exists, if you cannot put your head to fire, no chance.
In fact, you all should memorize this word, ‘*śirovrata*’. The ‘*vrata*’ is to put the head to fire. Otherwise, you are just not qualified; you are the amoeba, you are the dog. To be a human you need to pass through the fire rite, the ritual of the fire, the ritual of putting the head to fire.
Now, please don’t take it literally. We are not talking of immolating the head; we are referring to the mind here. The head refers to the mind, not the skull.
“This is That declared by the Rig Veda.” Now, this knowledge is That, this is That, that Tat that Rig Veda refers to. This knowledge is That—which knowledge? Knowledge that Mundaka Upanishad has laid open for you.
“Doers of works”—doers of the right works—“versed in Veda”—those having spiritual knowledge—“men absorbed in Brahman , who putting their faith in the sole seer”—you could take these as four conditions, four qualifications. One, doers of works, those who have dedicated themselves fully to working; second, versed in the Veda—you could take ‘Veda’ here as Upanishads; it’s the Upanishad who is declaring this. So, versed in the Upanishads.
One thing, those who have committed themselves fully to working; second, those who are well versed in Upanishads; third, men absorbed in the Brahman , those who are not absorbed in anything else, those to whom the trivia of the world has stopped mattering, those who do not find thoughts of this and that attractive anymore; they cannot remain absorbed in thoughts of worldly things or material pleasures, they are absorbed only in Brahman . So, that’s the third condition.
Then the fourth is: “who putting their faith in the sole seer”—those who have put their faith in one sole Rishi. The word used here is peculiar: ‘*ekarṣi*’, sole seer. “Who have put their faith in the sole seer offer themselves to him sacrifice”—those who have offered themselves as sacrifice to the sole seer. “We have given ourselves to you. Use us. We have sacrificed ourselves to you. Use us.”
“Only to them one should speak this Brahman -knowledge”—those who fulfill these four or five conditions, only to them one should speak this Brahman -knowledge—“men by whom the Vow of the Head has been done according to the rite.” This you could take as the last condition.
So, now you have five conditions. You cannot just pick up the Upanishads, absorb their knowledge, and hope to be illumined. That’s not going to happen. You can memorize the verses, you can be adept at their illustrations, still you will remain the same old amoeba, the same common dog—because you will remain .
“Sir, if I remain silent, will I still remain?”
Don’t you see? Even in remaining silent you remain. Tough if you remain. If you remain it becomes extremely tough to not remain.
“Okay, sir. Now I remain no more!”
(Laughs) Even in remaining no more, you remain.
What to do, then? Stop all this and try fulfilling the five conditions. That’s easier than this verbal jugglery.
Verse eleven.
“This is That, the Truth of things, which the seer Angiras spoke of old. This no one learns who has not performed the Vow of the Head.”
It’s coming down from that ancient sage Angiras. But you will not get it if you have not performed the vow of the head, śirovrata .
“Salutation to the seers supreme! Salutation to the seers supreme!”—followed by the śāntipāṭha (peace prayer):
Aum. Śānti, śānti, śānti.
The Upanishads give you everything but they cannot give it to you for free; even they are helpless in this regard. Even they have to put five conditions. Variously, conditions have been put in different words, different forms; sometimes two conditions, sometimes twenty. Here, we have five.
Nevertheless, conditions do apply—always. The same five can be condensed into two or elaborated into twenty. Without paying the price, without fulfilling the conditions, you aren’t reaching anywhere. Not only are you not reaching anywhere, remember, you are not good as you are.
It’s not that you are not good to the sage Angiras. You do not feel good about yourself; you are not good to yourself. It’s not the seer imposing his standards upon you; the highest standard exists within you, and by your own standards you are not good enough. Ātman is yours as much as it is of Angiras’, and when Ātman is the yardstick, you find yourself grossly short. You are not adequate by your own internal standards.
So, there is no question of somebody else convincing you to be better. You, on your own, want to be better and need to be better. What is being spelled out here is not an order or dictate of authority; it is just your own inner and highest desire being articulated in a helpful way. If you want to get what you so desperately want to get, then meet these five conditions. That’s what is being said.
The teachers are nowhere in the picture. It’s not as if the teachers are convincing you or trying to sell wisdom to you. You have come to the teachers because you need something. The teachers are telling you, “If you need what you do, then this is what you must do.”
Questioner (Q): So, we as human beings have the potential to go beyond that which we have in common with all other animals. We have the capacity to move towards liberation, and an animal cannot do that.
AP: And an animal does not want to do that. That’s not how it is biologically constituted.
Q: So, is this potential also biological?
AP: Yes. This potential is the potential of your body. Only your body is designed in a way that the consciousness attached to it can seek freedom from it. You could even say that only man is unfortunate enough to not remain contented with the body. All other lifeforms are contented with the body; only man is born with a special urge. This you could take as his superiority or his misfortune.
No animal experiences the angst that a human being does. Animals don’t have to go through so much tension and inner strife; they don’t turn depressed, neurotic, suicidal so easily. We do, because we are special. We are special animals. Not that we are absolutely special, we are just special animals.
Q: So, we are saying that there has been no inward evolution, and yet we do possess an evolutionary and bodily capacity to go beyond the material, a potential to transcend the body itself. This seems contradictory.
AP: The problem is, ‘potential’ is a very deceptive word. You use the word ‘potential’ to defend your notion that man is special. You say man has the potential for liberation, therefore man is special. You say man has the potential for liberation, therefore man is better than animals.
I take potential as a phantom, as Maya , myth. Potentially, we are all divine; potentially, we are all the true Self, Ātman . So what? Where is that potential expressing itself in your life? The only use you have for that potential is that you use it to defend your unreasonable sense of grandeur and superiority.
We are potentially great. Two hoots to your potential. What are you, really? What are you living as? Potentially, yes, you could be sage Angiras. What are you living your life as? Tell me that. You are living your life as the amoeba; therefore, I will call you the amoeba. I won’t call you Angiras.
You might be born with so much potential—that’s actually unfortunate because you will die with so much potential. Would have been better had you been born with no potential, because that potential is never going to fructify, you will just die with it; with you it would be turned to ashes.
What’s the point in talking of that mythical potential and singing and dancing around it? You know, our possible glory! Possible glory, or current debauchery? I want to talk of the latter. Because without talking of your current debauchery, your possible glory is anyway always going to remain just a myth, a utopia, a chimera.
Like how people talk of their great ancestors. “You know, I come from the line of the great king who once used to rule Delhi.” How does that help you? Look at your life. How does that help you? “I come from the line of the Buddha or Mahavira!” Who are you? Look at your life. All the time you are violent—and you are talking of Buddha and Mahavira.
“Oh, but, you know, I am a Bharadvāja Brahmin!”—or some other Brahmin—“I come from the line of sage Agastya!” And even as you say this, you are spitting chicken bone out from your mouth. Steeped in ignorance you are talking of this glory, that glory, this highness, that beauty.
Potentially, you could have been the topper of your class. I want to know what you actually did. Potentially, you could have won eight Nobel prizes by now—but I know you couldn’t have graduated without cheating. That’s your reality.
Isn’t it actually a disgrace that in spite of having a potential, we live the life of an amoeba? Doesn’t that not only make us equal to but rather worse than the amoeba? The amoeba never had the potential of being anything beyond the amoeba; you had the potential, and you still lived as the amoeba. Now, tell me, are you better or worse than the amoeba? Worse than the amoeba.
That’s the reason I keep saying the dogs are better than us. They are at least performing to their average.
You know, there is a tail ender—I am talking of cricket—his batting average is ten; he has no more potential. His batting average is ten, and he comes to bat and gets out at ten. Is that bad performance? Not at all, he is performing to his average. Now, you are a top order batsman, your average is fifty-eight; that’s your potential, right? You could have made fifty-eight or more, and you come and you get out at ten. Who is better, the tail ender or you? So, the dogs are better than us.
Happened with me, you know. I stood third in my class, class four or five, and got bashed up at home. It wasn’t a bad performance by any means, third in a class of forty or fifty. Got beaten up.
And then I rebelled. I said, “This, my sister, she never even manages a single digit rank, but happily she carries her report card, comes in, throws it away and starts rolling on the bed, and nobody utters a word to her! All the time she is just happy. I burn the midnight oil, she keeps snoring. She comes thirteenth in her class, I came third. She is still happy, I have been bashed up. This won’t do!”
My mother said, “You have done far worse than her.” I couldn’t really grasp it. Now I think I do.
If you have potential and you don’t live up to it, life will offer you the harshest punishment, because you have failed in your one duty as a human being: to materialize your potential. That’s your only dharma .
Your potential the Upanishads call as Ātman . You have it, and yet you do not have it.
Q: In the Bhagavad Gita , Sri Krishna says that he is the highest in all the vidyās . So, there he says that he is the highest as the Ātman in an absolute sense. So, if I say that I have to be the Ātman , does that mean the highest potential I have as this body? Or does it refer to me in an absolute sense?
AP: When you exhibit your highest potential, you find that the absolutely highest becomes possible to you on its own. So, you don’t have to worry about the absolutely highest; you worry about the highest that you can be, and keep reaching there continuously. The absolute will then pick you up on its own.
You can only be relatively better. Keep becoming relatively better day after day. You remember the ‘Ninety-nine Floors of Consciousness’ (referring to a talk from another session)? You keep climbing up, you have to reach the ninety-ninth floor, and from there the sky picks you up. Beyond that you do not do much.
Keep doing the utmost possible to yourself. And remember that you being small, tiny, even the maximum that you can do would always be insufficient. Still, that display of the maximum you can do is needed. You display the maximum you can do and do a little more than that—because you can always do more than what you think you can do—and then strange things start happening. You find much more is happening, more than you had planned or even asked for.
But all that happens only when you are doing your utmost. You first show your desire, your preparedness to pay the maximum price, and then something beyond the price you can pay is gifted to you.
You know, a piggy bank, now kids don’t keep that, in my times they did. So, this sister of mine, she used to maintain one. Obviously all the coins had been stolen from me, but… So, wherever she would find change, it goes into the piggy bank, very quickly to disappear.
So, the vegetable vendor gives her some money, “You go and give this to your mother”; ten rupees was given and the stuff bought was worth seven and a half, so two and a half rupees he returns in coins. The coins never reach anywhere, but they go to the tummy of that pig.
So, it was there. And there was this electric car she wanted for my brother, if I remember rightly. Those days electric cars used to be expensive things. I was in class three, so she would have been in kindergarten. My younger brother was four and a half or so. So, this car was to be bought for him.
So, she made the ultimate sacrifice: one day the pig was slaughtered. All that came out of its stomach was probably not even a hundred rupees, but the car came. It wouldn’t have come had she not taken that extreme step, though in itself that extreme step was totally insufficient. The car was ten times as expensive, a little toy car this big, battery operated.
Do you understand this? You cannot get that Ultimate by your own effort, but you would also not get that Ultimate without your own effort.
So, do not have the conceit or vanity that you will work hard and attain the true Self. No, that won’t happen. All that you have is what, some fifty, sixty rupees in your little piggy bank; that’s just too little to buy the Absolute. But without sacrificing all that you have, you will not get the Absolute. Do you get this delicate equation?
You do the maximum you can. Your maximum will not suffice, but probably the Absolute is looking for your maximum. You do the maximum you can, and the Absolute gifts itself to you then.
Q: I have lately felt like all my doing is only taking me further back into suffering. Is this something that is happening only now, or has this always been the case? Have I always been just failing continuously?
AP: See, there is a need to avoid talking big of even your failures. When we say, “Oh, I failed so miserably,” we are trying to turn our failures into something grand.
Your efforts are petty, even your failures are petty, so forget them. You have done nothing worth remembering. What you rather need is some honesty; that would turn your effort into something a bit substantial. Then probably you won’t have to talk so much of your failures.
What is happening is this: I hardly put any effort into this (points at the verses kept on the table) , hardly any effort. No effort has gone into this, and then I fail and I sing aloud of my failures. One hour of effort went into this and twenty-three hours went into singing the melancholy song of my failure.
Be honest, put more effort into this. Then you won’t have to sing so much of your failures. And remember that petty work begets petty failures. Show some spine with your effort. Don’t succumb to the smallest temptation, to even ordinary blows of Maya . Any small wave comes and sweeps you away—what’s worth remembering or describing in this?
Show some spine, some gallantry, some resistance, and only then the discussion can even commence.
Q: When we talk of honesty and dishonesty, there is always this confusion that being what we are, which is fundamentally dishonest, we would always be resistant towards spiritual practice. So, is even the display of that resistance honesty?
AP: It all depends on you, on what you want. Dishonesty is about not doing to get what you want to get. That’s the fundamental dishonesty. So, dishonesty is just stupidity. I want this (picks up a mug) , yet I do not act to get this. This is what I am calling as dishonesty.
Honesty is not about doing something miraculous or magnanimous, divine, altruistic, deeply spiritual, very offbeat, very odd—nothing. Honesty means: I am thirsty, I will go to water. This is honesty. Honesty is self-interest. Honesty is common sense. And this honesty, when practiced, is freedom, illumination, and what you can call as enlightenment. Nothing else.
This is what is enlightenment: practice honesty. Know what you want and commit yourself to it.
Q: Lately, I have been seeing that when you catch yourself being dishonest, it is always accompanied by a growing disappointment. It is probably coming from false expectations. On one hand, there is this disappointment, that again I am being dishonest; on the other hand, one has to constantly work towards improvement. So, is the only correct use of this disappointment to just learn from it and not repeat it again?
AP: Practice enjoyment. Love enjoyment. Miss the joy of the success in beating yourself. Be accustomed to that joy. Love it so much that you miss it when you don’t get it. The joy of succeeding against yourself, the joy of excelling beyond yourself—fall in love with that joy.
There is pleasure in being defeated by yourself. If you fall to your tendencies for pleasure, for rest, all you get is happiness, ordinary pleasure. When you lose to yourself, there is just pleasure; when you beat yourself, there is joy. Practice joy. Become obsessed. I will go to the extent of saying, become addicted.
Saint Kabir says: Become so addicted that you don’t survive without it. He loves the metaphor of the fish. He says only the fish knows love, it won’t survive a minute if you take it out of the ocean. Become so addicted to that, want it every second. Crave it. Miss it badly.
Q: So, if this is not happening frequently, does it mean that we have not had enough moments of joy?
AP: Yes. Well said. That’s the tricky thing. If you have not had enough of it, you will not even develop the urge to want it. So, somehow you must be given frequent tastes of it. Only then you fall in love with it.
That’s where the role of conditioning, parenting, education comes in; that’s where the role of good company is; that’s what the role of the teacher is—to kickstart you, to give you the first taste, to help you practice that taste, to create an ecosystem in which you can fall in love; somehow, anyhow to bring you to the real thing once, twice, then again and again, till you start saying, “I want it. I love it.”
Initially, you won’t; initially, you have to be dragged to that many times. Then there has to be discipline so that you practice it. Without discipline nothing will happen. A lot of practice is needed. And then comes a point when practice is no more needed, there is love. You want to do it on your own. That point doesn’t come quickly or easy or cheap. Effort is involved. Grace is involved. Discipline is needed.
Q: So, even if there are discouraging thoughts about even our best not being enough, we should just keep on working and disregard these thoughts?
AP: You don’t have to think of the final victory. The final victory will always be a gift immense beyond your imagination or desire. You have to think of your current daily battles. You have to think of your little daily victories. If you think of the final victory, all you will get is demotivation because the final victory is totally beyond you. Thinking of it is not going to pep you up or energize you, it will only deflate you.
So, don’t think, don’t envision any final thing. Think of your daily battles. Think of your small tasks. Go for your daily victories. Go to bed a winner every day. That’s plausible, is it not? To not sleep without having won the little battles. Zero in on the battles you need to win right in the morning. Just three for today? Fine, just three for today. Just one for today? Even that is fine. But then, don’t retire without victory.
Practice being a winner. Practice beating yourself every day. Defeat, I repeat, is an ugly habit; somehow a lot of us seem to have developed it. Defeat should bother you, defeat should hurt—which defeat am I talking of? Defeat against yourself.
And being a winner is important; therefore, you must not set unrealistic targets. Be a little biased towards victory. So, set targets that are achievable, and then ensure that you don’t miss them. Otherwise, missing becomes a habit. Win small, but win daily.
You are not responsible for the ultimate victory, so unburden yourself of that final task. That will happen on its own. Nobody can do that. You are responsible only for your daily little battles; there, if you lose, you are accountable. Is that clear?
The future is dangerous. Don’t think of it. I am not saying it’s really dangerous; I am saying it’s a dangerous thing in the sense of what it does to your mind. When you think of the future, you allow yourself to go astray.
So, don’t think of the future. Think of this day: What do I need to do today ? That’s all. The future will be taken care of on its own.
Q: Is it alright to subject oneself through the fire of penance even if the center is not yet transformed? Can a man who is the embodiment of mistakes really undertake a worthwhile penance?
AP: What else is needed to be put through fire? You are not going to put Ātman through fire, are you? It’s your impurities you need to put through fire, exactly that.
And even when you put yourself through fire, let me console you a bit, you need to put yourself through only as much fire as you can afford. That’s why I talked of small daily battles. If you think of massive oceans of fire and envision yourself swimming through them, then you won’t even begin.
So, don’t fantasize too much. There are impurities within, they need to be burned down, and you have to do it. And if you are sincere, you will do it at a pace that is both affordable and high, which means as high as possible. You will not take up unreasonable projects, fail in them, and then surrender to the wrong master, and on top of that proclaim martyrdom.
“Oh, I fought a huge battle! Oh, I fought such a huge battle! All of you are busy fighting your petty battles. I fought a huge battle and was defeated—and I was defeated for good: I was actually slaughtered! Now, I do not fight any battles.”
In fact, taking up an unreasonable challenge is a cunning way to avoid all future challenges. Take up an unaffordable challenge, obviously lose it, and then declare, “Oh, I am not good enough! The challenge is just too much, so I am not going to try any further or any harder.” No, if you are sincere, you don’t want to lose. If you are sincere, you don’t want to keep winning petty battles either.
So, it’s a delicate thing. You see the ropewalk? On one hand, I don’t want to pick too big a battle; on the other hand, I know that if I keep picking very feeble challenges, then I won’t grow at all.
So, it has to be a very wise balance, a very wise balance leaning towards adventurism, leaning towards boldness, leaning towards suspense. You cannot pick up a challenge that you are just too sure to win. Is it a challenge at all, then? So, pick up a challenge where you are a little uncertain: “Will I succeed? Will I fail?” and then succeed.
Let there be some thrill. Otherwise, what’s the joy in winning? And if there is no joy in winning, what will you fall in love with? Nobody can fall in love with boredom. “I woke up in the morning, and my to-do consists of picking this mug up two times, and I win every day. But Acharya Ji, I am not falling in love with the Ultimate!” You mug.
Assured victories don’t help. Assured defeats don’t help either. Play a thrilling game. Play a game that’s just a little beyond your capacity, your means, and then win it every day. A little beyond, not too much. If it’s too much, then…
