Bhadram

Bhadram part 1

Bhadram, the eternal unknowable Veda

When the mind releases its curiosity to know, I fall into a strange tranquilizing calm where there is a surrender to the unknowable that strangely seems to be the only thing I know! All the other 'knowns' float away from me as the whole world becomes this unknowable Veda. So I listen to lines not only from the Prashna Upanishad with a surrender that breathes relief at giving up trying to understand what it cannot but I listen to every word spoken by people in the room as if their words were part of this undecipherable Veda. Their words are heard but the arrogance of interpretation is shed. They are simply received as sacred utterances that flow and nothing in me wants to sully their holiness with clever interpretations.

Partho's (my Vedanta teacher) words - "silence is not surrender to this or that, it is surrender to all unconditionally" suddenly make tremendous sense. Thoughts flowing through this mind are as much a part of this indecipherable Veda that is beyond evaluation. Hence the prison of evaluating even myself based on thought is released. Everything including this body mind is part of the holiness. It is Bhadram, and to listen to it without interpretation is to hear its sacredness.

The effort to appear drops away because one always wants to appear to a subject who is known. When it is starkly seen that no subject is knowable, who will I appear to and as what? Every perception is streaming from that mysterious Veda that cannot be understood, only loved! The eternal mystery that can only be surrendered to and this surrender becomes silence. When understanding drops, love arises. Then understanding is found glistening in the of warm folds of love.

Bhadram part 2

Bhadram: The Sweet Redemption 

You trickle in, now this wave of desire, 

Then this prickle of Recoil, 

Now this turbulence of restlessness, 

Then this panacea of peace. 

You come, in an Eternal arrival, 

And this heart forever in the throes of an eternal thirst 

Flings open its doors to you 

“Come Beloved, wear any dress, wield any tool. 

Come, as the redolence of cascading flowers 

Or the flash of an ominous sword 

Come on as you will!” 

An eternal thirst drinks, in each arrival of yours, 

The long sought nectar of Bhadram; the eternal Good.

Loved into Non-existence

Every negativity when received as a streaming of the Mother can be loved into non-existence as I awaken to the One without a second that all existence is.

Bhadram part 3

Bhadram, the Eternal Good

There is great freedom in glimpsing that I am not a person but an incessant flow of fluctuating mind states. The world is not 'out there'. It arises in me as quicksilver mind states. The person perceived outside me is actually a mind state inside me. The perceived object/person changes when the perceiver changes. The perceiver, the ‘I’ changes constantly. Hence the perceived object/person also changes constantly. As the Buddha said, the subject and object arise as one unit and pass away as one unit. When a negative event or a person is encountered, we get impatient for the person/event to change. However it is not about wanting for the event or person to change as the person/event does not exist. The person/event too is a mind state in me. It is more relevant to recognize and watch the mind state of dislike as it arises and passes away following the flow of Anicca (impermanence). It is even more relevant to watch it arise and pass away as a streaming of the eternal Brahman, the Eternal Mother.

When ‘A’ is disliked, instead of putting the onus on ‘A’ for the dislike, the onus is on the ‘I’ that arises that dislikes ‘A’. The subject and object arise as one unit and pass away as one unit. It is said that ‘We are bits of magic living in an ocean of magic’. When the magic of all being, the Magical Brahman, is forgotten, ‘A’ appears prominent. When the magic is recollected, the ‘I’ that dislikes and the ‘A’ disliked are both reclaimed into the field of love that is The Real, that is Brahman. Then the ‘disliking I’ and the ‘disliked A’ become insignificant and the All significant love field of the One shines forth. The ‘disliking I’ and the ‘disliked A’ both are loved into non-existence and only love remains.

I have always pondered over the reason why in the canto ‘Secret Knowledge’ in Savitri, He (Purusha) is so enamoured by She (Prakriti).

“A glance can make his whole day wonderful,

A word from her lips with happiness wings the hours.

He leans on her for all he does and is:

He builds on her largesses his proud fortunate days

And trails his peacock-plumaged joy of life

And suns in the glory of her passing smile.

In a thousand ways he serves her royal needs;

He makes the hours pivot around her will,

Makes all reflect her whims; all is their play:

This whole wide world is only he and she.”

When a loving witness of all thought and emotion arises in me with a recognition that every thought and emotion is a streaming of the Mother, The Brahman, then some understanding dawns.

Further in Savitri it is said:

“This is the knot that ties together the stars:

The Two who are one are the secret of all power,

The Two who are one are the might and right in things.”

Or

“– And love is a yearning of the One for the One”

Then His (Purusha's) love for Her (Prakriti) is a yearning of the One for the One. Purusha and Prakriti are ultimately the One adopting two poises for the mysterious play in the field of BHADRAM:

“They are incidents of his vast and varied plot,

His great and dangerous drama’s needed steps;

He makes with these and all his passion-play,

A play and yet no play but the deep scheme

Of a transcendent Wisdom finding ways

To meet her Lord in the shadow and the Night.”

And what is this play all about? Savitri answers:

“There is a plan in the Mother’s deep world-whim,

A purpose in her vast and random game.

This ever she meant since the first dawn of life,

This constant will she covered with her sport,

To evoke a Person in the impersonal Void,

With the Truth-Light strike earth’s massive roots of trance,”

Hence we come back to what we began with: 'I am not a person, but a continuous streaming of fluctuating mind states.' Each mind state is an interplay of Purusha and Prakriti:

“There are Two who are One and play in many worlds;

In Knowledge and Ignorance they have spoken and met

And light and darkness are their eyes’ interchange;

Our pleasure and pain are their wrestle and embrace,

Our deeds, our hopes are intimate to their tale;

They are married secretly in our thought and life.”

These are finally two statuses of the One God intelligence, working out the evolutionary Good, BHADRAM.

- Anahita Sanjana (India)