Why the Monk Laughed - Part II by Natarajan Nagarethinam - HTML preview

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Why the Monk Laughed - Part one Before you read this part II

Publishing particulars

Why the Monk Laughed - Part II

Genre : SPIRITUALITY

The discussion between the tourists and the Monk continues from the Part I of the book, titled ”Why the Monk laughed” - part one

N.Natarajan

Year of publication 2018

Contents

Introduction: The book is not for normal people - The normal human beings - Rebirth - Truth revealed - Maya misleads lives - What is this Maya? - Salvation

Chapter 1 Why do the Monks always laugh?

Why the monks laugh - Story of two buddhist monks - Spiritualists are compassionate – Lives need to run - Our knowledge – Avidya a.k.a Wrong knowledge - Addiction is a big barrier to cross.

Chapter 2 What is Maya?

What is Maya - Maya compares well with Horse Blind - We too play Maya in our life - We too play Maya in our life,

Chapter 3 More on Maya!

What is Maya - Why should I know all about Maya -Why should I know all about Maya - How long it takes to win Maya? - Effort required to Winning over Maya - Can Maya be so simple?

Chapter 4 Maya and Eastern Scriptures

Eastern Scriptures on Maya - What can we conclude about Maya? - The wonderful book titled Yoga Sudhakara by Saint Sadasiva Brahmendra - Vaishnavite school and Salvation - Saivite School and Salvation!

Chapter 5 Maya of Sense Perceptions (a.k.a Maya of Physics)

Time-space dimension – Perception and dimension - Gulliver's travel

Chapter 6 Knowledge alone is not enough,

Knowledge needs to be internalized,to benefit from it.

Internalising knowledge - How to avoid anger? - Story of a Software enterprise - Operation Collapse - Land locked land - Land grab - Litigation for Cash (1) - Litigation for Cash (2) - What did I do then?

Chapter 7 How do I know that I am ready for the spiritual journey!!

The spiritual journey - a checklist.

Chapter 8 The last step

Stop the mind! Get the powers.

Knowledge in computer helps - Know your mind – pseudo concurrent processing - How can I know that my mind is switching?

Chapter 9 Journey through Conscious states

Chandogya Upanishad and conscious states - Understanding of Turiya -Three Bodies - What one experiences in Turiya - Kashmir Shaivism

chapter 10 The full Story of Vedanta Dindima

Contains several information on the Spiritual path!C

Introduction

Seeker Vs Normal lives

The book is not for normal people - The normal human beings -Rebirth -Truth revealed - Maya misleads lives - Salvation

(The book is not for people leading normal lives).

The book, Why the monk Laughed, is written with the intention of helping the “Seekers of truth” (truth also imply god, salvation a.k.a Mukti a.k.a freedom from the cycle of birth-and-death). They are insignificant in number, who are known as seekers (of Knowledge) This book is not for normal people.

The normal human beings

Those who are not “seekers of truth” are normal human beings. They also seek. But what they seek are material possessions, wealth fame and Official positions in the society and more importantly,the sense derived pleasures.

they are not called seekers! They are normal lives.

Born, live through the life enjoying the Sense Derived Pleasures and enduring the pains that follow the pleasure.

Most normal people may not be aware of rebirth. Some may not believe is someone tell them that lives are in a birth-death cycle.

That implies that the normal lives have no serious problem in remaining in Birth-Death cycle.

They are attached to this world. The lives and objects and the desire for pleasures they find in the world they live in.

This is because, they are unaware of any other world and the pleasures there in.

Rebirth

Men-of-knowledge, and the scriptures made by them tell us that lives are born millions of times in various forms. Sometimes as animals, insects, birds and human being. After millions of rebirth, the lives are tired of being in the birth death cycle! They do not enjoy the possessions and sense derived pleasures any more.

Truth revealed

Certain incidents in life expose to lives some truth that the world they know are far bigger than they always thought. Men-of-knowledge call it movement of the Veil of Maya.

Often they are ignored as a bad dream or imagination.

Very few people follow it and realise that the world must be far too larger than what it normally look to usl

Maya misleads lives

Men-of-knowledge tell us that the world is far more larger than what we perceive. But a force or phenomenon reveal us an insignificant part of the world, They named it as Maya.

What is this Maya?

Religion explained that very force as a Goddess, one of the two consorts of the Creator Brahma! Maya is the goddess who hide the truth, the other consort Gayatri who reveals the truth to those who seek. Spirituality explains Maya as a phenomenon.

Salvation

Maya need to be won over to get liberated from the cycle of birth and death. To win over Maya, one seeks to gain knowledge on Maya.

There are several ways to gain the knowledge on Maya. There is one path where one does not require the knowledge on Maya. That is the path of Devotion.

We will start with understanding what is Maya with information collected from various sources. See them through the lense of science available to day.

That could help a seeker, not in the path of Bhakti or devotion, fast track their journey.

Chapter 1

Why the monk laughed

Why the monks laugh - Story of two buddhist monks - Spiritualists are compassionate – Lives need to run - Our knowledge – Avidya a.k.a Wrong knowledge a.k,a - Addiction is a big barrier to cross.

Why the monks laugh?

Tourist:  Why do you Monks always laugh?

Monk:  Monks laugh for two reasons. Before I give the reason, Let me tell you a story first!

My answer will be better understood after I tell you the story.

Here goes a wonderful little story about two monks who lived together in a monastery for many years; they were great friends.

The story of Two buddhist monks

Then they died within a few months of one another. One of them got reborn in the heaven realms, the other monk is reborn as a worm in a dung pile.

The one up in the heaven realms was having a wonderful time, enjoying all the heavenly pleasures. But he started thinking about his friend.

He wondered where his old mate has gone!

So he scanned all of the heaven realms, but could not find a trace of his friend. Then he scanned the realm of human beings, but he could not see any trace of his friend there, so he looked in the realm of animals and then of insects.

Finally he found him, reborn as a worm in a dung pile... Wow!

He thought: I am going to help my friend. I am going to go down there to that dung pile and take him up to the heavenly realm so he too can enjoy the heavenly pleasures and bliss of living in these wonderful realms.

So he went down to the dung pile and called his mate. And the little worm wriggled out and said:

Who are you asked his friend.

“ I am your friend,” replied the one from heaven.

We used to be monks together in a past life, and I have come up to take you to the heaven realms where life is wonderful and blissful.

But the worm said: Go away, get lost!

But I am your friend, and I live in the heaven realms replied the other.

He described the heaven realms to him.

But the worm said: No thank you, I am quite happy here in my dung pile. Please go away.

Then the heavenly being thought: Well if I could only just grab hold of him and take him up to the heaven realms, he could see for himself.

So he grabbed hold of the worm and started tugging at him; and the harder he tugged, the harder that worm clung to his pile of dung.

Do you get the moral of the story?

All of us are attached to our pile of dung. Every spiritualist or men of knowledge, day in and out try to retrieve the people from their dung pile.

Unfortunately the people do not want to come out of their dung pile.

Monk:  Now, I will answer your question.

First reason is, monks, the spiritually elevated, laugh at the folly of every one of you. You lead a life of an insect in a dung pile and yet you feel you are in the heaven.

Second reason for the Monks to laughs is their own folly of attempting to rescue the lives from their dung pile and take them to heaven.

Tourist:  You are aware that lives are happy in the dung pile. Then why spiritualists attempting to take them to heaven?

Spiritualists are compassionate

Monk:  When the seeker grow into Spiritualists, the men of knowledge, their knowledge grows many fold.

Growth in knowledge makes one compassionate to fellow lives. Not just to human lives alone but every other species as well.

The compassion drives the spiritualists to rescue the humans from their suffering.

Tourist: Where do we find seekers grown into Spiritualists or men-of-knowledge.

Even when they are there, it is impossible to identify them.

At a certain stage, the men-of-knowledge, ealizes and accepts the reality that lives that RUN will suffer the pains. They have a role to play in the universe and not all can be moved to heaven.

Lives Run and they need to run

Taking every lives to heaven is not the solution. Lives need to run in the universe. Lives takes a lot of birth before they are prepared for their journey to heaven.

Our knowledge – Avidya a.k.a Wrong knowledge

Tourist:  How could you conclude that we are the insects in Dung pile? Unlike every other species, we the human make Car, Airplanes and trains travel at speeds far in excess of what the nature has given us. We visit other planets. We enslave other species and make them work for us that no other specie is known to do.

Monk:  Your knowledge is not true knowledge. Educated among you, occupying high public offices in the society believe that they are the storehouse of knowledge in the society. Your knowledge helps you commit sins.

You educated feel that you know all about the universe. But the truth is that you know nothing about it. Whatever little you know are distorted truths and often, wrong knowledge.

You feel that there must be lives in distant planets and do you won't ever know that every life is here where you are.

Rich among you deprive the due share of the lesser mortals and claim to be intelligent, not realising what you really doing is sin. We will discuss this more when discussing Wealth.

You accumulate wealth using every evil act and take that nowhere. You think you are leaving it for your Children and Grandchildren. You will never know that your idea of Father and Mother, Brother and Sisters are stupid and nothing but Maya. (I and Mine). (Ahankaar and Mamakaar)

You are very much under the control of Maya. You are excited with every kind of sense derived pleasures which are the most stupid ideas.

The men-of-knowledge tell you the same in different ways that:

What all you know, is wrong.

This life is full of dualities. Any pleasure is followed by pain and vice versa. They tell you that there is a world where there is an unchanging, permanent happiness. (You never desire that; you are content with alternating pleasure and pain in the world).

You are attached to this world due to Maya and never attempt to get out of it. You reject the help from Men-of-knowledge to take you to heaven!

There are clear messages in scriptures in the form of Short and sweet stories all about Maya. But, they are interpreted wrongly by experts in languages, without the appreciation of its content. This is again due to Maya.

The truth about Maya is also revealed in your school textbooks. But you forget, all you read, after the examination. Your Education system is so shallow that they did not impart necessary knowledge skills to relate learning to your life.

(If education system helped the educated to linking the learnings to life situation, then everyone educated will become saints some day.! So, it must be the Maya that played its role in the minds of the educators in creating and sustaining an ineffective education system).

Tourist:  I have no clear idea about Maya as yet. Tell me sir, what would happen if everyone human understands Maya and Win over it?

Monk:  When that happens, the humanity will vanish!!!! But that situation can never happen. Maya is strong, powerful and play the addiction card.

If that happens then there will be still the universe without the human specie. Just like several species have already vanished and some others are in the verge of Extinction.

After Wifi became popular some Sparrows have vanished from big cities. Bats population has thinned.

The truth is that, 99.9999999% of the population of any specie will neither attempt to understand maya or understand Maya when explained.

Because they have found a heaven in their Dung pile. Even if they believe, they will not make efforts to get out of their dung pile.

Tourist:  Some of us, who listened to Spiritual discourses, read books like Srimad Bhagavad, say that they understand the concepts behind Maya. How do we use it to get liberated ?

Addiction is a big barrier to cross

Monk:  Maya is more like an addiction. Most of us knew that consuming Distilled alcoholic beverages leads to Liver problems and consequent health hazards. Using tobacco products leads to cancer. There are warnings in the media.

But yet, both are the most sold products. Reason:  addiction.

Mere understanding of Maya is not enough, That knowledge should be internalised. Internalized knowledge would help deaddiction,

For ordinary mortals, it might perhaps several births to Internalize Maya and get liberated from Maya.

I am still under the control of Maya

Monk:  Many Monks like me have a thorough knowledge of Maya. My attempts to make you understand Maya in itself an indication that I am still in the clutches of Maya.

Tourist:  If I learn all about Maya, like you do, will I be liberated in this birth itself?

Monk : We are in the beginning of the spiritual journey. It will follow and improve in successive births till one is finally liberated.

Tourist:  We seek your help to thoroughly Know all about Maya and its Internalising process.

Monk:  Okay let us start with Maya.

(For a detailed discussion on Maya read the ebook titled: Illusion - Maya from free-ebooks.net/search/natarajan Maya would be covered briefly in the couple of chapter for the sake of completion,).

Chapter 2

What is Maya

What is Maya - Maya compares well with Horse Blind - We too play Maya in our life

What is Maya?

Tourist:  What is Maya?

Maya is described variously in scriptures.

Maya is said to be the real force behind the functioning of the universe.

Maya is accused of being the root cause of human problems.

Maya hides the truth from lives! Make us feel that which is not existing as existing and that which is existing as non existent.

Which is true?

Monk:  Every statement above, is valid.

Maya compares well with Horse Blind

What is horse blind?   Why is it needed for Horses?

If any one can appreciate the important role played by Maya if the use of “Horse Blind” to horses is understood by them. Understanding the role of Maya is possible.

Just as horses run for us, we run for our creator.

Blinkers are used to prevent the horses from becoming distracted or panicked by what they see behind.

Horses are prey animals and so they have peripheral vision.

A horse's eyes are located on the sides of its head, allowing him to see a panoramic view of the world. In fact, horses can see a nearly full circle around themselves except for a small blind spot in front of their noses and behind their tail.

Blinders cover the rear and side vision of the horse, forcing him to focus only in a forward direction.

The reduction in vision for horses wearing blinders is significant and can reduce a horse's vision from 180 degrees to as little as 30 degrees, depending on the size and depth of the blinders. Now let us turn to human lives.

Even those who studied Physics at School do not realise that our five sensory organs, has a built-in blinder. The inherent limitation of sense organs leaves us blind to several realities.

Tourist: I can imagine the role play of restricted perception. When I was a small boy the distance to my school from home appeared too long. When I visited my native place after my graduation I found the distance too small. So there is some correlation between dimension and our own physical dimensions.

We too play Maya in our life

We can see Maya played by people in various walks of our life.

1. H R professionals play Maya: Take a look at the role play of modern Human Resources departments in enterprises. They play Maya in the Industry.

H R Professionals devise incentives such as rewards and recognition to motivate Employees to use their knowledge and skills to deliver maximum to the organisation. With some people any incentives won't work.

So stick is used to make employees deliver more. This is called the Carrot and Stick policy. Most employees end-up in a variety of health problems to become eligible for reward or fear of disincentives.

2. Marketing people sell at Discounted Prices:

The shrewd marketing professionals Announce Price discount for products. Many buy products they would never need, because of discount offered in prices.

Those under the influences of Maya of marketing do not bear in Mind that no one sell a product for a loss. The thinking disabled among us, who becomes a victims of Marketing-Mayavis rush to buy the products that they would never use.

3. Loyalty Card by Grocery stores.

Issue of Loyalty Card is popular these days to retain their clients, Various grocery stores pay typically 0.5 % as discount in prices against this loyalty card. The products are sold at Max Retail Price which is higher than Selling price by 5% or more. The nearest grocer, without air-conditioning and security staff, sell products at prices less than 5 to 10% of MRP. But yet, We stick to  Loyalty card . Loyalty programs Cultivate promote greed using Ignorance in customer but harvest loyalty and profits to their store.

4. Election Promises by leader

Political Leaders play Maya making people vote for them. In return for their hope inspiring speech, the promises of great future, they plant seeds of hope and harvest large followers.

Tourist: Is there anything more to Maya?

Monk:  I have not told you enough about Maya and how it works, yet. We have not even started the discussion on Maya. Yet!

Chapter 3

More or Maya

What is Maya - Why should I know all about Maya -Why should I know all about Maya - How long it takes to win Maya? - Effort required to Winning over Maya - Can Maya be so simple?

What is Maya?

Is Maya a Goddess?  No!

Maya's description as a goddess is a personification of the design feature of the universe and every species in the universe. Maya as a goddess can be thought of as an oversimplification of a very complex design of universe. This will be the first that will be discussed.

The design feature enables the universe to function. Can be imagined as a kind of fuel to automobiles.

Why should I know all about Maya ?

A win over Maya is a must both for acquiring Spiritual Powers and Salvation.

Even if one does not have a goal such as  Liberation or  Mukti or acquiring  spiritual powers , mere Understanding of Maya and internalising it, can help one leading a peaceful life.

How long it takes to win Maya?

Tourist :