Uparathi

The third qualification with which one has to be equipped is Uparathi. This implies a state of mind which is above and beyond all dualities such as joy and grief, liking and disliking, good and bad, praise and blame, which agitate and affect the common man. But, these universal experiences can be overcome or negated by means of spiritual exercises or intellectual inquiry. Man can escape from these opposites and dualities and attain balance and stability. Uparathi can be achieved, if one is careful, while engaged in day-to-day living, to avoid entanglement with and bondage to differences and distinctions. One should free oneself from identification with castes like Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaisya and Sudra, or clans like Gotras, or conditions like boyhood, youth, adult and old age, or genders like masculine and feminine. When he succeeds in discarding these and is firmly established in the Atmic Reality alone, he has really achieved Uparathi.

Do not look at the world as the world with a worldly eye. Look upon it with the eye of Atma, as the projection of Paramatma. That can make one cross the horizon of dualities into the region of the One. The One is experienced as many, because of the forms and names man has imposed on it. That is the result of the mind playing its game. Uparathi promotes inner exploration, Nivrithi, not outer enquiry and activity, Pravrithi. Along Nivrithi lies the Path of Jnana (Intellectual Inquiry); along Pravathi lies the Path of Karma (Dedicated Activity).

The sacred activities like rituals and sacrifices (Karma) laid down in the Vedas cannot confer liberation from bondage to birth and death, Moksha. They help only to cleanse the Consciousness. It is said that they raise man to Heaven; but Heaven too is but a bond. It does not promise eternal freedom. The freedom which makes one aware of the Truth, of his own Truth, can be gained only through Sravana (Listening to the Guru), Manana (Ruminating over what has been so listened to) and Nididhyasana (Meditating on its validity and significance). Only those who have detached their minds from desire can benefit from the Guru. Others cannot profit from the guidance. Those who expect and look forward to the fruits of their actions can engage in them until their consciousness is cleansed. After that, their actions are of no value. So, one must be ever conscious of the Atma, as pervading and penetrating everything, so that attraction and repulsion, the duality complex, cannot affect him.