asato ma sadgamaya

asato ma sadgamaya
tamaso ma jyotirgamaya
mrtyorma amrtam gamaya

Lead me from the asat to the sat.
Lead me from darkness to light.
Lead me from death to immortality.

(Brhadaranyaka Upanishad — I.iii.28)

This is true prayer—the seeker’s admission of his sense of limitedness and his heartfelt cry for assistance in transcendence. It is not a prayer for the things of the world. It is not a pray for food, shelter, health, partnership, riches, success, fame, glory or even for heaven1. One who recites these three mantras has realized that such things are full of holes, soaked in pain and, even in abundance, will forever leave him wanting. It is in this full understanding that one turns to this prayer. The essence of each of these three mantras is the same: "O, Guru, help me free myself from my sundry misunderstandings regarding myself, the universe and God and bless me with true knowledge."

The first mantra—asato ma sadgamaya—means, "Lead me from the asat to the sat." In fact, it is best to not translate sat (nor its negative counterpart asat) for, as with many Sanskrit words, sat has many meanings and not only are most of them applicable here, their deliberate combined import provides a depth that no one of them could hold independently. These co-applicable meanings include: existence, reality and truth. (Co-applicable meanings for asat being: non-existence, non-reality and untruth.)

We often speak of religion or philosophy as a search for Truth. But only in India’s philosophy of Advaita Vedanta has the concept of "truth" been so meticulously and successfully dissected. According to Advaita, for something to be considered true in the ultimate sense, it must be true not just at one given moment, but always be true—true in all three periods of time: the past, present and future. In fact, Advaita goes one step further. It says if something does not exist in all three periods of time that it does not truly exist, it is not ultimately real. Thus, truth, existence and reality are one and the same. That reality, Vedanta says, is what we call God.

The universe and its things are in a constant state of change. The planets are in constant motion, their positions in relation to each other and the other astral bodies are in continuous flux. The seasons similarly are ever-shifting. Scientifically, we can easily understand that our bodies (and the cells within them) come into existence, are born and then go through periods of growth, sustenance, deterioration and death. In fact these six modifications are part-and-parcel of everything in creation. On the level of emotions, we move back and forth between happiness, sorrow and anger. Even our intellectual convictions rarely stay fixed for very long. So, according to Vedanta, we cannot call this world ultimately real. It is not ultimately true. Ultimately, it does not exist. It seems real etc. but it is not. Such a thing is called asat.

The second mantra—tamaso ma jyotirgamaya—means "Lead me from darkness to light." When the Vedas refer to darkness and light, they mean ignorance and knowledge, respectfully. This is so because ignorance, like darkness, obscures true understanding. And in the same way that the only remedy for darkness is light, the only remedy for ignorance is knowledge. The knowledge spoken of here is again the knowledge of one’s true nature.

Currently, in the darkness of our ignorance, we believe ourselves to be bound and limited (otherwise we would not be reciting these mantras in the first place). But the Guru and the scriptures are telling us that, in truth, we are not, never will be and never have been bound. Eternally we sat-cit-ananda. The only thing that can remove our ignorance regarding our true nature is a spiritual education at the hands of a True Master like Amma. At the culmination of such an education, light floods the room, as it were; darkness vanishes.

The final mantra—mrtyorma amrtam gamaya—means: "Lead me from death to immortality." This should not be taken as a prayer to live endless years in heaven or on earth. It is a prayer to the Guru for assistance in realizing the truth that "I was never born, nor can ever die, as I am not the body, mind and intellect, but the eternal, blissful consciousness that serves as the substratum of all creation."

It is important to remember that, with all these mantras, the leading is not a physical leading. The Atma is not something far away that we have to make a pilgrimage to, nor is it something we need to transform ourselves into. Atma means "self." We don’t need to transform our self into our self. Nor do we need to travel to it. We are it. The journey is a journey of knowledge. It is journey from what we misunderstand to be our self to what truly is our self. What the mantras really means is "Lead me to the understanding that I am not the limited body, mind and intellect, but am, was and always will be that eternal, absolute, blissful consciousness that serves as their substratum."

Once, when discussing these mantras, Amma said the first step in attaining the knowledge for which one is praying when they chant these mantras is satsang: listening to spiritual talks, reading spiritual books and being in the company of spiritual seekers and, of most importantly, spiritual masters. "We need to continuously be fed the knowledge that our true nature is the Atma and not the body mind and intellect," Amma said. Through satsang, our attachment to the asat gradually lessens. "Slowly as you understand that everything in the world—all worldly relationship, all worldly things—are ever-changing an impermanent, your attitude towards the world changes. We gain detachment." As we become more and more detached, our desires also naturally decrease, because we know that the things of the world are impermanent and cannot bring us lasting happiness. As the desires decrease, the mind becomes less and less agitated. It obtains serenity, stillness, peace. Then, with this stilled, subtle, penetrating mind we can finally come to realize our true nature.

Caste System in Historical India

Sourced from here and here

An elaborate detailed talk by the historian Sri D. K. Hari, was an eye opener on the knowledge of Caste system, its true intention and form, and its current situation. The brief of talk is present here.

In the modern political view of India, the very word Caste is looked at as controversial. The word Caste was brought on India by the Portuguese with their term"Casta". The term "caste system" is of British colonial creation and was first used in 1871 census in India.

Varna and Jathi:

From time immemorial we have been having the societal division concept through Varna and Jathi. This concept of Varna and Jathi were combined and transformed into caste system by the colonial British administrators for their administrative nomenclature and classification.

What do you understand by Varna? Many people think of it as color of the skin. Though it does mean color, it was not used for what is the division of people in the society based on color.

The word Varna is etymologically from Var meaning "to choose". There are four Varna in India. They being:

Brahmana, Vaishya, Kshatriya, Sudra

As the word Varna suggests it is to choose ones way of life among these 4 primary streams.

Under or inside the Varna is the concept of Jathi. Jathi stands for trade guilds, stock, variety. It also refers to species or nation. These two concepts of division of labour in society based on choice attitude and aptitude of the individuals practiced from ancient and medieval India was summarily clubbed as caste by British colonial administrators.

The Four Varnas were not by birth, but by choice. A parson from any Jathi was allowed to take the task in one of the four Varnas. There are ample examples of Rishis who were initially fishermen, robbers and so on, thus from any Jathi a person could become Brahmana, based on his skills and knowledge.

There have been many kings who were from various Jathi, based on their valour.

There have been many businessmen based on their negotiation skills, not based on the birth.

Sudra doesn't refer to the lowest, it refers to the tasks which are logistics oriented. People choosing Sudra varna could manage irrigation system, for example. And an irrigation system was by no means less important than defence or army, and India being farmers' country the irrigation system was its backbone.

The importance of various varnas, and the power in the society the people following certain varna has always been fluctuating, and not given to one Varna. E.g. the Kshatriyas would be very important in war time, where as Vaishyas would be important in peace time, for bringing prosperity to the country by good trade. Brahmanas would be very important when everything is prosperous, as the human beings would seek the knowledge of divine, and Sudras would be important when festivities are to be organized, huge crop harvesting and transport is to be managed.

Migration:

The caste system of India was not tightly bound but had the concept of migration from one caste to another in built based on the occasion of the individual person. Most of the great Rishi, the Vedic scholars and the other great scholars of the Indian civilisation were born in the Sudra varna and because of their abilities and realisation migrated to become Brahmana.

Kings of Bharath:

Most of the kings of India also belong to the Sudra Varna and because of their kingship became Kshatriya. This migration was a recognised aspect of the IndianVarna system.

Caste Stratification:

It is in the medieval period during the onslaught and later in the colonial period the caste stratification took place which led to the debacle and down slide of India.

Caste – a pan religious reality:

The horrors of caste are not limited to the Hindus alone . The Indian Christians also the practice of caste system very rigidly. They have segregated churches, segregated cemeteries, segregated services, segregated processions.

The Muslims also have practiced the caste system in India with Azraf being the noble and the Arzal being the degraded. The Mayazur are the low caste bonded labour in Pakistan.

Even among the Sikhs the caste does exist in reality as the Jat Sikh and the Chamar Sikh.

From this it is clear that the concept of caste is not just in the Hindu religion but it is a pan religious reality of India.

Social leaders:

Various social leaders of India whose names are noble and endless have worked tiredlessly to abolish or mitigate the horrors and stratification of caste whenever it has reared its ugly head in the society.

Colonial wreak:

The colonial rule in India wreaked the economy of the land. Probably the most affected by the colonial rule were the Sudra whose property, education, vocation and stature were snatched away from them by the British administrators.

Change adapt:

Today, as India is progressing we see a cycle of changes happening. With these changes, the Jathi Varna concept of India needs to adapt itself. This concept held the fabric of the Indian society in its progress for many thousand years.

Realisation:

The realisation that should come now in us, is that the 3 upper castes namely Brahmin, Kshatriya and Vaisya should realise that they all belong to the common stock of people and due to opportunities and historical reasons they are better off socially now. The above 3 castes are of the same genetic stock as the Sudra. They belong to the same land, same society, and have all been one through the ages. This realisation should enthuse these three castes to take a concrete effort by themselves in uplifting the Sudra brotheren through positive effort.

Wherever the Chaturvarna system started, there may have been some reason for its introduction. This article investigates such possible reason and usefulness of Varna in the light of division of labor for complete progress of society.

In any work there are two types of activities involved – Physical Activity and Mental Activity. In society, there are people who preferably opt for a high or low of either type of activity. Let's look at the Varna system from the requirements of the activity in each:-

Varna	Physical Activity (in terms of outdoor work)	Mental Activity (in terms of thinking planning Analysis)	Skills needed
Khatriya – Defense	High	High	Agility of body and constant analysis of politics
Vaisya – Trade	Low	High	Skillful decisions and good negotiation skills needed
Sudra – Logistics ss	High	Low	High Physical robustne
Brahmin – Teachers	Low	Low	Steadiness of mind

This table shows that according to the body – mind type of a person, only certain activities can be suitable to that person. E.g., if someone is highly involved in physical activities, he or she may not be interested to sit at one place and perform chantings and give teachings. Someone who is not physically fit, cannot take up challenge of defending the nation.

If you look at the tasks required to run a nation, it will also broadly fall in the four categories:-

Defense from enemies – internal or external;

Trade for prosperity and exchange of products- again internal and to the other nations;

Logistics management in the entire country;

Teaching of values, learning from past experiences.

Other way to see its importance is, if either of any of these categories fails, the country cannot survive – A security breach can be dangerous to the country. Lack of proper trade brings down the economy. In any war hit area, the opposing nation first hits the logistics, like roads, water channels, modes of transport and so on. The moment Teachers are not skilled, the knowledge transfer from one generation to the next generation doesn't happen.



Antariksh Vijayvargiya