Satyakama
Satyakama was a boy who lived in the dense forests of India with his mother Jabala.
Scriptural References
This story is from the Chandogya Upanishad.
Significance
Enlightenment can happen now, at this moment. It is only a matter of being receptive. The Master is a gateway to eternal consciousness. It is up to the seeker to have the courage, determination and intelligence to take the first step in the right direction. Thousands of parables exist in the vedic texts about the lives of seekers and the paths they must travel to reach the ultimate goal – that is, moksha or liberation. One such story is that of Satyakama, from the Chandogya Upanishad.
Story
Satyakama was a boy who lived in the dense forests of India with his mother Jabala. He had an intense desire to learn meditation and know the nature of the brahman. His search for a guru took him to the sage Gautama. The sage asked him, “Of what family are you, my boy?” Satyakama fearlessly answered, “My mother said that I should tell you that her name is Jabala and my name is Satyakama – and I know nothing more about my family. So I am Satyakama Jabala.” Appreciating his honesty and courage to speak the truth, the sage accepted him as a student.
The next day, sage Gautama initiated Satyakama into a meditation to quiet his mind. This was the first step to the knowledge of the Brahman, brahma vidya – knowing the self. After teaching Satyakama to meditate, Gautama did something that was very unusual. He took Satyakama to the pasture where hundreds of cows were grazing. To Satyakama’s surprise, Gautama separated out four hundred thin, weak cows. He then told Satyakama that he was about to enter a different type of journey. He instructed Satyakama to take the cows to another part of the forest and to tend to them carefully. He was to return after the cows had multiplied to a thousand. Satyakama had many doubts in his heart, but in deference to the guruvaak (His Guru’s words), he left the gurukul with the cows for the deepest part of the forest.
Deep in the forest, Satyakama lost all sense of time. At first he felt lonely, but soon he sought companionship in his cows and the surrounding nature and forgot even the human language. His mind had become completely silent and even the very goal of his journey was forgotten. He began enjoying his life in the forest. He became one with the nature around him and completely alive in the moment, lost in ecstasy and joy. He carefully tended the cows. His cows ate fresh grass and drank pure water from the streams and soon became very healthy. Satyakama stayed in the deep forest for many years, living a peaceful and happy life, so much so that he even forgot his goal of returning to his guru with a thousand cows. Satyakama never felt alone. Every living creature became a part of his family. When the time had come to return, a cow approached Satyakama to inform him that they were now a thousand in number, and that they should return to the Master.
Satyakama traveled back to the gurukul with the cows, and upon seeing them all, the Master exclaimed that now one thousand and one cows had returned. In other words, Satyakama himself had lost all sense of his former identity, and had simply become one of the cows. The Master simply pronounced the Vedic declaration for enlightenment – ‘Tat Tvam Asi’, or ‘Thou art that’. Satyakama was so empty of identity, and in a state of such pure listening, that the Master’s words just penetrated his being and became a reality in him. In that moment, Satyakama got enlightened.
The Master has the power to create the right situation in which a disciple can flower. It is through the guidance and instruction of an enlightened master that a seeker can reach the state of the ultimate bliss. Satyakama also had doubts, like any spiritual seeker, but he had the intelligence to listen to his Master’s words and the courage to practice the Guru’s instruction. In this way, Satyakama was able to transcend the plane of the mundane and reach a higher level of consciousness. The Master is a vessel for our own transformation, but the disciple must take the first step. Once that step is taken, then the possibility towards enlightenment, eternal bliss, becomes a reality.
Innocence
The story says that just by being, just by listening to what nature has to say, Satyakama established himself in the Truth. He became enlightened.
Total innocence leads to enlightenment. Satyakama asks the master for enlightenment and the master asks him to multiply cows!
Many of you will ask, what do cows have to do with enlightenment?
Fortunately Satyakama was not so intellectual. Fortunately he did not receive formal intellectual education. So he did not ask this question! He was simple, innocent and humble, ready for the transformation to happen. He had no logic to use. Unless you are without logic, or tired of logic, you cannot be ready for the transformation. Logic cannot help you understand even your own life. Logic cannot help you look even into your own mind. How can it help you change?
People ask me, ‘Swamiji, why are you against logic?’ I am not against logic. I am only telling you that all your suffering is because of logic without intelligence. Your logic creates so much politics inside you from morning till evening. What is politics? It is nothing but differing opinions on the same subject, is it not? Now watch your mind. It says one thing in the morning and a different thing in the evening on the same subject. This creates the dilemma in your mind. Your mind itself is such dilemma.
People say that in all spiritual organizations there is so much politics. I ask them, ‘What do you mean?’ There is politics inside the very persons who make this statement! To create politics, you don’t even need two people. One person is more than enough. One single person with logic is enough because in the morning his logic will say something and in the evening it will say something else! Naturally the fight between you and you is politics! Am I right? Then why are you making the statement that even spiritual organizations have politics?
If you place the decisions that you make in the morning and the decisions that you make in the evening together in front of you, you will see a politician sitting inside you!
Logic does not allow you to be simple and innocent. It does not allow the transformation to happen easily. Logic has to be overcome for the transformation to happen. Only when there is no logic there can be innocence. Innocence is the space for transformation to happen.
In the case of Satyakama, fortunately he was not bitten by logic.
The disciple goes to the master for enlightenment and the master tells him, ‘Alright, take these cows, go to the forest and stay there till they become one thousand cows. Then come back!’
If today’s seeker was in that disciple’s place he would have said, ‘I think the master is trying to exploit me. He wants a thousand cows, which is why he is telling me to do this work. He is using me to get his work done.’ Innocence is lost to logic! That is why no modern day seeker receives such amazing techniques.
Understand, this is not a mere story. It has got a great truth behind it. With innocence, Satyakama simply followed what the master said. Further, he lost his logic of counting. He was completely lost in ecstasy and joy. The mind stopped functioning. He didn’t care about one thousand or two thousand. Just the innocence and acceptance caused the greatest happening of enlightenment in him! When you completely accept, you don’t need the mind. The mind is necessary only when you live with struggles, only when you are fighting. Just this moment accept yourself in the outer world and the inner world. You will go out enlightened.
For so many years, completely accepting what the master said, Satyakama just was. What else can happen to him but enlightenment?
You may think, ‘How can simple acceptance do such a big job?’ The problem is that even spiritual knowledge is approached by us with the space of an intellectual mind. It is from that intellectual space that we ask the ‘how’. Intellect always questions. Innocence straightaway starts practicing what the master says. That is the difference.
Shiva says in the Shiva Sutras, ‘Absorb the ultimate truth, senses shut down, and be liberated.’ Why is he using the words ‘senses shut down’? How do you find out if you are completely lost in something? Your senses will not work! You will not see or hear! That is the way to find out. If your senses still work, you are still not lost. Shiva says, ‘Absorb the ultimate truth, senses shut down, and be liberated. ’ When your senses are working you may think you are hearing, but you may not be actually listening. The sense organ may work, but not the energy that activates the sense organ. Hearing is different from listening. If you are only hearing then the intellect is still at play. If you are listening then you are lost. Then the intellect is no more. The click happens. You sit completely melting. You exclude everything except you and the master. You are utterly innocent and open like Satyakama. Then just one word from the master is enough and you become enlightened!
He means that in that utterly innocent and open state, initiation is enlightenment. Just a word is enough to enlighten. Shiva is giving initiation itself as a technique. He says, ‘Just listen while the master is expressing the truth, and become enlightened!’
How can mere listening lead to enlightenment? Why did it happen to Satyakama when it is not happening to us? First thing, he was innocent and therefore intelligent to receive the master’s instruction. Second, he was courageous enough to live with it. He had complete trust in the master. Innocence always comes with trust.
I am not asking you to get me a thousand cows. No! I am asking you to come with the same mood as Satyakama. Come with the same innocence. You don’t have to do exactly what Satyakama did. But you have to be like Satyakama. If your being is like that, in this moment the transformation can happen. Just in this moment the transmission of light can happen.
References
http://nithyanandatimes.org/satyakama-the-seeker-of-truth/ http://articles.nithyananda.org/2012/11/what-is-innocence/ Living Enlightenment, The Gospel of Paramahamsa Nithyananda http://lifeblissprograms.org/e-books/pdf/le_abridged.pdf