आपूर्यमाणमचलप्रतिष्ठं
समुद्रमाप: प्रविशन्ति यद्वत् |
तद्वत्कामा यं प्रविशन्ति सर्वे
स शान्तिमाप्नोति न कामकामी || 70||
āpūryamāṇam achala-pratiṣhṭhaṁ
samudram āpaḥ praviśhanti yadvat
tadvat kāmā yaṁ praviśhanti sarve
sa śhāntim āpnoti na kāma-kāmī
āpūryamāṇam—filled from all sides; achala-pratiṣhṭham—undisturbed; samudram—ocean; āpaḥ—waters; praviśhanti—enter; yadvat—as; tadvat—likewise; kāmāḥ—desires; yam—whom; praviśhanti—enter; sarve—all; saḥ—that person; śhāntim—peace; āpnoti—attains; na—not; kāma-kāmī—one who strives to satisfy desires
Translation:
As the ocean is filled with water flowing into it from all sides and remains immovable, so the man into whom all desires flow, but is not a bit affected attains peace and not the man who craves the desires.
Commentary:
The man who is moved by desires and pleasures cannot attain peace. He alone attains peace who has conquered all desires. The man of steady wisdom, the sthitaprajna is compared to the ocean. Though the waters of the ocean are drawn up by the sun in the form of clouds, it is not reduced in any way. So also, though rains and floods join the ocean, it does not expand. It remains the same, immovable. In the same way, the sage of steady wisdom remains unmoved, when all desires flow into him without producing any reactions of the mind or the body. All the enjoyments of the sense-world may come to him, but they are all absorbed in the blissful experience of the Self. He does not recognize them as anything other than the bliss of Self-realisation. He may be put in a palace surrounded by all earthy pleasures. And yet he is indifferent to them. He knows only one Reality one happiness, in which everything is dissolved as all the waters are absorbed by the ocean. Similarly, the sage may be placed on the most painful circumstances and yet he knows only one Reality and one happiness (Ananda). The pain also merges into the same reality and disappears.
The Jnani has dispassion towards the pleasures of the material world. If there is the least trace of desire for this or that, he is still not a sage. The real Jnani is like the ocean, vast, and full. He is filled with the bliss of Brahmananda. And just as the ocean is full and immovable, the Jnani is firm, immovable, and changeless, in all the states and conditions of life. Small wells, tanks, and reservoirs are not like the ocean. When floods come, they overflow, cut the bund and cause damage. When there is drought, they dry up and look like empty pits. They change. But the ocean is changeless. The ignorant man is upset one way or the other by the pleasures and sufferings of life. They are distracted both when pleasures come, and when suffering falls to their lot.
The ocean does not seek for augmenting its water from rains and rivers. They come and the ocean simply absorbs them. That is all. The Jnani also does not seek anything. When Providence brings pleasures, he absorbs them into his own Brahmananda and remains unaffected.
So those who desire peace should constantly meditate on the last line of this verse. They should root out all the secret desires from their heart and fix their mind in the one Reality and the one Bliss that exists everywhere. The seeker should be desireless (akamakami).
Swami Vivekananda Says —
“As all the rivers of the world constantly pour their waters into the ocean, but the ocean’s grand, majestic nature remains undisturbed and unchanged, so even though all the senses bring in sensations from nature, the ocean-like heart of the sage knows no disturbance, knows no fear.” Let miseries come in millions of rivers and happiness in hundreds! I am no slave to misery! I am no slave to happiness![Source]
Sri Ramakrishna Says —
Master (To Vijay): Why don’t you come here now as frequently as before?”
VIJAY: “Sir, I wish to very much, but I am not free. I have accepted work in the Brahmo Samaj.”
MASTER: “It is ‘woman and gold’ that binds man and robs him of his freedom. It is woman that creates the need for gold. For woman one man becomes the slave of another, and so loses his freedom. Then he cannot act as he likes.
“The priests in the temple of Govindaji at Jaipur were celibates at first, and at that time they had fiery natures. Once the King of Jaipur sent for them, but they didn’t obey him. They said to the messenger, ‘Ask the king to come to see us.’ After consultation, the king and his ministers arranged marriages for them. From then on the king didn’t have to send for them. They would come to him of themselves and say: ‘Your Majesty, we have come with our blessings. Here are the sacred flowers of the temple. Deign to accept them.’ They came to the palace, for now they always wanted money for one thing or another: the building of a house, the rice-taking ceremony of their babies, or the rituals connected with the beginning of their children’s education.
“There is the story of the twelve hundred nedas (Literally, “shaven-headed”. Among the Vaishnava devotees, those who renounce the world shave their heads.) and thirteen hundred nedis. (Vaishnava nuns.) Virabhadra, the son of Nityananda Goswami, had thirteen hundred ‘shaven-headed’ disciples. They attained great spiritual powers. That alarmed their teacher. ‘My disciples have acquired great spiritual powers’, thought Virabhadra. ‘Whatever they say to people will come to pass. Wherever they go they may create alarming situations; for people offending them unwittingly will come to grief.’ Thinking thus, Virabhadra one day called them to him and said, ‘See me after performing your daily devotions on the bank of the Ganges.’ These disciples had such a high spiritual nature that, while meditating, they would go into samadhi and be unaware of the river water flowing over their heads during the flood-tide. Then the ebb-tide would come and still they would remain absorbed in meditation.
“Now, one hundred of these disciples had anticipated what their teacher would ask of them. Lest they should have to disobey his injunctions, they had quickly disappeared from the place before he summoned them. So they did not go to Virabhadra with the others. The remaining twelve hundred disciples went to the teacher after finishing their meditation. Virabhadra said to them: ‘These thirteen hundred nuns will serve you. I ask you to marry them.’ ‘As you please, revered sir’, they said. ‘But one hundred of us have gone away.’ Thenceforth each of these twelve hundred disciples had a wife. Consequently they all lost their spiritual power. Their austerities did not have their original fire. The company of woman robbed them of their spirituality because it destroyed their freedom.
(To Vijay) “You yourself perceive how far you have gone down by being a servant of others. Again, one finds that people with many university degrees, scholars with their vast English education, accept service under their English masters and are daily trampled under their boots. The one cause of all this is woman. They have married and set up a ‘gay fair’ with their wives and children. Now they cannot go back, much as they would like to. Hence all these insults and humiliations, all this suffering from slavery.
“Once a man realises God through intense dispassion, he is no longer attached to woman. Even if he must lead the life of a householder, he is free from fear of and attachment to woman. Suppose there are two magnets, one big and the other small. Which one will attract the iron? The big one, of course. Cod is the big magnet. Compared to Him, woman is a small one. What can ‘woman’ do?”
A DEVOTEE: “Sir, shall we hate women then?”
MASTER: “He who has realised God does not look upon a woman with the eye of lust; so he is not afraid of her. He perceives clearly that women are but so many aspects of the Divine Mother. He worships them all as the Mother Herself.
(To Vijay) “Come here now and then. I like to see you very much.” (Source: Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna)
Question: Who enjoys peace?
Answer: The desireless man who like the ocean, absorbs into himself all the pleasures and enjoyments attains peace.
