SELF MANAGEMENT

New Year Lecture by Swami Paramarthananda

Transcribed by Sri VLN Prasad

NOTE: Swami Paramarthananda has not verified the transcription of
talks. The transcriptions have been done with Swamiji’s blessings by
his disciple.

Published by :

Arsha Avinash Foundation

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General Talks Self Management

Self Management
sadāsiva samārambhām sankarāchārya madhyamām
asmad āchārya paryantām vande guru paramparām
There is a verse of Bhatruhari -
ādityasya gatāgatair aharaha samkshīyatē jīvitam
vyāpāraihi bahu kāryabhāra gurubhihi kālōpi nagnyāyatē
drushtvā janma jarā vipatti maranam trāsascha nōtpadyatē
pītva mōhamayīm pramāda madirām unmattabhūtam jagat
Bhatruhari is looking at the ways of the world and he pities at the
people. This verse says ādityasya gatāgatair aharaha samkshīyatē
jīvitam - Daily, we are seeing the Sunrise and before long, the Sun has
also set and one day is over and one part of our life is over. samkshīyatē
jīvitam - the life itself is getting lesser and lesser.
vyāpāraihi bahu kāryabhāra gurubhihi - because we are so much busy
with so many activities and so many responsibilities we have no time or
leisure to think of what is happening. Therefore, kālōpi nagnyāyatē - we
are not at all aware of the time going away, our life going away.
drushtvā janma jarā vipatti maranam trāsascha nōtpadyatē -
Off and on, we see many people quitting the world, many people whom
we thought to be young have become older and some of them have
vacated also. Seeing that, they don’t remember that I am also in the
queue. They don’t think about that at all - na utpadyatē. What is all this
because of? pītva mōhamayīm pramāda madirām unmattabhūtam jagat -
All the people are drunkards.
mōhamayīm pramāda madirām - they have drunk the Mōha, or delusion
which is born out of rut of the mechanical life. Here, Mōha is nothing
but the rut of mechanical life alone. Therefore, they have no time to
think of anything else. We face this problem of mechanical life,
forgetting what we are in for, what the goal is, are we progressing or we

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going behind etc. Since we are not aware of this because of our
mechanical life, once in a while we require a shake up.
From the mechanical-ness, we should be shaken up, we should stop for
a few moments and we should able to introspect a little bit, think a little
bit about what have I been doing, what am I doing, what I want to do,
and what I want to achieve. For this purpose alone, we have got some
functions like that. Otherwise, New Year is not any special day.
Any day will start with sunrise and the New Year also starts with
sunrise only. The sunrise will be in the East only. It is not going to be in
the West on the New Year’s Day. During that day also we will get
hungry and we eat. There is no difference, everything is same. That is
why we have so many New Years indicating that all the New Years are
same.
Therefore, the purpose of New Year function or anything is just to stop
for some time, to spend a day, look back and see what we have been
doing and what we want to do. Are we going forward or backward or
are we stagnant? New Year day is Introspection day. Pūja is incidental
and Prasādam is also incidental. Introspection is the main thing. In the
case of a lay person in the world, his goals in life are materialistic in
nature.
Therefore, for him, introspection may be whether I have succeeded in
my business, whether I could expand my business, whether I could
increase my profits etc. So, it is a material consideration. But when it
comes to Vēdāntic students like us, the consideration is not materialistic
but it is a spiritual consideration that should be taken into account.
Otherwise, attending Vēdānta classes can also become another routine.
What all we do in this spiritual also can become a rut of mechanical
Shravanam. Therefore, we should also find out whether what we are
hearing is being assimilated at all. We should find out whether that is
entering into our life.
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It is because I have often told you that it is not the amount of the
listening that matters, but it is the amount of assimilation that matters. It
is not the amount we eat that matters, but it is the amount that we
assimilate or digest that matters. Similarly, in Vēdānta also there must
be assimilation.
Without assimilation, we can attend classes for 25 years and remain
changeless like Brahman. That is a different type of changelessness -
Paramārdhika. Vyāvahārika changes should come which we call as
progress. Now, the question is how do I know whether assimilation is
taking place or not? We can find out whether we are progressing or not
in business by looking at the Bank account.
How do I know whether I am progressing in spiritual field and whether
assimilation is taking place? It is very simple. When I eat the food and I
am assimilating the food, what does it do? The physical body gets
strengthened. Assimilated food nourishes the physical body. The
physical body becomes strong, physical body becomes healthy and
becomes resistant to diseases, which means that it develops immunity.
With the physical body, you can do what you want to do. What does
physical nourishment mean? It means physical strength, physical health,
physical immunity, and physical capacity to do what you want to do.
That is what is achieved by eating and nourishing the body. Similarly,
here we are gaining the knowledge through the study of scriptures
which is purely an intellectual process.
Knowledge is not physical, knowledge is not an emotional process, but
knowledge is purely an intellectual process. If this knowledge at the
intellectual level has to be assimilated, what is the sign? What should
happen? Should it nourish the physical body? - No.
The assimilation of the intellectual knowledge is nothing but the
nourishment of the emotional personality. Nourishment of the
intellectual Knowledge is nothing but nourishment of our emotional
personality, the feeling personality. That shouldDownload
become stronger and
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stronger. Therefore, Vēdāntic assimilation means emotional strength,
emotional maturity, and emotional resistance.
Remember that what we call as Mōksha is nothing but emotional
strength and freedom from emotional weakness. Samsāra is nothing but
emotional weakness and emotional sickness alone. If you see the
scriptures where they describe Samsāra and Mōksha, what type of
description do they give?
You will find that when Mukta Purusha is defined, it is said that he is
free from Bhayam - abhayam pratishthām vindatē. It is at emotional
level or intellectual level. Bhayam belongs to emotion. tarati shōkam
ātmavit - he does not have sorrow. It is again emotional freedom from
sorrows alone.
Therefore, when we describe Mōksha, we only talk in terms of
emotional freedom from Rāga, Bhayam, frustration, tension, getting
upset etc. Similarly, you see the description of Samsāra. What is the
description of Samsāra? samānē vrukshē purushō nimagnaha anīshayā
shōchati muhyamānaha.
Shōkaha is an emotional problem, helplessness is an emotional problem,
Bhayam is an emotional problem (athasō bhayam gatō bhavati).
Therefore, we can say that emotional weakness is Samsāra and
emotional strength is Mōksha, but the cause is at the intellectual level.
The problem is expressed at emotional level, but the cause is at the
intellectual level.
Samsāra is an emotional problem but the cause is Agnyānam at the
intellectual level. Similarly, Mōksha is emotional strength but the cause
is knowledge at the intellectual level. Therefore, what is assimilation?
Assimilation is nothing but converting the intellectual knowledge into
emotional strength. There is a small difference between the assimilation
of eaten food and the assimilation of heard scriptures.

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In the case of assimilation of the food, you need not do anything. It is a
natural process which Bhagawān has kept. After eating, you just give
some rest. You need not do the assimilation job consciously. Therefore,
assimilation at the physical level is a natural job because it is an in-built
system.
If the Shravana Gnyānam, the knowledge that is got from hearing,
which is an intellectual process, has to be assimilated and converted to
emotional health (which I call as assimilation), is not an automatic
process. It involves our willful action which we call as
Nidhidhyāsanam.
Therefore, Nidhidhyāsanam is nothing but a conscious process by which
we convert our intellectual knowledge into emotional strength. Now, the
next question is - what is the sign of the emotional strength or emotional
health? Here also, you can easily compare it with physical health and
strength. What is the sign of physical health and strength?
Whatever happens around, like change of climate, change of water,
change of routine, the physical body is able to withstand without getting
affected and disturbed. If your body can withstand the change of
weather or change of the routine, a little bit of keeping awake or getting
up early one day or some change in the food habits;
A healthy physical body can resist all these changes. It doesn’t get
upset, it doesn’t get affected. If this is the definition of physical
strength, physical immunity, physical health, we can measure our
emotional strength in terms of whether our emotional personality gets
wounded by, hurt by, affected by, disturbed by, or depressed by
different experiences in life that we undergo.
The ultimate emotional health is nothing but enjoying a mind which can
never get wounded at any situation, by any type of behavior by any
person, any type of situation that happens around. Whatever be the type
of experience, a healthy mind cannot get wounded, cannot get affected.
Therefore, not hurting myself is my emotional Download
health. But we should
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remember that it is said in the Bhagavad Gīta that a Mukta Purushaha is
one who is emotionally unhurt.
dukhēshu anudvigna manāh, lōkāt na udvijatēchayaha - A free person, a
liberated person is one who is not emotional disturbed by any type of
experience that he faces. Here, we should remember that the Mukta
Purushaha has not controlled the external world because we do not have
control over external world.
We don’t have control on what all experiences we are going to face and
what all types of behavior the other people have. If a Mukta Purusha
cannot control the external experiences and if he still doesn’t get
wounded at all, what has he controlled? The control is not the external
people, external situations, and external experiences.
He has controlled the mind through the assimilation of knowledge so
that, for him there is no such thing called a wounding experience.
According to Vēdānta, there is no such thing called a wounding
experience at all. Hurting experience does not exist because if hurting or
wounding experiences are there, even a Mukta Purusha cannot control
the wounding experiences.
Therefore, he will have to get wounded. Therefore, the very fact that a
Mukta Purusha does not get wounded indicates that the wounding
nature does not belong to the experience by itself, but it is the problem
of an emotionally unprepared or unhealthy or a sick mind. Therefore,
what we say is that there are varieties of the experiences.
We relatively divide them into wounding and non-wounding
experiences. Ultimately speaking, there are no wounding experiences at
all. There are only different varieties of experiences. How do they
become hurting or wounding experiences? When my mind is not
healthy, my mind becomes weak. A weak mind converts certain types of
experiences into wounding, hurting, painful experiences.

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We have got a general expression that a particular person upset me by
his words, this person affects me because of his behavior and the
Government or Country is disturbing me because of the conditions etc.
It is the sign of an emotionally weak mind. Therefore, what is the aim of
assimilation?
The aim of assimilation is all experiences in life should be converted
into non-wounding experiences. My Nidhidhyāsanam should be that I
should never have hurting experiences in my life, wounding experiences
in life. Whenever I get wounded or hurt by some experience, my general
tendency is to change the person, to change the setup.
But what does a Vēdāntic student do? He wants to change his attitude,
change his mind based on the Vēdāntic teaching. Therefore,
Nidhidhyāsanam is nothing but changing the emotional nature of the
mind or my emotional personality with the help of Vēdāntic teaching so
that I do not have any wounding experiences in my life.
And whenever there is a wounding experience, I should not try to
change the person, I should not try to change the setup, I should not try
to change the world, but I should change my mind and reduce the very
same experience. If it has wounded me, I should not stop him but I
should convert my mind to such a state that I receive the very same
experience and convert into a non-wounding experience.
Such a mind is called an emotionally strong mind. The mind should
become like a rock. That is why during Upanayanam also, a
Brahmachāri is asked to stand on a stone. ātishthēva masmānam
ashnēvatvam sthirōbhava. What about for the ladies? For them, during
the wedding, they are asked to stand on the stone. What is the aim?
I should be emotionally strong enough not to get wounded through any
blessed experience. This is number one sign of assimilation. Daily
night, think about how many times I have got wounded today. Wounded
because of what? The immediate answer that comes is - because of my
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wife, because of my husband, because of my boss, because of my
neighbor, because of the crow etc.
You remove ‘because of that’ and substitute ‘because of lack of the
emotional strength’. Therefore, I have to work on mind until my mind
can withstand any amount of onslaught. This is one sign of assimilation
of the teaching - not getting wounded. Then, there is a second sign also.
What is the first sign? Vēdānta is assimilated when mind is strong.
Mind is strong when you are incapable of getting wounded by any
situation. So, not hurting myself emotionally is assimilation. Then, the
second sign of emotional strong mind is not hurting other people. I keep
on hurting other people. Therefore, the second sign of emotional
strength is that I do not hurt any person consciously, because of my
thought, word or dead.
That means that I am extremely soft with respect to my behavior
towards the other people. So, with respect to myself, when I receive, my
mind is like a rock. When I respond to the situation and I treat other
people, I can be soft - Softness with respect to treating others and
hardness with respect to receiving situations. This is called a Gnyāni.
Who is a Mukta Purushaha?
vajrādapi kathōrāni mrudūni kusumādapi
lōkōttarānām chētāmsi kōnu vignyātumarhasi
vajrādapi kathōrāni - his heart is stronger than even a Vajram. It means it
is in capable of getting upset. My heart is like Vjaram when receiving
situations. mrudūni kusumādapi - while managing situations, it is like a
flower. So, a Gnyāni is able to convert himself into rock and a flower.
We are also mrudūni and vajrāni, but we have to flip the sentence.
While receiving the experiences, our mind becomes kusumam and while
managing situations, it becomes a vajram. lōkōttarānām chētāmsi - those
people who have gone beyond the Samsāra, kōnu vignyātumarhasi - it is
very rare and difficult to understand. Once I have managed these two
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things, then I can say that I have attained Self Management. This is
called managing oneself.
Once I have managed myself, I am free person. It is called a Mukti. Self
Management is Mukti. What is Self Management? It is the capacity to
face any situation like rock and capacity to handle any situation like
flower. Once I have got that, I have managed myself. Once I have
managed myself there afterwards, we can try to manage family
situations, manage office situations, manage world situation, national
situation etc.
If that management requires some harsh treatment also, it is Ok. But
after self-management, if I am dealing with people differently, it is ok.
Initially for some time, my attempt should not be on managing on other
things but managing myself. This alone is the Nidhidhyāsanam process.
I should find out in what all things I got upset.
I should take the situation and retune my mind and say, I am not upset at
all by my son’s behavior, by my daughter’s behavior, by my wife’s
behavior. First, strengthen your mind and later, you can change your son
or daughter. First, make sure that every situation is a non-wounding
situation.
You should only try to manage a non-wounding situation. That is
managing with freedom. If you are trying to manage a wounding
situation, it is going to become worse and worse. The first process is to
convert everything into a non-wounding situation. This is what the
assimilation of Vēdānta is.
On this auspicious day, we should look at ourselves whether some
assimilation has taken place or not. If it has not taken place, we should
work on our mind based on the teaching. I don’t want to deal with how
the teaching should be used. But it is our job to apply and become
emotionally strong and intellectually wise. An emotionally strong
person is a Mukta Purushaha.
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An intellectually wise and emotionally weak person is as good as
Samsāri. Let us try to assimilate the teaching and be strong.
Pūrnmadah Pūrnamidam Pūrnāth Pūrnamudachyatē.
Pūrnasya Pūrnamādāya Pūrnamēvāvasishyatē..

Om shānti shānti shāntihi

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