Paramarthananda Swamiji - Ananya Guru

Madduri Rajya sri

 
 
asabdamasparsamarupamavyayam
tatharasam nityamaghandavacca yat
anadyanantam mahatah param dhruvam
nicayya tanmrtyumukhatpramucyate Katha 1-3-15.
Lord Yama himself praclaimed that one who gains self knowledge will escape from the shackles of death. How does one gain self knowledge?
ananyaprokte gatiratra nasti
aniiyanhyatarkyamanupramanat Katha 1-2-8
Lord Yama himself showed a way. He said that if you learn from an “ananya guru” you can escape from Him. Ananya guru means a competent acharya who can teach the advaita atma, the non-dual atma. If you happen to come across Swami Paramarthananda, you can be rest assured that you found the annaya guru.
You may not be familiar with the technical jargons like atma, anatma, sareera trayam, pancha kosa, karma siddhantam etc., You might not have even heard about Advaita Philosophy before. But you need not worry. Paramarthananda Swamiji will personally hold you hand and help you climb the steps to a totally unknown world. He sees to it that you are climbing the steps carefully and lo! you reach an enchanting world! Mind you, the world within you, which you have never bothered to know or which you never knew how to reach.
Swamiji in the course of his teaching said, ‘praha’ means to explain the meaning properly, if a competent guru teaches you, you understand the subject well, even if you don’t write it. All these words are truly applicable to Swamiji himself. Swamiji always says you should do Sravana, manana, nidhi dhyasana to get doubtless knowledge about self. We assure you that if you listen to (or read the transliteration of) his speeches, you will get doubtless knowledge.
His speciality is revealed at the very beginning itself. ‘Upanishad’ teaches you the oneness of jeevatma and paramathma. There he says, a big Upanishad like Brihadranyakam doesn’t teach about a big atma and a small Upanishad like Eswasya doesn’t teach about a small atma.
Few salient features of his methodology - Upanishads are mostly in the form of a conversation between a guru and a sishya. Swamiji also follows the conversational style. He raises questions like what happens when you go to dream state, what is the benefit etc., and answers them.
When he teaches certain things he asks what is the proof like - man alone has a free will and answers them.
He anticipates your doubts and raises them on your behalf and clarifies them.Sometimes he adds , here you should get a doubt, if you don’t get a doubt, I will create one for you.
While teaching certain concepts he stresses on the do’s and don’ts. For example if karyam is negated, there is no Karanatvam (you should not say there is no karanam).
He quotes his guru pujya Swamiji words quite often.
He doesn’t take anything for granted. He doesn’t assume the student knows even if he is teaching the fifth Upanishad to the same set of students. Whenever he comes across the word like therefore he would ask wherefore and would explain it. Whenever he describes a discussion between poorva pakshi and a siddhanti, he would specify at every step whose argument it is.
A few concepts like sadhana chatustayam, karya karana sambandham, karma siddhantam, the qualities of pure consciousness etc., crop up in every upanishad umpteen number of times. No where is he tired of drilling them into our brain. He himself said that he taught the qualities of pure consciousness hundreds of times and that he evern conducted a test once to his students on this concept.
When he has to enumerate 5,6 points about a particular thing, he would list them out first with the cautioning words - don’t get paniky, I will explain them.
He will first explain the important points about the mantra, then explain the mantra in detail giving word to word meaning and the next day recaps the previous day’s teaching in about ten minutes.
Through the examples of clay-pot; gold - ornament; light-hand; ocean-wave he sees to it that you get doubtless knowledge about self and oneness of jeeva-Eswara.
- Ever the experiencer, never the experienced
- Karma kanda is incomplete without jnana kanda
- Jnana kanda is impossible without Karma kanda.
These are but a few concepts you would never forget for the rest of your life.
Nityam vibhum sarvagatham susukshmam
tadavyayam yadbhutayonim paripasyanti dheera
Mundaka 1-1-6
Only a dheera can understand atma but you will became one such dheera in no time if you make Paramarthananda Swami your guru - ananya guru.
Namo Nama: Sri guru padukyabhyam.