Going the Distance in Spiritual Life —Part 13
The Five Signs of Spiritual Success — Right Action
Five Signs of Spiritual Success: 1. Right Action, 2. Correct Discernment, 3. Knowledge of Reality, 4. Nonreliance on Physical/Moral Practices, 5. The Will to Practice (These points can be found and/or inferred in verses 11–13 of the Vivekachudamani.)
Reminder: This series, for those who do not know, is based on the first 50 verses of Shankaracharya’s Vivekachudamani, The Crest Jewel of Discrimination. My Advaita Teacher, Babaji Bob Kindler, created a chart drawn from those verses, which is posted at the bottom of this article. It is our template for these articles, and also a great distillation of Shankara’s points for contemplation of these early pages of the scripture. The translations used in my personal studies have been those by Swami Prabhavananda*, Swami Turiyananda, and Swami Madhavananda. These articles are an introduction for western (or westernized) beginners in spiritual life and scripture studies. Be sure to read and study them directly too — especially with the guidance of a qualified teacher. * The first 70 or so verses of the translation by Swami Turiyananda are actually Swami Prabhavananda’s. <>
The Five Signs of Spiritual Success can all come under the heading of right orientation. Each one requires a depth of understanding and sincerity. When one has right orientation, one moves directly along the path of Realization without detours. Right orientation is a sattvic state of mind that sees through the obstacles presented by selfish desires and unquestioned assumptions about how to conduct one’s life.
Right Action: Shankara states, “Right action (karma) leads to purification of the mind, not to the perception of Reality. Realization of the Truth is brought about by discrimination and not in the least by ten million acts.”
Karma in this sense means action. But not all action leads to purification of the mind. Only that action that is free of desire for the result leads ultimately to purification of the mind. Along the way, it is true, a sincere practitioner might still harbor a beneficial desire to do good to others and want to see those actions produce good results. This would be the “gold chain” that Swami Vivekananda refers to in his poem, “Song of the Sannyasin,”
Strike off thy fetters, bonds that bind thee down.
Of shining gold or darker, baser ore.
Love, hate — good, bad — and all the dual throng,
Know, slave is slave, caressed or whipped, not free;
For fetters, though of gold, are not less strong to bind;
Then, off with them, Sannyasin bold! Say — ‘Om Tat Sat, Om!’
Good actions performed with a sense of “I am the doer” create good karma. That’s better than negative karma, but it is still a fetter — it binds one to the duality of happiness and sorrow. In the Gita, Sri Krishna tells us of three grades of karma producing their own characteristic results: forbidden (vikarma), self-motivated (kamya karma), and selfless (akarma). He states, “The three-fold fruits of action — good, mixed, and evil — accrue after death to all who are attached. But no karma attends those who renounce [the fruits of action].”
We often use the expression, “human beings,” but as a friend once pointed out, most of us are more like “human doings.” From the very start of embodiment we find that action produces results. Everything here is based on cause and effect. If we want a certain effect, we must choose a proper cause. One may notice that those who engage in beneficial works to relieve suffering or promote social welfare develop unselfishness and have some degree of satisfaction in life, generally attended by pride. In dharmic life, a life where we study the teachings of our spiritual path and engage in meditation and other practices that should efface the limitations of ego, we find individuals who have more contentment, detachment, and peace of mind. Thus, it seems natural that to attain Self-Realization, the pinnacle of spiritual life, one must “do something.”
Yet Shankara is most adamantly telling us that even selfless actions can only lead as far as purification of mind — no small feat to be sure — but not to realization of Truth. Why? My mantri guru, Swami Aseshananda, put it very succinctly, “Realization is never the effect of a cause.” Truth, Self-Realization, Atman, is ever present. It is our true Nature already. In the Avadhuta Gita, the great sage, Dattatreya sings,
The Self is not made pure by the six-limbed yoga.
The Self is not made pure by bowing at the Guru’s feet.
The Self is not made pure by destroying the vibrations of the mind.
The Self is already pure.
Thus, actions must be engaged in carefully. No one can abstain from action while embodied. We must learn how to act in the world without accruing good, bad, or mixed karmas. We must engage in spiritual practices and truly “strive” but without attachment even for their results — all to make the mind ready; for, only the mind that is pure (able to contemplate the Atman, Self) is poised to realize its true nature. Babaji calls sadhana, spiritual practices, a divine preoccupation. He has also coined the term, Advaita Vedanta Sadhana to describe how the aspirant maintains right orientation — selflessly performing spiritual practices for purification of mind with the foreknowledge that the Self is pure, infinite, and one’s true nature already.
