“Shatashloki” of Shrimad Shankaracharya – II (Shloka – 2)
The Glories of a Sadguru and His/Her Disciples

Shloka – 2

Translation of Shloka – 2

As the sandalwood tree fills the neighboring trees with its fragrance and makes them ‘cooling trees’ which remove people’s tiredness and the burning sensation of the sun, the compassionate disciples of a Sadguru who have realized God (Brahman) remove the three kinds of suffering and impurity of the people around them.

Comments:

We learned in shloka-1 that a Sadguru makes his/her disciple a “Sadguru” just like him/her. But the impact of the Sadguru’s teachings goes further. The disciples of the Sadguru with their compassionate hearts remove the suffering of the people around them.

Sri Ramakrishna emphasized repeatedly that “Holy Company” is very important for spiritual progress, especially to develop the love for God. He gave an example of a dyer who had a pool filled with a magical liquid. If anyone came and asked, “Please make this white cloth into a red colored cloth,” the dyer would dip that cloth into the pool and it would come out as a red cloth. In the same way, he colored people’s white clothes with blue, yellow, orange, and other colors just by dipping them into the same pool. One person observed this and said, “I want to be colored with your color.” The analogy applies to Sri Ramakrishna himself. If Krishna’s devotee came to him, he would fill the heart of that devotee with the devotion of Krishna with his talks and singing. The same was the case with the devotees of Kali, Durga, Shiva, Rama, or any other god or even any other religion. Sri Ramakrishna was suggesting that an observant devotee may ask him about how to become like him.

A company is contagious. Swami Vivekananda said that if you cherish good thoughts and try to build a good character, you will attract people with good thoughts and good character. These people, in turn, help you to develop more good thoughts and to strengthen your good character. The same is true for bad character. If we cherish harmful ideas and knowingly or unknowingly try to be a wicked person, we attract people with harmful thoughts and wicked character. They help us to become a truly wicked person. There is a proverb that ‘A person is known by the company he/she keeps.” There are exceptions to this. Out of compassion and love, Lord Shiva kept ghosts and goblins around him for their upliftment. We cannot judge Lord Shiva by his company.

Sri Ramakrishna said that when a plant is small, it has to be hedged around otherwise animals will eat it. But, when the small plant becomes a big tree, then you can tie an elephant to the tree and nothing happens to the tree. Thus, when a person’s strong character is built, then he/she will not be affected by his/her company. People with strong character make a positive influence on the people around them. Still, wise people say that “Sadhu Savadhan”, meaning a wise person should always be alert to not being influenced by wicked people.

The trees covered by the fragrance of the sandalwood means that in the presence of holy company, people’s holy thoughts rise to the surface. With holy thoughts, people’s minds get cleansed and become pure. Also, holy thoughts guide people to do the right thing, avoid problems in life, and attain peace within.

Swami Vivekananda said that each person is potentially divine. When we go towards our divinity, we feel peace within. We will feel the joy of doing the right thing. On the other hand, when we go away from our divinity, our minds are filled with demonic thoughts. Having these demonic thoughts, we speak accordingly and perform demonic actions. Such things will fill our minds with impurities and develop inner conflicts between our divine selves and these demonic thoughts, speech, and actions. This state of mind will always be filled with agitation, frustration, depression, and dissatisfaction. Such a mind will be far away from peace. It suffers from all kinds of mental problems. Thus, the holy company is extremely important to help us raise our holy thoughts to the mental surface which eventually help us to realize our divinity and enjoy purity, peace, and bliss within.

It will not be inappropriate to look at the list of divine and the demonic qualities Shri Krishna had described in the sixteenth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita. By knowing these qualities, we focus our minds to develop divine qualities and stay away from the demonic qualities in order to attain purity, peace, and bliss.

Divine Qualities:

(1) fearlessness, (2) purity of mind, (3) being established in the True Knowledge of the Self and an ability to focus the mind on the Self, (4) charity, (5) control on one’s senses, (6) sacrifice or unselfish service (7) study of the scriptures and the habit of reflecting upon their teachings in order to practice them, (8) austerities – bearing the pain due to spiritual practices (9) being simple minded (lack of crookedness), (10) not to hurt anyone through thought, speech and action, (11) being truthful, (12) devoid of anger, (13) renunciation – ability to renounce what comes in the way of spiritual development (14) peaceful nature, (15) not to think or talk ill of others, (16) compassion towards all beings, (17) not being greedy, (18) having a gentle nature (not being rude), (19) modesty; feeling shame in doing unrighteous things, (20) not restless (21) possessing an aura of divinity (22) forgiveness, (23) ability to hold onto spiritual practices until realization of one’s divinity, (24) purity – external and internal, (25) having no animosity towards anyone and (26) not craving for special honor or respect.

Demonic Qualities:

(1) Pretension, (2) Arrogance, (3) Being egoistic, (4) Lack of control over anger, (5) Rudeness, (6) Ignorance, (7) Being confused between “what should be done,” and “what should not be done,” (8) Lacking purity (9) Being unrighteous (10) Being untruthful

(11)  Thinking that the world is devoid of truth, has no moral basis, is without God, and is the creation of a combination of the male and female element with no other cause except the fulfillment of lust. Having such views, these lost souls, with little understanding and fierce actions, rise as the enemies of the world for its destruction.

(12) Being filled with hypocrisy, pride, and arrogance, and giving themselves up to insatiable desires, they hold false views through delusion and act with impure resolve.

(13) Living with infinite worries which last till their deaths, and thinking that ‘acquiring pleasures of the body and mind is the only goal of life,’ they crave for sense-pleasures.

(14) Being slaves of thousands of hopes of worldly desires and filled with lust and anger, they are busy collecting money for sense pleasures through unethical means.

(15) Thinking that “Today I have gained one thing and later on I will fulfill another longing. I have collected this much money, and in the future, I will collect more. I have killed this enemy and I will kill more in the future.  I am the Lord of the Universe.  I enjoy the world.  I am endowed with all the cleverness. I am powerful and I am happy.  I am rich and I am from a ‘high family.’  There is no one equal to me.  I give in charity, perform religious rituals, and I will enjoy the world.”  Thus, being deluded by ignorance, caught in the net of ‘attachment’, with messed-up minds, and craving for sense pleasures they fall into a hell, meaning that they live very low-level human lives.

(16)  Considering them as great, drunken by the wealth and worldly respect these arrogant people perform religious rituals whimsically for their worldly pleasures.  They do not properly follow scriptural injunctions.

(17) With minds filled with ego, the pride of their physical strength, arrogance, worldly desires, anger, and jealousy they torture Me (the Self) which lies in themselves and others.

We have one more important thing to know. Sri Ramakrishna had said that the wind from the Malaya Mountain fills all the trees with the fragrance of the sandalwood except a few trees like the cotton trees, the banyan trees, the ashwattha trees.

This means that holy company does not inspire all people. In order to get inspired by the holy company, one needs a proper state of mind. Those who are egoistic, arrogant, deeply engrossed in worldly pleasures and think that there is nothing higher to attain than sense-pleasures, name-fame, honor, power, and position do not get inspired by the holy company. There were many people who had seen Sri Ramakrishna at the Dakshineswar Kali Temple, but they did not understand his spiritual depth, let alone feeling inspired by him. Several of them even thought that Sri Ramakrishna was a “pagol” (insane) person. So, we have to do spiritual practices in order to recognize and get inspired by the holy company. Swami Adiswarananda, the Spiritual Head of the Ramakrishna Vivekananda Center of New York, used to say that people go to a holy person for the holy company, but then they talk about politics and other mundane things. The holy people out of love and compassion talk to such people about non-spiritual things, but then they miss the advantage of the holy company. We should go to the holy company in order to learn about spirituality and how to make progress in our spiritual path. We can learn valuable lessons from their experiences and teachings which inspire us to realize our true divine identity.

Note: The cotton trees, the banyan trees, and the ashwattha trees are very special and have significant importance. In this example, we have to take just a partial meaning and not to condemn these trees.

(Thanks to Rushil Desai and Sonali Tatapudy for editing this post.)