MEANING OF EQUALITY Dr. Shriniwas Kashalikar
The slogans per se are attractive and serve the purpose to attract people towards their essence. Thus preaching equality as such; is not useless or counterproductive. But the lack of its study with respect to justice; makes the misuse of the slogan easy and rampant! The enlightenment of an individual lets him/her see the world holistically and hence differently than the unenlightened individuals. Hence it is essential to study the concept of equality not merely by reading but by also by blossoming from within through the practice of the means of enlightenment! This way you can understand and imbibe its purport of equality. Blind preaching of equality (either foolishly or with ulterior motive); leads to misapplication of the concept of equality in framing of international laws, constitutions and local laws
and conventions. Thus equality does not mean arbitrary equal distribution of the wealth, or arbitrary imposition of the same education or arbitrary rules and regulations of the conduct. Thus neither barbaric “freedom” to amass wealth at the cost of others nor fanatic imposition of regimentalization of one kind or another constitute equality! Equality embodies the holistic vision and perspective wherefrom manifest the policies, plans and their execution for developing the suitable environment for promotion of the blossoming of everyone in the world. But what is this blossoming? This blossoming is an objective and all encompassing state that is core of global civilization! NAMASMARAN is one of the means of blossoming from within and develop holistic perspective!
BUT WHAT IS NAMASMARAN? Namasmaran means; remembering the name of God, Guru, great souls; such as prophets and holy objects such as planets and stars. It may be remembered silently, loudly, along with music, dance, along with breathing, in group or alone, either with counting by rosary (called SMARANI or JAPAMALA) or without counting. The traditions vary from region to region and from religion to religion. However the universal principle underlying NAMASMARAN is to reorient your physiological being with your true self. In fact while reorienting with true self you aim to establish and strengthen the bond or connection; between; your physiological being; with your true self. You aim at reunification with yourself!
Since remembering your true self is the pinnacle of or culmination of individual consciousness, and individual consciousness is the culmination of every activity in life, remembering any name of God or Guru (any symbol of your true self) is equivalent to opening the final common pathway for the individual consciousness associated with every possible activity to get funneled into or unified with objective or cosmic consciousness. Thus NAMASMARAN is in fact the YOGA of YOGA in the sense that it is the culmination of consciousness associated with every possible procedure and technique in the yoga that you are familiar with. It is the YOGA of YOGA because it is the culmination of consciousness associated with all the activities in the universe, which it encompasses as well! It is YOGA of YOGA because everybody in the world
irrespective of his/her tradition and the beliefs; would eventually, ultimately and naturally reach it it in the process of liberation. Even so called non believers also would not “miss” the “benefit of remembering the true self through one symbol or another”! Just as NAMASMARAN is YOGA of YOGA it is meditation of meditation also! It is the natural and ultimate climax of every form of meditation. These facts however have to be realized with persistent practice of NAMSMARAN and not blindly believed or blindly disbelieved with casual approach! In short NAMSMARAN is super-bounty of cosmic consciousness for every individual to realize it (cosmic consciousness)! This is truly a super-bounty because a person who
experiences it, rises above mercenary, commercial and even professional and charity planes and manifest super-transactions in his or her life! These are just few observations to give rough idea about what is NAMASMARAN. NAMASMARAN is an ocean of bliss. Its true meaning is beyond description in words.
DR. SHRINIWAS KASHALIKAR