The Stages of the Integrated Life According to the Brahma Sutra:3. Swami Krishnananda.

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Wednesday 26, March 2025, 12:10.
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Brahma Sutra:3
The Stages of the Integrated Life According to the Brahma Sutra:3. 
Swami Krishnananda.

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Brahmacharya is the initial stage consisting of conservation of energy. In ancient days, it was believed that a person would live for a hundred years. Therefore, the calculation is that for twenty-five years one must live like a Brahmachari, with energy arising out of self-control and the study of holy scriptures, and the service of Guru. After that one enters married life and he fulfils the duties of a householder. The duties of a householder are interesting to note. It is not attachment to family; that would be far away from the truth. In Indian culture, attachment is never allowed. Duty is emphasised as the very purpose of life. The fulfilment of the means of personal and social relationship is the duty of a householder. In the early days of a Brahmachari, he is concerned only with himself. However, it is not always possible to be living only by oneself, because there is society also. There are impulses of self-restraint and also impulses of social relation. There are impulses of acquiring wealth, there are impulses of seeing beauty, and there are impulses of being charitable to people. This is why the sutra says the householder's life is integral. He is a highly respected person, not because he has a family but because he is engaged in doing his duty. Such a person is difficult to find these days. The principle is not at fault merely because it is not followed due to the insistence of the lower instincts. Nobody has time to think over this matter, because there is no one without prejudice and selfishness. The integral life is a life of non-attachment on one side and freedom from hatred on another side. That is why it is called integral. When the social relationships are well fed and taken care of, and the needs of the instinct of living a family life are also matured systematically, impartially, the householder retires from this duty of having relations with society, relations with anybody. Retirement means the freedom from the necessity to be involved in social relations. Social relations are very important; nobody can free oneself from this truth of life. But once one has passed through that stage and has graduated from that stage, then a tendency to super-individuality creeps in.

Up to this level, people were individuals. Brahmacharis are individuals of one kind, the householder is an individual of a different kind. Now, there is a concept of the super-individual who does not think in terms of personal self-restraint, study, Guru-seva, etc.; nor does he think of social relations, but dedicates himself to uniting his mind with universal relations. This is a higher stage above that of a householder. This stage has nothing to do with any kind of dress or gesture. One must be careful and impartial in thinking, be highly dispassionate and true to one's conscience. There is a grandeur in universal relations. All that the Brahmachari did in his individual capacity, all that the householder did in his social capacity are all transcended in the super-mental operation in terms of universal relations. That is the Vanaprastha, a stage staggering to thought. 

Then comes Sannyasa. A Sannyasin does not just mean a person who is wearing ochre cloth, which is again a social restriction, a social distinction. A person whose mind is centred in the Universal Absolute is more than a super-individual; he is a Cosmic Individual, known as a Jivanmukta. Sannyasins are respected as God Himself, not because they have a shaven head and have put on the cloth, but because their minds are centred in Absolute Being. 

All this is the reason why the Brahma Sutra is saying that the householder's life is integral. I was thinking I must touch this point; it is certainly better to be impartial and free from prejudice. Don't be afraid of the restrictions set by religions and cultural distinctions and ethnic patterns. Science cannot be belittled merely because it makes bombs. Science is not a way of producing destructive weapons. It is rather a system of thinking and an operation in terms of the law of the universe. 

Here is the commentary that one can find on this intriguing sutra, difficult to understand. Even an understanding of the Brahma Sutras will purify the mind. We are not what we are thinking ourselves to be. We belong to another kingdom of eternal values. 

Truly understood, the ideal householder's life is almost a miracle. He conserves energy like the Brahmachari in a more widened way. The self-restraint of the Brahmachari is personal and individual. The householder's self-restraint is more difficult because he has to maintain self-restraint personally on the one hand and also be restrained in family relations and the wider human society by restrained behaviour of non-attachment, coupled simultaneously with duty towards everyone in every field of duty. He feeds the Brahmacharis and Sanyasins, very important to note, and feeds guests with love, even sacrificing his own meal when necessary. He takes care of nearby animals and would not hurt even ants in the house and lead them out peacefully. He worships God like the Sannyasin, reads the holy lore like the Brahmachari, and is detached from emotional contacts like the Vanaprastha. His life is a continuous sacrifice. Rightly, the Brahma Sutra mentions him specially as the one whose life is perfectly integrated.

The scheme detailed above is a scientific system which frees a person from psychopathic reactions and turbulence of emotion that may result from overdoing things and erroneously asking for double promotion in one's spiritual search, which ends in anger, disgust, vengeance, vindictiveness, and hatred towards everything. The mentioned scheme avoids these pitfalls and healthily enables one to rise to the level of a veritable God walking on Earth. 

The attempt to overstep the householder's duties and seek the universal aspirations of a Sannyasin directly from the Brahmacharya stage is, indeed, a highly ambitious and laudable enterprise, but here is also a danger. The universal will reject the entry into itself of any element alien to its nature. It is difficult to believe that the individual sense of the Brahmachari can suddenly effloresce into the universal longings of the Sannyasin. People, mostly, suffer a shipwreck here and turn into arrogant and irate specimens due to conjuring up a false imagination of high achievements, while there are actually none. Great things require a great price in the form of determined meditations.

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Next

The Brahma Sutras as a Moksha Shastra

Swami Krishnananda

Continued.

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