“The
Darsanas–systems of philosophy–are many, but God is one,” proclaimed Vemana.
And God pervades all things, inanimate as well as animate. He is not far away,
for His is the light that dwells in the hearts of all. Through prayer and
meditation, through righteous living and kindliness, you will finally realise
that, in essence, He and you are one. The state of blessedness extolled in the
Gita and the Upanishads, as the goal of all spiritual striving, was a matter of
personal experience to Vemana, and he spoke of it to the common people in
impromptu verse, at once simple and charged with power. But it was after
prolonged suffering and struggle that this peasant-poet of medieval Andhra
achieved the peace which passeth understanding.
Born
in the neighbourhood of the mountain-fortress of Kondavidu in the present
district of Guntur towards the end of the sixteenth century, Vemana was brought
up in comparative comfort. There is little evidence to support the claim that
he belonged to the Reddy royal family that ruled from Kondavidu. But his father
was a prosperous landowner who cultivated broad acres and possessed flocks of
sheep and cattle. Vemana seems to have acquired the learning which was within
the reach of the well-to-do middle class families of the time. He was familiar
with the Puranas as rendered into Telugu, and with the music of devotional
hymns and songs. He was not a scholar in the technical sense, wedded to
tradition and sastraic lore. But the power of observation and the wisdom that
comes of contact with men and affairs, were his in abundant measure. To these
was added the gift of lucid and even biting expression. Warm-hearted and
generous by nature, he gathered round him friends of his own age and became subject
to the temptations which surround the gay youth of all lands. He was
particularly sensitive to the charms of women, though it is not necessary for
us to believe all the stories of riotous living related of him. But this life
of excitement brought on a sense of weariness and disillusion. He soon settled
down domestic life, with wife and children, and the petty cares of a householder.
Even thus, he was not happy. His was a restless spirit, seeking release from the bonds of convention. The life of the people around him was one of dull complacence. The temples and the priests were there, to administer to the spiritual needs of the rich as well as the lowly. Siva and Vishnu were the Deities who claimed the allegiance of the people. There was rivalry between the worshippers of these Deities, but no violent conflict. There were some attempts to found a new cult, that of Hari-Hara, preaching that Siva and Vishnu are indeed the same. The temple festivals and processions, with dance and music, appealed to the aesthetic sense of people of all castes. It was an age of contentment with things as they were, in life, society and politics. The country was broken up into petty chieftainships. The noblemen lived in luxury, fighting occasional battles, and patronising poetry and the arts. The poets travelled from one court to another, displayed their skill, and acquired rewards in the shape of land and
gold.
Vemana could have lived like the rest of his
contemporaries, or taken service under some chieftain to achieve the limited
ambition of a rural hero. He believed in marriage as an institution that made
for happiness. “If the wife is virtuous and the sons well-behaved,” says he,
“why should a man seek another Heaven!” And again, “He who deserts his wife,
and runs after lewd women, is like the fool who neglects a fertile field and
picks up weeds.” Living a life of contentment, one should bestow in charity.
“The gift of food to the hungry is the greatest of all gifts, for it is eaten
as if it were offered to the Lord.” All this is excellent, if life could run
smooth. For Vemana, however, it did not run smooth. There was domestic discord,
due to lack of wealth, and due also to Vemana’s changing moods. According to
him, “Indigence is a consuming flame; it ruins one’s self and those near to
him. If money is earned somehow and brought home, the wife is pleased. But if
there is some slight difficulty, she gives no end of trouble. And the sons find
fault with you.” Whether it was discontent bred by domestic unhappiness which
finally decided Vemana to renounce home and family, is a matter of speculation.
In any case, it could not have been the sole reason. All discontented holders
do not become wanderers on earth. There was some overpowering inner urge that
led Vemana to choose the life of a Yogi.
The
hunger of the soul is vastly more agonising than all hungers. Once the mind is
turned from the pleasures of the senses and begins the quest after the Eternal
and the climate, no peace is possible till man establishes contact with the
Light of all lights. Everyone has to tread the path with bleeding feet, periods
of quiet contemplation alternating with long stretches of painful effort Vemana
sought the help of Gurus, and he found some among the wandering Siva-yogis of
the Vira-Saiva cult who offered to guide him through the disciplines of the
Hata-yoga. But they were more intent on the turning of baser metals into gold
through the process of alchemy, and diverted Vemana for a time from the other
pursuit–the greater alchemy which transmutes the human into the
Divine, through the unselfish seeking of spiritual truth. And when they trained
him in Hata-yoga, the Siddhis like distant vision and
distant hearing became temptations which obscured the goal of liberation and
union with the Divine. How Vemana achieved the supreme condition of the
Raja-yogi, is a secret known only to himself. His verses contain indications of
certain steps on the way to realisation, but he definitely advised his hearers
not to indulge in yogic practices which might mislead the aspirant. Speaking of
asanas, he says, “the yoga which consists in the planning of the asanas
and the twisting and torturing of the body is a trifle less valuable than
the feats of the wrestler.” Possibly, he was speaking after the manner of one whom
Vemana himself describes in a verse as “ceasing to care for the raft, after
crossing the stream and reaching the other shore.” But long centuries before
Vemana, Prince Siddhartha on attaining liberation admonished his disciples
against those rigorous exercises which were part of his own discipline in the
early stages. Since the mind is the real obstacle to spiritual progress, since
it always wanders and leads the senses astray, the mind must be brought under
control. The seeker has to become ‘mind-less’–a–manaska. Vemana
perceived this, and set great store by the practice of contemplation, and the
destruction of the illusion of the separated self. This is as near to a
conception of Vemana’s achievement as any layman can get.
In
a verse which sums up his experience, he says: “With the aid of the wondrous
axe of discrimination (viveka), cut down the forest of ignorance (avidya); take
in your hand the great lamp of intelligence and have a vision of
Moksha–salvation.” This discrimination is akin to the gift of the fabled swan
which separates water from milk. That is why the illumined soul is known as
parama-hamsa, the supreme swan. The unenlightened man, says Vemana, is like the
peacock which knows not the difference between water and milk. Through such simple
examples, and in language which mirrored the idom of the common man, Vemana
tried to convey his wisdom to the eager crowds that gathered, round him in his
wanderings.
He
did not treat light-heartedly the sincere devotion of men to a personal God, as
revealed in incarnation. Devotion is of great value, for it purifies the heart
and enables man to develop sympathy and gentleness. But such devotion is only a
step to God-vision. So long as you believe that God is different from yourself,
you have not achieved the highest bliss. After great searching, you will find
the Brahman seated in the lotus of your heart. And truth to tell, He is also
searching for you all the time. The same thought lay behind Francis Thompson’s
great poem, “The Hound of Heaven.”
“Veduka
veduka doraku Vedanta-vedyundu
vedakuvani
thanu vedaku,hundu,
veduka
nerchinatti veravarlu galaroko
viswadabhirama
vinura Vema”
The third line is a
cry of despair, for it indicates Vemana’s regret that those who know how to
seek God are so few!
But
Vemana was not merely a philosopher preaching of union with God. He was a poet
who mastered the secret of appealing direct to the human heart. He chose the
simplest of metres-Ata Veladi-and made it the vehicle for the utterance
of the deepest truths of life. Every verse of his is like a living flame,
bright with the wisdom born of experience, but scorching in its sarcasm. The
right type of Guru is so rare and the number of false ones so large, “If in
your mad anxiety, you enter every cave to seek a Guru, you will indeed attain
liberation, but how? In the cave is some cruel beast which devours you and
liberates!” Sometimes there is a play of humour which pleases without the usual
sting. The child Krishna went about stealing milk from the co-ttages of~ the cowherds.
Vemana asks: “Why should he who made his bed in the ocean of milk, care for the
milk of the cowherds?” And he answers it himself: “The wealth of another is
always sweet.” What a laugh he must have raised! But the laugh did not make the
divine child any less lovable. So too about Rama: “Without a thought as to
whether a golden deer can ever exist, the son of Dasaratha left his wife. How
could a person without intelligence be a God!” That is Vemana’s simple question
to simple folk. Possibly, if someone elss had put the question to him, he might
have answered that God came into incarnation as man, and so he must act like a
man! Nor did Vemana spare Siva. Here is a verse: “Through the fire of his eye,
he burnt up Kama, and then for the satisfaction of Kama he wedded Gauri. The
bonds of Karma bind one and all.” If even the Gods are caught up in the wheel
of Karma, how about common men? “The men of caste and of good family, the men
who are proud of their learning–all of them are slaves to the possessor of gold,”
says Vemana. The destruction of worldly desires is a necessary prelude to the
higher life. Renunciation becomes possible, according to Vemana, through the
guidance of a worthy Guru. He will help you to break all bonds, including that
of the Karma accumulated by you. In another context, he says: “To all men on
earth I proclaim, that there is one way of perceiving the Lord. With mind
undistracted, look on Him with intense vision.”
Thus
we come back to the control of the mind and the destruction of desires. So felt
the saint Thyagaraja too, when he sang that there is no need for Mantras and
ritual if the mind is under control. Vemana was a rebel against the
restrictions of caste. He did not believe in the worship of images or in
pilgrimages to distant shrines. He had a burning hatred of cant and the
trappings of superstition. He was an exponent of what might be called
Protestant Hinduism,–Hinduism stripped of its rites and dogmas, its creeds and
conventions. Like Basaveswara and Sarvajna of Karnataka, or Kabir and Dadu of
the North, he approached the masses of men with the message of simple and
kindly living and the unselfish pursuit of the life of the spirit. He was
frequently bitter and intolerant, and made enemies of those who could have
profited from his teaching if conveyed in gentler terms. He knew the value of
tolerance and declared in a famous verse: “You must listen to what anyone says.
And having listened, you ought not to be in a hurry to decide, without proper
reflection. He who can distinguish between the true and the false is indeed the
wise one.” This verse, curiously enough, is found in the collections of
Vemana’s verses as well as in the century of verse known as “Sumati Satakam.”
Vemana
lived to a good old age, wandered over the greater part of South India, and
gathered many friends and some enemies. But, to him, friend and foe were alike.
He had no personal axe to grind. His only axe was that of Viveka with which he
hewed down the forest of ignorance, as described in a verse already quoted. His
followers believed that he entered a cave and disappeared from the sight of
men. Through storm and struggle, he found peace in middle age, and sought most
earnestly to make others tread the path to that peace. Andhra Desa
and Telugu people who speak the language of Vemana are richer
because of the legacy he left. But that legacy is to all earnest souls who seek
the Truth. 1
1 By
courtesy of All India Radio, Madras.