Swaraagni 's Key Ideas from DHANYASTAKAM
by Swami Tejomayananda

Passions are enemies: Mada, Moha, Raga, Dvesa, Satruganam. Mada is arrogance. Moha or delusion, fascination, attachment, lack of discriminative understanding. Raga-dvesa likes and dislikes.

Sanyasa is pleasurable. But Bhagavan Sankara says: 'Sannyasis live in a house (that is in the forest) with a beloved wife (who is none other than spiritual knowledge, paratma-vidya).

Blessed indeed are they who, having renounced the pleasures of the home - the cause of a man's downfall - with a desire for the self, always drink the nectar of the Truth of the upanishads. Free from all longings and dispassionate towards the host of sense pleasures, they roam about in solitary places without attachment to company.

Paramatman gives you a body comprised of the five elements (space, air, fire, water and earth) which will return to the five great elements after death.

Sama-darsinah: Those who see the same (samatva) in all. Sama means paramtman, the supreme self, so sama darshana, could be translated to mean 'one who sees the lord everywhere'.

Blessed indeed are those brahmans (twice-born) who, giving up the three kinds of desire, walk the path of liberation and sustain their bodies with the nectar of alms. Living in solitude they meditate in their hearts on the light of consciousness, which is beyond the beyond, called Paramatman, the Supreme Self.

Dwijah (twiceborn) - In Samskritam the word dwija is used to indicate a bird or a brahman. A bird is twice born, once from its mother as an egg, and a second time when it comes out of its shell. Similarly, brahmans are called dvijas, the twice born ones, since they have their first birth as babies from their mother's womb and their second birth when they receive instruction on the Gayatri mantra. The true meaning of dvija is one who was born as a baby and is reborn later when he realizes that he is none other than Brahman.

Parat-parataram - 'Beyond the beyond': what you see with your eyes is the world in front of you. But you cannot see your eyes with your own eyes, and in a sense the eyes are beyond the objects seen. Sleep, the unmanifest state, is beyond the wakeful mind. Consciousness is beyond even this unmanifest state and hence is described as beyond the beyond. Note that the word beyond in the preceding sentences should not be construed to mean some other place. Thus the statement that the mind is 'beyond the eyes' does not mean that the mind is hidden somewhere. 

'Tyaktva esana trayam' - having renounced three kinds of desire. The three types of desire that consume our energy and leave us no time for meditation and reflection are:

Desire for money (vrittesana): As long as we hanker after money and power, we will not have the time to devote ourselves to Paramatma.

Desire for progeny (Putresana): Term signifies all worldly joys.

Desire for the world (Lokesana): Eg: becoming famous. 

Aveksita moksa margah - those who have turned towards the path of liberation.

Those blessed ones alone shine in glory who meditate with single-pointed mind on that Brahman, which is neither real nor unreal, nor the combination of these two; neither small nor big neither man nor woman nor eununch; but it is the one seed of the universe. All others are bound with the ropes of becoming. 

The Lord (or Paramatman) shines forth and is experienced when all notions and sense perceptions cease, when all thoughts become extinct in a pure, quietened, single-pointed mind. This does not mean, however, that Paramatman is a creation of the quiet meditative mind; but rather, that Paramatman becomes self-evident when the mind is in this state of total quietitude. Normally, our minds are so chittered with the universe of names and forms that we are unable to experience the eternal Brahman. 

At any rate, bitterness comes only because of jealousy, competition and the suppression of longings.