Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on Shankara et al (part 2)

[Guest guest]

(Preface to MMY's translation of BhagavadGita Chapter's 1-6 continued)

 

It has been the misfortune of every teacher that, while he speaks from his level

of consciousness, his followers can only receive his message on their level; and

the gulf between the teaching and understanding grows wider with time.

 

The teaching of right action without due emphasis on the primary necessity of

realization of Being is like building a wall without a foundation. It sways with

the wind and collapses before long. Within three or four hundred years all real

connection between the essential teachings of Lord Buddha and the daily life of

His followers had disappeared. Insight into the principle of the integrated life

was again lost. Having forgotten the prime importance of realizing Being,

society became immersed once more in the superficialities of life.

 

Nature will not allow humanity to be deprived of the vision of Reality for very

long. A wave of revival brought Shankara to re-establish the basis of life and

renew human understanding. Shankara restored the wisdom of the Absolute and

established It in the daily life of the people, strengthening the fields of

thought and action by the power of Being. He brought the message of fulfilment

through direct realization of transcendental Being in the state of

Self-consciousness, which is the basis of all good in life.

 

Shankara's emphasis on Self-realization stems from the eternal philosophy of the

integrated life expressed by Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita when He asks

Arjuna first to 'be without the three Gunas' and then to perform actions while

thus established in Being That all men should at all times live the

bliss-consciousness of absolute Being, and that they should live the state of

fulfilment in God Consciousness throughout all thought, speech, and action; this

is the essence of Shankara's message, as it is the essence of Lord Krishna's and

of the entire Vedic Philosophy.

 

The greatest blessing that Shankara's teaching has offered to the world is the

principle of fullness of intellectual and emotional development in the state of

enlightenment, based on transcendental pure consciousness, in which the heart is

so pure as to be able to flow and overflow with waves of universal love and

devotion to God, while the mind is so refined as to enjoy awareness of the

divine nature as separate from the world of action.

 

The spontaneous expressions of Shankara's mind and heart in this state of

freedom and fulfilment have been a source of inspiration both to those who live

by the heart and those who live by the mind. His consciousness exemplified the

highest state of human development; his heart expressed supreme transcendental

devotion to God (Para Bhakti, while his mind expressed awareness of the Self as

separate from the field of action (Gyan). This it was that led Shankara's speech

to flow into ecstasies of devotion and at the same time into clear expressions

of knowledge, the dry and hard-headed truths concerning divine nature as

detached from the world. These are the two aspects of the living reality of a

life in complete fulfilment.

 

Shankara not only revived the wisdom of integrated life and made it popular in

his day, but also established four principal seats of learning in four corners

of India to keep his teaching pure and to ensure that it would be propagated in

its entirety generation after generation. For many centuries his teaching

remained alive in his followers, who lived the ideal state of knowledge with

devotion (Gyan and Bhakti). But in spite of all his foresight and endeavours,

Shankara's message inevitably suffered with time the same misfortunes as those

of the other great teachers.

 

If the occupants of a house forget the foundations, it is because the

foundations lie underground, hidden from view. It is no surprise that Being was

lost to view, for It lies in the transcendental field of life.

 

The state of Reality, as described by the enlightened, cannot become a path for

the seeker, any more than the description of a destination can replace the road

that leads to it. When the truth that Being forms the basis of the state of

enlightenment became obscured, Shankara's statements about the nature of the

goal were mistaken for the path to realization.

 

This misunderstanding was increased by the very beauty of Shankara's eloquence.

His expressions of deep devotion made in the state of complete surrender and

oneness with God, and his intellectual clarifications made in the state of

awareness of the divine nature, are both so full and complete in themselves

that, seen from the ordinary level of consciousness, they appeared to present

two independent paths to enlightenment: the path of knowledge and the path of

devotion.

 

/continued