Advaita sutras in English

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--- s.venkatraman wrote:

May I suggest

> that we collected them probably under the head

> 'Advaitic Sutras in English'.

 

Namaste Venkat

I am glad that you liked the Plato. I am posting

something here that may echo for you also and could

come under your heading although it is too long to be

a sutra.

It was written at the peak of the Italian Renaissance

by the head of the Platonic School: Marsilio Ficino.

This man was a doctor, musician, astrologer, scientist

and one of the great philosophers who contributed much

to our present culture.

 

The following is from a letter that he wrote to a

contemporary and it is an extension of the sutra of

Plato. I am reminded of the Kena Upanishad when I

read this. This is only the first part of the letter

and I could continue it if you wished.

 

(By the way, if Ram reads this, I appreciate your

rephrasing of Plato's sutra but would not like to use

the word 'centre' which Plato uses because to me, from

this point of view, the centre is Brahmanatman. Just

a thought.)

 

Marsilio Ficino writes:

 

'We have often talked together of moral and natural

philosophy, beloved Michele, and even more often of

divine philosophy. I remember you used to say again

and again that morals are developed through practice,

natural things discovered by reason and the divine

begged f God by prayer. I have also read in the works

of our Plato that the divine is revealed through

purity of living rather than taught by verbal

instruction. When I seriously considered these things

I sometimes began to feel sick at heart, for I had

already come to distrust reason but still lacked faith

in revelation. From this there arose an intimate

conversation between the soul and God. Listen to this,

if you please, although I think you may already be

nearer to speaking with God than I.

God: Why do you grieve so much, my unhappy soul? 0 my

daughter, weep no more. Behold, I, your father, am

here with you. I am here, your cure and your

salvation.

Soul: Oh that my father would enter into mc. If I

believed such a grace could befall me, ah! I should go

mad with joy. As it is, I do not see how that can come

about; for if; as I thought, the creator of the world

created me, his offspring, nearer to himself than his

own created world, he who is only outside me is not my

highest father. Nor could he who was only within me be

my father, for my father is certainly greater than I,

yet he who is contained in me must be smaller. But I

do not know how anything can be both inside me and

outside me at the same time. What sorely distresses

me, stranger, whoever you may be, is this: that I do

not wish to live without my father, yet despair of

being able to find him.

God: Put an end to your tears, my daughter, and do not

torment yourself; it is no stranger who speaks to you

but one who is your very own, more familiar to you

than you are to yourself. Indeed, I am both with you

and within you. I am indeed with you, because I am in

you; I am in you, because you are in me. If you were

not in me you would not be in yourself, indeed you

would not be at all. Dry those tears, my daughter, and

look upon your father. Your father is the least of all

things in size, just as he is the greatest of all

things in excellence; and since he is very small he is

within every thing, but since he is very great he is

outside everything. See, I am here with you, both

within and without, the greatest smallness and the

smallest greatness. Behold, I say, do you not see? I

fill heaven and earth, I penetrate and contain them. I

fill and am not filled, for I am fulness itself. I

penetrate and am not penetrated, for I am the power of

penetration itself. I contain and am not contained,

for I am containing itself. I, who am fulness itself,

am not filled, for that would not be worthy of me. I

am not penetrated lest I cease to exist, being myself

existence. I am not contained lest I cease to be God,

who am infinity itself. Behold, do you not see? I pass

into everything unmingled, so that I may surpass all;

for I am excellence itself. I excel everything without

being separate, so that I am also able to enter and

permeate at the same time, to enter completely and to

make one, being unity itself, through which all things

are made and endure, and which all things seek.

Why do you despair of finding your father, 0 foolish

one? It is not difficult to find the place where I am;

for in me are all things, out of me come all things

and by me are all things sustained forever and

everywhere. And with infinite power I expand through

infinite space. Indeed no place can be found where I

am not; this very ‘where’ surely exists through me and

is called ‘everywhere’. Whatever anyone does anywhere,

he does through my guidance and my light. Whatever

anyone seeks anywhere, he seeks through my guidance

and my light. There is no desiring anywhere, except

for the good; there is no finding anywhere, except of

the truth. I am all good; I am all truth. Seek my face

and you shall live. But do not

move in order to touch me, for I am stillness itself.

Do not be drawn in ~ many directions in order to take

hold of me; I am unity itself. Stop the movement,

unify diversity, and you will surely reach me, who

long ago reached you.

SouL: How quickly you leave me, 0 my comforter! Why do

you so suddenly leave your daughter thirsting like

this? Go on, say more, continue I beg you, venerable

deity. By your divine majesty, if it please you, I

pray you speak more plainly. Oh may it please you! And

because I know it will, tell me more plainly then what

you, who are my father, are not, that I may be

restored to life; and, 0 my father, tell me again what

you are, so that I may live.'

 

Om sri ram

 

Ken Knight

 

 

 

 

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