is there light in enlightenment

[Guest guest]

friends,

 

In the Upanishads which mark the culmination of Indian

thought, Moksha or Liberation is not an eschatological

(state after death) ideal resting on mere speculation

or dogma. The positivist thought of Vedanta has

brought it within the ambit of experience and

verification as Jivanmukti or Liberation while alive.

This glowing ideal points far beyond mere intellectual

conviction which is often mistaken for philosophy and

yet by keeping within the sphere of experience, it

avoids the dogma of Moksha understood in the

eschatological sence. Vedanta is thus not speculative

philosophy unconnected with practical life. It is a

way of living in the level of our true conciousness.

 

Moksha understood in this manner is not the result of

mere acquisition of mental knowledge or of just

self-discipline. It is a certain immediate experience

resulting from both. Jivanmukti is the change in

conciousness and the resultant attitude of mind

towards life and the world. Therefore, if the teaching

of Upanishadic philosophy should serve as a true guide

in life, it should emanate from an experienced

conviction in the Preceptor as other vise it will be,

as Katha Upanishad says, the blind leading the blind.

The upadesa or the precept of the Guru should evoke a

corresponding anubhava or experience in the disciple

(like what Swami Vivekananda had from Ramakrishna

paramahamsa). Sankara in a celebrated verse in

Satasloki refers to this extraordinary power of Guru

to transform the disciple into one like Himself.

Guru’s Grace, he says, surpasses even the magic touch

of the alchemist or the philosopher’s stone, which can

only transmute a base metal into gold but cannot

impart to it the transmuting quality itself. It is an

experience, a discovery which according to Indian

tradition goes back to the awakening and enlightenment

of the early Rishis who lived in the forests on the

banks of the Indus and at the foot of the Himalayas.

He alone who can pass on this experience who has known

it himself, who has been awakened within, the EVAMVID,

who knows THUS.

 

Bhagavan Sri Ramana says: “guru is the self. Sometimes

in his life, a man becomes dissatisfied with it and

not content with what he has, he seeks the

satisfaction of his desires, through prayer to God

etc. his mind is gradually purified until he longs to

know God more to obtain His Grace than to satisfy his

worldly desires. Then God’s Grace begins to manifest.

God takes the form of a Guru and appears to the

devotee teaches him the Truth and moreover purifies

his mind by association. The devotee’s mind gains

strength and is then able to turn inward. By

meditation, it is further purified and it remains

still without the least ripple. That calm Expanse is

the Self.

pranams to all

 

cdr bvn

 

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