Attaining the ultimate goal

[Guest guest]

There have been endless discussions about attaining moksha i.e merging

with the ultimate reality. If the individual forgets about himself and

his ego i.e. losing his individual identity and tries to find

reflections of himself in others, it could be possible to attain it.

If everyone tries to do it by acting to make other people happy and

prosperous the whole world would attain moksha, the ultimate bliss.

[Guest guest]

There are no others. And happiness and prosperity in the world have nothing

to do with mokSha.

 

 

 

Best wishes,

Dennis

Arupkumar Das

There have been endless discussions about attaining moksha i.e merging

with the ultimate reality. If the individual forgets about himself and

his ego i.e. losing his individual identity and tries to find

reflections of himself in others, it could be possible to attain it.

If everyone tries to do it by acting to make other people happy and

prosperous the whole world would attain moksha, the ultimate bliss.

 

_

[Guest guest]

advaitin, "Dennis Waite" <dwaite wrote:

>

> There are no others. And happiness and prosperity in the world have

nothing

> to do with mokSha.

 

> If everyone tries to do it by acting to make other people happy and

> prosperous the whole world would attain moksha, the ultimate bliss.

 

(Quote)

 

MAYA AND FREEDOM

 

 

"Trailing clouds of glory we come," says the poet. Not all of us

come as trailing clouds of glory however; some of us come as trailing

black fogs; there can be no question about that. But every one of us

comes into this world to fight, as on a battlefield. We come here

weeping to fight our way, as well as we can, and to make a path for

ourselves through this infinite ocean of life; forward we go, having

long ages behind us and an immense expanse beyond. So on we go, till

death comes and takes us off the field -- victorious or defeated, we

do not know. And this is Maya.

 

Hope is dominant in the heart of childhood. The whole world is a

golden vision to the opening eyes of the child; he thinks his will is

supreme. As he moves onward, at every step nature stands as an

adamantine wall, barring his future progress. He may hurl himself

against it again and again, striving to break through. The further he

goes, the further recedes the ideal, till death comes, and there is

release, perhaps. And this is Maya.

 

A man of science rises, he is thirsting after knowledge. No

sacrifice is too great, no struggle too hopeless for him. He moves

onward discovering secret after secret of nature, searching out the

secrets from her innermost heart, and what for? What is it all for?

Why should we give him glory? Why should he acquire fame? Does not

nature do infinitely more than any human being can do?-- and nature is

dull, insentient. Why should it be glory to imitate the dull, the

insentient? Nature can hurl a thunderbolt of any magnitude to any

distance. If a man can do one small part as much, we praise him and

laudhim to the skies. Why? Why should we praise him for imitating

nature, imitating death, imitating dullness, imitating insentience?

The force of gravitation can pull to pieces the biggest mass that ever

existed; yet it is insentient. What glory is there in imitating the

insentient? Yet we are all struggling after that. And this is Maya.

 

The senses drag the human soul out. Man is seeking for pleasure and

for happiness where it can never be found. For countless ages we are

all taught that this is futile and vain, there is no happiness here.

But we cannot learn; it is impossible for us to do so, except through

our own experiences. We try them, and a blow comes. Do we learn then?

Not even then. Like moths hurling themselves against the flame, we are

hurling ourselves again and again into sense - pleasures, hoping to

find satisfaction there. We return again and again with freshened

energy; thus we go on, till crippled and cheated we die. And this is Maya.

 

So with our intellect. In our desire to solve the mysteries of the

universe, we cannot stop our questioning, we feel we must know and

cannot believe that no knowledge is to be gained. A few steps, and

there arises the wall of beginningless and endless time which we

cannot surmount. A few steps, and there appears of wall of boundless

space which cannot be surmounted, and the whole is irrevocably bound

in by the walls of cause and effect. We cannot go beyond them. Yet we

struggle, and still have to struggle. And this is Maya.

 

With every breath, with every pulsation of the heart, with every one

of our movements, we think we are free, and with very same moment we

are shown that we are not. Bound slaves, nature's bond - slaves, in

body, in mind, in all our thoughts, in all our feelings. And this is Maya.

 

There was never a mother who did not think her child was a born

genius, the most extraordinary child that was ever born; she dotes

upon her child. The child grows up, perhaps becomes a drunkard, a

brute, ill - treats the mother, and the more he ill - treats her, the

more her love increases. The world lauds it as the unselfish love of

the mother, little dreaming that the mother is a born slave, she

cannot help it. She would a thousand times rather throw off the

burden, but she cannot. So she covers it with a mass of flowers, which

she calls wonderful love. And this is Maya.

 

Swami Vivekananda

[Guest guest]

advaitin, "Dennis Waite" <dwaite wrote:

>

> There are no others. And happiness and prosperity in the world have

nothing

> to do with mokSha.

>

>

>

> Best wishes,

>

> Dennis

>

> Arupkumar Das

> There have been endless discussions about attaining moksha i.e merging

> with the ultimate reality. If the individual forgets about himself and

> his ego i.e. losing his individual identity and tries to find

> reflections of himself in others, it could be possible to attain it.

> If everyone tries to do it by acting to make other people happy and

> prosperous the whole world would attain moksha, the ultimate bliss.

 

 

Ram Ram all,

 

While from the absolute standpoint it is true that there

are no others, from the relative standpoint, (the standpoint

in which moksha actaully occurs), there are others.

 

And since having a relative degree of 'purity of mind'

or antahkarana suddhi, (that is having a relative

degree of calm and quiet in the mind), in order that

one recognizes the truth of one's being, i.e.'gains moksha'

is recommended as necessary by the Upanishads,

and since karma yoga (as in helping 'others') is useful for

gaining this type of mind, then IMO I would not say that helping

others to acquire happiness is not useful for liberation.

It is extremely useful.

 

Of course, if we look into it more deeply, a lot of objections

can be raised, such are there others (as Dennisji said). What is

happiness? Does such a thing truly exist in samsara, etc.?

 

But just to look at it very simply, because moksha

in some sense is simple, then helping 'another' is very

useful for gaining antahkarana suddhi, which type of mind is

in itself useful for gaining moksha. Of course there

are other aids for antahkarana suddhi, but karma yoga is

perhaps a very readily available one. :-)

 

The phrase I might question in the initial post is `merging

with the ultimate reality.' This idea of 'merging' seems

to present a major stumbling block for many.

 

Liberation is not a merging with something which you are

not at this moment. It is a seeing of what is

already true. You are already That which you seek.

 

Many people hold onto the idea of 'merging,' believing

that the 'I' that the mind takes me to be right now

cannot possibly be Brahman. But shock upon shock,

it is!

 

People take the 'I' which they are to

be limited by the body and the mind. But it

isn't. So looking into all of these wrong conclusion,

conclusions which Swami Dayananda has said are

against the 'Vastu,' against Brahman, is what

is recommended.

 

There seems to be no way around this. One needs to inquire

again and again, 'Am I really limited by what the mind

takes 'I' to be limited by?' The mind needs to make

the differentiation between `I' and everything else

which the mind has taken this `I' to be a product of.

 

And for this inquiry IMO a teacher who can use the Upanishads

as a pramana, as a direct means of Knowledge, who can hold up

a 'mirror,' as it were of one's actual 'experience' to the

student, is absolutely necessary.

 

Om Namah,

Durga

[Guest guest]

Hi Durga-ji,

 

 

 

Many thanks for this elaboration. It was really to trigger such comments

that I made those statements. The original post made some rather sweeping

statements that required far more justification in order to make some sense

of them. Accordingly, it seemed appropriate to make some equally, but

contradictory, sweeping statements! :-)

 

 

 

Best wishes,

Dennis

 

 

<<While from the absolute standpoint it is true that there

are no others, from the relative standpoint, (the standpoint

in which moksha actaully occurs), there are others.>>