Metaphysical knowledge ends ignorance and leads disciple to threshold of illumination

[Guest guest]

>

> Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi is Her incarnation and is as human as

> possible, with all its limitations. For example, She probably does

> not know that Ulan Bator is the capital of Mongolia. The Shakti

> within can tell you the precise location and description of any

> planet in the infinite universe. She can also take you back into

> time to witness any frame, since She is Time itself. She has the

> entire record of all your countless rebirths ...... from previous

> universes too. She knows every detail of every thought of every

> human, and i mean the same Self in each human knowing instantly,

> simultaneously and continuously every thought of billions of other

> humans too. (It will take time to grasp the mind-boggling truth of

> the last sentence. Let me start by reminding that i said " every

> _detail_ of every thought " .)

>

> i can go on and on but no amount of praises of Her powers will do

> justice. All you can do to understand Her is through Silence on

> Self.

>

 

 

" The importance that all these Indian metaphysics, and even the

ascetic technique and contemplative method that constitute Yoga,

accord to " knowledge " is easily explained if we take into

consideration the causes of human suffering. The wretchedness of

human life is not owing to a divine punishment or to an original sin,

but to ignorance. Not any and every kind of ignorance, but only

ignorance of the true nature of Spirit, the ignorance that makes us

confuse Spirit with our psychomental experience, that makes us

attribute " qualities " and predicates to the eternal and autonomous

principle that is Spirit -- in short, a metaphysical ignorance. Hence

it is natural that it should be a metaphysical knowledge that

supervenes to end this ignorance. This metaphysical knowledge leads

the disciple to the threshold of illumination -- that is, to the

true " Self "

 

And it is this knowledge of one's Self -- not in the profane sense of

the term, but in its ascetic and spiritual sense -- that is the end

pursued by the majority of Indian speculative systems, though each of

them indicates a different way of reaching it.

 

For Samkhya and Yoga the problem is clearly defined. Since suffering

has its origin in ignorance of " Spirit " -- that is, in confusing

" Spirit " with psychomental states -- emancipation can be obtained

only if the confusion is abolished. The differences between Samkhya

and Yoga on this point are insignificant. Only their methods differ:

Samkhya seeks to obtain liberation solely by gnosis, whereas for Yoga

an ascesis and a technique of meditation are indispensable. In both

darshanas human suffering is rooted in illusion, for man believes

that his psychomental life -- activity of the senses, feelings,

thoughts, and volitions -- is identical with Spirit, with the Self.

He thus confuses two wholly autonomous and opposed realities, between

which there is no real connection but only an illusory relation, for

psychomental experience does not belong to Spirit, it belongs to

nature (prakriti); states of consciousness are the refined products

of the same substance that is at the base of the physical world and

the world of life. Between psychic states and inanimate objects or

living beings, there are only differences of degree. But between

psychic states and Spirit there is a difference of an ontological

order; they belong to two different modes of being. " Liberation "

occurs when one has understood this truth, and when the Spirit

regains its original freedom. Thus, according to Samkhya, he who

would gain emancipation must begin by thoroughly knowing the essence

and the forms of nature (prakriti) and the laws that govern its

evolution. For its part, Yoga also accepts this analysis of

Substance, but finds value only in the practice of contemplation,

which is alone capable of revealing the autonomy and omnipotence of

Spirit experimentally. "

        

Eliade, M. Yoga, Immortality and Freedom