Guest guest Posted February 12, 2006 Report Share Posted February 12, 2006 The Soul from Maha Yoga, by Who ............. One such question arises thus. There is the Vedantic teaching, ‘Thou art That’. Formerly this teaching was kept secret and imparted only to well-tested disciples; thus the serious mischiefs arising from a misunderstanding of the teaching were prevented. But nowadays the sacred lore is accessible to all, and the consequences are far from desirable. For, the higher the teaching, the greater are the evils due to its misapplication. Incompetent persons read the books, and assume that the ego itself, with all its vices, is infinite, all-powerful, and above the law of right and wrong. And they cannot be set right. Even the better sort of inquirer is puzzled by the teaching, because he has not yet clearly understood the truth that there is no individuality. He takes the sacred text as meaning that the individual soul is God, or whatever else there is that is infinitely great. But he doubts the teaching, because, in the sense in which he understands it, it is not only absurd, but blasphemous. And he is right in this; he is certainly far more in the right than those who accept the teaching, but in the wrong sense. The better sort of student has an instinctive sense that something is wrong. He is assailed by doubts and he puts questions to get them cleared. Such a one asked the Sage: “If I am eternal and perfect why am I ignorant?” The Sage replied as follows: “Who is ignorant? The real Self does not complain of ignorance. It is the ego in you that so complains. It is that which also asks questions. The Self does not ask any question. And this ego is neither the body, nor the real Self, but something arising between the two. In sleep there was no ego, and you had no sense of imperfection or ignorance then. Thus the ego is itself imperfection and ignorance. If you seek the truth of the ego and thus find the real Self, you will find that there is no ignorance.” What the Sage meant was that if the real Self be found the ego would be extinguished, and that the ignorance complained of will be extinguished along with the ego. The correct meaning of the sacred text, ‘Thou art That’, as given by the Sage, is recorded in the Guru-Ramana-Vachana-Mala as follows: “Thou art not the body, nor the senses, nor the mind, nor the vital force, nor the ego. Thou art That which will shine as the pure ‘I AM’ when, by the renunciation of the original sin — which is just the notion of selfhood in these — and by the Quest of the real Self, the mind is utterly extinguished in the Heart and the world ceases to be seen.” .................... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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